Brandon Santini

The Longshot
American Showplace Music

When you think of the new generation of modern day harmonica greats you certainly must include Brandon Santini on that list. With a handful of Blues Music Award nominations already in his portfolio, including two for harmonica and another for contemporary artist of the year, Santini delivers the full package as not only an instrumentalist, but also a vocalist and songwriter. The Longshot is his fourth solo recording and it just may be the best one yet.

For anyone who’s listened to Santini, from his days with Delta Highway to his current work, his music is a nice blend of rockin’ blues, filled with his outstanding harp runs and guitar work (this time courtesy of friends like Timo Arthur, Greg Gumpel, Jed Potts, and Jimmy Bennett. The selections are all original numbers that Santini wrote or co-wrote, with the lone cover track, Willie Dixon’s “Evil (Is Going On)” which sounds terrific.

This disc is guaranteed to shake your booty right from the get-go with “Don’t Come Around Here,” and Santini  takes us on a journey down various musical avenues, all of them good, throughout the album. Instrumental and especially harp stand-outs prevail on tracks like “Beggin’ Baby,” “Going Home,” and “Somebody’s Gotta Go.”

Total Time: 50:19

Don’t Come Around Here / Beggin’ Baby / One More Day / Drive You Off My Mind / Heartbreaker / Broken Bones / Back To You / My Worried Mind / Going Home / Evil (Is Going On) / Somebody’s Gotta Go