AJ Ghent’s Got the Neo Blues

AJ Ghent’s music reminds me of Lenny Kravitz. And that’s not a good thing.

It’s not that AJ can’t play – far from it. The guy totally wails on the electric/slide guitar, with brawny broad strokes and tricky leads that beg for cranking up to eleven. But the songs are run-of-the-mill blues-rock mixed with the most obvious “funk” and “soul” elements watering it all down, along with lame, unmemorable lyrics that convey none of the personal passion that he supposedly puts into this stuff. I guess that’s why he calls it “neo blues.” But this sort of thing has never interested me. Blues music has been so overdone at this stage that, to hold my attention, you really need to be a totally authentic old Delta geezer or, at the other extreme, some wacked-out weirdo that brings some wild, crazy element to it that is fresh and unexpected. All this blues/rock/funk/soul/whatever-fusion stuff just strikes me as dull, unoriginal, rehashed slop. There are people like AJ Ghent everywhere. They’re all highly skilled musicians with nothing really exciting or compelling to bring to the table. And at this point, I just don’t have the patience for that.

So yeah, I’m being an ol’ impossible-to-please sourpuss again, same as ever. But I’m sure AJ’s just awesome live, so maybe you should go see Zac Brown’s buddy at Eddie’s Attic on March 17th. It’s the release party for his new six-song EP The Neo Blues Project, doncha know.