Review of Travels & Other Stories | The many destinies of Guy Bélanger

The chameleon harmonicist publishes a seventh album in shades of blue in the form of a declaration of love for the cinema, the result of a worked and mastered imagination that not only attacks the body, but also stirs the brains!


Pillar of the blues scene, virtuoso of ruin-babine, composer of soundtracks for the films of his brother Louis (Post mortem, Gas Bar Blues, Highway 132etc.), best harmonica player at the Maple Blues Awards in 2015, ex-touring companion of our Céline, ex-member of Les Colocs, composer of the theme ofHERE Laflaquedo not add more, the court is full, Guy Bélanger is a scholar, no doubt about it!

The 11 tracks collected in this Travels take on their full meaning with the participation of trench musicians with the same taste for adventure.

Rob McDonald with his slender guitars is on all the excursions, Marc-André Drouin on bass and Michel Dufour on drums make the organic machine purr without losing a smile, Claude Fradette, Bélanger’s most faithful musical companion over the years, slides his Dobro and Weissenborn guitars on three instrumentals with soft and soothing landscapes, Kilimanjaro, Nieve And The Sun Will Rise.

The relief is total. The images parade, the silences invite themselves. And Guy does his Guy: he twirls selected, tense, necessary notes, the same as 30 years ago with his adaptation of the instrumental Christo Redemptor by Charlie Musselwhite or when he offered Bob Walsh a hair-raising accompaniment for his song Snow Falling Gray Day.

Bayou’s Ride set the tone from the start. Diatonic harmonica, country atmosphere to match, the sound recording is crystal clear, we smile. have chosen to interpret duck soup with a blues flavor, the timeless jazz standard that makes you tap your feet so much its swing swallows you up, it’s a success, it crackles everywhere!

I Can’t Make You Love Me, do you remember this poignant ballad of Bonnie Raitt? Version without words, a case of sweetness, it’s beautiful. King Bee by Slim Harpo, the all-purpose riff hits the mark. At the end of the road, the 11e and last title leaves all the room to the voice of Nanette Workman which rises from the depths of her soul.

We must point out the obvious relaxation in which these top-of-the-range sessions are bathed. Bélanger draws craftsman’s sketches there and does not seek immediate profit. Time proved him right.

Travels & other stories

folk blues

Travels & other stories

Guy Belanger

Discs Bros

8/10


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