Barrett Anderson Band

The Barrett Anderson Band

The Barrett Anderson Band Is Ready to HypnoBoogie You on New Live CD

By Kevin Wildman Barrett Anderson and The Barrett Anderson Band have just released their new album, HypnoBoogie, on Whitaker Blues Records. The new album was recorded live in concert at The Fallout Shelter in Norwood, Massachusetts. HypnoBoogie features the whole set that they performed there that night, 11 power-packed songs featuring 7 original pieces along with 4 classic rock and blues songs that the band really loves to play. This great recording shows just how much energy is packed into a Barrett Anderson Band performance. From the moment the set starts with “Mona” to the last notes of “(Ain’t Nothin’ But A) House Party”, you’ll find yourself in for a great time. There’s no low spots here, just high-energy Blues-Rock with that in-your-face punch to it. The Barrett Anderson Band is Barrett Anderson – vocals and guitar; Charlie Mallet – guitar and vocals; Doug MacLeod – drums; and Jamie “Black Cat Bone” Hatch – bass and vocals.

The cover songs that Barrett and the band handpicked to be on this release are rockers that they almost always include in their nightly performances. These included songs from Bo Diddley (“Mona”), Magic Sam (“Lookin’ Good”), Son House (Grinnin’ In Your Face”), and The J. Geils Band “((Ain’t Nothin’ But A) House Party”. The seven original songs by the band are “Good Man,” “Not Your Baby,” “Emma Lee,” “Blind Faith,” “The Long Fall,” “Broken Down,” and “Gone.”

“We brought it,” Barrett Anderson says of that special night’s recording. “The Barrett Anderson Band delivered. We managed to capture the entire album in front of an audience that night - one take of each song and we played hard. We boogied. We moved. We grooved. We let it all out, and once it’s out, it can’t go back in.”

“We simply did exactly what we had hoped to,” Charlie Mallet chimes in. “We tuned in, closed our eyes, and played our music the only way we know how – with everything we have.” “This is a live band,” Doug MacLeod adds. “We improvise every night, striving for a feel or a spirit while letting the music guide us there. We couldn’t have captured this in a studio. This soul, this energy, this vibe is something we all tune in to when we walk on stage.” “HypnoBoogie is a mix of influences,” Jamie Hatch summarizes. “It’s not blues, although there are blues influences. It’s not rock, although we’ve taken plenty of cues from The Rolling Stones.” When you listen to this album, you are going to be truly amazed. The playing is right on and from the very first notes of “Mona”, the band is all in the same groove together. And why not, this is the same music they perform all the time, the way they always perform it… high energy all the way. We asked Barrett about what made them pick these cover songs in particular and he told us, “We knew going into this that we had basically two hours to capture everything that we wanted to record, so we had to really had to pick and choose our favorite songs. “Mona has been a part of our set list for a number of years now. I think the first version that I heard was that Quicksilver version. My dad was a big John Cipolina fan and so I grew up with a lot of their debut album on in the background during car rides. Now with “Mona” in particular, we started introducing it at the end of our shows as the closer for the first set, and I just figured, ‘what could you possibly follow that one up with’. Before our gig, Jamie, the bass player said to me, ‘what would happen if we reversed the set list with the last song first and the first song last?’ I said, let’s find out and so we did, we turned the setlist upside down and man, I really started liking leading with “Mona.” I feel like it sets a great pace for the for the rest of the night.” Son House song, “Grinning In My Face.” This is a song that Barrett started playing solo with an acoustic guitar and it gradually evolved into the version that the band performs now. “Son House is one of my absolute heroes. For the last 20 years when people have asked me whom my favorite musicians are, that I answer can very quickly. Son House is always in my top 3. It was the shear force with which he gave everything he did. I felt like Son in the 60s when he was barely coherent and playing kind of out of tune, and was playing really slow that none of that matters. It’s just so powerful. He makes music that makes you feel something and so I’ve always tried to include a couple of Son House songs in every in every show that we play. “Grinning In Your Face” has evolved quite a bit from being a song that I played solo on an acoustic guitar to playing it as a full band. It’s always been a part of the set list and there was no question that we had to include that.”

When picking out cover songs for his gigs, Barrett really has to do some soul searching to pick just the right ones. He still wants to play the blues, but he needs to be true to himself as well. “You know, I have to be careful playing Blues. I’m from a small town in Central Massachusetts and have been predominantly in New England for most of my career. As much as I love James Cotton singing cotton picking Blues songs about being out in the field, that is not honest to me. I feel like at the heart of what we try to do with music, is play music that is honest for us to play and that we can connect with from a very deep place. If we can establish that connection from inside of us, hopefully we can also extend that outward and make music that matters to the other people too. You don’t want it to sound fake. You don’t want to sound, like you’re singing words that couldn’t be yours.” Another song on the album is “Looking Good” by Magic Sam. Barrett has included that song in his set for over 20 years now. It’s definitely another one of his favorites. “I just loved the Westside Blues and Magic Sam. I like to hear people innovating on the form when I listen to the music. When you listen to early Muddy Waters, it seems like he’s not stuck in the genre. He’s playing the music that is natural to him. He’s not setting out to play Blues with a capital B. He’s setting out to play his music for people to have a good time and get down to. It’s so exciting to hear in the 60s that kind of second generation picking up the ball from Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf and Sonny Boy, and then working in some James Brown, working some Junior Parker. And again, just trying to play music that has a real good groove and a good feel to it. I can’t sing like Sam, so we couldn’t do “I Feel So Good,” or any of his kind of ‘boogie tunes’

