Many of my best ideas come when I’m not at my laptop, staring directly at that monster, the dreaded “blank page.” Often out of the shear frustration that comes from being bereft of having anything new and fresh to say, I’ll jump up, grab my bicycle and I’ll ride until I’m exhausted. Sometimes (not always or often enough mind you), I come back with some ideas that come flooding out of me and onto the “page.”

While visiting recently with guitar player, songwriter and co-founder of the band Blue Largo, Eric Lieberman, he told me his ideas often come to him while riding his bicycle. Eric had no idea at the time of my two-wheel obsession. So, one hundred miles south of me, while grinding up the steep hills near his San Diego home, this album was born. As exhaustion sets in on the body, the mind and spirit race out ahead of you and take you to places you might not have found otherwise. This is exactly what happened here and the results can be found on Before the Devil Steals Your Soul.

Fortunately for us fans, this vintage music, which falls somewhere under or not too far from that big tree we call rhythm & blues, is the perfect vehicle for Eric’s lyrics and music and the voice of Alecia Aragon. She has a natural instrument which draws listeners into each particular missive that is being presented. There are times when pain, suffering and heartache have us virtually surrounded. Alecia tells us with a soft, yet self-assured caress that everything is going to be alright.

There is a redemptive spirit which can be found in much of the music found on Before The Devil Steals Your Soul. Some of that comes from the Gospel infused tunes heard on this CD. That hope comes from songs where Eric addresses the gigantic white elephant in the room, which is the state of Americana circa 2018. Like all great blues songs, these topics are met head on. That salvation we all yearn for comes from the honesty and willingness to deal with the problems with which we are all confronted.

For years Blue Largo had successfully mined the sounds of post war, jump blues, but we heard a change on their 2015 release, Sing Your Own Song. On that CD the band expanded their blues dialect somewhat to include inspiration from other sources and time frames including the 1960’s.

This trend continues here on Before The Devil Steals Your Soul. This 2018 release is the most fully realized musical statement to date offered up by this fine band.

 A quick glance at the credits and one immediately realizes that the marvelous soundscape created here isn’t by accident. The all-star assemblage of musicians gathered on this album represents some of the finest players on the west coast or anywhere else for that matter. Before The Devil Steals Your Soul is what you get when the right musicians are backing the right vocalist singing the right songs.

I’m going to listen to this CD again before the devil steals my soul. May I suggest you do the same.

- David Mac  



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