Welcome Doyle Bramhall II & Smokestack BMG, 2001   Buy it online Tracks 1: Green Light Girl 2: Problem Child 3: So You Want It To Rain 4: Life 5: Helpless Man 6: Soul Shaker 7: Send Some Love 8: Smokestack 9: Last Night 10: Blame 11: Thin Dream 12: Cry Reviewed by Aaron Blanton	Jimi Hendrix may be gone, but he can be channeled. Jim Morrison might be buried in Paris, but there are those among us that can reach out and touch him. Stevie Ray Vaughan might have fallen prematurely from the sky, but he can be contacted. I'll tell you how I know this. Texan Doyle Bramhall II must have been given some special dispensation: some kind of phychic hotline to the heavens. Listening through even a single spin on his latest album, Welcome, is enough to let the most casual listener know that Bramhall is making special contact and channeling some of the late heavies of the rock world. And I don't think it's possible we're talking mere influence here. Everyone has influences. Influence is the ingredient that's necessary for music to evolve. Take, for instance, recent mini diva arrival -- and fellow Texan -- Shea Seger. Here influences are obvious: nods to Sheryl Crow, Dido, David Gray and others are showing up in Seger's work, but her sound, when all is said and done and the tracks are in the can, is purely her own. Seger doesn't sound like the musicians that have influenced her, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know what she likes -- what she probably listens to herself -- because the artists that have influenced her contributed to her idea of what music should be. She has the talent and dexterity to take what she's been given and do something real and original with it. That's influence. But listen to Doyle Bramhall II and Smokestack. It doesn't even have to be a close listen. Listen and it's impossible not to get an image of Bramhall sitting down in front of a red candle, meditating and conjuring up the spirits of 60s legends -- and Vaughan. Walking into a room where Welcome is playing is like going through a time warp or onto the set for Oliver Stone's The Doors. Push aside the beaded curtain, fire up the lava lamps and, if I sit right here, do I get center tokes? This is not to say that Doyle Bramhall II is untalented or even derivative. He's neither. After all, when it comes to Stevie Ray and Hendrix, we're talking about two of the greatest dead guitarists ever. Seriously. To be able to evoke them so completely describes a major talent. One could, however, wish for something like evolution. Sure: channel dead guys, but then do something with that. Do something that's yours. Though Welcome is Bramhall's third album, doing his own thing is perhaps not something that comes naturally to him. Bramhall's father -- presumably Doyle Bramhall I -- played with Stevie Ray and Jimmie Vaughan in Austin, Texas. By the time Doyle Jr. -- our Doyle -- was 18, he was playing with Jimmie's Fabulous Thunderbirds and later co-founded the Arc Angels with Charlie Sexton. Though the music that Doyle Bramhall II and Smokestack is making on Welcome swings clearly towards modern electric Texas blues, hits of pure 60s rock -- and forget any type of progression -- are there, fast and furious. This is something that doesn't seem to have escaped Bramhall's management, or whoever is responsible for Bramhall and Smokestack's look in the photos included on Welcome. Though Bramhall doesn't actually look a whole lot like Jim Morrison, he's certainly been styled in that direction: an unruly mop of chestnut hair, 60s clothes and, on the cover of Welcome -- Bramhall stares the camera down with an intense blue gaze that looks only slightly bloodshot. In the interior shots, the individual photos of the three members of Smokestack have been given a slightly psychadelic treatment. Bass player Chris Bruce (Charles & Eddie, Chris Connelly and Bell Biv DeVoe) has been artfully morphed into no fewer than five Bruces. J.J. Johnson has been created as artful Siamese twins: joined at the hand and knee. While Susannah Melvoin -- vocalist and Bramhall's wife -- is all beautiful motion: in cavalry boots and a diaphanous skirt, she's the Woodstock goddess that never was come to life. The sound here is tight, solid and somewhat haunting. Red candles not included. | June 2001 Aaron Blanton is a writer and musician. He's never owned even a single beaded curtain.	This is not to say that Doyle Bramhall II is untalented or even derivative. He's neither. After all, when it comes to Stevie Ray and Hendrix, we're talking about two of the greatest dead guitarists ever. Seriously. To be able to evoke them so completely describes a major talent. One could, however, wish for something like evolution. Sure: channel dead guys, but then do something with that. Do something that's yours.