My Turn

In case you haven’t heard of him, Kirk Fletcher is the guitar wizard who has toured the world with both Charlie Musselwhite and The Fabulous Thunderbirds. Dynamite guitar players are no longer as rare as they once were, and it’s easy to take blues virtuosity for granted, but My Turn is an exciting album with more than a few riffs that can make even the jaded blues listener sit up and take notice. Guitar Player Magazine said Fletcher plays “flurries of tight staccato riffs that seem to pop from his fretboard like firecrackers.” That sounds about right to me. You can hear a taste of Stevie Ray Vaughn when you listen to Fletcher, but he channels lots of musicians who came before him while adding his own distinctive sound to the mix. He does a couple of his own tunes on My Turn, but he also puts his stamp on some old stuff, like Jimmy Reed’s “Found Love” and Wilton Felder’s “Way Back Home.” Fletcher is joined here by his friend Michael Landau, another extraordinary guitar player. There was only one cut on this album that didn’t cut it with me, but I’ll let you find that number for yourselves.