Leslie West Interview

 

Leslie West and Felix Pappalardi formed Mountain in 1969.  Their fourth ever show was at Woodstock where they went on after the Grateful Dead.  Those hippies were in for a big surprise to say the least. The group got its name from lead singer and guitarist Leslie West’s imposing stage presence, which one British publication referred to as “girth some.”  Leslie West went on to form West, Bruce and Lang with Cream bassist Jack Bruce.  He has been sampled by rap artists like Jay Z.  He is also a frequent guest on the Howard Stern Show.  He has just released his 16th solo album called,Soundcheck and shows no sign of slowing down.  

Leslie, you basically started your career at Woodstock.  That is a pretty high bar to start at.  You’ve been in the music business ever since, what are some of your favorite moments from your career so far?

Jimi Hendrix’s agent, Ron Terry, was our agent, and I think he made them take us on that show. He said, if you want Jimi Hendrix, you have to take this new group down.  So we got on that show, which was lucky for us.  We weren’t in the movie, I don’t know what happened with my manager at the time, he probably didn’t get enough money, who knows.  We were on the Woodstock II album.  They came out with a 40th anniversary box set six years ago.  I got married the night we had the 40th anniversary reunion on stage with some of the acts.  I got married right on stage to my beautiful wife, Jenny.  Actually on YouTube, you can see Leslie West’s wedding right in the middle of the show. The justice of the peace comes out in his blue robe and all the guys in my group grabbed my guitars and formed an arch and Jenny came out.  We had 25,000 witnesses.  They built an amphitheater where the actual original site used to be.  It is a beautiful, beautiful amphitheater that big money built.  It was a great night for us.  I will never forget that night.  

That is amazing, it is an anniversary show and you get married to the love of your life.  I don’t really know how you can top that.  Let’s shift gears a little wee bit.  In the rock and roll business, there is always crazy stuff that happens.  Other than getting married at the 40th anniversary show, just off the top of your head, what is the most wacky, insane thing that you ever saw go down at a show?

Well, the night before West, Bruce, and Laing signed a deal with Columbia, we were playing Carnegie Hall. We sold out two shows and we didn’t even have an album out.  It was just word of mouth.  Right in the middle of the second show, all of sudden I see the house lights come up and paramedics come in with a stretcher and I thought, “Oh no, please don’t tell me…”  My brother O.D.’d in the fuckin’ show.  They carried him out on a stretcher.  I said, “How did I know when those lights came on…”  I remember the next day my mother was screaming at him, “You couldn’t keep yourself under control for one night and let Leslie enjoy his night at Carnegie Hall.  God Dammit.”  She was really mad at him.  I will never forget that night man?  He’s recovered alright.

So let’s talk a little bit about your new record.  We will fast forward a little bit.  You have 16 solo albums. You have been making music for a long time  What keeps you going? You have a new record out, Soundcheck.  It kicks ass.  What keeps you still keep making this great music?

Mountain started in’69, but I was in a group called the Vagrants before that, but we never really made it.  Felix happened to be our producer.  The first cut on the new album is called Left by the Roadside to Die.  When I lost my leg four years ago, I sort of felt that way, but everybody gets knocked down in life.  It’s how you choose to get up that is something else.  I heard Lawrence Taylor, a great football player say that.  Doing this album, I started with that song, which was the first song.  I wanted to pick other songs,  because I was going to do interpretations (I don’t even like the word cover, because I am hoping when I do a song that you recognize it was someone else’s song).  So, I wanted to put everything together that fit with the new songs song and pick songs by other people.  I was going to do that very blended.  I think I did that with, especially,You are my Sunshine, that I did with Peter Frampton on this.  It is a really dark sounding song.  I was watching Sons of Anarchy and thought I heard somebody playing acoustic on the soundtrack. I hear acoustic guitar playing what I thought was You are my Sunshine but in a minor key.  So, I started fooling around with it and made an arrangement of it and recorded it.  I played swag guitar on it and we put the bass of the drums, so I said to Peter because I know he was going to play on the album, ”Tell me what you think.” He wrote me back by text right away.  He said, “Man, I can’t believe how fantastic that sounds by changing the key and what you did to the arrangement man.”  What we have is the finished product that Peter did and it’s one of my favorite cuts on the album.  He is a fantastic, underrated guitar player, Peter Frampton is.

There are a lot of great guests on this record.  You collaborated with Peter Frampton, Bonnie Bramlett, Jack Bruce (rest in peace), and Brian May.  You obviously have known these people for a long time.  How did you and Peter get to be friends?

