The Blues Blogger

Debut Release Out Now

 

 Box Car Number 9 [2:28m]: Play Now | Play in Popup

One of the best parts of being TheBluesBlogger is the info I receive regarding artists I may not be too familiar with. Some of them are real gems, which brings us to Lightnin In a Bottle, the upcoming release from Guitar Red.

I didn’t have the opportunity to take a full listen to GR’s tunes until I hit the road for my family vacation. With the sun slowly rising, TBBW (TheBluesBloggersWife) in the passenger seat and my 12 year old son dozing in the back, the setting for Guitar Red’s music took place. Traveling 70 MPH with the lines on the highway passing by like a wide screen metronome, I started listening and continued to make my way…

Guitar Red

just may be the real article. There’s no pretending as he plays his back porch style of blues with a feeling that only someone who has lived life can. Over the years, Red has been underprivileged, hungry and homeless… Born Billy Christian Walls on February 16, 1964, the family left Morristown, New Jersey for Atlanta with the hopes of greener pastures. The outcome was dramatically different than anticipated. Within 10 years Red’s parents, brothers and sisters were all dead. Feeling tired and overwhelmed, he gave up on himself; drugs and alcohol became a major source of comfort… Through it all, the one thing Guitar Red never gave up on was his music…

“One day I woke up and realized it wasn’t so bad being Guitar Red after all,” Red muses. “When you find yourself it is the greatest gift. You just know where you are going.”

The one thing you will find with TheBluesBlogger is that I’m not a traditional music reviewer. I don’t analyze every note and pick things apart. I want the music to wash over me naturally and if things get me tapping, make me smile or if I drift off in thought, then that’s what makes it for me. Red’s work here is raw, but refreshing at the same time.

Track Listing

1. Box Car No. 9
2. Lips Poked Out
3. Ain’t Got Nobody But Myself
4. Three Legged Dog Blues
5. Chain Gang Blues
6. Lightnin’ in a Bottle
8. Out My Mind
9. Decatur Boy Blues
10. I Believe
11. Song About a Jimi Hendrix Song

As I continued on my journey down the road, there were several tunes that caught my ear. Songs such as Decatur Boy Blues, Lips Poked Out and of course the song that leads the rest of the album Box Car Number 9. (You can hear this selection at the top of this post.) Most of the tracks on Lightnin In A Bottle were recorded live at Backspace Records from August-December 2007.

I really enjoy the vibe and groove that Red creates on this album. The selection of tunes shows off Guitar Red’s personality allowing him to play through his hardship in a passionate, playful and witty manner… My son who was dozing in the backseat of the car woke up requesting to hear the track Three Legged Dog Blues again. Of course he rambled on about the three legged dog that he sees at the doggie park in our area. This tune finally gave him a theme song to hear in his head the next time he sees or recalls that poor animal.

Anyway …

Guitar Red is just happy playing his guitar. You can find him on most days in and around the square in Decatur, GA. People who are in the area can listen to Red on the street and enjoy his music free of charge. Fortunately with the release of his new album, others can now get the opportunity to hear his unmistakable sound far and beyond the square.

Good Luck GR! And congratulations to BackSpace Records for having the heart to believe in Guitar Red enough to strike up a deal that has given this artist a roof over his head. This is a great story and one that I’m happy to briefly review on my site.

-tbb

Tags: Blues News, Reviews // 2 Comments »

The winner of the Al Di Meola Birthday Trivia Challenge was Paul F! He had a score of 100% and won an Official Al Di Meola Prize Pack from Return2forever.com Congratulations Paul!

Thank you all for playing, and if you did not win, you can still order your own Return to Forever gear HERE.

Here is a link to my previous post on RTF. This is where you can view some videos, interviews and further info on the band.

