AVAILABLE AUGUST 12 th • GENUINE HOUSEROCKIN’ MUSIC SINCE 1971
JOHNNY WINTER
Third Degree
“Unparalled fired-up energy...marvelous guitar...tgutsy, churning blues”
–Blues & Rhythn
ALBERT COLLINS
Cold Snap
“Torrid...the fiercest blues guitarist”
–Living Blues
ALSO ON VINYL:
FRI 26/SAT 27/SUN 28
AUGUST 2022
IAN SIEGAL PRESENTS B•L•U•E•S BIG BAND FM
LINDISFARNE THE ANIMALS (AND FRIENDS) GENO
WASHINGTON ATOMIC ROOSTER ERROL LINTON
AYNSLEY LISTER CONNIE LUSH MIGUEL MONTALBANN
GERRY McAVOY'S BAND OF FRIENDS NINE BELOW ZERO
DR FEELGOOD FULLHOUSE (FRANKIE MILLERS)
CLEARWATER CREEDENCE REVIVAL CHANTEL
McGREGOR KING PLEASURE AND THE BISCUIT BOYS
VERITY/BROMHAM BAND
WILLE AND THE BANDITS THE CINELLI BROTHERS THE STUMBLE KYLA
BROX THE UPTOWN ALL STAR BIG BAND 55th ANNIVERSARY SHOW THE RIC LEE BAND (TEN YEARS AFTER) REBECCA DOWNES BAND THE MIGHTY REVELATORS THE ALLMANS PROJECT THE HIDING MAGPIES
THE ANDY TAYLOR GROUP (ORKNEY ISLES) THE BIG BILL BROONZY STORY CARTWRIGHT SUNHOUSE LIAM WARD BAND SAMUEL C LEES
BAND ASHLEY SHERLOCK BAND JAMES KIRKPATRICK
THE SIMON HOUGH QUARTET DAVE SPEIGHT
TOM KILNER BAND MARK PONTIN GROUP FIVE POINTS GANG THOMAS ATLAS MELVIN HANCOX BAND FARGO RAILROAD Co MISSISSIPPI MACDONALD CHRIS BEVINGTON ORGANISATION BRAVE RIVAL
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Blues and the music that comes from it isn’t a museum. This music is alive when played with honest feeling - and that isn’t always about daisies and butterflies.
It can take you on a ride of emotions. So blues is like life to me: filled with highs and lows; pain and immense joy. For me, music is kind of like breathing. It sustains me, and I feel that it is an immense privilege to play it all over the world for people who connect - like me - to the music and to the feeling of experiencing the ride through emotions together. So my friends, dig in!
Go see some great music, put it on in the car, dance or close your eyes and just feel it. If you let it, it might even change your life one note at a time.
Dave Drury
Ben Elliott
Barry Fisch
Sybil Gage
Stuart A. Hamilton
Stephen Harrison
Trevor Hodgett
Barry Hopwood
Andy Hughes
Stacey Jeffries
Yvette Jenkins
Rowland Jones
Adam Kennedy
Contributing Photographers:
Arnie Goodman (USA), Adam Kennedy (UK), Laura Carbone (USA), John Bull plus others credited on page.
Jean Knappitt
Brian Kramer
Frank Leigh
Andy Lindley
Gian Luca
Ben McNair
John Mitchell
Glenn Noble
Toby Ornott
David Osler
Iain Patience
Dom Pipkin
Sharon Ponsford
Simon Redley
Darrell Sage
Saha-Killelea
Glenn Sargeant
Dave Scott
Graeme Scott
Jon Seymour
Andy Snipper
Dave Stone
Matty T. Wall
Don Wilcock
Dani Wilde
Steve Yourglivch
COVER IMAGE: Austin Hargrave
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Our roving reporter in Scotland, Colin Campbell, caught up with Sugaray Rayford backstage at Òran Mór in Glasgow. Above, he’s holding the new look Blues Matters magazine with his interview on show.
“love the new layout, grateful for all your help. Thanks to all” Thanks Sugaray!
Over the years I have been fortunate enough to have seen Rory Gallagher all thru his career - from Taste and pretty much every incarnation of the Rory Gallagher bands. I have been able to have a personal relationship with Rory, most of his band members and the Gallagher family.
Our reviews editor, Stephen Harrison, was lucky enough to bump into this likely-lad at a recent gig in London. Walter told Stephen: “I love the look of the new mag”
Hot on the heels of Erja Lyytinen’s new single Bad Seed and new studio album Waiting For The Daylight, the Finnish slide guitarist and singer songwriter will embark on a co-headline UK with the award-winning Belfast-based blues guitarist Dom Martin from November 7-10th.
Dom’s co-headline UK tour with Erja follows the release of his latest album A Savage Life which has received rave reviews including Classic Rock’s ‘Blues Album of the Month’. Dom recently won two UK Blues Awards including Blues Instrumentalist of the Year and Acoustic Blues Artist of the Year. Tickets are available from www.erjalyytinen.com/tour and www.dommart.in/tour
The Rory Gallagher Festival has been going on for 18 years with a 3-year Covid hiatus in 2019. This year, after successfully surviving a bout with Covid, I finally made the pilgrimage to Ballyshannon. Barry O’Neill is the amazing coordinator of the festival. Having been all over the world attending countless festivals-this one ran without a glitch! The Gallagher family is very much involved - however, Donal Gallagher, Rory’s brother and manager, was not able to attend due to health issues. Let’s wish him a speedy recovery!
Rory’s nephews, Daniel and Eoin both took up the mantle for the Gallagher family. The town of Ballyshannon is the oldest town in Ireland and is a magnificent setting for the Festival. The town pays tribute to Rory everywhere you look, including an infamous statue of Rory Gallagher in the centre of town. The festival draws fans from all over the world -some 32 different countries. The festival has over 30 acts paying homage to Rory- with venues all over Ballyshannon ranging from, Rory Gallagher Theatre, Rory Gallagher Way, The Gables, Festival Big Top and the many pubs.
Of course, great pints of Guinness are served throughout. I am sorry to say I did not get to every act. The up-and-coming acts that did impress me were Aiden Pryor Band, Jack Ahern and the Mark Black Band. However, I need to pause now, to rave about
the one that blew everybody away was -Zac Schulze Gang. Zac brings you the energy of Rory -watch out for Zac! All the main acts played the festival big top-on Friday night Crow Black Chicken, Pat McManus and Eric Gales. All 3 were great. Eric Gales was especially impressed with the energy of the audience. He said he thought he was at a football match. The Saturday night lineup was Fresh Evidence, Johnny Gallagher and Walter Trout.
It was my first introduction to Johnny Gallagher and he really impressed me. Walter Trout played with a European band that I had never seen before and they pushed Walter into a great performance. Sunday night’s climax lineup was Dea Matrona -Bernie Marsden and Band of Friends. Bernie Marsden brought up Johnny Gallagher for a great jam- one of the true highlights of the festival.
Band of Friends (Gerry McAvoy, Brenden O’Neill ) closed out the festival with a 2hour high-energy driven performance, reminiscent of their many performances as Rory Gallaghers’ rhythm section. All the acts at the festival paid their respects to Rory and played his repertoire of songs, however, the song of the Festival was Bullfrog Blues with every kind of interpretation imaginable.
The Rory Gallagher International Tribute Festival is a must-see for music fans and especially for any Rory Gallagher fan! I’ll see you there in 2023!
by John Bull - www.rockrpix.com
“Excuse me, Can I just ask your advice about starting in music photography?”. I remember asking this very question about 10 years ago.
I went to meet a guy in a pub who had been doing it for years to pick his brains. He turned up carrying a step ladder and was on his way to ‘PAP’ some celebrity. He told me “Don’t bother with music mate, no money in it now” - well I didn’t fancy waiting outside a nightclub until 4am to snap some mini skirted girl falling out of a car either. So I decided to go with live music anyway and started ‘Rockrpix’. Turns out he wasn’t entirely wrong but it still feels better than joining the Paparazzi.
So have I got photography advice? Yeah - don’t get in the way, nobody has come to see you!
Of course, Muddy Waters. That is indeed where it all started for me and still just as intense a relationship one could imagine absorbing his Blues. He IS the Delta! He DEFINED Chicago Blues.
corresponded back and forth were incredible, but fate stepped in and told another story. Bob noticed the tribute illustration I did and asked if he could publish it to accompany his appreciation article regarding his longtime friendship with Paul, writing to me “Your drawing of Paul captures him better than any photograph I could use”.
That started a bit of a correspondence where suddenly both of us had a bit more time on our hands, due to lack of… or zero possibilities to perform live, with an even bigger question mark as to when it would end. I cherish those moments to connect with someone I’d seen live with Muddy and admired and suddenly got the opportunity to pick his brain a bit.
peak of his powers and incredible production. That’s when Bob Margolin was caught on my personal radar. His accompaniment to Muddy as well as support through the whole album is just exquisite. Sometimes difficult to differentiate where Muddy starts and Bob ends on guitars. Sometimes very clear and distinctly “Bob Margolin”. An elegant, seamless, personal accompaniment to Muddy and the ensemble.
Admittedly, I’d copped a few of those juicy little tidbits and licks that Mr. Margolin laid down, with his inspired flurry. So, through all sorts of strange connections in the universe and Covid lockdown circumstances, as I was developing my Blues Art and finding inspiration day by day, in 2020 Bob Margolin noticed and reached out to me when I had posted on social media a tribute drawing of Paul Ocher (also an important figure in Muddy’s line-up). “Brooklyn Slim” had just passed away suddenly, while we were collaborating on my illustrating a book of his many intense road stories. The few weeks we had spoken on the phone and
Fast forward to 2022 and things have some sense of normalcy again. Playing live is now back on the world stage and appreciation for what we have back is even greater. I was tipped off to the Pinetop Perkins Foundation, which Bob has been an indispensable part of, that June 2022 was holding the 10th anniversary of their workshops for youth. The organization contacted me and asked if I would create an illustration that would be presented to Bob during the event with appreciation for his efforts and contributions.
I just smiled to myself inwardly and knew this was the opportunity to show my appreciation to so many connected aspects; The Blues, Muddy, Pinetop, young inspired folks taking the Blues in, and of course Bob Margolin, for somehow “just being Bob”; a very gracious, generous, giving sort of a Blues dude. So I proudly present to you here, my illustration I like to call “The inseparability Of Muddy & Bob”, highlighting their eternal connection and friendship/mentorship.
Thank you universe for lining things up so sweetly. Thank You Blues for always making the road and journey scenic and fascinating. Thank you, Bob Margolin for noticing.
Derek joins the latest batch of great bluesmen to appreciate the best magazine in the blues world!
Robert Jon & The Wreck are pleased to announce they will return to tour the UK from February 7-18, 2023.
Our writer, Adam Kennedy, recently attended a date from their 2022 tour and said “the final song should have been named “Hot in The City” because tonight Robert Jon and The Wreck are on fire” so this is definitely a band to catch live on stage!
Tickets can be bought from the band’s website.
“Kirk Fletcher has laid down 10 tracks of soulful, gospel-flavoured blues in his own signature style. The production is great, the guitar playing takes centre stage and the songs are rock solid. There’s plenty here to enjoy.” - 9/10 Guitarist Magazine
AVAILABLE ON CD AND ALL STREAMING PLATFORMS FROM JULY 29TH FROM:
by Laura Carbone
One of the largest free blues festivals in the world. More than 500,000 fans gather in Chicago’s Millennium Park and venues across the city A three day festival , it’s all free and open to the public. This festival opened up in 1984 and celebrates Chicago’s heritage in the blues.
Salt Lake City’s Largest Gathering of Blues Fans, the Utah Blues Festival was held on June 10 and 11 and was dedicated to increasing awareness of a uniquely American musical/cultural art form – Blues music.
Blues music of course has come from an African-American tradition with its roots in slavery.
Despite these roots, blues song lyrics are often focussed on love and relationships, rather than being directly political. There are of course a few exceptions; Lead Belly’s Folk/ Blues songs in the early to mid 1900’s had an unapologetic social conscience, making bold statements on topics ranging from Racism to Fascism (check out his blues songs ‘Bourgeois Blues’ and ‘Mr Hitler’) and everything in between. Today though I’m going to share with you some of the very best songs by female blues artists, that helped to inspire social change.
- Billie Holiday, 1939
by Dani Wildewhere the song rapidly began to gain attention. This attention included an invitation to perform the song at Madison Square Garden with the Black Jazz Singer Laura Duncan. At this time, Jazz and Blues singer Billie Holiday had a regular show at Café Society, where the floor manager Robert Gordon, who had been in the crowd at Madison Square Garden, introduced Holiday to Strange Fruit.
Holiday connected deeply with the song. Although she had never witnessed a lynching, she had experienced a lot of racism in her life, and when she sang Meeropol’s words she thought of her beloved father, Clarence, who as a black man, died having been refused medical treatment for a lung disorder at a Texas hospital.
“It reminds me of how Pop died, but I have to keep singing it, not only because people ask for it, but because twenty years after Pop died the things that killed him are still happening in the South”, Holiday wrote in her autobiography.
Her raw hurt and simmering anger at such racial injustice would echo throughout her live performances of Strange Fruit. The way she would fiercely clip her consonants on the most distressing of lyrics, leaving her audience emotionally jarred was like nothing that had been heard before in popular music: “Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck”.
biography, “there wasn’t even a patter of applause when I finished. Then a lone person began to clap nervously. Then suddenly everyone was clapping.”
Strange Fruit became a feature in her set. She witnessed many reactions from tears and applause to racist hecklers and audience members walking out. Her record label Columbia refused to record it. When she did record it for the Commodore Label in 1939, many radio stations black-listed it. On her tours, some venue owners and promotors tried to discourage her from performing it, and yet, each night she would perform Strange Fruit as listeners hung uncomfortably on her every word.
Strange Fruit would become Holiday’s most successful song, selling over 1 million copies, and in 1999 was named by Time Magazine as Song of The Century. Nina Simone once described Holiday’s Strange Fruit as “the ugliest song I have heard. Ugly in the sense that it is violent and tears at the guts of what white people have done to my people in this country.” The song underpins society’s devastating racial injustice at the dawn of the Civil Rights Movement and highlights the desperate need for social change.
Sadly, Holiday suffered from poor mental health, abusive relationships with men and an alcohol and heroin addiction that saw to a rapid decline in her health. She passed away at just 44 years of age. Strange Fruit is Billie Holiday’s legacy – it was the first significant song of the Civil Rights Movement, and it shows just how powerful female artists can be in challenging social conscience to help create a better world.
Strange Fruit was initially written as a poem by a white Jewish teacher from The Bronx named Abel Meeropol, under the pen name Lewis Allan. Meeropol was horrified by news reports he had read of lynching in the Southern States. He had been especially moved by photographer Lawrence Beitler’s haunting and graphic photo which captured the hanging bodies of African Americans Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, surrounded by a large white crowd, including women and children. In his poem, he compares the bodies to “strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees”. Meeropol first published his poem in a New York Teacher’s Union Magazine in January 1937, under the title “Bitter Fruit”. He had previously asked others to set his poems to music, but this time, he decided to do so himself. He then began to perform the song at local protest rallies with his wife Anne
Holiday first performed Strange Fruit in 1939 at Café Society, a club that had a rare ‘total integration’ policy, making it the ideal venue for such a performance. She decided that it would be the last song in her set and the waiters were asked to stop serving before Holiday began the song, creating a deathly silence in the room which was plunged into darkness except for a single spotlight on her face. Holiday would not perform an encore as she wanted to leave her audience to deal with the burning social conscience of her words – She did not want them to be able to escape or forget it. Having sung a set of Jazz Ballads, Strange Fruit was a shocking departure:
“Pastoral scene of the gallant South The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth Scent of magnolia, sweet and fresh Then the sudden smell of burning flesh”
“The first time I sang it, I thought it was a mistake” Holiday would recall in her auto-
Mississippi Goddam was Simone’s first Civil Rights protest song and one of her most famous. Written in less than an hour, Simone directly responds to the racially motivated murders of Emmett Till and Medgar Evers who were shot in Mississippi, and to the
-
16th Street Baptist Church Bombing in Birmingham, Alabama, that killed four black children in September 1963.
Her raw emotion and anger at the bombing drove Simone to immediate action: “At first I tried to make myself a gun. I gathered some materials. I was going to take one of them out, and I didn’t care who it was,” Simone would recall… “Then Andy, my husband at the time, said to me, ‘Nina, you can’t kill anyone. You are a musician. Do what you do.’ When I sat down, the whole song happened. I never stopped writing until the thing was finished.”
“Alabama’s got me so upset, Tennessee’s made me lose my rest, and everybody knows about Mississippi goddam!”
Nina Simone calls out racial discrimination and demands that white society does better as she sings, “just give me my equality!”
The words “erupted out of me quicker than I could write it down,” Simone would explain of her emotional song-writing process.
Nina Simone first trialled the song in 1964 at a club in Greenwich Village. Shortly after she would perform it to a huge, mostly white audience at Carnegie Hall. Her live performance at Carnegie Hall was recorded and released as a single which became an anthem for the Civil Right’s movement. Despite the song’s huge success, it was banned in some southern states, and some radio stations went as far as to return the boxes of promotional records with each record broken in half.
Nina Simone dedicated her life to her music and her civil rights activism. She performed Mississippi Goddam at the ‘Selma to Montgomery’ protest marches in 1965 to 10,000 people, her lyrics calling out loud and clear for social change: “Desegregation…Mass participation!”
Performing her song to the masses felt “like throwing ten bullets back at the four Ku Klux Klan members who planted the dynamite” she explained.
In an interview with Black Journal, Simone spoke of her need to write music with a social conscience: “At this crucial time in our lives when everything is so desperate, when every day is a matter of survival, I don’t think you can help but be involved. Young people, Black and white, know this. That’s why they’re so involved in politics. We will shape and mould this country, I will not be moulded and shaped at all anymore!”
In 1968, just after Dr Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated, Simone was performing a
concert in Long Island. In the middle of Mississippi Goddam, she dropped the dynamic, her drummer holding a steady beat, and called out an emotional plea to her audience: “If you’ve been moved at all and you know my songs at all, for God sakes join me! Don’t sit back there!” she shouted. “The time is now. You know the king is dead. The king of love is dead. I ain’t ‘bout to be non-violent, honey.” Her audience clapped and hollered in approval.
At a time when many performers were reluctant to overtly address racial politics in their songs, Nina Simone’s message was loud and clear. She stood for equality, and through her music and activism, she fearlessly challenged anybody who wasn’t on side with that.
failed to report the truth, Makeba sang in fierce and honest protest, her message direct and clear:
“Soweto blues
- Oh they are killing our children
Soweto blues
- Without any publicity
Soweto blues
- Hmm they are finishing our nation
Soweto blues
- While calling it black on black
Soweto blues
- While everybody knows they are behind it!”
Makeba half sings and half speaks the painful protest lyrics. In the 1960’s, having moved to New York City, singer-songwriter Makeba was banned from returning to South Africa by the South African government who disapproved of her anti-apartheid activism. Having spent much of her life living in the USA, you can hear a huge blues influence in this song, fused with South African musical traditions.
Soweto Blues is a South African Freedom Song written by Hugh Masekela and performed by singer and activist Miriam Makeba. The song takes a strong stand against Apartheid, the political system of racial segregation and discrimination in South Africa.
The lyrics of Soweto Blues are about the Soweto Uprising protests which were led by Black School children in South African townships in 1976. Around 20,000 high school students in Soweto took part in the protests which responded to the introduction of Afrikaans, rather than English as the main language used to teach black youth in schools. While white schooling was free, compulsory and expanding, black education was neglected and designed to deprive black Africans of opportunity. The students peaceful march was met by heavily armed police who used tear gas and ammunition to attack them, resulting in an uprising against the Apartheid government, which over the following months spread across the country. The number of young people who died is usually reported as 176 with estimates of up to 700 innocent lives lost. Whilst the media
Makeba bravely testified against the South African government at the United Nations. She was only able to perform the song in her native South Africa after Apartheid had finally been dismantled in June 1990, a few months after Nelson Mandela was released from prison. Celebrated as a cultural icon for African liberation, Miriam Makeba was given a celebratory welcome home. Back in South Africa, she continued to perform and record, including a 1991 album with Nina Simone. When she died in 2008, Nelson Mandela would describe how “her music inspired a powerful sense of hope in all of us.”
Billie Holiday, Nina Simone and Miriam Makeba all used their voices to share a strong political and social message in response to the injustice they saw around them. They used music to challenge public opinion and to support political leaders including Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and Nelson Mandela in the struggle for civil rights equality in America and South Africa.
Their emotive performances rallied up crucial support for civil rights movements. These pioneering women inspired many great musicians thereafter to harness their artistic platforms, using music as a means to inspire the change needed in the world.
“Their emotive performances rallied up crucial support”
Don McLean. Is hardly known for his blues work or output. But as the guy who wrote one of the most important songs of a generation, around fifty years ago, with ‘American Pie,’ he hit the global charts, the airwaves and the world for a cert home-run.
One copy of the original, hand-written lyrics alone fetched over a million bucks at auction and McLean laughs at the thought and says he has a few other hand-written copies still to hand.
When the opportunity again arose to speak with McLean at home (one of four houses, he tells me) in California’s Palm Springs area, I couldn’t pass up the chance of catching up with the guy, picking up on themes we touched on when his last album, ‘Botanical Gardens’ launched in 2018. McLean is always warmly friendly, much as might be expected from a modern US roots music master who generally keeps one strict personal rule in place - writing his own material and seldom, if ever, recording the work of others.
With Grammy awards, BBC Lifetime
Achievement Awards, and one song designated a top-five song of the 20th century by the Recording Industry of America, McLean is self-evidently one of the most important musical figures out there, with songs recorded by the likes of Madonna, Garth Brooks, Weird Al Yankovic and countless others.
Turning again to the Library of Congress National Recording Registry historic song, ‘American Pie,’ McLean laughs as he recalls the issues that its release caused him at the time back in 1971: “I had an album out at the time, ‘Tapestry.’ It was doing well in a sort of under-the-radar-way, getting loads of airplay across the US on mostly FM stations. Then American Pie launched, with a major label, (United Artists), and began being played everywhere. So, all those FM guys and jocks and fans all howled and told me I’d sold out –gone commercial - because of its popularity.”
Of course, while the music world was still spinning in the wake of the song, with huge debates and discussions swirling around about the possible meaning of the lyrics and the song itself, there was a concern it might prove something of a one-hit-wonder.
Those with such thoughts were soon to learn how wrong they were as McLean continued on his stunning trajectory delivering yet another extraordinary and successful track with the still-lauded and generally admired, ‘Vincent,’ a song with no ambiguity whatsoever, dealing with the life of the revered Dutch artist, Vincent Van Gogh.
When this song is mentioned, McLean is quick to explain that to him it was yet another song he wrote, rather than something he considers to have been special in any significant way: “I’m a songwriter, it’s what I’ve always done. Over fifty years now, writing my own material, recording it and working on the road. I managed to keep the rights to my material, unlike many who were forced to sign away their rights to the labels. I never did that, I always kept control of my songs and still have that.”
It quickly becomes clear that McLean is particularly proud to be a songwriter above all else. That he has been immensely successful seems to be almost an afterthought, the process being of primary significance in his mind. With control of a now huge back-cata-
logue, McLean recently embarked on a new stage with a link to Time-Life/Warner Bros and the simultaneous release of over 170 of his songs digitally in June last year. In addition, he launched a new album, ‘Still Playing Favourites,’ to be closely followed by a huge international, world tour marking the 50th anniversary of the release of ‘American Pie’ in 2021. Plans of course, scuppered largely by the Covid pandemic.
These days he works with a trusted support band and has an assurance that few can probably match: “We’ve been together now so long. We do a different show every night on the road. I never repeat sets. I’ve enough material and the band all know it to allow me the freedom to work like that. We rehearse, of course, but often hit the road with an initial set list that just grows and changes nightly. By the third or maybe fourth night, they know where I’m going.”
Our chat turns back in time to recollections of one of his old buddies, the late folk singer and genuine US icon, Pete Seeger. McLean bought his first home in New York State’s Hudson Valley, not far off from Seeger, who he already knew well: “I bought it for cash (due to success of American Pie). It was a
roof over my head. It was a farmhouse style place, beautiful and I lived there between around 1971 and 1990 in particular. I used
to tell Pete that he wrote one of the worst songs ever. For years he never got it. “Little Boxes,’ is just a terrible song. It’s a song by a Boston, Massachusetts, intellectual. I always said it was about the dreams and aspirations of many Americans in reality. People like my own ancestors who would have loved to have owned a little box on a hillside with their kids going to university! Years later, Pete finally told me he ‘got it.’ He finally understood what I meant with my criticism of the song. Pete was his own man, like an athlete in ways. He’d just pick up his banjo and guitar, sling them on his back and go out on the road. Not something I’ve ever been able to do really.”
“Pete always had a great ear for folk music. A tuned ear almost. He’d pick up a feeling in a sound and he could work with it. He functioned at a high level. There were all these bands then, like the Kingston Trio, all covering the same material, singing ‘Little Boxes,’ with their Boston, bullshit accents. I didn’t like any of that back then, but Pete eventually said to me, ‘You might be right about it! Pete was like a PhD. He was no great song-writer but he was a great adapter of material.”
with the simplest of explanations: “They’re the best guitars in the world. I love them. I’ve over 50 Martins here all around in cases. I’ve many D45s; D28s; 0021s and 00028s. They’re all great guitars. After a while on the road, I take them and put them in their cases, tell them it’s time for a rest!”
