AUGUST 2022
MARCH 2022
David Blue catches up with Nick Andrea on his upcoming debut solo album and all things Blues.
DB – So Nick. 10 months since we last spoke and so much has happened in that time. A new solo album for one thing.
NA – So yes, this was supposed to be a Law & Chaos album with TJ Sullivan, who you met previously, but the day after the album shipped out to a manufacturer in Canada he gave me a call and said that he liked traditional Country Porch Blues and this new album isn’t me. I understood his point of view and that we all have our perceptions of what the Blues are but it led to a whirlwind of activity like calling the manufacturer to say we would be submitting different art work and such. I was determined that the album was going to live and breathe because I had put my heart into it and we were able, through very hard work to keep it on schedule. I love the songs; they are of a personal nature to me and they do tell my story. It’s a story of a fall and a redemption. It’s coming out March 19th and I was thinking how do we promote these songs when so many have actually already been released under the Law & Chaos banner. So, I thought that whilst vinyl can only hold a certain number of tracks, CD’s can hold so much more and therefore we added five more tracks onto the CD release. These are all songs that I love and songs that I never thought would see the light of day after Law & Chaos split up but they are now like a second act to the album.
DB – Was it hard to make the break with TJ?
NA – It was hard on several different levels. On a personal level, he really brought me in and he was a real influence as a real old school Blues musician, showing me the ropes. There’s also the worry that you have going solo but the opposite is that you don’t have to worry about everything being the same in everyone’s wheelhouse. It’s like you have something in your head and you want to translate that to the audience, if you have something to say and that’s what I love about the Blues. It’s about, do you have a life experience to share that will connect to your listener. And, I did and I still do.
DB – Do you think you’ll ever play with him again? Do some Porch Blues or something like that?
NA – They say never say never. Numerous acts have done so over the years. Simon & Garfunkel got back together, there was a time when Mick & Keith of The Stones thought they would never play together again. Musicians are funny people, we’re really into our own heads but sometimes there’s a meeting of the minds again, so sure.
DB – You never know, it can happen, sometimes in the strangest of ways. You never know one day you might think, I’ll just give TJ a phone.
NA – We stay open to the possibilities that approach us.
DB – As long as you haven’t fallen out too badly, or at all, as the case may be. So, you mentioned the Law & Chaos songs and you have obviously included our number 1 Blues single of 2021, Whiskey Whispers. I’ve not listened to the vinyl yet as it only arrived this morning but have you changed the song in any way?
NA – No, that song is, particularly after you gave us that incredible honour and I do have to thank you again for that. To be listed among and above the greats such as Joe Bonamassa and Gary Moore was great and I though that the song shouldn’t be changed, much like if it’s not broke, don’t fix it. I wasn’t going to change it just for the sake of change, just because it’s a solo release. It’s just going to be a re-release of that song.
DB – It was good and I’m not the only one that does like the song. There are plenty of people who do and people have come to me and said so. I put the video on the website early on and people came to me saying how much they enjoyed it. My charts are based on the number of plays throughout the year and your song was played by far more than others., Joe Bonamassa etc included. Joanna Connor got album of the year but you pushed her into second on the singles list. There are some real Blues luminaries on that list, I do get a lot of big hitters sent to me but there are lots of up-and-coming artists, new artists who need a helping hand as well. I don’t think your song needed any helping hands to tell you the truth but for whatever little bit we added then we’re happy.
NA – Well, to me, that’s what it’s all about. Have you reached people? It’s like a tree falls in the forest and there’s no-one there to hear it, does it make a sound? To me, music is a form of communication even back to primitive times. Are you able to connect with other human beings in a meaningful way? You gave me the honour of recognising that this happened with this song and I hope to do it again.
DB – I hope so. So perhaps this year’s Whiskey Whispers could be Superstition. Who knows? One of my favourite Stevie Wonder songs and you are a brave man to take that song on.
NA – Well, the bravery only goes so far. I was never going to do it the way Stevie did it. It’s sort of like if you are going to remake The Godfather and you try to do it like Marlon Brando, you are destined for failure. So, you put an original arrangement on it, you surround yourself with fantastic musicians that will lift you up. Music can be a team sport and this time I had some tremendous help. An incredible female vocalist, Truth Jones, Gary Swan has played with Deep Purple and The Pointer Sisters as musical director. We have Craig T Fall who was Stevie’s guitarist in the 1970, he does a solo on it. So, these people lifted me up and allowed us to bring a fresh take on an old classic.
DB – It’s certainly an old classic, just like myself (laughs from both). You don’t get too many Stevie Wonder covers and I was struggling to remember many. I do know that Devon Allman did a version of Sir Duke and he, being a guitar player, changed quite a bit in the arrangement to allow the guitar to take over a lot of the horn pieces. But I think that your re-arrangement of Superstition takes it into another field. You’ve changed it quite a bit and as you say, you couldn’t do it the way that Stevie Wonder did it so if you’re not going to do it that way, don’t make a pastiche of it and do it completely different, which is what you’ve done.
NA – Yes, and I wanted to put more of a dark Blues Rock feel to it. Stevie Ray Vaughan did a version of Superstition, which was quite entertaining. I think he was a bit closer to Stevie Wonder’s version than ours and it a great song and it moves but I felt that ours was like a new song. It’s the same chords and lyrics but the groove is different and what we were trying to accomplish is a little different.
DB – It’s a good arrangement and as I said It’s not just one of my favourite Stevie Wonder songs, it’s one of my favourite songs of all time. Just the start of that song, it’s fantastic. People ask me all the time, what is your top 10 favourite songs and I can’t say because it changes from day to day but that song will always be in the top 10.
NA – It was entertaining but he had a message to say too, talking about the destructive influence on the human experience, these things that we cling to and worry about incessantly. Perfect example, the CD is going to have 13 tracks and for a minute I was thinking oh, how can we release an album with 13 tracks. And then I was like, Superstition isn’t it.
DB – Yes, true. There’s not many 13 track albums around at the moment. I’ve reviewed two today, one with 12 tracks and the other with 14. Maybe they put a filler in for the 14-track album just to make sure it wasn’t 13. So, Truth Jones gets a guest appearance on the track, how did that come about?
NA – I met her through my association with the Santa Clarita Valley Blues Society and I actually competed against her in 2020 and she went on to Memphis for the International Blues Challenge where she was a semi-finalist and we had pulled our group together with about four weeks’ notice and we placed fourth. So, she’s an incredible vocalist and what was stimulating about it was when you have someone singing at that level of talent, it forces you to bring your game up. I’ve never worked harder on a vocal in my entire life. The last thing you want on your solo album is for someone to come into your house and blow you away. So, she brought out the best in me.
DB – Yes, the best brings out the best. You’re right, you don’t want someone coming in on your album and making you look bad (laughs all round).
NA – That’s for others to say but I know I put my very best into that song.
DB – Yes, I think it’s the same as football, or soccer as you call it over there, if you play with the best you will become your best. It’s one thing being a big fish in a small pond but when you go out into that bigger pond you learn that the bigger fish can bring you on as well.
NA – Right, but there’s also a balance in that you remain true to who you are as an artist. You don’t try to make up stylistically and I think the best example of that was Carly Simon’s You’re So Vain where she had Mick Jagger come on. If we are evaluating singers on pure technique then there’s no competition between Mick Jagger and Carly Simon. Mick came in and did what he does and that’s what made the song beautiful, the confluence of different styles.
DB – You mention Mick Jagger there and I reviewed an album last week or so by a New York band called Hollis Brown. They have redone the Rolling Stones Aftermath album, track by track, US version and it was very difficult not to compare them to The Rolling Stones because it was a Rolling Stones album. But they didn’t do it in a Rolling Stones way so they were true to themselves and produced wonderful versions of the original songs. So, you are right, don’t try to be that other person. Try to be as good as them but not them if you see what I mean.
NA – Yes, transparency with you audience and your listener is absolutely my number 1, most important principle. They sense a fake a mile away, they sense if you’re not being authentic, if you’re not being genuine with them, they know. They are smarter than we give them credit for.
DB – Very much so. Again, you mentioned Joe Bonamassa earlier on and he plays on Eric Gales new album and they square up like a duel or a boxing match. The two best Blues Rock guitarists in the world coming together but just so different in their techniques. They know what they can do but they do try to outdo each other. (Laughter from both) That’s what guitar players are like.
NA – Maybe it’s not always a team sport (more laughs).
DB – Yes, Eric brings Joe onto the album, a brave man, and Joe tries to blow Eric away and doesn’t succeed. So, the album is due out March 19th, is that both vinyl and CD?
NA – Yes, both vinyl and CD and we’re getting lots of interest on radio in Europe to play it before its release so there’ll be music floating around. For some artists this won’t be a big thing but for me it’s a first – recently we were getting played simultaneously in California, Germany and London. I was really touched by that. That was a fun experience to know that we are reaching so many people.
DB – I can imagine what an honour it must be. One that I’ve not had, nor ever likely to have. That is fantastic for you.
DB – This is probably a silly question but what are your actual hopes for the album?
NA – My actual hopes for the album is that as many people get to hear the tracks as possible and that it touches them. We live in an age of statistics and I’ll give you an example. Superstition is up to 36,000 listens on YouTube, which for me is a considerable number. For Joe Bonamassa not so much, that would be a failure, and I’m touched by that but what I want is a second component where people love the song, they are engaged with it and it means something to them. To have that interaction with the audience and that’s the crime of the pandemic, that so many musicians have lost the chance to have a personal connection with their audiences. So, numbers are great but I also want the song and the album to mean something to someone because it meant something to me. It was a story of my life and coming back from a really dark place. If that comes through on the album and people understand it and it makes them think then I’ve won.
