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Fast becoming an icon of his musical generation, American Blues guitarist and singer Christone ‘Kingfish’ Ingram blasts onto British shores for his UK tour this October, tightly clutching highly coveted Jazz FM award nomination for ‘Best Blues Artist’ 2022. Following his sell-out London show earlier this year, ferocious public demand will see Christone ‘Kingfish’ Ingram to return to the UK stages with a full headline UK tour this October. The 6-date tour which will see the singer perform in Sheffield, Birmingham, Glasgow, Newcastle, Manchester and London.
Since the release of Kingfish, his Grammy-nominated 2019 Alligator Records debut, guitarist, vocalist and songwriter Christone “Kingfish” Ingram has quickly become the defining blues voice of his generation. From his hometown of Clarksdale, Mississippi to stages around the world, the now 22-year-old has already headlined two national tours and performed with friends including Vampire Weekend, Jason Isbell and Buddy Guy (with whom he appeared on Austin City Limits). He was interviewed by Sir Elton John on his Apple Music podcast, Rocket Hour, and released a duet with Bootsy Collins. In January 2021, Ingram was simultaneously on the covers of both Guitar World and DownBeat magazines, and graced the cover of Living Blues in late 2020. Rolling Stone declared, “Kingfish is one of the most exciting young guitarists in years, with a sound that encompasses B.B. King, Jimi Hendrix and Prince.”
Denmark’s premier roots-rockers Thorbjørn Risager & The Black Tornado have released an official music video for “Navigation Blues,” the title track off their new album, out September 30th via Provogue / Mascot Label Group. A sepia-tinged pre-war blues stomp that sees Risager yearn, “Truckloads of darkness here, and my matches are soaking wet…will this black night ever end,” the song spins an ominous tale of being lost in an abyss, with no direction home. “Sometimes your GPS is just not working and your maps are torn apart and you don’t know what to do or where to go,” Thorbjørn reflects.
Over the past twenty years, Thorbjørn Risager & The Black Tornado has blazed a trail across Scandinavia, Europe, Canada, the US and Asia. They’ve been captivating crowds with their dynamic stage presence and a sound that fuses soul, Chicago blues, boogie and rock ‘n’ roll with a voice where Ray Charles, Van Morrison and Billy Gibbons meet in the middle. They’ve brought dancing shoes to Europe’s largest festival stages and low-light noir-ish blues to Jazz clubs around the globe.
The band have already released the lyric videos for “Fire Inside” and “Watch the Sun Go Down” from the album.
Two decades on the road have given the band an incredible ability to know what makes people move – in both feet and heart. On Navigation Blues, they use this skill with complete precision, whether it be the front-porch blues of “The Way You Make Me Feel” to roof-raising rockers such as “Fire Inside” or “Headed for the Stars” to the gentle ache of “Blue Lullaby” and “Heart Crash.” But their showmanistic sense of adventure is never far away, which can be seen on the rock ‘n’ roller “Hoodoo Lover” or the boogie of “Taking the Good With the Bad.”
Their prolific travels around the globe have swept up fans across every corner, including non-other than Elwood Blues himself, Dan Aykroyd! Who hailed their “Hot rhythm and blues”, saying Risager has “got a great voice, great delivery and feels the blues. The songs are original, but sound like they come from a Stax recording session circa 1965.”
The band are in white-hot form and will be showcasing their new material across Europe for the rest of 2022. “Playing live in front of an audience makes you feel alive. That’s the best way to describe it, I think. It’s good to feel alive,” he smiles.
The world of blues cannot be defined by one generation, one particular genre of the blues, country blues, electric blues, blues/rock, it’s all a bit of a gumbo. However, live blues albums came into prominence at the beginning of the 60s and defined a part of the blues that was largely untouched on vinyl, a live recording. Technology was in its infancy compared to today, but with these first two choices, we see just how good things were over 60 years ago. Any live album aims to capture the true nature of the performance, but not all succeed. Live At The Regal, and Newport 1960 certainly do. These albums are a catalyst for any aspiring blues musician, whatever your age. This was the beginning of the golden era of vinyl. Thankfully, it is receiving a new lease of life.
In 1964, after playing the blues for well over a decade, B.B.King arrived in Chicago at the legendary Regal Theatre located at 1641 East 79th Street. The blues in America around this time had been in a slump, that is until the so-called British Invasion, The Rolling Stones, to name just one. What they did virtually overnight, was to turn America back onto its own heritage. The gig opened with, Everyday I Have the Blues, a song that immediately springs to mind when anyone says the name, B.B.King. With a backing band of six musicians, King goes on to record one of the finest live blues albums of all time, with Eric Clapton, John Mayer, and Carlos Santana among the musicians heavily influenced. Even though the album was recorded
in the early 60s, the quality is as good as anything that you will hear today, even with advanced technology. King’s guitar, Lucille, has never sounded as sweet as t does here. How Blue Can You Get is probably the most covered of all King’s songs, I’ve heard so many versions, but none of them come anywhere near this performance. To be in a small theatre watching this legend of the blues create a legendary album that is still as important today as it was back then, would be worth more than all the gold in the world. Side 2 commences with, You Upset Me Baby, another all-time classic blues ballad. It’s not just the music that you hear playing that
makes this such a standout album, it’s the feeling that resonates from the vinyl into your very soul, this is why vinyl records are selling in such vast numbers again. Greatness and legend are words that are bandied about frequently nowadays, but Live At The Regal deserves such acclaim. Help The Poor concludes one of the blue’s finest live shows to ever be recorded. If you want to learn about the blues, avail yourself of a copy of this on vinyl. Start your journey here, let this album be your compass.
As well as writing about legendary live blues albums, I feel it is only fair to mention one that is far more recent, yet just as important in many ways. The celebration of Peter Green and the early years of Fleetwood Mac, happened a few short months before Peter Green passed away. A small intimate gig at
the world-famous London Palladium right before the pandemic shut everything down, would capture performances from some of the biggest names in music. This was the brainchild of Mick Fleetwood, drummer and life-long friend of Peter Green. He called up a few friends and had a couple of rehearsals at his home in Hawaii, invited some more people, and hey presto, a gig that will last in people’s memory forever. The house band for the evening consisted of, Mick Fleetwood, Zack Starkey, Rick Vito, Johnny Lang, and Andy Fairweather-Low. What followed was one of the greatest gigs of modern times, taking us
back to the very first Fleetwood Mac album, hearing tunes that had been written and performed by Peter Green, some of which had never been played in a live environment before. To hear these songs given a new lease of life by stellar musicians is a thing that I shall never forget. And because the gig has been released on vinyl in a deluxe boxset along with Blur-Ray DVD, I can relive it whenever I want to. Having only heard some of these tunes sporadically over the years, watching and listening to this momentous gig, I believe it has breathed new life into the songs. It would be nigh on impossible to single out one single performance, that is the beauty of this box-set package. Being able to listen to this on vinyl is one of my dearest enjoyable times. So sit back, drop the vinyl on the deck and enjoy some of the best blues ever to make it onto a record.
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Rory Gallagher’s “Deuce” sophomore solo album from 1971, a deluxe CD boxset will be released by UMC on Friday September 30th.
The extensive celebratory release digs deep into the Rory Gallagher Archives and will include a new mix of the original album, twenty-eight previously unreleased alternate takes, a six-song 1972 BBC Radio ‘In Concert’, and seven Radio Bremen radio session tracks. The package will contain a 64-page hardback book with a foreword by Johnny Marr of The Smiths, unseen images by the late Mick Rock, essays,
and memorabilia from the album recording. The 2CD and 3LP will be cut down versions from the deluxe box and there will be a special D2C 1LP of the “BBC In Concert – Live at The Paris Theatre, 13 January 1972.”
“There was one day when I was playing along with the Deuce album which was a complete turning point for me as a guitar player”
– Johnny Marr
Released in November 1971, just six months after his eponymous solo debut, Rory Gallagh-
er’s second album, Deuce, was the summation of all that he’d promised in the wake of Taste’s collapse. Rory wanted to capture the feeling of a live performance, so he would look to record immediately after live concerts while keeping production to a minimum.
He chose Tangerine Studios, a small reggae studio, in Dalston in East London, due it’s history with legendary producer Joe Meek. With Gerry McAvoy on bass guitar and Wilgar Campbell on drums, the album was engineered by Robin Sylvester and produced by Rory. Deuce features many Rory highlights, from the blistering Crest Of A Wave to the Celtic-infused I’m Not Awake Yet.
The album will be released by UMC in four different formats including four-CD box set, three-disc black vinyl, single disc green vinyl, and digital download.
The 50th Anniversary Edition includes the following features:
Below: Contact sheet of photos taken by legendary British rock photographer Mick Rock at Rory’s “Deuce” recording sessions
Album 5 is well on the way and recording starts December 2022. The Band are working with a number of very well-respected songwriters and are well on the way to putting an Album together.
If any writers would like to submit a song for possible consideration & inclusion, we would be delighted - please contact Chris via the Website and we would love to talk and work with you. The closing date is 30th November 2022.
THE STABLES MILTON KEYNES OCT 1
CLEETHORPES BLUES FESTIVAL OCT 23
HARTLEPOOL BLUES FESTIVAL NOV 11
LOOE BLUES FESTIVAL DEC 3
DARLINGTON BLUES CLUB DEC 9
EDINBURGH BLUES CLUB DEC 10 GREAT BRITISH ROCK JAN 13 BLUES FESTIVAL, SKEGNESS
As I was learning of “all things Blues” as a youngster in New York in the early 80’s, one of my many jobs I navigated through was a bike messenger. Always listening to my cassette tapes in a Walkman of the choice Blues of the day, as I sashayed through traffic, weaving and bobbing through red lights, taxis, and City busses.
One afternoon a package delivery took me to Greenwich Village and I stole a moment to pop into my favorite guitar store; Matt Umanov’s Guitars. I could never dream of affording the sumptuous Gibson’s, National resonators and such, but the folks behind the counter were always kind enough to let me try them out. I walked through the door
and saw one of the sales staff, John Campbell sitting behind the counter with a Gibson guitar in hand.
On the other side of the counter was another man, also with an acoustic guitar and they were both engaged in an intense jam. It was early in the week and no one else was in the store at that time, I slowly walked around, pretending to be engaged with various instruments hanging, but was close enough to soak it all up. Song after song, they played off each other with care and great intensity.
I knew John as the nicest guy at the store but wasn’t aware ofhim as a performer. Lightnin’ Hopkins was the reason I got into the Blues and I had never heard or saw anybody before who sounded so close to him.
Every note and phrase from John embodied Lightin’. It was masterful and effortless and the dude playing with him was in step with everything he threw at him. After a few songs Matt appeared from the back room with a Stratocaster in hand that apparently was being set up for the gentleman jammer. As he went over to inspect it, I took a moment to ask John who that was that he was playing so eloquently with.
“Oh, that’s Ronnie Earl. He plays with the band Room Full Of Blues. They have a gig in town tonight and he needed an adjustment on his guitar”.
I’d never heard of him but I was sure going to look him up now. I picked up a small bodied Gibson that I clearly couldn’t afford and started picking some Delta style Robert Johnson that I was starting to figure out. When I stopped, I saw that Mr. Earl was standing close by listening in and said “hey, that’s not bad kid, keep going with that stuff”.
Every time I would come into Umanov’s Guitars, John would always be engaging and I would talk to him about Lightnin’ Hopkins, Frankie Lee Sims & he would demonstrate something for me if he had a moment; a lick or a turnaround. Soon enough I started to see him at various Blues festivals in and around NY State and suddenly it seemed that everyone was talking about him as he got more and more National recognition. I’d seen him a dozen or so times live through that whole period, he became a local hero for me and many on the New York Blues scene, cheering him on as his star rose.
For someone like me, trying to discover and develop an understanding of the Blues as a young man, John Campbell was someone real to look up to. When he passed away suddenly in 1993, it was an unbelievable shock that rippled through the Blues community and beyond.
More folks should know John Campbell’s name and music and that is why I created this tribute illustration of a true gentle-man with his fierce, unforgettable Blues.
With thanks to Mark Ede of BigIAM Agency for this Obituary
Blues Matters was, like us all, very sad to hear of the passing of Motown songwriting legend Lamont Dozier at the age of 81.
A true song-writing giant, Lamont joined Motown as a singer, producer and songwriter in 1962. After a slow start he talked/tricked the reluctant Supremes into singing a song rejected by another group on the label, ‘Where Did Our Love Go’ which ended up a smash hit. From that point on there was no looking back, and it started a run of 10 number ones for the group. Apart from also providing classic hits for the likes of Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, Four Tops and other Motown greats, Dozier also found time to have a few successful records of his own, and in more recent times he worked with the likes of Black Eyed Peas, Kanye West and Phil Collins.
Blues Matters spoke with the album’s producer, Fred Mollin, who himself has worked with many dozens of other ‘household name’ artists. Fred told us:-
‘Lamont Dozier, the Dozier of the famous Holland/Dozier/Holland writing team, was my friend, and I had the great honor of working closely with him, especially on the last album of his life. HDH’s songs and productions, along with The Beatles, changed the face of modern popular music, but also changed the world.
Motown and the Beatles. Without them, I don’t know where we would be.
Lamont was such a sincere soul with true kindness and caring. The stories behind his songs are amazing, the songs themselves are timeless, and truly prove that the great songwriters are to be held in the highest esteem, for the art and emotion that they can create. using only 3 to 4 minutes. They are to be compared to the great writers of books, and the great directors of film.
Lamont is forever. I lost a great friend, but the music he made will never be lost, and his contributions to the world and the good that it has done, will be living on. That is truly a monumental legacy and one that few in music can claim to the degree that Lamont can’.
LAURENCE JONES’ brand new album ‘Destination Unknown’ was released on September 9th via Marshall Records.
Taken from the upcoming album the first track ‘Anywhere With Me’ is the perfect morsel to whet fans’ appetites, simultaneously giving long time fans what they want as well as introducing the new direction that Laurence Jones is taking on this, more Rock oriented record.
The final album he ever recorded was the 2018 release, ‘Reimagination’, a project that saw the coming together of his roles as both artist and feted songwriter. As the album title suggests, ‘Reimagination’ revisited just a small percentage of the dozens of hits Lamont wrote as a part of Motown’s famous Holland-Dozier-Holland songwriting team. Songs like ‘Baby Love’, ‘How Sweet It Is’, ‘Heatwave’, ‘This Old Heart Of Mine’, ‘You Just Keep Me Hanging On’ and other classics.
The ‘Re-imagination’ album also featured cameos from a whole host of music A-listers, such as Gregory Porter, Todd Rundgren, Graham Nash, Rumer, Sir Cliff Richard and more, all of whom were more than delighted to pay homage to a songwriter whose songs became the soundtrack of not just of a certain generation, but all generations. Songs that remain widely performed by artists today, of course.
Blues Matters also spoke to Jo Harman, a well known name on the UK blues scene, who had the honour of duetting with Lamont on the album’s lead single, an evocative ballad version of the classic ‘Reach Out, I’ll Be There’. Jo told us
‘I was incredibly sad to hear that another link to our shared cultural history, Lamont Dozier, has passed on. I was lucky enough to duet with Lamont a few years ago, albeit from the opposite sides of the Atlantic, with a tour planned shortly after the release. The tour sadly had to be cancelled due to his ill-health, and for me it really felt like losing a once-in-a-lifetime experience - to learn, and to be in the same space as someone who had moulded and shaped modern musical history, was an honour and a privilege I’d never come by ever again. A beautiful man. What a legend. What a legacy. RIP Lamont’
Blues Matters sends condolences to all involved, safe in the knowledge that his music, at least, lives on.
Canadian classic roots and blues rock band The Commoners release Too Much, the second single from the forthcoming album Find A Better Way on Friday August 26th.
The album is released on CD, limited edition vinyl and digital by Gypsy Soul Records on Friday November 4th. The CD and vinyl editions are available to pre-order from thecommoners.ca.
Possessing a sound tapped from the oaken belly of a whiskey barrel, The Commoners are a four-piece Roots/Blues Rock band from Toronto, Canada.
THE COMMONERS
‘TOO MUCH’, THE 2ND SINGLE FROM THEIR
Lamont was such a sincere soul with true kindness and caring
In May and June, 1939, experienced Folklorist Herbert Halpert from the Library of Congress made a visit to the Woman’s Camp at Parchman Farm, the Mississippi State Penitentiary. He arrived with a mobile recording unit in a converted ambulance that he called his “sound wagon.”
In the Parchman sewing room, he asked African-American female prisoners if they would like to sing for him. He told them they could sing for any length of time and on any topic. The women’s acapella performances would eventually be released on an album entitled ‘Jailhouse Blues’ for The Rosetta Label.
Parchman Farm would become known for its musical alumni, including Son House, Bukka White and even Elvis’ father Vernon Presley, who served eight months of a three year sentence for changing the amount on a bank cheque. Whilst renowned father and son musicologists Alan and John Lomax had spent time recording predominantly male prisoners at Parchment in 1936 (they also discovered and recorded Leadbelly at Louisiana State Penitentiary), Herbert Halpert was especially interested in capturing the voices of the women. Halpert’s work was set apart, because he didn’t just record groups of women singing old spirituals, he also recorded solo performances of work songs and lyrics the women had written themselves about their life experiences.
The female prisoners at Parchman were separated onto white and black wards in Camp 13. They were forced to work, primarily making clothes, mattresses and bedding for 3,000 prison beds. They also canned food, the produce of the male inmate’s physical labour in the prison’s plantation fields. Parchman Farm’s crops produced a huge amount of revenue for the State of Mississippi which generated an incentive to imprison more labourers for the fields. Between 1930 and 1936 in the USA, incarceration rates for black people rose to become around three times greater than those for white people.
Parchman Farm Penitentiary was notorious for its incredibly harsh working and living
standards. It was known as the most brutal of all the Southern Prison Plantations. Lomax expressed to the New York Post in 1957 that “The state penitentiary system at Parchman is simply a cotton plantation using convicts as labour. The warden is not a penologist, but an experienced plantation manager. His annual report to the legislature is not of salvaged lives; it is a profit and loss statement, with the accent on profit.” In 1972, a Federal Judge insisted on reform after declaring that Parchman Farm violated the Constitution and was an affront to “modern standards of decency.”
Of all the women who stepped up to sing for Halpert, arguably the most remarkable was Mattie May Thomas, who recorded four solo songs. She was serving her second and she sang openly, and with sincere, deep emotion about her experiences. On 31st May 1939, in the sewing room of the Mississippi State Penitentiary, Mattie May Thomas explained how she would perform “a made up song, just about being in prison, alone,” and then with wonderful resonance she began to sing her story:
“In the empty belly, black man In the year 19 hundred and 9 I was a little, young hobo, Empty belly from all up and down the line…”
She then continued to holler using metaphor and creative imagery to express how despite growing up in poverty and being locked up in a hellish prison, she remained strong, overcoming every hardship:
“Leaping spiders, Lord, they began to bite my poor heart But let me tell you baby, they crawled away and died I wrestled with the hounds, black man, hounds of hell, all day I squeezed them so tight, until they fade away!”
Perhaps Mattie May’s stand out recording that day though was a track entitled ‘Dan-
gerous Blues’, a song she had part-learned in Nashville but developed adding in her own ideas:
“You keep on talking ‘bout the dangerous blues. If I had a pistol I’d be dangerous too. Say, you may be a bully, say but I don’t know. But I fi x you so you won’t give me no trouble in the world I know.”
Her voice is both commanding and chilling, and her lyrics are captivating. In hearing her song, you can’t help but question how and why Mattie May Thomas ended up in the prison. Was she defending herself having been bullied or abused by a man? The ma-
jority of women in American prisons today have been victims of violence prior to their incarceration. 79% of women in federal and state prisons reported past physical abuse and over 60% reported past sexual abuse. Was Thomas simply standing up for herself?
Another great voice on the record is that of prisoner Eva White. Eva White and Mattie May Thomas each recorded a version of a song called ‘No Mo’ Freedom’ for Halpert. I prefer Eva White’s version as her diction is a little better and so it’s easier to follow her story. It is quite likely the two women had heard Ma Rainey’s ‘Chain Gang Blues’ as there is a slight overlap between a few of the lyrics, however White and Thomas each branch out, bringing their own prison experiences to their lyrics.
“When those jurors found me guilty, that old mean clerk he wrote it down I could tell by the paper that I was Parchment Bound”
Although the song is mostly about the enormous hardship of having her freedom so wrongly taken from her, I love the strength of White’s last line as she sings that “Someday I will go free and I’m going to treat all you people just how you have treated me!”
Under Jim Crow law, black people were horrifically discriminated against by a justice system that could be better referred to as an ‘injustice system’. As you listen to White’s vocal performance, you find yourself rooting for her, that one day she might somehow be vindicated and able to hold to account the individuals and the system that failed her.
A total of 13 women featured as soloists on Halpert’s 1939 prison recording, as well as some groups. They showcase a range of sacred and secular, up-tempo spirituals and blues ballads, all acapella. Many of the songs directly address the brutality of prison life and the injustice of being wrongly imprisoned.
Halpert and the Lomax’s were so important because they gave a voice to the regular folk who might otherwise have never been heard. Alan Lomax called this ‘Cultural Equity’, ‘exploring and preserving the world’s expressive traditions with humanistic commitment and scientific engagement’.
Whilst male blues artists such as Son House, Bukka White and Leadbelly forged successful music careers having got out of prison, the women Halpert recorded fell into obscurity. You can find the Women’s recordings produced by Halpert for The Library of Congress on you-tube though, or buy a physical copy of ‘Jailhouse Blues’ which is a copy of the original 1936-1939 recordings, released
for the Rosetta Label in the 1980s. Whilst these female inmates remained obscure, some of biggest female names in 1920’s and 30’s blues released prison themed songs. Ma Rainey, the Mother of the Blues, recorded her composition Cell Bound Blues for Paramount in 1924:
“I walked in my room the other night My man walked in and begins to fi ght I took my gun in my right hand Told him, folks, I don’t wanna kill my man When I said that, he hit me ‘cross my h�ad First shot I fi red, my man fell dead The papers came out and told the news That’s why I said I got the cell bound blues”.
Here Rainey boldly gives her perspective on domestic violence, showing that there are two sides to each story!
Rainey had had her share of run-ins with the law. It is said that Ma Rainey was once arrested and held in a cell overnight having been caught holding an ‘indecent’ lesbian party at her home (this was in 1925, when being gay was sadly seen as a crime). Rainey’s good friend, none other than the Empress of the Blues herself Bessie Smith, arrived with bail money for Rainey the following morning. A few years later, Rainey would release ‘Prove it on me blues’, where she proudly reveals her lesbian identity and then challenges whomever might find fault with her sexuality to ‘prove it on’ her. She was an LGBT role model, decades ahead of her time.
Another great Prison song ‘Joilet Bound’ was co-written by Memphis and Joe McCoy in 1932. They tell the story of a man who is wrongly accused of murder and sent to Joilet prison:
“Now, the police comin’, with his ball and chain, mmm-mmmm
Police comin’, with his ball and chain And they ‘cusin’ me of murder, never harmed a man”
Joilet prison once held more inmates than any other prison in America. Conditions there were horrific, infamously lacking running water and in-cell toilets until 1910. Minnie’s song was culturally important because it drew attention to the inequality in the justice system, especially in black communities.
These phenomenal blues women could’ve stuck to less controversial lyrical themes about love and relationships, but instead, they used their powerful blues voices to sing about things of great social importance such as discrimination, domestic violence, and a justice system that was not fit for purpose.
However fast or far a man travels, he can never truly outrun his past. Walter Trout knows this better than anyone. As he embarked on his 30th solo album, Ride, the iconic US blues-rock guitarist found himself eyeing the horizon and the green shoots of his triumphant late career. There was a new record deal with Mascot/Provogue. A move from California to Denmark with his beloved family. Even now, aged 70, Trout was still writing fresh chapters of his life story.
No doubt, Ride has a charging momentum and a modern energy, with Trout broadening his musical palette and taking the pulse of an era reeling from both pandemic and politicos. And yet, when the veteran songwriter reached for guitar and notepad, he found himself walking once again amongst the good, bad and ugly scenes of his extraordinary backstory.
“This album is a snapshot of how I was feeling through this pandemic,” he says. “I think I still have something new to say about the world, and that’s important to me. But my life has been one hell of a ride, and when I listened back, I realised there were a lot of songs about dealing with the past.”
“My wife and manager Marie knew I needed to make music. So her present to me for my 70th birthday was a brand-new record deal she had negotiated. My producer, Eric Corne, scoped out a new studio in LA, and my plan was to fly home to make a new album in May.”
Nestled on a 72 acre pasture in the White Mountains of New Hampshire is one of the biggest outdoor camping and blues events, the White Mountain Boogie N Blues Festival. In it’s 25th year, over 10,000 people stand up and boogie, enjoy top acts, maple syrup and fresh mountain air. It’s a winner of the Blues Foundation prestigious “Keeping the Blues Alive Award” for Festival of the Year.
The Kitchener Blues Festival is one of the largest blues events in Canada, celebrating the best of traditional and cutting-edge blues – as well as modern rock, R&B, gospel, swing and more. Within it’s 20 year history it has grown to a 4 day, signature event with 40 performances from local to international artists on 7 outdoor stages in downtown Kitchener and attracts over 200,000 visits in 2022. The province of Ontario Canada turns out for this event hosting this festival for free for all to enjoy with love and support for the Blues!
In the summer you can go to Maine to get the Blues! The North Atlantic Blues Festival is considered one of the premiere blues-rooted festivals set in the picturesque town of Rockland Maine with the Atlantic ocean as its stage backdrop. This 2-day festival just had its 29th year and is so legendary it has its own Mississippi Blues Trail Marker. It features all blues and soul heavy hitters on the stage and then takes to the town for dancing in the streets and the legendary Pub Crawl at night.
Memphis-based rock band Dirty Streets are releasing more new music – the title track, “Who’s Gonna Love You” is available digitally. Their seventh studio album, Who’s Gonna Love You, was produced by Grammy Award winner Matt Ross-Spang (Jason Isbell, Margo Price, John Prine) and is set for release on September 30.
The band recorded the new album at the legendary Sam Phillips Recording studio in Memphis. The title track oozes with southern rock guitar licks, gritty blues and a pinch of soul as singer Justin Toland explains its origins, “Who’s Gonna Love You’ was born the way a lot of songs are; sitting on the edge of the bed in a hotel on tour just trying to voice what’s inside.” Continues Justin, “Sometimes a feeling is so thick in the air that you can almost see it, and at those moments I just try to see the steam settling into my mind. Like sucking in spiritual smoke so I can spit out whatever that thing is. This song was one of those and seemed to capture that longing you feel when you’re away from your loved ones. You always try to communicate your love long distance, but it can be difficult.”
Scan the press on soul-groove outfit Dirty Streets and you’ll see numerous references to rock, soul, and dirty-blues touchstones like the Faces, Humble
Pie, Otis Redding, CCR, and more. Spin Dirty Streets’ records and you’ll hear all of those echoes, plus others—some jazz timing, some acoustic balladry. But by and large, what you’ll hear is a raw, rowdy blend of Motown, Stax, and rock— the pure American blood-beat moving through the heart of Memphis groove.
Dirty Streets’ bloodlines, metaphorical and real, aren’t difficult to trace. Austin-born Justin Toland found his own musical food early through his father, a classic-rock aficionado who turned his son on to the Stones, Creedence, soul music and the Stax sound. At 17, Toland relocated to Memphis and met Thomas Storz, a native of the city, through mutual friends. In a scene wherein few of their friends cared much for older music, Toland and Storz quickly found common musical ground and began playing groove-grounded rock with a series of temporary drummers.
It was Storz who finally brought on board Andrew Denham, a Shreveport-born drummer and British hard-rock fan who’d recently moved to the city, just down the block from Storz’s own home. Passing by Denham’s house weekly, Storz heard the sounds coming from inside and mentioned Denham to Toland, who at first thought it couldn’t possibly be this easy.
