REVIEWS FOR POPA'S
"DELIVERIES AFTER DARK"
Coming off his two-volume tribute to Jimi Hendrix,
Electric Chubbyland, Popa Chubby is still high on rock & roll.
While his love of the blues remains strong and
dominates a handful of the tracks here,
Deliveries After Dark features more heavy metal
thunder and hard rocking than usual.
The furious "Sally Likes to Run" captures that arena rock feel
with enough cowbell to keep Christopher Walken happy while
the title track crunches like Deep Purple in "Highway Star" mode.
The epic "Man of the Blues" should easily satisfy
longtime fans with its classic Chubby sound, but
"Grown Man Crying Blues" and "I'll Piss on Your Grave" sound
like the blues by way of a rock band.
For Chubby, it's usually the other way around,
but he's often mentioned his growing up on rock before finding the blues,
so don't be too surprised that he sounds ten years younger than
he did on his last album.
The ambitious performances, the good-timing rock
songs, the searing guitar solos, and the willingness to experiment --
"Woman in My Bed Dub" flirts with reggae while the
"Theme from The Godfather" is done cowabunga surf style --
all suggest youth and embrace freedom.
With all this excitement coming across in a convincing,
fist-pumping fashion, Deliveries After Dark is a very loud success.
It's only a matter of how much blues the longtime Chubby fan is
willing to sacrifice.
~ David Jeffries, All Music Guide
People young, old, rich, poor ... they just want to rock."
The disc is balls-out Blues/Rock played with reckless abandon, no apologies, visceral and heavy, with a few surprises thrown in - such as the theme from "The Godfather"
and the spacy and evocative "Woman In My Bed Dub," a reggae tune as thick with smoke as a Kingston club.
"I have gotten back to why I started playing music to begin with," says the New York guitarist. The excitement and the feeling of raw power.
All I can tell you is you need rock and roll in your soul and I am the man in control.
The Blues are alive and well and Rock and Roll will never die!
Are you ready to rock?"
Amazon.com editorial review
POPA CHUBBY"Deliveries After Dark"Blind Pig
POPA CHUBBY IS often compared to Mountain's longtime leader Leslie West -- and not just for the girth that led the former Ted Horowitz to adopt the Chubby stage name. Like West, Chubby seems to believe that there's no such thing as overstatement when it comes to blues-rock.
On his new disc, "Deliveries After Dark," the New York veteran attacks the listener with rapid-fire guitar notes and pumped-up riffs as he hollers original lyrics that reduce the blues to easy-to-grasp cliches: "Let the Music Set You Free," "Grown Man Crying Blues" and "Money Isn't Everything (It's the Only Thing)."
Chubby has the fast-fingered facility and the unflagging adrenaline for such an approach. But he's much more interesting when he abandons his bar-band routine for something more idiosyncratic: the understated Piedmont blues of "You Can't Stop Love," the reggae-inflected "Woman in My Bed Dub" and the surf-instrumental version of "Theme From 'The Godfather.' "
-- Geoffrey Himes Washington Post
February 21, 2008 - 3:44pm — John Kereiff Rossland Radio Cooperative
DELIVERIES AFTER DARK Popa Chubby (Blind Pig) ****
Debuting at #4 on the Billboard blues chart, “Deliveries After Dark” comes on the heels of Chubster’s double disc live Hendrix tribute last year. Popa is a talented bluesman with a serious rock & roll jones, and on his 10th release since ’94 he scratches that itch until it bleeds.
This Bronx guitarist, born Ted Horowitz (the stage name came from a jam with Bernie Worrell of Parliament/ Funkadelic), is a fierce player that just goes balls-out, one of the most exciting players since SRV. He looks like a biker but his songs reveal a much deeper soul. “Deliveries” is more of a rock & roll album than I was expecting, but given last year’s live discs of Hendrix material that shouldn’t really be a surprise to fans.
Popa knows who butters his bread, and there’s lots of tasty blues on this disc too- “Grown Man Crying Blues” and “Man of The Blues” to name a couple. But his integration or rock & blues- similar and related forms anyway- feels natural. The real surprise amongst these 13 cuts, however, is the surf guitar remake of “Theme From The Godfather”. Sounds like a weird idea on paper but trust me, it works- I’d even go as far to say that it’s worth the price of admission all on its own.
The last song is “Oh Rock & Roll You Heartless Bitch”. I thought the title was stupid and was ready to hate the song, but this acoustic meditation on life on the road had me in its thrall by the first chorus. Overall, Popa has just knocked another one out of the park.
CHOICE CUTS: Theme From The Godfather, Grown Man Crying Blues, Oh Rock & Roll You Heartless Bitch, I’ll Piss On Your Grave
The feel of the record is also really attractive and intoxicating. This is a fun blues-rock record. This isn't filled with tortured wailing and there are no hellhounds on PC's trail (not that there's anything wrong with those kinds of blues records; far from it). This is the kind of album you crank on a Friday or Saturday night when you have some friends over to hoist a few drinks and play some cards. This is good time rock-n-blues.
Deliveries After Dark is also defiantly not a purist record. This is a blues rock record that has the sound and songs of classic rock radio rather than Beale Street or Michigan Avenue. Hell, there's even a surfer take on the famous theme from The Godfather! This isn't rigid, by-the-numbers music made by an artist insisting on living within the confines of genre. This is bold, loud music made for the joy of it and it can be heard in every note.
Written by Josh Hathaway
Published February 21, 2008