Sardinas Skillfully Makes His Guitar Speak for Itself

Having seen this veteran Orange County blues man play twice, once with a band and once solo-acoustic, I had marked two strikes against him on my scorecard, with the notation that he was one of those all-flash, no-taste guys who would rather strut his stuff than communicate.

But on CD, Sardinas has smashed the potential third strike off the fence for a long, extra-base hit.

Sardinas lives up to the large tattoo on his back that’s prominently displayed in the CD booklet: a snake coiling around a guitar, illustrating the slogan, “Respect Tradition.” He doesn’t try to expand the blues vocabulary in this sequence of elemental, done-me-wrong, I’m-desperate and I’m-hurtin’ songs. Covers of nuggets from Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, John Lee Hooker, Fred McDowell, Johnny Winter and others alternate with originals in a similar mode.

But Sardinas jolts those familiar sentiments into vivid life with superbly articulated slide-guitar playing that slashes, bites and grabs attention with its sheer fire and guts. Drummer Scott Palacios plays off the guitar lines with telepathic responsiveness and deft syncopation. It’s like listening to two sticks rubbing together to kindle flames.

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The opening title track signals that this hour-plus album could turn into a long ride: Sardinas’ raspy, stringy-thin, not very tuneful voice is the kind that can grate; he sounds like a beagle trying to bark like a mastiff. But his commanding instrumental presence is established from the start. As the album plays on, Sardinas makes the most of what he has vocally, punctuating his delivery with whoops and grunts that help register the blunt feelings he wants to get across.

He comes off vocally as a much lesser, but still worthwhile version of John Hammond, the top-flight blues traditionalist. Hammond provides a thumbs-up blurb for Sardinas in the liner notes.

Two other big names endorse Sardinas by playing guitar on the album. Hubert Sumlin, Howlin’ Wolf’s sideman, joins a hurtling version of Wolf’s “Down in the Bottom,” and Johnny Winter doubles Sardinas’ meaty slide guitar with his own distinctive, molten lava playing on “Tired of Tryin.” Is it just a coincidence that Winter also has struck me as a guy who nails it on record, then undergoes an unhappy transformation on stage into a blurrily speeding equivalent of the bore at the cocktail party who can’t shut up?

Sardinas offers several good originals, including “Cherry Bomb,” a primal pure-lust number, and “Sweetwater Blues,” a solo-acoustic song that etches with simple strokes the plight of a man trapped by his own bad habits and harmful pleasures. He also shows an instinct for rock-leaning blues without betraying the slogan on his back.

“Give Me Love” has the feel of the fine mid-tempo shuffles that the classic British blues-rock band, Free, used to play, and “Goin’ to the River” is a folksy, lilting number that calls to mind the earthiest side of Bonnie Raitt. They are helpful changes of pace on a long CD that seldom lags.

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(Available from Evidence Music Inc., 1100 E. Hector St., Suite 392, Conshohocken, PA 19428)

* Eric Sardinas, Rocco deLuca and Rod and the Pistons play Friday at the Coach House, 33157 Camino Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano. 8 p.m. $10-$12. (949) 496-8930. Sardinas plays Saturday at the Blue Cafe, 210 Promenade, Long Beach. 10 p.m. $8. (562) 983-7111.

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Albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor) to four stars (excellent).