Rachel Sumner & Traveling Light make music steeped in tradition with modern, lyric-forward songs and snaking chord progressions; their self-titled album, out today, finds the band reimaging songs of others – Joanna Newsom’s “Colleen” and a “lost” Johnny Cash entry among them, along with Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings’ “Strangers Again” – while also presenting originals nearly a decade in the making. Throughout, the songs are as sweet and biting as the nectar and venom in Sumner’s voice, while simultaneously highlighting the acrobatic range of her brilliant bandmates Kat Wallace (fiddle/harmonies), Ira Klein (acoustic guitar), Alex Formento (pedal steel) and Mike Siegel (upright bass).
The band’s most recent single, their version of Joanna Newsom’s “Colleen,” was noted for its “artful” interpretation of the mystical folk ballad, a song which has earned numerous examinations of its fascinating lyrics throughout the far corners of the internet. The album’s first single, “Strangers Again,” was also featured on The Bluegrass Situation. There’s a thread through the songs in this Traveling Light album of people feeling other or finding they’ve transformed into strangers, whether it’s to someone they were once close to, or to themselves,” Sumner says.
“Easton,” originally written for Sumner’s bluegrass band, Twisted Pine, marked a turning point for Traveling Light, signaling the magical moment when the group realized how like-minded they were when it came to interpreting songs together. “If You Love Me” offers their take on a “forgotten” Johnny Cash poem, written in 1983 yet resonant today: “The fluctuating worth of this very terminal earth/
And the satellite that glows at night above me/Won’t bear upon my mind, but concerning humankind/I won’t care if you’re there and if you love me.”
“Come Along, Rowan” is a banjo tune originally coined to coax a friend’s baby to join the family – his mother did, indeed, go into labor after listening to the voice memo. “The Arms of Your Mother” was a product of a songwriting workshop in which the provided prompt was the word cradle. Sumner is, in fact, no stranger to the stage. She spent her early career on the bluegrass circuit, singing and writing with the genre-bending Boston group Twisted Pine. Since setting out on her own, Sumner’s songs have been critically acclaimed, winning the Lennon Award in the folk category of the 2021 John Lennon Songwriting Contest for her song “Radium Girls (Curie Eleison);” earning her a spot in the Kerrville New Folk Competition, and being chosen two consecutive years by WBUR/NPR as one of the top Massachusetts entries in the Tiny Desk Competition.
Originally a classical flutist from the dusty Mojave desert, Sumner relocated from California to Boston a decade ago intending to study Composition and Film Scoring at Berklee College of Music. While at school, she found herself in the orbit of roots musicians like Molly Tuttle, Bronwyn Keith-Hynes, and John Mailander who introduced her to a trove of traditional music, started her off with a few chords on the guitar, and encouraged her to write her own songs. In the short time since, Sumner has become one of the most vital voices in Boston’s thriving roots music scene.
Erin Harpe has been called “one of the most dynamic, talented and exciting roots rocking blues women on the scene” by Living Blues Magazine. The singer, songwriter, guitarist, and band leader was recently named New England’s “Blues Artist of the Year”.
Once described as “Bonnie Raitt on modern performance enhancing drugs” for her work with her award-winning electric blues band Erin Harpe & the Delta Swingers, more recently Erin has been gaining attention as a celebrated acoustic guitarist and purveyor of 1920’s and 30’s finger-style country blues. Erin grew up learning the style from her dad, Neil Harpe, and watching local Piedmont blues luminaries such as John Cephas & Phil Wiggins, Archie Edwards, John Jackson, Eleanor Ellis, and Warner Williams, at Washington DC’s famed Archie’s Barbershop.
Erin gets back to her roots in acoustic blues for her new Country Blues Duo (a.k.a. “CBD”) with longtime partner/bassist Jim Countryman.
Appropriately dubbed “shit-kicking blues,” on a recent UK tour, the new duo creates a very full sound with their downhome duo, which features Erin on acoustic guitar, vocals, kazoo & foot percussion, with Jim on ukulele bass and backing vocals. Their energetic performances transport the audience to the Delta, with vintage classics by the likes of Memphis Minnie, Mississippi John Hurt, Tommy Johnson and Blind Blake – elevated by Erin’s own interpretations, and mixed in seamlessly with original compositions and country blues takes on other popular songs. Erin Harpe CBD is a must-see roots act that will get any crowd moving.
Erin and Jim have toured all over the US and Europe, and opened for many great blues artists including Buddy Guy, James Cotton, Honeyboy Edwards, and Roomful of Blues –and Erin even got to open for ZZ Top (solo)! Besides performing, Erin is also an educator, and has taught workshops on country blues guitar in the US (including the Augusta Heritage Center’s Blues & Swing Week) and Europe, and has released an instructional video through Stefan Grossman’s Guitar Workshop entitled “Women of the Country Blues”.
Josh Hoyer & Soul Colossal have lived up to their name for the past decade, spreading bold yet nuanced soul/R&B through constant touring and regular releases. Averaging 125 shows a year and already eight albums deep (including live releases), the ultra-authentic sextet is sharing the healing power of love and empathy through melody, lyricism, groove, and dance. “Whether it gives people courage or solace, joy or a place to heal, that is what my creations are for,” asserts Hoyer. “To show them that they are not alone. To bring people together.”
A performer since childhood, Hoyer discovered his songwriter’s voice through high school jazz choir improvisation. He later honed his talent with years of jamming in the famed blues and roots scene of his native Lincoln, Nebraska, and its legendary Zoo Bar. Having further shaped his songcraft with spells in Oregon and New Orleans, he returned to Lincoln where he was mentored by the likes of Little Jimmy Valentine of The Heart Murmurs, renowned bluesman Magic Slim, and late guitarist/singer Sean Benjamin. “Hoyer sang with fire and a natural joy,” raved Rolling Stone after his powerhouse performance on Season 12 of NBC’s The Voice (Team Blake).
Hoyer formed Soul Colossal in 2012, completing the award-winning band with Stephen Cantarero (bass), James Cuato (sax), Blake DeForest (trumpet), Harrison ElDorado
(drums), and Benjamin Kushner (guitar). Hoyer handles Hammond organ, electric piano, and lead vocals.
Night after night, Hoyer & Soul Colossal leave it all on stage, passionately delivering their fresh take on super-relatable soul music coast-to-coast and across Europe. Visceral, gutsy, and relentlessly real, they channel Stax, Motown, and Muscle Shoals, New Orleans, Philly, and San Francisco through Hoyer’s cultured compositions, lived-in vocals, and supple, hornsflecked arrangements. Smoky late-night vibes and sometimes playful arrangements cradle thought-provoking lyrics, virtuoso musicianship, and uplifting sentiments that linger long after the show.
Highlights have included headlining European festivals, playing major U.S. fests, and sharing bills with Booker T Jones, Irma Thomas, The Muscle Shoals Revue and George Clinton. In the studio, they’ve worked with Wilco’s Ken Coomer and New Mastersounds’ Eddie Roberts.
Listen closely and you’ll hear New Orleans parade beats, vibrant Detroit and New York R&B, and the funky stylings of Rufus Thomas and his Stax Records cohorts. Repeat spins reveal echoes of Donny Hathaway’s spiritual ruminations, the worldly heartache of Charles Bradley, and the chordal complexities of Herbie Hancock and early ‘70s Santana.
Albert Lee is one of the planet’s most celebrated, admired guitarists. Often known as ‘the guitarists guitarist’, he has been working professionally for around sixty years and has covered almost every imaginable musical genre, save, perhaps, for classical music.
Originally from Shropshire, Lee was largely raised in Blackheath, south-east London, where he agrees to have been fortunate to be learning guitar and living in the early 1960s as the UK music world exploded into global prominence. Now mostly based in California, we catch up as he prepares to head for Lubbock, Texas, to play the Buddy Holly 85th Birthday Festival, alongside many of his close friends including Peter Frampton, Duane Eddy, James Burton and Steve Cropper.
Albert explains Holly’s music this way: “Buddy was a big influence on me. And after he passed, about twelve or thirteen years later, I became a Cricket myself! It was amazing, a lot of fun. I’m still very close to those guys. I’ve been very lucky; I’ve been around for a long time so you get to play with a load of other people, you know. It’s just what happens. I guess I’m very grateful for that.”
He laughs when I mention Elvis’ old guitarist James Burton as just one of those guys Lee has previously played alongside: “Yea, well he’s supposed to be coming down to play at Lubbock this weekend. I’m looking forward to seeing him again down there. We’ve done a few gigs together and that’s been great. It’s just great to have him play on those old Elvis songs we all do and love.”
Talk turns to how it feels to be playing alongside all those guys who were seminal to the development of Rock n Roll, blues, country and soul music: “It’s just great to be able to play with all those guys. You know when I was off playing with the Everly Brothers it was amazing but when they weren’t talking to each other I was doing stuff mostly with Don. Don gave me his guitar, an original Everly Gibson J200. He was just very grateful to have a sidekick (when not talking to his brother, Phil), and that was me. He didn’t want the guitar to not be played, to end
up in a museum or something like that,” he confirms. Eric Clapton has also gifted him a Gibson Les Paul that he still plays on sessions from time to time.
I remind him of catching him play with the Everlys and Duanne Eddy in the UK; Albert instantly smiles: “That was a great tour. It was one of our favourite tours, everybody loved it. And playing with Earl (Scruggs) and the Scruggs Revue, that was just great fun, great times for us all. I played on a track and ended up getting a Grammy for it – which is great. It’s really nice to be honoured like that, even these days! I’ve been nominated about four times and I’ve won twice, so it’s really pretty cool! Then there’s that whole RocknRoll Hall of Fame thing – I don’t really know about that,” he laughs again.
“There are people in there, in that, I don’t really think deserve it!” he adds with a shrug. “It’s not RocknRoll, they’re just like pop-stars. They sold a lot of records but they don’t really contribute to the music.”
Lee is also known for his work with US modern Americana-country music giant Emmy Lou Harris. He recalls his time with her band, the Hot Band, as being a time of huge personal pleasure and importance:
“It was around the mid-70s, and I’d always loved good country music. I’d played in a country band for a couple of years in the UK, so I soon realized I was never gonna make a living doing it and back then everybody was playing through Marshall stacks; they all wanted to be Eric Clapton or Jimmi Hendrix. So, when I came to the States, I thought, well these are people who really appreciate what I’m doing here, how I play, what drives me. I knew when I joined the Hot Band that this was it. I thought, well, I’m living here now, this is what I should be. It really made my decision to settle here easy. Country music has changed a lot since then, of course. I love Americana but that country-pop stuff that comes out of Nashville now, has no relation to what was happening, say, thirty years ago! I grew up on George Jones and Buck Owens, you know those old country music greats.”
Anyone with even a passing interest in Lee knows his version of ‘Country Boy,’ a track that in many ways captures his extraordinary musical genius tethered to some truly fabulous guitar picking. Asked how it became almost viral online (YouTube has around one million hits so far) Albert shrugs and says: “It was very gradual really. We did it and it was part of the reason we got our record deal! This was with Heads, Hands and Feet, of course. We were doing gigs – not quite auditions – but gigs where various record people were likely to be in the audience.
And it worked, they were arguing, they were fighting over us, so you know, it all worked out just fine for us! We were a pretty good band!”
“But we decided to go off and do other things course, and I went off and joined the Crickets!,” he adds with a grin.
Known as Mister Telecaster, among countless other accolades, Lee has an Ernie Ball Music Man signature model which has three pick-ups rather than the Fender’s two. He reckons this is a guitar that works best as a daily gigging instrument: “Yea, I’ve a Music Man signature for most of my work. I love it, great player and sound, does everything I want of a guitar, really! I’ve been playing them around thirty years now. Though if I’m playing a session I often take along a Fender B-Bender.”
A frontman member of UK band Hogan’s Heroes, Lee is characteristically modest about his own role in the band, an outfit that often attracts mega-stars from Clapton to Willie Nelson and Dave Edmunds to their gigs:
“I’ve known Gerry Hogan for ever really, we’ve been friends since the 1960s. He was running a steel-guitar festival each year in Newbury and he called me up one day and said ‘I’m thinking of branching out a bit and having some guitar players as well as steel players. Would you consider doing a set?’
To be honest, I was a little nervous about it. I’d never fronted a band at that time. He said ‘It’ll be easy. We’ll pick out a bunch of songs!’ So we tried it, rehearsed a bit, picked out a couple of gigs and it went really well. So, I thought, yea let’s do it. It’s easier than I thought! That’s when I started doing the regular thing with Hogan’s Heroes. I get across to England once or twice a year and do a tour with them. I’ve been doing it now for over twenty-five years, and it’s still great fun. They got me to sing. I’d done a couple of tunes with the country band before that but it forced me to do a whole set! I’m really grateful for this time cos it changed the way I play and sing really. The British gigs are going really well and I’ve just been over for around five weeks and I’m back on tour in September or October. And I fell into playing with Bill Wyman’s Rhythm Kings, always with some great members. That’s always been great fun too, maybe played with them for around twelve years now.”
As to guitar style, Lee is famed for his distinctive sound and method – described once by Emmy Lou Harris this way –‘His sound is unmistakable, often emulated, never equaled. When Saint Peter asks me to chronicle my time down here on earth, I’ll be able to say (with pride if that’s allowed) that for a while
I played rhythm guitar in a band with Albert Lee!’ Lee describes it in simple terms:
“I liked, my favourite players are like Scotty Moore, James Burton, those guys were my first influences. I realised some of those guys were playing with thumb-picks. So, I tried using a thumb-pick but I just couldn’t get on with it. I decided I’d try using a flat-pick with the fingers. I kind of developed it on my own. I discovered a few years later that many others played that way too; James Burton plays like that. It just takes practice, and it’s now like what I’ve always done. I never practice much but the Covid lockdowns found me spending more time alone with my guitar. I mean practice is what I do when I’m out on the road, it’s done on the road. Now we’re getting back out, I’m trying to build up my callouses on the finger-tips. Speed isn’t what it’s about. I try to be melodic always. That’s the secret, I think. There are a lot of fast players out there now, the opportunities online and the like to learn guitar are amazing nowadays; nothing like my time, playing a record, slowing it down, pulling the needle back over and over till you got the notes! “
“Fortunately, the people who come to my gigs are of my age so they still like and buy vinyl and CDs. The industry has just changed so much these days with all those downloads. Not my kind of thing really. I still put out my own music, produced with friends, to disc and sold at my gigs.”
In such a long-lasting career, it’s no surprise to learn Lee has also played a part with Eric Clapton on a few occasions: “I‘ve known Eric since the sixties when I knew all those guys. And I played on a session with him back around 1979; And after a couple of days of recording he said ‘I’m looking for a second-guitar. Would you like to come along and join me?’ I said, yea! I did that for around five years and it was good fun. I’m mostly known as a country player but I feel at home playing most types of music, except for heavy metal!” Lee laughs at the thought before adding, “I’ve no interest in that! I play all the genres that I like. I’ve also played at Eric’s Crossroads Guitar Festival a few times, always great to meet up and great fun.”
Closing, Lee says: “I’m just happy to be able to keep on working. That’s not always easy in this business. I’m 78 now, so if I can carry on playing for a few more years I’ll be a happy man. Looking back, we all got into guitar because of Lonnie Donegan, playing by ear. I look back and I feel I’ve been really fortunate to have been a Cricket and to have worked with my heroes, the Everly Brothers, for so many years. I’d probably have still been there if they’d been both still alive!”
Perhaps the title of the new album by Erja Lyytinen will resonate with a lot of readers. That being ‘Waiting For The Daylight’. Following two years of life during the pandemic era we have all been waiting for something. Whether that be a return to some semblance of normality or the return of live
music. of pandemic all used
not have all the schedules and
it’s better than being in a spot
For the entrepreneurial Finn, the challenges of running her own business during a global pandemic were not easy. “My emotions were going up and down because you had to survive. I run my own company, so I needed to think about finances and how to balance them with the economics. We were trying our best to invent all sorts of things to overcome this strange, weird period we all experienced for two and a half years,” explains Erja. “I think for most of us, it’s the insecurity that eats you up when you don’t know what’s going to happen. What’s the future going to be like? Although most people who work in the art scene are probably used to that. We might not have all the schedules and calendars fixed for the next five years, but maybe for half a year. But even with half a year, it’s better than being in a spot where you don’t know what’s go-
ing to happen next week.” Moving forward, she adds: “I’m hoping that people will enjoy more music and art and all those cultural things that we weren’t able to do during those two years.”
With time on her hands during the pandemic era, the Queen of the Slide Guitar got to work on her latest release. “I had started to work on the album before the pandemic. Some of the songs were done during the pandemic. There’s a lot of emotions and feelings from that time on this album,” proclaimed Erja. “The name of the album Waiting For The Daylight reflects very well the present time in many ways. Although the song itself is not about just the pandemic, it’s about losing your friend to a long-term illness.”
The benefit of having time off the road was that the high-flying Finn was able to truly process her emotions and reflect. “I feel that I’ve had the chance to delve deep into my emotions during these two years because you went through such a lot of colours in a lot of emotions. Maybe I had the courage to also go deeper with the song topics. And so, I think there’s quite a lot of heavy topics in there,” said Lyytinen. “There’s one song, which is about sexual harassment. Of course, there are songs about love lost. There are lots of feelings and heavy topics on there. But then again, sometimes you must talk about these things.”
One topic which resonated with Erja Lyytinen is the subject of bullying in schools which features in the artist’s latest single, ‘Last Girl’. “It’s about growing up, bullying and being less of a part of a friendship group. But also, a bit of heartbreak,” says Lyytinen. “In the music video, we have a young girl who is playing her part as a student. In the beginning, she’s playing a bit of a violin. And then, in the end, she is rocking with me and playing electric guitar. It was so much fun doing this - we created
this small school classroom scene.” Erja adds that: “There’s a point where me and my guys were being the badass students there, and we ripped the whole place down. But with this song and with this music video, we want to emphasise the fact to consider others and especially in schools when they are young kids - bullying is not cool. I think the topic is really important.”
With further themes of love and loss featured on her latest offering, it feels as though Waiting For The Daylight brings in an element of continuity to Lyytinen’s recent studio albums Stolen Hearts and Another World. “Of course, it’s always a continuation of whatever you’ve been doing. I feel that this album reflects who I am at the moment,” explained Erja. “There are quite heavy riffs in there - it’s not just a blues album. I think it’s more like we were trying to honour the music of the 60s and 70s. I haven’t heard this album yet on vinyl, but I’m pretty sure it’s going to sound awesome.”
Just like Another World, Erja Lyytinen’s latest album was self-produced. This process was something which she enjoyed immensely. “I felt that I was finally in a place where I’m experienced enough to be able to produce my own music and my own album. I know how the music works. And nowadays,
I can also use Pro Tools quite well. With the last album, I was still getting to know how the software works. And with Another World, it was a lot longer process with that album. So, I feel like, on this album, I had a chance to dig into the songs and the sounds,” said Erja. “I’ve been in the music business for quite a few decades already. I feel like now I have the confidence to produce my own music.”
Aside from recording her latest album, so far this year the Queen of the Slide Guitar has spent a lot of time on the road whilst performing across mainland Europe and even making appearances in far-afield destinations such as Algeria and a return to Canada. “We started to do some festivals in the summertime, which has been great. It’s always nice to play for live audiences. The feeling of the audience now when everybody’s more relaxed, and people are hugging and kissing again, it’s so wonderful,” says Lyytinen.
However, the artist is overjoyed that she will be making her return to the UK before the end of the year. “I’m looking forward to coming to the UK. I haven’t played there since 2019. It feels like a long time. I’ve been messaging with my fans and friends in the UK all the time during the pandemic. But now I’m looking forward to coming to the UK,” says Erja. “We’ve got this nice little tour together with Dom Martin, who is doing quite well right now. So, I can’t wait to come to the UK; I’ve missed my friends there.”
For the remainder of the year and beyond, Erja Lyytinen will concentrate on promoting her new album on the road. “From the beginning of October, we’ll be doing tours in Germany and Finland and then in the UK. Every year I do my Blue Christmas tour. And this year, I’ve got a couple of very cool artists joining me,” says Lyytinen. “Next year, we are planning tours and shows. So, getting back to the normal touring life. But I’ve already started to think about the next album, which is interesting. So, it means that I’ve enjoyed making this album, and I’m very proud of it.”
Waiting For The Daylight – the new album from Erja Lyytinen will be released by Tuohi Records on October 7th. The artist will be touring the UK throughout November. For ticket information and further details, please visit www.erjalyytinen.com.
“WE RIPPED THE PLACEWHOLEDOWN”
With reference to David Sinclair’s professional life as a journalist and as a musician, the one has informed the other and vice versa. As a musician initially playing in new wave bands, David became a sought-after music journalist writing informatively for universally read publications before finding his feet as a blues musician and band leader. It’s a genre of music in which he has gradually taken larger musical strides releasing albums firstly as David Sinclair, then with his Trio, followed by the David Sinclair Four.
With Apropos Blues, he has reverted to the imprimatur of his name as a solo artist. On this musically entertaining and lyrically astute record, he is backed by three superb band musicians: guitarist Geoff Peel, bass player Jos Mendoza and drummer Rory Mendoza. Also guesting is harmonica king Laurie Garman, Feargus Murphy on keyboards/Vocals, Glasgow rapper Johnny Cypher appears on the lively album opener Hip Hopping and David’s son, Jack, contributes drums/vocals/keys, Jack also produced and mixed this album.
Moreover, Apropos Blues is inspired by a living blues legend of David’s familiar acquaintance as he reveals to Blues Matters
Magazine: “I guess this is a fairly typical album of mine, insofar as it’s rooted in the blues and in a traditional rock and pop music from Britain. But it’s specific insofar as it was as a part of my other gig, as a journalist, that I’ve been spending a bit of time with Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top. I’m a great fan of ZZ Top and I’m a great fan of Billy Gibbons. I think he’s just an incredible character with a very deep knowledge of blues music and what the blues is all about. One of his favourite words that he often throws into the conversation is ‘apropos’ which he uses in a slightly ironic way.”
David further reveals the creative influence of this album titled word: “It’s very much up his street, that nod to a kind of French bohemian art rock sort of world that he slightly inhabits. I thought, well, I should write a song called Apropos Blues because that would just sum it up. I kind of base it on one of his songs, an obscure Billy Gibbons track from one of his solo records, and I thought that was the real starting point, the inspiration. I mean, my version obviously doesn’t say anything like his. He’s a guy from Texas, and I’m a guy from London, but there was a definite inspiration there that I found very helpful and apropos. So, there you go.”
It’s as crystal clear as top grade tequila the influence Billy Gibbons has on David’s musical psyche. His looming presence is a giant gracious shadow that stretches back to David’s first meeting with this Texan top draw guitar-slinger as he recounts:
“I’ve been a big fan of ZZ Top for a long, long time. The first time I ever met him, I interviewed him for Kerrang magazine in 1980. Then as Eliminator was just starting to hit big and they were over playing a gig up in Hanley. So, I’ve met him way back then. In more recent times, I’ve interviewed him for various things, and I’ve always got on well with him: he’s a fantastic raconteur.” He further explains Gibbons’ influence: “I love the persona that he’s built around his music and his life and ZZ Top is a full-time gig. There’s often a problem with the blues in that the people who make blues music are often quite a long way removed from anything to do with the original blues as it was created by the original people who made that music. Gibbons has a way of inhabiting a persona that is a genuine blues persona that he’s taken on. He lives it, you can’t have an image and an attitude like that part time, it’s a full-time thing. He keeps that beanie hat on the whole time. He has that beard to deal
with. Every time he goes out, he loves it. He inhabits it very easily. He’s very comfortable in his skin. I think he’s a genius musician, and just a very unique character in the world that we that we all love and appreciate.”
David proudly elaborates on the presentation of the songs throughout this recording: “I guess the certain presets that Billy Gibbons takes, that I’ve personally taken on board, is to keep it simple rather than make it very complicated or fast and flashy.” Sinclair has his very British take on music that is American in origin and it’s a philosophy he’s infused tracks such The Bands Of London with: “Well, that was a lockdown song as a lot of bands are just kind of washing up on the shore now a couple of years after and it was born out of frustration of not being able to go and see any bands,” David laments:
“It was something that’s been my life blood all of my life and I was shocked to discover how much I missed the whole business. That you had to stay in and couldn’t go and see any bands. So, the theme of the song is I want to see the bands of London. I want to go out and see a band and obviously the place I’m in is London. Then that got me to thinking of all the great London bands when we do it live. I always shout out; I want to go and see The Rolling Stones. I want to go and see The Who. The Yardbirds. From the past, or the present, there’s so many great bands in any area that you come from. I’m from London and London’s a great place. It has a great heritage and it’s got a wonderful history of producing the most brilliant bands ever.”
selling point. I thought that was all to do with the riffs and the music. But he said, ‘these lyrics are fantastic, that’s what sold it to me, I’ll take it’. I was shocked because I hadn’t really thought of the lyrics. I didn’t think, I’m a big writer, so I can write lyrics. I just sort of thought it was part of what I had to do. So, having gone on from there, I’ve always taken the writing of the lyrics seriously, but became aware that it is an important thing and I feel a bit more pride in the lyrics as they are a key element to whatever it is I’ve got to offer,” David continues: “I love writing and I’ve always found writing to be something I can do. It’s not such a challenge as playing the guitar, for instance, which is very hard to do, I still find. It’s a great outlet and it’s a much different sort of writing. There’s a lot of similar things you need to do. You need to work to a deadline, you need to get the thing done, you need to work to a brief and there’s a sense that you can’t just write any old words, you’ve got to be aware of who your audience is, and what you’re trying to say, and you wrap it all up and get it done on time. It’s not that far removed from the journalism thing. It’s just a slightly more esoteric kind of way of expressing yourself.”
A cover of Chuck Berry’s Bye Bye Johnny is the final track on Apropos Blues and David has had many encounters with blues legends including seeing Chuck Berry live: “I saw Chuck Berry play a couple of times, on his visits over here, and I was absolutely shocked at just how mercenary and how he generally didn’t seem very bothered. That was the other end of the spectrum.” Where
there’s a downside there’s also an upside to the blues: “I met BB King and went on his tour bus with him for a while, in the early days of my journalism, and he was a wonderful guy,” beams David at this cherished memory:
“I really loved him and he’s great in terms of being a band leader and had almost like a rulebook for his band. You used to hear those stories about James Brown firing musicians. Well, BB King was a bit more benevolent than that, but he was just as tough. They had all sorts of rules and behaviour codes and dress codes as well. He had a poignant way of talking about his old days as a farm labourer. I said to him, ‘why does your band wear suits’? It’s a very different sort of feel to the blues bands that come out of England. And he said, ‘jeans and work shirts, that’s for working in the fields and we don’t do that anymore. We wear suits because we’re doing a proper job. We want respect and that’s how we show you some respect and we hope that you’ll show us the same respect’. It never occurred to me that the slovenly British blues guys were ‘we’re just off from the road in a T shirt and jeans and that’s how we roll’. The real blues guys, John Lee Hooker, any of them, they would always want to be well turned out, it’s an important thing.”
With respect, and major apropos, to David’s well-turned-out album of eleven engaging blues tracks, that’s about as apropos to the blues as you can get!
a musician and journalist and,
To return to the theme of being a musician and journalist and, given the high quality of tunes on Apropos Blues, you would imagine that songwriting comes easy to David Sinclair: “That’s an interesting thing because once you start on this kind of a journey, you find out things about other people and you find out things about yourself.”
