The album opens with one of those fun numbers, “Fresh Suits,” this one about looking good. There is nothing too serious here, just a good, lively song to help you get loose. “Fresh suits and crocodile boots.” There are some playful moments, such as the spoken word riffing toward the end. And the band jams a bit there at the end. There is plenty of good guitar work on this opening track. Ken Scandlyn joins the group on guitar for this one. LaRhonda Steele, Arietta Ward and Ms. Vee provide backing vocals. “Fresh Suits” is followed by a cover of Roland Stone’s “She’s The One,” here listed as “She Is The One.” This version has that great classic vibe. I love that soulful sound, featuring guest Peter Moss on saxophone. “I’m gonna feel this way ‘til the day I die.” Oh yes! And check out that great guitar work during the jam in the middle. “She is the one that makes me feel good.” I hope each of us has someone like that to help us through the awful times that will be coming when that convicted felon takes over the White House.
“She Got The Business Handled” is another fun one, with a New Orleans-type rhythm and a horn section. We need to keep dancing, right? No matter how bad things get. And this track will aid us in that endeavor. The horn section is made up of Joe McCarthy, Bradley Ulrich and Pat Pepin. This track also features some really nice stuff on both keys and guitar. Andrea De Luca plays guitar on this one. That’s followed by “Gate C23,” the album’s title track. This one has that great blues vibe, established immediately, and features some delicious work on keys. “Tragic news here at Gate C23/All flights canceled.” Yeah, this is one we can all relate to. “Somebody please come see about me/I’m stranded at Gate C23/Get me out of this place.” By the way, this song mentions that magical time in song, 4 a.m., when it is so late that it is almost early. “Somebody help me,” Chad Rupp says, and the guitar does all it can to help. Kenny Blue Ray plays guitar on this track. Interestingly, this song also mentions “fresh suit” and “crocodile boots,” the outfit from the album’s first track.
The band delivers a good rendition of Paul DeLay’s “14 Dollars In The Bank,” this one touching on that perennial blues subject, poverty. “I told the repo man this morning/Go ahead, take the damn TV/I’m tired of looking at stuff I can’t get/When there’s stuff that we really need/They ought to have a poor folks channel/For people down on their luck/Where they don’t advertise not one thing/That costs you more than a buck.” This track features both sax and harmonica, some great stuff too! Pat Pepin is on sax, and Mitch Kashmar is on harmonica. Their playing makes being broke almost palatable. And, yes, this track also contains some good guitar work. “I told my baby gonna be all right, but I don’t believe we will.” Well, that line could work equally well for this entire country. That’s followed by “Blues City Café,” another totally enjoyable number. Hey, the song mentions gumbo, so how could it be otherwise? There is a great energy to Chad Rupp’s vocal performance. There is also some wonderful stuff on guitar, just moving along as if everything is okay with the world, and so maybe it is. Kenny Blue Ray plays guitar on this track.
“Do Whatcha Daddy Say” begins with a bit of spoken word, a bit of boasting about how great his woman is. Ah yes, don’t we all feel that way about our women? I should hope so. But it is the instrumental section that is my favorite part of this track, particularly the guitar work. And there is a rather interesting final line, “She knows I’m talking about her.” That makes it seem that she is the real audience for this song. The group slows things down with “You’ll Be Singing My Songs,” a soulful number that features a strong vocal performance. Mitch Kashmar plays harmonica again on this one, and again delivers some delicious work, including a lead in the middle that really stands out, and helps make this one of my favorite tracks.
Things then start swinging with “Two Inches Shy Of A Foot,” a tune to get you dancing. Chad starts singing about boots again, and that’s just fine, particularly as there is something undeniably playful about the whole thing. But it is the guitar that speaks most eloquently here, that work followed by wonderful stuff on organ and then saxophone. That’s Pat Pepin again on saxophone. “Two Inches Shy Of A Foot” is followed by “Fat Kid Boogie,” yet another playful number, this one about a fat child at a buffet. And while the title is “Fat Kid Boogie,” Chad at various moments in the song also sings, “thick boy boogie,” “chunky boy boogie,” and then later “chunky monkey boogie” and “the mac and cheese boogie.” But don’t worry, it’s all delivered with a certain fondness rather than meanness. Chad Rupp wraps up the album with an excellent cover of O.V. Wright’s “Blind, Crippled And Crazy,” featuring another strong vocal performance. The band gets loose on this one, jamming, this track nearly nine minutes long. I love that guitar work, and this track features some nice backing vocal work too. This one also contains a good lead on organ. And check out that bass work. Hell, there is even a cool drum solo toward the end. Gean Ermal plays drums on this track. It’s a wonderful way to end the celebration.
CD Track List
- Fresh Suits
- She Is The One
- She Got That Business Handled
- Gate C23
- 14 Dollars In The Bank
- Blues City Café
- Do Whatcha Daddy Say
- You’ll Be Singing My Songs
- Two Inches Shy Of A Foot
- Fat Kid Boogie
- Blind, Crippled And Crazy
Gate C23 was released on September 5, 2024 on Lightning In A Bottle Records.
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