Fifty years after the release of global hit, American Pie, US singer-songwriter Don McLean is preparing to hit the well-worn road again on a fiftieth anniversary tour taking him across the globe with a chunk of time in the UK, where he will be supported by leading UK blueslady, Elles Bailley.
Asked about the tour, McLean says: “The British audience has been the spring steel backbone of my world touring career for 50 years. I could not have done what I did without this audience. I don’t know how much longer I will be able to tour there but this tour will mean more to me than anything. To the British audience let me say I love you, honor you, and look forward to singing for you again.”
As we close, I wish McLean the best of luck with his latest venture and future: “I guess I was just born to be a musician and a song-
2022 has already been filled with musical highs and ‘Look Mum!’ moments but being asked to be a part of this iconic tour is quite simply the cherry on the cake!
“I can’t wait to take the band across the UK once more and share the stage with Don McLean: an artist I have admired my whole life.”
Out of personal curiosity, I ask why
Out of personal curiosity, I ask why he always favours Martin guitars. McLean laughs
writer. It’s in my make-up. I have a drive to be successful. I’ve always had that drive to be a musician. I still do.”
Bonham-Bullick played in Bewd last month and one of our owners, Stephen, was lucky enough to meet the band. “It was a great gig, and amazing to have such a wonderful night after the gig at a local pub with the band”.
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Over three decades ago the small Lancashire mill town of Colne hosted its first International Blues Festival. Countless awards and 100’s of thousands of ticket sales later, now in 2022 and there is a buzz in the air, because it’s back! The Festival will now be adding a few more cherries to the Blues Cake incorporating a little bit of Folk, Roots and Rock into the mixture.
The line-up for the Great British Rhythm & Blues Festival 2022 brings together heritage performers from as far back as the 1950’s up to ground-breaking, young New Blues artists from the present day.
colneblueslineup.com/get-tickets
This Record Store Day release has made this debut album from Dana Gillespie available for the first time on vinyl in the UK. This album was first released in 1968 and as a debut album from an unknown artist, the collection of musicians reads like a who’s who of the 1960s finest. Mike Vickers, Mike Hugg from Manfred Mann, Big Jim Sullivan, Herbie Flowers, John Paul Jones, and Jimmy Page who had yet to form Led Zeppelin. Now that is a stellar bunch of musicians to have to appear on your first album. This is not the Dana Gillespie blues artist that we have come to love over the years, more of a folk singer finding her feet in the music world. Side one, track one, ‘You Just Gotta Know My Mind’ encapsulates 1960s London perfectly. Folky, mesmerizing with a hint of flower power thrown in for good measure. There are traces of Sandie Shaw, Sandy Denny, and Mary Hopkins throughout this whole album, teetering on the edge of blues and delving deep into the folk world. ‘Life Is Short’ continues this theme so eloquently. Dana Gillespie has such a tremendous voice, she effortlessly delivers on every track. ‘Going Round In Circles’ shows a harder edge that we have become accustomed to from Dana, leaning more towards the jazz and blues side of things. It is also one of two previously unreleased tracks on the album. Side two has songs such as ‘London Social Degree and Dead’, which is the most bluesy and jazz-like track on the album. This is the first example
of where Dana was bound to go as an artist. The production of the album and subsequent writing, involving other artists and Dana herself penning a few of the tracks, make this a fantastic debut album. As I said earlier, this is the first time that this album has been made available on vinyl in the UK, collectors have previously had to source a copy a lot of the time from America, and have deep pockets to achieve that. This is not a blues album by any stretch of the imagination, but it shows the brilliant vocal talent and songwriting capabilities of Dana Gillespie. I’ve got a few of her albums on vinyl, I’m so glad I’ve had the chance to add this one to my collection.
Side 1
You Just Gotta Know My Mind
Tears In My Eyes
Life Is Short
Souvenirs Of Stefan
Can’t You See I’m Dreaming
Goin’ Round In Circles *
No! No! No!
Side 2
He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not London Social Degree
Dead
Foolish Seasons
Where Will You Be
Come To My Arms *
Hard Lovin’ Loser
*previously unreleased track
World Record Day, or Record Store Day, has for a long time now been one of the most awaited dates in the musical calendar. 2022 was no exception This triple-Live album taken from six shows recorded in July and August 2003 is one of the finest live albums I’ve ever had the pleasure of sitting down and listening to. Along with their album at The Filmore East, this is phenomenal. Side one opens with ‘I Don’t Want You No More’, a mighty fine way to open any gig. The assembled musicians on the show are superb in every sense, masters of their craft. The likes of Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes, and of course, Greg Allman himself, give you more than a hint at how good this band is. This album takes me back to the live albums of the seventies, with long tracks, long solos, spontaneity, and just go with the flow mentality. ‘It’s Not My Cross To Bear’, continues in the same vein, brilliant free-flowing music, peppered with fantastic lyrics. Side Two begins with ‘Old Before My Time’, a song that has long been part of the live shows of The Allman Brothers. An absolute gem of a song that is given its head here. ‘Magnifique. Trouble No More’, written by McKinley Morganfield, almost has me lost for words. I love the original by Muddy Waters, but this is given a new lease of life in a live setting and with such a collection of wonderful musicians to do it the justice that it deserves. No Allman Brothers gig would be complete without ‘Midnight Rider’. One of the all-time classic tracks, oh my, this vinyl album is so good. Side Five sees Statesboro Blues open up with stunning musicianship. This is probably my all-time favourite Allman Brothers tune, along
Stephen Harrisonwith many other peoples I assume. I could listen to this track all day long and not tire of it. The final track is Whipping Post. Almost fifteen minutes of sheer brilliance by this amazing band. If it were not for Record Store Day, the world would probably have missed out on this fine collection of live material. Thank heaven they didn’t. This would adorn any blues record collection anywhere in the world.
There’s no stopping anyone with the right attitude and some ambition and, for Canadian powerhouse blues band Durham County Poets, the drive to get “Back at the Groove Shack” after our pandemic pause is creatively evident with this, their soulful new single and album, Out of the Woods — both available now!
While we all hunkered down for the long haul of COVID, DCP lead vocalist and songwriter Kevin Harvey knew that the time was right to get working on new music that could have the power to uplift and inspire just when we all perhaps need it the most. “The idea was for it to be a positive, uplifting experience for all involved — creators and listeners,” notes Harvey.
The result of this experience? The band’s fifth album, Out of the Woods, produced by Bill Garrett; the smooth, funky, and smile-worthy title track is the lead single that introduces the new collection in both style and substance. From the one-word vocal intro of “alright”, the album’s title track, “Out of the Woods,” takes us down a path
heading straight for the light at the end of the tunnel. Along the way, there’s continuous, rhythmic reassurance that everything is indeed going to be alright.
“The number one inspiration for the single ‘Out of the Woods’ was my mother,” says Harvey. “She has always been a rock and the kind of mom that has the ability to set you straight! Get me off my high horse and or kick my behind if I start feeling sorry for myself, and always with love.”
Positivity, forward-thinking, and passion are the key drivers for bandleader Kevin Harvey, who has been in a wheelchair since 1981 after what he calls a “stupid accident.“ He sees it as just one experience among many in his life and will not allow it to define or confine him. With the grace of God, the collective power of the band, and the slowly changing views of society towards the disabled, DCP has been able to realize some of the hopes and aspirations they all have as musicians. Harvey sums it up with his personal motto, ‘Music is a precious gift, too important not to be shared.’
Born in Jakarta, Indonesian-Swedish singer Nicole Cassandra Smit is a brand new artist and vocal talent based in Edinburgh. Her parents were her first influence to be a musician, taking her to Jazz Clubs at a young age. Mother liked the Beatles, father more rock and roll, so a lot of music growing up. Her first paid singing job, she retells, was in a children’s choir at nine years old, they made a music video for television. She started song writing at High School as a teenager. She travelled around Europe with a friend and Nicole documented this. She sung a lot with her. She settled in Scotland and met up with her first band there called Blueswater Band whom she still tours with and does shows at the Edinburgh International Festival. A favourite is her Queen of The Blues Show where she sings a lot of songs from her blues influencers. 2014 saw her first break with this band. Her career evolved from there: “I was very nervous but when you have to show up for twenty-three nights, you learn to get used to it”.
Next, she joined the band Cow Cow Boogie and got more experience. Then she formed Smitten with Charlie Wild,
singing blues rooted originals and covers. She cites The Beatles as influences on harmonies, also Fiona Apple. The record that got her involved with the blues was The Simpsons Plays the Blues, when she was six! She learned songs such as Born Under A Bad Sign. She is a self-taught vocalist. Regarding the blues genre: ” I am attracted to the sadness of it all and the feeling. It is music from the gut. That resonates in me, and I love singing these songs. It is very emotive”.
Nicole is set to release Third in Line, her highly charged debut album. This was co-produced and written with Chris Grieve. A soulful excursion, yet experimentally daring within the pop prism Nicole has crafted, the album brings to the fore Nicole’s deep sense of vulnerability, as she meditates on her role within her female family line. and the pervading influence of both her mother and grandmother on who she has become, and where she is going. “I think one of the things that came out of the pandemic was challenges became interesting, I really love performing blues but wanted to see what else I could do vocally and production wise.”
Snowy White is one of a handful of classic blues-orientated British electric guitar players - musicians whose sound, technique and style has echoed the originality of the blues with the excitement of contemporary rock.
He has developed his own style of ‘English’ blues, a combination of clear, clean blues phrases and harder-edged riffs that are a recognisable feature of his very personal songs. In the seventies he toured the east coast of America, getting as far south as New Orleans and discovering that he thoroughly enjoyed being ‘on the road’. He had by then become friendly with the now legendary English blues guitarist Peter Green and they spent a lot of time jamming together. In the Autumn of 1976 he was invited to tour America and Europe with Pink Floyd as their first augmenting musician, a gig which took up most of his time throughout 1977. In 1978, the band’s keyboard player Rick Wright asked him to play guitar on his solo album, entitled ‘Wet Dream’, which he recorded in the South of France.
In 1979, Peter Green decided to head for the studio once more and invited Snowy and his band along to jam. The result was the album entitled ‘In the Skies’, now something of a collector’s item.
He was then asked by Pink Floyd to go to America to rehearse their new show entitled ‘The Wall’, and, at the same time, the rock band Thin Lizzy invited him to become a full-time member. So after the completion of the Floyds’ US dates he returned to England and went straight into the studio to record his first Thin Lizzy album ‘Chinatown’. Snowy stayed with the band for nearly three years of touring, recording ‘Renegade’ with them in 1982, before leaving to pursue his solo career.
Snowy’s first solo album was entitled ‘White Flames’. This album included the timeless ‘Bird of Paradise’, written by Snowy, which became a hit single around the world.
In 1987, he put together a blues-orientated outfit, the Blues Agency, recording two albums, ‘Change My Life’ and ‘Open For Business’.
Every year from1999 to 2014 Snowy toured the world with Roger Waters, including the ‘The Dark Side Of The Moon’ and massive ‘The Wall’ tour. In between tours, he founded the Snowy White Blues Project, recording the albums ‘In Our Time Of Living’ and ‘In Our Time…Live’.
Snowy’s released ‘The Situation’ in 2018, following up with ‘Something On Me’ in October 2020, featuring Thomas White on drums, Rowan Bassett on bass and appearances by various The White Flames members.
Award-winning, Toronto-based singer-songwriter Julian Taylor is set to release his next album, Beyond the Reservoir, on October 14, 2022, via his Howling Turtle, Inc. label, with distribution via Warner Music/ ADA. Co-produced by Taylor and longtime production partner/collaborator Saam Hashemi, mixed by Hashemi, and mastered by Noah Mintz, Beyond the Reservoir was recorded at three studio locations — Canterbury, The Fireside Studio, and The Woodshed – and Taylor is eager to share some insight into the album, its creation, and some upcoming singles set for release before the album’s street date.
“I really enjoyed writing and producing this new album,” Taylor says. “I dug down deep. It’s extremely personal like my last record, and I’ve taken that to heart. It took me longer to write this piece of art, and I think that I was learning and teaching myself so many things along the way. I’ve realized that by sharing my personal truth and the stories of my life, as they are and were, is a real gift to myself and to others. It’s not easy to love ourselves, and it’s not easy to love in general. I have a difficult time with it, and as I shed my own skin to reveal that kind of vulnerability, I find it connects me to the human experience in a more meaningful way.”
Beyond the Reservoir’s name is grounded in a specific geographical touchstone Taylor fondly recalls from the not-entirely halcyon days of his teenage youth in Ontario. “I used to hang out at a place in Toronto called the St. Clair Reservoir. If my last album, The Ridge, was a childhood record in a lot of ways, Beyond the Reservoir is an adolescence record – a coming-of-age story – about moving into adulthood.
Beyond the Reservoir is an album that addresses identity, loss, sadness, hope, and redemption, and the themes of resilience, courage, and strength are prevalent in every carefully chosen lyric. It contains a gentle spiritual thread that runs throughout the album, touching on each of the elements like fire, water, air, and earth as they relate to humanity. It has this infinite sadness to it, but it also has this infinite hope to it as well. It is a beautifully orchestrated successor to The Ridge.” It’s compelling, like a book you can’t put down.
The 2022 single releases and album release follow on the heels of a standalone single Taylor released in the fall of 2021: a cover of a song called “100 Proof,” written by a friend of his, Toronto-based musician and award-winning music teacher, Tyler Ellis. The single bridged the gap between the forthcoming album, Beyond the Reservoir, and his award-winning 2020 release, The Ridge, which scored him worldwide critical acclaim and eight award nominations in 2020 and 2021, including two Juno Awards, the Polaris Long List, and two Canadian Folk Music Awards, in which he won Solo Artist of the Year.
Mudlow might well be the best kept secret in British blues. They have played in Europe at the likes of the Orange Blossom Festival and the legendary Deep Blues Festival in the USA to ecstatic responses. They were also amongst the very first bands to support Seasick Steve on his initial forays to the UK and he loves ‘em – “Those Mudlow boys are crazy good!”. But it’s fair to say they are – relatively speaking – prophets without honour in their own land.
2022 marks their 20th Anniversary as a combo. They formed out of the ashes of Brighton favourites, Crawl Limbo. Songwriter Tobias and drummer Matt Latcham from Crawl Limbo recruited a brass section – Trimble and Jules Lawrence – on saxophones and harmonica. They then added bassist and producer/ engineer Paul Pascoe who works at Brighton’s renowned analogue haven, Church Road Studios. He was “the coolest person in the room”, when the rotating cast of B-Town musicians played
regularly at The Free Butt, so they had to bags him.
The first album, Welcome To Mudlow Country, arrived in 2004, and it introduced the band’s perennial landscapes, characters and sounds. Expansive and yet claustrophobic; cars always on the verge of breakdown; boats on the verge of sinking; bad weather; bad people – no cancel that... unlucky people; echoes of Tom Waits, Tony Joe White, Jerry Reed in the lyrical concerns and sonic delivery, while Hubert Sumlin and Lonnie Mack haunt Tobias’s blistering guitar-playing.
The second album, Sawyer’s Hope on The Bonnevilles’ label Motor Sounds, took another eight years to arrive, and was followed by three digital EPs, Minnesota Snow, Letters To Louise and Crackling. All filled with Beat Poetry and Mudlow’s unique miscellaneous stew of Americana, blues, rock and noir-ish balladry. By this time they were operating as a trio. A compilation, Waiting
Jimmy Vivino has always considered himself “a blues man with a job”. Although best known for serving 26 years as Conan O’Brien’s musical director, guitarist and bandleader, his experience in the music business predates that by 20 plus years
Jimmy V has produced, lead bands and recorded with a countless number of rock and roll and blues artists for five decades including the likes of Hubert Sumlin, Warren Haynes, Bob Weir, Keith Richards, Elvis Costello, Johnnie Johnson, Son Seals, Shemekia Copeland, Levon Helm, Phoebe Snow, Dion, Laura Nyro, Bob Margolin, Lowell Fulson, John Sebastian, Joe Louis Walker and Al Kooper to name a few. When not producing, recording or touring with other artists, Jimmy still tours the country and the world with his own band and is due to release a new blues album later on this year (2022).
For The Tide To Rise, perhaps summed up the band’s status. Their latest album, the superb Bad Turn, is surely misnamed however. Things are definitely looking up.
Matt concludes – “After a couple of decades together we’re very comfortable. We have very defined roles. We each know what we have to do and we’re producing the best music we ever have. The American roots music blogger, Rick Saunders once said we sound like a band who finishes each other’s musical sentences, and that’s about right.”
The band’s next musical chapter promises to be the most exciting yet. The British scene is waking up to their qualities. They recently topped the IBBA Playlist Chart with Bad Turn, the reviews are great, and the bookings are rolling in: so, once again, Welcome To Mudlow Country.
by Colin Campbell Images: Mitch Conrad
Kirk Fletcher has a reputation as being a unique, not to be missed, live performer. His guitar technique, soulful playing and singing never fails to mesmerise fans and audiences around the world, and his full-on approach to the Rhythm & Blues genre is both contemporary and authentic in style and substance. I caught up with him at his home in Nashville to discuss his musical roots and his new release ‘Heartache By The Pound.’
Since moving to Nashville a few months ago Kirk feels he is settling in well: “There are a lot of clubs to play and great people, it’s great. There’s a lot of blues music over here. I’ve done a lot of touring in Europe, going
back there soon. I will have to get over to the UK to play soon. I love it. Must get this organised.”
We talk deeper about playing live music. His performances are spinetingling and the way he works an audience is awe inspiring, Kirk explains his own take: “I’ve seen so many incredible shows. I try to be in the moment. I feel the audience can tell. I feel how the crowd is, and try and be positive in the things that come out and let the people forget about their problems for ninety minutes. I try and do what I can to pace a show in a certain way; where it goes in the right flow. When equipment is not the best that’s when things can go wrong but I try to forget about
all that! I’m playing a Festival in Germany, Gothenburg Blues Festival and going to France,” he says, looking ahead.
We discuss differences in audiences between Europe and United States. “The thing about European audiences - they come to hear the music, they are fans of the music. A lot of American audiences will come to the event. It’s different. People might just walk in to see a band they’ve never heard of…. I like playing Clubs and Festivals. I get to see other people playing during Festivals!”
We chat about post Covid concert attendances; the connection is back. “I did a lot of videos on YouTube and Instagram. I’m old
school about technology, Zoom - what’s that!”
“I owe everything to my father’s church and my oldest brother putting a guitar in my hands at the age of seven or eight years old. That formed me as a musician and back then it was all about people coming together and playing, like so many other forms of music. I progressed by playing with other people, going into R&B, funk music and a little blues. As I got into my late teens, blues music really excited me. It was so exciting, there was a family of blues musicians in Southern California, Junior Watson included. I started playing with Kim Wilson, Charlie Musselwhite and then later with the Fabulous Thunderbirds. The rest is history!”
“I loved the guitar so much I didn’t think about it when I was learning to play. One day I was messing, then I could play it. I never couldn’t play it. Then you keep on and practice as much as you can! My older brother was the biggest influence on me. Then there was television; Prince, George Benson and there was the Gospel musicians, Howard Carroll, Dixie Hummingbirds. So many influences. I have to work at my vocals. I was too scared to sing in the church! Jade McRae coached me in the studio recently on the album. She helped me phrase things.”
“I was brought up on Gospel music from my mum and dad. They were from Arkansas and talk about the artists from their childhood, like BB King and Muddy Waters. They were older, so they heard great music. My brother
was a lot older than me... and his record collection!”
Advice-wise, Kirk alludes to ‘Start singing’ and from Joe Bonamassa he said, ‘To try and be in control of your work as much as you can.’
Regarding his career he hints that the music business can be a help and a hindrance: ” The business, the touring, and the travelling all unrelated to the actual music, can get you down. Trying to stay busy and relevant can be difficult, booking agents; manager-type people, all that stuff!
And his own style?: “I’d call it blues! I wouldn’t say it’s got things mixed into it; I call it blues! It’s okay to write a song with different chord changes in it or whatever. You think of Albert King’s Born Under a Bad Sign - he’s doing soul, blues, and everything there. But when you think of him, you think of a bluesman. I’m cut from that same cloth! He was incredible! Love Eddie 9V just now, his song Little Black Flies. I listen to Americana artists like Jason Isbell as well.”
“There’s something so soulful and pure about the blues music style that got me into it, the culture as well. I related to this as a young kid and loved it. My kind of blues is about the storytelling and using myself as an example of writing songs people can relate to. That took a long time to learn. It used to be about the guitar, but there are so many aspects to my playing and understanding.”
“I wrote these songs with another focus. All this song writing is new to me and I’m still learning. I look at writing, like having a title and a hook that everyone can relate to then writing it like a story. With this in mind a few songs on the release are like this. With this song I thought about the prize. Sometimes you have to be as good a person as you can be along the way. Then I talk about my struggles. All those things connected with this song.
“I would take these walks and always listen to music. I heard the BB King song Chains And Things. The way he was talking in that song, here was a man struggling in different ways. It reminded me of
For the new record Fletcher did all pre-production music himself, sending demos to the band: “They could understand what I was wanting before recording it.”
Flat Five Studio and Torino, Italy.”
For further information
It was recorded at Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama: “Man, I was sitting in Switzerland and was thinking what is my dream, Abbey Road, and all those other recording Studios. My studio of choice would be the Fame studios - Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin, Otis Rush. A friend of mine recorded his record there and I talked about this and worked out I could play there. The main songs, the ones that I wrote with Richard Cousins were done at Fame. Others were recorded at Hertz Work Studio, California, Flat Five Studio and Torino, Italy.” see website:
kirkfletcherband.com
ASKED ABOUT THE NEW ALBUM TRACKS AND HOW THEY FIT, KIRK EXPLAINS THEIR SIGNIFICANCE LIKE THIS:
this song and the way people feel. Nobody wants to die but they’re too scared to jump out of their comfort zone and try something new! I wrote this during the pandemic. I have to try new things, it’s what I do for a living. I wrote it then Richard helped me structure it. We’re a good team!”
HEARTACHE BY THE POUND:
“There’s this thing in Rhythm and Blues music where you celebrate hard times that people can relate to. This is a Southern soul blues song.
I’VE MADE NIGHTS BY MYSELF:
“Albert King song, I love the shuffle. I stripped it down. The lyric is deep blues mixed with city blues. I love that!”
THE NIGHT’S CALLING FOR YOU:
“That came from listening to Bobby Bland too much! I hear that record in my mind. I wanted it to sound that way. I had a string ensemble here also. We had Reese Wynans play, he’s a friend not only a legend. He worked hard in the studio and was inspirational.”
WRAPPED UP, TANGLED UP IN BLUES:
“I come from a church background. These lyrics are words we would use in church. There’s a connection between the blues and the Staple Singers. They rock with country blues, Lightning Hopkins, they tell my story.”
WRONG KINDA LOVE:
“Written by Dennis Walker who wrote so many for Robert Cray. I
was so honoured. Dennis heard me through Richard Cousins and got this recorded.”
I CAN’T FIND NO LOVE:
“Another Dennis Walker composition. The keyboard player is Italian, Alberto Marsico. I went to Italy to record for this one.”
WILD CAT TAMER:
“I’ve loved this song for about twenty-five years! Tarheel Slim wrote it. Reece plays great piano on this it’s fun!”
HOPE FOR US:
“The saddest song on the record. In life you write these songs. I wrote that one and it’s personal, about love and loss and trying to find yourself, that sort of thing.”
For a 2022 return visit with Katie Knipp, I caught the multiple award-winning songstress somewhere after an early morning breakfast with the off-to-school kids and her evening glass of late-night decompression wine.
by Darrell Sage Images: Elle JayKatie, just how does a wife and mother of two find the time to teach piano and voice then dash off to rehearsal or to pick up the kids, practice two hours, maybe record a studio track or two, cook a gourmet dinner for the family then load up and drive an hour to a threehour gig?
“Having kids along with these other jobs has presented many challenges, but, like you and I discussed a few years ago, becoming a mother helped me value my time so much more. Now I work smarter in the few minutes that I have. I am so much more grateful to have any extra minutes. James is now five and Tommy seven and I could not do any of this without my husband Jeremy. Many nights he will watch the boys while I go off to a gig. My parents live about 20 minutes away and help a lot too. They usually take them one night per week and are the most supportive ever. I tell ya, I don’t know how single parents do it! It takes a village.”
Your new release recorded live at Placerville’s, Green Room Social club is so impressive, so like Katie in the flesh that it brought tears of delight to my eyes. Tell me more about these guys in your band of whom you’ve been bragging about all over social media of late.