Tags: Jazz News, Jazz Reflections // Add Comment »

It’s family summer vacation time in TheBluesBlogger household. TheBluesBloggersWife or otherwise known as TBBW and son are hitting the road for a week… Before I left, I wanted to leave you with an updated post. And I have just the right artist to feature …

There may not be a guitar player alive that has influenced more elite artists like Buddy Guy. He has inspired artists such as Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix and Jeff Beck. And the list goes on and on … My earliest recollections of Buddy are from his LP’s in the late sixties. I can still visualize the album covers to this day… And I recall the upbeat atmosphere that was generated everytime I heard his music being played in our household.

For over five decades

Buddy Guy

has been part of the blues landscape, and he is still going strong. At the age of 72 he has a new release called Skin Deep due out July 22, 2008. With all new material and guest guitar luminaries like Eric Clapton, Robert Randolph, Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks, this is looking like a strong release.

Here are three songs from the album including a sneak peak of title track and single Skin Deep due out on AAA radio on July 14th. (photo credit:Christian Lantry)

“I just try to get the best players, and hope I can pop the top off this can and show that the blues are back,” he says. “I learn from them—bring them in and see what they can do. And these guys got me feeling like when I was 22 years old and went into the studio with Muddy Waters.”

 

 Best Damn Fool [4:57m]: Play Now | Play in Popup

 

 Everytime I Sing the Blues ( with Eric Clapton ) [7:37m]: Play Now | Play in Popup

 

 Skin Deep (with Derek Trucks) [4:30m]: Play Now | Play in Popup

I believe this record has the potential to be one of the best-selling albums he has ever released. I also predict that Skin Deep will introduce Buddy to a whole new group of fans that may only just be learning of his work the first time… I just love what I’m hearing and I have found myself coming back to these files to take another listen. (photo credit:Christian Lantry)

Buddy was born in 1936 to a sharecropper’s family, and was one of five children raised on a plantation near the small town of Lettsworth, Louisiana. In these early years Guy remained tolerant of the all too familiar characteristics of “separate seating on public buses, whites-only drinking fountains, and restaurants where blacks—if served at all—were sent around back.” Several of the songs on Skin Deep like “Out in the Woods” and “The First Time I Met the Blues,” touches on those early years.

“I used to play with this boy, ride horses, down close to where I was born,” he says. “Then when we were 13, his parents made us stop. They used to say you had black blood or white blood, but we’d get a flashlight and hold it up to our skin and we’d just see red blood. That’s what I mean by “skin deep.”

He was recently featured on the cover of Rolling Stone, as part of the magazine’s “100 Greatest Guitar Songs” issue. His 1961 recording of “Stone Crazy” made the list. Guy was recently seen in Martin Scorsese’s Rolling Stones concert film, Shine A Light and was also inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame by friends Eric Clapton and BB King in 2005. (photo credit:Christian Lantry)

Buddy Guy is slated to receive the first annual Great Performer of Illinois Award and will be honored at a special tribute concert on July 20th in Millennium Park for his outstanding contributions to popular music and American culture. Currently, Guy is on a world-wide tour, with U.S. dates beginning on July 23rd in Silverton Oregon with George Thorogood & The Destroyers.

Working on this post made me reminisce to moments in my life that to me were really cool. I just love reflecting back to the sixties … Between my brother’s blues band rehearsals in the basement and my own imaginative warm-ups, the blues were pouring out of our house. On occasion my father would be featured playing harmonica on one of the songs my brother was working on that afternoon. You could always gauge my father’s mood by his harmonica playing… And a lot of Buddy Guy’s music was part of that vibe I so fondly remember… Thanks Buddy!

It’s great to hear this new material and get the opportunity to preview it. I can’t wait to see how well this album performs. So what do you think? … Have you listened to the songs above? Do you have any favorite Buddy Guy LP’s? Any moments where Buddy played an influence on you?