DB – Very much. You are right in saying that the connection between the artist and the audience has been lost to a certain degree because of the pandemic. The last gig that I went to was 2 years ago this week but I’m hoping to see someone in the next few weeks. Eric Gales is a possibility as he is coming to Glasgow in April. I play music every day, it’s my job now to play music every day. It sucks, what a job! The connection between a live artist and an audience is so far better than via the CD, vinyl or download. Can’t wait to get back.
NA – And the loss of so many venues that closed through the pandemic and will never open up again. That also limits opportunities. I’m also sad for the people who own those businesses because there’s nothing to beat playing and have people come and enjoy.
DB – It’s a shame that a lot of venues have closed. I hope that the people involved in these venues manage to come back in some way, like a phoenix out of the ashes, and find somewhere that they can put on shows again. Grass roots music needs the smaller venues because you will never become the big artists without those grass roots venue. You don’t go straight in at the top, unless you are one of the manufactured acts from the TV competitions. Small acts need these venues across the UK, Europe, the USA and everywhere else to get their music across.
NA – Yes, and there’s a continuity of songs that is lost when we don’t have live performance and streaming also adds to that. People will listen to one song and then jump to something else. Lost is the art of listening to multiple songs and developing a better understanding of the artist and the overall story that is being told. Nobody really sits, apart from you and me maybe, and listens to a full album anymore because some of these songs relate to each other and tell a broader story if you listen to it. It’s like reading one chapter of one book and then jumping to another book. It’s not the same experience.
DB – Talking about venues, do you have any plans to tour the album, whether it be a limited tour or a more extensive one?
NA – Yes I do, I’m currently working with the guy who was the keyboardist on Superstition, Gary Swan to form a band which will be called Nick Andrea & The Verdict, keeping that little law thing involved because it is part of my identity and who I am. We’re putting together a great group of musicians; we’ve been rehearsing and we’ll see what opportunities present themselves.
DB – That name is a reviewer’s paradise. You are going to get reviewers all over the place saying “and the verdict is” and things like that (laughs from both). If I ever see a live performance I’ll try not to use the pun. It’ll be difficult though. So, are you already planning for the next album?
NA – Yes, I am. While we have been rehearsing in The Mark in Burbank, which is Frankie Valli’s old haunt and also a recording studio, we started to record the rehearsals for our own purposes, mainly to see how we were progressing. Some of those tracks have been so good we have done some overdubs and modified them and that is shaping up to be another album.
DB – It’s good to have some in the tank as it were. The last two years have been particularly busy for reviewers because no one is touring and they are releasing everything they’ve got but then they’ve got nothing in the tank for the next two years. It’s always good to hear an album from an artist every year. I know a guy called Andy Lindquist from Florida who releases about 4 albums a year. He’s making up for lost time though as he has had lots of periods of illness. He was to be the guitarist for the touring band for Heart but illness put paid to that a good few years ago. He’s released about 78 albums but I get Andy’s Blues album now on an annual basis. I don’t get all the Country, the Rock or the Psychedelic stuff. Before you do the next album, remember to contact me if you want to record another one of my favourite songs (laughs from both) and I’ll send you a list. You can then follow up on Superstition. Only joking of course!
NA – I’d love to do that. We’ve got some ones on the expanded version CD that I think you are going to love. I don’t want to be all cocky and presumptuous though but based on our conversations and your charts then I think you are going to love them.
DB – That’s good. I do like all sorts of music and although the site is BluesBlues and I’m wearing a Blues Brothers t-shirt and my name is Blue, it just happens to be that way. I like Rock music, I like Classical music, I like almost everything and the site started off as a Blues site with a bit of Americana but it has become an amalgamation of all sorts. It has become very successful over the last two years in that in the first year that I went out on my own I probably did about 50-60 album reviews, last year I did 250 albums.
NA – I’m so glad to hear you say that because to me I think we are all a little too obsessed by the genre; what do you call this, what box do you want to put this in etc and even though my album is predominately what you would call Blues, it’s got Jazz influences, it’s got Rock influences in it because music is music. We don’t tell a sculptor you can’t paint or a painter that you can’t paint on canvas. It’s a medium to tell a story and I love to blend influences from different genre.
DB – I don’t mind if someone plays a Blues song on a Country album or vice versa. They probably wouldn’t get away with too many of them though. There’s plenty of instances of Rock bands doing Country songs, The Stones for example, who did it many times. So, people to stride the genres and I’m happy with that although it does make my job a little more difficult at times because you want to pigeonhole to a certain degree and if someone comes out and does 10 tracks under 5 different genres you are thinking, what do I call them?
NA – I have a confession. Last Friday I released a cover of Chet Baker’s I Fall In Love Too Easily and we did it in the traditional style. The feeling of the lyrics are so Blues to me and if you change the arrangement then those lyrics tell a Blues story but it’s not a Blues song. I did it in a Chet Baker style with a pianist called Jeff Paris who played with Coco Montoya and Keb Mo. He’s an incredible piano player and it was very satisfying for me to do that as I love Chet Baker.
DB – And so do I. I just love his music. Coco Montoya, I’ve reviewed some of his albums in the past too and with Keb Mo you are talking about 3 absolute giants there all in the one sentence.
NA – The next step is playing with Keb Mo and Coco Montoya. I’m one step removed at the moment but even that’s thrilling to me.
DB – I’ve had the pleasure of talking to Walter Trout a couple of times and he played in The Bluesbreakers with Coco Montoya and that’s as close as I’ve got to him so you are one step closer than me (laughs all round). Our time is almost up unfortunately so I wish you all the success with the album, I hope that is goes great and I will publicise it as much as I can. Anyone who cares to listen to me will hear the name of Nick Andrea. Maybe one day we’ll see you in Scotland or maybe one day I’ll get to California.
NA – I would love both to happen and thank you so much for the time today, it just flew. It happened the last time we spoke and it’s just great to share things with you.
DB – It’s great to speak with someone who has a shared love for music. You get certain people who’ll come on and basically it’s just ask me a question and I’ll give you an answer, they don’t want to talk about anything else but it’s great speaking to guys like yourself. I wish you all the best.
NA – You too.
Nick Andrea’s debut solo album, Blues @ Dark is due out this week so look out for our review coming very soon.
APRIL 2021
BluesBlues meets One Thousand Motels’ Chris Constantinou to talk about their new album, Get In Where You Fit In.
DB – Hi Chris, how was your photo shoot yesterday?
CC – Good, and we were able to go for a beer afterwards too.
DB – I saw the pictures of crowds in Soho, it looked a bit busy.
CC – Yeah, the seemed to concentrate on one street. It was a bit busy last night and it was a bit of a party atmosphere. I guess the weathers better but I guess it might have been like that anyway. People finding it hard to get a beer.
DB – I’m sure that it would’ve been like that anyway because I used to live and work down in the South East and you see people sitting outside the pubs all the time. You don’t see that too much in Scotland but that’s probably to do with the fact that it’s always raining here. (Laughs all round)
CC – Where are you?
DB – Just south of Glasgow, Barrhead and just up the road from my home town of Paisley.
CC – I was just about to say Paisley, I had some friends from there. Played in Glasgow so many times and it’s one of my favourite places to play.
DB – A lot of people say that. I think we’re a good crowd up here. I was speaking with someone a few weeks ago and I said where will you play when the pandemic is over and she said Edinboro, she was American (laughs from both). I said no, don’t go there, come to Glasgow, Edinburgh is too staid. Glasgow is the wild audience.
CC -They are wild. I’ve played there with different sized bands and venues. Barrowlands has always been my favourite for a gig.
DB – Yeah, good venue.
CC – I played in Glasgow with some bands who were not very well known, can’t remember where it was and I thought the audience were going to kill us but they loved us. (more laughs)
DB – If you get off the stage without a bottle being thrown at you then you’re doing well.
CC – That’s good. We even had them partying on the stage, it was fun. (this is turning into a laugh fest)
DB – Well, we could chew the fat for ages here but we’re really here to speak about the album.
CC – Ah, ok.
DB – You mentioned that you have played with a few bands, this is your second album with One Thousand Motels. Does is really feel like a second album? Are you having the second album syndrome with this band or is it that you’ve done so many that it’s not a factor at all?
CC – Well, yeah, that’s a good question because I was thinking like if we hadn’t done it so differently, say like we’d just done the first album and then went into the second one with me just doing all the vocals, I think it would have felt like, oh the second album, what are we going to do now. Because we got Sean Wheeler in and a whole cast of different characters with Sean from the desert and us from London, we kind of bypassed that. We’re already writing the third album, which I’ll be singing mainly on again.
DB – How are you finding the PR for it? Is it usually you who gets lumbered with it or does Rat (Scabies) do any of it?
CC – We just share it really, just whoever gets asked to do it, does it. We both don’t mind doing it’s fine. We’re really happy that people like the record and want to talk about it. For us, it’s a love project.
DB – Yeah, you get people saying why do you want to do interviews, Rock stars are infamously bad news for interviewers (laughs from both) but everyone I’ve spoken to so far has been great. I think that you are right, if people are interested in the music and you are happy talking about it, great. You must be happy with the album; I’ve given it a listen and I will be reviewing it. I think it’s a very good piece of work, you must be happy with it.