“Let’s start with my guitarist Chris Martinez, probably the most spiritual one who races motorcycles and helps counsel people who are in AA. He considers our project his most challenging one musically, and believes fate brought us together musically. Neil Campisano, my drummer, is the most positive happy go lucky person I think I have ever met and lives out of his awesome tricked out Mercedes luxury van, so, he’s always the first one at sound check. He also has a studio he can sleep at if needed and we have the pleasure of rehearsing in it. My bassist, Zack Proteau has 4 kids, a beautiful wife, and just landed his full-time dream job doing sound mixing for Hearst Television and an Emmy nominee for this line of work. I consider him my wing man who has co-produced my last two projects and played bass on the last three albums with countless shows in between. He is very calm and helps me mentally if I get wrapped up in my own stage fright head. I always go to him for advice on all things personal and music business related. Otis Mourning, my woodwind wizard, has 2 grown kids, one currently getting straight As at UCLA. For someone as incredibly talented as he is, who also walks into the crowd playing through his wireless mic, is the most soft-spoken musician I have ever met. About 8 years ago, he walked into the studio to record Christmas in New Orleans with me. I was pregnant at the time and just
wanted to put something out there. I could not believe he was a Sacramento native and that he didn’t just fly in from New Orleans. He blows my mind all the time with his talents.”
What surprised me immediately was the CD’s sound quality. It was right there, front and center. And the band, oh my!
“Thank you so much. Dustin Ryan mixed it, and Zack and I produced it. Brian Poole mastered it, and this was the first time that I really saw firsthand just how important the final mastering process was. Joshua Haines and Dustin Ryan also made sure the Green Room stage and mic set up were optimal to get the best sound to tape in that very intimate venue.”
You earned a California road dog music degree the hard way well before being married with kids.
“Yes, Diablo Valley College, then UC Santa Cruz, then Cal State Hayward, resulting in a B.A. with an emphasis in vocal performance. I do have dreams about getting a Masters, but there’s only one of me, so for now I just try to learn new stuff each day.”
Talk of such stuff used for your music students.
“I have to give credit to the Simply Music Method regarding student retention created by Neil Moore. It is a playing-based approach that introduces reading about a year into the program. Because it covers all styles, including blues and accompaniment it allows the students to play songs right away, so they stick with it because they like it! With one exception recently where she really didn’t seem like she wanted to be there. So, I asked her to try singing along to a certain song because I thought it would sound pretty with her voice. She sounded so beautiful that I lit up, then her eyes lit up and she asked if she could play it again. I said, as long as you promise to keep singing with that awesome voice. Her whole demeanor changed and it’s like I have a new student now. Lastly, a really important conversation I have with all my students is that learning an instrument is like a relationship. Not every day is a perfect day. It’s not always going to be a straight diagonal line to the top regarding learning. You have to plan on going through peaks, valleys, and plateaus. If you expect these seasons to happen, and know that they will pass, sticking with it will ensure success. I find this conversation has to happen more than once.”
You have received many awards with your take on Blues Americana. Bring a couple more recent ones to mind for me.
“I think the awards that mean the most were Best Blues Artist in Sacramento by the Sacramento News and Review for both 2019 and 2020, because about 40,000 people cast their vote, as well as Female Artist of the Year by the Country Folk Americana Blues Realm for both 2020 and 2021and their album of the year in 2021. So, color me happy for all of this love.”
Yours is no stage-fright secret, but…
“Ah, the stage fright. Sometimes I get in my own head, mainly on solo shows because for some reason those tend to be opening for famous people, so I am immediately going into an environment where I know how important it is to win people over that technically aren’t there to see me. But each has been a success. Even the one where I thought I might vomit when playing piano and singing, I was glancing around the stage looking for a place where I might lose it that wasn’t on the headliner’s gear. Whew! My husband was at that show and the fact that he didn’t notice anything was wrong, well, hand me a medal or something! So, I have included meditation into my life more. And not just for that, but for everything. It really helps to remember just to take some deep breaths, think about all I have to be thankful for, and remember that I am doing all of this stuff to give people an experience that inspires them and makes their heart beat with more passion than they started their day with. I want to love every human that comes into our lives.”
Also, no secret that you are a home chef gourmand and a lover of fine wines.
Yes, I love a good glass of wine! All varietals as we are pretty spoiled in California. Just like music, it’s all subjective, lots to be discovered, and an art in itself. Heck, if there was another me, I would also get a degree in viticulture.”
What’s a typical family dinner?
“My husband pretty much married me for my Louisiana crab cakes. We love Mexican food, tapas, Thai food, Indian food, and sushi, none of which our kids like, so going out to dinner is a lovely rare occasion for us. We try to have babysitting lined up so we’re not stuck going to a less than stellar place that features something to make the kids happy. Their ages pretty much force me to also cook different things for them at home, like the kid favorite, hot dogs or chicken nuggets and grilled cheese sandwiches. Every night, I am making some beautiful salmon dinner for two, or a Cajun spiced something or other too spicy for the kids, so separate meals for them to make sure they eat and remain on the grid.”
Decompress for us after a hard day on the planet.
“Give me Chopin sheet music and a cup of lapsang souchong tea and I am in heaven. And then I cheat on wine paired with my kids snacks at 10pm. I mean, have you ever had Sauvignon Blanc with animal crackers?”
Raw, sassy, feisty vocalist and songwriter Dana Fuchs has one of the mightiest and distinctive vocal ranges of any blues rooted musician today.
Her past albums have included Love Lives On, which dealt with growing up in a rural setting in Wildwood Florida. Full of groove and songs about her childhood including her family’s struggle with addiction, a highly acclaimed release. On her newest release, Dana gets in touch with her Southern Rock influenced heritage entitled Borrowed Time. We met up again via cyberspace and discussed recording the release and other subjects, it went something like this.
“What a weird world it’s been. I think back to the week before the world shut down, all the plans being made for tours then BOOM it all disappeared, so weird”. Keeping in touch with fans during the pandemic was mainly through livestreaming; “The first ones we did was when New York was in the epicentre, and I was weeks away from having my second baby. I remember a live stream where thousands of people tuned in. It was people wanting to connect. My husband/ manager was behind me reading the notes, when Jon Diamond and I were doing the performance. It was so joyful; it was very funny also as I had a large belly. I remember letting out this scream and thought with that one I could have gone into labour! It made me realise how fortunate we are for modern technology and Globalisation, keeping the world connected. I only wish we could use it for more positive gains”.
This raised a discussion about social media, which Dana does not use much. “It looks like I am but… I don’t want people to think I am. I only use it for my music. My Manager acts out a Cyrano De Bergerac style conversation online. I don’t engage much!”
Dana has also gone back to College to finish her Degree. She had her baby, her son’s not at School. Dana was not ready to write songs. This was her impetus for going back to School; “I knew I was going back to Ruf Records to do an album, but I hadn’t written anything. I finished my Degree; everything was online and I worked with this Professor who guided me towards what I was missing
in a Liberal Arts Degree. I crafted my courses and learned a lot about the world. Every song on the new album is about this!
“I produced my last record it was tough to make! This made me appreciate what Thomas Ruf does for his artists. It also gave me insight into what I could do with my own record label. It informed us in many ways. One, this was where I structure the deal; whereas in the past we would come to an arrangement and get paid when it was done. I did all the budgeting and scheduling. Jon and I self-produced with help of great Engineers, but we never just turned up with a Producer. The only thing I scheduled with the new album was that my family could come and my regular bass player from New York. The rest was I just showed up and sang, it was heaven. It was recorded in Crosswell Studios which was finished just for us to do the album. We were the first band to record there, it was wonderful.
“The studio was in the basement of this old home that Kenny Tudrick has. It was his home studio turned into a professional recording studio. The vocal booth I had was the size of a large bedroom. It had a window outside, so I could see the snow falling every day and a giant window where I could see the musicians and they could see me. It was like being live on stage. The booth was the best I have sung in. It was home for nine days for me! Jon and I had written all the songs and we showed up with the demos and sent them to the producer Bobby Harlow ahead of time. He had the idea of doing Southern Rock. He got the musicians together. It was the first time we did tracking with a second guitar player which was such fun. It was a blast. We’d listen to the demo in the control room and the band would say, let’s just fuck around with something. The first one we did was Double Down On Wrong. The demo is quite different. They jammed and I was listening and thought, shit, I have to sing with them right now! I went with what I was feeling and with the producer who had an idea of staying in a rock and roll vibe. Jack Daley the bass player can play anything he’s one of the best players alive today, I kid you
not! I wanted this album to be unapologetic about it. I was concerned what Thomas Ruf was going to think about it, but he wrote back saying Dana Fuchs does rock and roll, holy shit that’s great!”
We got onto the meat and bones of songwriting, it’s more streamlined for her these days. She co-writes with Jon Diamond; they live fairly close and seem to have a symbiotic relationship regarding writing. “It usually starts with a riff, meaty chord structures. I ask him to keep playing that verse, I have an idea, then I’d write the lyrics.
STAR: “I had the idea of somebody like Steven Tyler of Aerosmith for this one. Someone tormented on the inside. You see this musician going on a plane always dressed like a superstar. It’s also taken from my perspective of being on the road for the past decade plus”.
HARD ROAD: This is one of my favourites. Jon had the chorus idea. I thought this might be too much of a cliché but no. It is a hard road for everybody and it’s also about life on the road. The lyrics poured out then we got a bridge. These songs came fast and easy; I attribute this to closing a chapter in my life about family, loss and those struggles. I also relate to experiences of people coming up to me after a show, then I put their story in. This time I went out broader to the world and bring humanity to the songs.
BORROWED TIME: “This was informed by the pandemic, and also about the black lives matter project and the coverage that was getting”.
DOUBLE DOWN ON WRONG: “This was also about bullshit opinions people are fighting over on Social Media. We’re all wrong if we’re fighting like this about things.
BLUES MIST ROAD: “I was listening to the song Gallows Pole and wanted to write something like that. We wanted this to be like a Led Zeppelin. The lyrics are an attempt at a poetry version of my sister’s experience. I’ve written about her death on my first album, so this is informed by my independent studies also about people.
CALL MY NAME: “This was my attempt at a tribute to Bob Dylan. We slowed it down and it was going to be a love song but not one just between two people. Love hurts and bruises!”
SAVE ME:” This is a combination of experiences. I think everyone is looking to be saved. When I was a kid, I started going to Baptist Churches. On Sunday the Reverend would say who wants to take the lord into your heart? I ran down the aisle saying; me! Later on, finding Buddhism I found this was common. Q Anon is the sort of back story to this song…”
CURTAIN CLOSE: “That was written for a friend who had gone to a birthday party for his eighty-year-old mom. It was a rainy night; he had an accident moments after leaving the restaurant. He’s part of our Buddhist community and has helped so many people around the world. ‘A thousand arms to hold’ is a Buddhist phrase but I always mix my metaphors. I feel held up by an audience when I go onstage, that’s the metaphor.”
NOTHING YOU OWN: “I cried when I wrote this. One of the studies I did was on a playwright from South Africa, Athol Fugard. He was haunted by a situation that happened on a route in Cape Town. There’s a train route where they pass impoverished people. Some of these people will throw themselves on the line to end their lives. This woman took her children put them on the track, the driver saw her but could not stop in time but wiped them all out. I was haunted by this story that there are still human beings living like this. I thought we’re all on borrowed time, we can’t take it with us, so many people don’t know where true happiness lies, that’s the message of the song”.
LAST TO KNOW: “I had a Bo Diddley beat for this. There’s a hotchpotch of stories in this one. It was based on young people dying of suicide. I’m involved with the Jed Foundation and
heard stories. I mixed this up and wrote about a girl coming of age and the backstory of abuse, dark stuff that I wouldn’t share on stage. We become the last to know about the potential we all have. I’m guilty of that, thank goodness for therapy! I was once told I was too empathic; you have to channel this somehow.
Dana went on to describe her life philosophy. She’s a very understanding person and her live shows touch the audience member with her passion when singing. The connection with people is vital. “What’s the point if we can’t make life a bit easier for others. We all suffer. We can either take the selfish way meaning our own needs. But if we can touch the lives of one or two people it makes life more meaningful”
Touring wise, Dana has not road tested the songs on the new album yet, but she is taking the whole family to a Festival in Arizona then Norway. “My first baby was a great tour baby. It’s fun I get to play music and go on vacation with my family which I don’t have to pay for!”
Finally, a quote to readers of the magazine and fans; “Blues matters and we can’t do it without you. Buy a ticket to the show, so we can keep making music for you. If we’re forced to just make music for no one to support, it becomes impossible to tour and do what we want to do. Blues fans are so loyal, they still buy the albums. Now more than ever, musicians, venues, we need the public to think it matters too! We also need to come and play in the UK soon”.
danafuchs.com
Colin Campbell Images: Rob Blackham
I got the chance to chat with Adam Norsworthy, co-founder, lead guitarist and singer of The Milk Men at his home via online chat. Amongst other topics we talked about the band’s forthcoming new release, their fourth called Spin the Bottle.
We start talking about the evolution of the band itself, The Milk Men. “Jamie (Sym) and I went to school together. We’ve known each other a long time. One day at school I was carrying a copy of Queen’s ‘Live Killers’ under my arm. We both liked the album, and our lives have been linked ever since. We’d been in bands for years. I found out he loved singing and I played guitar. We went to write songs at lunchtime instead of playing football. Before too long we were making cassettes and flogging them to the local girl’s school. We became known as the Wham of our area. We formed a semi-pro band after school and got on the coat tails of the Pub Rock scene, people like Steve Marriott, Packet Of Three, Dr Feelgood. It did not work out and I went on to form The Mustangs. This lasted a couple of decades! One evening after watching a Dr Feelgood DVD, Jamie turned to me and said I know you’re busy with The Mustangs but why don’t we form a band just to play this type of music that we love for fun. We could do some Dr Feelgood covers. I agreed, and we soon had enough songs for an album. Mike Roberts, drummer, and bass guitarist Lloyd Green joined and all four of us were pushing in the right direction. The natural momentum of it and the joy of what we do, is really starting to connect with people. Now we are headlining Festivals and playing main stages.
“In the Milk Men there is very much a desire to keep pushing and pushing. With The Mustangs we’ve been playing twenty-two years, we’ve played Glastonbury. They are comfortable who and where they are in the world. We are proud of our back catalogue. Whereas with The Milk Men there is a real hunger. I’m the leader of The Mustangs, I write everything and pretty much call the shots. With The Milk Men you have four different opinionated people who are all very talented. Lloyd is Mick Green’s son; Mike is a trained drummer from the jazz world with years of experience with the band The Pirates. The dynamics are more effervescent! The last two albums with The Mustangs were concept albums with a story from start to finish. We were
not afraid to be that Prog Blues band! With The Milk Men it is all about keeping it short, sharp, and spiky. No song lasts for more than four minutes, no long guitar solos.
It’s all about keeping the energy up and carrying on the legacy of bands whom we love. Also, we add in the classic rock element that we grew up with as well. You’ll hear many influences, everything from Stevie Wonder to Steely Dan, ZZ Top. With Jamie’s distinctive voice it all hangs together!”
“We’re all dads with kids and we know we’re not cool because they tell us that all the time. One of the reasons we chose the name The Milk Men was because it’s unpretentious. We are who we are, the crowd are who they are. Let’s just go onstage have a brilliant time and that will be communicated to the audience. There’s a joy and synergy playing with Jamie. Mike and Lloyd have locked into that. When we dress up, we put on a proper show. Mike’s in his amazing suits and Jamie in his velvet jacket. Since lockdown, our fan base has grown massively. The shows we’ve done have been sold out. Now it’s refreshing to do something with passion, energy, and joy.”
“Most of the Clubs and Festivals we play are aimed at the older rock-band audience. When we have the chance to play in front of younger crowds, they have the same reaction! This is a generation brought up on very sterile music. When they get in front of a live band it’s often a new experience for them. This puts me back to the time Jamie and I went to see Dr Feelgood with Lee Brilleaux when we were kids, at a Festival in Maidstone. It had a lasting impression on us. In many ways that was the genesis of what we do now. That one is the moment when I thought if I’m going to be in a band
that’s the kind I want to be in! The energy comes from the music like a dynamo that fires up the people on stage. If the music fires you up you don’t have to force anything. When you play this type of music that’s a shot of adrenalin!” Adam goes on to explain his
I’m not one of those blues police
background, where he comes from musically: “My mum was a musician. There were always guitars around the house. She was a great entertainer. She sang and played guitar. I was six and listening to Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, The Beatles, and classic folk songs. This was as good a formative education as you could have! I picked up her guitar and before long I was playing. I fell in love with The Beatles when seven years old. From then I knew what
I wanted to do, I also started writing songs. I felt it natural, if you play guitar then you write songs also. I love writing, my dad was a journalist, so it’s in my blood. I formed my first band when I was nine. I grew up in the USA and formed The Hornets, we did one gig and it ended in a fight! When I came to live in England and played with Jamie that’s when it became really serious. I was always going to play guitar. My first view of electric guitar was in Spain. It was a function band, and the guitarist had a black Stratocaster. I sat staring at this transfixed. I went to Woolworths and looked at an album by The Shadows with the same guitar on the front I thought I’ll have to have one of these one day! The first serious guitar I had was a black Strat! There’s something about a guitar that takes over you. I play other instruments though!”
How the new album developed, he explains like this: “Wayne Proctor and I have worked on six or seven albums together. I first collaborated with him on my solo album Rainbird. We worked well together, and he did a great job with two Mustangs albums. When it came to The Milk Men’s third album, I produced the first two. We wanted to sonically take the sound to a different level. Wayne produced the album Deliverance, it sounds huge. Originally, I was going to produce the new record. Then I wanted Wayne onboard. We wanted this one to sound more like the live shows and have a stripped back feel. It sounds more R&B and leaner. Wayne tapped into this perfectly. We want to be a band that fits in with our different influences. No track feels out of place. This comes from my love of The Beatles and Jamie’s for Queen. A full album of twelve bar blues songs is not in us.”
There are an eclectic mix of styles on the new album, ranging from R&B to Hendrix and notes of The Who.
We finish with his thoughts on blues and how it takes hold: “Growing up in the States, you could still hear Elvis and Chuck Berry, Fat Domino on the radio. I always knew Elvis came from the blues. When I came to England and started hearing Zeppelin, Cream and Clapton, suddenly I had to investigate this whole blues thing. You go back and listen to Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson, and you are taken to another world. The power and familiarity of the music is noted. Going through the British blues boom then early blues it’s familiar but the same time otherworldly. The appeal is profound. When you fall in love with a blues tune, often it’s just one person and a guitar, it’s primordial. I’ve had nights listening to Robert Johnson where I’ve felt like being in a trance. That’s the beauty of that music and talent. It changed in the decades, Robert Cray, and Bonnie Raitt in the 80s. It must keep changing. I’m not one of those blues police, you make it a museum piece that way. If you want this music to survive you have to keep pushing
it forward. It doesn’t matter if it becomes eighteen bar blues or putting a diminished chord somewhere. We are writing a new Mustangs album. I have another solo album coming out. The Milk Men is where the momentum is at the moment, we feel every week is a step forward. Gigs are sold out, playing Festivals, and playing to many people on the milk float!!
this whole blues thing. You go back and listen
KENNY NEAL - STRAIGHT FROM THE HEART
RUF 1296
“A soul-steeped vocalist, savvy songwriter, hip harpist, expressive guitarist, stage actor, television host and bandleading pater familias, Kenny Neal is a blues polymath who brings the music’s triumph-over-adversity mindset into every endeavor.”
Mercury News
DANA FUCHS - BORROWED TIME
RUF1295
Borrowed Time is one of this year’s most compelling musical experiences for Southern rock fans and could well be this summer’s breakout record. Expect to hear these songs everywhere. Rock & Blues Muse
www.rufrecords.de
NOW
“There’s Something About The Night cements Scott Ellison’s status as one of the most versatile—if underrated— blues/rock performers on the scene.” - Living Blues
“A consummate vocal stylist and guitar player… a collection of essential and memorable straight-ahead blues and rocking R&B.” - Big City Blues
scottellisonband.com
people have retired or slowed down and started to take life easy and smell the roses. Charlie Musselwhite has not followed this path, instead, he’s recorded a new album, ‘Mississippi Son’.
The album title could not be more apt, born in Kosciusko, Mississippi, Charlie Musselwhite has returned home to his native soil, settling in Clarksdale. Via the miracle of the internet, we had our second chat in twelve months, chatting about his new album, The Crossroads, and how we both keep doing what we are doing in order to collect more stuff.
Charlie moved back to the Delta after living a while in California, he explains with a chuckle: “ It just makes sense. We love living in the Delta. Clarksdale is a great town, I’ve been coming here since the fifties. When I first came here it was a real bustling town, and then it almost turned into a ghost town, but it’s coming back. In 1944 they drove the first mechanical cotton picker out here on the plantation on Highway 49 which put a lot of the cotton pickers out of work, so they all started moving north to Chicago. That’s
when it all started to go downhill, but now it’s thriving once again.”
‘Mississippi Son’ was recorded at the Clarksdale Sound Stage only a couple of blocks away from Charlie’s home, and is owned by a close friend, Gary Vincent who also happens to be a musician and a songwriter: “ We were fooling around over there, I was playing a couple of guitars. Jerry said, ‘we should tape some of this’, so we turned on the tape machines. These were tunes I’d always known and played around the house. We bought in a couple of local guys, Ricky “ Quicksand “ Martin ( Drums ) and Barry Bays ( Acoustic Double Bass ). After a while, we realized we had enough for an album. I wasn’t sure how people would feel about me playing guitar, but Alligator (Records ) heard it and they just loved it.”
It had been many years since Charlie had played acoustic or electric guitar on an album, his forte is, as we know, the harmonica. On Mississippi Son, the switch to acoustic and electric guitars, as well as vocal and harmonica duties, transcended into what, for me, is his best album of many years. Not that he has made a bad album you understand, but this has elevated him to another level.
“We were just fooling around in the studio, Gary thought that we should record what we were doing at the time. We didn’t really have a goal in mind where this was going but it turned out fine in the end.”
One of the tracks on the album, ‘Remembering Big Joe’ is a clear tribute to fellow blues musician and long-time friend, Big Joe Williams. Charlie plays the guitar that was once owned by Big Joe on the track, and indeed on other tracks on the album. I was curious as to how Charlie came by such a special musical instrument: “ A mutual friend of mine and Big Joe, he lived near Big Joe, inherited the guitar when Joe died. He couldn’t play a nine-string, so he had to re-do it as a sixstring. He happened to come through town at the same time we were in the studio. So, I just played some stuff and got to think about Big Joe. It was just a spontaneous thing that worked out well. We decided to put it on the album.”
This is one of the most fascinating attributes that surround Charlie Musselwhite. Now into his sixth decade as a blues artist, his back catalogue and his history within blues folklore is almost unprecedented. From working in factories when he first arrived in
At 78 years old, most
Chicago, to hanging out in small blues clubs and bars watching people such as Muddy Waters, and Howlin’ Wolf, to forming his own band and recording his own tunes. That’s why, not only is he a revered musician, but also a great storyteller. As well as paying homage to Big Joe Williams on the album, Charlie delves into the deep history of his family, none more so than on the track, ‘Pea Vine Blues ‘( Charley Patton): “ I had three uncles that all worked for the railroad, and one of them told me the story about how he had worked on the Pea Vine Railway, that had many twists and turns in the rail track. I’ve always loved that song, Big Joe used to do it, John Lee Hooker used to do it, and of course Charley Patton. I’d never heard of Patton until I got to Chicago. There was very little known about him. After I’d been in Chicago a while some of his tunes were released on a compilation album, although there were no known photos of him. I asked Big Joe about him; he used to say that ‘he looked like a Puerto Rican.’ I later found out that Pop Staples learned to play guitar from Charley Patton when they both lived on the Dockery Plantation.”
This is a very interesting story. Listening to Charlie recall tales of Patton that had
been passed down from other notable blues artists such as Big Joe Williams: “ This explains why The Staple Singers had such a bluesy sound, it all came from Charley Patton. So when I eventually heard him, he really knocked me out,” Charlie recalls with a characteristic laugh.
Our chat turns into a geography and history lesson rolled into one. For me, personally, the Mississippi Delta is the spiritual home of the blues. Of course, blues music can be traced back to North and West Africa in the 1800s, but the Delta was where blues music found its identity. Inevitably when you talk about the Delta, and especially Clarksdale and the surrounding areas, the conversation takes a natural path to the door of Robert Johnson. The story has been well documented since the dawn of time about Johnson and ‘ The Crossroads’.
Here’s what Charlie has to say on the subject: “ There’s a lot of debate about where the real Crossroads was when they talk about where the crossroads is todaywhere highway 61 and 49 meet - back when Johnson sang about it, it was another place. They have renamed a lot of the roads, old highway 61, old highway 161. Back then is
where Talahasse met highway 49 and that’s the Crossroads that Johnson was singing about. Now Red Caton in Red’s Lounge insists that highway 49 had two Crossroads. I mean, the Crossroads might not even be a place, it’s already inside you. The story about being at the Crossroads at midnight, when I was young, I’d never heard that story. The story I heard was that there was a fork in the road, you sat with the two roads in front of you and the main road behind you. You played the guitar the best you can, and if you hear someone come up behind you playing the guitar, don’t look behind you, because if you do, he’ll take one of your hands and cut your fingernails down so low that they start to bleed, one hand at a time. When that guy gets up and starts walking away and you can’t hear him anymore, you get up, go home and go to sleep. When you wake up, you’ll be able to play anything that you want to, ‘cause you just sold your soul to the devil!”
One of the most fascinating things for me regarding the Delta is it’s full of history and mystery. It’s in the air, in the soil, all around you That’s why so many blues artists emerge from the delta with the blues already inside them. Going back to the album, it seemed a good time to find out Charlie’s preference
It’s a pity nobody videoed this stuff back then because it was so good
for playing guitar, acoustic, or electric?
