Blues Bytes Review of Hooked on You, January 2011
The British band King Bizkit is totally new to me, but I can already say that I like their sound. They have sent me a copy of their 1995 CD, Hooked On You, which has just been re-released. It’s a self-produced CD with just four tracks on it. The story behind the CD, and the reason that it has just four tracks, is that the band was invited by the BBC in London to appear on the Paul Jones (exManfred Mann, etc) Blues Show. Paul Jones arranged for them to record these four tracks for his radio show, and the band decided to put them out on a CD.
Hooked On You opens with an excellent version of John Mayall’s “Another Kinda Love” that features some great sax and guitar work, by (respectively) Ben Weston and Adam Clarkson. The track is true to the original without just being a direct copy, and it’s a good opening number.
The following track, “Hooked On You,” is a funkier number, putting me a little in mind of the great band Chicago – probably because of the saxes. Vocalist Richard Everett shows the strength of his voice on this track, and you certainly wouldn’t know that he wasn’t from the US.
Track three is “A Good Fool Is Hard To Find” and it’s a good up-tempo driving blues with the brass section really pushing hard and keeping the others in the band running hard to keep up – they do keep up and the whole thing gels into a strong piece of music.
The closing track, T-Bone Walker’s “Jealous Woman,” is guitar-led (Adam Clarkson) and excellent blues music – this track, for me, is by far the best on the CD, and I could easily listen to a whole album of this type of music.
Give this band a listen and you won’t be disappointed.
--- Terry Clear