Blues

Ruf Records · 16 October 2026

“Left Me with My Guitar” opens the album: funky electric blues about a break-up that left him the instrument in the title, and Ruf released it as a single on 6 March, seven months ahead of the record. It is Bernard Allison’s first set of new songs since “Highs & Lows” (2022); in between came “Luther’s Blues” (2024), which is a compilation.

Seven of the ten are originals, and Stevie J Blues co-wrote five of them with him. The three covers include the one that explains the record: “Should I Wait” is Luther Allison’s, from his “Serious” (Blind Pig, 1987), and the son raises its funk quotient. There is also Rick Derringer’s “Rock & Roll Hoochie Koo”, with Matthew Curry on guitar and vocals, and a “4 o’Clock in the Morning” carried by Victor Wainwright’s piano.

Allison stated the purpose himself: an album that would bring family and friends together. And it delivers, to an uncomfortable degree. Seven of the ten tracks carry a guest, and six of them have a guitar on them that isn’t his: Larry McCray and Matthew Mwangi on “Time Traveler”, Stevie J Blues on three songs, Curry on the Derringer cover and Devon Allman on the title track. The album opens by saying the guitar was the one thing left to him, and then shares it across half the running order. Heather Hardy adds violin to “Pay What You Owe Me”, and his nephew and niece, Jasper and Lyndsey Allison, sing backing on that one and on “Slide on Over”.

Rating: 7.6/10

Text by Enric Vilaplana