“I play both the same way, but if I’m at a gig I prefer to play electric guitar, an acoustic guitar is a little harder to mic, but I’ve not really played that much guitar in a live setting. I love the sound of acoustic guitar in blues, but you gotta have an unwound G-string so that you can bend that sucker. The old blues guys always played like that, at one time they didn’t make an unwound G-string, you put your foot on one end, take a knife and cut it all off to make an unwound G, but now you can buy an unwound G.”
The beauty of talking to a blues legend like Charlie Musselwhite is that you not only chat about the release of his latest album, but inevitably become embroiled in a history lesson. Over the years Charlie has met, recorded and performed with the most influential blues artists on the planet. One name stands out in the close borders of gospel/ blues music, The Blind Boys Of Alabama.
Charlie takes up the tale: “ I don’t remember the first time we got together, I used to sit in with them and record with them, and get to know them. Later this year I’ll be playing with them on tour, I open up for them, then sit in with them. I’m looking forward to that because it’s always a pleasure to be
around these guys. The original guys have gone now, but It’s always a lot of fun. In the gospel world, you’re not supposed to be playing blues, but they actually like playing blues music - just don’t tell anybody. When I play with them, I tend not to play any risqué blues, but I sometimes get tempted. When I used to play with Muddy, or Wolf, or Sonny Boy, in Chicago, the blues they played in the clubs was not the blues they played at festivals or overseas. In the little blues clubs in Chicago, they knew what they were doing. They didn’t think that to a white audience it would be a good idea to play risqué-raw blues, they kept that in the clubs. It’s a pity nobody videoed this stuff back then because it was so good, and funny as hell!”
Mississippi Son is possibly the most personal album Charlie has recorded for a very long time. You can almost feel the Delta reaching out to you with its tales of everyday life, good and bad. I’m sure if Charlie still lived in Californian wine country, this album would not have been recorded. By going back to his roots, he allowed the delta to bring him home and immerse himself once again in the rich tapestry that lays within the ground and blows in the wind.
As we near the end of our conversation, I am keen to ask Charlie if he listens to any upcoming blues artists at the moment: “ Kirk Fletcher, is a wonderful guitar player, he’s coming over here to play the Juke Joint Festival in Clarksdale soon. Jontavious Willis is another wonderful blues artist. It’s great to see these young guys wanting to play and sing country blues and learn everything about the history of the blues. For a long time, these young guys would say that Muddy Waters and Wolf and Robert Johnson were their parent’s music, it was old hat,’ we want to see The O’ Jays and The Supremes,’ so seeing these young guys get into it, I love that. Right here in Clarksdale is the Delta Blues Museum where they have an after-school music lesson, that’s where ‘ Kingfish’ started. There are a lot of kids coming out of there right now playing straight blues.” So, it seems that the future of blues music is in good hands.
The Delta will continue producing blues musicians for a long time.
charliemusselwhite.com
The Bonham-Bullick band is not just something that has just popped up on the blues screen, they have been making music together for almost four decades in one guise or another.
The band’s latest eponymously-titled album is a montage of old blues and folk tracks that are not exactly on the tip of your tongue. Via Zoom for the first part of our chat, we talk about how it all started.
(Deb) “We knew each other way before the band Free Spirit came into being. We met at a wedding, I knew the groom, and Peter knew the bride. It was quite a raucous occasion as I recall. He was at Knebworth and I was at Knebworth, the friend that I was with threw a drink over him. He came to my birthday party and we’ve all been friends ever since.”
( Pete) “We provided the band as a wedding present, a bunch of old rock and roll covers
and stuff, everyone joined in; and lots of drinking before, during, and after as I recall. We were in a club and I’d been talking to Deborah and it sort of went from therecheesy chat up lines.”
(Deb) “We got on stage in this club, I was short-sighted back then, and he played this one note on his guitar and he’d got me from then on, and I ignored the warnings of an old Black Country friend who tried to warn me off him, thought to myself, I think I’m going to have to marry this one. Thirty-one years later, here we are.”
The current album, Bonham-Bullick, has thirteen tracks, ranging from blues, to country, to folk, and back again. A kind of melting pot, a gumbo, if you like. That’s what makes this album so appealing. The opening track, See You Again, written by Bernard Fowler, had me wondering, was this the same guy who does backing vocals for the Rolling Stones?
( Deb) “Yes, it’s him. He’s a great vocalist and
writer in his own right, this particular track was taken from his album, The Bura, which was released in 2015. When it was discussed about doing this type of album, interpretations of blues and such things, I didn’t want to go down the route of all the same old blues tracks that keep getting re-done. It had to be different. It had to come from the heart as much as anywhere else, that’s not me, it’s not Pete, and it’s not what the band are all about.”
(Peter) “As far as pure blues goes, we’ve got a bit of everything, a bit of prog, a bit of rock, some soul and folk, but we are and always will remain rooted in the blues.”
Obviously, there’s a Led Zeppelin connection with this band, for anyone that doesn’t know, Deborah is the younger sister of John Bonham. The chat inevitably touches on our individual musical travels, and of course, Zeppelin played a massive part in that. It was by listening to Zeppelin, discovering their blues influences that came to inspire me, Deborah, and Peter.
(Deb) “I didn’t live that life. I didn’t grow up in Mississippi, I didn’t grow up in the Delta. I think it would be a con if I tried to do that, but everything that I do is rooted in the blues because I grew up with Led Zeppelin. It took me to Leadbelly, it took me to John
Lee Hooker, it took me into soul. John was a huge James Brown and Stevie Wonder fan, along with Otis Redding, so I went into this crossover of blues, Motown, and Soul, and it is because of Led Zeppelin - even though my mum and dad were listening to Billie Holiday and Mahalia Jackson, and those kinds of blues.”
As far back as 1996, Deborah and Peter were being offered a straight-down-themiddle, Lady Sings The Blues type of album by Jerry Greenberg and Ahmet Ertegun, who had just completed the Paul Rogers, Muddy Waters blues album which got three Grammy nominations. So Deborah and Peter became their next go-to plan. Over the years Deborah and Peter have developed their own sound, and their own identity while having both feet firmly planted deep in the blues soil.
(Deb) “It’s all about what we can bring to these songs. I can’t try and reproduce Billie Holiday, we, have to bring something to the table. On this album, just as much as we have done on our albums of original material, because our band has been together for so long, I know where they can go and what they can do. So choosing these particular songs, it became, ‘yeah, I know where we can take this.’ Keeping the integrity of the songs and respecting the originals, it needed to be organic, we couldn’t force it, and they all happened organically really.”
(Peter) “We came back, and they took a bit of fiddling with, and it was a bit of a eureka moment.”
As well as the blues numbers on the album, there is also a sprinkling of folk, as we know, is a close relative of blues music. One such song, When It Don’t Come Easy, written by Patty Griffin, can hardly be labeled a blues tune by any stretch of the imagination. This brings us back once again to the gumbo thing, folk, country, blues, it all goes into the pot, and as it turns out, this particular pot of songs really swings.
(Deb) “The Patty Griffin tune (When It Don’t Come Easy) was suggested to me by Robert (Plant) along with the Allen Toussaint song. Patty’s song is totally different. It’s a folky, country song, but the lyrics resonated so well that as soon as I heard it, I knew that we could do something with it, and it worked. When the lyrics grab you, as these did with me, I knew we were on to a winner.”
As well as the obvious close connections to members of Led Zeppelin, Bonham-Bullick can also count on the likes of Paul Rogers as a close friend and keen admirer of the band. He gave the band the opportunity to reach
a far wider audience when he asked them to tour with him. You know when you are doing something right when you have two of the greatest rock/blues singers of all time firmly in your corner giving helpful advice to enhance your career.
“He (Paul Rogers) didn’t do it out of a sense of loyalty to my brother because they were very close friends, he did it because he liked the band. He heard Pete play, and it was like I want to use that band, and that was a massive moment for me and Pete, and the rest of the band. It doesn’t guarantee that people will automatically go out and buy the album. That’s down to people writing about it and reviewing it in mags like Blues Matters. What it did was get us out in front of people and gave us a little bit more of where we were, a leg up really.”
(Peter) “We didn’t do stadiums of our own after playing with Paul Rogers! We were straight back to the clubs and continue to prove ourselves with the club tours, the big audiences that we see are if we get a support tour and these people are playing bigger venues, or we might get a festival slot, but we did get our record deal from that because we were in front of those people.” Quarto Valley Records did take a chance on Bonham-Bullick, and it has paid-off for all concerned.
(Deb) “They gave us carte blanche on this album to do what we wanted with this record because I wanted this to be Bonham-Bullick and not just Deborah Bonham all the time. When we play live, we are a band with a huge amount of swagger. It clicks on stage, and the important thing for me was that I wanted it to be about the band. But the bottom line is that it was great that they took this punt with us.”
(Peter) “All of our albums were like six or
seven years apart so we couldn’t just take four or five songs from each album and put them on a new album and say ‘well, here you go,’ so that’s why we wanted a new album of material that is fresh. All the players in the band are long-term band members, so we all know each other inside out and that helps tremendously. The newest member of the band has been with us fifteen years.”
Peter Bullick grew up in Belfast, a town with more than a couple of well-known blues artists that call it home. I was interested in digging deeper into his background, seeing what makes him tick, and where the spark originated.
“Horslips, an Irish folk band, were probably the first ones to catch my attention. The guitarist had long hair and a Gold Top Les Paul guitar, and he played it like Paul Kossoff (Free), blues/rock style, which led me down the path of listening to Free thanks to my aunt’s record collection, and of course, Rory Gallagher and Peter Green - funnily enough, I loved the twang of Eddie Cochran and Duane Eddy and some Bert Weedon and Hank Marvin thrown in for good measure. Having said that, I never got that book (Play In A Day) By Bert Weedon!”
We continue chatting, discussing the merits of albums again being released on vinyl. Fingers are crossed that by the end of the year the Bonham-Bullick album will make it onto vinyl, because that was how it was recorded, with a view to this being put out on a vinyl format. The album was mixed and mastered by Tim Oliver who has worked with some of the top artists at Real World Studios, famously the home for many years of Peter Gabriel. This comes through on the album, warmth, understanding, and a sense of knowing exactly where they are going and what they want. The album is a musical delight.
Louden Wainwright III is one of those guys who has been around for ever, or so it sometimes seems. Now, after over half a century as a professional musician, he is on the verge of releasing an album that somehow reflects his position in the musical firmament.
‘Lifetime Achievement’ comes with the usual splash of irony, humour, clever lyricism and self-revealing exposure. Speaking to the guy back home in the USA, I can’t resist aiming a terrible punning opening salvo across his bows.
Intros over, I say: ‘I thought we can maybe talk about this, talk about that,’ and pointing to the edge of my desk, add,’…and my friend the cat, here, can listen in!’ There’s a brief pause before Wainwright chuckles and
agrees: “Yea, we can do that, let’s just see where we go, then.”
Those who know the man and his music may get the parody reference to one of his early songs, the lyric of ‘Me and My Friend the Cat,’ from his 1971 second album. Wainwright himself treats it in a semi-serious way, a manner that is apparent throughout our chat. This is a guy who has an at times blistering sense of humour and irony but a deeper, serious mindset behind the façade.
“I’m doing great, I’m still standing and walking and swimming, just the usual aches and pains, you know, growing older,” he quips with a laugh, when I suggest at seventy-five he’s knocking-on a bit these days. I ask about the new album and where the title comes from; again he chuckles: “There’s a song on
the album called Lifetime Achievement and it struck me – you mentioned the fact that I’m seventy-five – life passing on, it struck me as an evocative title choice.”
Wainwright has built up a steady fan-base of followers in the UK over the decades and his thoughts on why this developed are interesting: “I think I had plenty to offer,” he laughs and adds, “but really what happened was I made those first two records for Atlantic and they were sort-of unproduced completely, just me and my guitar.” He chuckles again before saying that back then in the early 1970s, “You know my voice was really high and penetrating. Really what happened was John Peel heard those records and he decided it was worth playing them, on Radio 1, for his mad audience and that I have to say is probably why I still have a career over there in the
UK. John loved in particular those records and was always a big supporter of mine along with Andy Kershaw, Johnnie Walker and plenty of other people. But Peel was the first, the most important for me personally.”
Wainwright has also turned his hand to acting, which he initially studied as a youngster in the USA, with some success including appearances in a number of television series and movies like ’40 year-old Virgin’, ‘Big Fish’, Elizabethtown’ and others.
“I went out to LA and tried to be an actor but it’s a humiliating life. It’s a life of rejection really unless you look like Brad Pitt or someone like that! I love performing and acting. You know it’s interesting, it’s a hundred years since Joyce’s Ulysses was first published and a lot of us recorded a reading for broadcast; I read a part that when I listened to it, I thought, ‘Boy, I’m quite a good actor!’ So, who knows, maybe I should have stuck at it. It’s never too late!”
As a relative newcomer, Wainwright was often likened to Bob Dylan, due to his acoustic guitar work and the singer-songwriter streak at his core. When I suggest his writing always made the difference between them apparent to me, Louden laughs at the thought and explains it like this:
“Yea, I think it is. I think people were kinda trying to find a new Bob Dylan, or another Bob Dylan, looking for Dylanesque-type figures. You know, we both play the same guitar chords but really that’s it! That’s where the similarity stops.”
Family relationships have always played an absolutely essential, fundamental – even pivotal – role in Wainwright’s musical evolution and core. Raising the subject, he immediately agrees:
Well, you know, families are tough, we all know that, right? I actually quote the first line from Anna Kerena – I’m mentioning all this literature, we had Ulysses and now we’re onto Tolstoy! But he said something about families; they’re all unhappy in their own particular way,” again the laugh ripples.
I ask about one track on the new release: ‘ Fam Vac’ on the new album, covers many of his bases featuring dysfunctional families and feelings; ‘I’m gonna leave the fucking family at home,’ a typical, could only be Wainwright lyric. It goes on to end with a quote from late French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre, ‘Hell is other people.’
The man agrees: “Yea, that’s a fairly typical Louden Wainwright song,” he confirms. I mention a song he wrote many moons ago,
with a striking title and subject, again family related, ‘Rufus is a Tit-Man.’ It seems to have pissed off his musician son, Rufus a bit at times, he agrees.
Three of his kids are now established, independent musicians, all singer-songwriters in a similar vein. So, did he mentor them, play a significant role in their professional development, I ask:
“Well, you know Martha and Rufus – though not so much Rufus these days – but Martha was my support act for many years, both over here in the States and over there in UK and Europe. Whether or not I actually mentored her, I think you’d have to ask her! I’ve another daughter, Lucy Wainwright Roche, she’s also a singer-songwriter and, I think, she’s good. You should hear her. Just check her out! We also do shows together.
of success when people, say, give you a little statuette, you know, it’s a great, happy thing; and I hope everbody can get a little bit of that in their lives!”
“It surprises me that I’ve made thirty records over a period of fifty-something years. But there’s something mysterious when the songs come; and when they don’t, they don’t! I’m always happy when I can gather together a collection of songs and make a record; It’s like a testament or something like that. Making a record, in the different ways of describing the process! SO I was real happy that I was able to make this record.”
“In the beginning of my career, back in my early twenties, I had this idea of myself. I thought I’d be dead by the time I was twenty-five. Then I got to be twenty-six and thought, ‘Well…I might have to revise
Anyway, your parents are where a lot of it comes from; you get stuff from them, you reject stuff from them. The people in my family – and I suspect the people in yours, in everybodies – who are the biggest and most important people in life, are family.”
With this thinking exposed, it’s intriguing to note the previously published words of his eldest daughter Martha on the subject of his writing on family issues: ‘For most of my childhood Loudon talked to me in song, which is a bit of a shitty thing to do, especially as he always makes himself come across as funny and charming while the rest of us seem like whining victims, and we can’t tell our side of the story. As a result he has a daughter who smokes and drinks too much and writes songs with titles like ‘Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole’.
Wainwright has of course picked up international accolades and major nominations and awards over the years, including a BBC Lifetime Achievement Award and a Grammy for his wonderful 2010 album, ‘High Wide & Handsome – the Charlie Poole Project’:
“I was thrilled when I won a Grammy! I have a song that was written some years before that called ‘The Grammy Song!’ It talks about wanting to win a Grammy, and anybody who is in the music business really wants one! You know – interesting to me – the cover of my new album ‘Lifetime Achievement’ has a trophy on it, so that kind
this’; now I’m writing songs about how old is seventy-five? So, everything changes,”
“What I enjoy these days is standing up there – and nowadays sometimes standing up there – and playing songs for people in a room. That’s fun. I’ve always been a show-off, a person who loves to perform. The other aspects of the job, the getting there, strange beds every night, airports and planes. I hate all that stuff and have pretty much since I was twenty-six!” he says with his characteristic shrug and laugh.
“I like to play; I’m excited about this tour that starts in Pocklington – of all places! Not sure I know where that is but it’s in the north, I know! That’s in September. I’m doing shows over here and have them lined-up pretty much all year and into next year here in the States; I’ really pretty busy.”
Finishing our chat, I suggest he might just pass while playing on-stage in the circumstances: “Could be, could be. Sounds like a pretty good way to go. A bit like dying in bed while having sex. I mean, how much better could it be?!
With a provenance par excellence in the blues and a trophy cabinet full to bursting with awards including Grammy nominations, crusading blues artist Shemekia Copeland can rightly feel proud of her achievements.
These inanimate gongs reflect her mesmeric musical journey from her first baby steps, as an eight-year-old, onto a stage at the famous Cotton Club with her father the blues legend Johnny Copeland to her current hot waxing ‘Done Gone Too Far.’
So far, everything in her career has seemingly been going swimmingly. However, Blues Matters finds a stressed-out Shemekia distracted by her band member’s delayed flights for that evening’s show on a short tour in readiness for her ironic, given the
circumstances,’ Done Gone Too Far’ album release. As she stressed: “I don’t have to tell ya that it costs a fortune. Unbelievable. Since I’ve been out here on this small tour, I’ve had to wait for my luggage for two hours. They don’t have people to take care of the bags: all we want is to get back to work. But getting back to work is a nightmare right now because of the lack of employees everywhere. I have been on the phone all last night and all of today trying to get all of this stuff figured out and all I can do is pray.”
Let’s hope that her prayers were answered and her show in Aurora, Chicago, went ahead as she explains further about her band members’ plight: “They said they had to rent a car to drive to another airport. They waited two hours to rent the car. Unbelievable, isn’t it? I’m so sorry. I have my little boy with me
on this trip and I never take him. He’s five and a rambunctious busy-body but I’m glad.”
Unwittingly, this episode demonstrated the everyday stresses and strains of a post-pandemic performing artist. It’s the side to this glamorous life that most gig-goers and album-acquiring audiences don’t see. It’s hidden behind the curtain from Joe Public. However, what her fans do get to hear and see is an electrifying stage artist who delivers blistering performances of songs written mostly by her producer and guitarist Will Kimbrough and her manager John Hahn. There’s a congruent relationship between the three of them from composition to exquisite interpretation that brings sharp social observations and corky detours into musical life.
“People get clothes that are tailor-made to them. I’m so fortunate because I have songs that are tailor-made to me,” says Shemekia. “And that’s what I love. They are true poets and can just take everything that I think and put it right into words in the way that I want to put it out there. I love that. You don’t want to be too literal because when you hit people too hard, they just shut down and they don’t listen to you. But if you do it in a poetic way then people open their ears and they’re more willing to listen to you. And if they’re more willing to listen to you, then they can get to know you better and understand where you’re coming from.”
musicians remind Shemekia of her childhood home and the musicians who passed through that knew her father blues guitarist Johnny Copeland as she recalls: “Oh, yeah, Gatemouth Brown, Dr John and Bobby Rush came through there. We had a lot of people come through,” she chuckles, “yeah, it’s weird, because I didn’t realise how cool any of these people were until I got grown.”
On to her current guest musicians: “I’ve been a big fan of Sonny Landreth for a very long time. Me and Cedric came up in the business. We’re around the same age so I’m a fan of his. I just love being able to work with
she flashes the devil’s horns hand sign. “And he says, ‘I’m not long and lean so you are definitely not singing about me’. He said, ‘the only thing that’s true in this song is that I’m a white guy’. It’s funny and he loves it. But we wanted to make it funny and to make it country and we did that. So, it was great.”
Shemekia Copeland has a warm and inviting personality, given her preoccupation with her band mates immobile situation, that lights up a room as she remembers being invited to The White House to perform for Barack Obama as she tells: “It was awesome. I mean, first of all, I was just so excited to be there. There’s BB King and Buddy Guy, Jeff Beck, Keb Mo and all these amazing artists and I’m just getting a chance to just hang out with these awesome musicians to put on a show for Obama. It was great.”
Copeland warms to this connection with her audience. “I feel a lot of the reasons why there are so many issues in the world is because communication is so poor and if we all communicated and learn to understand each other better then we would be so much better off and I think through the songs people understand me, they get me, and they understand how I feel.”
Shemekia explains: “On my latest album, I have a song called The Talk and it’s all about talking to your black son, about how he has to go about his life and be careful in America. Do you know what I mean? It’s a deep subject. I hardly got through the song without crying because I’ve got a young black son, I’ve got nephews, and it’s a constant fear of ours. Hopefully, when people hear that song, they’ll get that and how scared we are as mamas to send our children out there in the world. Culturally, we have been through a lot we’ve come too far to be gone. We just keep on going. Just keep on going until we can go no more “asserts Copeland.
It’s the simplest of songs that pack the biggest message. With her trademark powerful delivery, Shemekia doesn’t mince her words on the album’s opening song Too Far To Be Gone sending a strong message about racial tensions and social advancements under threat from all corners. It features Sonny Landreth who delivers deft guitar work to deeply match the powerhouse vocals. As much is true with Cedric Burnside’s contribution to the album title track Done Come Too Far, underwriting the blues charge to these recordings. These two guest
my peers, enjoy their talents and work with them. I’ve been really enjoying that.”
Sounds can be deceptive as the bevvy of fun and downright humorous songs offset the serious blues content of her new recording. Gullah Geechee is a case in point that has an upbeat joyful attitude about the geo-social enclave of an ancient race of people living in modern-day America as Shemekia illustrates: “What’s so awesome about America is that when we were brought here, there were so many different people. On my last album, I did Clotilda and that song is about the people from Africatown down in Alabama that are the descendants from that ship.”
Copeland continues: “Well, the Gullah people are in South Carolina, they have their own queen, and they have their own culture. They’re just these amazing people that have their own music and great food. So, we just kind of wanted people to know about the Gullah people down in South Carolina.” With its strong country overtones, another offbeat blues song is the bellyaching words to Fell In Love With A Honky: “My husband laughs about that song because he’s a metalhead. Yeah, he’s white but he’s not a country guy. He’s into metal,” smiles Shemekia as
It is certainly true that Shemekia Copeland has come too far to be gone in her life and her abundant achievements. The final track on this impassioned album proves this with a poignant cover of her daddy’s song Nobody But You: “I usually try to lighten things up with my dad, you got yourself an intense record, so you want to lighten it up and make it fun, and that’s what we did with that one. I love all my dad’s songs. So, it’s always hard to pick.” Without a doubt, having come this far singing the blues, there’s nobody quite like Shemekia Copeland.
shemekiacopeland.com
I just love being able to work with my peersSCAN ME
17 SEP CIDER FESTIVAL, BRASENOSE
STARLITE CAMPBELL BAND
EMMA WILSON
JACK J HUTCHINSON
Ride is the 30th solo album from Walter Trout. His career has spanned over five decades, and at the age of 71, he shows no sign of slowing anytime soon. His latest album goes to prove that age is just a number, the journey, and the music is all that matters. I recently caught up with Walter at his home in Denmark via zoom to talk about his latest album and the people who helped carve out the road which he travels.
We start chatting casually about the upcoming tour of the UK Walter is undertaking and then suddenly diverted to something far more serious and relevant at this moment in time: ” Tomorrow, 26th May is the eighth anniversary of my liver transplant, so right now I’m on my eight-year bonus, and I’m pretty emotional about the whole thing, getting to play and bring out a new record. Life is great, man.”
We chat about the upcoming release of ‘Ride,’ and for me, this seems to be a more personal album than his previous offerings. Although every album I’ve listened to in the past has some deep sense of meaning within the storyline of the songs. For instance, the title track is the story of wanting to escape from the situation that Walter found himself in at the time by jumping onto a railroad train that was right across the street from his house: “As a kid, I lived in a house with my mother and my step-father who had been a prisoner of war, and subsequently he’d suffered terribly. He’d sometimes get very drunk and violent. I would lay in bed in the house right next to this railroad track, and when I heard all kinds of shit going on, I’d say to myself, I can just walk across the road and escape all of this shit”.
As long as I’ve known about Walter Trout’s solo work, and his subsequent work with other collaborators, one thing has always stuck in my mind, the songs he writes all have a deep, personal story behind them. The same could be said about most blues artists, especially if you go back in history and listen to people like Johnson, Son House, Skip James, Muddy, and Wolf. ‘Ride’ is one of the most personal albums I’ve had the pleasure of listening to in quite a while. Walter can turn every piece of music into a piece of history, good and bad, no matter what the circumstances are.