We toured together for years and we had the same agent, Premier Talent.  In fact, a few years ago, Peter had this tour called Frampton’s Guitar Circus and he invited guests to come out.  So he asked me to come out and do some shows. He wanted to sing a couple of Mountain songs.  He sang “Theme for an Imaginary Western,” which was great, and I sang the chorus.  Between doing that, I think we did “Mississippi Queen” also.  I said, “Peter your manager is dead; my manager is dead; our agent is dead, what are we still doing here.”  He walked over to the mic and he says, “They can’t take our money now mate.”  I never recorded with him.  I toured with him on Humble Pie and Frampton Comes Alive.  He has made it in so different areas, but we never recorded together, so that was a great thrill to finally come up with a song that we could do.  He’s one of the sweetest guys I ever met and businessman.  You don’t even want to call him a businessman when you talk about Frampton.  He is a big star.  He used to be the biggest star in the world.

Frampton Comes Alive, who didn’t have that record?  

How much money he made from that because it was a live record?  It is very inexpensive to record a live version as opposed to studio.  Probably my favorite guitar song doing a jam is “Going Down,” and it was written by a guy named Don Nix.  So, the guy that produced the album, John Tivet, called mad up and he said, “Look, I’m doing an album with Don Nix, the guy who wrote “Going Down” and I’d love you to play on it.  I said, “Who else is on it.”  He said, “Brian Mays is on it, Bonnie Bramlett, Max Middleton, the keyboard player/piano player with Jeff Beck who actually did the original version of it, and Bonnie Bramlett is singing background.  I called John back up and said, “I’d loved to do that man, Don Nix is the singer.”  He said, “But you have to sing it.”  I said, “How am I going to do that? Where are the files?”  He says, “I have them. I will send them to you tomorrow.  Just go sing the song and remix it.”  As we were working on it, it says BM on the tape.  I said, “Wait a minute, that’s Brian Mays.  You can’t even hear him on the original.”  So, we remixed it, I sang it and I’m playing the lead guitar from the beginning to about 2 minutes and 48 seconds in the song, somewhere in that range and then Brian Mays played the lead from there to the end of the song. After I did it I said, “John, go ask Brian it’s ok that I want to use it with me and him.”  He said, “Brian said he would be flattered if you do it.”  I was thrilled man.  Brian May doesn’t do too many outside projects if you know what I’m saying.  

That shows a lot of respect between you two guys.  That is awesome.  

I love that man, I really do.

Now you’ve said in the past that Jack Bruce was your favorite bass player.  How did you guys become friends, and talk a little bit about the track Spoonful.

Well, Cream is my favorite group. So, Felix Pappalardi, bass player of Mountain, all of a sudden one day, I’m looking at his album of Cream out and I see, Produced by Pappalardi.  So I said to my brother Larry, I said, “Is the same guy who produced us in the Vagrants (my first group). He said, “Yeah,”  I said, “How come we don’t sound like Cream.” He said, “Because we suck.  We didn’t practice enough.”  He says to me, “Let’s go see Cream.”  They were actually playing at what became the Filmore East.  It was actually The Village Theater at that time.  My brother said to me; let’s take some acid before we go.  So we took LSD and all of a sudden the curtain opens up and I hear them playing “Sunshine” and I see Eric Clapton and his buckskin jacket with a flash over his shoe like Daniel Boone.  I said, “Oh my God, we really suck.”  After that, I started really practicing and practicing.  One day after my first album came out; it’s now called the Filmore East. Jack Bruce was headlining a show and then it was Mountain… I was dying to me him, so Felix introduced me to Jack.  We really hit it off good.  In fact, John McLaughlin was playing with him at the time and he wanted me to talk to John about what kind of amps I was using to get that sound.  Jack liked the sound.  So, a few years go by and we go over to Jack Bruce’s house in London.  It was Mountain’s first time over there and Felix was busy talking to Jack Bruce’s wife, Janet.  While he was busy bullshitting with Janet, I went upstairs and I’m jamming with Jack.  He was playing on the grand piano and I was playing on the acoustic guitar and we got to know each other.  When Mountain finally split up, Felix just didn’t want to go on the road anymore, we flew over to England and he was the first guy I called, Jack, and luckily he said yeah.  So, we had West, Bruce and Laing, and we did about 3 or 4 albums and then we broke up unfortunately about drugs and so on and so forth.  Jack recently died last year and that track “Spoonful,” years ago I was recording an album upstate and Jack flew over and was playing bass.   I guess someone in Poughkeepsie, New York heard we were recording and wanted to know if we wanted to do a set the next night, which was Saturday night.  I knew Jack was going home Sunday, so Jack says, “Yeah, let’s do it.”  So, Joe Franco, the drummer who was playing with me, and our engineer at the studio, Paul Orofino recorded the show on a stereo tape deck. I wanted to put this on the album as a tribute to Jack.  We edited it down from 15 minutes to around 7 minutes.  I get tears in my eyes when I listen to it because he’s not here anymore. Although I must say his son, Malcolm, sounds uncannily like Jack on these songs.  It’s just that I put that song on there and I heard how much fire Jack has in his voice when we are playing.  He knew what I was going to play before I played it, and I knew sometimes what he was going to play before he played it.  I was just a great, great night and to have it on a record is fantastic.  