CC – Thanks, thanks a lot for that. I wasn’t really sure what to expect when we were making it because it is quite an odd record but we’ve been getting some pretty good reviews and people are sort of into it. For me, it was a bit of a process making it because we were supposed to start it, then lock down came and all the tickets, the flights to the studios had to be changed. Everything then became very hard work, a lot of work. The fun was the music side of it, the coordination side with Carl Peel at Universal had said ok, do this project and I think it was last year, maybe even the year before, he said start this project and I though ok, I’ll start putting it together. I’m really happy with it and, you know, you always look back on things and say I could have done this and that better but eventually you just have to let it go.
DB – You have to come to a time when you say, that’s it. Hindsight is a wonderful thing obviously and you could go back and be a perfectionist but I don’t think perfection is everything it’s made up to be. We need these wee idiosyncrasies in there to make it work, to make it different. People don’t realise how much grief the pandemic has caused bands, especially those, like yourself who were in the process of recording albums and setting up studios. It must have been a phenomenal task to redo all that and basically start to record it, like others, in their bedrooms or any little space they could find.
CC – Yeah, it was like suddenly instead of us all going into the studio in Memphis and recording Never Forget on the date that Martin Luther King was assassinated, the Gospel choir recorded their part in the church and sent it over to us. We released the video for Never Forget this year to commemorate the day. It was a big change of plan but I thought just let’s get on with it and we got together some really good players – Hal Lindes from Dire Straits on guitar. He’s a genius, a really amazing guitarist. Me and him used to play in a Punk band together. He was in that band Drill and he turned up all surfer hair and he looked like a real handsome dude. He was living with Peter Frampton and his ex-wife and we were all sleeping on floors so we’d all go round there for leftover food.
DB – Starving musicians!
CC – So, we also had the Memphis Horns boys and then we had The Specials’ horns.
DB – Fantastic.
CC – Yeah, they were really good.
DB – You mention the Gospel choir recording it in the church and there’s a few spiritual references throughout the album, how did that come about, was it organic or was it a conscious effort to have those in?
CC – It did actually. We kind of had the idea that we wanted it to be Punk meets Memphis but there wasn’t a discussion on spiritual stuff like that. Then I got my friend Jonathan Moore, who I went to school with and who became a Pastor down in Mississippi and said to him would your church be interested in singing on the album. Then Sean Wheeler and him had lots of chats and they covered most of the lyrics. Sean Wheeler was coming from a different perspective, almost like the sinner, the sinner who wasn’t ready to be reformed but he’s interested in the church side. So, it’s like the pull and push of sinners and the church and it developed into what we got. I don’t know if that’s what you got out of it.
DB – I certainly caught a bit of that, it was coming from two different angles and I think its produced a great result. The album is very fresh but you still get that vintage Gospel and Blues feel to it. I don’t know how you managed that but was it through the production, through the voices that were being used or just the style of play that you chose for it?
CC – I chose some really different players like for the piano, there’s this guy called Diz Watson who used to have this band called Diz & The Doormen. He plays that sort of New Orleans James Booker, Dr John, Professor Longhair stuff and he’s brilliant. So, I thought I really want him on there and I phoned him up. He’s getting on a bit now.
DB – Careful, I’m getting on a bit as well.
CC – Yeah, but he’s had three heart attacks and he’s got a pacemaker. He said, well alright Chris. He’s from up North, Leeds I think it is and he said I’ll go down to the studio and see what I can do. That was great because it brought that authentic feel to the piano side of it. Hal obviously brought all his stuff in and then we had the choir and we brought in this guy Preston Heyman who played with Kate Bush on percussion. Obviously, the Memphis horns and then there’s Rat Scabies on drums, from The Damned. (Laughs)
DB – Is he still crazy?
CC – (Laughing) No, he’s like, he’s so weird, he so not crazy at all, really the opposite. He’s so centred and he’s probably less mad than me.
DB – So you’ve swapped that over, the bass player and the drummer (laughs all round). Usually, the bass player is the cool relaxed one and the drummer is the crazy one.
CC- Exactly. I am fairly relaxed most of the time. He’s like if we were in a difficult situation…well I say most of the time, there was this one time we were in New York and this driver dropped us off somewhere we didn’t know and I thought here’s where Rat Scabies loses it. I just love working with him. We both like to have a drink and we like to take things not too seriously. We’ll go and have a play and everything’s done in one or two takes. It’s not hard work. We just go in and enjoy it, it’s a bit of fun.
DB – It’s good that you do it in one or two takes, it goes back to what you were talking about earlier, just let it go. If it sounds good after a couple of takes then just do it. Some bands, it’s 30 or 40 takes to get one line. It takes the fun out of it.
CC – It’s a waste of time. It’s like why don’t you rub yourself with broken glass or something. (Laughs all round). So yeah, we do one or two takes and we just keep it like, really simple. I mean some of the takes are done in one and that keeps it fresh. You can, as you say, go on forever.
DB – You could be in the studio for months and months.
CC – Forget it.
DB – Apart from the fact that it costs more. In the true ethos of Rock N Roll, get in, get it done, get it out! That’s what Punk did too. I was never into Punk as such, more acts like Elvis Costello, The Jam and stuff like that but the hard-core stuff I wasn’t into. But the ethos of Punk was two and a half minute songs, get it recorded and get it out. That’s what Rock N Roll started with as well.
DB - So, your bass, I don’t know if it’s just me but I only picked up your bass on the last few tracks of the album. I think it was back in the mix up until then but it really came to life on Zion.
CC – Oh Zion, he turned it up did he? I kept on telling him to turn it up. I was going to…it was Nick who did the mixing. Hello Nicholas if you are listening (laughs) I told you to turn the bass up (howls of laughs all round). I said to him, that bass needs to go up and he said but you’re the bass player, you’re always going to say that. I said, but I do know. I’m in my car and I’m thinking we need the bass turned up. To me, I like the bass like on old records where the bass is really loud and the vocals are really loud. I guess it’s because I like that Blues, Funk background. James Jamerson and that sort of stuff. Anyhow, it’s funny you said that because I kept telling him to turn it up, just turn the fu**ing knob up! There it is, just push it fu**ing up full. Push it to 11.
DB – Don’t go all Spinal Tap on me. Zion was the obvious one but Blood Makes The Grass Grow Green and Temptation are the others where I think the bass does come up. Being a very bad guitarist, I would normally leave the bass to do what it’s doing (laughs) but when I’m doing reviews, I do pick out the bass, the rhythm section and give them kudos. So, you deserve a bit of kudos and I’ll get in touch with Nick and tell him to turn the bass up.
DB – I mentioned the track Blood Makes The Grass Grow Green, which trips off the tongue very well, it’s a good tongue twister that one. What the story behind the song?
CC – We started that with that sort of New Orleans groove and the Sean came up with the idea, he just comes up with these twisted ideas and I think he had a long conversation with Jon, the pastor, and they were talking about spiritual warfare. It’s quite weird, if you listen to all the lyrics, there’s something going on between the good versus the whatever negative energy is out there. I’m not doing a Spinal Tap on that, what I’m saying is, I didn’t write the lyrics so it’s very hard for me to go into detail. Sean Wheeler is the man.
DB – I need to have a word with Sean, that’s what you’re telling me.
CC – Yeah, we’ll get Sean on (laughs). Sean is brilliant.
DB – He’s a guy. What a voice he’s got. Does he eat broken glass for breakfast or something?
CC – Sounds like it, don’t it. That’s a good description, it reminds me of that Glasgow comedian in the 70s, I can’t remember his name. It’ll come to me later. When I first met Sean, he came into the studio when we were doing the third Mutants album. Sean came in looking like Colombo. Me and Rat were in this Air B&B place with a big window and up comes this bloke in a hat and with the hair we though oh here comes some sort of hilly billy. We’re thinking, who’s this guy and he comes up and says hi, I’m Sean Wheeler and I’ve come down to sing with you guys. And then there’s us and we’ve got all this money sitting on the table because we were in the middle of paying everyone. So, he’s sitting there and you could see him looking at us and looking at the money. It just looked really odd, the whole situation, and he just looked like Colombo sussing the whole thing out. He says do you want me to do something and we said yeah. What do you want me to do says he and we said sing. He said what tune so we put on a track and he said oh yeah and went to a carrier bag full of paper with lyrics, put them all on the floor, picked one, went in and sang it in one go, this amazing thing. He came out and we were just sitting there gobsmacked and he said, was that ok? We’re like fu**ing hell, it’s brilliant. (laughs all round). Honestly, I really rate him and I don’t know how he got that voice. You might have to ask his wife (more laughter).
DB – I dread to think how he got the voice. That all kind of pre-empts the question, how did you hook up with Sean Wheeler? You’ve also answered my next question which was about Hal Lindes. I seen Hal play with Dire Straits way back and he is an ace guitar player. You’ve already said what it was like to have him there so I won’t delve any deeper there but I’ve seen him and he is excellent.
CC – He’s a very good guitarist.
DB – He’s one of these guys, there’s a lot of good guitar players around, there’s a lot of great guitarists around now and a lot of magnificent guitar players around. Just to be good you need to be hitting Hal Lindes level so to get up those levels must be difficult. You see the big, brash guitarists on the Blues Rock side like Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Joe Bonamassa, well-known. But take Joanna Connor, who I interviewed recently, slide guitar player with such force and not a world-wide name. It’s phenomenal how good guitarists can be and not a lot of people know who they are. There are too many to mention here but they don’t get the recognition they deserve and I think Hal is one of those.