As he says: “I was trying to make a train noise on there. it’s a very traditional thing in blues music, the harmonica makes train sounds. Sonny Terry was the master at doing that, even Cream, with Jack Bruce doing the song, Train Time. My brother, who is five years older than me, brought home an album around the time that we were both getting heavily into the blues. He said, ‘you’ve gotta
hear this album, this British guy plays the harmonica over a recording of a train’ ; the album was called, The Blues Alone by John Mayall who I was lucky enough to play with for five years - he’s like a surrogate dad to me now. On the track, Ride, I was trying to recreate the sound of a train. It’s an age-old thing in the blues with the harmonica right the way back to Country Blues before there were electric instruments.”
All of the tracks on the album tell a story, nothing unusual there you may say, but when the stories have real-life meaning even though they may not have initially started out that way, the songs become more true to life, affecting the listener in ways that they may not have imagined. One such song is, Hey Mama. When I first heard it, gave me the impression of Walter telling a tale of
“She’s been around for quite a while, so not so much upcoming, but I’ve been a huge fan of Sue Foley for many years, she’s one of the people I listen to now, so she’s up there”
“I think all of these guys are great. These are the people that I listen to a lot. Dom Martin and Catfish are also a couple of my favourite artists”
“You might have to expand your definition of blues, I would say, Aretha Franklin and Billie Holiday, but now you have to expand your definition of blues. Aretha still has an effect on me that not many musicians have”
“It gave me my path in life, it gave me my passion, my self-esteem growing up. When I realized that I could play the guitar and sing, I had something that I could contribute to the world. The blues has given me a purpose in my life”
woe and hurt towards his mother, but that wasn’t the case, it had deeper meanings for Walter: “It’s a conversation that I had with my mom, she passed away in 1990, and I sometimes find myself overly affected by stuff from my past, and I’m still trying to deal with a lot of it. Some people say that she let me down but I tell them that they are wrong, she did the best job that she could at that time, but sometimes her best just wasn’t good enough, so it’s not as straightforward a song as you might think at the beginning.”
The album was recorded over a year ago but has until now been held back by the label to coincide with Walter going out on tour in Europe and the UK. Also, Walter recently played The Rory Gallagher Festival at Ballyshannon, Ireland, during the tour. Dividing his time between Denmark and California allows Walter more flexibility touring-wise. Obviously, the live music scene has been seriously hampered by global events over the last couple of years, so this has affected the release of the album and live gigs.
“A lot of my friends have been holding their albums back because of this, but we thought it was time to put my record out there, I’ve even got enough songs to record another album right now!”
During his early years as a performer, Walter, as did everyone else at the time, played small bars and clubs just to earn a few bucks, cutting their teeth, learning their chops so to speak. But what many people don’t know about Walter Trout is that purely by a twist of fate, he got to play with legendary blues artists such as Percy Mayfield, John Lee Hooker, and Big Mama Thornton. That is being thrown in at the deep end, and then some.
“I was in a bar band in California as the house band, playing five nights a week. We were basically a covers band playing Beatles stuff and Santana songs. I wanted to play blues. Every once in a while they would let me play a blues song. A friend of mine who is sadly no longer with us told me that up on the Redondo Beach Pier, there was a bunch of older black blues guys playing on Sunday afternoons. All they were playing was blues. Long story short, he told them that he had a friend who loved playing blues, and asked if I could sit in with them. They said ‘yeah, bring him along.’ On the actual day, he came to fetch me, and I was like, ‘I don’t really wanna go, I’m tired blah blah,’ but he said, ‘I’ve talked you up. I’ve done this for you.’ So, I was like, ‘fuck it, let’s go do this.’ I get up there and played one tune and they were like, play another one. They asked me if I wanted to join the band, it was a coast-tocoast blues band, it was John Lee Hookers
backing band. All of a sudden I’m in John Lee Hooker’s band, out of the bar band and I’m receiving a real blues education every night.”
As Walter played more and more with these legendary blues artists he became noticed more and more as a bonafide blues guitarist. So much so, that Canned Heat came to watch him play one night and offered him a place with them. Another chapter in the long career of his life had presented itself, and he found himself playing with Canned Heat for the next five years.
“My first gig with Canned Heat was opening for John Mayall, he’d got the original Blues Breakers back together, Mick Taylor, and John McVie and all those guys. It transpired that Canned Heat went into a hiatus for about three months, John Mayall asked me if I wanted to join The Bluesbreakers and play alongside Mick Taylor on guitar. I’d been listening to this stuff from when I was in high school, so I knew most of it. This was a huge part of my blues upbringing. Later he told me that he was going to put together a Los Angeles version with myself and Coco Montoya as the two guitarists. If it wasn’t for that day, going up to the pier and jamming with these guys, I might still be playing down at the corner bar.”
After this quirky twist of fate, Walter found himself playing with arguably one of the most influential blues artists there has ever been in John Mayall, part of The Bluesbreakers under John’s guidance brought him to where he sits right now, leading his own band, releasing his 30th album, and continuing to tour the world.
As usual, when I chat to a blues artist, I’m always curious as to what they were listening to as a kid growing up, and this was no exception - was it blues or rock and roll, or something slightly different?:
“I was lucky because my parents were music aficionados, of all sorts of music, so in my house, my father had Benny Goodman albums and Glenn Miller albums, and he also had T-Bone Walker and BB King albums. This was in suburban New Jersey in the late 50s. I also remember my mom listening to Ray Charles singing Hard Times and weeping because it touched her in a way that I couldn’t understand back then, but I understand now. As a kid, my mom took me to see James Brown and Ray Charles, so I was very fortunate in that respect. When I was ten years old she arranged for me to spend the whole day hanging out with Duke Ellington and his orchestra and had a trumpet lesson from Cat Anderson.”
A final word on the new album ‘Ride’ from Walter: “High Is Low, the lyrics were written by my wife Marie. She said, can you do something with this, It’s about fake news High Is Low, Low Is High. I put the lyrics down to music, and out came the song, but this was all down to my wife writing about the world we live in. Also, it was her idea to make a video of the title track and having a 12-year-old kid playing me, then morphing into me as a grown man. It was all her idea.”
Ride is released August 19th 2022
www.waltertrout.com
That first Paul Butterfield album with Born In Chicago opened up a new world to me playing blues with a rock ‘n’ roll aggression
Buddy was the first real blues guy that I ever saw live before he became a big deal in blues. He had such a profound effect on me when I was 16. He had an album called, A Man And The Blues, that’s one of the greatest blues albums ever recorded
I got the chance to see him many times, the first time was when he was opening for Delaney and Bonnie with Eric Clapton after BB King played, Delaney and Bonnie could have stayed home, he fucking destroyed the place. I consider him to be the greatest bluesman in history
I am a mega-fan of Blind Willie Johnson, he’s my favourite country blues artist. He has such a spiritual aspect to his music that is just devastating and overwhelming
He’s right there with Blind Willie Johnson, he’d just sit there and play electric guitar, he was the next generation after Johnson, both of them I look to for inspiration
British bluesman Will Wilde is getting ready to unleash his new musical project on the world. This is a band that packs a punch, or should we say it’s Wilde.
Of course, the Brighton-based harmonica player grew up in a musical family alongside his sister Dani Wilde. “Neither of our parents are musicians themselves, but my Dad listens to a lot of music and used to listen to a lot of blues when we were growing up. He would take us to gigs and festivals, so we grew up around it,” recollects Will. “I started playing the guitar. Dani started playing the drums. We were about ten or so, and then we switched. I taught her what I knew on the guitar, and she told me what she knew
on the drums. It turned out that I was much better at drums, and she was much better at guitar than I was. So, we used to play music together like that all through school.”
However, it was once Will found Harmonica, that he knew he was on the right path. “I started playing the harmonica when I was about 16 or 17. I just found one lying around and taught myself to play. I found it very intuitive. I got on with it a lot easier than most people do, and a lot easier than I have with any other instruments,” explains Wilde.
Harmonica in hand, the artist delved deep into the greats of the blues harp world. “In the beginning, it was Sonny Boy Williamson.
The song ‘Help Me’ always resonated with me. I’ve always said that song is the reason why I wanted to play the harmonica. And then, in the early days, it was Muddy Waters recordings; the Hard Again album, which has James Cotton on harp and the King Bee album, which had Jerry Portnoy on - they were both very influential on me. Then, Charlie Musselwhite, Paul Butterfield, Big Walter Horton, Junior Wells, and Little Walter. All the main Chicago blues guys.”
Speaking of the greats of the genre, when it comes to blues music, bad luck has always been a prominent theme. You just have to look at classics like ‘Born Under A Bad Sign’ where the songwriter William Bell and later
by Adam Kennedy Images: Rob BlackhamAlbert King declared: “Hard luck and trouble is my only friend”. In the present day, Will Wilde has had his fair share of rotten luck. “I kept having really close calls. In 2019 I broke my neck. Then a while after that crash I broke my collarbone and nearly electrocuted myself fitting the kitchen.”
Wilde has a new outlook on life following these incidents. “I think it made me better as a performer because you don’t take yourself so seriously after something like that, I suppose. Now when I get on stage, I want to have as much fun as possible. I get up there and just go for it,” proclaims Wilde. As the old showbiz saying dictates, the show must go on and even after such a life-changing event as breaking his neck Will was determined to return to the stage. “I did a couple of gigs with a neck brace on, sat on a chair. I think I did a gig only two months or so after breaking my neck. I probably shouldn’t have,” he said. “The first few shows I played back after that was tough because I had a lot of problems with my neck and back. I’d still give it my all, but I remember the first show we did. I think Skegness was the first one back, and I could barely even walk afterwards,” he said. “But it’s gradually getting easier.”
It’s of no surprise that Will Wilde decided to call his latest project Bad Luck Friday. “The funny thing is the first Bad Luck Friday single was due to come out on the 24th of June. And by pure coincidence that it’s exactly three years to the date that I crashed,” he said. Will’s accident caused the artist to re-evaluate not only his outlook but also his musical direction. “When I had my motorbike accident in June 2019, and I broke my neck, I realised that I was not satisfied with the music that I was making and the direction that I was going in,” explains Wilde. “I’d always had this vision of a band that’s a rock band with songs and choruses that just happens to have harmonica as the lead instrument.”
Time on his hands permitted Wilde the opportunity to experiment. “The pandemic was quite convenient really. It allowed me to stop because it’s hard to start a new project whilst you’re keeping the old one going. It forced everything to come to a stop and allowed me to work on the new stuff,” said Will. Some of the band had been playing with Wilde for a while. “Alan Taylor, the drummer, has been playing with me on and off for ten years or more,” says Will. “Steve Brook, the guitarist, we met a few years ago.
I’d always known him, seeing them around on the Brighton scene. I had respect for him musically, and I got him in to dep some gigs with the Will Wilde band three years ago. We were talking in the van about what we wanted to do, and it turned out we wanted to do the same sort of thing.” The final piece of the puzzle was bass player Jack Turnbull. “Again, Jack has been on the Brighton scene for a while, and he was someone that Steve knew,” confirmed Will.
With the Bad Luck Friday line-up complete, the band got to work on their music. “We got together a lot over the pandemic. We hired a studio space together, and we would go in every day and write and record and work on getting better.” With regards to the band’s self-titled debut single, Will wasn’t sure where it would fit. “We wrote the song first. When we wrote the song, I wasn’t sure if it was going to be a Will Wilde song, or if I was going to release it under another name,” he said. “But once we made an album worth of material, I realised that it has to go out under a new name because it is very different to everything I’ve done previously.”
Will had a specific vision for the new project. “The mission with this band and this album was to write some really good choruses. I’ve worked on my vocals a lot over the last few years. I’ve definitely stepped my vocals up, and hopefully, it shows,” he said. When you hear Bad Luck Friday what the listener will immediately notice is how the artist utilises the harmonica. “I get bored of hearing the harmonica always used in the same way,” declared Wilde. “Harmonica players, even
more so than blues guitar players, I would say they tend to do the Little Walter thing, the Sonny Boy Williamson thing, or the Sonny Terry thing. I want to do my own thing.” He adds that: “What I realised watching live bands over the last few years is that it’s got to be about the song and the vocal and the performance first. The harmonica solo or guitar solo is the icing on the cake.”
But what do Will’s longstanding blues fans think of his latest material? “I have tested out some of the songs on the blues crowd, and we’ve gone down well,” he explains. “There’s a couple of songs on there that I would call blues-rock. Low Down Dirty would be one; which has a Paul Rogers vibe to it. And Jealous Woman, I think, has a bit of a Gary Moore vibe to it, through the way I’ve approached the harp on that. It’s kind of like how he approaches the guitar in blues-rock.”
For the time being, Will has set his focus on Bad Luck Friday. “I’m going to park Will Wilde as a solo career for the time being. I will most likely do another record at some point. But I need to focus my energy on this project for at least the next couple of years,” he said. “The Bad Luck Friday album comes out in September. We’re going to do a couple more singles as well. So yeah, I want to wait to see what happens. Hopefully, it will be well received, and we can get on a tour because of it.”
The eponymous debut album from Bad Luck Friday will be released on Friday 2nd September. The band’s self-titled new single is out now.
You have recently been touring Europe with The Rolling Stones. How did that opportunity come about and do you have any funny or interesting tour stories?
Your latest album ‘You Broke Me’ is out now on Maple House Records. It is written and produced by guitarist Thomas Tull and songwriter and producer Kevin Bowe. What was the approach to this record?
Tré Nation: ‘You Broke Me’ is a blues album, so we wanted to stay true to the soul of the genre. We pulled back from the more polished production approach that we’ve taken on our previous albums. Instead, we got into a room together, pressed record, and allowed ourselves to be carried away by the spirit of music.
Opener “Baby We’re Through” is a fast tempo number.
Is it autobiographical?
Johnny Baab: What I can say about that tune is I know a lot of people who can relate to it. To me it’s the turning point in a relationship where self respect meets attitude and you put your foot down.
“Smokestack Lightning” is the Howlin’ Wolf blues staple. What was it about that particular song that made you want to include it given the variety of classic blues to pick from?
Johnny Baab: We really wanted to pay homage to the strong lineage that exists in blues. Howlin’ Wolf has influenced so many that came before us, so it felt right to choose a song that so many people, musicians and listeners alike, have heard for a long time. Hopefully some of the newer generation, that maybe aren’t quite familiar yet, gets to listen to music that has been influenced by it.
How do you look after your voice?
Tré Nation: Mostly, I drink lots of tea. Ginger, thyme, and rosemary tea, to be specific. I also do vocalization exercises that were taught to me by vocal coach, Don Lawrence. Whiskey helps, too.
Tré Nation: Touring with The Stones has been absolutely amazing! All I know is that since we opened up for them for the first time in Washington D.C. in 2019, they’ve continued to ask us to come back! We hope they keep doing that, forever.
The album includes an acoustic and electric versions of “Through Being Blue Over You.” Was the track originally written acoustically? Do you alternate which version you perform for live shows?
Johnny Baab: Our guitarist Thomas Tull, along with songwriter Kevin Bowe, usually write with just acoustic guitars and their voices. I’m a firm believer that a good song needs to have legs on its own, which means that it should still be a great song with just guitar and vocals or piano and vocals- without the production of the song. Obviously when you add all of the flavors of the band it takes on a bit of a different life, but it still has to stand on its own. I know I am a bit biased, but I think it’s a testament to their (Tull and Bowe) writing ability. Live, we usually keep it pretty electric.
Tracks such as “You Broke Me” and “Willie Brown” feature harmonica. Do you have any experience playing the harmonica and can you tell me about the choice to include harmonica on the record?
Johnny Baab: I can play harmonica… poorly haha. Again, we wanted to pay homage to the true roots of the blues and in a lot of instances, that included harmonica on the track. Our keyboard player Joe Munroe called the incredible Charlie Barath into the sessions and he absolutely tore it down.
What makes Ghost Hounds happy and what makes you unhappy?
Tré Nation: Connecting with people through our music makes us happy, so we all put our energy into focusing on that!
Supersonic Blues Band were once described as a stretched Cadillac of a Blues Band, the list of guests and performers indeed reads like a who’s who of the best the blues world has to offer. While there is no shortage of superstar guests on new release Voodoo Nation it feels like a proper band album.
Steve Yourglivch Alex Solca & Enzo MazzeoThe seeds of the idea to form the band go way back to 2010, when Fabrizio Grossi and legendary drummer Kenny Aronoff performed in Steve Lukather’s jam band Goodfellas. With encouragement from Billy Gibbons to write more songs following a collaboration with Fab, the band was fully born. That first song became the bands first single Running Whiskey. The UKs own Kris Barras has now become a full time band member, taking the place of Texan Lance Lopez as singer and guitarist.
Without doubt Fabrizio, or Fab as he is known, is the creative driving force behind the band. He has an impressive CV built up since moving to New York from Milan back in 1990, working alongside the likes of Leslie West, Eric Gales, Alice Cooper and George Clinton. He took time out from his busy schedule to talk to me via zoom direct from his recording studio in Los Angeles.
We started out by talking about the new record Voodoo Nation, I suggested that the content overall felt slightly darker than previous releases, ‘Oh absolutely, in both the lyrics and also the sound. This record should have come out in June 2020, what’s a little disturbing is that listening to the lyrics now they could have been written during lockdown. In fact apart from one guest appearance the album was completed in February and March 2020. So in a way we had this premonition of how things were gonna go and you’re right it’s very dark and sound wise a bit heavier although always when we rock we rock. We describe ourselves as a blues inspired band, but we recognise the trailblazers too like Led Zeppelin for instance.’
The band is so much more than a straight-ahead blues rock outfit though, the rhythm section especially, bring soulfulness and funkiness to the table too. Fab explains ‘Well, the reason for that is that blues was at the source of all those other derivatives you mention, without blues there never would’ve been rock ‘n’ roll, Chuck Berry was just amped up blues. Right through from James Brown to Curtis Mayfield was an intertwining of blues and soul. Blues has always been at the base. You know even bands in the 80’s like LA Guns or Guns N Roses are nothing more than the 80’s version of MC5, their basis was blues really. Guys like the Kings, BB, Albert and Freddie, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf they were bad ass trailblazers in their day. So, I’m not saying Supersonic Blues Machine is the ultimate blues band, far from it but we’ve learnt from those greats that have gone before and in a way we pay homage to it.’
I told Fab that I thought the band sounded very modern in its approach though, in its
production values, instrumentation etc, and the message is about how things are today.
‘On this album I had a lot of support from Kris Barras, I wanted to make sure that his element, his component was evident. Lance Lopez was a unique talent, certainly one of the best guitarists I’ve ever worked with, but that is gone and now we had to embrace the sound Kris brings. To me that means it sounds like a Union Jack imposed over a Star Spangled Banner. Kris brings the British element, the Rory Gallagher, Gary Moore rich musical culture that the UK have. I mean really the reason blues music got famous and successful to the masses is down to the Rolling Stones, Clapton and those people. I did not want to lose that. Kris fits in really well with us, one of the top requirements to be a great musician is the ability to listen. We’re a bit old school in that as an ensemble there is a lot of dialogue and a lot of jamming back and forth. When Kris first came out to Los Angeles to see if things could work between us he called me a few days before to ask what I wanted him to learn. I told him to forget that, to bring his own shit, his own personality. I think that relieved him. Kris with his martial arts background has real focus, if he is given something he’s never done before his attitude is OK I’ll figure it out. He’ll get on it and given time he’ll outsmart you.’
Certainly, the addition of Kris brings a different component to the band who by their very make up are unlikely to ever release anything that sounds like a previous record.
‘Supersonic Blues Machine will never repeat the same record twice, as a producer, to me that is very important. This record reflects the times it was recorded in. I’m an optimist by nature, always trying to look at the big picture but there wasn’t much to laugh about at that time. We had George Floyd, almost an insurrection, huge forest fires etc etc. I come from a school of song writing that addresses real issues.’
Having said all of that I feel the album also carries a message of optimism and getting over adversity.
‘Absolutely, that’s why we left All Our Love to the end of the album. With all that we’ve talked about there is always a positive outlook on what you can bring to life. That song is based on an event that I experienced. We have a freeway called 405 that stretches from South LA through Bel Aire and Santa Monica to the valleys. We suffered these huge fires where thousands of people lost their homes and everything. A few shelters were set up in places like school gymnasiums and what was really needed wasn’t so much food as clothing because people had just fled their houses as they
were. I’m involved in a few charities and one organised a clothing run, so we were driving from where I live and crossing through part of Bel Aire and we had to pass through walls of fire, I don’t know how the traffic control kept the freeway open. On one side it was just fire and the other filled with thick black smoke. It felt like the end of the world.’
As always with Supersonic Blues Machine there are a plethora of super guests.
‘All of these people are friends; we hang around with them or jam with them, so the music part is easy. Ana Popovic for instance is a brilliant musician, everyone knows her for blues recordings, but she is a rocker.’
Apart from Supersonic Blues Machine Fab has an impressive history.
‘I grew up in Italy and in those days it wasn’t a rock ‘n’ roll country, but I heard lots of black music on the radio, mostly rhythm and blues and soul. Nothing like Deep Purple or those bands. I saw James Brown on TV when he visited Italy for the first time and I’d never heard anything like it before, it changed my life. I had 45s of The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Mungo Jerry and my first love was Bob Marley. Fast forward a few years and I was in a band and Sony sent us over to New York. I made a lot of friends there so having returned to Italy and the band breaking up I decided to pack my bags and go back to New York. I joined a band and we turned part of our accommodation into a studio mainly to record our own music, but word spread, and we started to get work recording other people. I’m not properly trained as a sound engineer or anything, I just taught myself in the trenches as it were. By the time the New York band broke up, which is life, I was already going back and forth to Los Angeles so I moved here. I was super blessed in that within three months I got to meet Nina Hagan. I recorded with her and became her musical director. Soon after that I met one of my idols Steve Vai, and to be honest I owe him my career, he validated me as a musician. Playing with Steve gave me credibility. That lead to me scoring my first contract with Warner and from there on it’s been a long ride. I’ve always loved lots of styles of music, so I got to work on pop and Latin music. Around that time my daughter was born so I spent more time in the studio rather than on the road. Around 2010 I got to play in Goodfellas with Steve Lukather and Kenny. I’ve been working with Kenny ever since, we got to work together on projects with Leslie West, Joe Bonamassa, Slash etc etc, until one day Billy Gibbons called to say he needed a song for ZZ Top to be used on a whiskey advert.
That lead to recording Running Whiskey. It ended up not getting used on the ad, but the record label allowed me to use it. Straight away Billy said write 9 more songs to go with it, so that was the start of Supersonic Blues Machine.’
Fab also leads the band Soul Garage Experience, if you’re not familiar with them and you love music, please check them out. I asked Fab to tell us a bit about them.
‘Thank you yes, that’s my soul band. I have some great musicians involved in that too. I would say that’s my own space away from everything else. Unlike in Supersonic Blues Machine, although the music comes from the same place, I’m free to be more soul, more myself, a bit more funk and reggae orientated. Also, with lyrics I can be more like Tom Morello that I couldn’t be with Supersonic. I mean Kris or whoever is guesting might not be comfortable delivering certain points of view or statements in the way I would do it.’
Fab was keen to end by sending a message to the bands fans.
‘I want everyone to know that the band are 1000% committed to taking Voodoo Nation and the whole circus out on the road. Please just have a little patience as a band like ours includes a lot a moving parts, Covid didn’t only affect one bands schedule, it messed up the schedule of all our guests, all our musicians, for instance John Fogarty and Joe Satriani are fighting over Kenny’s time because he was signed up to both tours. We are dealing with a lot of realignments. We are putting together a real super show but in the short term be patient.’
www.supersonicbluesmachine.com
Bluesmen don’t come much more grounded in the music or important to its health than Steady Rollin’ Bob Margolin. Now paired with blues harp master Bob Corritore, Margolin has a joint album about to launch and a belief that it’s among the best he’s ever delivered. Blues Matters! Caught up with both guys Stateside to discuss the new project and their love of the music.
Born in Chicago, but now residing in Phoenix, Arizona, Bob Cooritore has collaborated with the cream of blues society over the years. His Latest collaboration is an album called So Far, with a long-time friend, Bob Margolin. Margolin needs no introduction, nor does Corritore, so after listening to the album, I had a lovely chat with Bob via zoom to chew over parts of his career and of course the album itself.
