In the Basement (UK)

Billy Price feat. the Billy Price Band
East End Avenue

by David Cole.
Issue No. 43, August-October 2006

Billy Price and his band of seven support musicians - including three horn players who are a definite presence throughout - have been excellent exponents of blue-eyed soul for a long time now and this really fine set, recorded at the Mojo Boneyard, McKeesport, PA, continues the legacy. Apart from a fine take on Z.Z. Hill's "Faithful and True" (written by Marlin and Jeanie Green and Dan Penn), with a great wailing sax going on and "If You Cook Like You Walk," a strutter with piano composed by keyboardist Jimmy Britton, the rest of the songs fall into two camps regarding penmanship: either Mike Sweeney or collaborations between Price and Jon and Sally Tiven. (There's just a minor twist to the latter in that the mid-paced "Push Me to the Limit" was the product of the Tivens and Ellis Hooks.)

Sweeney's songs are topped by "The Hard Hours," an easy-beating tale of a break-up and also boast the "East End Avenue" title track, where party sounds open the drum-beat-driven but relaxed number, a nice downtempo "Only Two Lovers," and a warm, mid-paced "Soul Sailin'," where the vocal support brings in the set's only female sounds, those of Yolanda Barber. Sweeney also contributed a pair of funky items: "She Left Me With These Blues," which gets a fierce horn attack and a serenade to Dyke & the Blazers with the riff-laden "Funky Like Dyke, Part 2," co-written with Price. He and the Tivens have proved no slouches; as well as the rocking "Keep It to Yourself" opener and the chugging "Sweet Mistreatin' Love," they come up with three special beauties: the moody, downtempo "The Other Side of You" - even the guitar break fits, though maybe it's a tad over-long - the beat-ballad "The Big Show" and the real piece de resistance, "The Price I Paid for Loving You," a dead-slow opus, set against a drum beat and with an effective organ break.

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