CC – The strange thing is, I played with Hal just before he joined Dire Straits and I joined Adam Ant, I told him he didn’t know how good he was. When he joined Dire Straits he had to fit in with Mark Knopfler but I knew he could play outside of that. On this album I said don’t think Dire Straits, please just play whatever you want because I know you are a brilliant guitar player. He really went for it and I’ve got to say, he was brilliant. The harmonica player, I don’t know if you know him.
DB – I picked up on the harmonica on the album but I don’t know who was playing.
CC – That guy is from Southend, played on all the Daltrey stuff. Steve Weston, that’s the guy. He was like, thanks so much for asking me to play and I’m thinking oh my god, it’s an honour to have him play on the thing. He went in and did it in so quick time and sent us over this stuff. Anybody who lies harmonica please check him out.
DB – I’ve come across a lot of harmonica players recently and he’s certainly one that I’ll follow up. I do like the sound of a harp. A couple of the songs hark back to the golden era of Soul and real R&B, were these genres a big influence on you?
CC – Massive. R&B as in Rhythm & Blues for me but my sister used to play all the Soul stuff, the kind of stuff that James Jamerson played on and I used to hear it coming through the wall. It would drive me crazy and I used to think, turn that off. At that time, I was more into T. Rex, Jimi Hendrix, Slade and all that.
DB – Bands of my youth now.
CC – I was more into that but then when I started playing with Diz, I was playing New Orleans R&B and Funk and that was when I found bands like The Meters and the Funk side of the bass. I loved it, the big, fat Precision bass.
DB – Never Forget, the closing track, is a very powerful song. Such a, I don’t like to use the word minimalist because about 25 years ago I used it in a review and I got pulled up for it by some Blues historian who told me that minimalist is a derogatory term as far as Blues musicians are concerned. But in this instance, I will say that there are minimalist influences on this song. What was the decision to make it the last track on the album?
CC – I tell you what happened was Rat is really good at ordering, he likes to make the order of the album and for me, I’m kind of not interested at all. So, I said to Rat, you love it, you do it. So, a couple of days later he sends me the order and said how’s this for a first draft? So, I listened to the running order and he’s like, he loves it, you know when somebody loves doing something and he loves doing the order of the tracks. When he asked if I liked it and I said, not really, he asked if I had something better and I said, not really so that’s why it’s the way it is. (lots of laughs)
DB – I know the subject matter to it and that does make it very powerful. I’m normally a big intro track and big outro track kind of guy. Big booming songs.
CC – Same here.
DB – I don’t like soft songs at the end of an album, I think it just makes it fade away. However, Never Forget has the power to do that.
CC – It’s good on Rat. I wouldn’t have picked it but that’s nice to hear you say that, thank you.
DB – A good choice as the closing track so the last question really is where do we go from here, what’s the plans for the end of this year and into next year? Are we touring or are we recording more?
CC – I don’t know, we’ll finish this third album, it’s already written and we’re in the process of getting the mix done. So, get that one done and out. We’ve not got any plans for doing anything live but I’m doing another project which will. One Thousand Motels, I’d love to take it live and we’ve been offered some gigs like Vegas and California. Who knows? I’m sure we’re going to play it live but I don’t know yet.
DB – It would be good to hear some of the songs live, I think they would transfer over well. Come to Glasgow as well, don’t just go to Vegas and California (lots of laughs).
CC – Glasgow is one of my favourite places. It’s funny because I’ve has so many weird experiences in Glasgow, apart from like just playing. I was playing there with some band and we had a day off and I said I wanted to go out, get away from the band. Went and walked the streets of Glasgow and ended up in this pub playing pool with people I don’t know. I get invited back to this flat and I’m up there and everybody’s up to no good and the next thing I know I’m waking up in the street in the morning. I’ve got a black eye and this girl comes up to me and asks if I’m alright I said I think so and she said you look like you need some help. I said I’ve got to get to a gig, I’ve got a gig at Barrowlands and I’ve got to get the soundcheck done. I checked my pockets and I’d been robbed; all my money had gone so she said I’ll take you to the bank. She walked me to the bank, told her what had happened and managed to get some money. So, I went for a pint just to settle the nerves a bit and went to do the soundcheck as there was nothing else to do.
DB – There’s a Glasgow story for you.
CC – I went to the soundcheck and my bass and amp were set up and the band were like, where have you been? I said, I don’t know but I met an angel and she helped me out. I picked up the bass and it sounded so good, one of the best gigs ever.
DB – Two sides to Glasgow and you had the good and bad in one story.
CC – It wasn’t that bad really, it was probably me going on too much (laughs), probably said the wrong thing.
DB – There’s plenty of stories about Glasgow. Listen to a Billy Connolly album, he’ll tell you all about Glasgow parties.
CC – Great place and great curries as well.
DB – When you are speaking to Rat ask him if he remembers playing The Bungalow Bar in Paisley because I’m sure The Damned played there. I wasn’t there but ask him if he remembers it. Or The Silver Thread, they may have played there too. Two big Punk venues on the tour back in the day. It’s reopened in a different part of the town and caters for all sorts of music now. Well Chris, it’s been absolutely fantastic talking to you and thanks very much for giving up your time.
CC – Thanks for actually giving me the time.
DB – It’s been an absolute pleasure to speak with you. All the best for the album and here’s hoping you go from strength to strength.
CC – Speak to you soon and take it easy.
One Thousand Motels new album, Get In Where You Fit In, is out on April 30th.
Next up for BluesBlues is a chat with Los Angeles based Blues/Jazz duo Nick Andrea and TJ Sullivan, aka Law & Chaos.
BluesBlues Editor David Blue meets Los Angeles’ Blues/Jazz duo Nick Andrea and TJ Sullivan aka Law & Chaos to chat about their recent single, Whiskey Whispers, the Blues and vinyl.
DB – Hi, I’m David from BluesBlues.co.uk. How are things in sunny Los Angeles today?
NA – It’s a lovely day here in Los Angeles. How is it there?
DB – In this part of Scotland it is wet and windy. It’s not been a pleasant Easter Sunday and it’s about 6 degrees Celsius at the moment. (Looks of shock from Nick and TJ). You probably won’t get 6 degrees Celsius even in the middle of Winter.
TJS – Oh no!
DB – We don’t get the same temperatures as you do, maybe 23 degrees in the Summer and minus 7 in Winter. We get four seasons, all in one day sometimes. That’s just Scotland for you. (Laughs all around). So, my take on this is we have Nick Andrea, is that how you pronounce it?
NA – Yes, that’s very good.
DB – And TJ Sullivan. So, we have potential Irish and Italian heritage. Am I correct?
NA – Correct.
TJS – The name Sullivan came from my father and as they say, my papa was a rollin’ stone. I was raised by a bunch of renegade Italians out in Long Island, New York. I don’t know much about being Irish. I don’t really do corned beef and cabbage, it kind of makes me gassy. (Laughs from everyone).
DB – So, we’ll take the Italian part and add it to the Irish connections of the Sullivan name. I just love Italy and you couldn’t get more Italian than I would love to be. It does sound like the start of a very bad joke: an Irishman, an Italian and a Scotsman meet on Easter Sunday. I see that you have your horn and your guitar with you so I’m expecting a couple of minutes later on. Guitar and trumpet isn’t a usual set up, how did that come about?
NA – My origins as a young man were as a Jazz trumpet player and with Law & Chaos, this is the Law part of it, my father said you’ll never be able to raise a family working as a musician, put that horn in the closet and go off to Law School. So, for over 30 years I didn’t play and I then bumped into this man and we started talking about the Blues and playing Blues music. I said that I’d always had this dream of playing Blues music and Jazz and combine them somehow but never really got the chance. He encouraged me to get this horn out again and through a year of vocal rehab for these lips I eventually got to a stage where I could make a sound out of it. We started playing music and this is a veteran Blues guitarist so that’s how those two influences came together.
DB – Thanks for that. It’s just such an unusual set up, usually it’s a full band, solo guitarist kind of thing but it’s a good sound. I think you’ve taken to it well and I’ve listened to the single a few times and can certainly get that Jazz feel from yourself Nick and the Blues side coming from TJ with both melding together. I think it’s very, very good. The songs been out a couple of weeks, what kind of response have you been getting for it?
NA – This has become our best song in terms of numbers so far. We’re edging up to a combined 1440 for the video and single, which is all incremental. If you’re The Rolling Stones it’s a disaster but for a third release from a new group, during a pandemic and without a chance to play in front of people, we’re pleased that we’re heading in the right direction.
DB – Yes, it’s not a great time for musicians at all, is it? Putting music out and not being able to tour it is a disaster for musicians. Anyone I speak to just now, it’s not doom and gloom but there is a bit of doom.
NA – Our hearts go out to the venues that are not open and possibly won’t be able to re-open but the musicians will always want to play. A lot of these clubs are gone for good and that’s the true tragedy in all of this.
DB – Yes, it’s a shame. This website is associated with a small venue in the West of Scotland and pre-pandemic we were trying to set up Blues night, maybe once a quarter but we don’t know if the venue will survive. These grass roots venues are where bands hone their talents so if the venues aren’t there where are the bands going to go? Are they just going to sit in a bedroom and release music and not play live evermore? You can’t have that.
TJS – I think it will be a wonderful day when they open the world up again, where the pandemic will slow down enough for us to try and live a normal life.
DB – Yes, soon, I hope. Once we all get our inoculations. The song itself, I know it’s the second in a trilogy and having listened to it a few times, I get the feel that it could be the theme tune for a cop show. It just sounds like it’s got that feel, have you touted it anywhere yet?
