“Lingering Injuries” from Drumming Force Matt Abts out of Gov’t Mule Tour

- Terence Higgins to fill in for Back in the Saddle tour

Matt Abts will miss Gov’t Mule’s Back in the Saddle tour as he nurses “some lingering injuries from years behind the kit.”

The Mule co-founder announced his “tough but necessary decision to stay home” days before the band’s tour begins Aug. 27 in Wisconsin.

“I’m OK - and will be fine,” Abts said in a statement. “I just need some time at home to rest and recover.”

Abts missed Mule’s shows in March with the flu and a short run in July as he was “under the weather.” As he did then, Warren Haynes Band drummer Terence Higgins will fill Abts’ place, leaving Haynes as the only original Mule on the tour, which ends Nov. 1.

“You are in great hands,” Abts said.

Song Review: Gov’t Mule - “Heavy Load”

Woke up singin’ a dead man’s song, Warren Haynes sings to open “Heavy Load.”

It’s something Haynes - one of the world‘s premier cover artists and member of the latter-day Allman Brothers Band and the (not Grateful) Dead - has done a lot of. But “Heavy Load” is an original and the lead single/nominal title track from Gov’t Mule’s Heavy Load Blues.

And though Heavy Load Blues is a group project - trumpeted as “the band’s first-ever blues album” - “Heavy Load” is a Haynes solo-slide-acoustic track.

“For me, personally, it's kind of been on my list of things to do for years,” Haynes said in a statement. “I didn’t know if it was gonna be a solo album or a Gov’t Mule record. … This album gave us a mission. … It’s not a blues/rock record - it’s a blues record. We wanted it sonically to sound different from a normal Gov’t Mule record.”

There are no guitar fireworks - just Haynes singing about blues themes like his woman leaving him; him leaving a lonesome town at nightfall; finding no relief; and being buried by the riverside.

Just let me play these heavy load blues, he sings toward the end of the seven-minute track.

Heavy Load Blues is slated for a Nov. 12 release.

Grade card: Gov’t Mule - “Heavy Load” - B

Song Review: Gov’t Mule - “Dreams & Songs”

Warren Haynes recycled his best-known Allman Brothers Band song and turned it into Gov’t Mule’s new single.

“Dreams & Songs” will appear on Gov’t Mule’s next album Revolution Come … Revolution Go, out June 9, and is cut from the same musical cloth as 1994’s “Soulshine.” But instead of thinking back to Daddy’s words as he did more than two decades ago, Haynes is now looking into his son’s eyes for inspiration.

It’s an autobiographical number in which Haynes addresses his reputation as the hardest-working man in rock ‘n’ roll.

A moving target is harder to kill/I never was one for taking it easy/or standing still

Accentuated with lush, wordless backing vocals and flecked with subtle keyboard fills, “Dreams & Songs” suffers from music that tries too hard to be dramatic and words that try too hard to be introspective. Like “Soulshine,” it’s full of nice sentiment; however, it’s loaded down with sap and comes off as cheesy.

Grade card: Gov’t Mule - “Dreams & Songs” - C-

Read Sound Bites’ review of “Stone Cold Rage” and “Sarah, Surrender” here: https://krispyweiss.tumblr.com/post/159525719398/song-reviews-govt-mule-stone-cold-rage-and

Jorgen Carlsson Leaves Gov’t Mule on Eve of Summer Tour; Kevin Scott is In

- “We thank (him) for all his incredible work,” band says of departing bassist

After 15 years, Gov’t Mule bassist Jorgen Carlsson is out of the band.

Kevin Scott, who filled in for Carlsson in 2022 when the bassist had COVID-19, will play with the group on its summer tour, beginning June 9 in Oregon.

Gov’t Mule announced the change in the third paragraph of a three-paragraph statement reminding fans about the tour and its new album, out June 16.

“Before we take the stage, we do want to let you know that our friend Kevin Scott will be joining us on bass,” the band said. “We thank Jorgen Carlsson for all his incredible work, including on Peace … Like a River and wish him the best.”

No reason was given and it’s unclear if Scott is officially Mule’s fourth bassist or a substitute. Either way, it’s an “honor - I have been a huge fan since I was in my early 20s,” Scott told Live for Live Music.

“I’m very excited for the future - to develop my own take on the catalog (and) also taking huge inspiration from (Allen) Woody, Andy (Hess) and Jorgen’s amazing bass work over the years.”

Album Review: Gov’t Mule - Heavy Load Blues

Only some of the songs are old. But even the new originals sound that way as Gov’t Mule recorded Heavy Load Blues live in studio through vintage amplifiers and bullet mics to analog tape, giving the album sonic patina that screams early 20th century.

The best way to glean the originals from the covers - besides knowing the classics - is the derivative nature and hackneyed lyrics (“If Heartaches Were Nickels”) of Warren Haynes’ songwriting. “Hole in My Soul,” for example, cops a riff from “The Pink Panther Theme” and “Love is a Mean Old World” is “Dixie Chicken” slathered in grimy goo. A couple of acoustic numbers, including the solo “Heavy Load,” remind listeners who drives this Mule.

But Haynes and co-conspirators Danny Louis (keys/guitar), Matt Abts (drums) and bassist Jorgen Carlsson succeed in their mission to craft an album “sonically … different from a normal Gov’t Mule record,” by making gritty covers of Tom Waits “Make it Rain,” the Animals’ “(Brother Bill) Last Clean Shirt” and setting Howlin’ Wolf’s “I Asked Her for Water, She Gave Me Gasoline,” to a slow-moving arrangement of “Crosstown Traffic.”

The hybrid nature of the LP reaches its logical conclusion when Mule shoehorns a no-holds-barred jam titled “Hold it Back” inside Junior Wells’ “Snatch it Back and Hold It.”

Hard-core fans might want their old Mule back. Casual fans are just as likely to really dig Heavy Load Blues, which is not at all “a normal Gov’t Mule record.”

Grade card: Gov’t Mule - Heavy Load Blues - B

Segue Review: Gov’t Mule - “Snatch it Back and Hold It” -> “Hold it Back” -> “Snatch it Back and Hold It”

Gov’t Mule quite literally insert themselves into a Junior Wells number, not only by remaking the bluesman’s “Snatch it Back and Hold It,” but by slipping their own “Hold it Back” between the bookending cover.

Described as a “spontaneous jam thrown in,” the midsection sounds planned and composed as the transition is smooth, just like the groove. Band leader Warren Haynes, meanwhile, has some Stevie Ray Vaughan in his fingertips as he lets it rip.

For its part, “Snatch it Back” sounds decades old with intentionally low-fidelity sound, crackly vocals and grimy production best suited to dusty wax. But the followup to “Heavy Load” is streaming ahead of the Nov. 12 arrival of Heavy Load Blues.

Grade card: Gov’t Mule - “Snatch it Back and Hold It” -> “Hold it Back” -> “Snatch it Back and Hold It” - B