Blue Notes: 'Train Keeps a Rolling'
The cover shot for guitarist Jeff Golub's new CD, Train Keeps A Rolling, tells a story - as does its title. The picture features Golub, guitar case in hand, standing between two sets of railway tracks with a black Labrador.
Golub has endured a tough couple of years. In 2011, the optic nerves of his eyes inexplicably collapsed, leaving him blind. Then last year, while attempting to board a train, he misjudged the position of a carriage entrance, and fell on to the tracks. He was dragged a short distance by the train before fellow passengers pulled him to safety. Miraculously, he sustained relatively minor injuries.
The Labrador is his guide - although the pooch clearly wasn't paying close attention that day: it stayed on the platform.
A former rock musician who served long stints in the bands of Billy Squier and Rod Stewart, Golub is generally marketed as a "smooth jazz" artist, but like fellow guitarist Larry Carlton, who is pigeon-holed the same way, he has deep roots in the blues and plays with fire as well as finesse. In common with many American blues-based guitarists of his generation Golub, 58, started out copying the "British invasion" bands who had made their names playing Chicago blues-derived rock - among them The Yardbirds.
The title track, although an allusion and a tribute to Tiny Bradshaw's The Train Kept A Rollin', is a Golub original, and a wry reference to his accident.
A number of other tracks reflect his love of British rock, including covers of Paul Carrack's How Long from 1974, Sting's Walking On the Moon from 1979, and a version of Willie Dixon's I Love the Life I Live that's indebted to Georgie Fame's horn and Hammond organ-driven version from 1964.
Another notable British Hammond player from the 1960s is Brian Auger, best known for the cover of Bob Dylan's This Wheel's On Fire he cut with Julie Driscoll, a hit in 1968. Auger moved towards jazz in the 1970s, and he and Golub have a successful partnership in Train Keeps A Rolling: working with Auger has brought out the best in Golub's blues rock-meets-Wes Montgomery guitar work.