NA – We’ve not thought about shopping it commercially but that’s an interesting observation. It does have a dramatic flavour to it. The original inspiration for it was BB King’s The Thrill Is Gone but it evolved considerably from that, doesn’t sound like that anymore.
DB – We have a crime writer in Scotland, Ian Rankin, who wrote Detective Rebus novels and he likes Whisky, and the song would have been ideal for the TV show. Whiskey Whispers for Inspector Rebus, that would have been ideal.
NA – Rubi, are you watching? Take notes. (Laughs)
DB – Sell it to CBS for their next crime series. I see that you used the Irish spelling of Whiskey in the title and I think you’ll have disappointed a lot of Scots by not using the proper spelling without the e but I’m sure the Scots won’t hold it against you. The music speaks for itself and it is a bit of a joke on my part. I have had this conversation with a number of people where Whisky comes into the title of the song and very rarely do they use the Scots version of the word and I think that the Americans must like Irish Whiskey more than Scotch.
NA – I actually had a huge single malt Scotch collection for many years and back when I used to drink, which is no more and you’ll probably get that from the song, I spelled it without the e always.
DB – That’s the way to do it! So, I was going to ask about the song and how it came about and how the trilogy has come about. Perhaps you could expand on the base of this.
NA – Sure. I’m new to this but my partner here has recorded a bunch of albums and this was one of the first songs that I took to him but I told him that I wanted explore some personal demons and that might get them out of my soul, as it were. He encouraged me, he said write away Nicky and we’ll work on the chords together. He allowed me to create tis trilogy which is also reflected in the music videos which are kind of in reverse chronology. The first song was Missus 2nd Place which is about the end process after you escape from your personal demons and making amends to those you have harmed in your life. I remember my wife saying to me, ‘you always put me in 2nd place’. Whiskey Whispers is about the period of the downfall and the fear about not being able to escape the darkness about various aspects of your life and on our upcoming release, Motherless Soul, which all starts out with not having a good Mother influence. It’s coming out on Mother’s Day and I hope that not going to upset people. But, yeah it all traces things back to when I met this guy and I was able to start expressing myself musically and I love him for that.
TJS – And I love you too.
DB – Yes, and I hope that the third part is a success too. Any plans on expanding things into an album? Will there be an album later this year?
NA – That is our intent but being a new group, we thought we can’t just dump an album on the public, we can release a single every other month to get things going before releasing the album. There’ll be some unreleased tracks on it and we’re looking at mid-fall for the album.
DB – I’ll look forward to that.
NA – We’ll send you a vinyl.
DB – Ah well vinyl. I’m a vinyl man at heart and grew up on vinyl. When CDs came out, I said that I’d never buy a CD but what you can’t see is, that because the reviewing side of the business changed to CD, I’ve now got thousands of them. Now it’s all downloads and that’s the PR companies preferred method of sending out their material now. However, vinyl is the closest thing to my heart. How about you?
TJS – I’ve got a lot of vinyl. 45s, LP’s and 78s. Even some acetates.
DB – I’ve got some 78s too. A couple of Elvis 78s somewhere in this room. They were my mothers so I’ve got 78s all the way through. It’s a better sound on vinyl and you have something physical to hold in your hand. So, if you want to send me some vinyl later in the year then that would be magic, thank you.
NA – We met because of vinyl. I was carrying a bunch of vinyl under my arm and that’s what got the conversation started between us. Yeah, so vinyl holds a special place in our hearts too.
DB – Yeah, I read in the blurb about that. Was one of them Little Walter?
NA – And Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf, a stack of them. I didn’t trust the moving company with them and I said I’m taking them myself. You can move anything else but not my vinyl.
DB – I’ve got boxes of vinyl all over the house and it drives my wife crazy. But hey, if that didn’t then something else would. (Laughs all round). Your voice on the single is quite smoky, is that something that comes naturally or have you honed it over the last 30 years, I know that you hadn’t played in that time but were you singing or is this you first venture to the microphone?
NA – I hope it doesn’t show but yes, it is my first venture, unless you include a little garage band that I started singing in a couple of years ago when I decided to start playing again. I guess that’s my natural voice and you could say there’s a Whiskey step in there but I don’t know. Maybe I’ve ground the vocal chords down and that’s how it sounds the way it does.
DB – There’s a certain earthiness and smokiness to it and it’s very appealing, especially with the song, it goes with the song. Some vocalists try to mould their voice into the song rather than just let the voice be natural. And TJ, your guitar tone on the song is fantastic as well. You’ve got a little cameo lead on it, not too much but just enough to whet the appetite, but a lovely tone. I see there were two guitars on the video plus I’ve seen others on videos of yours where it looks like quite a collection of guitars.
TJS – I’ve been playing the guitar for a little over 50 years and right now I probably have around 70 instruments at my house, including mandola, mandolin, electric, acoustic, 12 string, 8 string and I’ve been playing Blues almost all of my life. I’ve lived in a lot of different locations and I’ve been able to learn from some of the masters and it’s its own church. You might say, it’s life you know. Blues is life and life is the Blues. It’s the most passionate music America has and it’s all come from the Blues. The Blues had a baby and they called it Rock N Roll. It unfortunately got a bad rep because it brings back to the older Black generation some bad memories of times past in this country over the past 200 years. But it’s also part of my life’s blood and I almost view everything from a Blues standpoint which is a mixture of reality, happiness and joy … and extreme sorrow.
DB – People who don’t understand the Blues say it’s all about sadness but it’s not. The Blues is a way of life, it can be joyful, it can be sorrowful. I discovered the Blues when I was about 14 or 15 years of age. I heard some songs played by bands like Free and Led Zeppelin and The Rolling Stones and I heard these songs and I thought, they didn’t write these songs, who wrote them? So, I went back and found the original artists and my love of the Blues has continued from then. That means I’ve been into the Blues for approaching 50 years, writing about it for 30 and I have it in my heart too and live my life to the Blues ethos. It’s good to hear someone else saying so. There’s lots of us out there.
DB – I recently interviewed Joanna Connor, do you know her?
TJS – Absolutely.
DB – I interviewed Joanna a few weeks ago for her new album, which was produced by Joe Bonamassa. She’s a force and you talked about demons earlier on and Joanna said that she just lets her demons out on stage. She goes for it and what an artist she is too. I wouldn’t say that you are completely different but she’s a slide guitarist with venom in her playing and you are a more subtle player. I dare say you could release a bit of Rock in your playing too if you wanted to. We started on this segment talking about your guitar tone, did you use any pedals for the single?
TJS – I bought a German made, Kemper modelling amp which generates about 150 amplifier sounds such as Twin Fenders, a lot of the old tube amps and it’s the closest I’ve heard to the real thing and it’s a really amazing amplifier. It’s so merciful because in my later years I’ve been leaning more towards acoustic guitar and back when I was a bit younger, I went through my period of burning it and playing too loud and now that I’m approaching 70, I’m mellowing out behind the testosterone you might say, and trying to squeeze as much out of each note that I play to make it count. Once Delaney Bramlett told me, he was instrumental in Eric Clapton’s career, he said that in his idea, his dream of dreams, the perfect solo would be one note. That said it all and I grabbed onto that and thought about it and it does make sense plus, like I said, I just don’t have the desire to get up and roustabout like I used to. I have made probably seven of my own records, I’ve written a couple of hundred tunes, some of them have been successful and through the years when I look through my catalogue, I can see the progression and style change. I feel comfortable with it now, I have nothing to prove.
DB – Exactly.
TJS – That being better than so and so, the battle of the Blues bands type of thing; if you be yourself and honest to yourself and the people, that’s the best ticket to success that I’ve been able to find. Nicky here has brought me some things and I’m grateful.
DB – I certainly think that the fact that you’ve moved around, lived in a few places then different styles have had an influence on your playing and as anyone grows older you do tend to mellow. You can’t do the same when you’re 70 the way you could when you were 30, no matter how much the brain tells you that you can. It was interesting to hear you say about Delaney Bramlett saying one note would be an ideal solo in his dream of dreams and it was once said of my all-time idol BB King, you can hit 100 notes and BB will just need to hit one. That says it all. Just the way he played a note and held it would just make your heart go. Someone like Joe Bonamassa, and I love Joe too, could play all sorts of notes and BB would blow him away with just one.
TJS – Delaney was, and is, a big influence on me. We were neighbours actually and realising what he did for the careers of Eric Clapton and Dave Mason…at one time his band included Clapton, Mason and George Harrison which is unheard of but they came to realise what a Blues historian Delaney was and I found that I never walked away from a session without learning something from being around Delaney Bramlett, he’s truly one of my favourite influences. He’s a huge influence. Jimmie Vaughan is a big influence on what I do electrically these days. One thing I wanted to add about the vinyl, the one thing I miss is liner notes. I worked at the Grammy awards for a short period of time and they had about 80 categories for awards and one of them was for liner notes and with the coming of CD’s man we’ve lost a really good source of information. I mean, can you read the print on a CD sleeve without a magnifying glass? (Laughs all round).
DB – Not at our age, we can’t. Liner notes are fantastic. Gatefold sleeves, that’s what it’s all about and it’s funny you talking about liner notes. I don’t read a lot of liner notes on CD’s, for the reasons we’ve spoken about, but I do get them sent to me digitally which is better. On CD’s they are so miniscule you need to get a telescope out never mind a microscope. I was speaking with a Scottish man who now lives in Canada, Alec Fraser, who was the bass player for Jeff Healey, and Alec Fraser I was embarrassed to say it, I love Jeff Healey and I have some of his albums here on CD, none on vinyl, and Alec Fraser told me, yeah, I was the bass player for Jeff Healey, I produced him, I did this and that and I didn’t know. The first thing I did after I stopped the interview was, I checked my Jeff Healey CD’s and there’s Alec Fraser on the liner notes. So, bring back the full-scale liner notes.
