Rick Gellise • Nightshift Blues

If you’re looking for some high-energy dance music to shake a few tailfeathers and incite plenty of finger-popping at your next party, Rick Gellise (along with a little help from his friends) has delivered one of the finest collection of joyous soul-shaking originals & covers that this reviewer has heard in many a moon.

Nightshift Blues is the name of Gellise’s newest and latest CD release, which was produced at Reed Recording Company, and features deftly crafted, soulfully rendered, and energetically executed arrangements of three original compositions and two covers that mark a sharp departure from the more jazzy-oriented material of his debut release, Never Judge a Book.

Voted Best Blues Songwriter at last year’s 33rd Review Music Awards, the EP opens with an original composition titled Blue Eyed Blonde, which comes out of the gate like a hungry race horse galloping for a tantalizing carrot, courtesy of the solid rhythm section and musicianship of drummer Scott Causley and Chet Retlowski, Bingo Moon and Andy Reed, who powers an exhilarating horn arrangement on the keyboards that could bring James Brown to his knees.

The tempo comes down a notch as the temperature rises with Rick’s treatment of the classic, Please Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood, the smoldering rhythmic track forming the perfect background for Gellise’s clear and fluid lead guitar work and surprisingly strong, smoky, and sensuous vocal coloration

I Know What You Do is another Gellise original that is also deftly designed to get your toes tapping and butt sashaying. “I was looking for more of a Motown/Stax Sound on this opening,” Rick reflects when asked what he was striving to achieve with this latest outing. “My ear was definitely geared towards something more dance-oriented with more of a Soul feel to it.”

Rounding out the release is a stirring translation of Charlie Singleton’s Help the Poor and another Gellise original, The Path of Least Resistance - truly a majestic piece of music framing hopeful and forward-looking lyrical sentiments.

An interesting footnote to this collection is that many of these original compositions date back 20-years; and all of them were written on lunch breaks. “I was a 3rd Shift Manager at Sam’s Club,” he explains, “and during my lunch hour would eat my lunch and play my guitar. These songs were sitting here rotting away, so I as I got to know Andy, I knew I wanted to record them so they would exist and sound fresh. Now I’ve got them out there.”

Nightshift Blues is available on CD Baby, Amazon, Dozer, and is also available at Target & Best Buy.