“Let me just say this, the new format of your magazine definitely has the wow factor, I used to like the old format, but this is far superior, a big wow factor” Now that is a very nice way to start any conversation, the person with whom you are interviewing already being familiar with what we are doing with Blues Matters Magazine. The album, So Far, is a stripped-back acoustic album that features acoustic guitar and harmonica. No bells and whistles, just a blues album bursting with great tunes. Jimmy Vivino has a couple of guest appearances on two tracks which helps things bubble away nicely. “ Bob Margolin approached me about doing this acoustic album, and I’d never done that before, but I was eager to expand my playing by doing an acoustic album, with the possibility of getting some live shows on the back of this, because Bob Margolin is a great storyteller, not just on his albums, but also in the way he sets up his live gigs” As we all know, Margolin worked for many years as
proceeds him wherever and whenever he
I’ve never done an album like this before, like,
Muddy Waters’ right-hand man on albums and performing live, so his reputation proceeds him wherever and whenever he puts his head above the parapet. “I enjoyed this on many different levels because I said, I’ve never done an album like this before, Bob had asked me to take on the challenge, so I was like, Yeah, let’s do this. On an album like this, there’s nowhere to hide, it’s pretty much like a naked harmonica just you and the record, not being part of a rhythm, it’s a totally different approach”
Their two paths had crossed many times over the years, on the live circuit, Bob Corritore had been lucky enough to see Muddy Waters and his band, including Bob Margolin in his high-school gymnasium. Now that is not what you would call an everyday event, a wide-eyed young man seeing the legendary blues guy at his high school. Little did he know that this would be the first of many encounters that the
Margolin in his high-school gymnasium. a he
two of them would share over a lifetime. “We got to travel all over the world together and become best friends, but that would be many years later, then someone had the idea of putting Bob Margolin and myself together to do a Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters tribute, and actually at that time I was playing with Chico Chisham, Wolf’s last drummer around about 1990, so that was the first time that we got to play with each other properly”
Being from Chicago Bob Corritore was lucky enough to hang around Maxwell Street on a Sunday morning watching all the great bluesmen of that time hanging out and sometimes ask this young kid to sit in with them. Corritore of course played in the Chicago blues style from the off, which would serve him well later as he started to play with Margolin who was steeped in Chicago blues history from his time with Muddy Waters. “The cool thing about Bob Margolin is that he would tour with a small sparse band, and whatever town he was at, he would find a way to connect with people who loved Muddy, and sit in with them. So he built up a great inventory of all these great players” As many of his contemporaries did, Corritore grew up watching and listening to Muddy Waters, but more importantly, listening to and watching Little Walter, who was also a huge part of Muddy’s band. “Watching and listening to Little Walter was life-changing for me, so I got a Muddy Waters record, and I was just enjoying the sound of the harmonica, luckily for me, my big brother had an old harmonica and taught me some basic stuff, like how to bend a note on the harmonica, so from that point forward, I just took to the harmonica”
Maxwell Street in Chicago became a mecca for Corritore, watching all the great players trying to pick up bits of know-how on the harmonica, and let’s face facts if you were lucky enough to see Little Walter playing on the street right in front of you, it would have had a lasting impression for sure. As he got older, he progressed to playing in the bars and clubs sitting in with people like Lonnie Brooks, with whom he performed a whole set one night.
“I’d get invited to a blues jam by The Aces on the south-side of Chicago, Louis Myers, Little Walters guitar player, was also a great harmonica player, I’d watch him play and almost fall to the floor, I’d be devastated at seeing him destroy what I’d attempted to do, but that made me more determined, so I’d keep practicing, never getting near what he’d been doing but at the same time, learning my craft so-to-speak”
The album contains songs that may not be on the tip of your tongue such as Broken Heart, written by Memphis Minnie. A truly beautiful blues ballad done here with a slightly darker mood than the original. It Makes No Difference ( Robbie Robertson) is one of my all-time favourite tracks from The Band, not one that you would
The Band, not one that you would
normally associate appearing on an acoustic blues album. But that’s the measure of these two guys, expertise and knowledge of blues music as well as being artists in their own right. Lillian McMurry, who was one of the early pioneers and producers of blues music, she actually discovered Elmore James, had no real upbringing within the blues community until she moved to an all-black community neighborhood where she heard blues firsthand. Six of the tracks are from the hand of Margolin himself, bringing out Muddy Waters and Little Walter through his tunes. “I think Bob Margolin can take most of the credit for the choices of songs on the album, he asked me which of the songs that we play live would I like to do, and the first one that I thought about was, I Wanna Go Home, ( Muddy Waters) it’s such an effective and haunting melody line, a beautiful song. Then I also chose My Little Machine ( John Lee Williamson). Most of these songs will go down in history as great works they’ll last forever because of the pioneers who were around at the time”
So Far is a wonderful album produced by two stalwarts of blues music. It was indeed a distinct pleasure chatting with Bob Corritore about the album and his life as a blues musician.
Margolin is a serious bluesman, an amazing picker with a cool sense of humour that instantly bubbles up when asked how things are: “Great, terrible. Fantastic, miserable,” he quips with a deadpan delivery. Just like everything in the world these days.”
“Bob and I have been good friends since the 1980s, we love the same kind of music; we’ve become very good friends over the years and we wanted to play together; we thought we’d do something a bit different for both of us. I’ve done an all-acoustic album before this one and I thought the two of us playing together would be real intimate blues without a lot of other distractions. Very pure music, nothing to hide behind just that. Me and Bob and the blues, yea, we can play together,” he explains.
“In the late 1970s when I was with Muddy Waters a friend of mine who is a DJ in Boston opened saying he was ‘ introducing Muddy’s band tonight ‘ and he speed-rapped the whole introduction. He introduced every player and when he got to me he pointed and said, ‘…and we have Steady Rollin’ Bob Margolin.’ And of course it also comes from the song by Robert Johnson. It just means somebody who just keeps on going there, man.”
“When I first heard this music by the Rolling Stones and Paul Butterfield Blues Band, I said ‘Wow, Oh!’ I liked it so much and I started playing guitar because of Chuck Berry; his inspiration was always blues music and then when I heard Muddy Waters, that was it! When I first heard Muddy, I fell in deep and I haven’t crawled back out yet!”
“I worked with Muddy from about 1973 till 1980. I wasn’t with his last band, in fact. It was fabulous, a musical foundation for life really, for everything. I learned so much from him and the older musicians in the band, all
there before I joined the band, so they had a sound!”
“I tried to learn how to fit in with it. At one time when I was really enjoying the band, Muddy said something surprising to me. He said ‘Sometimes you’re playing too fast’. That surprised me. Then he said, ‘Sometimes you’re playing too slow!’ I expected him to mean I was playing too many notes or something when he said I was too fast but when he said I was too slow, I didn’t get it. When I asked him about it he meant getting in and out of the rhythm, make it snappy. That was what he wanted to hear. I can tell you, he did
of them. We had a very special sound. I listen back to it on albums and on YouTube now and that band just didn’t sound like anything else. Like all Muddy’s other bands, it had some special sound. The important part of course was it had Muddy Waters singing and playing guitar, Pine Top Perkins on piano, the other guys, bass and drums, were all
not have to tell me twice! I wanted to keep that job. I was grateful for his good advice and I tried to make sure that I didn’t try to lead the band in a wrong direction; I needed a snappy rhythm. He told me in one word, snappy, just how to do it.”
“It was like, not how people learn to play an
instrument, it was like the middle-ages, an apprentice to a master! I worked with him and I learned from him personally. If you’re learning to play blues from Muddy Waters it’s like learning how to be religious from God!”
‘Straight from the source,’ I venture: “Exactly,” says Bob in response.
With a consummate mastery of both acoustic and electric blues picking, I ask if he has any preference between the two formats: “No, I don’t. I love both of them equally. This is not a deep, dark secret but I play exactly the same way on either instrument. I have a very old acoustic guitar that inspires me, a Gibson L00 from the early 1930s. It’s just so special.”
Now a Director of the Pinetop Perkins Foundation, I ask about his his involvement: “We became very good friends when I was in Muddy’s band. He was the oldest and I was the youngest! We were the ones that liked to go out after Muddy’s show and find somewhere else to play. I made sure he always got back to the hotel.”
Now with the new Vizztone label release with Bob Corritore due soon, I ask about playing with Jerry Portnoy, another Muddy great:
“Jerry had his own way of doing it. He’d decide what he wanted and just do it; always his style, his way of expressing himself. Always recognizable! Bob also has his own way, he plays many different styles of blues and always finds his way to play something expressive and powerful, no matter who he’s playing with. He says it was a challenge to play so much acoustic harmonica because he often plays with an acoustic and an amplifier. I think on the new album the music speaks for itself. He’s just a fantastic musician.”
At a recent Foundation get-together, Bob played and to his surprise was presented with a special drawing, the work of our own Swedish correspondent and contributor, Brian Kramer: “That was so beautiful. I did not know that was going to happen. I played one song then some young people came on stage and said such nice things and gave me this beautiful drawing that Brian did! It has a wonderful spirit of Muddy behind i. It touched me so much, it’s just beautiful.”
Ogierea Records
BIG CROWN RECORDS
Raised in the immigrant-populated Eastern Centre section of Helsinki, Finland, Bobby Oroza was born to a Bolivian mother, a poet and tango-singer, and a Finnish father, a jazz guitarist and musician. The family record collection was a major backdrop, ranging from American folk to Motown hits to Doo-wop Crooners. Together with the band Cold Diamond & Mink, Bobby Oroza recorded his debut album This Love In 2018. With Corona virus bringing the world to a halt, Oroza found himself back in the construction yard to provide for his family, like many of us, Oroza had to face more than a few personal hardships which forced him to acknowledge and work through some brutal truths. This new record Get On The Otherside, pretty well describes what Oroza’s been through, musically, he has updated the formula of his first record, but lyrically,
the songs are bravely rooted in the more complicated, ubiquitous inner tangles of life. Self-examination, coming to terms with oneself and the world, the album consists of twelve original tracks opening with the first single, I Got Love, with its dreamy guitar, jaunty flute fills, weighty drums, and the love should satisfy all vibe. The title track, The Otherside, delivers a soulful texture, the wonderful push and pull of Oroza’s voice and guitar with Cold Diamond and Mink’s full feeling drums and bouncing bass work. Some smooth backing vocals highlight Oroza’s soulful voice, with a steady drum and bass line driving Passing Thing. Oroza puts more emphasis on the guitar, playing with feeling and emotion with the keys swirling around adding depth. Make Me Believe is built on a deep rhythm with guitar and keys adding texture to Oroza’s soulful cry for help a highlight for me. even the love songs Sweet Agony and Loving Body are not straightforward lyrically and that’s what helps makes this an interesting album, a soulful album with added musical textures, if
Kirk Fletcher returns with a new release that takes him back to his blues and gospel roots. Here he has mixed these styles on ten superbly crafted songs. He recorded this at Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals Alabama. Most songs were written with bass player Richard Cousins, others were recorded at Hertz Work Studio California and Torino. The opener Shine A Light On Love has a great horn arrangement, an upbeat song with searing guitar tones and soaring vocal harmonies. Afraid To Die, Too Scared To Live has plaintive lyrics on this groove laden blues tune, a homage to BB King’s style of playing. Heartache By the Pound is a Southern blues song celebrating challenging times, rhythm section carrying on the groove, a reflective tune about the human condition. Albert King’s I’ve Made Nights By Myself has a wonderful shuffle to it, the guitar playing is jaw dropping, his
vocals carry the song to a different level. The Night’s Calling For You has a string section and sensational keyboards from Reese Wynans. Wrapped Up, Tangled Up In Blues is where the gospel side takes precedence, an autobiographical tune. Dennis Walker wrote Wrong Kinda Love, and I Can’t Find No Love, both outstanding interpretations. The Tarheel Slim tune, Wild Cat Tamer is uplifting and fun full of rhythm and blues tones. Last song is Hope For Us, an emotive blues song about love and loss. Phenomenal blues storyteller, singer guitarist, he is the real deal.
COLIN CAMPBELL
“Phenomenal blues storyteller, singer guitarist, he is the real deal”
Will Wilde has been ramping up his harmonica style. It’s amazing what heavy notation he can get out of this instrument. His new band accentuates the sound of blues rock harmonica, he’s the lead vocalist and front man to this pacy powerful quartet. On guitar is Steve Brook, drums Alan Taylor and bass guitarist is Jack Turnbull. Together they bring their brand of heavy-duty rock-based blues tones to these ten outstanding songs. Expect blues rock riffs infused with hooks and melodies washed down with powerful harmonica solos that sound guitar based, double soloing at times. The opener gave the band’s name, Bad Luck Friday has a groove that grabs the listener,
you like your soul it’s well worth a listen.
BONFIRE RECORDS
referencing blues folklore, devil and crossroads. This noted on second track, 666 At The Crossroads. Banshee is all rhythm, shrieking harmonica and heavy guitar notation. Tempo slows on Dust And Bones, there’s a rock ballad feel here about a doomed relationship, classy guitar solo at the song’s bridge. Jealous Woman has wailing harmonica and steady stomping bass, then a wonderful guitar solo, band heating up here. Take The Best Of Me displays Will’s expert harmonica soloing. Mistress, almost veers to Glam rock in parts. Low Down Dirty alludes to classic blues themes of loss and desperation with a heavy production. Bonnie To My Clyde has a catchy riff another highlight. Last song Rebel With A Cause mixes the band’s differing musical influences into a high-octane melting pot of sonic power. Play loud and enjoy.
COLIN CAMPBELLThis is the eleventh release from this Nashville based band. Here along with a choir and various other musicians they have a sixteen track plus radio edit of some roots, soul spiritually motivated tracks. Jason Lee McKinney is lead singer, vocalist, guitarist, and songwriter. Barry Strauser is on keyboards, Billy Wright on bass guitar, Sam Berce, electric & acoustic guitars, and Logan Todd on drums. Setting the tone; Cross Over is a soul blues-tinged tune, great vocals noticeable as they are throughout this release, also highlights a fine rhythm section. Funk is the groove to Sing A Prayer, punchy catchy tune harmonies are superb. Opening Hammond organ licks raise up the next tune Freedom with a melody and choir lifting this tune, bass line also heavy. The Gospel vibe resonates through the tune Unified. Promises, slows down the tempo but keeps funky rhythm throughout. When I’m Gone is soulful and soaring with a wonderful guitar solo at the bridge to the song. Paperback Novels has a catchy chorus
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Strumbroads is a collaboration between guitarists Kathryn Grimm and Sonny Hess, both stalwarts of the NW Pacific scene around Portland, Oregon. Starting as an acoustic duo, the pair found that they were creating songs that would be better suited to a band context and so they recruited a rhythm section to form an all-female band that matches well with their name! There are eleven originals here, each lady contributing four songs, alongside three collaborations. Narrow Mind is a powerful song about the need for people to be more open-minded and charitable, rather than self-centred, while Smoke captures the destructive power of the forest fires that raged round Portland last year, the poignancy of the ballad increased using viola alongside sensitive licks from Sonny; indeed, both ladies play well, Sonny
having more of a plucked style, Kathryn rockier, a good contrast well illustrated on Smoke. If one is going to Say Goodbye To The Blues best to do so in cheerful manner and Kathryn’s song does that well as she celebrates a new relationship, while Sonny’s Blue Diamond takes us firmly back to the blues on a song about a local club, Kathryn’s comic tale of misfortunes Brighter Shade Of Blue adds a funky edge to the music before another song about being short of money, No Cash Blues. Moving away from the blues, Kathryn switches to mandolin for Beautiful Day, a ballad with lovely harmonies between Sonny, Kathryn and Jonnie Sue Goodmanson (Sonny’s niece and co-writer of the song) and What Kind Of Love Is That has a West Coast Americana/Tom Petty vibe on a song about failing relationships. Sonny’s The Body Snatcher is a good song for those of us who are advancing in years: “Someone has snatched my body and put an old one in its place. I can still climb way up high in the trees; the only thing is it really messes with my knees”! The album is a pleasing mix of original blues and Americana, graced by good harmonies and solid guitar work.
SHIRL“Together they bring their brand of heavyduty rock-based blues tones to these ten outstanding songs”
JOHN MITCHELL
“The album is a pleasing mix of original blues and Americana, graced by good harmonies and solid guitar work”
There’s a Country-Blues feel to this album. What are your musical influences?
I was influenced by a ton of music growing up, blues, rock, and country. I loved Fleetwood Mac, Bonnie Raitt, Janis Joplin to name a few. Lately I’m very much inspired by artists like Larkin Poe in the blues world and Chris Stapleton in the country world.
Tell us about the overall theme to your album State Of Mind?
I think each song tells it own honest story, but there is definitely a consistent theme of ‘overcoming heartbreak with strength & power’ throughout the album. What inspired you to write your song, I’m Alright?
I’d been listening to a lot of Larkin Poe when I created the melody for this track. The lyrics were inspired by a period of my life I’d spent living in LA after a break-up. It was a new adventure, where I was meeting loads of new people and even though I was heartbroken, I knew I was strong, and I was gonna be ‘Alright.’
How did you hook up with Josiah Manning?
I was recommended to use Josiah as a producer back in 2020 by my manager. I spent three days recording my first EP there. I just loved the way he works. He’s a genius. His studio in Devon is a calm, beautiful place which is so perfect to create music and be inspired.
What did you learn from your experiences in Nashville?
Nashville is amazing and I love it there. I learned that you must know who are as an artist, know what music you want to make, and how you want to be perceived. There is so much talent there. It’s easy to get lost in the crowd.
Which artists would you like to work with in the future?
Ha! So many artists. Too many to mention! But if I could take my pick, I’m a big fan of Beth Hart and it would be a dream to work with her, I also love Larkin Poe, Joe Bonamassa, and Chris Stapleton. One of my favourite singer songwriters is an artist called Lucie Silvas.
Rosie Music
With her hooky single I’m Alright catching the attention of a swathe of Country-Blues aficionados, Welsh songstress Laura Evans has been turning heads and ears to her engaging presence for some time. Her recent guest slot on the Robert Jon & The Wreck U.K. tour garnered much praise with her setlist giving a sweet taste of what was to come on this record and State Of Mind doesn’t disappoint. Interestingly, her kooky, elfin looks translate to her voice in a not too dissimilar way as Stevie Nicks’ does. It’s the entrancing combination of emotional songcraft and strong performances on this standout debut album that’s headed up by her first single I’m Alright, the inspiration for which fell out of the sky on a plane journey, that reels in the receptive listener. This track’s message of strength and self-empowerment is a core theme that runs right through the grooves as both Solo and Fire With Fire expose a harder bluesy edge to Laura’s emotional landscape. She’s accompanied throughout by record producer Josiah J Manning (Kris Barras Band) who plays all instruments in a consummate performance of musicianship. In fact, the interplay between these two opposite musical forces beautifully offsets each other’s contributions. For example, the simple but perfectly judged musical subtleties found on the balladlike Fool, with Manning’s tremolo guitar and Evans’ raw vocal, plus Let You Down Easy’s rootsy country ditty, that some might think crosses over into Sheryl Crow territory, ensures that pure quality shines through even in the quietest moments. In contrast, and as before, this alluring pair take the finely embroidered denim jacket of these country hued songs by the scruff of the neck as they rip and tear through the stomping, swampy blues rock of Drag Me Back In and the hell for leather powerhouse drive on this recording’s title track. Along with more musical gems to be unearthed, this debut solo statement is a promising starter from an artist for whom it’s worth keeping a close eye and ear out for.
PAUL DAVIESof soundscapes. Spectral sonics abound as Cozy Corner opens this relaxed musical ride with pedal steel spookily overlaying an alt-country journey evoking desert plains as it ventures further as do most of the songs on this beguiling release. The pedal steel solo on Burnt End is all grace and guile and it leads once again on Twig Bucket with nifty guitar picking in support. Ethereal tones evoking the soundtrack of a beautifully shot country film yet to be made are at the core of this album. As a musician/producer Dawson has complete freedom to roam around his musical mind and experiment with sounds and this phantomtastic collection of eleven tracks is the mesmeric result. The funky feel to Ol’ Brushy has the unmistakable flavours of The Meters, and a woozy cover of The Beach Boys You Still Believe In Me fits tightly within the overall atmospheric recorded delights. The aforementioned Twig Bucket and Burnt End along with That’s How It Goes In The Relax Lounge is the compositional consequences of Dawson’s experiences in Memphis during the mixing of this album at the legendary Sam Phillips Recording Studio. As the final track Whirlwind spins out it’s hard not to resist playing this enigmatic recording repeatedly.
PAUL DAVIESof Rodney Crowell’s song Earthbound has a jangly, country feel featuring Albert Lee’s superb guitar picking. Baby Come Home features yearning vocals from Baron and delicious backing harmonies. You Get What You Pay For is a soulful big production number and a beautiful cover of Brian Wilson’s ballad Heaven is a standout track. Halfway Down is a sturdy rocker featuring punchy horns and an excellent twangy guitar solo from Lee. This is top class AOR chock full of good songs and great musicians. Merry Go Round features a string quartet and Gryphon’s Andy Findon on flute as it describes life’s ups and downs. Little Things is a chunky rockabilly romp, but the pace drops for the heartfelt ballad Homefire featuring wonderful dobro from Jerry Douglas. That great songwriter Jimmy Webb’s opus Friends To
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Burn is another big production job with orchestra and heavenly choir but suddenly breaks into... a rap from Baron’s son James! The album closes with the spiritually uplifting Take Me Where The River Flows featuring a soaring guitar solo from Kevin Healy. Great stuff here for lovers of thoughtful AOR material.
DAVE DRURYGritty soul and blues singer Gina Sicilia is originally from Newtown, Pennsylvania but now calls Nashville home, has never been one to sit back Musically. Unchange, the 10th album sees Sicilia return to the Vizztone record label where she
with emotional lyrics. Sing
On, captures the theme of the release, joyous and entertaining full of groove and harmonies. Doubters
Prayer has a soulful melody. Liturgy has Gospel tones, choir excellent harmonies here a real highlight. Make
No Mistake keeps a steady rhythm on this bluesy number, driving keyboard tones accentuate the tune. Voice
For The Voiceless has a laidback feel, well delivered vocals and heavy bass line. An uplifting, highly recommended timeless release.
COLIN CAMPBELLBLACK HEN MUSIC
Having your own studio during a pandemic has been a productive period for a prolific artist like Steve Dawson as he recorded three albums worth of material. The first record release from this period was his recent roots release Gone, Long Gone which mixed songs and instrumentals touching on folk and blues influences. This second album is entirely instrumental, and it creatively explores a deep terrain
HEROIC RECORDS
Solo debut from Baron who has played drums with artists as diverse as Marty Wilde, Charles Aznavour, Spike Milligan, Geno Washington, Leo Sayer, Dave Edmunds, Joe Brown, Lulu, Three Degrees and many more. He also toured for many years alongside Albert Lee in Hogan’s Heroes until 2016 when the band called it a day and Baron started working on this project with the help of guitarist and producer Kevin Healy. Opening track In Another Life is a pleasant well written pop/ rock song featuring Baron’s light vocals and is enhanced by good piano work and a trombone solo. A cover
On his fourth release Dennis Johnson slide guitar supremo pays tribute to his influencers such as Freddy King, Robert Johnson, and Big Joe Williams. An eclectic nine track compilation, Chris Bell engineered this, with Kevin Shirley mixing final track Don’t Owe You A Thing, a particular highlight with a hill country vibe. With a rhythm section of Anton Fig on drums and Jonathan Stoyanoff on bass, this is one class band. They are joined by Bob Fridzema on piano and Hammond B3 organ, keeping the groove going. Going Down starts proceedings with a laid-back bluesy vibe, the band sets in quickly to the groove, each instrument perfectly balanced. Talk To You, is all about the guitar work throughout this stomping full throttle tune, Dennis’ vocals gutsy also, but what he can do with that guitar is jaw dropping. Revelation is an intricately played instrumental, again guitar highlighting the tune, but
backing is tremendous. Salvation Bound takes us into a spiritual vibe, the organ resounding when the chorus arrives, upbeat tune. 32-20 Blues is a romp, some rockabilly blues delivered with style. Please Don’t Go takes us to the Delta with a new interpretation of a standard blues tune, mesmerizing tones. Lonesome Valley, the much-covered hymn sounds fresh and vibrant and full of blues rooted emotion. Ramblin’ mixes, bluegrass style picking with a rocky vibe, sweet. Two Lights is well arranged and has a ragtime feel, great vocal harmonies. This is a masterclass of musicianship throughout.
COLIN CAMPBELL“pure quality shines through”
“This is a masterclass of musicianship throughout”
established herself has a commanding singer-songwriter rooted in the blues. The album was produced by Colin Linden who co-wrote five of the tracks, with two penned by Sicilia and three covers making up the album. Linden also plays
guitar throughout, assisted by Johnny Dymond on bass and Bryan Owings on drums, with Kevin McKendree and Janice Powers playing keyboards on three tracks and backings vocals from Ann and Regina
Midnite Blues
This album is so redolent of the time back in say the 1970s or early 80s when a certain brand of heavy rocking Blues ruled supreme. So, the question really is quite simple, does an album like this have any right to be heard in 2022? Damn right it does! Sure, music evolves through time, and yes some might say that nostalgia has no real place now, but I totally disagree. As long as what is being produced is not a parody then why not revel in what many, many people enjoyed and still do. So here we have brother and sister Traci and Anna from Sweden taking time out from their day job with Vanity BLVD plus drummer Tommy laying down eight tracks only. All are new and they are loud and proud. Structured as if it is on vinyl (perhaps it is) the feeling is most certainly cranked all the way up to 11. Anna handles the lead vocals and guitar duties whilst Anna Savage drives things along with a pounding bass.
