California based singer/songwriter/slide guitarist David Vidal recorded the labor of love "After The Storm" at Origin Sound in Houston, Texas over the course of almost two years. What started out as song demo's of a few collaborations written by Vidal and Texas based tunesmiths Chip Lazauskas and John Amos morphed into a full blown album of material writtten by Vidal and numerous co-writers. During much of that time Vidal was on tour, and at one point the studio was under several feet of flood water. Regardless, the project rolled on. Or floated, as the case may be. The core of the band is Grammy Award winning drummer James Rose (Asleep At The Wheel, Doctor John) and bassist Ed Starkey (Shelly West). Mark May (Dicky Betts Band) plays lead guitar. The unit is rounded out by keyboardists Skip Nallia (Joe Sample) and Barry Selin (Omar and the Howlers), with appearances by bassists Larry Evans (Mark May Band) and Jeremiah Hamilton, zydeco accordionist Donald Glenn, Los Angeles guitar ace Larry Treadwell (Thomas Dolby) and a special appearance by Texas blues icon Earl Gilliam on Hammond B3. And of course the extraordinary Laura Creamer (Bob Seger, Eric Clapton, Bruce Hornsby) on harmonies and percussion and the lead vocal on the bonus track, "Dreamin'". The album opens up with "Let It Be Me", an acoustic ballad reminiscent of the thirties, with John Amos playing acoustic guitar and Vidal slipping in sparse slide parts to provide counterpoint to the bluesy vocal. The album then shifts into the title track, the post-Katrina New Orleans funk groove "After The Storm". Co-written with Louisiana songstress Julie Didier, the tune is driven by James Rose's second line groove, Ed Starkey's funky bass line, May's guitar and of course Earl Gilliam's organ stabs..."It ain't been easy, in the Big Easy / Pickin' up the pieces, After The Storm". The whiskey drenched "I'm Lucky", with it's barrel house Skip Nallia piano and Vidal's acoustic slide work and gruff vocals, was written by Vidal in Galveston, just prior to Hurricane Ike. It includes the lines "I went down to water, to watch the waves roll in / A big ol' piece of driftwood told me everywhere it's been / I can't help it, I'm lucky that way". The track leaves plenty of space for both Vidal's slide and Nallia's piano to shine. Next comes the Southern boogie woogie "Sometimes U Got 2 Choose", with it's playful guitar interplay between Mark May and Larry Treadwell. The quirky upbeat "Hotel Know It All", with it's great Laura Creamer harmonies and perky rhythm ("In the Hotel Know It All, there's not far to fall") was co-written with pop writer Michele Vice Maslin, and sets up perfectly the haunting, almost PInk Floydian ballad "The Wanting", co-written with Vidal's wife, lyricist Liz Vidal... "Heartbeats like steel drums, they stand in a line / It's for all or for none, and it's done for the wanting sometimes". The Dire Straits-ish "Holy Land", featuring some very tasty Mark May guitar leads interwoven with Vidal's harmonica ("It's really something, they don't understand / You pulled me out of the darkness and into the Holy Land", is followed by the driving roadhouse rocker "My Sweet Nadine"... "I was sittin' in a little roadside dive in Texas, watchin' the National Guard drive by / There was a poster of Tommy Lee Jones on the wall, it was all faded / The enchilada plate looked good and the waitress had a beehive." After that the accordion driven Cajun waltz "C'est La Vie, Mon Petit", another written with Julie Didier, drops us right in the middle of the swamp... "C'est La Vie, Mon Petit, there's good love and bad love / Hot love and sad love, tasted and wasted love / C'est La Vie, Mon Petit, the truth's a hard mistress / C'est La Vie, Mon Petit". Next comes the rollicking bottleneck guitar based Bullfrog ("I feel just like a Bullfrog, sing a Bullfrog song / Come down off the mountain and get down in the pond"). The album ends with the acoustic ballad Troubadour... "I'll sing a song of true love, I'll sing about the war / I'll draw tears from a crocodile, I'm a troubadour." And of course, last but certainly not least is the beautiful bonus track "Dreamin'", co-written with Chip Lazauskas and Laura Creamer, and sung by Detroit native Creamer. This is David Vidal's fourth solo album since he left the cult band Village of Odd Waters. During that time he has toured extensively as a solo artist, and had numerous songs placed in movies and television shows, including the classic Southern comedy "My Cousin Vinny" and the hit series "Friday Night Lights". Record producer Harry Maslin (David Bowie, James Taylor, The Grateful Dead), who mastered the collection in Santa Monica, California, summed it up like this... "After The Storm is a very cool album." Billy Moschella, Jr. said of David Vidal's recent performance at the Viper Room in Hollywood..."his attention grabbing two hour performance was a spectacular sonic experience."