TJS – I recorded a record with a young man from Edinburgh, Baz O’Brien, and we did an album called Outside In America which he came here to record and the album featured about 12 songs. I think it took me about 10 songs to understand what the heck Baz was saying. (More laughs all round). By the time we finished the record I was able to decipher his accent but previous to that I didn’t realise we were talking the same language.
DB – That’s true. Even in Scotland, he’s from Edinburgh and I’m from the West, just outside Glasgow and we speak completely differently so I can understand how confused you might have been regarding his accent. So, we are rapidly coming to the end of our time and how quickly that has gone. I just want to ask about how vibrant the Blues scene is in Los Angeles just now, pandemic aside.
TJS – LA has really taken a hit. We can’t make any money playing here, you’ve gotta get on the road to make some bread. Austin Texas will always be happening and strangely enough we’ve had a couple of associates who have moved out to Nashville.
NA – Crooked Eye Tommy, Jim Gustin, we’re all gonna miss you guys. We’re all part of the Santa Clarita Blues Society which is centred in the valley, North of here about 20 minutes or so and has a really vibrant Blues niched community. Yean Crooked Eye Tommy and Tommy Marsh went to the International Blues competition as our representative and they actually won the competition. Iim Gustin and Truth Jones went there and they got to the final so we’ve got a little hotbed of it but in the wider Blues scene, TJ is right, it’s a tough road.
DB – It’s a shame for everyone that the pandemic happened and the music industry has suffered so badly. There are little pockets of Blues, I get stuff from Sacramento, Chicago, Nashville but I don’t just do Blues music. However I am getting more non-Country acts sending me music from Nashville. A lot of guys have gone there, such as Doug Hoekstra, Jason Ringenberg who is Alt Country, and there’s a lot of music coming out of the Nashville area, Texas too as you have already said TJ. Canada is producing some great music just now, there’s a lot of good Canadian bands and artists out just now. The UK too is thriving with a lot of good Scots in the forefront. The whole scene is just waiting for the pandemic to finish and get back to playing and listening to live music again.
TJS – Well, I’ve been to Memphis a few times to compete in international Blues competitions and it was really enlightening to get to meet, play and perform and get to know Blues players from all over the world. One quick little story, I was in the Rum Boogie Bar and Grill and there was a band from Germany singing Born Under A Bad Sign, the Albert King classic and I was in a long line for the men’s room so I’m getting to hear the whole song and for the life of me the only thing I recognised about the tune was the bass line. The vocal on top of it sounded like Hitler on acid, he was just screaming out the phrases and I finally put it together but only at the IBC will you be able to see some stuff like that.
DB – Yes. I know of acts from Finland too like Erja Lyytinen who is very good but there’s also this guy called Black River Bluesman and he just screams it out too. These guys are getting airplay that they would never have got before and the internet is brilliant for that. You can pick up all sorts of things on the internet, some good, some not so good. I will always publicise good music and I wouldn’t want to draw attention to bad music. If its bad, you won’t see it on my website.
NA – There’s lots of bands out there who’d love to be sitting here talking to you so we’re very thankful.
DB – That’s very good to hear that from you. I was doing interviews years ago, speaking to guys like Pat Travers and Walter Trout and then didn’t do an interview for 10 years until I opened up the website last year. You are about the fifth interview but I’m getting offers of interview opportunities with almost every album that I receive for review now and I’m starting to that those invitations up. So, it’s great to get to speak to guys like yourselves and you are an inspiration, one a veteran and the other who has come back into the business after 30 years. You might even inspire me to pick up my guitar again. Talking about inspiration I can see you have your instruments there, are you happy to give us a blast?
TJS – (To Nick) How about that song about the bus station?
NA – We met, I say at a train station, he says a bus station.
The guys then went off into a four-minute Blues that I will try to retain for posterity.
DB – Superb and thanks for singing at 10am in Los Angeles! What a way to end an interview. I think I’m going to ask for this from everyone I interview from now on. Absolutely fantastic to speak to you guys. All the best with the current music, with any future music that you bring out and hopefully we get back to getting out there for more live performances from you.
NA – We enjoyed talking to you and playing for you and thank you so much, the time flew.
Motherless Soul, the final part of Law & Chaos singles trilogy is due out on 9th May.
FEBRUARY 2021
BLUESBLUES SHOOTS THE BREEZE WITH CHICAGO'S QUEEN OF SLIDE GUITAR, JOANNA CONNOR
BluesBlues Editor David Blue recently caught up with Joanna Connor to discuss her new album, 4801 South Indiana Avenue, being produced by Joe Bonamassa and getting back to playing live.
DB - Well, Joanna Connor, how are you? I hope you are well. Thanks for giving me your time this afternoon, it's an honour. How are things in Chicago at the moment?
JC - I'm well, thanks. It's cold here in Chicago and it's snowing heavily. We've not had this kind of snow for a while.
DB - My cousin lives just outside of Cincinnati and he has sent me pictures of the snow in his garden so I can imagine. It's after a bit of a recording hiatus that you're now about to release two albums in as many years. How good does it feel to be releasing music and getting your name back on the lips of Blues fans worldwide?
JC - It's great being back in the studio and releasing albums and of course, Joe Bonamassa producing was the biggest thing for me. He made me a better guitar player and singer by encouraging me to think about what I was projecting.
DB - As you say, the new album is a Joe Bonamassa production. How big an influence was he in the studio?
JC - He did everything, from picking the songs with Josh Smith and vetted by me to playing rhythm guitar and some lead. He asked me if I wanted him to play some lead and I was like, well...... (laughs).
DB - You get two things with Joe; first you get the superb musician and secondly you get the merchandising and promotional behemoth behind you. I see that he has said that you conjured up demons at times in the recording sessions. Having listened to the album I can certainly agree with that. I love the aggression and passion that you put into your playing and singing. Where do you summon these up from and where do you transport yourself to during your solos?
JC - That's some question! I'm not so sure about the demons but I certainly lose myself in the music when I play guitar. I get my aggression out and I love that. There may be some times when there is a rage about something that maybe brings out a darker side and if that's demons then there we are.
DB - Good answer and I know what you mean. We all have them in varying formats. Joe said in the YouTube video about the album that he has them so everybody gets them, whether we call them demons or not. Do you think that using vintage amps etc helped to give that effective authentic feel? I see that he gave you his guitars (he's got one or two to choose from HAHA() and dismissed your pedals. I hope that wasn't too much of an imposition.
JC - (LAUGHS) It wasn't an imposition but as far as the feel of the album, absolutely, especially the 55 amp. Guitars have their own tones sometimes but the amp makes it. The tone from Joe's amp was wonderful and it certainly added to the album.
DB - You sound as if you enjoyed every minute of the album and I know Cut You Loose is a personal favourite of yours but which track gave you the most pleasure during recording?
JC - Oh, I'd say the opening track, Destination. It's so raw and in your face. It's a great song to go driving to. We talked about releasing it as a single but then decided against it and put out I Feel So Good, which has had a great reception.
DB - I know what you mean, it's a Spinal Tap turn it up to 11 kind of song. It's a great song and it's hard to narrow down my favourites on the album. For me, Bad News, Please Help and the superb version of For The Love Of A Man, along with I Feel So Good are up there.
DB - Ok, so let's move away from the album for a second. If you could pick any venue, anywhere in the world to play your first gig after the pandemic, where would it be and why?
JC - Oh, that's a hard question. I love to play in Europe. France, well they're a little reserved there so....I remember playing in Edinburgh (can't remember the venue) and the fans went wild.
DB - In Scotland, especially in the West, Edinburgh fans are considered a bit reserved. If you want WILD then you have to come to Glasgow.
JC - Ok, Glasgow it is.
DB - It's great to see Luther Allison and Albert King songs represented (two of my favourite artists and Bad News is a favourite Luther Allison song for me) but you've picked songs of theirs that are not normally the go to ones. Did you consciously stay away from the bigger songs, especially with Albert King (Born Under A Bad Sign, Red House and the like)?
JC - Yes. We felt that the selected songs were good fits for what we wanted to achieve.
DB - So, it's not your first rodeo with Joe and I hear that he recommended you to Bruce Iglauer in the past, which unfortunately ended in rejection. This is a bit of a humorous question but any message for Bruce? (LAUGHS)
JC - (LAUGHS). Yes, I got rejected by Bruce. I think I sent him some acoustic thing and he came back and said it wasn't what he was looking for. I'm in good company as he also rejected Joe, Stevie Ray and Robert Cray as they were too commercial. Bruce has his opinions as do we all. He knows Blues music and he knows what fits well on his label. I have played on a couple of things for him though.
DB - As I say, just a bit of fun with that question. Your latest venture with Joe came about after him seeing you on social media, I believe. So, social media -- good or bad thing?
JC - Well, a bit of both. It allows artists not with big labels to get their music out there and reach far more people nowadays, if they hit the right ones early. On the other side we see how social media can be manipulated and false statements can be taken for the truth. Also there are haters out there and you need to be resilient.
DB - I agree, sometimes people put out too much of themselves and are then unable to protect themselves from the trolls. It's a good thing on the whole for musicians provided that it's just music they are putting out. I see on your YouTube video that you felt a bit intimidated playing in front of Joe and Josh Smith. Why would that be?