Warming to this subject David tells me: “I remember when I put my first record together, it was an album called Hey in 2006, and I was shopping around for some distribution, and I went to Proper. I think they are now the biggest independent distributor in the country. There was a guy there called Alan and I gave him the CD and he said: ‘I don’t know about the music, but I love these lyrics’ and it never occurred to me the lyrics being any kind of a
and I was shopping around for Proper. I think they are now the in the country. There was a guy about the music, but I love these
house voices & songwriters, Vaneese Thomas, daughter of Soul Music icon Rufus Thomas, returns for her ninth album and her rst for the growing Blue Heart Records. This could well or co-wrote all 12
“The sound is a sophisticated, kinetic blend of rock, blues, soul, and R&B in uences that’s slick and full of power. A ton of special guest artists like Jimmie Vaughan, Mike Flanigin, Carolyn Wonderland, Carmen Bradford, Johnny Moeller, Marcia Ball, Anson Funderburgh, Mike Zito, Guy Forsyth, and Michael Cross raise the fun factor even higher and make this one of the most enjoyable releases of 2022.”
HObe Thomas' tour-de-force songwriting e ort as she penned -Jim
- Mike O’Cull Rock and Blues Muse www.thetexashorns.com
MALAYA BLUE malayabluemusic.com LIL RED & THE ROOSTER lilredandtherooster.com
DAVE KEYES davekeyes.com
Snowy White’s easy going, humble, matter of fact nature belies an illustrious career in music that’s to die for. It’s an adventure in sound that he continues with Driving On The 44: a deeply satisfying album of songs that covers all the points of his musical compass.
There are deep notes of jazz rock, conventional blues, Santana inflected high vibes and alluring blue-hued instrumentals all deliciously delivered in his trademark cool style.
As a seasoned pro, Snowy’s endearing warmth has seen him play with pre-eminent artists such as Pink Floyd, Peter Green, Thin Lizzy, Mick Taylor, and Roger Waters. However, it’s his successful sideshow as a solo artist that has garnered high praise and respect from his peers, critics and dedicated fans from the moment his hit single Bird Of Paradise was released and flew up the charts to perch in the Top Ten at number six.
Being someone who has experienced lengthy periods of success, there are no discernible airs or graces about the man who has flown in private jets and has been quartered in five star hotels as the main guitarist in Roger Waters’ touring band, as White recalls:
“I got the call in 1999 from Roger for a small tour and he said we start rehearsals in New York in three days. That small tour lasted thirteen years for me,” deadpans White.
Since then, Snowy has been on a productive roll with Driving On The 44 his sixth album release since unplugging himself from Roger Waters’ touring extravaganza. The title track has an anecdotal on the road narrative but Snowy is quick to scotch any autobiographical notions as he opens up: “I like looking at maps and travelling from one city to another. I love the panorama. And I was looking at a map and I saw St. Louis and Highway 44 and I thought that would make a nice title for a song. There was no real memory of it, or me driving down it - I’m sure I have done - and I’ve probably flown over it a few times as well. But it was just an idea that I thought was a nice title. I looked at the map and I saw that the 44 went to Wichita Falls and I made a song about it.”
From this moment of inspiration, White mapped out the rest of the album which he recorded at home with his son, Thomas, on drums: “All the song ideas came specifically for this album, which we started recording at the beginning of last winter. I spent the winter with me and my son on drums at the studio here where I started putting down ideas, demos, and it gradually just took shape. But there was nothing that’s been hanging around for a long time at all,” details White as he reveals the inspiration behind some of the songs: “On Keep On Flying there’s a line ‘she was young and beautiful planning to go far, found herself in downtown Tokyo dancing in the late-night bar’. And I really did meet a girl and she ended up in LA on some TV programmes. And she kept going, you know, she kept on trying. And she got where she wanted to be.”
things and they came together. It wasn’t a plan, I just recorded the songs.”
Snowy recruited Max Middleton (Jeff Beck, Chris Rea) to play keyboards on the album: “I’ve known Max since the 70s and he’s played on a lot of my albums, so I sent the files from my studio to him, and he put some piano and organ on and that’s how we did it.” As an accomplished musician, White also plays bass on the album and recalls how he first picked it up in rehearsals for Pink Floyd’s 1977 Animals tour:
The album opener, Freshwater, has a widescreen jazzy blues groove that exudes the cool, laid-back nature of White on record: “I had great fun recording with my son Thomas on drums. We’ve an electronic drum kit because we’re in a semi-detached house so I didn’t want to annoy the neighbours. So, we use that on most tracks, and it took a bit of getting used to. Thomas says that playing it is really good and it’s like a real sound so I’m quite pleased about the way it turned out.”
This album, in many ways, is a summation of everything Snowy has done in his solo career, there’s jazzy blues, pure blues songs, blues instrumentals on which there seems to be a breadth of his musical influences: “Well, yeah, I think what happened with this album was I didn’t have any particular idea of a direction for it. I just felt like doing certain
“When I met the guys in the studio Dave Gilmour asked me if I could play bass and I just sort of said yes. I thought, how hard can it be? So, then they wanted me to play bass and I phoned my friend Jim Cregan and asked if I could borrow his bass because I’ve got about three weeks to play these songs. I got blisters on my right-hand fingers and Roger one day suggested I play it with a plectrum. I had no idea,” chuckles White. “I’m a fairly easy-going chap so nothing really bothers me. I enjoyed certain aspects of it. And occasionally I didn’t enjoy it. But if you’re not playing your own music and must play another guitarist’s parts, I’m not very good at it. It was hard work, but it actually did me good.”
Snowy struck up a rapport with Dave Gilmour that found him playing more than the occasional live solo: “Dave kept saying things like ‘why don’t you do a guitar solo here’ and I just launched into a guitar solo. I had no idea of the context and the fact that people were probably disappointed because they had been expecting Dave to play that part didn’t really occur to me. Dave is a generous guy.”
Snowy struck up a similar rapport with Peter Green and played on Green’s In The Skies album but their friendship started some years earlier: “It was a bit funny when I was playing the blues and learning in my bedroom down
Paul Davies Supplied
Dave Gilmour asked me if I could play bass and I just sort of said yes...
on the Isle of Wight. When I was in my teens, I used to listen to Clapton and Santana and then Pete became the guitarist I admired the most. So, when I ended up in London, I met somebody, a drummer, who had his phone number and I called him. We didn’t have mobiles, so I went all the way down the road to the coin box, one of the red telephone boxes and I phoned him up and I thought, well, he’s just going to tell me to go away,” White continues, “But I said I’m new in town and wondered if I could come down and have a jam? And he said, ‘Yeah, come down’ and that is how we met. He had a very generous spirit. He was living with his mum and dad in their house in New Malden at that time. So, I drove down there, and we played a little bit. He was very friendly, and his mum and dad and the parrot were there and the dog, too. Then his mum said, ‘do you want to stay for dinner’? But the reason I told you about staying in my bedroom listening to Pete play and try to learn what he did is because a couple of years later, we were quite friendly by then, he came down to my parents’ place and spent a couple of days there and it didn’t occur to me until later that was a bit surreal because he was sleeping in my bedroom. I was in the spare room. The guy I’ve been sitting there for months trying to learn how to play a bit like him was in my room. My mum
the washing up and stuff. It was around the mid 70s. He was fine at that time. It was early on before he went stranger. He just wanted to be an ordinary man in an ordinary job. I don’t think he wanted to be involved much in the music business. That was his choice. He was fine and just wanted to muck in.”
Then Snowy became the custodian of Green’s famous Gibson guitar: “I was living in London with a girlfriend. I was doing a few bits and pieces on the guitar, I was playing but not out playing, and he used to come and stay and sleep on the sofa. Then one day he came around and asked if I would look after all his gear. So, he brought all his gear around his Les Paul, his amp, his record collection and his tapes with John Mayall and he wanted me to look after all of it as he didn’t have anywhere to settle down and didn’t want to be surrounded by all that stuff.”
Snowy continues: “ He offered me his guitar for £100 and I didn’t have £100. The only way I could have bought it is if I sold my guitar and I didn’t want to do that. I thought if I buy Pete’s guitar and sell mine and he wants it back I’ll have to give it back to him. He sold it to Gary Moore for £150. I told Pete that I would keep it for him, put it in the loft and won’t touch it and one day you
will want it back. He said that he had already sold it to Gary!”
Snowy White played his final concert in 2019 at The International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg, Russia, in what turned out to be a shambolic situation as he explains:
“I got a call from an agent and I said ‘no, I don’t want to go to Russia.’ He told me what they wanted to pay me, which was a lot of money, and he said think about it. I thought about it and about a month went by and then he called me again and said they still want you to play, and I said’ no I don’t want to go to Russia.’ This agent said, ‘what if I can get you some more money’?’ I thought about Richard Bailey, Kumar Harada, and Max Middleton and it’s big money for them. So, I said if they get us business class flights and rehearsal time, I’ll do it.”
Snowy tells me more: “On the day everything was running late, and we went on around midnight and only got to play about twenty minutes with two bands waiting to follow us.” With no plans to tour this album and dedicating more of his time to oil painting, Snowy White may have come to the end of the gigging road. Nevertheless, and as Driving On The 44 proves, he has plenty of creative juice left in the tank to keep recording music.
Steve Hill is likely to be a new name to many but back home in Canada, this guy has a fast-growing reputation for serving up generous helpings of powerful blues-rock music with his fretwork always upfront and his singer-songwriter credentials wellearned over many years at the sharp end of the music business.
With a Juno (a sort of Canadian Grammy) already in the bag together with a handful of Maple Awards (similar to the Memphis IBC awards, in reality) Hill is clearly a man to watch. We caught him on the verge of the release of his latest ten-track album, No Illusion, for a chat about his career, the new album and blues music generally.
Like many before and after, Hill lists Led Zeppelin as one of his personal influences before picking out many of the blues cannon’s finest from Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf to the Stones:
“I’ve been playing for many years now, working and gigging all over. Though I’m
mostly based in Canada, I play the States and Europe whenever the chance arises. I’ve always loved good rock music – who doesn’t really – and I have a deep love of blues music that has always been a recurrent theme in my own recordings going back well over twenty years now,” he says.
“The Juno is a real honour. It’s really a Canadian Grammy. I won a bunch of Maples mostly, so it’s all good. I started out professionally in 1993, about thirty years ago. So I’ve been doing this a long time now! My first album actually came out around 1997. I started playing clubs when I was around sixteen, pretty young but great times. It’s sort of what I’ve been doing my entire life. I started playing guitar aged thirteen and just keep on going. Then straight to playing clubs so except for Covid it’s been that way now for thirty odd years.”
Thoughts and talk turn to Covid and its effects on Hill’s work and the birth of the new album:
“When you’re used to being on the road about 125 days a year, suddenly to lose that was a huge thing, a real
“I’d been thinking about releasing an acoustic record for a while and, strangely, the timing just was perfect. I had three or four songs that didn’t fit well with the rest of the album. They had been written in a different context. So I took those songs – I’ve had my own studio for around twenty years now, and found hard-drives and some cool, unreleased stuff. And it all came together really, really easily. It felt as if it was meant to be, really. Overall, it gave me the time to write some more songs and finish the record. Though it went easily together, it took a bit longer than expected and there are about six songs left from what would have been the original album. So, I wrote loads
difference to life. Being at home all the time was tough but things are now finally back to normal. This, my new album, No Illusion, was originally slated for release in 2020, so when Covid hit here I already had a finished version. It was mastered, everything done, then it was to come out in April. Then of course Covid hit in March so I decided to postpone the release. By the time it was finally ready to launch it wasn’t exactly the same record; it had some of the same songs and some other, more acoustic songs I’d written down in California about five years ago. I took those songs and some other songs I had but had never releases – more acoustic, really. I knew by then I’d be stuck a couple of years without any real touring so I was now playing more soloing, cause I didn’t have a crew anymore. You know, I couldn’t tour with a band but I could tour to an extent as a solo artist.”
more songs during Covid and recorded pretty much the whole thing. It started out as a sort of one-man-band record; some songs had been written with that idea in mind.”
“I was over in France with a musician I know, Rico; we were working together at his place in Lille. We were touring and real busy, which is always cool. But I had one day off and we decided to go to his studio and record a new song I had, All About the Love –which ended up as the first track on the new record. I don’t know why but I heard – you know how it goes, in my head – horns. And every time I played the song I heard horns there. So it felt like it just needed those horns in there. Rico’s had studios over there in France for over twenty years and he’s had bands and he picks up the best musicians. So I figured I’m sure he can get me a really good horn section for this. So that’s what we did and I was so impressed by the end of our tour that I went back with him to his studio and recorded some more stuff with that track and others. Originally, I wanted horns on that one opening track but in the
end I had horns on the whole record. It sort of gave me a different palate. From years of being a one-man-band, it just felt like something else right there. I’d been playing everything, doing overdubs, playing pedal-steel, most instruments, and then last January I had one song that was missing from the record. I found this song, Follow Your Heart, and thought it had a lot of potential. I had a pretty good demo but the drumming was just sort of okay!”
“Luckily, I’m friends with UK player Wayne Proctor. We’ve been friends for about ten years. I did a double bill with Olly Brown back then, about ten years ago, and that’s when we first met. Then about five years
ago, I was touring Germany and did a show with Ben Poole and then I followed that about four years ago with a tour with King King. And so Wayne was just always part of it all and I’ve always loved his drumming. I love him as a contemporary drummer; he can play a bit just behind the beat and that’s what you want! It helps that tightness and every time I played with King King, I’d listen to the band afterwards and find that basically I would listen to Wayne. I really enjoy his drumming. So I asked him to play on this one new album and he said ‘Sure, just send it over!’ He has a studio, so I had this song and didn’t like the drumming so sent it to Wayne and when it came back I couldn’t believe what he’d done with it! So, he ended up playing on six songs;
He’d send back mixes that were much better than mine! So he also ended up mixing the records, then it went to a guy for mastering but I preferred Wayne’s mastering In the end, Wayne played drums, mixed and mastered the whole record.”
“The album comes out in November which is after my European tour in October where I’m playing Switzerland, Germany and Netherlands; Germany and UK are great places to tour.”
Steve Hill’s new album, Dear Illusion, is released by No Label Records on November 11th via www.stevehillmusic.com
Virtuoso blues musician Sunjay releases his new album, Black And Blues Revisited, in October, the follow-up to 2015’s Black And Blues album.
During the early stages of recording, Sunjay’s mother died suddenly, and her loss permeates the resulting album with an additional level of emotion and intensity. Sunjay chatted with BM’s Andy Hughes about inspirations, guitar playing, and belting it out in the studio
Your video for The Easy Blues has an authenticity to it, because of the ease and simplicity with which its delivered. Do you think that authenticity and simplicity are what blues music is about?
I’m not sure about ‘simplicity’, but ‘authenticity’ is something I was really keen that the video should have. When we were setting it up, someone suggested that we should have a camera in the control room, taking a view through the glass into the studio, and then some shots with the cameraman walking around. I said no, because the idea was that the whole thing was done in one take, which it was. The idea is not that we sat for four hours and made a video that looked as though we sat down and played the song in one take, the whole idea is that we did the song in one take, and recorded it, and that’s what happened.
Is there any sort of blues presence in India?
I’m not aware of it if there is. I know that the folk band Show Of Hands have been over in the 1990’s and done some recordings with some Indian folk musicians, but there is a folk tradition in most cultures around the world. I don’t think blues music is really a part of the culture of India.
Please accept condolences on the loss of your mother, do you think that her loss has affected you and influenced you as a writer and as a musician?
Thank you, yes, my mum died a year ago last Monday. I think the loss has influenced me. I think the loss of anyone close affects someone, but especially the loss of a parent, I think that does affect everything. My dad was talking about losing his parents, and he said that once you lose your parents, you are an orphan. It’s a relative concept when you hear someone else talk about it, until you actually experience the death of a parent yourself.
I have always believed that sorrow and loss are an essential ingredient of blues music, do you think you need to have suffered in some form or another in order to really understand how to write and perform blues songs?
I was talking with a friend of mine who is a prolific songwriter, and he told me about the time when he and his wife moved to the countryside for a year, and he said that that was the happiest time of his life, and he didn’t write one song for that entire time. I asked him if he thought that it was because he had no actual suffering in his life, and therefore nothing he needed to write about to express how he was feeling, and he agreed with that. I think that a degree of discomfort is necessary for songs with emotional input in them, less so for simply pop songs about love and so on, but more so for deeper material.
What inspired your interest in blues music?
wanted to do.
So, you moved on from Buddy Holly to other musicians?
I did yes. My dad was an avid video recorder, he had a collection of about five hundred video tapes he had made, and I went through those, and listened to a lot of stuff. In the 80’s I got into AC/DC, and for me they are a blues band. I know that a lot of what they do is considered heavy rock, but it has a lot of
blues band. I know that a lot of what they do blues influences in it.
Do you collect blues music?
Not specifically, no. I do like a lot of diverse things. I know a lot of people say that, but in
Do you think you need to be a good technical player to be able to play blues well?
A lot of the original blues masters got by with really rudimentary guitar playing, but do you feel you need something more than
my case it’s actually true. do you feel you need something more than that for your music?
A lot of engineers and producers try to emulate the original sound and atmosphere of the old blues masters, to make their
My dad mainly. I saw a documentary when I was a small child called The Day The Music Died, about Buddy Holly, and Richie Valens and The Big Bopper who died in the plane crash with him. There were interviews with Don McLean and the Everly Brothers. So, I was keen on Buddy Holly and my dad was fine with that. He played the guitar, and I pretended to play his guitar, and he got tired of me breaking his strings, so he bought me a small guitar with nylon strings, and they are a lot harder to break. I think Buddy Holly was influenced by a lot of the original blues musicians. My dad played in folk clubs and played a range of material, and he used to fingerpick a few blues songs, and one of the songs he played was Monday Morning Blues by Mississippi John Hurt, which is on my new album.
pretended to play his guitar, and he got tired
of the old blues masters, to make their recordings sound like that. Someone once said to me that the way to do it was to record something, take the tape outside and wrap it around a tree and leave it for six months, to get that ‘weathered’ sound. I think that’s one of the stupidest things I have
But you were not keen to follow the folk tradition?
I became more interested in fingerpicking, and developing my style as a guitar player. My dad did try to teach me fingerpicking, but he really struggled with it. He could show me chords and strumming chords, and now to do a walking bass line, but after that, it was just not his thing. So I more or less taught myself from then on, I watched people on TV, and just worked out for myself how to do what I
and developing my style as a guitar player.
ever heard! Technology has moved on so much, and everyone expects crystal clear clarity in everything they hear. I think there is an expectation that sound will be crystal clear. I know that people will use everything they can to get a perfect recording, but that’s not always a good thing, I think.
Why not?
Well, I am a huge Status Quo fan, and in my eyes, they are a blues band first and foremost, and I was really disappointed to
hear that they play to a click track. I thought that is really not playing live in a true sense. I think that people do miss cues or come in at the wrong time, or mess up the ending of a song, but to me that is part of the authentic experience of a live show, so I don’t like everything to be as perfect as that.
How did you choose the musicians on your album?
Yes, and it may seem odd for a blues musician, but I would love to work with Adele, I think she is really interesting and a genuine person. But in blues terms, it would be Bonnie Rait, I think she is fabulous.
Are you going to make another album of blues classics, or will your next album be original material?
Kate Rusby’s band but he loves blues. Josh
The drummer Josh Clarke who engineered the album, I started working with Josh during the lockdown, we did a single together, I enjoyed working with him. Josh plays in Kate Rusby’s band but he loves blues. Josh Jesbury the bassist I met when I was on tour with Eve Selis and we got on really well. Lee Southall the harmonica player has been on quite a few of my albums, and we’ve gigged together, and he’s a good friend of mine. Bob Fridzema the keyboard player was the wild card of the bunch. I got into Joanne Shaw Taylor’s music, and I went to see her just before lockdown, and she was just amazing. I have never seen anyone own a guitar like she did, zooming up to the twentieth fret without looking, she was sensational, and Bob was playing keyboards on the tour. Bob and I hooked up on Facebook and I asked him if he’d play on my album, and he agreed right away. Bob has been on tour with King King and Walter Trout, he is regarded as one of the best keyboard players around.
of the best keyboard players around. Is there anyone you would like to work with?
I’m not really sure to be honest. I started three albums last year, ideas I had during the lockdown period when everyone was forced off the road. I was late to live streaming, mainly because the day before lockdown started, I trod on my laptop and that was out of action, and I couldn’t get it repaired for quite a while. I wasn’t really comfortable to be feeling like I was asking for money, but I decided to have a go and I did a collection of love songs around Valentine’s Day. One Black And Blues , and the next album may actually be my first album of entirely original material, but it may include some covers which was the other album idea I was working on, so
started, I trod on my laptop and that was out be feeling like I was asking for money, but I a of the albums has become Revisited we’ll see what works out.
on your new album?
I do, I think and Statesboro’ Blues
it. For a long time, I was told I was a guitar a fair reflection of what I do. I think there when singing Statesboro Blues, was it downloading my music, and seeing me as That is what any musician wants.
Built For Comfort is my favourite, , because it felt like a breakthrough in the studio when I recorded it. For a long time, I was told I was a guitar player who sang, and I didn’t think that was a fair reflection of what I do. I think there is a limit to what you can do vocally when you are playing intricate fingertstyle guitar. But when I recorded those songs, I really felt good singing them. You can’t really tell on the finished recording, but when I was I was really belting it out, and it felt great. It makes me feel good about my vocals. I played rough versions to my family and friends, people who are friends for other reasons than my music. The reaction I got was that I sounded really good, which was wonderful, and they are downloading my music, and seeing me as a musician, which is exactly what I want. That is what any musician wants.
Sunjay’s new album “Black & Blues Revisited” is released by Mighty Tight Records on October 14th. See Sunjay on tour from October 28th until November 23rd. Tickets and album info: www.sunjay.tv
Tight October
I got the chance to chat with slide guitarist, singer songwriter, band leader Troy Redfern; first at Edinburgh where he was supporting When Rivers Meet on his solo tour, finishing with an online chat at his home. Hard working, enthusiastic and when he is unleashed onto a stage, he gives onehundred percent, high- power entertainment. He also has a new album out The Wings Of Salvation. This and other topics were discussed.
I start asking about how he feels about being a soloist: “First time solo was supporting Robert Jon and The Wreck. Had never soloed before then. Had a kick drum with me, that was hard work. I learned my lesson on that tour. Then I supported The Sweet. A story there: I was in the dressing room and thought T Rex were bluesy on Twentieth Century Boy, when I came out to do last song, I asked the audience whether they wanted blues or Glam rock, they wanted the latter. So, I did Get It On, slide version. I met a friend of Marc Bolan later who said Marc was heavily influenced by blues music. He used to sing Howlin Wolf songs in the dressing room. By the end of that run, the solo thing, I can take anywhere, you’ve got no one to come with you. You can bring it right down and off to any tangent with the show,” he says with evident pleasure.
We turn to discuss the new album and its genesis:
“The last album was written over the course of a year, I demo-ed it all, backing vocals included and sent it to the studio. With the new album, I started with a blank canvass. I worked with Dave Marks, bass player and all round intuitive musical guy, as well as a great keys playe. I did forty original ideas and whittled them down, we bounced off each other for ideas. It took us four weeks after starting with nothing, I’ve never done that before in such a small amount of time. The hardest part was writing the lyrics for ten songs. Normally I write the song, I’ll have a vocal melody, guitar part, then I’ll build it up. It pushed me to see what I can do, but I work well under pressure. If you get a deadline, I manage to do it. What I like about the new album, It’s a snapshot
of time, it’s not this long drawn thing over a year with fragments of ideas coming together. The last album was to do with the producer Paul Winn who had a particular vision for that. It was more rock orientated. On the new one, the brief was I wanted it more rounded and three dimensional. You must decide how many guitar tracks to do because you might lose that dimension. We didn’t want to fix things in post. We wanted it to sound like an old album. Like when Zeppelin recorded, the drums were not edited, it had to be real. So, there’s no auto-tuning, it’s basic guitar on one track. It’s easy to do drop ins and choppings, I had to do a lot of takes to do it the way Dave wanted it. There are rock elements to the album but it’s broader than that. We looked at the songs being in groups of three: rock, Americana, and blues tracks. It flows well.
wanted it. There are rock elements to the
So, I ask, is there a theme or concept to the album?: “They are self-contained songs. I put an album of instrumental tunes out on Bandcamp that had drastically different elements to previous work. That said, you never know what will sell. You must be careful not to put your blinkers on too much. We didn’t want the new album over-produced so there were no tracks you couldn’t replicate live.
Does he consider himself to have a particular musical style?: “I know what elements are in there, also the way I write is different. When I pick up a guitar I just try, play, and not think. I try to listen to what I’m doing after the fact. Then I capture that and build on it. It’s not a conscious songwriting way, it’s more gut feeling and following that idea. There are elements of Son House and Chris Whitley and even Aerosmith. When growing up, I wasn’t a guitarist who learned these people’s solos so I can’t directly reference their music, because I can’t play it! What comes out are your own interpretations of things through whatever technique I have. You cannot help playing as yourself, I am no Stevie Ray Vaughan!”
growing up, I wasn’t a guitarist who learned
“it channels the energy you have as a kid”
And what influenced you?: “The first thing I remember listening to when six years old was Queen, A Night At The Opera. I
So, the blues element to your musical style was influenced by Son House?:
listened to my brother’s record collection initially. Then when I was ten, I got into listening to Van Halen and Aerosmith. My parents bought me a guitar. I listened to the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Son House, Climax Blues Band. I always liked the energy of Hendrix.” blues Absolutely! Other players, like Jonny of blues music is the Hill Country style, the like of R.L Burnside, Fred McDowell. The rural blues felt and sounded more real. The identity for me was what I liked. Slick Chicago style did not really do it for me. The more organic approach appeals to me. With Jonny Winter there is a lot of energy to his style as well, the rawness attracts me to these sorts of players What I would advise if I could go back in time is surround yourself with on the same page and want to do the same
thing as you. If you’re not careful you can end up wasting time with people who don’t want to do the same thing as you. Align yourself with the right people. I’m from a rural area. You need to meet people, the industry is all about meeting people. You don’t want to fake being nice, you either
are or not.”
Winter. My favourite type people who are
I they music some chance
I met Darby Todd in Poland. He offered his things a he we recording studio.”
What guitars and styles he prefers brings a swift response: “When Brothers In Arms by Dire Straits came out, I wanted to play saxophone! My parents were not going to pay £500, so they got me a clarinet because the music teacher said this was similar! I didn’t like getting music lessons. Then I watched the film Back To The Future and found out about Van Halen. High energy rock music of that time in the 80’s, as an early teen that music is perfect for that time in your life. It’s good nostalgic music for when you get older, but it channels the energy you have as a kid. My brother had a good record collection. I put together a band at school and loved it. I spent some time with Joe Gooch who played with Ten Years After. I wrote music with him as well. Then I eventually built my own home studio, so all the ideas I had growing up, I was able to get ideas recorded. This is still a kick for me now. Through chance meetings at Festivals, I met Darby Todd in Poland. He offered his services as drummer and contacted Dave Marks for bass and Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal on guitars. He introduced me to some amazing players and to be around them, this lifted my project. Surround yourself with people who are better at doing things than you are! On drums for the new album is Paul Stewart from the band The Feeling, he is an amazing drummer. He has a unique feel, he blasted it out when we went to the recording studio.”
We finish with a nod to future plans and from the new album will be coming out. Touring in Europe November to December.
about building up a fan base.” BLUESMATTERS.COM
We finish with a nod to future plans and working the latest release: “Three singles from the new album will be coming out. Touring in Europe November to December. Manny Montana, Robert Jon’s Tour Manager arranged this. These will be full band gigs with Finn McAuley on drums and Kiera Kenworthy on bass. We will be doing a headline tour next year. Playing support, you are playing in front of someone else’s audience but a percentage of them might want to buy tickets for your show. It’s about building up a fan base.”
Troy Redfern’s new album “The Wings of Salvation” is available from www. troyredfern.com.
Troy is special guest on DARE’s UK tour from October 6 - 29, 2022.
