Thorbjørn Risager & The Black Tornado
Album: Songs From The Road
Label: RUF
Tracks: 15 + 18
Website: http://risager.info/

Sometimes living in the UK it's difficult to remember that there is a whole music scene on on the continent of which we are a part, bands which have achieved popularity in mainland Europe but who have largely gone unnoticed here. One such group is Blues band Thorbjørn Risager and the Black Tornados. Ever since their formation in in Copenhagen in 2003 they have toured and recorded consistently but have struggled for recognition outside of mainland Europe. All that changed in 2014 with the release of their most recent studio album, Too Many Roads which has garnered interest from places as far away as the USA and India as well as picking up awards in the UK and the band's native Denmark.

Now Thorbjørn and his band are building on that success with their first release for Ruf Records as part of the German Label's Songs From The Road series.

Recorded in early 2015 at The Harmonie in Bonn, Songs From The Road, is that all too rare beast, a live album that actually sounds like it is recorded live, rather than being a collection of studio overdubs with some crowd sound effects thrown in for good measure.

Songs From The Road starts as it means to go on, with the driving 12 bar blues of the Risager composition, If You Wanna Leave. From there we are taken through a blues, soul and rock n roll workout, culminating the the full on funk of the ironically titled final track, Opener.

Most of the songs featured in the performance are original compositions, highlighting Thorbjørn Risager's affinity with the blues and his talents as a songwriter which are all the more remarkable given that he is not working in his first language.

Perhaps unsurprisingly the band's breakthrough album, Too Many Roads, features heavily with five out of the first six songs coming from that album, including one of the three cover versions included in the performance, Victor Young's chilling theme song to the 1957 film China Gate. The other covers are the party anthem made famous by Ray Charles, Let The Good Times Roll and a version of Big Joe Williams' Baby Please Don't Go.

The Harmonie in Bonn is one of Thorbjørn and his band's favourite venues and, from the atmosphere that is captured on this recording, the appreciation seems to be entirely mutual. Songs From The Road should be regarded among the great live albums and hopefully we'll get the chance to sample Thorbjørn Risager and The Black Tornados live show in the UK in the not too distant future.

David Chamberlain