RICKY Z, Back to the Truth

After more than 25 years of making other artists sound great, guitarist, producer and longtime session ace Ricky Z finally turns the spotlight fully on himself with Back to the Truth, a muscular, deeply rooted blues-rock collection that sounds less like a career detour than a long-overdue homecoming.

Across these ten tracks, Ricky draws from a wonderfully unruly sonic palette—swamp blues, rock ’n’ roll, Americana, Cajun/zydeco, gospel and flashes of jazz—while bringing along some heavyweight friends, including drummer Chad Cromwell, bassist Jimmy Earl, keyboardists Carey Frank and Ed Roth, and fellow guitarist Anders Osborne. The result is gritty, exuberant and occasionally surprisingly tender, with Ricky’s guitar functioning not merely as a soloist but as another storyteller. Longtime collaborator and bassist Larry Kimpel is also central to the album’s songwriting fabric, co-writing the opening track “Mister Please and “Lay My Body Low with Ricky and penning the lyrics to the high-flying “Dancing Shoes.”

Offering a killer opening leg of the journey, “Mister Please” is a fast-moving blues-rock burner featuring Grammy nominated blues singer Teresa James. Big drums, thumping groove, organ swells and Ricky’s impassioned vocal quickly establish the album’s fiery character before James enters with her own raspy energy. The arrangement keeps shifting gears, from crunchy guitar exchanges to a meditative electric-guitar passage and then a wild organ eruption before Ricky tears into another blistering solo. “Congo Square” turns up the heat even further, riding a funky, almost tribal drum pattern beneath jangling guitar, shimmering organ and buoyant female harmonies. Its repeated chorus gives the song an anthemic New Orleans flavor.

Ricky’s blues also knows how to slow down. “Time Served” is a simmering, sensual power ballad built around low-toned guitar, brooding bass, gospel-tinged vocals and a female choir that echoes his soaring chorus. His crying, intricately improvised guitar solo becomes an emotional extension of the lyric. Then comes the title instrumental, “Back to the Truth,” a rollicking guitar throwdown with Anders Osborne where fiery electric lines bounce between bluesy keyboards and a quick-rolling groove. It feels like two old friends having a very animated musical argument—and loving every minute of it.

One of the album’s coolest production touches arrives with “Lay My Body Low,” which begins as though Ricky has unearthed an ancient Delta recording: scratchy LP noise, filtered vocals and plucky front-porch guitar gradually give way to full-blown modern blues-rock mayhem. “Hallelujah,” his starkly intimate take on the Leonard Cohen classic, reverses that trajectory, beginning with nothing more than a gritty, weathered vocal and electric-guitar twang before slowly expanding into organ, deeper guitar and an extended distorted solo.

The playful “Dancing Shoes” and Louisiana-flavored “We Make a Good Gumbo” inject pure party spirit, while the gentle acoustic opening of “God Has Smiled on Me” reveals a quieter side of Ricky before developing into a melodic electric-guitar meditation. Closing with the searching “Looking for the Light,” he turns toward struggle, faith and redemption, supported by powerful female harmonies.

Ricky describes Back to the Truth as an extension of his first collection The Long and Dusty Road, with influences from John Lee Hooker, Larry Carlton, Rory Gallagher, Wes Montgomery, Albert King, Peter Frampton and Voice of the Wetlands appearing as “colors in the sonic tapestry.” More personally, he says, “As with any record, it stands as a testament to where I am both musically and personally right now. Tomorrow, who knows.”

For an artist who has spent decades supporting everyone else’s musical visions, Back to the Truth is a wonderfully convincing, long awaited statement of his own.