The blues are Green Frozen Swamp Choppers in tow, he's Hot All Day BY SAM PFEIFLE

I’ve been dismissive of the blues in the past. In 2002, I even published a column wishing they’d go away for a year. The genre had lost its freshness for me, mired as it seemed to be in solos in E-minor, B, and A, similar as all the songs seemed to be to each other. My Robert Johnson discs gathered dust. Taj Mahal sat unspun. Howlin’ Wolf was quiet as a mouse.

Like a bolt of blue lightning, however, Eric Green has helped me rediscover what I was missing. Driving to Boston a couple weeks back, I had his Hot All Day in the briefcase. Filing away the newest G. Love album, I noticed Green’s duotoned, funky horse-woman on the cover, so I gave it a play.

The first song was on repeat before it had gone two minutes.

Green’s truncated staccato guitar sound on the album’s opening title track hooked me hard. Incredibly warm and inviting, it was just enough to match Green’s wonderfully affected voice, deep, gravelly, and seemingly born in the swamps of Louisiana (though Green currently hails from Bangor, and I have no idea where he might have been born, but he doesn’t appear to be a 75-year-old black man — rather a late-twenties white guy).

"Let me crawl like a reptile across your kitchen floor," he coos to his mistress before exploding in frustration: "If you won’t tell me, how’m I s’pposed to know?" That last line has been stuck in my head for weeks.

"If you won’t tell me, how’m I s’pposed to know?"

A funked- and spaced-out bass from Ezra Rugg (the Swamp Choppers are Green’s rotating backing band, with various Bangor-area musicians filling in on different instruments) contemporizes the sound just enough so that this isn’t some kind of Delta Blues homage, but rather a riff on a well known genre. It’s not altogether unlike what the Black Keys are doing (actually, the two Black Keys albums have done their fair share in reenergizing my blues affections), but it’s not quite as stripped-down as the Keys, nor quite as manic.

"I need a little voodoo to bring my baby back to me," Green growls, his guitar emitting a paucity of notes, used to great effect to evoke "gators in the swamp . . . dripping in the moonlight/ Baby you better get a cup/ When the sun gets up/ Baby it’s gonna get hot."

Green’s delivery is perfectly on, relaxed without seeming drunken, with just enough hesitation behind the beat to increase anticipation. That beat’s supplied by Nigel Hall’s largely minimized drums, and though they’re maybe a little hollow, their lo-fi mic’ing lends just enough outdoor, on-the-front-porch feel to help Green pull this whole thing off. Each line of the chorus is punctuated by a cymbal hit, leading to visuals of the entire band kind of rocking forward as one in their chairs.

Does the song maybe go on too long? Maybe one final chorus could have been left out, but I could listen to this song all day, so I’m not complaining.

That said, "Super-Elastic," the album’s second tune, was something of a disappointment. It’s a ’70s funk, wicka-wicka kind of thing, too over the top, with an organ sound that just doesn’t jibe with the song prior. Plus, Green leaves his range for the chorus of "Rocks on the seashore/ Rocks on the street," and he has to somewhat abandon the vocal style that’s so attractive in the first song. Even on the second verse, "it’s back-assward," he loses much of that gravel and almost comes out of character.

This happens again in the Steely Dan-ish "Throwdown," and the Zappa-influenced "Space Girl" is just a bit silly, but there are luckily plenty of other gems on this record as Green returns to more bluesy fare. "Piece of the Pie" is a superior mix of a simple guitar-bass-drums arrangement, with Paul Bosse especially fine on the rhythm, and the sound getting back to that warm and inviting tone. Green’s delivery makes what could easily be a corny set of lyrics instead just drip with sexual innuendo and suggestion that tucks you under the covers on a cold night (of which there are plenty nowadays).

"A little piece of the pie at the end of the ride will keep me satisfied," he leers, "with cream on the top, shouldn’t come as a shock . . . spoonful of honey, baby, at the end of the night, not too much, just enough." It rings of hot Savannah nights.

What’s so impressive, though, is the variety. Green succeeds with more than just one blues approach. "Three Leagues Deep" is a "Minnie the Moocher" jazzy blues, with guitar pops followed by isolated lyric delivery in smooth fashion and ample spaces for finger snapping. "Chicken Lick’n Highway" is rockabilly/jump blues, a truck-driving homage where "the hammer’s down, the engine’s hot."

But the kicker is when Green pulls off the acoustic blues ballad in "Steel Wall," which is remarkably full and embracing, and effectively puts forward the same persona evinced in the other songs with such swagger, here in total supplication. "How could I be wrong?/ After all of those nights, turned into days/ Tell me I’m right, if I step to the ledge, to cure all the ills/ If I open my door, would I warm all the chills?"

Talk about chills, the chorus delivers: "Can you come down off the mountain?/ Still have my heart in your hands/ Sinkin’ slow in the deep water/ Still have my heart in your hands."

This stuff sure feels authentic, even if Green may not have your standard hard-core bluesman resume. And it’s definitely enough to get me dusting off those Robert Johnson discs again. Maybe I could make a deal with the Devil that would just ensure that I never have to hear "Mustang Sally" again.

Sam Pfeifle can be reached at spfeifle@phx.com

Eric Green and the Frozen Swamp Choppers play Salsa, in Portland, on Thursday, Dec. 16. Call (207) 871-8222.