The Barrett Anderson Band

continued from previous page with vocals, but I’ve been working on covers. And these are songs that that we “Looking Good” for 20-some years now. could fully inhabit.” Back when I was playing with Ronnie Earl and the Broadcasters, that was the song that Besides the cover songs in this set, the Ronnie and I would often have the band drop band has some great originals here. Over the out and Ronnie and I were just going to trade years Barrett’s songs have evolved and licks back and forth and groove on. Then changed with the years. After performing after my time with Ronnie, I joined the those for a number of years, the songs seem to Monster Mike Welch Band and with Mike I grow on their own. They make the transition got one featured song every night and my from studio albums to live songs and they featured song was generally “Looking Good. exude a new feeling about them. “I think one So I’ve been living with that one for a long of the beautiful things about making a live time.” album is it gave us an opportunity to revisit some of the original songs that I had recorded Closing out the set for HypnoBoogie is the J. 13 years ago and capture where they are now, Geils Band’s “(Ain’t Nothin’ But A) House which I think is much more fully realized than Party.” This song pretty much sums up the before. I think that music is not a static thing night after a Barrett Anderson Band show. It’s in these songs. When you go into a studio and been nothing but a full-blown party. The J. you get something on tape, that’s how you Geils version of “House Party” begins with played it that one time and hopefully you that Peter Wolf thing, ‘we are going to blow captured something that you can live with for your face out’. What a what a way to begin a the rest of your life without cringing too song… I grew up in Massachusetts and The J. much, but that’s any music. It does evolve. I Geils Band is one of those acts to be very recorded my first album in 2007 down in proud of. Especially, it felt like a real North Mississippi at Jimbo Mathus’ studio, revelation when a friend of mine put on the called Delta Recording Service. He was a joy live album Full House, and I discovered that to work with. He pulled together a band for they were more than “Centerfold” and “Love me and we recorded for two days and mixed Stinks.” I guess it was that full body rock and for one. Then I drove 1,100 miles back up to roll, giving yourself entirely over to the Massachusetts, but definitely, you know what, music. I mean, there’s no holding back when we captured it in those recordings. There you’re performing this on stage with that were songs like “Gone” and “Broken Down,” energy and that full commitment and two of my originals that we recorded back in everything that you’re doing, it is very 2007 that are on this album. Everything in attractive to me. I just always loved “(Ain’t those songs really have their own kind of Nothin’ But A) House Party” and that was traction in a way. It was a pleasure to be able another one that we started doing. It’s a set to capture them live. You know I mentioned closer and it’s still generally the last song that that I’ve been playing “Looking Good” as a we play at night.” big part of the shows for 20 years.”

“Yeah,” continues Barrett, “those songs Another song off the live album is one were all covers that I felt like we could really of the longest on the live set. He performed fully inhabit and kind of own. If you’re that long ago with a couple of the members of playing a Muddy Waters song exactly like this band from the live album, as he explains. Muddy Waters, chances are people are going “Also, “The Long Fall” is a song about to go and put on the original instead of putting halfway through the album. It’s an original on what you’re doing. I really wanted to and it’s 13 and a half minutes long. We tried make sure that we have our unique stamp on to keep it a bit economical time wise. That everything, whether it’s our original songs or was one of the very first songs that I wrote 28 Rock and Blues International • November 2020

and actually played in a band with almost the same lineup. I wrote it back in the late 90s with my first band that involved Jamie who plays bass with me now and Doug who plays drums with me now. They were both involved back then and I remember coming to them and saying ‘I have this idea, let’s work it through’ and kind of playing it with them back then and it never quite felt right in other scenarios. As this lineup came together, this has been the sturdy lineup for the last seven years now. We were able to reintroduce this song but it is, you know, funny to go in to record a song that you have a long history with. I think in many ways it’s easier to take something new, that you don’t have 20 years of playing it. You know, it’s like ‘I kind of remember that I did it really well… I thought that was a really special night there when this happened or that happened.’ You don’t have that kind of context when we’re recording something that that we had been playing and living with for so long. In some ways it’s like. ‘all right, we have to do this right now. We have to do it the best that we have ever done, because this is going to be the definitive version from here on out.’ We managed to not fake ourselves out and I think we really did the song some justice. I think a big thing with going in and doing this album was that I felt like we had one shot and we had to capture what we could. You don’t want it to get stuck in your head at those times. You don’t want to fake yourself out. I think we just managed to close our eyes and do what we normally do and capture the band as we normally sound.”

For Barrett Anderson and his band, the recording of this album happened in just the nick of time. They recorded this gig on February 1, just before the Covid-19 Pandemic came on strong. Everything just seemed to come into play for the band at the right time. Talk about lucky, this band had it coming in spades. It was also a godsend for Barrett. He wanted so much to do a live album, and now it was done. Only the mixing needed to be taken care of.

“It was thrilling,” says Barrett. “I felt like I’ve been wanting to make a live album since my last album came out in 2012 and all of the little pieces came together in such a beautiful way for this and I just was beside myself. It worked. There was no pretending that it was just a normal gig. The venue that we recorded at is it’s a spot called The Fallout Shelter. Bill Hurley, who used to work for Atlantic Records, runs it. Duane Allman at one point said, ‘you know when you’re on stage, you got to give it a hundred and fifty percent and even that’s not enough and so let’s go up there. Let’s give it a hundred and fifty percent’. When I walked off the stage, I just felt like we had fully delivered on that end”.

Be sure to check out the new live album, HypnoBoogie by The Barrett Anderson Band. It is truly his best album yet and it fully captures all those great moments that you’d experience at one of their concerts, not to mention putting a new spin on his old classics. It’s a great album full of fine songs and some of the most energetic guitar playing you’ve ever heard.