Chris Vincent & the Raw Deals

Good Crook

Chris Vincent Music

“Yellin’ don’t make it true.” The authenticity in Chris Vincent’s growling of that phrase in the context of a soured relationship, opens a window into a scene as real as the blues gets. The album-opening title song’s frenetic pace, twisted out by Vincent’s fingers flying across the strings of his 1947 Gibson electric slide guitar and New Orleans drum institution, Johnny Vidacovich, battering the skins stridently, perfectly underscores the storminess of it all. Recorded in two sessions at RhythmShack Studios in New Orleans, Good Crook alternately features Vincent by himself, in a duo with Vidacovich, and in a trio with Vidacovich and bassist Dean Zucchero. All the songs are first takes, adding to the earnestness and intensity of them.

Vincent quite apparently believes in what he sings, having either lived it, seen it, or both. He writes from the perspective of a recovering alcoholic, having gone overboard in New Orleans. Escaping the carnage for some time, Vincent only recently returning to the city he loves, sober. Now he takes it all in from the steps of his home in the French Quarter, basking in the characters and the atmosphere they operate in and help create. How a phrase his Cajun neighbor lady has said to him ended up inspiring the spectacle of “Cows” is nothing short of genius. But Vincent was born in New Jersey and raised himself lyrically on Bob Dylan. His artful descriptions in the melancholy “Bloody Mary Morning,” about a new barmaid taking a job at Tipitina’s, bear that out. Performed solo on that Gibson, Vincent sings the song in a melodic croak that calls to mind folkie Greg Brown. A unique, wonderful highlight among many here.

Without question, Vincent has seen John Mooney do his thing a time or two, and their common trace back to the Delta blues of Son House often colors his delivery of these songs. Check “Screwdriver Keys” and even more so its follow-up, “Half Block Cadillac” (one of two songs that also appeared differently on Vincent’s debut, Things Have Changed) for some of that type of melodically snaking, lyrically sly blues. “Midnight After All” goes that way as well, but with slashing rhythms appropriate for the tale of a relationship long gone south for bad reasons.

Vincent cites jazz as an influence on his guitar playing, and that subtle swing and string caressing does come through even in the roughest of his licks. But in the initially tentative “Come Clean,” he plays in an open G tuning that Son House and later Keith Richards adopted. When the rhythm in the song kicks up, Stones-inspired riffs in tribute to Richards happen as if by magic.

Just his second solo album, Vincent’s Good Crook has steadily and surely made its way to the top of my list of original blues recordings of 2025. I cannot wait to hear what he comes up with for his third.

Tom Clarke for MAS

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