Tix: www.thegigcartel.com
Dave Thomas is a Welsh singer songwriter guitarist and bandleader. He has several critically acclaimed albums in his own right varying in musical styles. Anyone with an interest in blues music knows his deep lineage from stqrting with 1950’s and 60’s roots. By the late 60’s many blues-based bands were turning to more progressive, psychedelic vibes. One of the best known of the era was Blonde on Blonde, which Dave joined in 1969. The band was successful and regularly toured with bands such as Deep Purple and Genesis.
Recently Dave released a
new album Road to The Blues.
Coming from Wales, a land steeped in musical history, I ask about his own origins:
“I was brought up in Newport in South Wales, an industrial dock town. My father was a miner’s son and my mother was the youngest of a family of fifteen, she had ten elder brothers. At one stage, nine of these were in a male voice choir in the docks, so music was in there before I was born. My Aunt was from Devon and played piano. I remember there was a piano in the Hall when I was young, then it disappeared. My father bought me a tin drum, that disappeared as did a plastic saxophone he bought me. They got me a cat because I was distraught - that lasted a week! Many years later, I realised the evil Ogre was my uncle who didn’t like memories of him being in the Docks being brought into the old Victorian house we all rattled about in. We had a lodger with a harmonium, she played in a Baptist Chapel, she let me pedal the wheels for her. The early influences with music were to do with hymns. I was five and cried when singing
We Plough the Fields And Scatter, there’s a chord change there that felt so emotional and I associate this with listening to blues music at a later age. My uncle, in a fit of remorse bought me a harmonica. I taught myself to play Bobby Shafto, that was the very beginning! I got my hands on a mandolin but couldn’t play it. Then I listened to early Rolling Stones and Beatles. Before that I got into Buddy Holly and Chuck Berry. I was eight when I first heard It Really doesn’t Matter Anymore by Buddy Holly, a Paul Anka song. Then my mother saved up for my twenty-first birthday and contributed to me buying my first guitar, a Hofner I still use, it’s great for playing slide with.”
Dave recalls his blues journey:
“My first band was called Skid Row and at thirteen I could be found in dodgy Caribbean basement bars in the Docks area playing to a lot of black folks who adopted me! There was a cracking blues band in Newport then, The Cellar Set, who let our band play between their sets in Church Halls. That band went to London and became Blonde on Blonde They made their first album and the lead singer Ralph Denyer left and formed another band. They got me, and this was two weeks before I was supposed to start University. My mother was mortified! I was on the road for three years with them. They were described as a seminal Prog Rock band, a great experience, hard going. Then I worked at an aluminium smelting works to make enough to buy a Morris Minor car and drive off to London. First band I joined was Robin Le Mesurier’s Reign. He went on to play guitar with Rod Stewart. The reason I left that band was they were offered a job as
being The Wombles! I was back on my knees in export packaging next. I then started playing blues in Folk Clubs throughout England. I was in a duo called Short Stuff with Hugh Gregory for four years, got my degree, and got a job working in advertising for twenty odd years!”
“In 1986, I got involved in a project that ended up with me playing Knebworth at a Christian Rock Festival called Greenbelt in front of 25,000 people. I remember thinking, this is another fine mess I’ve got into but survived it. In 1996 I was in Montreux for the Jazz Festival. I got a message to phone MPL (McCartney Productions Limited). I’d been entered into a national competition about Buddy Holly, and this was to do with people doing their own interpretations of Buddy’s songs. I recorded a solo album called Cold Harbour which had my version of It Doesn’t Really Matter Anymore, so back to the beginning. They took me to the Texas Embassy in London, rehearsed with some celebs. Whenever I could, I would make and produce an album. I think I have fourteen out including the Blonde on Blonde ones. Blues For Otis (Spann) got acclaim. I love piano players most, then harmonica and then guitarists in the blues genre. I was in the middle of divorce proceedings and my lawyer said ‘This is jolly good news, Mr Thomas; I suggest you do something you enjoy for very little money for a while because any money you make will disappear… ‘ I went back to music!”
with his family and band. I wrote an album with Wallace about things I observed and felt. I had my flight delayed by a day and so was able to attend his funeral. One of the speakers was a son of Robert Johnson. I can write a blues song now; a couple of divorces has helped that!”
Asked if he considers himself to have a particular style, Dave responds:
“I’m laid back as a person. The way I play is very easy. This informs my guitar style a lot. My favourite blues guitar player is Matt Guitar Murphy. I’m more impressed by a jazzy technique than heavy rock, blues on the edge of jazz. BB King and T Bone Walker are huge influences on my guitar style. Having been in front of Deep Purple and Steve Miller I know how loud musicians can be. A story from the gig at The Dome in Brighton related to talking with Steve Miller’s bass player. He said, you didn’t get paid enough as a hired hand! I like collaborating with musicians who are better. A lot of good blues is conversational. I’m not a raging frontman but very happy with it. Connecting with the band on stage is important. This became more evident after lockdown. Robert Lockwood Junior’s best advice was You got to get behind the man. He meant; you are not there to show off, if you do your solo that’s great then step back into the rhythm section because the man would be someone like Muddy Waters. There are clear jobs to do especially if you’re playing Chicago blues. The voice is also most of value. I get a feeling with UK blues bands they disregard the voice; this is a very important factor in a band. Reading about the composer Chopin I read, in order to be a good piano player, you have to be a good singer first. I’m a singer first, guitar player second! I play my guitar upside down never read music, self-taught guitarist. The classic twelve bar notation of blues is akin to a Shakesperean Sonnet. Blues is essential to my life. The blues is your friend, stay true to your own blues. I found this out in early puberty and it’s been reinforced the older I get. It’s about finding your own voice, your own truth.”
“I had no right to write a blues song of my own, this was black man’s music. What changed that was I used t be involved with Shakedown Blues for ten years. Gerard Homan would bring black American artists over to do gigs in the UK. I ended playing with forty black Americans, all of different styles. Wallace Coleman the harmonica player and I made an album together in Cleveland where he lived. He was the only harmonica player Robert Lockwood Junior ever used. I met and played with him because I knew the language of the blues. We made a double album in 2006 Repossession Blues. Later I went to record, this was when Robert Lockwood Junior became very ill - they wheeled me in
Dave talked about a few tracks from his album Road to The Blues.
It’s the first blues album where I’ve written most of the stuff. That defines a first for me. There’s heartfelt blues mixed with tongue in cheek phrasing. Song writing on my own starts by playing acoustic guitar, but blues albums are about the lyrics for me. My writing partner is Julia Smalley. A quote from J. B. Lenoir - ‘Keep on going if you know you are right!’ That’s to do with being true to yourself. That is a joy and a duty. I will keep on going until I drop. Best advice came from Robert Lockwood Junior. ‘Keep your eye on the money,’ Dave ends with a laugh!
The way I play is very easy
Add soul to your sound with authentic 1960s valve warmth. The 1962 truly encapsulates the spirit of the blues. A 30W icon made in the UK.
04 DEC RIPLEY BLUES CLUB HARROGATE
14 JAN GT BRITISH ROCK & BLUES FEST ‘23 SKEGNESS 09 APR HRH BLUES 2023 SHEFFIELD
5
7 OCT SWANAGE BLUES FESTIVAL SWANAGE
22 OCT HRH BLUES FESTIVAL LIVERPOOL
11 NOV BARNOLDSWICK MUSIC & ARTS LANCASHIRE
12 NOV HALLELUJAH FESTIVAL HARTLEPOOL
13 NOV THE FLYING CIRCUS NEWARK
08 DEC HALF MOON PUTNEY
17 DEC THE MUSICIAN LEICESTER
01 OCT THE STABLES MILTON KEYNES
12 NOV HARTLEPOOL BLUES FESTIVAL HARTLEPOOL
10 DEC THE VOODOO ROOMS EDINBURGH
09 OCT WHITBY BLUES FESTIVAL
20 OCT TAPESTRY ARTS BRADFORD
21 OCT MANCHESTER RUGBY CLUB MANCHESTER
22 OCT THE WHARF STOURPORT
23 OCT THE HARLINGTON FLEET
25 OCT THE HALF MOON LONDON
26 OCT THE FACTORY WORTHING
27 OCT BOURNE MUSIC CLUB SITTINGBOURNE
28 OCT FARNDON COMMUNITY CLUB CHESTER
29 OCT MACKENZIE HALL BROCKWEIR
07 NOV THE 1865 SOUTHAMPTON
08 NOV THE ROBIN BILSTON
09 NOV THE GRACE LONDON
10 NOV THE YARDBIRDS CLUB GRIMSBY
11 NOV HALLELUJAH FESTIVAL HARTLEPOOL
13 NOV THE CAVES EDINBURGH
09 DEC NAN RICES NEWRY
ALL INFORMATION CORRECT AT THE TIME OF GOING TO PRINT. PLEASE CHECK WITH THE VENUES BEFORE TRAVELLING OR BOOKING HOTELS
Artistically Joanne Shaw Taylor is in the best place of her life right now. Since signing to Joe Bonamassa’s label Keeping The Blues Alive she got to record the album of blues covers she had always wanted to and released a stunning live album, Blues From The Heart Live. Both received critical acclaim and are still riding high in blues charts across the world.
What better time to go into the studio and record a new album that focuses on Joanne the songwriter and singer? With the production team of Joe B and Josh Smith, who are gaining an ever-growing reputation of getting the best out of artists, that’s exactly what Joanne has done. The resulting album is called Nobody’s Fool and is expected to be released later this year.
Joanne is now based in the USA and when I caught up with her via Zoom was in the midst of photo shoots and other gruelling media duties expected of artists these days. As always, though, she was in good spirits and keen to talk about the new album which she is clearly very proud of.
Steve Yourglivch Chris Wilson & Kit Wood
“Having released two albums that are really traditional blues albums within the space of about twelve months I realised that if ever there was a time to record an album of songs that just felt right without having to worry too much about playing too many riffs or having them swing a certain way this was it.” Joanne tells me. “‘I could sneak one out that was me writing whatever I felt like writing,” she adds with a smile.
“I just sat down and messed around with it. I’ve never really written to a specific audience base or been too obsessed with having like three shuffles, three rocky ones and three slow ones, you know. But this time I did play around with acoustic guitar and wrote more melodic lines. It was really good fun.”
To me, it works very well. It’s great to hear another side of Joanne Shaw Taylor emphasised that maybe sometimes gets missed. It can become easy for great guitar players to write tracks that are a vehicle for the instrument, it’s refreshing to see Joanne display a talent as a songwriter and singer. I love that straight from the opening title track, Nobody’s Fool, the vocal is very much to the forefront. Joanne agrees:
“t’s a funny thing but I don’t see myself as just a guitar player, the older I’ve get the more I think of myself as a singer who happens to play guitar as well. There are others in this genre who are firstly guitarists who also sing, I’m more a mixture of guitarist, singer and songwriter. It is important to me to have that vocal to the forefront because after all it is the vocal that sells the song. I’ve been very lucky in my career to have great mentors around me, people like Dave Stewart, he told me when I was 15 that most of the public would cite the guitar solo in Hotel California as the greatest ever, but that was because it’s in a great song.”
Having said that, the track Nobody’s Fool also contains a tasty guitar solo in its midst. Joanne points out:
“I remember in the studio, Joe and Josh both giving a tremendous amount of help finding solos that were more melodic and actually fitted the song better.”
Bad Blood follows the title track and it has a cinematic feel to it, I could imagine it as the theme music to one of those spaghetti Westerns. “Yeah, I agree, when I demoed that one out I had it a fair bit more up tempo. In the studio Joe and Josh both said they heard it with that spaghetti western vibe straight away. I ought to get the label to release it as a single so I can make a video, dress up like Clint East-
wood and ride a horse.”
Won’t Be Fooled Again is track three, and it isn’t a cover of The Who. Rather it’s quite a dreamy atmospheric ballad with Joe adding some guitar.
“It certainly isn’t a Who song, it’s about as far removed as you can get,” Joanne laughs.
“It’s actually one of my personal favourites on the album, I like pretty ballads. It was fun because it’s a little out of my wheelhouse as a guitarist but very much my wheelhouse as a writer. Joe is such a versatile player it was fun to include him on that one to see what he came up with and trade off a little bit.”
I wondered if the album had been recorded in one go or spread over a period of time. Joanne told me the whole thing was done in a single week. “We were on a really tight schedule; I wrote it in about three weeks and then flew to L.A. and recorded in a week. It was both the quickest and longest week of my life!”
That sense of continuity and the feel of the chemistry happening does show through: “We got away with it a bit by using Joe’s band so obviously they play together a lot and are very tight. They shoved me into the middle of it! We cut two or three songs per day, so we were very together by the end of it.”
Just No Getting Over You is another softer track. I told Joanne I felt it had a Tedeschi Trucks feel to it. “Oh nice! I hadn’t picked up on that, but I like that. For me it’s a mix of Sheryl Crow and The Stones, a kinda swagger. It was actually one of the first ones I wrote. I like that still has a nod to the blues.”
Runaway is probably the poppiest song on the album and was one of the few where Joanne had the lyrical ideas ahead of the music. “You should hear the demo, it was a lot more poppier, they really reeled me in. Actually, the demo was a bit more aggressive, they turned it into something beautiful, a more Joni Mitchell kinda vibe. Which was lovely as I was staying in Laurel Canyon
where her house was. It’s hard to be there and not think of Joni Mitchell.”
Another of my favourites is Then There’s You. It has a rock’n’roll feel going on: “That was a lot of fun. That was originally written for the Reckless Heart album, and it just didn’t fit that album. So, I sent the original demo to Joe and Josh and they loved it. We re-recorded it and it works really well for this album.” It has another super guitar solo too.
It has been well documented that Dave Stewart of Eurythmics fame discovered and mentored Joanne as a young teenage performer. So, it should be no surprise that he guests on a super cover of Missionary Man.
“Dave has been a very good friend and mentor for a couple of decades now. He was one of the first to encourage me to be more than just a guitar player, he thought I had a voice both vocally and lyrically, that I had something to say which shaped me as an artist. With that song I did an acoustic version that was bluesy and heavy and sent it to Joe and Josh. When we got to the studio, they had worked it out into how it sounds now. I really like it; I think it has a White Stripes vibe. Dark and funky. Dave was in L.A. at the time so I was a bit cheeky and asked if he would come in and do it.” On this track, and actually throughout the album, there are some super backing vocals happening, I asked Joanne about those.
“Oh, they are brilliant. They came in and over one day did bv’s on seven songs. You know three-part harmonies; and that’s real singing. I couldn’t do that. They were fantastic.”
Working with Joe and Josh certainly seems to have opened up lots more scope and possibility for Joanne to broaden her vision in the studio. “I hadn’t really thought about it but previously we did the covers album, so this was the first time with new material. It was a bit nerve wracking in terms of sending them songs. I think Josh was a bit worried before-hand that I hadn’t written any songs, Joe has known me longer and knew it would be OK. Most of the demos I sent were just me and an acoustic. It was great to hear their ideas in pre-production. For once I felt like I was in a band, it was a collective effort. Joe and Josh really compliment each other too. Josh is effectively the band leader, he does all the charts, directs the band etc, and he has his own vision. He wrote a song for this too which I love, New Love. Joe is just the ringleader, not many people have his amount of studio experience.”
The track New Love actually closes the album and does it perfectly, it’s a bouncy upbeat number with some great sax going on.
On the track Figure It Out there is a guest appearance by Carmen Vandenburg of Bones UK and Jeff Beck renown. Probably not an obvious choice to record with Joanne but it certainly works. I wondered how it came about.
“I used to baby sit Carmen! She went to school with Django Stewart, Dave’s son. When I was fifteen or sixteen, I moved down to London and they looked after me, so at weekends I looked after Django and Carmen. And we both lived in London around 2014/15 so saw each other a bit. So, it worked out well as she was in L.A. at the time.”
The Leaving Kind is another super well-written song. Really slow and retrospective. “I wrote that originally as a slow acoustic piece and had it around for a few years. I was struggling to find a way to really make it work. Joe added some lyrics and I was super happy when I heard it back. I don’t think I would ever have taken it down the route they pursued. And it was nice to have a big melodramatic guitar solo.”
The next job is to think about how these songs will fit into a live setting alongside the rockier and more traditional blues songs in the back catalogue. It’s a challenge Joanne is relishing and already thinking hard about. There are tour dates in the book including visiting the UK in December.
“We know we must promote the new album. And there are some older songs we have to play because it would be strange if we didn’t. Then there are songs we’ve done heavily for a year or so that you need a break from just to freshen it up. Also, we can change a few numbers each night, mix it up a bit. It’s nice not to play the exact same set list every night. It keeps it fresh.”
The UK part of the tour kicks off on 22nd November at Cardiff and continues for about three weeks, check the dates out on Joanne’s website. I for one am looking forward to hearing these new songs live.
Joanne Shaw Taylor’s new album “Nobody’s Fool” is released by KTBA Records on October 28th. The album is available from www. ktbarecords.com
Joanne tours the UK from November 22nd until December 11th. Tickets available from www.joanneshawtaylor.com
It is a very rare thing these days, or any day for that matter, to have a husband and wife playing in the same band. But that is exactly what happened back in 2010.
Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks each had their own band, but decided that it would be best for them to combine forces and have their own band as one unit. In twelve years, Tedeschi Trucks have become one of the finest blues and blues/rock bands that have ever graced the scene.
In that short time, Tedeschi Trucks has evolved into one of the most successful
bands in the blues genre. Along the way, Tedeschi Trucks has amassed awards from all parts of the blues and blues/rock worlds. In 2014, Blues Music Awards made them the Best Blues Band, Blues/Rock album of the year in 2017, and Grammy Award Winners in 2018.
So far they have released four studio albums and three live albums, the last live album was a rendition of the iconic, Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs ( Derek And The Dominoes) during the lockdown, entitled, Layla Revisited, Live At Lockin’. 2022 has seen the band embark on something quite unique in terms of an album release. Not one album for 2022, but four albums, all connecting and revolving with one another. It is a musical
journey of epic proportions, each album having the title, I Am The Moon, then subsequent mini titles to mark each album. Having been fortunate enough to review all four albums, I can say without fear or trepidation that this collection of music is the finest of their wonderful career so far.
It represents their feelings for gospel, soul, and of course blues music. As a touring band, they are due to play a series of gigs in The UK in November. I’m sure that many of the songs on the I Am The Moon series will feature heavily in the live shows. I, for one, can’t wait to see this amazing band on their latest adventure.
I Am The Moon is the first of four albums that are being released by Tedeschi Trucks Band. 24 original songs will make up the four albums that have been inspired in no small way by a 12th Century poet by the name of Nizami Gonjavi. The basis of the poem was used as a huge influence on the making of Layla, And Other Assorted Love Songs, which Tedeschi Trucks covered in a live setting a couple of years ago. It seems that Layla was the main character behind the original poem. Anyway, back to the album in question, I Am The Moon contains just five songs, but has a playing time of well over thirty minutes, so in essence, you are getting a full album of material. Hear My Dear opens the album in true Tedeschi Trucks style. Susan Tedeschi’s vocals pour through the speakers better than I think I’ve ever heard her before. The whole band is on fire right from the start, and Derek Trucks’ slide guitar work is something to behold. The mixture of soul, R “n” B, and blues gel so well together, as they always have done. Harmonies play a significant part in this band’s make-up, never more so than on the title track, I Am The Moon. Alongside great musicians, the harmonies and vocal talents ooze through this song like a knife through butter. There is not a chink in their armour, nothing is out of place, whether it is with the writing, playing, or the overall production. The final track, Pasaquan, is a twelve-minute instrumental that will take you back to albums in the 70s. Now, back then, long instrumentals could be a tad boring, but not this one.
This album contains seven songs of such brilliance, just as brilliant as the first album in the series. Playing With Emotion opens II Ascension, and it certainly does not disappoint. Susan Tedeschi has one of the most powerful soul, blues, and gospel voices around today. The emotion of the song hits you from the off. An amazing collection of musicians pull together to make this song so full of feeling and yes, emotion. As usual, Derek Trucks takes the lead and rhythm guitar duties and does not disappoint. The band has the very rare ability to make a studio album and have the same feelings as a live performance. Believe me, that is not as easy as it sounds. That is what makes Tedeschi Trucks so special. A combination of awesome musicianship, fantastic writing, and know-how as to providing the listener with a unique experience. Ain’t That Something sees GABE Dixon sharing vocal duties alongside Susan, I’m almost at a loss for words as to how good this song is. So Long Saviour is as blues as you can get, and also quite raunchy in its delivery. For me, this is where the heart of the band lies, blues with a hint of raunchiness and devil-may-care attitude. The horn section contributes so much to the album, as on every album, and in a live setting, they are truly remarkable as a unit. This 4-album collection will, in my view, go down as one of the 21st century’s greatest amalgamation of blues, soul, and gospel music. It is a rare thing for one band to contain such beauty and craft in everything that they do. Tedeschi Trucks band is phenomenal. A collection of musical genius.
The third installment in this fabulous montage of musical delight starts with Somehow, written by Gabe Dixon and Tia Sillers. Each of these albums although in a series of 4, has an identity of its own. This opening track amplifies that so well. The sweet vocals of Susan Tedeschi with the band, and in particular, Derek Trucks playing as if his very life depended on it. I find that The Fall is a much looser album than the previous two. It seems to have more swing and liquidity about it. The tracks on this album are slightly harder, more blues and rocky, a sort of in-your-face approach. Whenever anyone mentions Tedeschi trucks, they automatically rave about the vocal talents of Susan, and the extraordinary playing of Derek, and these are two very understandable points. However, that’s not all that this band has in its arsenal. You also need to consider the writing capabilities of both Susan and Derek, and also other members of the band. Take for example Gravity, written by Gabe Dixon and Oliver Wood. This song gives way to the dirtier side of the blues, the raunchy side, it swings like hell. All six tracks here, move and swing more than the first two albums, but still there remains an underlying sense of soul and emotion. I can’t think of any other band that is capable of producing albums like this, especially in a series such as this. The final track, Take Me As I Am, once again demonstrates the beautiful voice of Susan Tedeschi. A very fitting way to end another fantastic milestone in this marvellous series of albums. Bravo.
This is the final piece of the musical jigsaw. The fourth album of this amazing collection of material from this truly amazing band. Over the four albums, the tempo and music have twisted and turned every which way. That is what brings me the most joy, the ever-changing moods and genres, soul, gospel, and of course blues. Soul Sweet Song epitomizes this so well, the actual title of the song leaves you in no doubt as to what the tune will be like. I swear that both Susan and Derek have become more accomplished artists through this whole adventure. With songs such as this, they have grown and taken these songs to a new plateau. The mainstay of the band is the vocals of Susan and the playing of Derek, but let’s not forget just how good they are as songwriters. Their songwriting skills have evolved along with their musical interpretations, making the four albums such a pleasurable listening experience. What also shines through are the wonderful backing vocals and the production of everyone involved. This is an all-around wonderful production by great musicians. There are six songs on this album, each one a musical gem. The release of four albums back-to-back is not your everyday occurrence, this release by Tedeschi Trucks will be remembered for a very long time. Not just because of the release of the four albums, but because of the magnificent songs that adorn these four albums. I sincerely hope that many of these songs will get to be heard in a live environment later this year when Tedeschi trucks band plays in the UK. That would be the icing on the cake.
I AM THE MOON: III. THE FALL
I AM THE MOON: IV. FAREWELL
Jo Carley and The Old Dry Skulls are looking to bring something a bit different to the blues world. Jo is a self-confessed Voodoo Queen who has been sent to raise a little hell and entertain you. The group’s offering has been described as “Voodoo sounds and syncopated rhythms of the blues, but uniquely delivered with an old-timey vaudeville twist.” And if that doesn’t get your attention, then nothing will.
The British outfit are getting ready to release their eagerly anticipated new album ‘I’ll Put My Voodoo On You’ in November. Of course, the pandemic era provided the group the time to get creative. Speaking of the pandemic, Jo said that: “Not being able to play live was very difficult. We had to cancel so many gigs, and it was just one disappointment after another. It just gets to a point where you’re like, I’m not sure if I can take any more disappointment.” However, the silver lining to this prolonged period of downtime was that the artist could concentrate on making new music. “We love writing music as well. So that was good, in a way, that we got to just spend time writing,” said Jo.
The group also used the downtime to further delve into the world of recording techniques. “The three of us have big interests in recording. We’re quite nerdy about it. We’re always talking about microphones and recording gear. So, we did a lot of research as to how to make the best of what we’ve got,” explained Jo. With their forthcoming release, the group used a combination of contemporary and analogue recording techniques. “We’re recording on to Pro Tools. So, at least, we’re not recording all to tape - even though I’d love to. That would be a dream come true, but it’s just not available to us to do that,” said Jo. “We mix onto tape, so it goes from the computer onto tape when we’re happy with the mix we’ve made.” Of course, tape adds a whole layer of complexity to the process. “Once it goes to tape, there’s no way to change anything. You’ve got to be really sure what you’re doing,” said Jo. “We put a lot of trust in Ed, the mixing engineer at Gizzard Recordings, and he seems to know his stuff.”
Jo Carley and her partner Tim form two-
thirds of the trio. The benefit of living together was that whilst other groups were separated from their band mates, their husband and wife writing partnership was able to continue during the lockdown. “We basically turned our house into a recording studio. We got rid of the couch and everything and turned that into a live room. The house just became this rehearsal room and recording studio. Which it still is; we haven’t put it back. I think it’s going to stay that way. It’s just a really creative space,” explained Jo Carley.
In terms of how the pair work together in the songwriting process, Jo said: “Tim writes all the music because he’s the guitarist. I write the melodies and the lyrics we do 50/50. Usually, he’ll have a riff, and if I like it, I will do a bit of ad lib. We record our ideas and then listen back to them. We can then expand on those ideas.”
The songs composed by Jo Carley and The Old Dry Skulls are set in a fictional world where anything can happen. “With our second album, we created this underworld on a faraway tropical island. It’s kind of frozen in time in the 1930s and it’s inhabited by zombies, witch doctors, voodoo queens and down and outs,” explains Jo. “All of our songs are based on characters and happenings that are on this island. The last three albums, basically, are a continuation of what goes on in that island.”
Whilst the rest of the world was delving into streaming movies and TV shows such as Tiger King during lockdown – that wasn’t of interest to Jo Carley and the Dry Skulls.
“It’s weird because this place and these characters are almost real to us. It’s kind of like watching a Netflix series. What’s going to happen next? But we’re the ones planning what’s going to happen next,” she said.
“Me and Tim, we both love reading horror novels and watching horror films - I like the older ones.” This ghoulish fascination also feeds into the music which the pair enjoy.
“It’s usually got dark, lyrical content. We are usually attracted to that, for whatever reason. I think I like being artistically scared. Not scared in real life, but you know, when
on a roller coaster, watching a horror film or reading a horror book.”
Despite the fictional nature of the band’s songs, there is more than meets the eye to the group’s lyrics. “I prefer lyrics about escapism rather than real-life stuff. But our songs are open to interpretation,” she says. “Not all of them, but a lot of them have double meanings and those double meanings kind of reflect on what’s happening in current times.”
The group have recently been touring across mainland Europe including their debut shows in Hungary. “We’ve played in Germany, Belgium, and Holland quite
CARLEY & THE OLD DRY SKULLS | INTERVIEW
a lot. They really get us. The difference in language doesn’t really matter. We get the German audiences dancing. So that’s always good,” said Jo.
In addition to their wonderful musical creations, Jo Carley and The Old Dry Skulls embrace the spirit of Vaudeville with their theatrical stage shows. “It’s not something I started doing straightaway. It just kind of developed over time,” said Jo. “I would do it in one song, and then a couple more. And then you pick up tricks of the trade on the way through your gigs. James our bass player has really got into it as well, he’s quite expressive with his playing. It’s really good fun, especially with the subject matter of our
songs. You can’t be too serious; you’ve got to be a little bit theatrical.”
Moving forward the group will continue to promote their new album by touring. “We’ve got the Hallelujah Festival in November and a few more gigs in England,” said Jo. “We’ve got an Italian tour in November as well for a couple of weeks. Then we’re back gigging and touring in March next year, and that’s the UK and Europe.”
