Search - Sam Mitchell, Homesick Mac :: Two Long From Home

Pass the knife Mack, Sam's sick of home.

Nigel Collopy | Wollongong, NSW Australia | 07/08/2004

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Sam Mitchell is the best blues slide player I have heard and yet his recordings (including L.J. Baldry and Rod stewart in the 60's and an instructional album, care of Stefan Grossman) and this one do not capture the real man.
Sam taught me to play slide in London in the seventies. Alas on a recent visit to that once healthy music scene around Putney I discovered it has ceased to exist. I suspect Sam has despaired of London and gone in search of an audience in Europe.
Homesick Mac (the name says it all!) has a following and I suppose it was an opportunity to record but I'm sorry Mac you have that real 'white boy lost in the blues sound' whereas Sam is the real deal. He needs to be recorded live in a seedy lounge (which is where I usually found him).
Sam sings the blues with authority and he has a control over the slide which generates that unique style and sound that impressed me and ... Ron Wood. Listen to his arrangement of 'Amazing Grace' on 'Every Picture Tells A Story'.Well, like he and Robert sing, he's 'gotta keep moving' according to the vicissitudes of the business and, if you haven't any hay you better get on down the road."