By
Samoa Wilson with the Jim Kweskin Band
I Just Want To Be Horizontal
Kingswood
2020
Samoa Wilson has been singing with Jim Kweskin for the last decade and she fits right into the stew of old-time jazz, blues, and ragtime that Kweskin has been purveying since the Sixties. Her voice has a easy swing and knowing sass that is slightly reminiscent of a past female Kweskin singer, Maria Muldaur. However her voice has its own mature, lived-in beauty. Here she sings everything from up-tempo swing on “I Cried For You” and “Me Myself and I” to naughty blues on “Kitchen Man” and “The Candy Man” convincingly but she is best when riding like velvet over the Hawaiian guitars of “At Ebb Tide” and the lazy blues feeling of “I Just Want To Be Horizontal.” Other highlights of the set include Kweskin’s own occasional, gruff but good-humored singing and a sweet version of the Danny Kaye song “Inch Worm,” featuring a mix of mandolin, accordion and alto saxophone.