I’ll Put My Voodoo On You by Jo Carley and The Old Dry Skulls is out on 14th Nov via Voodoo Shack Records.
“We basically turned our house into a recording studio”
Not universally known as a music Mecca, Norwich, however, does have a bustling music scene in and around its medieval city centre and it was the scene for a gang of notable musicians to enter Norfolk’s county lines to lay down the tracks that comprise Malaya Blue’s fourth album, Blue Credentials, on which, like the canary mascot of Norwich football club, she sings sweetly on this recording’s twelve blues and jazztinged soulful songs.
Overseen by Grammy Award winning producer Dennis Walker, famed for his work with Robert Cray and BB King… the aptly titled Blue Credentials takes Malaya’s music up a notch or two on this prestigious recording. She tells me how she hooked up with this highly sought-after producer: “Our collaboration started after Heartsick, and before Still. My manager, Steve Yourglivch, sent Heartsick to Dennis and we didn’t hear anything back for quite some time. We thought that maybe we had fallen below the threshold. Then suddenly, Dennis got in touch, and he was like, ‘oh, my god, her voice, she’s great,’“ Malaya enthuses:
“But what he did feel was that we needed to develop the songs and I needed to develop my skills as both a songwriter and as a vocalist. So, he came on board and said he’d be interested in working with us. I immediately realised that I had to go back to school, unlearn some bad habits, and accept that when somebody like that comes into your project you don’t ask questions. You don’t criticise. You don’t use your ego at the front of your decision making you say yes, please. Thank you very much. What would you like me to do? So that was pretty much the theme.”
Malaya enlarges upon working with this blues production legend and the performances that he inspired from her: “Dennis has sadly since passed and part of the eulogy that his wife wrote was to say help another musician. So, I think when he got the album, which I’m sure was one of many that he received over the course of a year, I think
he heard something that he thought had potential and I was the lucky pick out of the hat. I was the one that he decided: I think I can work with this artist. She’s got most of it but hasn’t quite refined her craft, so he taught me. He told me about the language I was using in my songwriting. He told me to talk about storytelling, about delivering and how to let my voice resonate like most singers that I would have seen. I’d get to the end of the sentence and put a little ‘oody-doody’ in there and Dennis was like, no, don’t do that, let the listener, who’s on the journey, let them spend time with what you’ve just sang so they can absorb it - we don’t want any distractions. Something as simple as that has made a huge difference. I like to think on Blue Credentials that we nailed it.”
tinues: “Then we choose our tracks that are going to feature on the album, that’s when we start thinking about musicians, studios, and the studio recording. All the work is done in the studio at home to begin with.”
Blue Credentials was recorded at Ashwood Studios, Norwich, some three miles from Malaya Blue’s home where the band were quartered and hung out after a day’s recording. Being the consummate hostess, Malaya also cooked for everyone as they planned their next day in the studio. Malaya details how she was able to corral a bunch of top-grade musicians to travel over to sleepy Norfolk to record this album: “We had guitarist Brett Lucas come in from Detroit. Bass player Richard Cousins came in from Switzerland. Johnny McCullough, on Hammond Organ, came over from Ireland and Sam Kelly, Drums, travelled from London. So, we had to kind of coordinate. We also had to pick up a bass amp. I picked up Richard from Norwich airport. It was a case of lots of phone calls on that day. But when we all got here and had a cold beer and all the bags were in the rooms, and all the instruments had arrived in one piece with the luggage, there was a huge sense of relief, because then we knew it was actually happening.”
It is abundantly clear the galvanising effect that Dennis had upon the evolution of Malaya as an artist as she reveals the hard work that went into the making of Blue Credentials: “I write the songs for about a year and, as I’m getting them into demo stage, which I can do here at home, we listen to them and see where are they going. Sometimes, a song will sit around in the think tank, and we’ll write something else that’s much stronger. So, the other one gets burned and that’s the process. I don’t know what I’m going to write until the muse comes or I wake up at three o’clock in the morning with a song in my head and I think I’ve got to get this down. So, the whole process is done and dusted,” she con-
Malaya effectively became an electric landlady as well as the principal artist during the recording of Blue Credential: “It’s a huge amount of planning, even for the food for four days for the four guys and I’m like the head chef. But it went really well and, on one night, I also took them all out for fish and chips because Richard Cousins (Robert Cray Band) when he landed said ‘I need a beer and some beige food’ so we did a fish and chip night as well.”
Malaya also had her boundaries tested during the recording of the album’s stand out track Howling Mercy - a dark song about the long-lasting trauma of abuse - as she tells me: “From the get go, when I was sent Howling Mercy, I said to Steve, I don’t know if I want to go there. This is dark matter. This is a
I like to think on Blues Credentials, we nailed it!
Paul Davies Boo Marshall
difficult sociological discussion in a song and that’s where blues comes from talking about difficult societal issues. But I didn’t know if I felt brave enough or mature enough to not only take on a sociological issue but also such an important one. So that was very tricky, and I spent a lot of time working out how to approach it.”
Malaya continues: “Fortunately, we were given the very first original that was done with John Campbell and we had a second iteration which was recorded by one of Dennis’s girlfriends, at the time, with Dennis playing bass. So, it was the evening before the recording, when we’re all sat in my lounge, and we were all scratching our heads wondering how we’re going to make this work and I said we need to go back to that original version where that song was born. What we had was this huge expanse and this repeating riff, but, at the same time, we needed to tie it into the body of work for it to be cohesive and make sense and this is where you have everything extremely pulled out and pulled back. The voice and the story are doing all the work then you have the breakdown and the percussion, and the instruments come back or start up, that’s how we come out of that track.”
Malaya is rightly proud of the significance of her performance as she explains: “It was very important because, outside of my work in music, I work in mental health. This is the area that I work in, and it was important to me that I didn’t make the story frilly because it’s not funny: it’s serious. That was a really difficult song, because I had to pay an homage to its origins and whoever wrote that personal story had to be acknowledged as well.”
One of Malaya’s many musical idols is Bettye LaVette, for whom Brett Lucas is band guitarist, and she recalls seeing her blues heroine in concert: “I have a funny story because we were at the front of the stage, and I put my glass on the edge of the stage. As she strutted, in her Bettye LaVette way, across the stage with absolute confidence and dominance, she kind of looked at my glass and flicked her fingers at me and my glass like I’ve been told off at school. She was brilliant. She was raw, honest, and Brett Lucas was playing guitar that day and that was the first time I met him. He was masterful onstage and looked fantastic: a beautiful guitar player and Bettye was great.”
Honest, raw, and masterful is as good a summation of Malaya Blue’s performance on her outstanding new album Blues Credentials.
Jimmy Hall neither looks, or more importantly, sounds his age. Considering that he first hit the attention of blues fans with his legendary southern boogie blues band Wet Willie back in the mid-nineteen-seventies.
The band blew out of Mobile Alabama, a place synonymous with the very best of blues and soul music, with Jimmy front and centre on vocals, harmonica, and saxophone. The band’s famous signature song Keep On Smilin’ hit the Top Ten of the Billboard Chart in 1974.
Back in those days, Wet Willie recorded for the legendary Capricorn Records, a personal ambition of theirs, and they stayed with the label for seven albums before moving to Epic Records. Singles Street Corner Serenade and Weekend maintained Wet Willie’s profile by cracking the Top Forty.
Currently out on tour with Hank Williams Junior, Jimmy took a little time out to kick back and recall some of those halcyon early days, and to chat in detail about his exciting new release.
Considering that blues music is mainly based on expression of sadness in varying degrees, I say, your vintage number Keep Smilin’, and your current album cut Jumpin’ For Joy are really breaking the mould. I think you must be a pretty happy guy to still be doing this after all this time Jimmy:
“Do you know, Keep Smiling was a pep talk to myself. I got the idea one day just looking at myself in the mirror, and thinking, you’ve got this, you can do this, just keep on putting one foot in front of the other, stay happy, stay focused, and everything will work out just fine. I never dreamed for one second that I would write a song that would last this long. Fans write to me and tell me that my song got them through some hard times. Medics wrote during the pandemic and said that they played the song before they went to work, to get them ready to deal with what was going on. It’s incredible. I always sing it in my live shows, and my wife Karen, we’ve been married a while now, she will say that she is really tired of hearing that song. I say that the fans want to hear it, even now after all this time, and that’s a great thing for any musician.”
“The song Jumpin’ For Joy was written with my good friend Jeff Silbar, we’ve been writing buddies for a good long time now. We had a writing session during the lockdown at Jeff’s place in Studio City. We had a song title, Ready Now and he said
Andy Hughes Bob Seaman
he had another title, ‘Jumpin’ For Joy’, and I figured I could come up with something to go with that. What makes me jump for joy is my relationship with my wife, how we got together, and when I thought about that, we had the song done and ready to go in twenty-four hours.”
“Some songs come easy, some are less easy, I guess that’s the same for anyone who writes songs. I know I like Jump Blues, and Swing, and old Big Band tunes, and old rock and roll music, things like Shake Rattle And Roll, stuff like that. I wondered how some of the old guys who used to do that stuff would sing this song, and that gave me some ideas on how to make it work. Jeff came up with some real interesting turns and curves in the arrangement, and anyone who learns how to sing and play it is going to find those in there.”
Time to go back a little into Jimmy’s history as a musician, specifically back to the days when he was first acquainted with the harmonica and the saxophone. It’s not surprising to hear that Jimmy comes from a musical family: “My mother sang and played piano in church, and she also sang in a barbershop quartet, so she knew about singing. From when I was about six or seven, she knew I had a good singing voice and a good ear for melody.”
“The first instrument I learned was the violin in sixth grade, we had a teacher who came in once a week. When I got to seventh grade, there was a school band, and you could play various instruments. My mother told me that she loved the saxophone and I should switch, and I did, and I played alto sax all through school.”
able to meet a lot of my early heroes, people like Taj Mahal, his Natural Blues is one of my all-time favourite albums.”
Every musician, and band, is a product of their influences, that’s the way it has always been, and always will be. So, it’s natural for a player like Jimmy to pick up tricks and licks from his heroes like The Rollin Stones, and Taj Mahal, and others. But the tricky part for any new band on the way up and looking to make their mark, is not letting those influence show too much. It’s about absorbing those influences, and making them into your own unique sound, as Wet Willie did. So how did Jimmy set about weaving his influences into his band’s music, and turning them into something that was Wet Willie, and no-one else?
“When we formed Wet Willie, we really, really wanted to sign to Capricorn Records, that was our big ambition. We moved to Macon Georgia so we could be where they were, because of their huge influence on blues and soul music. They were always considered to be a ‘southern rock’ label because of The Allman Brothers, they were always tagged with that. A lot of southern rock was very guitar-based and it had its roots in country music.”
“We loved the soul side of things as well, and mixing that soul feeling into our music is what inspired me, and set Wet Willie apart as a band. Coming up the late 1960’s Sam Cooke was one of our all-time heroes, and Phil Walden who was the CEO of Capricorn Records worked as a manager for people like Otis Redding and Arthur Conley, so we were around the real epicentre of soul
music, hearing it all the time. That was our influence, that was the sound we loved, and that’s what we wove into the sound of Wet Willie, and it still has its influence on what I write and record today.”
The new album, Ready Now, is produced by modern blues heroes Joe Bonamassa and Josh Smith, so how did that collaboration come about Jimmy?
“I had worked with Joe on some of the projects he has produced. He produced an album for Reese Wynans who plays keyboards on this album. Joe knew Reese when he played with Stevie Ray Vaughan, and he wanted to produce an album for Reece as a birthday gift, he told Reese he could have anyone he wanted to play on it. Reese asked me to contribute, and I sang a duet with Bonnie Bramlett, and the title track.”
“That was my first experience of Joe as a producer, although of course I’d heard his work and admired him very much as a guitar player. Joe has a very natural way of working in the studio. He has great instincts, he knows when to tell a player to bring it up, and when to take it down. He knows when it’s time to call it a day and come back tomorrow, so working with Joe and Josh was really good, I enjoyed it immensely. Josh played some wonderful guitar on Girl’s Got Sugar, I think he and Joe brought their very best game to the album sessions. All the musicians on the album brought their ‘A game,’ and I am so delighted with the work we all did together.”
The big question Jimmy, are you bringing your sax and harmonica, and a band over to the UK for us to see you?
“Well, I don’t have any firm plans right now for a tour, but I do love working in the UK, I came over with Jeff Beck, in fact I’d be on the road with Jeff now if Johnny Depp hadn’t stepped in! Maybe I’ll pop along to one of his film shoots, see if I can take over for a day or so! Seriously, I do want to come over, and my management are talking to a number of international promoters and tour organisers, so I would ask fans to keep an eye on the website, and we’ll be sure and come and see you just as soon as we can.”
them. I was a huge Stones fan. I did like The
“When I was sixteen, my older brother gave me a harmonica for a birthday present. It was a chromatic, and it was much too complicated for me to get to grips with it, with the slide and everything. I asked him to get me a simple ten-hole harmonica and he did, and I found that much easier, and I took to that much better. I didn’t know anyone who played the harmonica, but I loved listening to it. I used to listen to The Rolling Stones playing Little Red Rooster and they were playing blues, and everyone was listening to them. I was a huge Stones fan. I did like The Beatles, and I appreciated what they did, but I always preferred The Stones. I listened to people like Slim Harpo on the radio, and just absorbed everything I could. If I ever found anyone who played the harmonica, I would ask loads of questions about how to do this, and that. I learned the techniques for inhaling, and bending notes to make the harmonica bluesy, and I loved that. Working with Wet Willie has meant that I have been
Fans of the endlessly wonderful Wet Willie, or fans of any soul-tinged blues rock-a-
It’s a wonderful piece of work, check it out.
Fans of the endlessly wonderful Wet Willie, or fans of any soul-tinged blues rock-aboogie music should do just that, and in the meantime, check out Jimmy’s album, which belies his age, and draws on his experience. It’s a wonderful piece of work, check it out.
Jimmy Hall’s new album “Ready Now”, produced by Josh Smith and Joe Bonamassa, is released by KTBA Records via www. ktbarecords.com
Jimmy Hall’s new album “Ready Now”,
Joe has a very natural way of working in the studio
sure
Lil Ed Williams has had a long and varied career as a blues artist, he is known as the frontperson for Lil Ed and The Imperials who mix their own brand of rocking blues with a Chicago shuffle. They have been entertaining audiences for over three decades now, their raw boogie-based sounds appreciated worldwide.
Live performances are joyous occasions, fullon and energetic. Williams usually wears a Fez in tribute to his uncle the late bluesman, J.B. Hutto. Blues Matters caught up with him recently in Chicago. As always, he was upbeat and positive about his musical journey.
We talk initially about his town, Chicago: “The weather’s nice, things are rolling pretty good I guess, can’t complain. I try to be happy and keep busy. It’s all I know,” he laughs.
Growing up, Ed was mostly influenced to become a musician through his family, Aunts and Uncles in particular, but one shone for him and that was J.B. Hutto, his Uncle: “We sang in Church, then came home and sung. Maybe even break out the guitar and play some blues. That was the main thing every weekend in our house. We would do Gospel and J.B would break out with some blues, music like Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker and all those old guys. It was not natural to play the blues for me. I grew up on the West side of Chicago. There was a lot of soul music going about at this time; The Temptations and The Chi-Lites, Aretha Franklin. In my neighbourhood that’s what you listened to, those sorts of cats. We were going to the Bars and dancing. Uncle J.B. would come and play for the family then we connected with the blues music. Most of the time there was soul music around. Sometimes Uncle J.B would bring his band and they would play in the back yard. My Uncle would walk over
the garbage cans and do a full show, this was so exciting. We would be upstairs on second floor looking over the bannisters. The grown-ups were having a ball in the yard! No kids. Back in the day we were not allowed to be with the grown-ups when they were having fun.”
When Hutto came to play at the house, this was where Lil Ed got his guitar lessons… “He would show me little grooves and patterns. He taught me how to play drums first. He knew how to play and taught me so I could play with him. He saw I was interested by the slide technique to guitar playing. He started me off by playing rhythm guitar. He didn’t show me the slide techniques. I didn’t know at the time that he knew if he showed me how to play rhythm that I would eventually learn the slide technique. I showed my brother the rhythm and he learned this, and I would start to pick. That’s how I learned the slide technique and then played with Uncle
J.B. He would come to the house. Me and my brother would tell him, we’ve got a show! People in the audience looked at us, then he would come in and make the people clap for us. He told me to get his guitar from the car and we would rip the place apart. It was awesome. He also said don’t plan on anything, let the music take you to where you want to go. I took this advice; I don’t even use set lists. I let the music carry me,” he says with evident delight.
“My first gig in Uncle J. B’s band was at Vegetable Buddies in South Indiana. I remember it being huge. It held four hundred people. It had tree trunk tables. I remember J.B. jumping off the stage and walking these tables and beckoning for me to do the same! He gave me a look, when you got that you knew and I jumped off the stage and when I squatted on the floor, I heard something rip, it was my blue jeans. I managed to bounce back up and back on stage and the people went nuts. I had to tie my sweater round me the rest of the night! I was maybe nineteen then. My brother was seventeen. It was scary being on a stage that size. We’d never seen that amount of people at a show. We played small west side Taverns. When I first started, we played in this one Jazz Club. Back then, they had the mirrors and disco lights. We thought we were in the big time. I don’t think people were paying much attention to us. We were just happy to be playing there. The guy in charge paid us ten dollars a man!”
“It’s just my style, a bit of J.B., Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker. What I learned from J.B. was If you’re going to do someone else’s song make it your own. I learned if I do this, I make it my own. I never fully copy songs. When people want to hear Muddy Waters, they can put on an album and listen. When they come to see me, they get the whole Lil Ed treatment. I do things in my own style.” Again his laughter ripples.
Lil Ed signed for Alligator Records; he disclosed some background to this, including playing thirty-three songs to him in three hours.
“When I first got on Alligator Records and met Bruce Iglauer, he was fascinated I was doing older guy’s songs but in my own way. You Don’t Exist Anymore, by Percy Mayfield, I made into a shuffle. That changed the repertoire and caught Bruce’s eye and ears. I didn’t know how to act in the Studio, I treated this like I was playing in a Bar. I saw the people behind the glass in the studio looking on and they were hollering. I just jumped from one song to the other. I don’t talk a lot
on stage. People who come and see me know my history. I was playing in a place called Blues on Halsted Street. My old rhythm player Dave Weld knew Bruce at Alligator Records. Dave tapped me on the shoulder and said Bruce was in the house. I didn’t know he was a record Producer, I just said that’s cool. At the interval Bruce talked to us about making his debut album for Alligator
records - could I do a couple of songs. This is what we wanted to do with our band. Before this you could go in a booth, pay money, and record something. It was $100 to do this. We didn’t have that amount of money. I was still working at the Car Wash and got off early to go and play at the Studio.”
Ed resumes the tale: “Pookie (James Young) my brother drove School Buses; he got off early. Both of us walked in our work clothes. Dave was the only one in the band wearing a tie. We had no idea what we were going to play. I made some stuff of my own. Bruce put our headphones on, I’d never heard myself in this form. It sounded cool. At the end Bruce said we’ve got thirty-three songs; I think we should make an album! That was almost thirty-five years ago.”
Over three decades later, Ed explains how it is now: “We’re family now, not musicians. Ten years in, this felt the case. J.B. said to get
musicians you’re really going to love and if you treat them right, they’ll stick with you. Mistreat them, they’ll definitely leave you. I kept that in mind, which was the time I had some hardship times. My God stuck with me. The band said when you get yourself together, we’ll stay with you. A lot of people thought we had separated; we just took off some time until I got together. Bruce was there when we got back together. They stuck there with me! Touring, though, is becoming a little like work. It was great at the beginning seeing cities and towns and ripping up with the music. It’s still good but I would prefer to not go too far. I have had my fun overseas and the way the economy is just now I don’t want to go overseas.”
have had my fun overseas and the way
Over the years, Ed has seen the changes in Chicago: “The scene is way lighter than when I first started. There were Blues Clubs on every corner, especially on the west side. Blues Clubs then were laid back but still there. The Clubs were packed then, as well as the Soul Clubs. Now there’s hardly any music on the west side, the Clubs are for Rappers. North side have a few Clubs, main ones are Buddy Guys, Rosa’s Lounge on the west side, Kingston Mines. Rosa’s is like my little home. There was this Club years ago in a basement. I went in at 8 o’clock, when I came out, it was 8 o’clock the next day! It had no windows. It was dark all the time, no clocks.”
the Soul Clubs. Now there’s hardly any music on the west side, the Clubs
“I’m writing some new stuff, I’m ready to go into the studio sooner or later with Bruce. My wife Pam writes, she’s written more songs than me lately. I got to get on the ball! We should be ready in a fortnight. I really want to start a buffing and waxing business. I worked at the Car Wash for ten years, that’s my thing when I’m not doing anything else. Just enough to keep ends meeting! I worked during the pandemic at a Car Wash.”
“Blues is a joyful thing for me. There is a little sadness in it. But blues reminds you the grass is greener on the other side. People have the blues, but we grow older with the blues. That’s what I would say about the blues! We’re playing at Kingston Mines, and we are recruiting a lot of youngsters. We’re getting a new following and that’s a good thing. Twenty-one-year-olds are asking me about my music. The youngsters love it. It’s like me starting all over again. Blues is not leaving; it’s going to get better!
For further information see website: www.liledblues.com
Blues is not leaving; it’s going to get better!
A revival tent, one of those canvas pole tents in a camp meeting outside of town. And the preacher man in the tent has got some spiritual messages rooted in church that reach deep inside and reminds us that gospel blues ain’t going nowhere any time soon … thank God.
And here comes another one…
Horseback Jesus rode into town Looking for a bath and a shave.
So many scars down across his back, They thought he was a runaway slave
He stopped to get a little bread and wine Down at the Border Saloon.
They wouldn’t let no brown man inside So he spent the night out under the moon.
All the people started to gather around
To listen to the song he sang.
He said, ‘I see your crops are dying from the drought.’
And by 6 o’clock that morning, it rained.
He said that he was just passing through To see a blind man down in Ciudad, Juarez
You’re hearing John Fusco, an accomplished screen writer and feature film producer (Crossroads, Young Guns, Thunderheart, Hidalgo, and The Highwaymen, among others) who’s also written three novels. (See Blues Matters! #118, Feb/March 2021 for this writer’s earlier story on Fusco, “Can You See the Light?”). Fusco is a genuine story-teller who brings a fresh, unique perspective to his tales, many of them rooted in a dusty, hard-scrabble southwest, roots you can feel in his music. Categorizing these roots goes something like this - blues, gospel, alternative country, Latino – but ultimately demands its own definition. Peyote blues?
What you’re hearing is a ground-breaking expression of the blues wrapped in the spiritual essence of gospel. The arrangements are straight ahead, soothing, clearly created to deliver the words, the stories, the messages, with a fiddle, couple of guitars, a mandolin, a horn here and there, some back-up vocals and harmonizing. And the preacher’s keys.
Borderlands is a third CD – Borderlands (Rocket 88 Records) – it demonstrates the unique cinematic story-telling style Fusco brings to his music. Or as he describes it, “the wild west soul of America.”
He rides Horseback Jesus into Ciudad, Juarez, tells a story about a ‘ white black
bird that turned into a dove – like hate turned to love” – and gets himself shot by Cactus Jack as he “holds his (cross-bearing) arms out wide.” “Go bury that Jew,” Jack shouts, and “ … Jesus drew a final breath, Said ‘Forgive them Father … they know not what they do’.”
And while our preacher man is careful to pronounce Jesus as “Hay-soos,” it is clear this is the Jesus described in the Bible’s last chapter, Revelation 19: 11-21, as written by John the Baptist, “I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice, he judges and wages war… His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses… on his robe and on his thigh he has this name written, “King of Kings and Lord of Lords.” But it was Horseback Jesus that really kicked the door wide open for this album, as John Fusco describes it in a recent conversation.
“Horseback Jesus is a crucifixion of another kind,” he tells me: “This book of songs all started with Horseback Jesus,’ Fusco says. “It was one of those experiences; a hard-todefine emotion pulls you to the piano, you
hit a chord that you feel and a progression unfolds from that emotion, it opens the spigot and the lyrics are drawn out of you by the music. The music made me follow that character, on his horse, into this tense, divided border town - and let it flow. It set the tone for the songs to follow, whether narratively linked or connected by mood, and it just started to form into a spiritual road trip through the badlands of the imagination, and where we are now, heartbroken by our history repeating itself at its darkest levels.” It’s one of ten cuts on Borderlands – nine of them original. Incredibly original. All of them tell a part of a story …. Like Coyote Man:
‘You’re a sailor on the sand, Coyote Man … and the Devil’s own right hand.
Your refrigerator truck gets stuck so you leave our cargo truck baking in the sun - sixty people dead.
The Sinaloa Cartel give you one last drink from hell – that’s where they’ll say you fell.
I’m gonna catch you if I can, Coyote Man.’
And you know damn well He can.
Rio Hondo John is John the Baptist in Fusco’s “Dance of the Seven Veils.” Drawn from Mathew 14, El Padrone’s (King Herod)
wife (Herodias) offers his niece Sally Mae (brought to later life by Oscar Wilde as Salome), a reward of her choice for performing a dance on his birthday. Her mother persuades Salome to ask for John the Baptist’s head on a platter.
The gospel that is the blues. A preacher man’s interpretation of gospel music that conjures up its history but is setting the stage for a whole new version of it. Borderlands was produced, engineered and mixed by George Walker Petit in his Stowe, Vermont studio. Petit, an accomplished multi-genre musician with deep roots in the Blues and Jazz, also plays guitars, bass, and various percussion. Russ Lawton of the Trey Anastasio Band plays drums on all tracks while fifth generation Acadian fiddler and mandolinist Patrick Ross joins Fusco on several countrified numbers. Guesting on Dobro and electric slide guitar on two songs is Petit’s old friend and bandmate, Matt Backer - a brilliant musician and guitar slinger. Michael Hartigan contributes a heartfelt accordion performance on ‘Horseback Jesus’. Backing Fusco on vocals is acclaimed soul singer Ashley Betton. Jane Boxall also adds her marimba expertise to the recording with Stuart Paton on congas and bongos.
Go dig up some of the old gospel music from the ‘50’s and 60’s, like classic albums from A.A. Allen, a Pentecostal evangelist known for his faith healing and deliverance ministry. Listen to “God’s World, by Richard Page, from his album “Keep on Holding On. Pure blues. A tender, lead guitar backed by a Hammond B-3. Or “Search Me,” another Page piece from “Songs of the Spirit of Life.” A rockin rhythm blues thing driven by a walkin bass and his Hammond. And just when you’re settled in to Fusco’s slow smooth gospel blues he shifts gears, picks up the pace and leans in real close to the mic, his rugged, smokey voice telling his story to you, one-on-one:
‘Hey country girls and country boys, let’s take it outside and make a little “Churchified Noise”
“Light it up,” he says, and does: a Hank Williams fiddle moves it along.
Don’t ya tell me what to think .. what kind of whiskey I should drink … just a simple man, do the best I can, Like to play my guitar real loud.’
“That was probably the only song I’ve written without an instrument,” he explains. “I was bird hunting with my dog up in the woods … I kind of got into this groove. I got back home and got up on the piano and I knew it was going to be almost the spoken word. And I was thinking about those blues guys that would sing through a cigar box to get that effect.
It’s Run, Red Dog, Run that will likely lead Borderlands up the charts. Shufflin dancin’ music. Bout an Indian medicine man named Verdell who drives all night to Tuba City to do some peyote prayer, gets a visit from Crazy Horse, loses his car and ends up on a white man’s ranch. Before they kill him he goes out to the pasture where a hundred horses are feeding on dust. When he closes his eyes to meet his maker, the creek rises, and saves the horses.
