Mark “Porkchop” Holder raises the bar with new solo release
Mark “Porkchop” Holder’s second solo album is scheduled for release on November 3rd on vinyl, CD, digital and streaming formats, and I’m rapidly running out of superlatives to describe his work.
Holder, along with partners in crime Doug Bales and Travis Kilgore, consistently puts out some of the hottest blues in this region (or any other part of the world for that matter) with each release somehow raising the bar even when that doesn’t seem possible.
His debut solo album was released only nine months ago and either this latest entry was being developed simultaneously, or the man simply never sleeps. Ringing in at eleven tracks, this a full album, more and more a rarity in the era of EPs and single releases. Mind you, the new paradigm certainly has its advantages, but I suppose I’m old school enough that I still like putting on an artist and letting the record play for forty minutes or so.
Of the eleven tracks, three are covers, tastefully chosen and artfully executed. Covers are a tricky business. Make a tune sound as close to original as possible, and what’s the point? Change it up for the sake of changing it up and it runs the risk of being hollow or trite, musical masturbation.
A cover song really only works when the new artist legitimately has something to say with it, and a voice with which to say it; too many do not. Not so with Holder and company, as he breathes spectacular new life into old favorites like “Nobody Wants to Cry,” “Sad and Lonely Nights,” and, delightfully enough, “Billy the Kid,” an old Marty Robbins tune.
Three cover tunes leaves eight all-original, freshly penned songs that demonstrate beautifully that all the hard touring and long road gigs are honing the band’s already keen sensibilities to a razor’s edge. Blues begat rock and roll, this is known. Step by step, rock and roll evolved into dozens of sub-genres and, for a time at least, pushed the envelope in to newer, more dangerous sounding territory, growing heavier and meaner.
Holder’s blues tells evolution to get bent, leaping ahead several stages in to a place that straddles the line between classic Delta Blues and quasi-metal, combining the most powerful elements of both in a gutsy, raw, blistering beast. I’ve compared Holder’s guitar work to Billy Gibbons more than once and, I have noted, so have other reviewers.
I worry that this comparison may be lost on many people who only know Gibbons through the radio hits of ZZ Top, which, though they are replete with some mean guitar riffs, are still radio hits and as such are a less than complete representation of the man Jimi Hendrix once called, “America’s best young guitar player.”
Once you understand why Gibbons is considered a guitar player’s guitar player, the fact that so many of us can’t help but make the comparison between his work and Holder’s ought to speak volumes about Holder’s skill.
All of this is a roundabout way of saying once again that Holder is one hell of an axe-slinger, giving much-needed life to a genre that is all too often repetitive and, ironically, soulless.
That Holder has found the perfect combination with Bales and Kilgore is icing on the cake, the final piece of a puzzle several decades in the making. Simply put, this is blues you can sink your teeth into, raw and primal, tempered with clear, intelligent lyrics and vocals. There just isn’t another act like this out there today.
Each track is another mini-masterpiece, but I have to give a tip of the hat to one in particular, if only because it exemplifies the spirit of Holder, and the nature of camaraderie that exists between genuine, hardworking professional musicians who lived the sort of life so many artists pretend to.
The tune is “James Leg,” dedicated to another phenomenal bluesman who has managed to make his mark on the world stage.
Maybe it’s just that I was lucky enough to be there twenty years ago, to know both men and to follow their careers in the intervening time, but the love and sincerity of this tune is what music is all about, at least to a working musician. Beginning to end, this album is another jewel in the crown of one the greatest bluesmen this area has ever known. That so significant and sterling an album is only his second solo effort raises the question, how will he top this?
Still, I know Holder, his passion, his talent and his drive, and while this album is surely a stunning achievement, it is only a step on the way to the legendary status the man and his band are bound for.