Ralph Atkinson - When Love Comes

Hear The Track Here

There are some unkind souls out there who would chastise me thoroughly for showing favouritism towards any particular musicians and - despite my gentle tone - I would agree. See I can't help it if musicians like Raplh Atkinson (and that other guys we wi(ll)- hint - not mention) manage to get themselves reviewed more than once a month, blame them I say. After all, if you push out more musical babies than say, the cabbage aphid (Ed: yep he's been Googling again!), it's highly likely you will crop up a time or two. Besides, I don't give a **** because I actually like Ralph Atkinson's warm and easy style, as far as I am concerned I'll take him in collab or solo like When Love Comes. The root of that appeal, I have to say, is that Ralph is my kind of musician.

Uncomplicated.

Ever since I met him (as it were) back in 2009, he has enhanced my own listening pleasure immensely, but nowhere more so than when he's got the blues close to hand. Having said that, listen to the first few bars of this track and tell me that isn't the blues. Listening any further will involve a massive swerve into (of all things) reggae. Sounds odd I know, but by God it works a treat. As many of you are aware, Jamaican music has played as big a part of my life as rock so as hard as I am in rock criticism, it applies to reggae even more so. It has to ring true, ya know. So while When Love Comes isn't what I would strictly term reggae, more like Eric Clapton's version, which was based on Bob Marley and so on...

That's nerdy nitpicking mainly concerned about the musical integrity of a piece. What is not in dispute - in any way whatsover - is how brilliant this track is on that rock pop reggae way. Clapton himself would give his right arm for a song of this quality, and Ralph even has the right band to back him on it. Unfortunately for ol' Eric, Ralph also happens to be a much better vocalist, so there won't be much for him to do other than strumming a few chords but hey, I guess he is used to this... (Ed: it's OK Eric, we love you really) Ralph Atkinson, in my very 'umble opinion, just keeps getting better and better with each track and this - guaranteed - is the proverbial dogs danglies...

Class. MUST HAVE.