** Sugar Ray

SWEET & SWINGIN'

(Bullseye Blues)

Sugar Ray Norcia is one of the most adept blues lounge lizards around, but it seems he's falling asleep at his barstool on his first solo album since departing Roomful of Blues. He's got the vocal tone and the 'tude on tunes like the strong opener, "Jack, She's on the Ball," and Big Walter's "Need My Baby." (Did I mention that Sugar's a harmonica sharpshooter, too, with a tone wide enough to embrace a whole world's weariness?) But he never gets above mid-tempo here, never injects the kind of high-spirited dynamism that fueled Roomful's party nights. So the whole outing's one-dimensional, and eventually, like an evening of too many martinis, it becomes blurry. This is more a failure of spirit than of performance. Sugar sings well, and the cast includes New England heavyweights Kid Bangham (guitar), Matt McCabe (piano), Marty Ballou (bass), and Doug James (baritone sax), plus visiting vocal bad-asses the Jordanaires. But what's really needed is more varied mixology.

-- Ted Drozdowski