JC - I just felt that being in front of the two of them showed up their skills more. I have faith in my ability but these guys are on another level. Add in that Joe is a Blues historian and he will pick out songs from everywhere and suggest that we play them meant that it was a bit off putting.
DB - I've been into the Blues for 40 odd years and I wouldn't put myself up against Joe in a Blues quiz and my name is BLUE! He'd kick my ass. I once missed out on interviewing Joe in Glasgow (early 2000s) due to timings and have regretted it since. Have you got any regrets musically at the moment?
JC - None at the moment. One form the past was when I had quit my gig playing with Dion Payton and the 43rd St Blues Band after 2 1/2 years. Two days after I quit U2 came and played with Dion and it went over so well they wanted Dion and the band to be part of a movie they were making which ended up being "Rattle & Hum" - bad timing on my part! Dion's manager ended up not seeing eye to eye with U2's people and BB King was used instead.
DB - When Love Comes To Town is my favourite track from that album but only because of BB King, so they made a great choice. I am surprised that there's no Elmore James song on the albums, unless I've missed it. No song from the King of Chicago slide guitar from the Queen of Chicago slide guitar? Does that mean there's a volume 2 on the way? 10 tracks are not nearly enough and don't give me the old adage of leave them wanting more, HAHA.
JC - You are right, there isn't one. We've missed that. Joe reckons we'll have another two albums in this vein so watch out for something in the future.
DB - I have annual Top 10 charts for albums and singles and I Feel So Good has already received enough plays to have got it to number 7 (one place above Kenny Wayne Shepherd) in last year's singles chart and there's still 11 months to go. I'll be surprised if it doesn't appear in my Top 10 at the end of this year.
JC - That's great and thank you.
DB - Thank you very much for speaking with me today and I hope that the album does very well for you. Maybe even get to meet up somewhere, sometime.
JC - We'll grab a drink!
Joanna Connor's new album "4801 South Indiana Avenue" is released by KTBA Records on February 26th via www.jbonamassa.com/albums/2021/joannaconnor/4801
Look out for the album review soon and here's the video for I Feel So Good to keep you going.
OCTOBER 2020
BluesBlues’ David Blue interviews King King’s Alan Nimmo
BluesBlues Editor David Blue recently took the opportunity to speak with Alan Nimmo about King King’s new album, the pandemic and anything else that came into our minds.
DB – First of all, let me say thanks for speaking with me today. I know you’ll be doing lots of these with a new album coming up and time is precious.
AN – No problem.
DB – So, believe it or not, you are my most seen artist of the last year.
AN – Ok, brilliant.
DB – I’VE SEEN YOU TWICE AND YOU’VE ONLY PLAYED THREE SONGS!
AN – That’s not bad going, actually.
DB – I saw you coming onstage with Walter Trout in Edinburgh last October. That was a great night and then I saw you at The Ice Box in Glasgow at the Rebecca Downes gig. I was going to come over and introduce myself but I didn’t want to impose. Maybe the next time.
AN – You do that.
DB – So, I’ve been giving the album a listen and I’m not just saying this but I think it’s a superb album. You must be really proud of it.
AN – You know, I actually really am proud of it. I’m happy with the energy that was brought across to it. The way that the boys in the band managed to get the energy that they bring to the stage and managed to get across in the record, plus it’s a very well put together record. I’m happy with the songs, I’m happy with how I wrote them and I seem to be getting better each time (laughs) well, hopefully.
DB – It’s nine years since I first heard of King King with the album Take My Hand. So, the first time I reviewed the band was nine years ago, yet it just seems like yesterday. The new album seems to be an uplifting one and also a determined one and I think it’s a bit of a pill for the pandemic. I know that the pandemic has brought out a lot in artists and I know that the album was written before that but titles like Whatever It Takes To Survive, I Will Not Fall are titles that really are a pill for the pandemic. Do you think that it will lift people when they hear it?
AN – I’m hoping so because that’s the message that’s going through the album. Whatever way you want to dictate the lyrics for yourself then you can do. I try to write the lyrics in a universal manner where they can relate to the someone in relation to their own life. I wanted to talk about things I’ve already been talking about even things like on the Exile & Grace album, songs like Broken, where I’m addressing the same kind of issues as now. But, as you say, I wanted it to be a bit more hopeful this time, a bit more uplifting, a bit more determined and say, you know what, we’ll always get stuff put in front of us, there’s always an obstacle put in front of you and it’s how you deal with that, how you lift yourself back up, how you get on with it. So, hopefully that’s coming across in the theme.
DB – Yes, certainly I think it does. To listen to the album for the first time you get that feeling, well maybe things aren’t as bad as they appear to be. I’ve listened to a lot of albums on the reviewing side and there’s a few uplifting ones, there’s a few real down in the dumps ones and I think I don’t really want to hear too much of that as I get it on the TV every time I turn it on. You listen to music to feel different things but I feel I want to listen to music just now to be happy.
AN – Sure. I think that’s right. I think that’s the only way to be about it. If music is uplifting and it makes you feel a bit better then it can only be a great thing. I mean it’s like we’re all taking about what’s going on at the minute, venues closing down, bands are struggling to keep going and I just think to myself, imagine a world without music.
DB – Exactly.
AN – But then again it’s when we think to ourselves and consider the prospect, it would be a terrible time if we had no music but musicians, bands and artists outside of the major operatic kind of stuff in London etc they’re getting bypassed, getting thrown to the wolves and that’s the honest truth. There’s no help for us so lots of us are already struggling. If things don’t change, regardless of the pandemic, if things don’t change in the music industry then we’re all really going to struggle.
DB – I saw the other day that the Musician’s Union are putting a poll out there to try and get some help. A friend of mine, Dave Arcari, has certainly been pushing that and other issues for the Musicians Union.
AN – I know Dave too.
DB – He’s saying well what are we getting, there’s nothing there, who’s giving the music industry any help? So, yes it must be very difficult just now. It’s ok for guys like me who have had a full time job for 40 odd years and then decided to take on the website as a new career but with the backing of money still coming in. My heart goes out to the venues, to the promoters to the artists and everyone else involved. It’s a hard time but I’m sure we’ll get through it.
DB – So, how does it feel to have brother Stevie back at your side?
AN – (Laughs) Well, once we start gigging again I’ll let you know. But seriously, I’m very happy about it because I’ve been kind of quietly planning this for a while and over the last couple of years I knew that it would happen at some point. I knew that the way the songwriting was progressing and I knew how the shows were progressing that it was getting increasingly more difficult for me to engage the audience the way that I want to. You end up doing too many jobs at once, kind of patting the head and rubbing the stomach at the same time. It was getting a bit difficult to keep that engagement with the audience going, which is, for me and the level where King King is, the key thing to help us progress even further.
Mid interview we had a technical glitch and after some hilarity over our love of using video technology we got back to business.
DB – So before our unexpected interruption I had asked, what does Stevie bring to the band?
AN – If you bring Stevie into any band then he’s a bonus. What he did bring was exactly what I was looking for, a great guitar and what Stevie does is he helps me; he takes over certain guitar parts that I’ve been playing and having difficulty with as I’m trying to concentrate on singing and engaging with the audience. He can take that responsibility away from me on the guitar playing and that allows me to be the frontman that I want to be plus we’ve got the cream of the crop in respect of backing vocals. So, we’ve got a great backing vocal in him, a great backing vocal in Zander (Greenshields) and a great backing vocal in Jonny (Dyke). Now the problem I had with King King in terms of backing vocals has been fixed. I’m a whole lot happier with that and in rehearsal it’s been sounding tremendous.
DB – I’ve reviewed Nimmo Brothers albums in the past and I know the closeness that you have and I know that the backing vocals will be superb. So, what kind of stuff have you been listening to over the last 6 months or so and has any of that been influencing what you are doing just now?
AN – Well, in terms of new stuff the biggest thing that I’ve been listening to in the last 6 months is King King (laughs). We’ve been doing the album, getting that finished and we’ve been over and over with the mixes going back and forward, clearing the masters and such. Before that, we were writing and arranging the songs. So, for the bulk part it’s been King King but obviously I still listen to a lot of the classic stuff, the stuff I like, reverting back to that but I still like to try and look out some new music too. Chris Stapleton is one of the guys that I listen to at the minute and I do a wee radio show every Friday so I’m always trying to create a bit of nostalgia for folk where I go back to the 70s, 80s, 90s but also looking for something new. Bands like The Broken Witt Rebels, great friends of ours and brilliant young lads. There’s another band, not particularly new but they’ve just reformed, and that’s a band called Big Wreck. They’re a band from Boston and the guys a really great guitarist. He’s a big Stevie Ray Vaughan fan and that’s apparent in his play. That was recommended to me so I’m always looking for new stuff that I can find and maybe even give a wee play over the radio. But, the bulk of it of course was King King. Just trying to get it right.
DB – Which is understandable. It was probably a bit of a daft question because you’re obviously concentrating on getting the album out. It’s a big body of work and a big job to ensure that the PR machine is running well so I’m sure that takes up all your time. Personally, I deal with a number of PR companies and they’re all sending out lots of material. Artists are recording stuff all over the place to fill the time and there’s new albums coming from everywhere. I’ve got 40 albums sitting for review, with 20 coming out in the next couple of months and King King are not even top of that list yet! Then there’s the problem of touring to promote the album.