No blues album would be complete without a song about that woman. And here it comes: Cyanide Whiskey – this woman will … love you like a sweet angel, but you’ll wake up with the devil in the bed…
‘She’s like cyanide whiskey Arsenic wine.
She knows how to kill you slowly
And you know damn well she’s gonna take her time
As she kills your peace of mind.’
Talk about the gospel that ‘tis the blues …
And then …
‘Whenever good luck tries to hitch a ride bad luck shoots her through – with misery,’ …writes Fusco in Bad Luck Rides Shotgun.
‘Cause if I didn’t have bad luck, Baby, I’d have no damn luck at all.’
His rendition of “Ain’t No Grave” – a traditional American gospel song - punctuates Borderlands; it’s the final cut and leaves no doubt about Brother John’s inspirations for his gospel-rooted blues adventure …
‘When he heard that trumpet sound He rose up outta the ground There ain’t no grave Could hold His body down.’
You’ll feel it all in John Fusco’s “Borderlands.”
Rory Block has been internationally regarded as a top, female traditional countr- blues picker and fan, and possibly the best acoustic blues artist around today.
In a career spanning thirty-six releases, including Awards galore including seven Blues Music Awards, she celebrates early American roots blues music. Her latest release, Ain’t Nobody Worried, represents the third volume of her Power Women of The Blues series where she continues her musical journey by paying homage to her predecessors. When the chance to chat with Rory via cyberspace at her home near New York turned up, I grabbed it with both hands.
So, what took you into blues, I ask: “A hard one to say because sometimes you feel the music has always been there. Before I was born, my parents were musicians. My father rented a room from Pete Seeger’s parents at the epicentre of Greenwich village. Before I was born, Woody Guthrie, Josh White, Leadbelly, Pete Seeger, they all gathered there. The day I was born there was probably music. It’s so inseparable to me. Everyone was doing music including Bob Dylan who came to my father’s sandal shop. There was music everywhere. This shop drew musicians including Stefan Grossman. Blues and country musicians were there. John Sebastian, Maria Muldaur, that was just life. I was able to look at people and make an opinion if they were great and had an aura of greatness. Bob Dylan did when he first signed to a label.”
What about Stefan Grossman’s influence on your playing blues music, I next wonder:
“He opened up the whole world of music to me. I knew what blues was as I had heard Muddy Waters, Odetta and Josh White. In the day, they were singing songs of blues genre in the 60s. I met Stephan in Washington Square Park where musicians would group stylistically. You could move from group to group and hear good music. He gave me a record Reeling the Country Blues. He was friends with the people who were rediscovering early blues music. He had an early Charlie Patton recording and I got to hear all this because he made reel to reel tapes for me when I was fourteen and still living with my parents. I would sleep with my headphones on listening to two hours of rediscovered blues music and this changed my life,” she confirms with a grate-
ful nod to Grossman.
“Father was a violinist, mother had recorded and sung with a wonderful bluesy voice. They went to Washington Square Park busking. It was impossible to say where music became my life, it was always there,” she adds.
Why choose the blues genre? I next query: “This is as difficult to explain as why you are in love with somebody. If you say I’m in love with this person, are you in love with them also: it was Chemistry and I fell in love with it instantly. The sound was so haunting and beautiful. It was exactly what I needed to express what was in my heart, especially at that time in my life. I was about ten years old, and I started teaching myself how to play. Picking out melody was simple. Froggy Went a Courting was the first song I learned. The open strings made the melody. That got me excited about playing guitar.”
Influences on her playing come as little true surprise to anyone who remotely knows her musical passions and style. “Robert Johnson, Son House, Mississippi John Hurt, Reverend Gary Davis, Charlie Patton. Prior to that, I was playing folk guitar tunes and country picking guitar style like the Carter family. I also studied Classical guitar for two years. Listening to Julian Bream and loving what they were doing. I transferred this directly into how I play and translated some country banjo, this was via my father who played clawhammer banjo. That really worked for Robert Johnson. Classical play had little notations on the music showing you to play louder or softer or faster or slower. When I started playing Robert Johnson style, I noticed it would speed up and slow down. I called that ‘the music is breathing.’”
“I’ve had advice but it was negative. When you listen to Willie Brown, he plays full force and pounds the notes. When I played Europe and Australia, I was told not to play like this. When I teach guitar, one of the most frequently addressed issues is getting to make people put more of their body into playing and to stop being polite and too careful because you have to put drive into your playing. Much as Mississippi John Hurt was a finger picker, he played with power. My father stomped his foot, so I did too, that was the way the great players played in my world. The advice was to take it easy, don’t play that way, you’ll break the guitar!”
Mississippi Fred McDowell is probably the most significant sole influence however, as Rory is quick to explain: “Mainly how to play slide guitar and the versatility of playing slide. He played multiple notes with one piece of metal. He taught me that you can
do slide anyway you want to, like a tennis backhand, anything. You can use any finger or any length of finger. Learning, I always overshot or undershot, I couldn’t find tone, the vibrato was too fast. I like to give credit to Bonnie Raitt; she played on one of my records. We were mixing the tune and I heard something that made me learn to do what I wanted to. This was an example of how to relax when playing. Taking a stroll up the neck of the guitar I called it. I began learning and finding that sweet spot on the guitar. It’s personal, you have to do a bit of instruction for yourself. It took me a couple of years to do anything worthy, then you get the right tone. Rob Davies, my husband and Producer, says I play slide like the way I sing, it’s like a voice. (There followed an impromptu online guitar tutorial to explain how she played!) I also learned a lot from Brendan Crocker of the Notting Hillbillies at Ontario. The way he played, taught me a lot about tone. Blues slide can also be percussive I discovered, John Hammond told me to use a socket wrench and I use that now.”
What about the background to the making of ‘Ain’t Nobody Worried’, I suggest: “The way I make any tribute album is by random listening. This one was for female artists 60s to 80s. I thought about Martha and The Vandellas, Gladys Knight, I listened to them. I do things on impulse; I don’t have a defined process. I just choose by listening to a variety of tunes that are exciting. Everything on the record, including Freight Train, is something that rocked my world and I wanted to hear again. There will be detractors asking why I am doing versions of the world’s best songs by artists like Mavis Staples. I’m not wanting to make a better version; they are enshrined in musical heaven. I do it for the joy of it and I’m just letting people know I love these songs. In my live broadcasts during the shutdown that’s when people started requesting songs. I asked permission by the artists to sing their songs, such as Dion. I see a desire for nostalgic music. The theme is to show how female artists had a huge impact on the music business across the board. They brought their amazing approach and changed everything. I’ve done a lot with early blues, Memphis Minnie and the likes. The tracks I recorded for Ain’t Nobody Worried, span fifty years and that’s early American music in its own right. I think there’s a craving for nostalgia right now. It was a pretty safe time in the 60s. We could protest against war, and we didn’t have a million worries. Everyone had good spirit then. The music here takes you back to the feelings we felt then.”
Following the tragedy of Covid shutdowns and lockdowns Rory says she has plans for live support gigs again in mind:
“I’m dipping my toes into the water regarding live events. I did the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Music Festival, some private parties. I wasn’t looking for shows but the shows always email me. I was hesitant at first. I have dogs and cats - they won’t fit into a tour bus. I have shows that will coincide with the record’s release. There’s nothing like a live show!”
For Rory, blues has an evident self-meaning and importance: “It’s all about the heart and soul and language of the heart and spirit within. It is a cry from the soul, deep soulful music, gritty, real and natural. Early blues was a direct hit to the heart,” she reckons. Rory then offers a few words of advice to aspiring, younger musicians, and her views on being successful:
“Don’t do what anyone else tells you to do. Don’t stop until people know who you are! When you first start out people tend to criticize a lot and it hurts. You have to believe in the inspiration you have to keep on doing it. When I first won a blues award, I couldn’t believe people cared what I did. It made me gain confidence. It didn’t make me arrogant. I believe things are channeled by ways of creative energy and you can tap into it. When Stevie Wonder played on my record that was another landmark. I thought if nothing else good happens to me I’m good with this one. Standing next to him playing solo on my tiny humble song at the start of my career I felt so nourished and supported by him agreeing to play. His best advice to me was you are the artist. This made me realise I didn’t have to keep on backing myself into a corner with the record label. This was before I signed for Rounder Record label. Bonnie Raitt gave me similar advice when I was on the road. I asked her about artistic freedom and pressure from record labels to do the music a certain way. She has always done it her way and had artistic freedom.”
“Be yourself is the best advice I can give to anybody, that makes you unique. I always felt pressure to do my music a certain way. I don’t know, why should anyone feel pressure doing what they love musically. You have to make a unique take in the music world. There are a lot of ways in which to sound like other people and be homogenized. I always want to keep it real and be myself regarding music. I think I owe a tremendous thank you to the intelligent music audience; they made labels and me able to sell music that was way off the charts, and they made a movement out of it. That’s the thank you I want to make to the Blues Matters public. Thank you appreciated!
The Chris Bevington story has, as you would imagine, a few twists and turns along the way. I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Chris personally for quite a few years, and I’ve seen many a live gig that has made me come away feeling on top of the world.
When you watch a 9/10 piece band hit full-throttle, it does leave a lasting impression. Four albums along, however, the world for Chris Bevington changed dramatically. So as we sat in the summer sun chatting about everything blues and beyond. But let’s start where it all began.
“It started when I was 50. I decided when I reached that age, I wanted to do something that up until then I’d never managed to achieve, and that was to create a blues band in the way I wanted it to be. I had the chance to invite some very special musicians along and to add a brass section, it was a big band that wasn’t designed to make money, it was designed to make good music.”
If you look around the world of music today, especially the blues world, you will notice that there are hardly any bands that are set up like this. A 9/10 piece band is almost unthinkable, but a unique core-element of the Chris Bevington Organisation.
“I wanted to make a mark and do the best gigs that I possibly could with the people that I had around me, that was my ambition. To have the power of two guitars, two vocalists, and the brass section alongside, the music can go in all sorts of directions. The first person that I contacted was Scott Ralph, I knew of his outstanding musical ability, and I knocked on his door; he said, ‘this is the perfect time for me, I’ve been looking
for a project to get involved with.’ It was as simple as that. Then of course Jim Kirkpatrick joined the band, and we were off and running with these two amazing musicians as the song-writing partners and front men of the band.”
As I mentioned earlier, I’ve known Chris for many years, and I’ve seen this band evolve from the very beginning, I was putting their name forward as a band to watch out for from the first time that I heard the first album. Ironically, Jim and Scott didn’t know each other before coming together for this project. Their talents quickly shone through.
“Jim and Scott, when they started working together were just like fireworks going off. It was an explosion of ideas and great music, bringing in the brass section, getting the right backing vocals. Putting everything in place was their forte. The band just gelled from the get-go, and then we were ready to start work on the first album. There were a few covers on the first two albums, but you could see the partnership of song-writing developing very early on.”
From a nucleus of a band to getting the first album out happened quite quickly, but as you all well know, with an album, you have to get out there and support it with gigs. Chris hit upon the idea of sending a copy of the album to The Robin 2 in Bilston. They loved it and offered the band eight gigs at venue on the strength of listening to a demo of the first album.
A second album quickly followed with the band playing to rave reviews and charting on the IBBA many times. The acid test for any band is to write an album of original mate-
rial. Hey presto, ‘Cut and Run’ was released pushing the band to heights unknown.
“Cut and Run was special, it proved to a lot of people - not me, but other people - that Jim and Scott were capable of writing a full album of amazing songs as well as producers. They can both do the production side of things as well as play, sing and write. It’s the perfect combination that made Cut And Run what it was - an album of blues and blues/ rock songs in a ten-piece setting”
Over the first couple of albums, Chris drafted in guests to play on the first two albums, Robert Hart, Steve Overland, Rebecca Downes, and Pete ‘ Sarge’ Frampton to name a few. This not only served the band well recording-wise, but also alerted everyone to the fact that this band that was going places quickly. Following on from the runaway success of Cut and Run the band released what, for me, was the joint album of the year in 2020, Sand And Stone. So, what do you do when the band crashes and burns? Straight after the release of Sand And Stone, Chris received a phone call from Scott saying he was leaving the band. As the solo career of Jim Kirkpatrick was going into the stratosphere, he also left the band as did a few more. The guts of the band had been ripped out. Many people would have called it quits, but not Bevington.
“What we are doing is from a writing point of view, we need to get on and start the next album, but obviously I don’t have Jim and Scott on board anymore, so I’ve contacted a few people to see if they would be willing to write some songs for us, people such as Lester Hunt, Paul Long from the BBC, and also Gary Davies who has already completed
one song and is currently working on another two. I’m also getting help from within the band. Mark Hargreaves is writing some stuff, so things are coming together nicely.”
To produce another album even close to the last two will be a massive undertaking. To do it with a totally new line-up is akin to climbing Everest. Anyone who comes into the world of music should look at this current project and think to themselves,’ that’s how you do it, elbow grease.’
“I’d like to think that by October 2023 we’ll have pretty much got the album down. Realistically that’s what I’m aiming for. Then, it’s just a case of getting it packaged up and ready to release. That will keep me busy for the next twelve to fourteen months. The good things are that there are different styles within the band, and everyone brings something to the table. It’s taken a lot of planning but I think we are in a good place right now.”
The only downside to all of this is getting the new members of the band in synergy with one another, getting the right blend. This obviously takes time, especially when you are trying to get songs sorted for a new album. As we chat, we delve slightly deeper into the workings, trials and tribulations of a band this size.
“Buxton Blues Festival, which we played yesterday, ( 7th August) was a great gig although we did have two dep vocalists because of a mix-up at the last minute date- wise. We had a rehearsal last Friday, with a dep drummer, so we’ve been up against it from day one. But we pulled together and got through it. There was no way I was going to cancel Buxton Blues Festival. One, because that’s not who I am; and two, I didn’t want to let Lynn Fearns down at the last minute, because she works so hard in putting the festival together. Gigs don’t just happen on, say, a Saturday night. All the planning and arranging starts the previous Tuesday, organizing everyone, especially with a band the size of ours, so that’s another reason not to cancel a gig, too much effort has already gone into the process.”
I think the problem for Chris, is the fact that he has had to become a bona-fide band leader, whereas before there were two main figures in the band he could rely on to make sure the music side was spot on. Now, he’s the boss. And with any band there will be clashes of personalities. In a 9 or 10-piece band that can double the work.
“I’ve got to learn, and I’m ok with that, it’s new and a bit daunting at times but I’m enjoying the learning process. You grow into it. You have to trust your instincts more, and I have to listen to people, and use my ears a lot more. But as I said, it’s an enjoyable learning curve. You are getting closer to the music,
seeing how this or that works. It’s almost a brand new job. My job beforehand was more on the organization side, organizing gigs and such. I could leave the musical side in the capable hands of very skilled musicians, but that has all changed now, so new beginnings for us all.”
As long as I have known Chris Bevington the thing that always strikes me is his willingness to keep going no matter what life throws at him. Musically, this journey he has been on for the last ten years, has produced some of the greatest blues and blues/rock to come out of England for many years. If you haven’t heard any of the albums, then you are doing yourself a huge injustice. I wonder where he got his influences from, what was the spark that lit the way on this musical highway.
“I’d have to say, Jim Kirkpatrick, to be honest. And that is not being detrimental to all of the fantastic musicians that have helped me along the way, and had the pleasure of playing with. But Jim gave me such confidence as a musician and helped to shape the band into exactly what I wanted it to be. As a musician, there are very few as good as Jim, in every sense of the word. He’s a lovely person and a huge talent. I’m so pleased that his solo career is taking off the way it has done. He deserves it. I would not be the musician I am today, or in the position that I am in today, without Jim Kirkpatrick.”
One final question as we sit in the evening sun. If you could play any venue in the world, what would it be?
“The Royal Albert Hall because of its iconic status, and possibly Glastonbury, that would suit Chris Bevington Organisation perfectly lol” If the next album has the same success as the previous albums don’t write it off. The Pyramid Stage could be hosting this huge band in the future. Believe me, they would not be out of place.
MAREMIL
Since signing to Joe Bonamassa’s KTBA label Joanne has released two well received albums, one of blues covers and a live recording, so this is in many ways her proper debut with the production team of Joe and Josh Smith at the helm. Does it deliver? You bet. Joanne has been encouraged to write songs that display her singer songwriter skills with more emphasis on her vocal abilities. That’s not to say there isn’t some sublime guitar playing, there certainly is but it’s honed now to fit the song and that also applies to the soloing, especially on songs like the title track and Then There’s You. Nobody’s Fool is first off and it’s great to hear the vocal forward in the mix as it cuts through the bluesy opening. Joe adds some tasteful guitar to Won’t Be Fooled Again, a dreamy atmospheric ballad. Just No Getting Over You reminded me of Tedeschi Trucks but with a dollop of Stones swagger. As much as any of the tracks here, it highlights the confident song writing displayed by Joanne on this album. This is followed by Fade Away, another gorgeous ballad lamenting lost love, with the unexpected addition of heart wrenching cello taking it to another level. Runaway contrasts that by being perhaps the most poppy song here, quite girly and again shows Joanne’s newfound confidence to include it, it reels you in and there’s lots of musical twists keeping you hooked. Dave Stewart joins the party for the Eurythmics cover, Missionary Man. The song is full of blues iconography lyrically and it works well. The Learning Kind is a slow-paced song about lost love, it’s retrospective and yearning, beautifully written and executed. Just when you think the track has reached its natural conclusion Joanne throws in a wonderful solo that fades away into the distance. New Love is the perfect closing track, upbeat and bouncy. The sax intro is as perfect as it is unexpected. Joanne sings, new love I need it, I think on this album she’s found it, she’s in good hands and with a perfect balance of JST the guitarist and JST the singer songwriter this just might be her best album yet.
STEVE YOURGLIVCH“A modern-day master of the blues” - “A formidable force in contemporary blues. That’s what the music industry is saying about this guy and the album tells you why. Starting off with the rousing World on Fire you now this album has been arranged with style and produced with class, smooth and with real depth of sound four guys sound like 8. Alex Lopez has a great rock/ blues voice, and he can play that guitar too. He has with him Kenny Hoye on keyboards, Steve Roberts on bass and Kana Leimbach on drums and they all do their ‘thang’ very well.11 songs in two acts and I found my two favourites right at the end, but before that I Don’t Care has a drum running through it that was just perfect. When The Sun Goes Down is pure honkey tonk blues that will have you tapping your feet to the beat the minute it starts. A little bit of the Rolling Stones with a stripped back voice clears out and above the great music. The title track Nasty Crime, just over 4 minutes of edgy blues, Holy Woman sounds like you are listening to a classic and then Hooked then comes out of nowhere a bluesy/jazzy fun and clever arrangement that is pure blues. my favourite, 6 minutes and 60 seconds of sexy, gorgeous sounds on That’s Alright. 6.60 seconds is a long song, but the music reminded me of being in a cool lounge, chatting and having a cocktail and then suddenly you’re aware of this beautiful music. The album is being called a “multi-faceted gem” an “impressive work” and a “must hear for blues/rock fans” Nasty Crime, a powerful statement about the world we live in today...If you like your blues edgy with a good mix of influences, you’ll love Nasty Crime.
JEAN KNAPPITTTHIRTY TIGERS RECORDS
This is the sixth release from this six-piece genre defying group. They always bring something different to the roots-based style and these twelve tracks self-produced release is their best yet in
this reviewer’s opinion, full on unapologetic foot tapping tunes from a band on the rise. From the opening trumpet tones of Tornillo to the last acoustic reflective song, Heart Of Stone, this is a pleasure to the listener. The tune, John Wayne sets the tone with a bass line and groove to lap up, then add some backing vocals from the McCrary sisters, some harmonica and backbeat, amazing. Guitar licks a plenty on this release accentuates the overall feel, Antioch being a case in point, even some brass here with a great rhythm, this tune deals with domestic abuse, this band is no holds barred in their lyricism. The song Feet’s has a Southern rock style, boogie rocking beat about being on the road, great harmonies, slide guitar, great tone. Whole World gone Crazy keeps a good melody and slows the tempo. For The Kids is a plea too keep a broken relationship going, plaintive lyrics rise with great backing vocals. The Wolf brings Classic rock to the fore. Mission To Mars is a quirky intergalactic jazzy tune. There is even a Stax, Muscle Shoals approach to Bad Medicine. Heavy On Me slows the pace, a song written and sung by John Jeffers, another highlight. Other Side is another anthemic tune full of rhythm and great guitar riffs.
COLIN CAMPBELL
WIND CHILL/BLOOS RECORDS
Breezy Rodio is an individual not just a band name, he hails from Texas in USA where he has gained a good reputation as a blues guitarist and vocalist releasing a couple of albums in his own right and providing support on a Joe Barr album in 2021 called Soul For The Heart. A significant bonus is that he has acquired the services of Anson Funderburgh, who plays guitar on two tracks and produces the album. I fondly remember listening to several of his albums in the 1990’s with the Rockets. Breezy plays a modern style of Chicago blues on this album mixing traditional elements alongside some soulful songs that are played and sung impeccably. Well supported by four backing musicians that include the talented Josh Fulero on Harmonica, all the material is original and very strong. I
particularly liked Lightening Strike which is driven by Breezy’s lead guitar work and the instrumental The Asymptomatics which brings in some funky jazz elements. Breezy Rodio has a unique playing style, he uses his thumb instead of the more traditional pick for his custom-built Olivia Rhino guitar, the result is a very pure sound that has tremendous depth and plenty of rhythm. His vocals are more traditional although he does have a very smooth tone that reminds me of Robert Cray at times. This is what I consider to be a “complete” album, the fourteen tracks combine well to provide a sumptuous blues that has variety but never strays too far from the core Chicago blues sounds, highly recommended release by an accomplished artist.
ADRIAN BLACKLEEThe Dig 3 consists of Andrew Duncanson on vocals and guitar, Multi-instrumentalist, Gerry Hundt and Ronnie Shellist. This is an album of pure raw, down, and dirty blues, just as blues should be. The opening track, You’re The One highlights this very intention of raw blues. Gravelly vocals, foot-stopmin’ percussion, the harp blowing in the background, and guitar riffs bringing up the rear. Every Drop kinda reminds me of early Canned Heat in a way, maybe it’s the delivery of the vocals along with the relentless blues beat. I digress, by the second track, I’m already in love with this album. With albums such as this, what you get is plain and simple blues, nothing more, nothing less. You don’t need bells and whistles, big production, or overstated playing, with a blues album, the bare essentials are usually all that you need. This album has that in abundance, great playing, great vocals, and lyrics, and three guys who obviously love and understand the blues. Southern Fantasy changes the mood slightly bringing funk and soul into the mix. The tempo is brilliant, you can’t help but tap your feet and move around the room whilst listening to this. These three guys are the epitome of traditional blues artists, it seems as though the album was made on a whim, in the studio, start jamming, and hey presto, out comes a brilliant blues album of
Stony Plain Records
This is the third volume in the series Power Women Of The Blues produced by Rory and Rob Davis recorded in Kentucky Studios. Rory sang, played guitar and slide guitar, bass, and drums on this release. Here she delves into the American songbook from the 60s through to 80s on these eleven tracks. They are all written or feature female singers including her own reinterpretation of Lovin’ Whiskey her most requested song for thirty years. They are all lovingly restored songs sung with passion and true feeling for that song. I’ll Take You There, opens the release and has that Gospel feel with raw vocals. Midnight Train To Georgia is soul driven from the heart. My Guy, the Mary Wells classic has a jazzy feel, such a joyful mix. Fast Car is an honest reinterpretation of the Tracy Chapman tune, some great slide on this and a good backbeat.
spacey Floyd interludes and plays some tough guitar on the horn-heavy and catchy rocker Back To The Good. In contrast Chris appears to be singing tenderly about his son in Little Man: “You are the best in me, it brings out the thirst in me to be the better man, help you where I can”. Learning To Love You is a song about finding love again and has suitably ecstatic guitar and an earworm chorus, a tune that brings to mind Jefferson Starship, no bad thing! The album closes with Grace, an elegiac tribute to a loved one with fine harmonies and restrained piano backing, Chris delivering a big solo on the later part of the tune. This is an album that you need to listen to several times over as it reveals ever deeper layers of interest, both musically and lyrically.
JOHN MITCHELLown that builds up tempo throughout, a highlight. Something To Hold On To is played acoustically and full of passion lyrically. Hoodoo Lover has a country feel with a twist. Headed For The Stars is full on boogie with a dose of rock, groove laden. Last tune, Heart Crash ends the release with gentle tones, very mellow and soulful. Musical artistry, highly recommended.
WINDMILL STUDIOS
As the first track kicks off, I know this album is going
to be one of those exactly as it says on the tin, which for me is no bad thing. Driving beat, boogie piano, harmonica and some stella guitar playing, wrapped around some classic vocals. Have a Look At Yourself is the up tempo first track that takes you by the hand and has your fingers tapping and your ears looking forward to what’s coming next. Davey then tells a wonderfully slow story of the title track, Mississippi Nights where I feel like I’m there, looking up at the stars on the edge of the big river, drinking beer and squashing mozzies on my neck, that’s one of the joys of music I love, it can transport you to a different time and place, from Essex to the deep southern delta. Next track, Daydreaming
Koko Taylor’s Cried Like A Baby is full on country blues sung with passion and sultriness. Love Has No Pride made famous by one of Rory’s influencers Bonnie Raitt is well arranged. Then the tempo rises with, I’d Rather Go Blind, sung with full emotion and fine backing, vocal range powerful. Dancing In the Streets, is full of joy and verve. You’ve Got A Friend shares that vulnerable tone of Carole King’s tones just beautiful. Final tune, Freight Train samples Rory’s amazing guitar picking emulating Libba Cotton. Tribute albums do not get much better than this one.
COLIN CAMPBELLPROVOGUE/MASCOT LABEL GROUP
LET’S ROLL
Blue Heart
original songs. The last two songs, Tell Me The Place, and In My Kitchen, are labelled as bonus tracks. Maybe they were added at the last minute, whatever the reason I’m damn glad that they made it onto the album. They complement the album so well. All in all, this album made me smile, made me feel good, and made me realize that raw dirty blues still has a place in the world. Don’t believe me, take a listen to it. You’ll soon change your mind.
STEPHEN HARRISON
SECOND HALF RECORDS
Canadian blues-rocker
Chris Antonik gives us a big album here! It clocks in at 70 minutes, has lots of big guitar and some heavy lyrics too. On his fourth album Chris gives us 14 originals, written in collab-
oration with several collaborators, including five with Britain’s Ben Fisher, starting with the melodic Pilgrim which features some exciting guitar work as Chris sings of heading out on an odyssey of discovery. Ben also co-wrote In Our Home which Chris sings with his partner Alison Young (who also plays sax on several tracks), the funky Be Here Now and the bluesiest track on the album, We’re Not Alone, the former featuring harmony vocals from Mike Mattison of Scrapomatic, the latter guitar from Paul Deslauriers. Ben’s final contribution is The Promise Of Airfields, an enigmatic title and the longest cut on the album as the band creates a widescreen soundscape with a five-person horn section and scintillating guitar from Chris. Quite what the song is about is unclear, but Chris is certainly on a journey of discovery here! Elsewhere Chris duels with Jarekus Singleton on Waves Of Stone which veers between heavy rock riffs and
This Danish rhythm and blues septet have been together now for over twenty years, their new release is another marker of how the band’s sound has evolved with their own personal twist. Still one of the best live acts on the European blues circuit they know how to entertain, and this their eighth studio release continues that theme. Twelve well-crafted tunes start with the title song Navigation Blues with a moody stomping blues tune, Thorbjorn’s soaring vocals have never been better, then the band just gets cranking the rhythm. Watch The Sun Go Down, ups the tempo with a Texan twang and smooth groove, the bassline is the key. The acoustic take to the ballad, The Way You Make Me Feel adds sweet tone full of harmonies and bold brass. Fire Inside is a rocking tune with anthemic chorus and cool guitar lick. Blue Lullaby is achingly beautifully sung gentle tone. Taking The Good With The bad is just phenomenal boogie, great groove. Whatever Price is another rousing feelgood tune with smooth rhythm and groove, the band ripping up the pace. Time: has a soundscape of its
Now there’s a whole bunch of top-notch guests on this CD: the opener has Carolyn Wonderland in fine voice introducing the main act themselves, whilst Lone Star legend Anson Funderburgh contributes an exemplary Texas blues guitar solo. Elsewhere you’ll find people like Anson again, Jimmie Vaughan, Mike Zito (lend an ear to Why’s It Always Gotta Be This Way for a classy piece of Texas R’n’B with something of a dirty musical touch), Johnny Moeller and Marcia Ball, all big Blues names these days, and all doing something far more significant than just “popping up”. Let’s not forget though that this set is in fact about The Texas Horns.
