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THE LOWBRED WATTS
GET HOME
He’s moved on from modifying cigar boxes to make electric guitars, but a primitive, do-it-yourself spirit still suffuses Rhode Island native Ryan Stapler’s raw take on stripped-down blues and folk forms. The Melrose resident performs solo under the moniker the Lowbred Watts (playing at Hennessey’s Hooley House on July 28), and he has fashioned a bracing five-track debut EP that nods deeply to Dylan and the Delta, as well as the basement-bred rock of younger whippersnappers such as the Black Keys. On the fingerpicked folk of “In the Sun,’’ for instance, Stapler’s vocal phrasing - a jab of a consonant here, a drawl of a vowel there - recalls pre-electric Bob doing his best Woody Guthrie. On the EP-closing “Move On,’’ Stapler’s snaggle-toothed electric guitar growls with a hoodoo groove that seems capable of summoning the spirits of Mississippi Fred McDowell and R.L. Burnside. Stapler’s a relative newcomer to the Boston scene. His self-produced “Get Home’’ sounds like a preview of a songwriting voice that, while still a bit too indebted to his musical influences, comes across as vital, genuine, and promising. (Out now and available for free download at www.thelowbredwatts.com)
JONATHAN PERRY 
© Copyright 2011 Globe Newspaper Company.
