After spending some years in France for the management of the unforgettable backing vocalist of Jean-Jacques Goldman Carole Fredericks, the younger sister of the bluesman Taj Mahal, the Floridian guitarist Christopher Satterfield also recorded in 1997 a blues rock album Drivin' for the label Night & Day. But feeling the homesickness, the man took a plane back to his native Florida to start a hell of Southern Rock power trio eyeing the seventies, and to release in 2012 a self-produced album, 6 strings 9 lives, utterly groovy. Christopher is a remarkable lead guitar, he plays additionnally the bass lines, assisted by the drummer Ian Goodman and Larry Albritton as lead vocalist. Their authentic style is a real breath of oxygen that changes from the current Southern Rock actuel imbued with clumsy rhythmic parts, we find again the yesteryear alchemy dispensed by the Floridian connection Skynyrd/38 Special/Allen Collins Band/Rossington Collins Band, with also sometimes a serious Allmanian touch, like the way in proves it with the eponymous title «  6 strings 9 lives  », with a prestige tumbler on slide guitar Mister Les Dudek. The very well built and peppy «  Oxycontin  » arrives to affirm then with the very good «  Easy Rider  », an old school Southern Rock that makes the old Southern rockers' hearts happy thanks to the voluble guitar. Then a little deflagration on «  Turn It On  », that has the same accuracy and almost the same musical presence than the 38 Special one dating back to 1980 on thealbum Rockin' Into The Night. Satterfield proclaims the pure coincidence, I hope so because his nose could stretch out. The music becomes more laid-back on «  Rock’n Roller  » and «  Florida  », but still with well-venomous slide parts, some well-crawling on «  Black Gold  », a Skynyrdian Swamp Rock that tells us the deplorable work of the shit disturbers of the oil company BP in Louisiana, then we shake the palm tree on the twirling Southern Rock tunes «  High Roller  » and «  Lakeland  » with a Satterfield who knit wonderfully his guitar notes, the Southern El Dorado comes with «  One More For The Road  », a ceremonious one with the quite drawling vocals of Larry Albritton who distinguish himself in an honeyed way, then straight forward, make way to the relentless and usual turnery certified «  Free Bird  », the lesson ends again with the eponymous «  6 strings 9 lives  » in a longer version and a Les Dudek more chatty, that finishes this prominent album of real Southern Rock like we'd love to listen to more often.

Jacques Dersigny
Translation  : Y. Philippot-Degand