McCray on two more. The album opens in wonderful style with the unhurried tempo of Healing time, where Sicilia laments about a broken relationship on this gospel-tinged ballad. Linden’s finger picking acoustic guitar delivers feeling to Sicilia’s emotionally delivered vocals on title track Unchanged. A gentle start before the band erupt into full gospel flow on this lively cover of Shirley Caesar’s How Far Am I From Canaan, Linden’s gritty guitar playing is matched by Sicilia’s powerful feisty vocals on the upbeat cover of the Reverend Gary Davis classic, Death Don’t Have No Mercy, while a steady rhythm beat is overlaid by some subtle guitar and smooth vocals on the optimistic ballad Let’s Set The World On Fire. The excellent stripped-down Valentine, emotive guitar and vocals in harmony, is followed by the upbeat Latin flavoured bluesy Don’t Be Afraid To Be Wrong. The album closes with There’s A Bright Side Somewhere, another stripped down ballad with slide guitar and vulnerable vocals looking for better times, an album made to emphasis the vocals, and they do not disappoint. SHIRL
ANGEL DUST & CYANIDE INDEPENDENT
able rendition of Portishead’s Glory Box, the Black Feathers compositions and overall sound is a satisfying blend of poignant passion floating on a warm bed of organ, piano, dobro, strings, and synths. The opening track, Lighthouse on Fire, is framed by a delicious, otherworldly swirl of choral beauty, a real ray of musical sunshine. Ray and Sian’s sad story of travelling back to lock-down Britain from the USA in 2020 speaks volumes for how many music acts would be hit by an overnight barren touring scene. Considering the state of the world we now find ourselves facing, the opening verse of Only The Brave brings a lump to one’s throat.‘There are those who want for nothing and those who need more/And they all want to live in a world without war/Yet the fields are still burning, the cities on fire/Tell me how many more of our children must die.’ This is an intensely stirring album, beautifully recorded and produced, and utterly observant of our parlous situation. As the title track says. ‘I’ve never been much of a soldier, / Till I found something worth fighting for.’ The Black Feathers are a revelation, this is music with heart and empathy, something we badly need.
ROY BAINTONalbum opens with the title track and immediately he is singing about addiction and abuse, the delight of beating addiction and the strength of beating abuse. About getting out of negative repetitions of behaviour. It is a dark and moody blues, but it sits outside the emotional tone of much of the material. It immediately runs into Be What You Is, the complete antithesis of the title number, Dr John used the term often and there is a New Orleans bounce to the number and a delicious sense of humour in the track. Dodge City is a polemic about Washington and lying politicians of all breeds, Only Porter At The Station is about love and what you will do for the one you love. The only instrumental here is anything but filler, Mud Island Morning is all about living on a sandbar in the middle of the Mississippi and watching the river flow by and that takes you into Dubb’s Talking Disappointment Blues a little delight about trying to pick up ladies. MacLeod comes from the line of the great Blues story tellers and this album is a delight from start to finish.
OUT OF THE PAST
Oddly in Vanity BLVD she is the singer and does not play bass. Don’t ask me folks! I must say that from the get-go there is not one single track that is not right in your face. The title track opens before you are moving through, I Want You Back, Road Danger etc finishing up appropriately with The Last Train. You want honesty and that is what you will get. No frills to be found here just a solid wall of noise. It may be old school, but this works on whatever level you want to take it on. Subtle? Hell, not a chance and entirely the better for that.
GRAEME SCOTTNot so much blues, but highly impressive UK Americana. I was immediately put in mind of Robert Plant and Alison Krauss but it’s folly to make comparisons. This velvet smooth display of harmony stands alone. This is The Black Feathers follow-up to their Soaked to The Bone album of 2006. As we’re all painfully aware, a hell of a lot has happened to us all since then. Songwriters Ray Hughes and Sian Chandler have gathered some great musicians for this deeply moving album; Will McFarlane (Bonnie Raitt, Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section) and Dan Moore, who’s worked with Beth Orton and Massive Attack. As well as a remark-
Doug MacLeod is well known in blues circles for storytelling during his live sets and this album, his first since transplanting to Memphis (living almost alongside the mighty Mississippi) is all about the stories his music tells. Produced by the legendary Jim Gaines, he features Steve Potts on drums, Dave Smith on bass & Rick Steff on keyboards and the four of them make a very close and compact sound, all that you need to hear is there, with no extraneous ‘stuff’. MacLeod’s songs are all about something, there is no unnecessary filler, no meaningless ‘stuff’ about nothing and it is refreshing for his directness. The
Singer and guitarist Steve Howell has been playing since the 70s, has ten released CDs and has a lovely, relaxed style that is a very fine antidote to thousand notes a second shredders. He also has a band that back him in this approach right to the hilt. Candyman, from Reverend Gary Davis, is a good example of their style, with its not quite lazy rhythm and lived-in, take your time vocals. In fact, the label name is particularly apt for this album as it is a run through a dozen older tracks from a variety of sources. They range from Dobie Gray’s sixties mod anthem, here slowed down a little and instrumental a la Ramsey Lewis, to Jimmy Bell, a performance borrowed from obscure bluesman William “Cat-Iron”
“SMOKE”
“this works on whatever level you want to take it on”
Independent
This release is a five-track acoustic EP that was the result of some live streams the band performed during the lockdown periods over the past couple of years. It includes four self-written tracks and a cover of Elton John’s Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word, unusual choice for a hard rocking blues band but it works well on this release and was at the bequest of fans. Other than this track all the others have been previously released in an electric format on the group’s albums. While this is an acoustic release, the band have lost none of their aggression and moodiness. This is particularly evident on the opening epic track Broken Man which runs for over nine minutes and has a great instrumental interlude with conga and piano dominant, before the heavy guitar strumming
from Matt Long gains extra strength running up to the song’s vocal finale. Another notable song is Better Days which has a very strong Van Morrison influence with standout vocals from Matt, not to be outdone, dad Paul takes the vocals on his more laidback song When BB King Sings The Blues. There are some excellent songs contained on this EP, with Broken Man the clear winner that benefits from the acoustic structure, where the lyrics are prominent and provide the focus of attention. This is my first exposure to the band and I have to say I am mightily impressed; Matt and Paul Long provide the band with good vocal options besides their dexterity on guitar and keyboards, while Adam Pyke and Kev Hickman provide a solid rhythm section, a further acoustic album from the band is a must.
ADRIAN BLACKLEEsort of trademark for Joey and Dave. The harmonies are especially significant in the make-up of the band. The musicianship within the band is so good, that it may not seem like it with the first hearing, especially if you are not familiar with Bros Landreth. Joey is an exceptionally talented guitarist and singer, combine that with great lyrics and you start to realize what this band is all about. You Don’t Know Me, is as soulful a song as you will hear this year, a lovely ballad, albeit a sad tale, but with beautiful harmonies and melodies and such understated playing in the background that is as essential as every other part of the song. This album may not grab you from the very first listen, be patient, and stay with it, for only then will you understand the true genius that these guys possess. Each song is laden full of soulful lyrics and great playing, it’s hard to pick out a particular favourite, maybe that’s the trick, you are not supposed to be able to pick a favourite track, they are all just brilliant. Cast your mind back to the late 70s early 80s, to Hall and Oates. Now think of something a hundred times better and more accomplished, what you have is Bros Landreth. Come Morning is a wonderful album, grab a copy, sit back, relax and let it wash all over you.
STEPHEN HARRISONCarradine. Ray Charles
R’n’B classic I Believe To My Soul’ becomes a West-side Chicago styled blues in Steve’s hands, he tackles Bad Boy, probably drawing from The Jive Bombers’ 1957 hit version, and comes all over quite Elvis-Ly on Such A Night. And then there aren’t many artists who can pull off a real winning streak by closing out an album with an instrumental version of Los Bravos’ 1966 hit Black Is Black, the Appalachian murder ballad Wild Bill Jones, and Big Bill Broonzy’s Willie Mae, all more than convincingly performed, before he winds things up with a great choice, The Ventures’ instrumental Walk Don’t Run. And yes, he manages to make Ferry Cross The Mersey extremely listenable (and instrumental
TULSA TEA
Horton Records
Brad wrote seven of the songs and there is one cover. Brad is on guitar and vocals, The Spirituals add second guitar, keys and a rhythm section and horns support half the tracks. Brad has a warm, lived-in vocal style that works on both rockers and softer styles. Be The Luv opens proceedings, the horns adding a soulful strut to an invitation to behave better to each other. Neutral Ground gets a definite New Orleans feel from the bass sax and trombone arrangement, one of several songs here that discuss how partners make the compromises necessary to get along. Goodbye For Now is an outstanding song, born from the grief of losing a child, as Brad did in 2016, probably the reason for his absence since 2014’s Lucky Dog. The choice
again). It’s Steve Howell and His Equally Mighty Talented Men, I think.
NORMAN DARWENBIRTHDAY CAKE
This is the second album by Bros Landreth following their debut album Let It Lie, released in 2013. The band consists of Joey and Dave Landreth from Winnipeg, Canada. It’s not easy to categorize these guys, there is soul, country, folk, country/ rock, and blues which all go to make up their unique DNA. The album opens with Stay, a laid-back tune that slides delicately like a knife through butter. Soulful ballads with very pleasant harmonies are a
The Cinelli Brothers have smashed it again with a collaborative thirteen track odyssey of blues, soul and rock and roll tunes. Here, lead singer, guitarist Marco and drummer Alessandro, harmonica player Tom Julian Jones and new bass player Stephen Giry mix it with the cream of British blues musicians. This is an extraordinarily brilliant collection. Opener, Make You Mine includes Connor Selby
of weeping slide guitars accentuates the sorrow of the lyrics, but in the end the song is forward-looking, Brad having the faith that he and his daughter will be reunited. As Hard As I Can has an interesting shift in momentum as the band switches from waltz time to a more upbeat approach in the second verse, followed by a sparkling guitar solo; no surprise that Brad picks the track as his personal favourite of the album. The sole cover is The Iguanas, So Tired, the horns giving the song a sophisticated feel that blends New Orleans and Latin influences. Brad takes a critical look at our current society in Hard Times, expressing his dismay at how ‘facts’ can no longer be trusted in this era of fake news. Brad also rails against the aggression and negativity he sees around him: “Always talking, nobody hears what they’re saying, they got their fists clenched when they Should Be Prayin’”. The horns return for the final number, the sultry love song Turn It Up, another outstanding song with a beautiful arrangement. Briana Wright steps out from her role as backing singer to share the vocals with Brad, adding a soul diva element to the song. Brad writes good songs, well arranged.
JOHN MITCHELL“This is my first exposure to the band and I have to say I am mightily impressed”
“Brad has a warm, livedin vocal style that works on both rockers and softer styles”
WHISKEY PREACHIN’ RECORDS
CATFISHBLUESBAND.CO.UK/SHOP
A powerful collective of top New Jersey musicians assembled to record this eclectic mix of Americana, blues, soul, boogie, gospel and rock ‘n’ roll. Opener, Lightning Struck The Fairgrounds is an exciting big production number featuring Ada Dyer’s soulful vocals as she tells her tale of a scary, sexy, dark-haired temptress backed up by twangy guitar, wailing organ and strong backing vocals. The songs are written by Robert VanKull whose earthy vocals take the lead on title track Everybody Wants The Blues a stomping rocker and then next we relax into a bluesy shuffle on Jenerosty with Rob Paparozzi on slinky vocals and harmonica. Criminal Music is a swampy, atmospheric tale of late-night drunks and fights in West London narrated by VanKull. A jazzy trombone and trumpet flourish introduce the N’Awlins influenced Dressed To Get Naked featuring Ada Dyer telling of a steamy Xmas night in a downtown bar. VanKull sings intimately of
a perilous journey through Indian lands crossing the Rio Bravo on Across The Thorny Country. These are passionate tales of hardship, heartbreak, danger, pain and occasionally redemption. I am reminded of Springsteen, Bob Seger, Tom Waits and Little Steven. There are no big egos allowed here as every note counts. A lonesome fiddle and wailing harmonica light up Crossroads Dancing and then punchy horns and heavy guitar propel the rocking, Terrible Driver. An accordion and pedal steel guitar give Our Lady Of Angles a pleasing Tex-Mex feel. Book Of Kings is a swampy Biblical tale and the album closes with Expert On Grease an Americana tale of hardship and grief. Great ensemble playing, powerful songs and a rollicking good listen.
DAVE DRURYBrighton-based Mudlow have been scaring people around the South Coast for 20 years with their no holds barred stripped back swampy version of Mississippi Hill Country Blues. This is their 4th album and they have honed their skills and authenticity. Opening track, and single, Lower Than Mud shows this perfectly. It starts as if its going to be a jaunty little tune but a few minutes in and Tobias Mudlow’s vocals turn nasty, and the music is pure delta. Red Rock is next, a great rumbling intro with restrained but super effective guitar stabs interspersed with Tobias tale of bad deals. One Bad Turn itself suddenly takes us into a different direction, a slow burner, captivating, sparse but full of interesting musical flurries. Further Down The Road picks the tempo back up, fuzz blues telling of hardship and being put upon. On tracks like this the band show their maturity and restraint which in turn makes the music more menacing and authentic. Three Crows In A Row starts with gentle enough country guitar, Tobias vocal sounding world weary, Waits is an easy comparison, but he has the honesty of Malcolm Holcombe or Tom Ovans (check ‘em out). Clean Slate is next, a mid tempo rock blues number with clever lyrics, which applies throughout the album. Crocodile Man goes a bit Southern, the vocal semi spoken this time to great effect. Again, the guitar solos are restrained to the point of perfection. The Last Rung Down To Hell paints film noir images before finishing up with a distinctive Latin flavour. So Long Lee is an updated version of an old favourite, highlighting the restraint and maturity mentioned earlier. The track now has an all-round bluesier feel. Final track Sundown is acoustic led and blends new country and blues together superbly. The drums and bass of Paul Pascoe (who also produces) and Matt Latcham are
Independent
In many ways, Lilly Martin is very old fashioned, but I say that in a positive way. She grew up in Greenwich Village around the folk clubs and at a young age was hearing folkies such as Dylan or Dave Van Ronk playing, when Ginsberg and Kerouac were holding poetry and beat conventions. But this was also the time when the Blues clubs were cooking and when the soul clubs were at their peak. This album has echoes of all the blues and soul of the sixties and early seventies and Ms Martin herself has a voice that is very well suited to the music of those times. This album was, I am guessing, recorded in Switzerland, and includes eight originals as well as covers of The Eagles Desperado, Shelby Lynne’s Leavin’, Driving Wheel by Roosevelt Sykes and the Beach Boys Soul Searching. There is a jazzy swing to a few of the numbers, with Martin’s deep vocal, with a bit of a New York ‘twang’ to it, really giving it the
whole ‘soul cellar’ vibe. One of my favourite numbers is an original, Battleground Blues, which has a dark and smoky groove to it, her voice almost growling as she despairs at the state of today’s world. Waiting For The Fog To Lift is another smoky Blues while Good Love is a funky little soul number with a very Motown snap to it. The most remarkable number is Desperado, where she has taken the Eagles number into the realms of a club jazz number, you can just see Martin in a smoke-filled bar with just a small backing band, sat at the piano, pleading for her man to come home while he still can. It’s an excellent album, full of good blues and soul and a delightful throwback to a time when songs were the thing.
ANDY SNIPPERflawless throughout helping to create a highly enjoyable ntry Blues.
STEVE YOURGLIVCH
STONY PLAIN
The Hogtown Allstars is a new project that includes five members of the Downchild Blues Band, notably singer/harp player Chuck Jackson who contributes seven of the ten songs here. Chuck describes himself as Mr Lucky on a New Orleans-flavoured opener led by the horns and pianist Tyler Yarema and then lends his gruff tones to the gritty title track that fea-
tures guitarist Teddy Leonard on a tale of wild nights.
Bassist Gary Kendall wrote Real Good Night which rocks along on a wave of organ and horn riffs, the chorus helped by a trio of female backing vocalists, a real earworm of a song! Chuck gets romantic with I Just Think Of You, another catchy number with a lilting chorus and a wistful harp solo while the slower-paced Angel In My Bed has some country-flavoured dobro. In contrast, Subway Casanova casts Chuck as a lothario who has a girl in every port, aided by dirty slide work and honky-tonk piano, yet Chuck may have finally realised that such a life is not sustainable long-term and that consequently he risks remaining The Sad One,
“BOUND FOR BETTER DAYS”
“Great ensemble playing powerful songs and a rollicking good listen”
“an excellent album, full of good blues and soul”
Alligator Records
If ever an album was recorded that summed up a blues artist’s whole life, then this is certainly it. Mississippi Son is everything that you need in a blues album. Charlie has recently moved back to Clarksdale, Mississippi after many years in California. Recording this album he drafted in Ricky “ Quicksand” Martin on drums and Barry Bays on acoustic standup bass. Blues Up The River is the opening track, it gives you the feel of the delta from the off. The mighty Mississippi is the lifeblood of the region and the heart of the delta. Charlie plays acoustic and electric guitar on this album as opposed to just singing and blowing the harp, which I might add, he does with aplomb. The laid-back easiness of the album resonates with Charlie’s own reminisces about living in Clarksdale many years ago. You get the feeling that this is a hugely personal album, one that relates to a time many moons ago, but still remains just as important as a cultural center. Hobo Blues sums this up perfectly, telling a tale that most blues artists of the early 20th century would testify to. In Your Darkest Hour, for me captures
played to a strolling rhythm featuring Pat Carey’s bari sax. The final original is Biscuits And Beans, a song that reflects life on the road: “too much smoke and too many pills”, plus that bad diet of the title! It’s a stripped-back Delta blues, just acoustic guitar and harp. Two covers close the album: fellow Canadian Big Dave McLean’s She’s Got The Stuff brings back the full band with tough guitar from Teddy before a joyous romp with a great chorus and fine tenor solo called I Ain’t Lyin’ closes proceedings with a bang. Oh yes, for those wondering about the band’s name, Hogtown is the nickname of Toronto where the album was recorded. With sax and trumpet prominently featured, this is an album that will appeal to fans of horn-driven big bands like Roomful Of Blues and gets a strong thumbs up from this reviewer!
JOHN MITCHELLwith that Southern swagger, even honky tonk piano tones, a great rendition. Little Milton’s Ain’t No Big Deal On You features piercing lead guitar and exhibits the band’s full potential, a true highlight. Final track is an original; Change Is Coming. A positive hopeful
tune beautifully written by Sass with understated percussion that owes a lot to the Delta blues genre, special mention to harmonica player, Steve Mariner. A heady mixture of blues driven tunes, good for the soul. Highly recommended.
COLIN CAMPBELL
the essence of the blues so well, that so many people can relate to this when listening to blues. Remembering Big Joe is a short acoustic piece that pays homage to Big Joe Williams, and to make it even better, Charlie plays the guitar that used to belong to the man himself on this track, and also on a couple of others. Crawling King Snake is one of the most covered and renowned tracks in blues history. I have rarely heard this tune have more feeling than here. A superb rendition. Drifting From Town To Town can apply to almost every blues player in America. Train rides, playing juke joints, and wherever I lay my hat seems an appropriate term in summing up this tune. The album concludes with A Voice Foretold, a brilliant end to what is a monumental blues album. Charlie Musselwhite has told the story of the delta, I doubt anyone could tell it better.
STONY PLAIN RECORDS
With vocals that are gritty, punchy, and melodic, Canadian singer songwriter Sass Jordan’s new release is lyrically orientated and quite a mix of blues. roots and altogether a joyous uplifting offering. Comprising of eight songs with three originals this has a natural flow and vibe to it. Still Alive And Well, the Rick Derringer song is the opener with Hammond organ play by Jesse O’Brien preluding Sass’s rocky vocals, this explodes into a guitar driven tune also, featuring Chris Caddell and Jimmy Reid. Another cover, Chevrolet has some delta blues fingerprint, slide guitar, great harmonica ad well delivered gutsy vocals. The original tune; Even has a blues club vibe very raw, enjoyable, and upbeat. Still The World Goes Round has a country blues feel, some great slide playing and a lo fi sound. You Gotta Move is reinterpreted with great style and given a stripped back feel, Sass’s vocals very relaxed here, good harmonies also. Little Feat’s Sailin’ Shoes has a lived-in feel
Ruf Records
Dana Fuchs new release is an eclectic mix of styles and genres rooted in Southern Rock style. Here on these twelve well-crafted songs, it is all about the velvety vocal tones of this most extraordinary singer and her great band. It’s a homage to her hometown of Wildwood in Florida where she grew up and her musical influences, there’s something for any music lover on this one. The opener, Blue Mist Road opens quietly with dulcet tones matching ethereal guitar backing, then at the bridge just sets off a pace with guitar solo matching a catchy backbeat, shades of Steve Earl on
this one. Borrowed Time is anthemic, Dana delivers this with a punchy vocal, and acoustic rootsy take a crowd pleaser, the chorus is infectious. Call My Name slows the pace on this honest ballad. Curtain Close, takes a more mellow tone a great rhythm section brings this together then there is a superb guitar solo, full of different layers. Bobby Harlow Producer has caught the essence of Dana’s live shows out them in a box and taken them to the studio. No more so than on the rocky deliveries to Double Down On Wrong and Hard Road definite power-driven tunes, highlights. Last To Know, sees Dana delivering nasty blues lyrics to a brilliant backbeat. Her raw vocals are no better than on the rootsy Lonely Lie. Final track, Star epitomizes what makes a good song great, sliding guitar, sultry vocals, this release packs a punch, highly recommended.
COLIN CAMPBELL“BLOOD, DEATH & TEQUILA”
“Charlie Musselwhite has told the story of the delta, I doubt anyone could tell it better”
“this release packs a punch, highly recommended”
STEPHEN HARRISON
NATHANPOPEMUSIC.COM
Mascot/Provogue
Following the enormous success of Ordinary Madness, released in 2020, Walter Trout is back with a brand new album, Ride. 12 original tracks from one of the blues, and blues/rock giants. Ghost opens the album with typical Walter Trout screaming guitar and vocals. Although he is now 71 years old, the voice and playing have not diminished one iota. The guitar work is as heavy and rocking as I can remember on a Walter Trout tune. As well as being a typical sounding Walter album, and I don’t mean just run of the mill, far from it, this is what we have come to expect from Walter Trout. Playing as if his life depends on it, wearing his heart on his sleeve, this is what we consider the norm. The title track, Ride, starts with the harmonica bursting through like a freight train, this is the very essence of the song. For many years the harmonica and blues music have become very comfortable bedfellows, it’s in the DNA of blues music. Ride perpetuates this all through the song, a wonderful tale of travel and adventure. This new album is not just about Walter playing blues and blues/rock, this is a very personal album.
Sadly, no information accompanied my copy of this album, but the Internet is your friend, and I find an album review from a previous offering from Mr Cain published in these very pages. My colleague pronounced himself seriously impressed with Mr Cain’s guitar work, something with which I am happy to agree. Gary Cain is an excellent guitarist and bass player and knows his way around a drum programme. Mastering various musical styles is something of a two-edged sword in my experience. On the one hand versatility is always to be appreciated, and the change in style between the funk-rock of Gatekeeper, and four-on-the-floor Top-esque Crazy is as considerable as you could want. But on the other hand, the difficulty is, it can prevent an artist from achieving a recognisable style that fans can identify. I am firmly in the former camp personally, the more variety and invention a musician can bring to the speakers, the better I like it, but I fear that most blues purists may well find that this change in musical approach to be something they are not comfortable embracing. That’s their loss,
Delmark Records
Bear with me for a minute. If I was a youngster looking to find out what the blues is in the 21st century (ah, I was once, honest) and someone from Blues Matters gave me this album, I’d take out a subscription to the magazine and start my collection this way. This is meat, gravy and two veg Chicago 2022 style. Twelve rolling, punchy tracks, thirteen seasoned musicians led by Dave Weld, a man who learned his craft alongside stalwarts like J. B. Hutto. Teamed with Monica Myhre and backed by some superb players such as Sax Gordon, Rogers Randle Jr., Kenny Anderson, Bill McFarland and Billy Branch on harp, what you have here is some truly uplifting Chicago music recorded in the city’s Joy Ride Studio. As well as Dave Weld’s own substantial vocals, the opening track
The Fertile Soil, has an almost Eagles/ Allman Brothers feel to it, ain’t nothing wrong with that, the song tells a story of hope and perhaps longing. The title might also touch on the musical side of the earth, the richness of certain parts of the deep south that has musical tales coming up from the roots. A softer more gentle tune, but still a wonderful storyline. I Worry To Much is a straight, dyed in the wool blues song. The title covers what every blues musician and enthusiast has felt at least once in their life. Leave It All Behind is my favourite tune on the album. A real rocking, boogie 12-bar thrash that I sincerely hope is included in upcoming live shows. It will take the roof off. The album concludes with a love song that I suspect was written with his wife Marie in mind. This is a fabulous album. Walter Trout delivers yet again.
STEPHEN HARRISON
Mary Who is a sheer storytelling delight, you also get Monica Myhre’s strident vocals on eight of these songs. Some of the guitar playing is exhilarating, for example on Travelling Woman and Red-Hot Tabasco, and overall, the brass arrangements will keep you on your feet. Track 8, J. B. Hutto’s 1953 outing, Now She’s Gone, is like a manual of Chicago Blues style, with the bold, back-straightening open lines ‘Woke up This Morning’ setting the room alight. The blues is alive and well in this sheer tour de force from the windy city, when you hear that wild guitar solo in Travelling Woman, you’re in the eye of a blues hurricane.
