ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT, SEPT. 29, 1994
By Steve Newton
Not many rock guitarists could step into Eric Clapton’s shoes—especially the sizeable ones he’s wearing right now, following the release of his stunning blues album, From the Cradle. But when Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker picked Gary Moore to become the M in BBM and hold down the spot formerly occupied by Clapton in their ’60s supergroup, Cream, they couldn’t have made a wiser choice.
Moore wrote or cowrote all but two of the 10 tracks on Around the Next Dream, and some of them sound like ’90s-produced remakes of Cream classics. “Waiting in the Wings” is about as close as you can get to “Sunshine of Your Love” without being guilty of copyright infringement, and “City of Gold” is basically Cream’s version of “Crossroads” with new lyrics.
Moore-sung tracks like “Can’t Fool the Blues” and “I Wonder Why (Are You So Mean to Me?)” sound like leftovers from his last two blues-oriented studio recordings, but tasty ones all the same, thanks to his mind-blowing solos. There’s nothing new about BBM’s debut, but it won’t disappoint retro-rock followers and fans of hot guitar in general.