A Pure-D Delight!
author: Robert Love Taylor
It grieves me to know that Bob Fox died not so long after completing this wonderful CD. His music, at once powerful and delicate, is a gift to those of us who survive him and will surely live a long time.
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Good, sturdy country blues. . . (and) a superior boogie-woogie pianist.
author: Blues Revue
It's always great to hear good, sturdy country blues. BOB FOX tips his hat to genre heroes like Big Bill Broonzy, Blind Willie McTell, and Brownie McGhee (and that's only his guitarist side) on BLUES MAKES ME HAPPY. Fox is a superior boogie-woogie pianist, too, as he demonstrates on the stomping title cut and the more ruminative, "We'll Be Together Again." Also good are takes on McTell's "Statesboro Blues" and the traditional "Death Letter Blues."
--BLUES REVUE, February/March 2003
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Bobs arresting skills as both interpreter and creator are second to none.
author: Sing Out! Magazine
BLUES MAKES ME HAPPY features nearly seventy minutes of stripped-down, traditional acoustic blues/folk from Ohio-based Bob Fox (a regular at Cleveland's Barking Spider Tavern). Bob's arresting skills as both interpreter and creator in these idioms are second to none. Influenced by Dave Van Ronk and Reverend Gary Davis in his New York City youth, Fox not only plays a mean elemental, boogie-based piano (the title tune and autobiographical "Bob's West Coast Blues") and six and twelve-string guitar, but has a relaxed exploratory vocal approach that draws the listener in.
Fox is also a marvelous arranger, even rendering chestnuts like "John Henry," "Going Down Slow" and "Dupree Blues" fresh sounding. Exhilaratingly personalized covers of songs by Big Bill Broonzy, Furry Lewis, Pete Seeger, Son House (the rapt lamentation "Death Letter Blues") and Blind Willie McTell are also on-target. --GvonT, Sing Out! Vol. 46 #4 Winter 2003
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author: Peter Heidtmann
Bob: I've played your CD twice now, and like what I hear.
Never heard you on the piano before, so that was a treat. I
bought two copies of the CD so I can send one to my step-son
in Colorado, who also plays the acoustic guitar when he's not
painting houses.
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