Released May 4 – Noodlehead Music

“Metaphorically pissing into the graves of some of the greatest songwriters this world has ever produced…”According to the press release, this single by Tommy, who’s a girl, “flew straight into the iTunes Top 10 Blues chart”. Which is odd, because “So Cruel” isn’t very bluesy at all, unless one’s grasp the Blues extends only to the shallowest aspects of form and ignores substance and history.


Just as Punk is more than just a pair of ripped jeans, the Blues comes with a rich and significant cultural heritage – probably greater than any other genre of music (accepting folk, with which the Blues’ roots are inextricably tied). Because the Blues is, at its core, about heritage; about a people cut off from their history, trying to build a new one in a hostile world. If one reduces such music to nothing more than a series of empty gestures – a hackneyed chord sequence, a studio-made down-at-heel atmosphere, the twang of pedal-steel guitar – then one effectively eviscerates the Blues’ heritage, erasing the work of musicians who toiled against poverty and intolerance to create something of lasting, transcendent value. In fact, you could go so far as to say that someone who did that is basically metaphorically pissing into the graves of some of the greatest, most important singers, guitarists and songwriters this world has ever produced.And if a person were to commit such a travesty while engaging in the kind of gratuitous vocal gymnastics more readily associated with Mariah Carey than Muddy Waters – well, that might just be interpreted as rubbing salt in the wound, Tommy. 

www. myspace.com/tommyludgate

Posted In Single Reviews, May 05 2009. Words - Richard