On The Road,

TheBluesBlogger

Tags: Blues News, Blues Reflections, Reviews // 3 Comments »

I do a lot of soul searching on this blog… I listen to selected pieces of music as a way to relax and ponder aspects of my life I haven’t thought of in many years. Recently I was thinking about how my life has changed since my heart attack last fall. One thing I know for sure, I feel more at ease when reflecting back to certain moments from my past… And for the first time ever, I’m beginning to get clarity on past events that were once complicated to comprehend.

I Was Inspired by Terry Kath

Between growing up listening to my brother play guitar every night and the sounds of Mike Bloomfield, Buddy Guy, Eric Clapton and then Terry Kath, it’s no wonder my interest in being an engineer in a recording studio developed. Yes I was young in the late sixties, but while there were many things I couldn’t comprehend because of my age, I was still miles ahead of any kid, or some adults for that matter, when it came to music.

Towards the end of 1969

circumstances were starting to shift drastically in my household. My father’s own heart attack in his late forties appeared to be a defining moment for several members of my family. He survived, but it was serious. It knocked him out of work force and he was never the same. His zest for life disappeared and that glow I so fondly remember was lost. The harmonica that he always carried around in his pocket I never saw again.

My mother worked hard putting in 6 days a week twelve to fourteen hours a day to make ends meet. Because I was only ten, and was too young to understand the scope of the situation, my thoughts became muddled in selfishness. It would be a point in time I have only recently come to understand as I blamed my father for so many unnecessary things.

As we headed into the seventies the vibrant house I grew up in became very sombre. My parents on one income could not afford the payments, and sold the house. Both my brother and sister decided to discover their own lives and moved out. My parents moved into an apartment where I would have my own bedroom for the first time. I spent all my time in that room hiding from all the things I didn’t want to understand. I got lost in my own thoughts and would listen to endless amounts of music… Everything I could get my hands on I would listen to. Any album cover I could read I would read… And I started to write; escaping into a world that would take me away from the bummer of my family going their separate ways…

Chicago Transit Authority

was a band that seemed to combine all the elements I heard in my household while growing up. It was a unique and very successful blend of genres. It was the first double LP I could call my own and a gift from my brother when he moved out of the room we had shared all our life. I then became enthralled by the incredible guitar work of Terry Kath and the soulful infectious rhythmic grooves I heard on the album.

Almost 40 years later

this LP stands out as a major influence to many musicians and older rock music buffs. The band owes more to artists such as Benny Goodman’s swing style rather than the rock riffs of Elvis or Buddy Holly. Original band members Walter Parazaider, Terry Kath, Danny Seraphine, Lee Loughnane, James Pankow, Robert Lamm, and Peter Cetera formed a group with a unique vision and the result was a diverse powerhouse that created a “new rock sound with horns.” The group’s desire to make it big turned out to be more successful than they ever dreamed.

As most people already know, the band shortened its name to Chicago for their second album and became a pop ballad juggernaut. While they gained huge massive appeal, many of their fans went elsewhere after their first two albums. For older music lovers and rock historians that first album has gone into the history books as a hugely creative, experimental and very musical piece of work on the same level as some of the best music ever produced in a debut effort.

The Apple Doesn’t Fall Far From the Tree

My own son tries to figure out in his own way how to deal with a father with a heart condition. When he gets concerned, I try and tell him that it’s a different era today than in his grandfather’s time. We know well more in advance as to what is going on. And we can take preventative measures long before it can get too out of hand… As I said in the beginning my priorities have changed … After 9 months since my own heart attack, thanks to my wife TBBW, I have lost over 50 pounds. I’m eating better than ever and have an appreciation and understanding of things I never had before. I also enjoy my long walks with my faithful golden retriever Lucille.

The Chicago Transit Authority album has played a huge significance in remembering moments in my past. But I have to ask you… Does CTA’s first album after 40 years play any significance in time for you? Do you have any favourites from this classic album in music history? Please leave your comments …

Tags: Reflections, The Seventies, The Sixties // 2 Comments »