Bernie Pearl’s Latest CD–Take Your Time

By B. Noel Barr, Music Writer Dude

The blues as a genre at best tells a good story with an instrument or voice responding to a call from the singer or storyteller.

It is very rare that you have a blues record these days that is as intimate and vital as Bernie Pearl’s Take Your Time. From the opening notes “Worried Life Blues” the timbre and pluck of the strings sets you up mentally for something special to come. Then Bernie’s baritone voice comes through exact and true. This is followed by Miss Barbara Morrison’s vocal on the track, which adds to the music — something that is sublime.

What we have is an album of blues songs that are very real and relevant in today’s world. This blues album Take your Time is a masterpiece.

The CD is very organic sounding, none of the edgy digital sound. It is clean and dazzlingly brilliant. The performances of the players typifies the music these people make at every show I’ve seen. Now, what we have is raw essence of the blues, presented only slightly refined to adjust to the technology of the day. Pearl has incorporated the country style of blues into the modern in very subtle way.

Playing on this album besides Mr. Pearl and Miss Morrison is a rhythm section that makes this recording pop as much as the principals. Mike Berry, who plays bass (upright and electric), and Albert Trepagnier, who plays the drums, work these songs, underpinning the melodic structure. Layered on top of that is Bobby “Hurricane” Spencer on sax, who again elevates the pitch of the music.

Bernie Pearl’s CD Take Your Time is the definitive blues CD. Bernie Pearl brings to the table 50-plus years of playing and living the blues. The man is a walking talking encyclopedia of the blues, because he has played with or has interviewed the most important people in the blues throughout those 50 years.

If you were to buy one blues CD for your personal collection ever Take Your Time is the one to buy.

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