Tom Rigney

Fans of traditional blues will love this album by the Bay Area’s Tom Rigney, an experienced blues violinist—what we used to call a fiddle player. He’s put together a great band, but the main attraction is the guy drawing the bow. The violin lends a melancholy air to traditional Americana tunes like “Wayfaring Stranger” (yeah, some dopes think we really don’t need any more arrangements of this song, but they’re wrong) and “House of the Rising Sun.” He knows his oldies and shows it, with a nice arrangement of “St. Louis Blues.” But the fiddler can also rock, particularly on the cover of Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown’s “Gate’s on the Heat,” as well as Rigney’s original “Lunch with Satan’s Grandma.” And his moving original, “The Blue Hour,” is worth the price of the CD all by itself.