All Aboard!

Three years since the last CD? Too long. Indigo Swing fans around the country have been panting for a followup to their first CD, Indigo Swing and it's finally here.

Indigo Swing continues to pack a great set of musicians around Johnny Boyd's vocals which fronts a great set of tunes that harken back to the days of the 40's & 50's nightclub bands with the energy of 90's.

I'm Glad I'm Not Dead and How Lucky are good solid slow swing dance songs while Blue Suit Boogie speeds things up to a Rock & Roll tempo. Regular Joe is a great big band swing song. Could you see dancing two-step to What's the Matter Baby? I like the slow ones like Regular Joe which separates the real dancers from the ones who just do memorized steps.

From their promotional flyer:

...Indigo Swing's unique style embraces ballads and medium tempo tunes along with their frenzied jitter-bugging jams. Their East Coast brand of swing (which is purer and faster than its rival West Coast Swing, the real Savoy Ballroom stuff) is as infectious as it is energetic. Johnny, Indigo Swing frontman and singer, romances his audience with his swanky, crooning vocal style. Baron's sax smokes, Vance burns it up on bass, Josh gives it all on guitar, and "Big Jim"jives on the drums. The band even travels with their own acoustic upright piano on which William struts his authentic boogie-woogie stuff. This heavy rhythm section alternately keeps a steady beat and blows the roof off the house with their scorching solos. they played over 200 live shows last year alone (1997) and in April of this year Indigo Swing went into the studio to lay down their jump-blues sound - the result is All Aboard! on Time Bomb Recordings.

All Aboard! is a genuine slice of the 1940's, punctuated by Indigo Swing's personal flair. The album's lead track, eponymously titled The Indigo Swing, is an up-tempo, groovin' number that features a screamin' sax solo with Baron doing what he does best. The medium tempoed, (Today's the Day) I'm Glad I'm Not Dead is a bluesy, snap-your-fingers kind of tune accented by sincere vocal and melodic sax. Regular Joe is the product of a session at Capitol Records' legendary Studio B and pays tribute to the band's root with lyrics that look back to a simpler time and a slammin' accompaniment by the Bill Elliott horn section. A classic Willie Dixon song, Violent Love, is a sweet love-ditty with all the spirit of the era in which it was written...

Since this review was written, lead singer Johnny Boyd had left the band and gone solo. The band had picked up another singer, but was not actively playing recording or performing, though it was rumored that they do get together to perform as Indigo Swing if hired.

The other CD's