Real Blues Magazine

  Now this is cool! A musical expose of the corrupt politics that keep reefer illegal and the corporate scheming that prevents hemp from saving the environment. How does it connect to Real Blues? Hey, the blues is the truth, right? The blues is also the music of the underdogs, the downtrodden and it also echoes the contemporary social consciousness. So when you take a CD so full of truths, politics and proletarian perspective and you add some great musical guests such as vocalists par excellence Sir Harry Bowens, Sweet Pea Atkinson, Taj Mahal and Charmaine Neville and have a backup band comprised of Chris Brubeck, Wayne Kramer, Chris Spedding, Dan Frankel and Ric Parnell, among others, then you have a potent brew happening.

  Sir Harry and Sweet Pea were the player-style lead vocalists of Was Not Was and I could listen to these two smooth soul meisters forever. Taj Mahal's "Slow Lane" is a real gas and our old activist buddy Peter Stampfel (The Fugs) contributes "Balance the Budget". (Who says you can't make a living being a social/political gadfly?) And our true hero, John Sinclair of the legendary Ann Arbour Jazz & Blues Festivals (1968 - 1972?)even contributes a history lesson in "George Washington" (it's true, he grew huge tracts of hemp).

  Jonathan Stuart who wrote and co-produced this statement CD deserves our support shooting spitballs and shouting out the truth at the Monolothic Wizard of Greed. My advice is to buy this CD, get mellow and groove to sounds. As the song says, "Music's So Much Better..." 4 bottles for a disc that dares. We thank you and salute you Jonathan Stuart.
-A. Grigg

High Times Magazine

Prohibition Blues

  In 1976, Jonathan Stuart wrote a pro-pot play called Mary Jane. His off-Broadway production never got past previews. Perhaps the subject matter was too controversial. Twenty-two years later, Stuart asked veteran producer Hal Willner to take on the project, which had evolved into an album of marijuana music. The result of this collaboration, The New Prohibition, has been released on Stuart's own Viper label.

  Though Stuart wrote all the lyrics, Willner's irrepressible eclecticism is all over the album. Willner once was the musical director of Saturday Night Live and with a series of delightful tributes to Kurt Weill, Thelonoius Monk and Walt Disney Single-handedly created the genre. But The New Prohibition is different. It's original music, not familiar tunes getting a contemporary facelift. Willner assembled a strong band to execute Stuart's songs. R&B singers Sweet Pea Atkinson and Sir Henry Bowens are featured on three tracks, and the house band includes guitarists Wayne Kramer and Chris Spedding, and Dave Brubeck's bass-playing son, Chris. They twist the material with zealous glee.

  Blues, jazz and rock blend into an avant-garde stew that boils over, challenging your musical aptitude. One particular highlight is "George Washington", on which John Sinclair embodies our first president who we all know was a hemp advocate. "How can I start a revolution with no hemp?" Sinclair growls. "The morale of my troops will certainly droop if we stoop to stems and seeds/I'll have to cop from Jefferson to satisfy our needs".

It's that kind of humor that informs this essential album.
-Steve Bloom, High Times Magazine