It's at its best when the whole band grabs hold of one of the darker songs and makes the whole house shake with rolling, snorting blues. With so much musical horsepower gathered, you can almost lose the 71-year-old Eric Bibb a little out of focus, but his raspy powerful vocals, elegant fingerpicking and songwriting are of course what hold it all together. Even in the darkest stories of racism and abuse, the songs do not lose their pathos of humanism and optimism. When he sometimes instead depicts the bright side of life, it can become a little tense, it's as if the yang loses its yin, so to speak. The entire evening is carried forward by personal stories and an intimate family feeling; it becomes a kind of quick sketch of American-Swedish Eric Bibb's peculiar life. Son Rennie Mirro, "extra daughter" Sarah Dawn Finer and wife Ulrika are guests. Bibb also tackles the "500 miles" his father, folk singer icon and civil rights activist Leon Bibb, used to sing. So most of it would have been perfect if it weren't for those constant retakes.

The circumstances are a little strange - bluesman Eric Bibb records a live album during the concert and there are many retakes. But apart from that, the evening is almost perfect, and Bibb's raspy, powerful vocals hold everything together, writes DN's Magnus Säl. It is a remarkable, and at the same time strange, concert.

MUSIC | REVIEW Magnus Säl

Eric Bibb makes the Scala Theater shake with rolling, snorting blues

The strange first. Bluesman Eric Bibb's evening at the Scala Theater is announced as a recording for an upcoming album. Title and release date already nailed. It also means that the main character likes to stop and redo certain songs, sometimes once or twice before he is satisfied. Maybe it all depends on nerves before the seriousness of the moment? This makes the announced two hours grow to three and a half. The feeling that we in the audience are there as a sonic backdrop to the record, instead of being receivers/co-creators in the moment, is sometimes hard to shake off.

The fact that the grade is still a (shaky) four is due to the fact that the musical level is breathtakingly high in parts. Perhaps not surprising when he surrounds himself with some of the finest musicians in the Swedish folk, blues and jazz sphere: steel guitarist Johan Lindström, violinist Esbjörn Hazelius, harmonica player Greger Andersson, guitarist Christer Lyssarides, choir player Lamine Cissokho and drummer Olle Linder. Bibb's English producer Glen Scott plays bass and is "musical director". A string quartet is a creamy bonus.

30/09/2022