With 18 days till January 1st, it is as good a time as any to countdown my Top 18 albums of 2013, the entire list will have 100 plus albums on it, but here I want to take a closer look at the albums I loved the most, in reverse order, and starting, hardly surprisingly with # 18. Incidentally, my bet is that somewhere in the next two and a half weeks young Beyonce appears in the top 10.
But till I figure that out, here is my top 18 and wouldn’t you know it, controversy at # 18. I met Tomas Doncker through his work on the “Power Of The Trinity” musical at Central Park’s “Summerstage” in 2012. I interviewed him and we became friends and this year we became best of friends and I am nearing completion on a business deal with him (more about that when I get closer) but always the music first so without a shadow of a doubt the reason This Is The Tomas Doncker Band’s Howling Wolf Ep -We Hope He Likes It is here is because “Spoonful” and “Backdoor Man” are the two greatest Howling Wolf covers I have ever heard and the rest of the album, including David Barnes “Blind Melon Morpheus (missed the train)” with his haunting harmonica slowly taking over the track. Another new song, “Shook Down” by African American poet Yusef Komunyakaa & Tomás Doncker himself, is a tremendous electric soul blues songs.
What all these songs have in common is Doncker’s best vocal performances, he digs deeper but doesn’t sound strained and it comes across as very sexual, not sensual, very hot. “Shook Down” is a steamingly sexy song, “Back Door Man” is aggressive but it is too self confident to be a come on, and this “Spoonful” is astounding. “Spoonful” is enormously difficult to play simply because it has been covered so much from every angle but this is a head rock and roll muscular version, the sexiness of “Shook Down” is shaken off through so much aggression, so much passion: it’s like you wanna say, Tomas, testify man, testify.
Doncker promises part two of the EP but I kinda hope he passes because even a mediocre song on Part Two would tarnish this fem of an EP.