It would actually be difficult to do that anyway, due to the big, brassy riffing of tenor sax man (and blues harpist for Watcha Got To Lose) Kaz Kazanoff, the fruity baritone playing of John Mills and the powerhouse trumpet of Al Gomez, or each man’s own individual instrumental breaks. Lend an ear to the instrumental I Ain’t Mad With You for a classy example early in the running order. The thirteen songs range from the rocking Alligator Gumbo to the moody soul-blues of Die With My Blues On, one of two fine vocal showcases for Guy Forsyth, via the likes of JB Lenoir’s instrumental J.B.’s Rock, the soul-jazz of The Beatles’ I Want You (She’s So Heavy) or the bright, Caribbean-styled Apocalypso. All the tracks here run around the three-and-ahalf to four-and-a-half minute’s mark, so stay focused and exciting, never descending into a string of solos. That’s as it should be, these guys know their stuff, and have done for a long time.
NORMAN DARWEN
Tribute albums do not get much better than this one
these guys know their stuff, and have done for a long time
Independent
Short, spiky maximum rhythm and blues is what the Milk Men are all about and they return with ten originals on their newest release. Comprising of vocalist, Jamie Smy, Adam Norsworthy on vocals and guitar, Lloyd Green on bass guitar and drummer Mike Roberts, they rip through these tunes at breakneck speed. Driving It, sets the tone with a doft to Pete Townsend noticeable on this pacy tune. Cheap Seats brings some funky licks mixing a ZZ Top style with Stevie Wonder melody it works well. Go Go Baby is just brilliant, fun and a catchy chorus, the hook and melody are superb. Adelaide brings something different to the all-round feel, mixing in some acoustic for good measure.
keeps me there, without any fanfare, the keys on this song are so well woven with the guitar and vocals, it’s as if they’re one instrument. Hitting the fourth song, Feel Like Screaming I’m completely under the spell of this story being told, as the slide guitar cries, I can feel the anguish, I take back what I said about being exactly as it says on the tin. Davey and the gang are more complex than that, I’m getting from the songs that he went from heartbreak to desire as the next two tunes, I Got the Hots for You and Pretty One suggest a newfound love. Houston Street Blues is a swampy song that fits in very nicely and my only regret about it is, it’s not longer and I feel the same about the album as there’s only two more tracks to go, nine in all. This album is easy to listen to, this is good, old-school
Independent
How Do You Think I Feel eases the tempo, a well-crafted tune about a relationship breakdown, great harmonies, acerbic lyrics make this stunning. Sing The Blues goes to the band’s roots, husky vocals full of passion and a driving guitar riff. Gabba Gabba Hey, a tribute to The Ramones; changes the course to pure infectious Glam Rock with a twist, sung to an audience this will be an instant crowd pleaser. Fabulous; mixes Elvis moans with a ZZ Top shuffle, add a fantastic bassline and away you go, tremendous. Highway Woman lets the band hone into a Jimi Hendrix vibe whilst keeping their own signature lyrics. Last song, Bad Seed shows the band’s dark side with a nod to Dave Gilmour on the lilting solo. Eclectic mix of tunes, no fillers, this band is on the rise,
with this stunning release.
COLIN CAMPBELLI’ve been lucky enough to these perform in a live setting as just a duo with Ritchie playing a mean guitar and Debra taking vocal duties. This album contains thirteen original songs, with Ritchie writing the music, and Debra writing the lyrics. The album kicks off with, I Can Hear A Train A Comin’ a blues title if ever I heard one. Michael Tingle joins them on drums on all the tracks, keeping the beat going just enough in the background. Debra’s vocals on the opening track resonate perfectly with the tempo, Ritchie providing blues guitar riffs, without the need to overstate the issue. The Story So Far is not the type of album with huge production or complicated wizardry, it’s just a laid-back blues album with carefully thought out lyrics and some wonderful guitar. Lonely And Blue does exactly what it says on the tin. Brooding lyrics, a hint of desperation in the vocal, and a guitar sound that almost seems like it is actually crying. The whole album has an understated feel, no need for shredding guitar solos or screeching vocals, it’s just pure blues coming from deep inside of both of these people. As the album progresses, the songs take on more of a blues/rock venture while still retaining a deep blues feeling. Ritchie just takes it up a notch on the guitar, giving it a harder edge.
As the songs take on a harder edge, Debra Susan’s vocals act accordingly, moving up and down the scale with relative ease. You Make Me Feel Bad In A Good Way, in my opinion, has the best vocal arrangement on the album, not that any of the other vocals are not up to scratch, but the vocals here are nothing short of brilliant. That’s the beauty of this album, pure blues and blues/rock combining to showcase the talents of these great artists. This album has thirteen great original tracks, do yourselves a favour, and add it to your
STEPHEN HARRISON
INDEPENDENT
Quebec-based outfit Durham
Poets won’t be insulted at being called dad blues, because I mean that appellation entirely positively. This album is im-
maculate in every way; intelligent lyrics and perfectly crafted tunes, crystalline production that allows the listener to understand every word of every track on first hearing, perfectly arranged horn section accompaniment, every-notecounts restrained melodic guitar soloing. Exactly the kind of stuff that those of us around in the 1970s used to call ‘laid back’. As with everything in life, there’s a trade-off involved, and in this case, it’s the raw excitement of the blues in its less refined formats. But unless you crave that every single damn time, you should be
BARRY BLUESBARN HOPWOOD
this band is on the rise with this stunning release
do yourselves a favour, and add it to your collection
Independent
One Foot In The Groove is a celebratory 25th-anniversary album from this legendary band. Based in L.A. which has spawned so many great artists over the years, the band has produced such a remarkable album here. The main protagonists in the band are Randy Jacobs, who hails from The Motor City, Detroit Nate Brown, and Jenny Langer The album contains new songs and a few very carefully chosen covers. The opening track, Mr. Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, was originally written and recorded by Bob Dylan. The legendary funk, soul, and blues background of this band are so evident here. This is such a great version of a sometimes forgotten classic. The whole vibe of this album is funk, soul, and blues, with hints of gospel thrown in for good measure.
The guitar playing of Randy Jacobs is something to behold, not overstated, just full of emotion and feeling. I Am The Blues, really needs no explanation. It’s exactly how I feel about this album. Vocally and musically, this band is hitting the sweet spot at every turn. This is without a doubt a mighty fine album. Big Legged Man is one of the best songs that I’ve heard in a very long time. Written by Randy Jacobs, this song has everything. Feelings, emotions, and some downand-dirty playing. It’s hard to imagine that a better album could come from these guys, but I’m sure that they will have no problems in proving me wrong in the future. I Forgot To Be Your Lover, ft. Bernard Fowler of The Rolling Stones backing singer fame is probably my favourite track on the album, but it’s a hard choice to single out one particular tune. This is an album that every blues, funk, and soul lover need in their collection. Trust me, you will not be disappointed.
STEPHEN HARRISON
with type for a stop for Route 66, the solo guitar and vocal version far closer to Nat King Cole’s reading, than many guitar-centric covers. There are also some guest musicians, ranging from the harmonica player Giles Robson, who’s stirring playing lights up many of the songs, to the drummer Brendan O’Neil on drums, during the slow blues of the second track Useless., with is singing, stinging guitar lines recalling such players as Albert King and David Gilmour. The singing, playing and song writing is strong throughout, with Fizzotti playing many of the songs with his skills as a writer, guitarist, singer, bassist, and keyboard player adding much to the sound. Blues albums rely on many of the same ingredients, ranging from soulful vocals and solos, strong rhythms and good band performances, all of which feature throughout the whole of Nobody Understands.
BEN MACNAIR
Mighty Tight Records
fine with something as good as this. There’s a sole cover of Dylan’s Not Dark Yet from Time Out of Mind, one of the set’s highlights, with a further 11 originals and not a single dud. The opener, Working On It, is a clever relationship dissection song I wish I could have penned in honour of a certain ex. Mean Old Dog Blues is the closest things get to breaking into a sweat. It’s technically a boogie number, of the type ZZ Top might have come up with after indulging in some nice and mellow high-end hash. Together In The Groove flirts with funk and almost succeeds in the seduction. In sum, one for the grown-ups, sure. But if you are a grown up, give it a listen.
DAVID OSLERROCKHAUTE MUSIC
Manny Fizzotti is seemingly one of those musicians who can flit from one instrument to another, and between genres with apparent ease. The twelve tracks that form Nobody Understands range from the blues rock of opener Crying Shame to the solo acoustic blues of Lockdown Blues, the banjo-tinged country hoedown of Cowboys on the Run, which at only 46 seconds is far too short, and the ambient jazz of John Coltrane’s Naima which closes this finely crafted collection of songs. Writing nine of the twelve tracks,
Nicole is an Indonesian-Swedish singer who has been based in Edinburgh for a few years now. She has been in a few bands including being lead singer for Blueswater Band and her own duo Smitten all blues genre based. Her debut release though pulls in more than bluesbased songs and previous influences on her career, these twelve well-crafted songs are jazz, pop and soul infused marking this as a stunning production by a wonderful talent. Bold, imaginative, quirky melodic tunes make this more than a concept album. The opening track could be a soundtrack to a film, Wolves has a great string arrangement and visceral lyrics, she has such strong vocal range it really makes you sit up and listen to every chord. Lily Of The Valley encapsulates the experimental jazzy moody tones to the release and is a stunning song, ethereal backing brass section takes this to another level. Sundown changes the mood on this soul infused sensual tune. Intonation, features Joseph Malik and has a funky vibe to it, vocals interlay well with the groove.
Some people sound exactly like you think they will. Big guys with ham hands and fearsome beards, wearing worn Levi’s, squinting from under their Stetsons, full-on blues shouters, giving it everything they’ve got, and backing it up with some mean guitar of their own, and some classic blues backing from guys they like to record with. You may not expect an early-twenties Anglo-Indian man from the West Midlands, whose Black Country vowels only occasionally permeate his educated speaking voice, to sound exactly like a dyed-inthe-wool blues veteran from deep down in the South. But that just underlines how you should never judge by appearances, visual or auditory.
This album is absolutely the proverbial real deal. Sunjay has assembled a collection of top-class musicians to enhance his latest album offering. This is companion collection to the Black And Blues album, and it follows on where that left off. With a one-two of Built For Comfort and Statesboro Blues, Sunjay impresses existing fans, of which there are a growing number, and new converts of which I am surely one, that this is traditional blues standards given a dusting and a polishing, and a brandnew up-to-the-minute sound, without detracting for one minute from the magic that has made these nuggets last for so long. It’s the combination of Sunjay’s utterly perfect finger-picking guitar on Hesitation Blues and his deeply authentic vocal delivery that really does shine a new light on these venerable classics. He even manages to put his unique guitar and vocal stamp on Dust My Broom, which has probably been covered more than any other classic blues cut ever heard. His real skill as a fingerstyle player, highlighted on the final track, The Easy Blues, is the wonderful end to a fabulous collection, and a must for anyone looking for some old masters given a respectful and original modern take. You can hear just how much of a blast they had making this album, it’s recommendation right there to get a ticket and see Sunjay and friends do it all on a stage near you. That, that you own this album by then, is a given.
ANDY HUGHESRED7 Records
Armed with a Dobro resonator guitar plugged through a Magnatone Twilighter amp, Troy has managed to combine them into his blues rock-slide repertoire on this stunning new release. It’s raw with no fillers, autotuning or overdubs. The ten new tracks are set free with the help of producer and bass player Dave Marks and drummer Paul Stewart. Whether it be the Southern rock approach to the opening high tempo ‘Gasoline’, or the raw energy of the last song ‘Heart and penned tracks continue with ‘Sweet Carolina’, a nod to glam rock, infused with a Rolling Stone vibe. This is his
It has a unique soundscape about the Long Walk by the
Quest is laid back, with some rapping vocals from Kameelah Waheed adding texture to it. Sour As Candy keeps the sonic landscape ethereal and uplifting. Dragonheart is synth infused with sweet vocal harmonies. Something Borrowed, Something Blue is both entrancing and evocative of deep feelings and somehow works here. Ahmen mixes spoken word with soaring vocals very inventive. Last song, Role Models closes with eerie cello backing Nicole’s sultry vocals and builds up to a sonic crescendo. A wonderful debut.
COLIN CAMPBELLThis is the first album that I’ve come across from Lauren Anderson, so I was certainly going in with a very open mind. The album opens with the rocking title track, Burn It All Down. An in-your-face hard rocker of a song that takes no prisoners at all. The rest of the album becomes more mellow and lays at the door of the blues, rather than
the hallway of rock. Soul Is Mine is a perfect example of this mood swing, a sultry drawl with brooding guitar, just what the blues doctor ordered. Zombie Blues features a guest appearance on guitar from Albert Castiglia. Now I’ve heard a lot of Albert’s work in the past, and let me tell you, he certainly brings his blues chops to this tune. The album progresses along the highway of the blues for the rest of the time, delving ever so slightly back into the rock side, but only enough to dip its toe in the water. Being a relative newcomer to Lauren Anderson, I have to admit that I really like this album a lot. Her vocals are wonderful, and all the tracks are written by her, so she has the whole gambit.
environment, raw and full
freedom. ‘Mercy’ is all about the backbeat groove and deals with tionship, with an almighty chorus taking the song to another level.
‘Can’t Let Go’ slows the tempo and emotion, and holds a
ered with a snarling sneer. ‘Dark Religion’ has its own ‘Profane’ ups the tempo with a psychobilly punk style,
Lauren Anderson so well. Like a woman, she grabbed the music world by the horns and showed it
even higher than this great Like A Woman finishes the she’s arrived.
long career in British Jazz and other forms. Born into a
er in the chorus at Covent Garden and she was surrounded jazz and the fine arts. She has been a solo performer for many years, including appearances with Bryan Ferry, and has had 13 critically acclaimed releases as a solo artist, she tally, married to actor Harry Shearer (This Is Spinal Tap, The Simpsons, Saturday Night Live). This is down release, and it really demonstrates her soft and smoky voice, set against a
“IT’S RAW WITH NO FILLERS, AUTOTUNING OR OVERDUBS”IMAGE: ADAM KENNEDY
Veteran vocalist Jimmy Hall’s new album is an affirmation of the notion, it’s good to be alive. Jimmy’s reputation as harmonica/sax/vocalist from southern blues legends Wet Willie is assured, thanks to his standard Keep Smilin’, and an apparently inexhaustible ability to be out on the road playing live shows. From the kicking drumbeats of the opening cut Jumpin’ For Joy, the stall is set out for a collection of bang up-to-date blues and soul cuts from a voice that has dimmed not one iota in the intervening years. The standout highlight track is A Long Goodbye, a slow-burning blues rooted in soulful keyboards and harmonies, with Jimmy’s heartfelt lament for a lost love underpinned by some tasteful guitar from album co-producer Joe Bonamassa. Of course, you know Joe is going to garnish the song with another from his endless repertoire of peerless guitar solos, and he obliges with spine-tingling flurries of notes underpinning Jimmy’s heartfelt emotional pleas. It’s true to say there are no egos on this record – every player is top of their tree, and they all give everything to the music they are making.
Another favourite song here is Without Your Love which features Jared James Nichols with an aching, utterly tasteful guitar solo. The final track, Eyes In The Back Of Your Head is a cautionary tale from a veteran to a young gunslinger, with its spare acoustic backing, it’s a final reminder, not needed of course, of just what a powerful blues voice Jimmy Hall still has. If this album enjoys the success, it entirely deserves, then we can hope that this combination of talent will reconvene and make some more uplifting joyous blues and soul music like this. Heaven knows, the world certainly needs it. Get a copy of this album, play the title track, listen to the message of redemption it contains, and feel better about everything. That’s the message Jimmy Hall is offering, and we are absolutely delighted to pass it on.
ANDY HUGHES
of piano, trumpet, bass & drums. She opens with a delicious version of Blossom Dearie’s autobiographical Blossoms Blues; her voice sultry and pure but bringing a touch of humor as she sings in the third person, seemingly questioning Blossom’s charms. Mary Lou Williams Satchel
Mouth Baby follows, and she delivers with a lot of sass. One of my heroes was the late George Melly and Owen’s version of The Spinach Song really reminded me of the old grandee and the humor of the song (originally in the album Reefer Blues Vol 3) with all its double entendres hits home delightfully. And so, the album continues: slightly off mainstream jazz classics played beautifully
and interpreted skillfully by Judith. The only song that, for me, misses the mark is her version of He’s A Tramp where he vocal just loses the desperate longing that the original had, the playing is superb, and her vocal is immaculate, but it is a song that will always be compared to the Peggy Lee version. Otherwise, Dinah Washington’s Big Long Slidin’ Thing is right on the mark and Jerome J. Leshay & Bobby Troup’s Nice Girls Don’t Stay For Breakfast has the right louche presentation to even beat out Julie London’s version. 14 great jazz numbers and it puts you right in the front table at the club.
ANDY SNIPPERI must start this review with a heartfelt apology. Back in August 1979, I attended the Knebworth Festival to see Led Zeppelin. One of the opening acts was Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes. As a 17-year-old I couldn’t appreciate just how dynamic and talented this band was and still are. Thankfully my blinkered vision is no longer an issue. This album was recorded live at The Opera House, Newcastle, England in 2002. The history of this band is second to none, formed in 1976 by Southside Johnny, and a young guitarist by the name of Stevie Van Zandt, better known for his work with Bruce Springsteen. The similarities between the two bands are hard to escape, members of both have regularly played in each other’s band on numerous occasions. Onto the album, the title track is also the opener on the album. A wonderful soul, rocking vibe emanates from the entire band, with gravelly vocals and a thunder hammer beat from the drums giving the audience a lesson in how to open a show. Alongside the usual instruments is the heartbeat of the band, namely, The Miami Horns. Even though the album was recorded in 2002, it sounds as fresh as a daisy. No time to draw breath between songs, the pace is relentless. Rock “n” roll, funk, soul, gospel, and blues, this array of musicians have everything but the kitchen sink in their locker. Gin Soaked Boy is a fantastic blues tune. The mere title suggests that this will be oh-so bluesy. That’s the beauty of this band, their ability to twist and turn at the drop of a hat. The version that I have been sent is on a lovely blue vinyl which I feel adds to the enjoyment of the performance. Cadillac Jack’s Number One Son is as rock”n” roll and boogie as anything I’ve heard before. . I wished I’d have been a bit savvier back in 1979. But, I’m not going to waste a single moment so that I can enjoy this magnificent album and this truly remarkable band.
STEPHEN HARRISON
Independent
As the title suggests this is a six track an EP so there is not much in the way of material to work with. Add in the fact that two tracks are different mixes so I am really struggling to get a handle on where Geoff is heading and thinking. Apparently there was a previous EP, Love Gun, released in April this year and albums in both 2020 Big Town and Shakedown in 2021 so I can only point you in those directions. However the title track Rock The Blues opens things up in quite a nice melodic way. Geoff’s vocals whist by no means the strongest every committed to tape are very acceptable, strong and clear. The track perhaps sits in the territory of early Bad Company and similar bands which is fine with me. I was sent the CD with no accompanying personnel details so I can only surmise that Geoff is also responsible for the guitar parts as well.
Nothing
For sure we have drums, bass, rhythm and some keys on here as well. What there is in the way of music is nicely produced with fine balance and placement of the players. Restless Child, Give Me A Sign and Never Giving Up complete the tracks. Tracks 2 and 4 are then given a “Chilled Mix” outing but actually what I wanted was more content. Perhaps the original idea was to eventually combine the two EPs together as an album but we will never know. A missed opportunity I think. So all things considered a bit of a let down but only in terms of presentation. Nothing wrong with the songs or with the playing at all.
GRAEME SCOTTThat’s the message Jimmy Hall is offering, and we are absolutely delighted to pass it on
wrong with the songs or with the playing at all
Independent
I have been fortunate enough to see these guys performing in a live setting. Then, as with this EP, what you see is certainly what you get. Blues and blues/rock delivered with ferocity and also with humility and understanding. This band is a no-nonsense blues band that also points the finger toward the blues/rock side of the fence. Four tracks, all of which were written by John Angus. The opening track, Hey Mamma, bursts out like a freight train hurtling along the tracks at full tilt. Blues/rock riffs and train-like harmonica reverberate throughout the song leaving you in no doubt as to what this band is all about. Life’s What You Make It, carries on in a similar vane, all members of the band bringing something to the table. As I attested to earlier, I’ve been fortunate enough to see these guys live, raw energy and an eye for detail are just two superlatives that can be leveled at them.
DAWNSERLY RECORDS
With John Angus taking lead vocals and guitar, the rest of the band have space to bring their own talents to the table. Bram Duckworth, for instance on lead guitar, produces some sublime solos on each track, but not in a show-off way, just a consummate guitarist, who has refined his chops. I can see that this band has evolved in their relatively short time together, a tightness that comes with great musicians that enjoy working in a band environment. The final track, Sinners, begins with fine keys courtesy of Andrew Hutchins, who also joins in with backing vocals. This EP brings the band to new beginnings somewhat, not a total overhaul, just a tweak here and there, proving that it doesn’t do any harm to bring in fresh ideas. This is a fine EP from a great band. Check them out whenever you get the chance.
STEPHEN HARRISONMelding blues rooted music in a Classical form may not suit everybody but when the person experimenting thus is Corky Siegel then you must take stock. In 2017 he released Different Voices which blended harmonica tones with a Classical string Quartet. Here he again explores the opposing musical spectrums with aplomb. This release will challenge the rule book on blues playing and push cultural barriers of the same aside. There are ten tracks here with multi-instrumentalists and guest singers. All arrangements feature Corky even the bonus track Penguins In The Opera House, a poem set to music narrated by him to a string arrangement. No Ones Got Them Like I Do starts the release blending harmonica tones with violins featuring Lynne Jordan on vocals. Insurance is a Toronzo Cannon song sung by him here but with a raw string driven backing that blend so well with quirkiness. There Goes My Man has haunting vocals by Marcella Detroit and great percussion, laid back feel. Little Blossoms Falling Down also has haunting lyrics sung by Frank Orrall,
With an album title inspired by Billy Gibbons, see the main interview with David Sinclair for a thorough explanation, album opener, Hip Hopping, has a new wave/R’n’B vibe that jumps about like a bulging-eyed frog in mating season. Joined by Glasgow rapper, Johnny Cypher, it reveals an inventive rhythm and blues approach to the ten tracks that makes up Apropos Blues. The big, bold, banger that’s Borrowed Rhyme - perhaps a reference to his career as a music journalist - and the title track puts rhythm firmly in its place ahead of the blues as these tracks grip the ears in a pleasurable sonic headlock.
A switch of tempo, the upbeat melody of Bands Of the London releases the pressure. It’s a sharply drawn lockdown lament about the badly needed live music scene. Sinclair not only nails his message but slams it home with his committed band of musicians who adrenalise these songs with top playing. For balance, Years Are Gone slows the pace down with melancholic ruminations set to a wistful burning blues vibe. Continuing his observations on lockdown life, No Time Left To Lose, with its sublime catchy refrain, cool slide play and moaning harmonica by Laurie Garman, is arguably the smartest of songs on this quality recording. Then again, there are more than a few contenders. The modern kitchen sink lyrical drama of When Her Ship Comes Sailing In and its R’n’B musical nuances could be a top-grade Squeeze song in another life. Won’t Be Divided contains some neat guitar work by both Sinclair and his co-writer Geoff Peel. Oddly, the bittersweet tale of Fell In Love With L’Amour, and Sinclair’s vocal delivery, feel as though it has the influence of prime-time Hugh Cornwell to it. A racy cover of Chuck Berry’s Bye, Bye Johnny tails this album of apropos top tunes.
PAUL DAVIESNelson giving a powerful sultry delivery on this dark slow tune. Hine Ma Tov Blues, has Ukrainian singer Cantor Roytman with string and harmonica backing, a beautiful piece of music. Something here for any music lover, a masterpiece.
COLIN CAMPBELLgreat arrangement. Joyful Jambalaya ups the tempo on a harmonica fueled instrumental with added strings. Oasis, features Ernie Watts on saxophone another experimental tune that syncopates well. Twisted, is a jazzy blues number with Corky on vocals. Down So Low has Tracy
BLUES FOR BREAKFAST
LITTLE VILLAGE
This USA band have been performing and recording for over a decade now, prior to this they performed as Taj Mahal’s backing band during the 1990’s. With this pedigree I was
eagerly looking forward to reviewing this CD, I was not disappointed as this album is full of soulful funky blues material, aided by the inclusion of both Trumpet and Sax players within the band format. The album has been dedicated to founder member Mike Finnigan who sadly passed away in 2021 but with the aid of technology his vocals and keyboards can be heard on the track OK, I Admit It which was originally recorded as a demo. The band are also fortunate to have attracted several guest players including Bonnie Raitt and Curtis Salgado. The majority of the songs are covers originally performed by a variety of artists from both blues and soul genres. The album starts with a lively version
This is a fine EP from a great band
Considering Laurence Jones is still only thirty years old. he’s managed to cram an awful lot of music into his short career. This is his sixth studio album, albeit the first one on Marshall Records. Add to that a list of people that he has opened for, such as Van Morrison, Buddy Guy, and Jeff Beck. Now, these are seriously bigname blues artists. If that were not enough, he’s been described as being in the top-ten guitarists in blues/ rock. Not bad for thirty. I digress, the album, Destination Unknown is proof if proof were needed that his guitar skills are worthy of such acclaim. The album opens with, Anywhere With Me, a hard rocking thunder hammer of a song. Despite the rocking sound of the guitar, Jones demonstrates his other skills, namely being a great singer-songwriter, and a great vocalist to boot. This album leans predominately toward the rock side of blues/rock whilst still having at least one foot firmly entrenched in the blues. Gave It All Away, however, has a more ballad-type style, softer vocals but with a huge guitar sound lurking in the background.
There is no doubting this young man’s credentials, every track is so well produced and delivered. The rest of the musicians on the album play their part magnificently, especially on the keys. Always there, never imposing, just happy to provide the perfect accompaniment, as all good keyboard players should. Throughout the whole album, I get the feeling of a carefree attitude from Laurence Jones, not arrogant, just confident in everything that he does. In my view, this will only increase as time goes on. What we have is a very talented young man who can switch from rock to blues/rock, and back into the blues at the drop of a hat. All ten tracks on the album are original songs, no covers are needed on here. The final track is also the title track, Destination Unknown. This is the bluesiest track on the album proving that with all the rock and blues/rock, Laurence Jones still has both feet firmly entrenched in his first love, the blues.
