Burton Gaar: Press

BURTON GAAR - Mighty Long Road
CD Review BY SONNY BOY LEE
Straight out of New Orleans comes well-traveled Cajun bluesman Burton Gaar with Mighty Long Road, his latest collection of all original songs. Born in Baton Rouge, Gaar defines himself as "Louisiana proud," and in a previous incarnation as Burton Gaar & the Mudcats, championed his home state with the release of a Cajun, blues and zydeco true-to-his-roots CD entitled Still Singing the Blues.
At age 16, Gaar played bass for a short stint with Slim Harpo, who became a major influence, and in the ‘60s, Gaar gigged with the hot R&B band, the Boogie Kings. He also worked with Percy Sledge and Rockin’ Sidney’s band. Mighty Long Road is dedicated to the memory of Sidney Simien, who Gaar holds up as his hero.
Even though the CD cover pictures Gaar holding a Danelectro guitar, the liner notes only credit him with "vocals, all tracks." So, it’s not clear whether he’s playing guitar on it or not. Three other really fine guitar players who collaborated on the project are listed, however, so I guess it’s not that important.
Gaar jumps right into the groove with the lead-off track, "Bad Motor Scooter." The song gets into the slot and smokes. A really fine harp solo by Nashville session player, Texas native Tim Gonzalez, puts on the finishing touch midway into the song. One of my favorite cuts is "Somebody Broke My Lock" because it is a great example of steamy New Orleans funk blues. Gaar also calls this one of his "pet songs."
Another great song on the CD is "Willingly," a soul ballad that takes you back to the good old days of Louisiana R&B in the ‘60s. You can almost feel the steam coming off the dance floor.
The entire CD was recorded at Randy Coleman’s studio in Nashville. Coleman, incidentally, played bass on all the tracks, sang backup, and engineered and mixed the entire album — an accomplishment that deserves and needs to be mentioned here.
Dubbed "One of Louisiana’s hidden treasures" by Blues Gazette, Gaar has also received praise from no less than Chubby Carrier, Carl Weathersby and Charlie Musselwhite. Mighty Long Road is pure pleasure. Gaar’s vocal work is outstanding, as is his songwriting, and the band cooks. Nothing more needs to be said. Surf to Red Hot Records to buy it.
A review of Gaar’s 1997 release, One Hundred Pounds of Trouble, which was recorded in Holland and landed in the top five on international charts, along with a fine sample cut and information on purchasing the CD, can be found at an avid fan's Geocities web site.

BURTON GAAR "Mighty Long Road"
TRACK LISTING (Louisiana Red Hot Records... LRHR 1125)
1/ Bad Motor Scooter 2/ Homewrecker 3/ Mighty Long Road 4/ Leave It Alone
5/ Somebody Broke My Lock 6/ Willingly 7/ Low Down Blues 8/ Big Mama Gumbeaux
9/ Truth 10/ I'm Down 11/ Soft Place To Lay 12/ One Night Lying
13/ I'm Gonna Be The One
REVIEW

Described as 'The bald headed, barrel chested blues belter' - Burton Gaar was formerly a member of Zydeco legend, Rockin' Sidney's band, as well as beginning his career playing bass behind the legendary Slim Harpo.
Burton Gaar is just no ordinary blues belter, rather having a defined style and an incredible passion and talent for expression. Run of the mill blues structures such as the opening two tracks, are brought to life with great vocals and great musicianship. Tim Gonzalez adds harmonica to tracks 1-2-3-7-11, with Johnny Neel on keyboards for all tracks. The title track features outstanding guitar work from Roger DeLiso, with great vocals in a delta style groove that fattens into a full band sound about halfway through with the addition of a fat bass line from Randy Coleman and drums by Don Smith, who also features on tracks 4 and 10.
A haunting soul feeling in "Leave It Alone" begins to showcase some of those skills of being on the road with legendary mentors. The huge deep rooted funky groove and catchy guitar chops in "Somebody Broke My Lock" hits where it counts, also a neat Hammond B3 solo adds depth to the song. "Willingly" is one of those deep dreamy ballads that allows Burton to express the dark emotions in a moving and haunting piece, that is not only brilliant musically but probably has the strongest lyrical content of the album. Jack Pearson's melodic guitar solo cuts deep to the heart.. One awesome track.
More strong blues and then the inspirations from being involved in the Zydeco scene come out, in the form of a blended blues/zydeco/funk/soul sauce with the title of "Big Mama Gumbeaux." The thing with Burton's vocals is that he makes the song so believable with the deep of his expression. Such is the case with another powerful expressive ballad, "Truth," followed by the crisp blues guitar licks in "I'm Down."
"Soft Place To Lay" keeps the hard driving atmosphere happening, dropping the pace back again into another beautiful ballad "One Night Lying." The CD concluding with cool up tempo horn based blues shuffle in "I'm Gonna Be The One." Great tunes, made even more likable by the depth of Burton Gaar's expression, vocal control and well structured songwriting.
REVIEW and Copyright by Mark 'radar' Watson (Mr Blues) on 30th April 2001