CALIFORNIA SCREAMIN'

What is there to say to the uniformed? Never heard of Steve Morse, Dixie Dregs or The Dregs? If you haven't -- you just don't know your fusion nor your award-winning guitarists. Not too long after The Mahavishnu Orchestra exploded onto the electrified jazz rock fusion scene, a young Southerner, (U.S., that is), was inspired enough to start crankin' out his own brand of fusion with a southern-fried, dust-kickin', funkified, and hard-rockin' flavor. Steve Morse was the envy of guitarists the world over. His riffs are strong, fluid, mean, speed-racer cool, and he knows how to rock. Plenty of space was left for all the Dregs to jam out and conversational soloing was like a good olde "hollerin contest". The Dixie Dregs became The Dregs, then folded, then became the Steve Morse Band, then solo Steve Morse, then Deep Purple with Steve Morse, then the reformed Dixie Dregs, etc., etc. and now, (drum roll please), EVERYBODY IS BACK TOGETHER again. Yee-haw! Oh man, this reunion thing is catching like wildfire.

Anyway, the whole gang is back together on this culling of a three-nite-live-reunion jam-fest. Morse, Lavitz, Morgenstein, Sloan, and West -- are joined by LaRue, Goodman, and Dweezil Zappa. Everybody throws down, doing all the golden fusion/rock/country oldies. Even Zappa and the Allman Brothers tunes are covered. The riffs are flyin' like gravel slingin' from under a souped-up stock car runnin' down that there country road up yonder. Fun is the word here. Musicianship is stunning and the crowd loves it. My fav cuts were the dream-ridden, Mahavishnu-meets-Morse, soul-travel cuts; "Night Meets Light" and "What If" both from my fav Dregs release, What If.

This is a great "meet-the-Dregs" CD for newbies or a decent live "best-of" but if you already own many other Dregs releases or Morse-related CDs, this CD will be merely an altered echo versus a disc of new revelations. For a great new taste of Morse, I highly recommend his 2000 release, Major Impacts. All-in-all, a superb release by matchless musicians.