BILLY PRICE: DOG EAT DOG

(Gulf Coast Records)

  Dog Eat Dog is Billy Price’s and Kid Andersen’s sophomore joint project after Reckoning and this new CD is available on August the 2nd.  Both of these records were cut at Kid’s Greaseland Studio in California by using mostly the same musicians in the rhythm section and – what’s essential – having a horn section and background vocalists to assure a rich and full sound.  How did these two musicians get together in the first place?  You can read about that in Billy’s own words at https://www.soulexpress.net/deep3_2018.htm#billyprice.  More information about the label and this new CD you can find at www.gulfcoastrecords.net.  Altogether this is Billy’s 17^th solo album in his career.

  The opener, Working on Your Chain Gang, is a dancer with a steady, hypnotic and even a bit rocky beat and it was written by Billy and Jim Britton.  Two other songs that the two collaborated on are a slow funk titled Toxicity and the mid-tempo All Night Long Cafe, a catchy and lively number and delightfully rich in orchestration.  Bobby Byrd’s swinging Smash release in 1964, We’re in Love, is respectfully revived with a jazzy overtone and fine sax solo, and almost in the same bag there’s You Gotta Leave, another bouncy jump tune. 

  Rick Estrin’s song Dog Eat Dog is a slow and plaintive number with a touch of blues and Alabama Mike sharing the vocals with Billy.  Rick himself does a harmonica solo in the middle of the song.  Other bluesy tracks are Willie Dixon’s intensive My Love Will Never Die, originally released by Big Three Trio in 1952, and another slow and melancholy song called Remnants, composed by Billy and his long-time partner, Fred Chapéllier. 

  On the lighter and happier side we have a pretty and sunny ballad named More Than I Needed, a tuneful loper called Lose My Number and an easy mid-tempo floater titled Walk Back In.  Mervin and Melvin Steals wrote the melodic, mid-tempo Same Old Heartaches originally for the Impressions’ album It’s About Time on Cotillion in 1976, and now this wonderful song gets a new lease of life on this Billy’s fine new CD (www.billyprice.com)  (8)

© Heikki Suosalo

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