AN – Well you know, this is going to be the problem for next year because all the punters are wanting to get back out an watch gigs, all the bands are trying to get back out touring again even if they haven’t got a new album to promote, so next year, assuming that normal service has resumed in some kind of manner, there’s going to be every band vying for space for touring. We’re all going to try and get in there first, naturally, and get on the touring list and get tours booked. You’re then asking fans to spend money that they might not have next year, due to this year, and having to go out and spend a fortune on tickets for all their favourite bands. We’re asking a lot of people and it’s going to be difficult.
DB – It will be and then throw into the mix that there might not be as many venues there either, some may have had to shut down. So, you’ve got more bands trying to get fewer venues. You’re slightly in a decent position because you postponed your 2020, you’ve got the venues set for 2021 so you’re hoping that those venues are still there when the time comes around to accommodate you and I hope that they do. You must have been really brassed off what with your last night of the 2020 tour set for being in Glasgow and you had to postpone it.
AN – It’s so disappointing when these things happen but there’s absolutely nothing we can do about it. As you say, we’ve rescheduled into February and at the end of the day all we can do is work towards that and get ourselves prepared. Anything else is out of our hands. Obviously there’s new restrictions coming in all the time. There’s reports that the cases of the virus are going up, then it drops but we don’t know a thing, all we can do is look ahead to these dates and say right, this is where we’re scheduled for at the moment. For our side of things all we can do is be ready and prepared. Other than that, it’s in the hands of somebody else.
DB – You’ll be better prepared than you’ve ever been before. (Laughs all round).
AN – Well, you see, it’s not always a great thing giving musicians time off. We’re not very good at sitting still.
DB – Yeah, your mind will move to other things. You might not be able to get into a bar but you can still get into an off-licence.
AN – Exactly.
DB – So, talking about live performances, what songs off the album are going to be the best for transferring over?
AN – I think that the first two singles that have been out, I Will Not Fall and Never Give In. The messages on those were similar and I think those are apt for people, at this time, to think about what’s going on the world over. So, from a musical point of view, they were the best songs that have given a bridge between previous music and the new music from King King. I think it was a safe, not safe, a good way to introduce the new album and the new band. There’s songs on there but you know, it says new music but it’s still King King. Songs like Whatever It Takes To Survive, By Your Side (another favourite of mine at the moment), and One World. You know I’m so happy with them all and it’s the first time in my life where I’ve finished an album and not like on previous albums I’ve checked don the list and said that one, that one, that one we’ll play those live and the rest will probably never see the light of day in a live show because they’re album songs. This is the first album that I’ve ever made, including Nimmo Brothers and anything else I’ve done, where I want to put all 10 songs into the set to play live. That’s given me a bit of a headache but it’s a nice headache to have.
DB – It is a good headache to have. You’ve got a good back catalogue to choose from and now to add those 10 songs into it. I mean, you get some bands that come out and play songs from the new album and that’s it. It’s like, we’re going to play these songs, we’re not going to play anything from our previous stuff or maybe 1 or 2. But maybe that’s all they’ve got. So, yes, it’s good that you’ve got that headache that all of the new songs are able to be transferred across. You were saying that you’ve felt that you are growing as a band, album to album. I personally think that your voice has taken on different dimensions. We know that your guitar playing is superb but your voice is taking on different dimensions since the first album I heard. So, do you think that you are growing into your voice now and is there any more to come?
AN – Definitely. I think that’s the great thing about this band. A lot of bands will have their first one or two albums and they’ll peak at that. That’s when you get the best out of them and then you see it declining but I think with King King that every time it comes round it just seems to be better than the last. I think it’s like you say, I’m getting more confident with singing and song writing. So when I listen back to the first album, Take My Hand, I listen to my voice and I think oh, god turn that off (more laughter) but as years go on you grow into it, you get better. You get used to it and you find your voice. You find your range as well and you find out where you strengths are. Then you can incorporate that into your song writing. That’s what this album is about. It was making sure we get the best out of my voice, making it about songs rather than 10 minute guitar solos and trying to be clever with the riffs. We took the approach this time where if someone is listening to any one of these songs that they find that is the important part. The song is the hook, you’re listening to the chorus, and you’re listening to the lyric. If any other part of that song when you are listening to it draws you here or there then it’s because there’s something being played that’s out of place. I was explaining this to the drummer, Andrew, I was saying you’re a fantastic drummer, you’re a really talented guy, I mean he’s a great guy and a wonderful technician but the only thing you need to know is that I know it. So what I need you to do is play the best, solid groovy beat that you can and do nothing else. If you overplay, it’s like if you’ve got a massive big fill which might be great but you’re doing it over a lyric which might be important, it draws the attention away, it’s not in the right place then. The same goes for everybody in the band, for all their parts. It’s all about leaving the space, letting things stand out when they’re supposed to and staying in the background when needed. It all comes down to having everything in its place all the time and it’s just something that you work on and you learn over the years as well. I suppose going back to that first album, I probably didn’t know as much as that at the time so you learn each time you do an album, it’s an amazing learning curve. If you don’t learn anything from the last one, you’re not paying any attention.
DB – Yes, if you don’t learn, it’s time to stop. I’m an old guy, I’m one of those who does listen to the 70s, 80s, 90s music, in fact I was there (lots of laughs). So, I would never have got to this stage either in this kind of career or my actual, previous career, without learning. If you don’t learn and stand still then someone will just step over you. You’re never going to be in that higher echelon if you stand still and talking about that, I know you’re probably a bashful kind of guy but I did see it noted once that you are considered to be the number 1 Blues Rock guitarist in the world at the moment (more laughs). I’m not joking and it wasn’t me who said it.
AN – I’m not even the best guitarist in King King (howls of laughter).
DB – I’m sure that your brother will back you up on that one!
AN – You know what, these are great things for people to read and it’s great for these things to get thrown around and that’s fine. At least it’s positive and it’s positive for me and the band. It’s a great compliment but people who know me know that the one thing I never do is create competition. It’s all about everybody pulling in the right direction for the greater good of the band.
DB – You’re a unit, you’re a team and that’s it. You’ve got to pull together and you know that there’s plenty of really good guitarists out there at the moment. In my humble opinion, you’re up there with the best. So, don’t be too self-deprecating all the time.
AN – Thank you very much.
DB – So, just a couple of questions to go as I’m over my time, Alan. Believe it or not, my nickname at work for a wee while was Maverick so I’d like to think that the album is dedicated to me.
AN – Let’s just say it is (laughs).
DB – I’ll just write on it myself “dedicated to David Blue” (laughs). Do you consider yourself to be a bit of a maverick?
AN – Well, you know it was one of those things when I was thinking about the title for the album and I always tend to do a wee bit of work before I get really started. I’d jot down song titles that I’ve got ideas for and I’ll build around it. The title will give me an idea for content. It was the same with the album title as well and sometimes you call the album after one of the songs or if there’s been a lyric in a song. But this time, Maverick came to me because I did make a few bold moves, changing the band. If you were looking at King King from the outside at that time then you’d be thinking here’s a successful band, they’re doing really well, what’s he changing everything for? At the end of the day, I’ve got my reasons for that and they’ll stay mine. It needed to be done though, changes needed to be made but for a lot of genuine reasons. It was a bold move to make those changes and it wasn’t just one change, I made a lot. So it was a bit of a maverick move plus it was a bit of a tip of the cap to myself because when I was a youngster I was a bit wild. There was nothing I wouldn’t try three times. I was always getting up to some kind of mischief when I was a kid, some daredevil antic. So I wanted to do something kind of similar to the Evel Knievel image because that was my favourite when I was a kid. I had the wind-up toy and everything.
DB – Yes, he was a great wee man and it’s good that you tipped the wink on the album cover with the wee cape, just like he had but with a tartan edge to it. (laughs).
AN – Yes, you’ve got to get the tartan in.
DB – I hope you’re not wearing your kilt just now, by the way.
AN – No, it’s in the wash (more laughs).
DB – So, one final question and a wee comment. The song titles that I’ve picked out, By Your Side, and When My Winter Comes, which is a lovely song, suggest that you are a big softie at heart. Is that you?
AN – Well, it’s like Shrek says, we’ve got layers, we’re like onions (we’re off again, laughing). Sometimes there’s more than meets the eye with some people and you know what, we’re musicians so we’re all flawed. It great to be able to be a songwriter and write these things because you can get to talk about things that are on your mind. In particular, if we’re talking about When My Winter Comes, that’s a great subject. I was asked to write a song like this. I was given the subject matter but when you are given a subject matter like that it was like writing about someone who is young and looking forward and that same old man looking back on his life. That was a difficult thing for me to think about because I’m kind of in the middle of that. There’s certainly things in my life that I can reflect back on at the moment but I’m not exactly old. It was something I had to think on but I was asked to write the song for someone else is all I can say on it. It was to be considered for a movie about a very famous football manager from this country. You can join the dots. It was interesting coming up with the lyrics for it because it did make me reflect on my life and maybe things at the point of starting to write it that I wouldn’t even considered thinking about. When I did start I thought well maybe this is a fair question I could ask myself like when I am a lot older will I still have the fire in me that’s here just now so it’s an interesting thought.
DB – Well, it certainly made me think. I am slightly older than yourself and it made me think. I think it’s a great song and it’s up there in an album full of standouts. I really enjoyed that song and it was a bit of fun asking if you were a softie at heart.
AN – Don’t go telling too many people.
DB – Oh, don’t worry. They’ll take one look at you and think, that’s not a big softie, that guy. I have to say thanks very much for speaking to me today, it’s been great.
AN – My pleasure David.
King King’s new album, Maverick, will be released on 9th November and www.bluesblues.co.uk will be reviewing the album soon.