STEPHEN HARRISON
Don Washington resides in New York and is a music teacher. He is a multi-instrumentalist and on his newest recording plays all instruments, including harmonica, guitar, drums, and banjo. He learned the piano at age five and was the youngest of five children. His back catalogue is based in blues and other musical styles. Here he wrote nine of these eclectic tracks. The instrumental, Cut To The Left is an upbeat melodic tune with driving harmonica. Next Son House’s Death Letter Blues keeps a bluesy tone this overridden by classical piano playing and Gospel vocals again upbeat. Diagonal Flying is another instrumental, here he shows his prowess on guitar and amazing organ playing. DW Jump is a jiving saxophone driven instrumental full of twists. Fresh Tracks slows the tempo on this blues infused song full of pleading lyrics and great rhythm. I’m Walking has a great groove and sung with authority and style about disillusionment in a relationship with his partner, vocal style reminiscent of BB King, lots of piano a great groove. Let Me Tell You About My Baby is a positive upbeat love song very catchy full of rhythm. Lying In My Sweet Baby’s Arms has Gospel tones and keeps to the flow of the rest of the release. Maddie Moo is another well-arranged instrumental soaring horns here. Oh Romeo is a steady rolling blues tune. The final track, a cover of Big Maceo Merriwether’s Worried Life Blues is a superb interpretation. Great musicianship by a true talent.
of Sam and Dave’s I Take What I Want which includes some fine saxophone from Joe Sublett, it is quickly followed by a cracking version of Curtis Mayfield’s Move On Up which has a strong Reggae theme. The blues are showcased on Muddy Water’s song She’s Into Something and Sam Cooke’s Laughin’ and Clownin’ which is sung by Curtis Salgado, the vocals on the other tracks are shared by Larry Fulcher and J L Schell. It is good to hear
Tony Braunagel on drums and percussion, a musician I remember from his sojourn in Back Street Crawler in the mid-seventies. In fact, all the Phantom Band members have had interesting and varied musical careers, but they all come together to perform the music they love under the guise of The Phantom Blues Band. An enjoyable album that leaves you with a real feel-good factor.
ADRIAN BLACKLEE
LITTLE VILLAGE RECORDS
This three-piece band along with a few guests in the studio has produced a debut album that will have people talking about it for years to come. How’s that for an introduction? The band consists of, Tony Coleman (drums & vocals), Russell Jackson (bass & vocals), and Johnathan Ellison (guitar & vocals). Between them they
This is the debut release from Canadian singer songwriter and guitarist Robert Billard with band members comprising; Clayton Hill on drums, Tobin Frank on bass and an assortment of other guitarists including J.W. Jones, Wild T Springer and pianists Kenny Blue Boss Wayne and Murray Peter on these ten tracks. Robert’s vocal delivery is powerful, at times hypnotic as on the first track Road To Nowhere a stomping tune of seeking salvation. Six Ptarmigan rocks the tone with some fine guitar licks, again lyrically this is so good, dark earthy tones here also. Waiting For The Land To Dry has a rootsy feel to it a great rhythm to this one. No Shape For Talking has some fine slide playing, it is all about the story though. I’ll Leave You is a dreamy highlight; bass line holds this and marries well with Robert’s cutting vocals, so many musical layers. Groove: is the most bluesy tune where the band just excels with the rhythm, raw and gutsy.
Well Enough Alone is a powerful break up song, sung with venom to a steady beat. Waiting On Time has a laid-back feel, beautiful and melodic. Nothing Can Stop Me Now has a great keyboard spotlight and a cool vibe. Last song, Home, is an articulate ballad featuring Tonye Aganaba duetting on a soulful song, longest track on the release and very anthemic. Highly recommended, edgy guitar solos, powerful vocals, tight band, a masterful debut.
COLIN CAMPBELLLaurence Jones still has both feet firmly entrenched in his first love, the blues
Blind Racoon Records
Welsh singer songwriter, singer and guitarist returns with an album bursting with blues tunes. Thirteen tracks and only one reinterpretation, the final track, Chuck Berry’s Memphis Tennessee which has an impressive acoustic rendition. Recorded and co-produced with Steve Jinks who also plays bass and drums here, there is something for every blues lover on this album. A wonderful brass section and piano punctuates the tunes by James Goodwin. Lyrically and structurally the title tune starts the relaxed pace to the release, all band members add to the sweet soulful vibe that this album has in abundance.
The Lady’s Not For Turning has a catchy rhythm and piano playing that compliments Dave’s sweet guitar picking. Eye On The Money is a feelgood tune about touring on the road, catchy chorus, with saxophone interludes. Another Girl slows the tempo, Dave’s vocals blending with the subtle piano notation. Everywhere Man, is another road story, with the emphasis truly on the big band feel, again saxophone vibes being front and centre. Leaving San Francisco, has a Chicago blues feel and fine guitar solo which accompanies the harmonica perfectly. Rose Tinted Love is a steady rolling blues song, with a laid-back, easy-going melody. Last Thing has a wonderful bassline then the organ playing lifts this tune, a highlight drenched in blues feelings. Pretty In Pink has a superb rhythm and subtle lyrics. This album is basically a melodic blues album, plenty of sentiment, great lyrics, and wonderful orchestration.
COLIN CAMPBELLshare vocal duties, it’s a rare thing to have three amazing singers in one band, but that’s exactly what you get here. Ain’t No Right Way To Do Wrong opens this fine album in wonderful style. A hard thumping drum note bursts into such a marvellous tune, with Tony Coleman delivering vocals so good, and so on the money, my immediate thought was, if the rest of the album is half as good as this, I’m in for a real treat. Well, guess what? The rest of the album just gets better and better. It’s a rare thing to get a debut album that has such a profound impact on me, but this is one of the rare ones. Every tune is brilliantly delivered with such great playing, it’s akin to an orchestra almost. Each member of the band brings so much to the table, both vocally and musically. Never Make Your Move To Soon is a take on the original classic by B.B. King. It’s not a parody, far from it, it’s a tale of B. B. King celebrating his birthday told through the eyes of Silent Partners. I’m sure if he heard it, he would love every minute of it. Love Affair With The Blues just about sums up this album. It’s easy to see that these guys know what the blues means and how it should be played. From songs that make you want to get up and jig around to songs that you need to sit still and let them wash right over you. I’ve run out of superlatives for this album. If you love the blues, then you must go out and get this album. Trust me, you’ll thank me for it.
STEPHEN HARRISONMR FIVE BY FIVE THE SINGLES
1940-49
ACROBAT MUSIC
Okay right from the get go I have to admit that I have never really investigated Freddie and that is both a curse and a blessing when attempting to review such a collection of forty nine singles. What is certain is that throughout the two CDs there are many well known songs, brilliant vocalists including Johnny Mercer, Ella Mae Morris, Margaret Whiting and many more. Freddie’s career began as pianist with Jimmy Dorsey in the 1930s before moving on to
Will Bradley’s Orchestra and eventually fronting his own ensemble. If you like the swinging mix of Boogie Woogie piano sitting within the context of those outstanding big bands of the war years then you will be enthralled. Selected from the vaults of Columbia, Decca & Capitol and aurally very well transposed to CD. Beat Me Daddy Eight To The Bar gets us underway at a terrific pace, fingers flying over the keys, punchy horn breaks and collective vocals from the orchestra. Loved the version of Down The Road A Piece stripped down to a trio arrangement. Rocks In My Bed and Goin’ To Chicago are lovely early Blues with Joe Turner’s superb vocals. The Thrill Is Gone featuring Ella Mae is the original Lew Brown and Ray Henderson song not the one to become famous with BB King. That Old Black Magic is indeed the well known one. I particularly enjoy Whatever Happened To Ol’ Jack with its slightly quirky morbid lyrics delivered by Bobby Troup. Loads of strident piano throughout, as you would expect, exciting and packed with energy. This collection could be thought of as being a bit niche, but I believe there is plenty to be enjoyed by us all.
GRAEME SCOTT
HELLO MOJO!
CATFOOD RECORDS
Working with Zac Harmon as producer, Derrick offers us nine originals, four written with regular collaborator Terry Abrahamson, three with Catfood boss Bob Trenchard, two solo efforts and one cover. The studio house band is The Rays, plus a four-man horn section. Derrick’s strong vocals are well suited to the style of music that this studio band creates, and, in turn, they rise to the occasion in interpreting his songs, in other words, a match made in heaven. The first three tracks on the album are exceptional, starting with Skin In The Game, a slinky soul rhythm, superb horns, rousing guitar and clever lyrics about love, describing how you must “sit down at the table, buy your chips with a piece of your soul”. The title track has a New Orleans feel while lyrically describing how a new relationship can
bring your mojo back, even after being hidden away for a long time! The Contender may be the standout cut on the album as the band hits a soulful stride and Derrick and Bob conjure up a lyrical account of an ageing boxer who still wants to fight, to have “the taste of blood again, even if it’s my own”, topped off by Zac’s stirring solo on the outro. Broken Promise has a swampy feel before the female chorus and horns bring a touch of Motown to the chorus. A Tall Glass Of You has clever lyrics in which lots of drinking analogies are used to compare with his girl, the horns feature strongly on I Can’t Say No and Colour Of An Angel is a soul ballad with a fine vocal performance. Derrick plays some solid harp on Baby I’m Lost, the chorus enhanced by the backing vocalists. The cover is a surprise, The Kinks’ Who’ll Be The Next In Line, reimagined as an urban blues with horns. Closer Bittersweet Memories is a fine ballad with the horns at their sweetest, plus fine guitar and sax solos. Anyone who enjoys the soulful end of the blues spectrum should seek out this album.
JOHN MITCHELLVIZZTONE
As the album title suggests, here’s a new artist with his debut album. I strongly suspect though that we won’t be asking who he is for too long, on this evidence he’s got the ability to take the blues world by storm. He is twenty-one years old and born in St. Louis, Missouri, and he has here an admirable and thoroughly entertaining release. Take a listen if you can to the swinging blues shuffle of the opening Barnyard Blues, with its fine lead blues guitar by Christone “Kingfish” Ingram) and easy rhythm, plus of course Dylan singing effortlessly. Bill Withers’ Who Is He (And What Is He To You) is more threatening in sound as Dylan becomes more and more suspicious of his lady’s behaviour. In contrast Dance Of Love is an early 70s styled soul dancer, and All Blues is a vocal and bluesy version of the Miles Davis number (lyrics by Oscar Brown Jr), it’s good to note the presence here too of guitarist Dr. Wayne Goins, Head of Jazz Studies
there is something for every blues lover on this albumIMAGE: LAURENCE HARVEY
Golden Rule
This new album from Mike Broomkfield feels in many ways, like confirmation of his talent. He is working in a genre that has been trodden by many of the greats, Tom Petty, Dylan, Steve Earle, Springsteen, all great storytellers and all capable of painting pictures that are instantly clear in the confines of a three-minute song. It is difficult to actually stand out, but Broomfield manages it. His tales have an element of the colloquial and he avoids putting them into any context other than his Irish & Liverpudlian roots. He has also put a very good band together to put the songs over in the best way, Paul Moore on bass gives the music its heartbeat, Dave McCune’s drums center the music and Peter Eades keyboards add elements of space and sparkle, needless to say that Brookfield’s guitar playing is excellent as well as his vocals. The song titles tell stories in themselves, East Village Vinyl Queen, Built To Last, Delirium Town all paint pictures and the songs behind them don’t fail.
rocks the house. Hoochie Coochie Man has the audience joining in on this well delivered classic done in a more laid-back style with feeling. The band gives gusto to Born In Chicago, some great guitar work here. Tequila Nights brings some funky blues to the stage some exceptionally good vocal delivery also, a crowd pleaser. Another Fine Day has a shuffle to this one, then the groove is the thing here. The instrumental, Juke turns into a bluesy jam full of tone. Shake Your Hips is full on rhythm and blues, as is the haunting Triple Trouble. The release closes with the up-tempo tune, The Creeper, harmonica tones are superb here and the band just gets into the groove. A brilliant live release full of passion and drive.
COLIN CAMPBELLSUPERTONE RECORDS
One of my favourites on the album is Dunkirk Spirit, looking back to the reality of the so-called Dunkirk Spirit and wondering where it has gone today, very much in a Steve Earle style but also very much a British tale. Snatched It From My Hand has a superb guitar solo opening, fast pace while Speedway has a keening and reflective sense to it. He is a very good songwriter, he wrote all the songs here, and even better guitarist, and the album is one of those that you listen to all through and then go back to pick out the gems, a different gem every time.
ANDY SNIPPER
Voodoo Shack Records
at Kansas State University, who supplies some fine jazzy blues playing; he also wrote the biography of Chicago blues legend Jimmy Rogers. Those looking for more straight blues though should try Dylan’s covers of Jimmy McCracklin’s She
Felt Too Good and Lonnie Brooks’ Feels Good Doin’ Bad (Christone certainly shines again, guesting on this one), or his own composition Junkyard Dog. There is also the lovely R n B ballad I’ll Be There Waiting and the wonderful moody soul of Marvin Gaye’s That’s The Way Love Is. An album that is very highly recommended.
NORMAN DARWEN PAOLO DEMONTIS &
Italian harmonica player has a new band and released a live album recorded in the venue Birra Ceca Pub82. The band also include lead singer and guitarist Vincent Petrone, Paolo Sclaverano on bass and Luca Bozzola on drums. They play fourteen tracks including three originals; Talking To You, a lively foot tapping blues song, I Believe, a funky number and Don’t Touch My Blues, a slow guitar infused tune in the Freddie King style. The essence of the band is caught from the off on the powerful harmonica driven Talk Is cheap.
I Wish You Would has dark tones and a steady rhythm section adding the groove.
Lollipop Mama gets the party started a version that
This husband and wife duo is a great live act. I can testify to that, having had the enormous pleasure of seeing them perform at Butlins a couple of years ago. They are without a doubt a great blues, and blues/rock outfit. Not only that, but they do have some great musicians wrapped
When someone tells you to think outside of the box, it’s usually for a good reason, well think outside of a very big box. This three-piece band is not your ordinary runof-the-mill blues outfit. What they are is a three-piece band playing blues with a huge theatrical, vaudeville, extravaganza look about them. I’ve been very fortunate to see these guys perform live and let me tell you, it is a brilliant experience. The music is a take on blues, don’t expect Muddy Waters or Bessie Smith, this is totally different. Musically as well as visually, Jo Carley & The Old Dry Skulls give you more to think about than your average band. But this is not all about theatricals, the band is sublime in their playing. The album kicks off with Alligator Blood, a lively, blues-based up-tempo little ditty that immediately put a smile on my face. The instruments that are played are as surprising as the actual end product. mandolin, archtop guitar, double bass, and a kick rattlin’ shoe thrown in for good measure. This is what I mean when I try and explain the band and album. It’s off-the-wall blues, honky/tonk, and boogie with a pinch of country all mixed like a gumbo. By the second track, Don’t Need No Devil, I’m pulled into this album hook line, and sinker. I love the quirkiness of the lyrics and the musicianship is top-drawer. Each song on the album, there are eleven in all, is written and played so well. Blackbird has a honky tonk, slightly country theme which only goes to accentuate the versatility of the band in my view. What springs to mind with this album is the air of simplicity, nothing overthought, or overdone, just a band who knows exactly what they want, and how to put it to an audience. That is what this album conveys, great music, simple. I suggest you sit yourself down with a drink, relax and let Jo Carley &The Dry Skulls take you somewhere you would never dream of going.
STEPHEN HARRISONa different gem every time
a band who knows exactly what they want
No Label Records
This is likely to surprise many. Hill is a longestablished Canadian blues-rock picker with a truly significant history and a host of hard-earned Canadian Awards including their own Grammys – known as Junos – and almost ten Maples, akin to Memphis Blues Foundation IBAs. A great friend of another Canadian guitar wizard, Paul Des Lauriers, Hill actually stepped in to fill his shoes with a leading Canadian blues outfit when a relatively unknown youngster taking his first professional artist steps.
This gives a flavour of just how important to the music and the Canadian scene he really is. Starting out with the concept of a one-man-band set-up, Hill developed the project to include horns and the assistance of UK bluesman Wayne Proctor who plays drums throughout and handled both mixing and mastering for Hill. No Illusion is a very fine addition to Hill’s catalogue. His twelfth release to date, it ricochets along nicely with a determined drive always pushed by Hills’ fine – at times blistering – fretwork and a keen ear for that always welcome Memphis Horn sound that keeps feet tapping and people dancing. No Illusion is due for release on Hill’s own No Label Records label on November 11th, and truly would make a very fine Xmas gift for any blues-lover who likes their blues full-throt-
around them. So, the live album, it reminds me of the kind of 70s live album that I came to love so much. This has everything, long songs, great solos, and the feel of an audience enjoying every last minute. The set kicks off with, Brother, written by Simon Campbell, a brilliant thundering blues opener. When you have a situation like this, husband and wife playing in the same band and writing songs together, you are producing music with the other half of you, if that makes sense. The closeness of the relationship pours through these songs, which makes them more joyous. Of the eight songs, seven of them are written by Simon and Suzy, with the one exception of the last song. We’ll get to that later. Cry Over You, is a mega ten-minute blues song that brings Simon’s vocals to the fore, way before he produces a stunning guitar solo in keeping with the mood of the song. That’s why I say it reminds me of 70s live albums, extended songs, and extended solos, what’s
Vizztone
Too Slim & The Taildraggers are at the peak of their powers,a formidable power trio that embraces blues, rock n roll, and classic rock in a Texas-tinged cocktail. Live arenas are their forte and this recording from their home ground of Ohme Gardens, Wenatchee WA, captures the full blistering show. Tim Langford has led the band since 1986, by my reckoning this is the 7th live album alongside 14 studio recordings, and we get the pick of the crop played to an enthusiastic crowd of believers. Mississippi Moon kicks things off, all ringing guitars and tight rhythm section and blues imagery. Then we’re straight into Fortune Teller, a driving hard rocker with some dirty guitar solos to keep you nodding along to. Cowboy Boots next, the crowd lapping it up straight from the recognisable guitar intro. A tale of hardship and trying to earn enough to get by and stash some cash in your cowboy boots. Devil In A Doublewide is more of the same riffing Southern edged rock. He whips the crowd up again going into Free Your Mind with its protest song feel and more rocking guitar.
When Whiskey Was My Friend is next, exploring the age-old story of drinking to forget a lost love. The guitaring on these almost goes into a psychedelic cloud. Letter fires straight in next, a rock n roller with a Chuck Berry vibe running through, the band clearly at home and enjoying themselves.
The intro to My Body slows the tempo down again, and Slim picks out some tasteful guitar licks as he sings about not being put into the cold ground, burn my body set my ashes free. Blood Moon with its Hendrixy, Troweresque intro keeps the pace slower and is none the worse for that, for me an album highlight. Twisted Rails is the longest track here at eight minutes plus, it’s slow opening gradually building as Slim sings about trials and tribulations and trying to ride those twisted rails, with ample space for the solos and interplay. Good Guys Win is a good choice to finish up with, a fast upbeat rocker leaving everyone feeling good. Too Slim & The Taildraggers are super good at what they do, after twenty plus albums and heading for forty years on the road I doubt this will win new followers, but fans will love it.
STEVE YOURGLIVCHing together slowly, building behind the vocals. It is a truly great song, and done so well. This whole album makes me feel so good, the recording is spot on, you can almost feel the audience in the background, it’s a very well-put-together album. So, to the final tune, A Whiter Shade Of Pale, needs no introduction. And to help it along, Josh Phillips of Procul Harem fame plays the keyboards. This album is brilliant. Nuff said.
STEPHEN HARRISONHIS
MOON RIVER MUSIC
This double album is not what you might expect from Geoff Muldaur, or maybe it’s exactly what you would expect. Having been part of Paul Butterfield’s Better Days Band, Muldaur has spread the word of folk and blues music as much as anyone. This double album features some brilliant old
the band clearly at home and enjoying themselves
a very fine addition to Hill’s catalogue
blues and jazz songs, mostly the ones that are not automatically on the tip of your tongue. It’s compilations like this that get my journalistic juices flowing. To be taken back in time, to the world of simple folk, jazz, and blues. The album opens with, Black Horse Blues, written by Blind Lemon Jefferson in 1926, and has been covered by the likes of Bessie Smith and Ida Cox. What makes this album unique is the fact that Geoff Muldaur has added Clarinet, Bassoon, French Horn, and Cello to the mix. The sound and arrangement are magnificent. There are songs by Jelly Roll Morton, Thomas “ Fats” Waller, Duke Ellington, and J.B.Lenoir included here. The mix of traditional blues and jazz, accompanied by a wonderful horn section and great orchestral arrangement turns this into a trip down memory lane, the likes of which you would never imagine. On top of all this, you have the brilliant vocals of Muldaur himself, twisting and turning through dixie-land jazz, and smokey bar-room blues. Boll Weevil Holler, is a tune that I had
completely forgotten about. To hear it being reproduced in this fashion is one of life’s little pleasures. Add to that a lovely little ditty by Jimmie Rodgers, and what you are left with is a truly wonderful album of great tunes. I listened to this album early in the morning, otherwise, I would have been solely tempted to pour myself a rather large single malt to add to the ambiance. I digress, This is just a wonderful album crammed full of brilliant songs, brilliantly arranged. To finish the album off, a bit of operatic singing courtesy of Lady Clarion McFadden. This has made me a very happy man indeed.
STEPHEN HARRISON
FORTY BELOW RECORDS
This is Freedy’s ninth release and is based in the Americana roots style but there is more to that on these ten self-penned tunes. He is a composite
songwriter who writes quirky memorable and infectious tunes. It is the melodic tones that he orchestrates so well. The opener and title track exemplifies his wonderful song writing technique and melodic charm that is the theme through this release. There Goes A Brooklyn Girl has a swagger about it, well-crafted lyrics great musicianship. Madeline’s Eye has some twangy slide guitar licks, very catchy and up tempo, Darlin’ is acoustic guitar driven, some sweet harmonies with Aimee Mann on this very honest song. Tryin’ To Move On lets the band loose on a rocky tune David Raven on drums giving an intense backbeat with Dusty Wakeman keeping the bassline. The Power Of Love has a soaring melody line with added vocals of Susan Cowsill. Somewhere Love, slows the tempo, Freedy’s vocals have never been better and the string arrangement by Stevie Blacke lifts the tune. That’s Life is self-explanatory about the circle of life, a duet with Susanna Hoffs. Trick Of The Light has a glow of its own and is sung
with emotion, his guitar playing is subtle a lot of layers to this one. Final tune, The I Really Miss Ya Blues flows well and catches the listener with an infectious feelgood sound. He is simply a unique talent.
ONE ROAD RECORDS
Still on a crest of a wave musically and garnering a huge fan base, it was a no brainer that When Rivers Meet would bring out a live album and here it is; thirteen tracks of the finest musical calibre incorporating different styles including blues, soul, rock all tinged with honesty and an eagerness to entertain and make a connection with the audience, which is palpable on every track. Here, Grace and Aaron Bond have gathered a stunning band, including Roger Inniss on bass guitar and James Fox on drums and keyboards. Hard to imagine this is the
band’s first headline tour and incorporates songs from their two albums and two E.Ps. They go through the set list at a blistering rate changing tones with every instrument they play, and the audience laps it up, an hour of music, starts with the anthemic, Did I Break The Law and ends with the power driven Testify. In between you get the cigar box slide snarling guitar stomp to Walking On The Wire, visceral vocals here. My Babe Says That He Loves Me has lilting harmonies to a rocky beat. Highlights are the slower melodic numbers Don’t Tell Me Goodbye, Bury My Body and the hauntingly beautiful, Tomorrow. Freeman again starts with superb slide and Grace’s vocals soar through the hall; rhythm section makes this fully charged. They enjoy themselves on stage and play the crowd on Innocence Of Youth which is groove laden. Inclusive, fun, emotional, high-octane music, this is what a live album should be, this is the essence of Where Rivers Meet are in their career to date, five-star performers.
COLIN CAMPBELL
Based in Brooklyn, this singer songwriter and guitarist may be a relatively new name in the blues to some but what a powerful debut release. Sixteen songs of varying musical styles that transcend blues music to a different level. This musician has it all and his repertoire is astounding. He has called on some special guests including Eric Gales on the amazing title track Blood On My Hands, Jimmy Carpenter on saxophone on the catchy Anna Lee and Kat Riggins on the haunting ballad Like A Pulse, which has such a good melody. Emanuel’s vocals have a tenor style with the smoothness of Gary Clark Junior, he has such a range vocally. Opener starts with thunder and lightning then bang into an eerie almost trippy tune, Afraid Of Blood. In Blood features Paul Gilbert with a blistering riff, laid back feel to this. Bloodshot Eyes, features Albert Castiglia on another heartbreaking song with a punch. Nashville has a country blues vibe, some slide and harmonica drenched playing from Felix Slim. Sunday Talks is full of reverb and blending keyboard then enveloped by his smooth guitar work
taking the listener to the church of Emanuel. Thicker Than Blood is about true friendship, catchy groove. Testify is a great shuffle tune, rocking the blues. Devil’s Blood deals with moral issues and has a defined bass line, a superb song. Blood Money, My Nerves and Shaky Tables all deal with hard human emotions, edgy guitar work and vocals throughout. Final track Rotten Pockets is dark and sinister. Very highly recommended.
COLIN CAMPBELLUMBRELLA MUSIC
Whenever you get to thinking about British Blues music, you automatically think about, Cyril Davies, Alexis Korner, and of course, John Mayall. But, Paul Jones is as much a part of the British Blues story as any of the aforementioned guys. As part Of Manfred Mann, he was a huge part of the early 60s blues boom. This album is a compilation of his life’s work in the blues. Without You, recorded in 1963 is the first on this fine double album. Not only is Paul Jones a great blues singer, but he also writes, plays harmonica, and turns his hand to acting on the odd occasion. The second track, Sonny Boy Williamson, is obviously a song written by Paul as a tribute to one of
the blue’s finest artists, and a fellow harmonica player. The reason behind this album is simple, it highlights a lifetime’s dedication and love of blues music, for which Paul Jones has travelled far and wide.
5-4-3-2-1 as everyone in England over a certain age is aware, is the theme tune that Paul wrote for the fledgling pop tv show, Ready Steady Go! This was performed by Manfred Mann, and it helped to put pop music firmly on the agenda of television. Noah Lewis is another blues artist that has heavily influenced Paul Jones, so the track, Noah Lewis Blues should come as no surprise to anyone. Twenty One tracks, tracing the journey of one of the most creative and dedicated musicians that this country has ever seen, covering all the musical projects that he has been involved with, is a must for any blues collection. Songs such as, Like Mother, Like Daughter, with Mick Pini guesting on vocals, show a softer side to the blues whilst still retaining the core of what blues music is all about. All in all, this is a compilation of some of the finest British Blues that you are ever likely to come across. Get it into your collection. You’ll be glad that you did.
STEPHEN HARRISON
KTBA Records
The California rockers are back, this time with ten songs either recorded live or as live in the studio spanning the past three years. They are one of the best live performers around and are extremely diligent musicians. Featuring guitarist and lead singer; Robert Jon Burrison, Andrew Espantman on drums, Steve Maggiora on keyboards, Henry James on lead guitar and Warren Murrel on bass, they form an almighty powerful musical unit. Openers, She’s A Fighter and Waiting For Your Man were recorded this year live in Belgium and epitomize what they bring to a stage, hypnotic rhythm, and showmanship. Rescue Train is an old tune of theirs this time reinterpreted in Shuffle Brothers Studio, Tennessee.
As is their classic take to The Band’s The Weight. The new tune Old Hotel Room slows the tempo down, pitch perfect vocals to a laid-back sound, recorded at Sunset Sound. Likewise, Dark Roses has a similar tempo and mood about the loss of a friend, a superb track. On The Road is an old favourite revitalized here full-on energetic track where the band rocks out, every member having their solo. Cannonball is another recent release from their Last Light On The Highway album, here this instrumental has added guitar solo, a particular favourite when played live. The guitar laden riffed, Something To Remember Me By and the final classical instrumental Witchcraft were both recorded at a DJE session two years ago. A wonderful compilation from a band at the top of their game, highly recommended.
COLIN CAMPBELL
a band at the top of their game, highly recommended!
IBBA PRESENTER’S
PICKS OF THE MONTH
“ For Music Lovers Only:
It's hard to improve on all I've recorded through the years but that hasn't stopped me from trying. I collaborated with some very talented songwriters and a stellar band and the result is the BEST record of my career! So Get Ready for a newfashioned album that will Blow Your Mind !! ”
Produced by Joe Bonamassa & Josh Smith
- Jimmy Hall
