If you weren’t quite as likely in 1966 to hit a blues band by randomly lobbing a paving slab as you would have been in 1968, the odds were still pretty much stacked in your favour. It took a certain je ne sais quoi to elevate one’s blueswailing efforts above the delta drudgery of the common herd, then: fortunately, The Blues Project had the goods in profusion.
With a band name that reeked of earnest, bookish, boho loftiness – underscored by cool Verve Folkways iconography – the Greenwich Village combo were unquestionably sincere blues scholars, but crucially unburdened by stultifying purism. As a consequence, Projections (their second album, from 1966) doffs its hipster beret in any number of directions, trading upon a profound jazz influence and displaying a keen interest in the sinuous tonalities of nascent psychedelia.
Al Kooper, Dylan organist and prime-moving rock Zelig, is a key component of the band’s sound, though in this instance his keyboards are less “thin, wild mercury” and more “roller-rink-through-a-time- tunnel”, particularly on the 11-minute Two Trains Running and a sprightly canter through Bob Lind’s Cheryl’s Going Home. His “eastern encephalograph” solo on I Can’t Keep From Crying is a memorable highlight, as is the jazzy, collegiate interplay on Flute Thing.