ROY BAINTON“WAITING THERE FOR ME”
“you’re in the eye of a blues hurricane”
“This is a fabulous album. Walter Trout delivers yet again”
Alligator Records
Done Come Too Far is the 8th album that Shemekia has released on the Alligator label. During that time she has become one of Blue’s most distinguished artists. Her vocal power is phenomenal, as is her approach to her work. The album kicks off with, Too Far To Be Gone a fiery hard-hitting number that sees Sonny Landreth join the proceedings on slide guitar. Having a musician of his standing on any album shows that whoever is recording the album is worthy of his talents. Most of the songs are written by guitarist and producer, Will Kimbrough. Not just content with producing fine blues albums, Shemekia is not afraid to tackle injustice wherever it rears its ugly head. Whether it be racial tensions, mass shootings, or child abuse, she meets everything head-on with grace and style. No subject is taboo, the songs tell the stories few of us would ever come to terms with. Gullah Geechee is a gospel/blues tune that highlights some of the topics I’ve mentioned. The gospel side of the song reaches out as if it were being performed in a church in the deep south. A brilliant tune, but with meaningful and heart-wrenching themes. I have long been a fan of
this is an excellent collection of songs with witty and carefully considered lyrical content and musical dexterity that is never less than very much at the top end. The humorous Kitchen Sink doubtless refers to the ‘everything but the …’ idea, and in terms of notes you can get out of a guitar, it’s entirely accurate it must be said. There is a nice contrast with Gone, which is almost jazzy in its tone, proof again that Gary Cain’s musical imagination is entirely equal to his prodigious talent as a guitar player. The final track, A Short Furious Goodbye is not furious as such, it is a blistering guitar work-out though, certainly up there with anything players like Joe Bonamassa can turn out. It does suggest that Gary Cain deserves a major label deal, and a serious support slot sooner rather than later, so that his hitherto low-key talent can receive the exposure it richly deserves.
ANDY HUGHES
SO FAR Vizztone
Shemekia and her work and this album has to be ranked as amongst her best to date. The musicians that are on the album are so good and so wrapped up with where she wants the album to travel. Fried Catfish And Blues, is a country tune that tells of her life as she remembers it growing up. A detailed account of everyday living told in a lighthearted way that puts a smile on one’s face. The final track, Nobody But You is a straight 12-bar blues cracker. Shemekia, the daughter of legendary blues artist Johnny Copeland hits the bullseye smack in the middle with this tune. What a way to finish such a graceful and heavenly album. I’ve not had the privilege of seeing her perform live as of yet, I hope that changes very quickly.
Oh I like this album a lot. It really is right up my street. Good solid blues, mixing various styles old and new. Recorded, as the title suggests, in live action down in Ruskin Florida this is clearly a band who have honed their collective chops playing together in countless gigs for decades. Consisting of drums, Eric Elsner, bass Andrew Lack, Hammond and various keyboards Kevin Wilder and fronted by Charlie on guitar and lead vocals. So things kick of with a fine walking shuffle Can’t Get Away From The Blues before a groovy Can’t Help Myself and into a very long slow super tasty Love Her With A Feeling. Superb solo’s from Kevin and Charlie on this one. Weighing at a hefty nine minutes It could have been double and I would still have been relishing every well-placed note. Nothing grandstanding at all, just the sort of deeply soulful blues that I love. Back to a more dancing
Two legendary blues artists get together and decide to make an album and bring along a good friend to join in on a couple of tunes, Jimmy Vivino no less. Seven of the tunes are penned by Margolin himself, with the others being written by blues artists from years gone by. Steady Rollin’ On opens the album nice and gently, in fact, the whole album is gentle and simple, with an acoustic guitar and a harmonica. You don’t need anything else to make a great blues album. It Makes No Difference, written by Robbie Robertson, is given a dark, slower treatment than the version that The Band played. I think the last time that I heard this song was a while ago when I watched The Last Waltz DVD BY The Band. Now Memphis Minnie wrote some fabulous songs in her time and one of them, Broken Heart is on
this album. Bob M and Bob C have certainly chosen other people’s songs very carefully to suit their own individual talents. What this album shows quite clearly is that you don’t always need bells and whistles, or hi-tech production to make a great album. What you need is raw talent, a knowledge of what blues music is all about, and also, the ability to choose the right songs, whether they be yours or from another artist. Luckily, Bob Margolin and Bob Corritore have all these attributes within their soul. An acoustic album such as this needs to be simple, laid-back easy listening, So Far is all that and then some. Red Hot Kisses was written by Lillian McMurry, born in 1921 she became very influential in the development of blues music, working closely with Sonny Boy Williamson II and discovering Elmore James. She discovered blues music through her neigbours mostly people of black origin and spent the rest of her life helping to promote blues music. So this is more than just a blues album, it’s also a history lesson.
STEPHEN HARRISON“this is more than just a blues album, it’s also a history lesson”
STEPHEN HARRISON
“A detailed account of everyday living told in a lighthearted way”
Independent
The power blues band Edgar Blues Trio set their stall out early on The Next Step. The SRV-like guitar licks and rhythms that pepper Murph Blues make it a rollicking opener. The stinging guitar of Edgar Garcia, who also writes the material is easily matched by Rua on Bass Guitar and Aritza Castro on drums. Cold Hands has a rocking open string riff, and some fine singing and Rude Girl has wah-wah throughout, taking the song in a slightly more psychedelic direction, the Hendrix influence also being obvious in the stop-start rhythms and the solo. Your Man is the type of rock song that Bad Company built their reputation on, and What We Both Want is drenched in distorted slide guitar, with plenty of low riffs and a solo that shows the influence of Robert Johnson. The influence of Johnson is also evident in their cover of Come on in My Kitchen, an opening with solo slide guitar shows the influence of Ry Cooder,
groove with My Baby Don’t Cook but someone sure does as they then invite us via Y’all Come Over For Dinner with deep fried gator tail, grilled grouper and stone crab on the menu. A delicious gumbo of groove morphs into a cover of Ray Charles’s It Should Have Been Me complete with three part harmonies. So it continues with foot tapping songs throughout including a bit of time travel when a Mama Told Me Not To Come (Three Dog Night sound alike) called here The Farm shows up. Ten originals and four covers are your reward should you decide to invest in this fine collection. It doesn’t matter that you weren’t present at The Firehouse on the night, just kick your shoes off and bop around your living room.
GRAEME SCOTT
Texan blues scene stalwart Delbert McClinton, now the other side of 80, revisits the sounds and styles of his 1950s youth on this engaging new album. It’s not all blues; the teenage Del Boy was obviously into honky tonk country and rock & roll as well. But like most blues fans, I’m happy enough with occasional side orders of those genres. You get 16 tracks for your money on this CD, of which 11 are covers and five are newly written specially to sound old. You presumably have numerous versions of Stagger Lee, One Scotch One Bourbon One Beer, Ain’t That Lovin’ You, I Ain’t Got You, Jambalaya, Move It On Over and Long Tall Sally, to name just
before the drums and bass join the party. The only other cover on The Next Step is The Thrill is Gone, here delivered in a minimalist minor chord treatment, much removed for the most part, from versions that we have all heard played by countless blues bands in pubs. The album closer Trying to Resist is perhaps one of the highlights of the album. It is a slower song than most of the rest of the album, but tells a story, with a musical treatment that puts mood and performance above pure technical brilliance. Although we have heard the basic ideas before, and more instruments such as a keyboard or a second guitarist, or different singers would have added more musical interest, The Next Step is a good example of blues-based power-trio playing and shows plenty of scope for development in later releases.
BEN MACNAIRThe Odd Birds are a California based duo of Jennifer Moraca (vocals, 6 string acoustic, electric guitar, Nashville guitar) and Ron Grigsby (vocals, 6 string acoustic, electric guitar, 12 string acoustic, baritone guitar, bass guitar, nylon string guitar). Tremolo Heart is their latest album and was recorded at Wandering Star Studios, Anaheim, California with Bobbo Bones on Producer duties. Opener Alright Now is an original composition and not the hit single by the band Free. Grigsby’s voice at times has a Neil Young-esque delivery whilst Matt Froehlich’s drums roll on. The calming violin intro by Georgina Hennessy on Another One Like You is gorgeous and complements Moraca’s lead vocal. Then we hear their take on the classic Jimmy Webb penned song Wichita Lineman. The delivery is pleasant enough but they seem to have not put their own stamp on the version imho. The storyteller style on Better At War has that similar feeling of anger that can be heard on CSNY’s Ohio. Closing track, The Water’s Edge is an entertaining number with lovely
some of the songs, already. And ultimately, a 12 bar is a 12 bar, however you wanna slice it. But that’s not the point. These great classic songs are the hymns of our religion, and McClinton delivers them with verve, drive, and a vocal inflection that veers on the pleasingly world-weary. The vibe could not be further away from small time cover band. Of the new stuff, Two Step Too and Money Honey could both be long-lost Hank Williams outtakes, complete with pedal steel and fiddle parts guaranteed to make everybody holler ‘Yee haw!’ As the hostess at Bob’s Country Bunker might have told Jake and Elwood, it’s great to hear a disc that celebrates both kinds of music.
DAVID OSLERvocal harmonies. Emotive Americana rather than blues, skilfully played.
GLENN SARGEANTGULF COAST RECORDS
The album title says it all on this stunning new release from Kat Riggins. She alludes to acknowledging her heritage and being a descendant in touch with her soulful blues roots garnered from being from a close family; this is a very honest and uplifting set of songs. Mike Zito assembled a band including himself on lead guitar, rhythm section of Doug Byrkit on bass, and Lewis Stephens on keyboards. It is Kat’s vocal delivery that is the main instrument here, singing anything from soul ballads to funky upbeat rocking blues, always full of emotion and power. So many highlights on this musical journey, thirteen solid songs. Walk
On is a blasting opener making a statement about her time is now, bold and empowering this seem the theme throughout Sinkin Low is a reflective tune about survival, soulful and visceral lyrics. Espresso brings funk to the tempo. Got To Be God brings a soulful spiritual tone, spine tingling, tone, and melody superb. In My Blood and Warriors are outstanding tracks dealing with unity of people and are immensely powerful tunes. Walk With Me Lord is sung acapella and is outstanding. Promised Land mixes some Voodoo Child chords and lyrics but then she twists the song to another level, dark and menacing tune. My City has Albert Castiglia guesting on her homage to Miami, there is even a rap interlude here from Busta Free, high-energy song. Raw passion, wonderful band, fantastic vocals, this is a masterpiece.
COLIN CAMPBELL”
“These great classic songs are the hymns of our religion”
“The Next Step is a good example of blues-based power-trio playing”
Independent
Nathan Pope is a young guitarist from North Carolina, and this is his debut release. He wrote twelve of the thirteen tracks that are based in the rocky side of the blues. There are influences aplenty on these tracks, Eric Johnson, Joe Bonamassa and Kenny Wayne Shepherd he cites, but puts his own twist to his interpretations, for a younger generation of music listeners. Alive, sets the tone where he is joined by Kenny Aronoff on drums and James LoMenzo on bass, just turn this up to eleven and enjoy the different tones and rhythms. Ain’t Worth Fighting For I another hard-hitting tune with melodic lyrics and intricate guitar playing. Waiting There For Me slows the tempo with some mellow vocals, percussion from Bogie
you who’s in charge here, then Two Shakes Of A Lambs Tail where Jason blows that sexy sax from his boots! Everything stands out on this album, Jim’s voice, guitar, saxophone, the bass and sticks, not one song has disappointed me, eleven great tracks that I will listen to again and again, I will be searching these boys out, I will try to see them live because hand on heart, I’d say they’ll be great.
BARRY BLUESBARN HOPWOODthrough the air as a bunch of scruffy long-haired chancers pump out their heroes’ sounds through their primitive amplification. Next is the seminally grungy sound of Who Do You Love? Once again hammered out by a group of fanatics who those close enough to see, have the light of pure enthusiasm and embrace shining in their red-rimmed eyes. Disillusionment caused by the absence of management, record company interest, and the slow decline of the R ‘N’ B scene meant that the Betterdays never did manage to get that break which could have easily seen them make their
SELF-TITLED
Bowles keeps a pounding rhythm, a classy tune. Doom starts with a loud bell and mean bassline, a song that builds up to a crescendo of amazing dexterous guitar playing by Nathan. Another heavy track is My Journey, featuring Dave Wilbur. Next tune is a hypnotic instrumental breaking the heavy tones as interlude. Then, Beautiful Cruel World with acoustic undertone hits a pace like a lightning rod, many layers to this. After another high-powered instrumental, time for the tune, The One which is a heady mix of styles, anthemic. His interpretation of Blue On Black again shows what a talented guitarist he is, the sonic tones are incredible. Last tune, Krypto’s Lullaby is a heady instrumental soft and mellow, great closing track. A guitarist on the rise highly recommended.
BLIND RACOON
Straight into a wailing gritty voice that grabs me from the off! First track, The Things That I Used To Do, is a fantastic opening to this album made by this Toronto based quartet. With Jim DD Stefanuk on guitar and vocals, Dwayne Lau on bass, Shawn Royal on sticks and Jason Sewerynek on sensational sax, Jim’s guitar and Jason’s sax are the perfect match for this very impressive song, a mixture of all the things I love, soul, blues, rock and roll. As I take a deep breath to what’s coming, they hit me with an up-tempo slice on Weep Wor Me, which has me tapping anything within reach and I’m already looking forward to the next tracks, this is as pure as I
love, old school sounding with modern production. By the third song and album title track Real Blues, you realise the intensity that Jim plays with, which has a distinctive vintage sound but there’s nothing old about any of it. As I take another deep breath, believe me you’ll need it, we go straight into Two Timing Woman that will make your legs dance around any floor, this is what you want from any music, an emotional response, one that gets your blood pumping and this is one of those great albums that’s like a roller-coaster, up and down, twisting and turning, one second going at lightning speed then slowing down to catch the breeze. The guitar, sax, drums and bass are sitting all together in one carriage in perfect harmony with a sublime guitar track on the fifth song, Doctor reminds
The Betterdays are a band that got away. A combination of geographical constraints, the band’s location in Plymouth, coupled with the absence of a decent motorway system, meant that the London hotbed audiences of R’ N’ B in the early sixties that would have fondly and seriously embraced their textbook Stones/Yardbirds racket rarely heard them strut their wonderfully nasty grungy R ‘N’ B sounds, which is their sad loss. It meant that the world never got to hear the wonderful selection of cuts brought together on this definitive collection. From the off, Don’t Want That, and through to the delightfully Jagger-esque vocals on Cracking Up, this album showcases the wonderfully tight and instinctive grasp of the form that The Betterdays honed over endless touring, flogging around tiny clubs and village halls around the UK, having been found unwelcome in their home town venues.
The further on the album goes, the more of its gems of British R ‘N’ B interpretations of American blues standards from John Lee Hooker, Chuck Berry, and others, are revealed. Hooker’s standard Dimples is a live club recording from 1964, and its authenticity means you can almost see the fug of condensation and cigarette smoke drifting
make along with The Pretty Things’, The Stones, and the rest of the ground-breaking ever influencing groups of that torrid time. There is no doubt they had everything they needed, peerless musicianship, enthusiasm, work ethic, and a biblical adoration of Rhythm And Blues music. A missed gem, unearthed at last. Catch up, now.
ANDY HUGHESQuatro Valley Records
When I first received a copy of this album I wasn’t sure what to expect. I’ve been fortunate enough to see Deborah Bonham perform a few years ago, but I hadn’t heard any albums fully. To say that this album hit me like a ton of bricks from the opening track is an understatement of gigantic proportions. See You Again opens the album with silky smooth vocals from Deborah and a lovely laid-back acoustic guitar courtesy of Peter Bluuick. Now, this is an album of covers, largely unknown covers in many respects, and that is one of the most appealing things about the album. I’m sure that Bonham and Bullick will put out an album of original material soon, but for now, I’m too much in love with this album that I really don’t care at the moment. Can’t You See What You’re Doing To Me (Albert King) is simply wonderful. So bluesy and soulful, Deborah Bonham delivers the song in a way that Albert King would appreciate. What makes it so good is the female take on the vocals, so refreshing and so meaningful. Peter Bullick along with the rest of the band play their part in making this song touch you in such a way that the blues engulfs you wholeheartedly. The album is based firmly in the blues, every track oozes blues from its pores, it is nothing short of
magnificent. The combination of Bonham and Bullick and the rest of the ensemble have produced a possible contender for album of the year. What Did I Do Wrong, highlights the brilliance of the production of the album, Deborah Bonham not only sings, but she also produced the album. All in all this album of obscure and unknown covers will leave you wanting more of this duo. I’m pretty damn sure that their next album will be just as good if it’s an album of original material. But for now, allow yourself to be serenaded with unknown blues tunes performed so well by messers Bonham and Bulick. Just buy the damn album.
STEPHEN HARRISON
“allow yourself to be serenaded with unknown blues tunes”
COLIN CAMPBELL
“A guitarist on the rise highly recommended”
Mascot Records
This is the bands third album and with the integration of the UKs Kris Barras into the line up there is now a band feel to everything even though there is still an impressive number of world class guests on display. Opening track Money starts with a snarling riff but once the lyric kicks in its clear that the subject matter is going to be darker than the peace and love message of its predecessors. Whoa give me my money demands Kris. Too Late is next, excellent with its Texas-style guitar opening. Coming Thru is one of a few songs on the album that touch upon the problems that musicians across the globe have faced and are only just getting through. The British hard blues edge that Kris brings shows up on this and permeates across several tracks. Young gun King Solomon Hicks guests on You And Me, a song about resistance to adversity. His guitar and vocal taking it to soaring heights. I love the slightly menacing bluesy intro to this too. Josh Smith steps up on Get It Done, another song of defiance, get it done, do it now no matter how. I’m a big fan of slide master Sonny Landreth and he doesn’t disappoint on the haunting 8 Ball Lucy.
Kris controls the vocal delivery on this swampy song about the devilish temptress perfectly to compliment Sonny. Devil At The Doorstep is an 8 minute tour de force featuring the incomparable Eric Gales. It starts off gently enough, at the mid-point it fades away only for Eric to pick it up and drive it home with some sublime soloing. Is It All follows and is the most soulful track here, Joe Louis Walker beautifully crafting a guitar motif throughout, and sharing heartfelt vocals with Kris. It has a real 60s West Coast vibe going on. It’s followed by an out and out rocker, Do It Again featuring Ana Popovic on guitar showing she can shred with the best. More soulful blues arrive in the company of Kirk Fletcher and I Will Let Go complete with gospely backing vocals, when Kirk solos its easy to see why he stands shoulder to shoulder with the worlds best guitarists. The title track is saved almost to the end, Voodoo Nation is another long opus of a song, from the onset showing the genius of the bands heartbeat, Fabrizio Grosso and Kenny Arontoff, effortlessly blending funky soul, rock and blues into a musical gumbo to be enveloped by. It takes its time, it percolates to it tasty conclusion mixing in keys and BVs along the way. All Our Love closes this great album, a superb rootsy song inspired by Fabrizio’s personal experiences during the huge forest fires in California in 2020. Blackberry Smokes Charlie Starr is the perfect guy for this. In my opinion this is the most complete album yet by the band and I can see this incarnation going onto bigger and better things moving forwards.
Greenwich Rhode Island and produced by Duke Robillard. It features two duets: one with Larry McCray, on Brothers From Another Mother, a long-term friend and collaborator. The other is with Rhode Island’s Sugar Ray Norcia, who plays harmonica on the Dire Straits reinterpretation Money For Nothing. Opening with Bob Dylan’s Walk Out In The Rain, this features heavily his raspy guttural vocals, and sublime guitar tones. The horn section raises the original, Get Outta My Way a great groove. Tangled Up In Thought is a slow tempo tune, an emotional tune about life’s reflections, Bruce Bears on Hammond organ driving the backing, highlight tune. House Rules has a Chicago blues vibe, a song dedicated to his partner. Medication Time is a slowly developed song about his interpretation of his time in Hospital, very intense vocals raw and powerful. Tempo change to God Loves A Loser, a rocky blues infused tune about redemption. Silhouettes slows pace on this tune about suicide. Stand Your Ground is a celebratory tune, New Orleans vibe, brass section, lyrics are visceral though. Bruce Springsteen’s Red Headed Woman is given a rockabilly take up-tempo tune. Final track, I Don’t Need To Know Your Name is a slow blues ballad, Larry McCray on backing vocals ends this masterpiece of a song. Emotive, raw, empathic, an album full of the human condition.
COLIN CAMPBELL
CALI BEE MUSIC
Brad Wilson is a charismatic guitarist, songwriter and performer who has built a solid reputation for himself. This latest album kicks off with Ballad Of John Lee, a super tribute to Mr Hooker that replicates the boogie rhythms of the legend with some howh-howhs thrown in for good measure. It’s a rollicking good intro and highlights the classy tone of Brad’s work. Next up is a lesser known Muddy track, Walkin’ Thru The Park, giv-
en super Wilson treatment with shattering fretwork that reminded me a little of Albert Collins. Rock Me Baby, the classic BB King number is next. This well covered track sounds fresh and vibrant in Brads hands which is testament to his crisp playing and the respect he shows. The covers continue first with SRV track House Is Rockin’. This one is closer to the original and one can imagine it being a live favourite. Time for some Freddie King, Someday After Awhile it is, executed to perfection. It’s not all covers though and You’re The One For Me is next. It sounds right at home alongside the classics it follows, a good time open road feel, this has blues radio play all over it. Another original, All Kinds Of A Fool is a classic blues tale of regret and recrimination delivered with aplomb, the vocal and guitar equally displaying aching and anger. Then we get treated to an eight minute plus live version of I Can’t Quit You Baby. It starts off at a slowish tempo, by the mid-point things are hotting up with Brad squeezing out super high notes but with masterful control. Another Brad written track Hang With A Bang follows, it has a warm tropical evening with cocktails feel to it complete with congas. Tales Of Brave Ulysses is an unexpected choice and a hard track to cover. Brad doesn’t stick too rigidly to the original adding his own phrasing and vocal style. It works well and is enjoyable enough but lacks the oomph of Cream. We finish with Drivin’ and it is what it says, a rolling driving song about heading to the show. Brad Wilson is a gifted player, and this is a thoroughly enjoyable blues record that ticks lots of boxes.
STEVE YOURGLIVCH
EXILE MUSIC
Is there such a thing as a typical Van Morrison album? Well, yes and no. Yes, if you think of his writing and singing, and production of the many
albums he has recorded, but no, if you think that they are all the same old Van. Over the years, Van Morrison has written so many fine songs, and the collection of material here is as good as anything he has ever done. Dangerous opens the album in fine style. Silky vocals as you would come to expect, musically, top drawer, lyrically, hard-hitting and biting. That’s the beauty of what he does, tells it like it is. In today’s world, there are so many topics to cover, Van Morrison covers the important issues head-on. You would be wrong if you thought that this was a full-blown rant of an album, it’s a collection of songs with magnificent harmonies and musical greatness, with lyrics that make you think. Covering topical issues has been done before, but this is something different. The title track is self-explanatory, a wake-up call to everyone, using music as its weapon. Musically, Van Morrison has produced another stunning album, lyrically, he has pricked the conscience of many people, myself included. Clever use of words and music has long been the backbone of Van’s work, this album shows that he has not lost anything in those respects. Money From America is such a thought-provoking song with Van’s vocals tearing into the very soul of the song. I doubt that I’ve ever heard him sing with such meaning. As well as singing and writing, Van Morrison is one of the most adept musicians around. Electric guitar, harmonica, piano, saxophone, he has them all in his locker. A consummate performer with vocals to die for, and a writing knowledge few can match.
Fear And Self-Loathing is one of the best songs Van Morrison has ever written. Soul/funk, brilliant saxophone, and vocals as sweet as honey, this song is Magnifique. The whole album is a treasure, unearth it, you’ll be very glad that you did.
STEPHEN HARRISONSTEVE YOURGLIVCH
“effortlessly blending funky soul, rock and blues into a musical gumbo”
Multi-instrumentalist Dave has been a fixture on the UK circuit (and overseas) for many years and anyone who has seen him play will testify that he always puts everything into his shows whatever type of music he is performing. He has now teamed up with experienced drummer Lucy Piper who has played on a Ruf Records Blues Caravan tour, with Junkyard Angels and in various Mississippi juke joints. For this project the duo has recorded eleven of Dave’s original songs opening with Nothing But Trouble a heartfelt plea for better times with Dave on anguished vocals and acoustic guitar and Lucy providing a sturdy backdrop on drums. Very apt for these strange days we live in. The pace picks up for the sprightly, questioning, What Am I Supposed To Do? and the raw energy, enthusiasm and attack is all there, and Dave’s naturally percussive guitar style allied to Lucy’s clattering hill country style drums makes an exciting sound. A Sensitive Reaction is a more relaxed, thoughtful and folky affair, but Anyway I Love You is an uplifting, joyous romp with a pretty melody and toe-tapping beat. I am struggling to a find a tag for this music but given Dave’s Dorset home and Lucy’s Devon base maybe West Country Blues will fit the bill. The eerie, almost swampy, Depths Of Your Machinations is an atmospheric slow blues with Dave hollering “you ain’t gonna break up my home”. A change of style comes with Somebody Please a pretty ballad featuring brushed drums and Dave’s crooned vocals and slide guitar. The eternal problem of financial worries is addressed in the caustic Money Money Money with Lucy getting a brief drum solo. The album closes with Dave strumming furiously and Lucy clattering loudly on Don’t Stop Now a rowdy plea to carry on the party. Amen to that! A very enjoyable and promising outing from this pair and I look forward to more. Catch them at a gig.
DAVE DRURYA huge thanks from the team at Blues Matters for reading this issue of our magazine. We are a small group of blues fans doing what we can to keep the blues alive and your support means the world to us!
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Bad Luck Friday’s debut album, released 2nd September 2022, is a blend of hard rock riffs & blues-infused melodies, big choruses and facemelting harmonica solos that owe just as much to Slash or Angus Young as they to do Sonny Boy Williamson or Little Walter.
