There are no doubts whatsoever that talent runs strongly, in the DNA of the Gales Family, in particular, between brothers Eric, Eugene and the late great Emmanuel Lynn, the latter better known, artistically, as Little Jimmy King.
Little Jimmy King, or LJK, as his brother and Guitarist Extraordinaire Eric Gales calls him affectionally, was an American Blues guitarist, singer and songwriter that had a very successful career spanned throughout the 80's and the 90's, a career that saw him working with both his brothers and also with a giant of Blues such as Albert King, together with fronting his own band called Little Jimmy King & the Memphis Soul Survivors, soon after he left Albert King's band.
Throughout his lifetime, among the many merits that LJK achieved as a Blues artist, he also taught his younger brother Eric to play guitar in an upside down and left-handed way, just as LJK used to and despite the fact that young Eric, back then, was naturally right-handed.
The tragic and unexpected passing of LJK in 2002 due to a heart attack left a profound mark in both Eric and Eugene, but particularly to Eric, who always had profound admiration, respect and appreciation of his older brother's career and songbook, as we imagine Eugene had too.
Paying his artistic and emotional respect to the career and the many songs LJK wrote in his highly respectable career must have been at the forefront of Eric Gales' thoughts for a number of years, while Eric himself was keeping on building, at the same time, an equally remarkable career as a Guitar Guru, singer and songwriter, to the point to be recognised, right now, as one of the best Blues/Rock artists in the world by both music press and fans of the genre.
Eric Gales' career, especially in the last two decades, has exploded worldwide in a very exponential fashion, in-between releasing hugely accomplished solo albums such as Relentless (2010), Transformation (2011), Middle Of the Road (2017) and the very recent Crown (2022), an album that also gifted Gales with his first Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Blues Album.
Now, in 2025, the time seems to be finally right for Eric Gales to pay his personal homage to his older sibling LJK, through the release of a record called, aptly, A Tribute To LJK, a record that groups ten of the most well-known numbers performed by LJK throughout his career which must have meant a lot for Eric Gales, as surely still do now.
While working on the making of the record, many of Gales' fellow colleagues and friends in the Blues and Blues/Rock industry kindly accepted to make Special Guest appearances on the album, not only as a sign of respect for Gales himself, but also because most of them clearly remembered the influence and the inspiration that LJK's body of work provided them with, in an illustrious Guest List that includes Christone "Kingfish" Ingram, Buddy Guy and Joe Bonamassa, among others.
A Tribute To LJK is a truly special album not only for Eric Gales himself and the significance this record has for him, but also for the amount of talent Gales was able to display on this outstanding record. While Gales doesn't respectfully go off on a tangent sonically for what concerns the songs' arrangements, which maintain pretty much the integrity of LJK's originals, it's the very impressive artistic stamp that Gales applies to these songs that constitutes the winning aspect of this record.
While several thousands of people know very well Eric Gales' extraordinary ability as a Guitar Supremo, qualities that Gales has exhibited numerous times throughout his career to date, as he does so splendidly on this record too, it's the vocal depth of the American singer-songwriter that truly impresses the most, in our opinion, a quality that it might have been slightly under appreciated in the past, because of Gales being universally well-known principally as one of the best Blues/Rock guitarist around.
A skilled singer, to us at Bluebird Reviews, is someone able to leave a special mark on songs belonging to different genres, just as Eric Gales does, on this impressive album. Try, for instance, to listen to the power, the depth and the intensity expressed by Gales on the soul-drenched Worried Man, the Funky-flavoured explosive Baby Baby or the emotional vocal delivery provided on the album's closing track Somebody, performed together with that Blues giant that is Buddy Guy and the steel-guitar Maestro Roosevelt Collier to appreciate in full the enormous vocal range that Gales is able to push out of his remarkable artistic artillery.
As a guitar player, Gales is at the top of his game, on A Tribute To LJK; some of the songs part of this album contain some of the best guitar parts and solos you have ever heard off Eric Gales playing in his career to date, especially on songs like Guitar Man, Rockin' Horse Rise (with Christone "Kingfish" Ingram as a Special Guest) and particularly on Blues Been Good To Me, a tune where Gales expresses his many talents superbly, not least as a Guitar Supremo too, at a standard you have never heard before.
Undoubtedly, A Tribute To LJK goes as one of the most inspired and accomplished records in the career of a super-talented and eclectic artist like Eric Gales clearly is. A record that his brother, from up above, like Gales' many fans will be surely very happy with.
A Tribute To LJK is due to be released on 24th October via Provogue / Mascot Label Group