You guys had a sort of unspoken connection when you were playing music.  

That was what the magic was, man.  Even though we broke up, we weren’t talking for a while, who knows what happened.  Believe me, you don’t lose that.  It’s hard to lose.  If you throw a football like Joe Namath, I bet he still knows how to throw the football.

So Jack Bruce was your favorite bass player.  You guys had a great connection when you worked together.  You influenced a lot of people.  A lot of people grew up listening to the Mountain records and your subsequent projects, but who were some of your favorite guitarists?

Right off the bat, it was Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, and Keith Richards.  Now there are a bunch of new ones that came in, Joe Bonamassa and Joe Satriani, these are guys that I listen to, and Slash.  Last year on the Rolling Stone, you know they had the top 100 list of greatest rock acts, greatest guitarists, so someone calls me up and says, “You came in at #66 out of 100.”  I said, “Really.”   I’m looking at the list and I see Slash came in at 65,  “I said come on, I think we should be a little higher up than that.”  So, I called Slash on the phone and I said, “Listen man, I came in #66 and you came in #65 on a Rolling Stone guitar poll.  Slash says to me, “He’s lucky he’s on any list.”  That I was as good as he is very humbling because he is rock star from the minute he opens his eyes.   He has that certain thing and he certainly he plays great.  That is good list I just gave you.

On a little bit of a personal note, what is a typical day like for Leslie West?

It’s different now that I lost my leg, but I typically wake up and I do what every other person does, go brush my teeth, have a cup of tea maybe, then look at my iPad and start fooling around. My wife wrote a couple of lyrics on the new album, and she is always sending me lyrics on the cloud.  I wonder where the lyrics come from.  She really is a great lyricist.  I always check the cloud.  I write songs, not necessarily what she just sent me which is why I keep them in a list.  Some of the lyrics she comes up with are fantastic.

Do you have musical ideas swirling around all the time where you grab a guitar and start to put things together?

We live in a condo on a golf course and I don’t play electric guitar in the house, not because I don’t want to bother the neighbors or shit, but I play acoustic.  It makes me play a certain way, then I can transfer to an electric guitar in the studio.  I don’t play the guitar everyday, sometimes I will go and give my head and my fingers a rest for a month and then finally I will pick up a guitar.  I have quite a few guitars lying around the house. That way you can’t avoid it.  I get ideas for songs at all different times, never the same.  I don’t wake up with an idea although I remember writing a song in my dreams one night.  I didn’t have a guitar in my hand but I remembered everything in the morning.

Speaking of songwriting because there is an original on your new record called “Stern Warning,” tell us about that song.

I did a song a long time ago with Mountain for my friend, it was about Felix.  It was an instrumental and Felix had this beautiful 12-string and he told me Clapton played it when they he was producing him.  So he said, “If you write a song, you can have it.”  I said, “No shit.”  It must have been a 7 or 8 thousand dollar guitar.  I said I’ll write a song. So, I wrote to my friend.  All of a sudden one day because I’m pretty friendly with Howard, he says to me (we email all the time), what did you have in mind when you wrote that, because it’s such an off the track song, it sounds like an Irish Celtic dance, a Riverdance.  So, I said I am going to write another one and have it in the same genre as that. I am going to call it “Stern Warning” because he reminded me about it.  I listened to it and I couldn’t believe I wrote that, so I wrote a new song and tried to emulate it together.  My father used to tell me a stern warning.  He used to say to me, “I want to talk to you when a minute.  Right now.  Let that be a stern warning to you.”  So it all worked out great, my stern warning.

What’s coming up for you next, Leslie?  Are you guys going to be on tour?  Are you going to be on the Stern Show?

Two weeks ago we started at BB King’s in New York.  New weekend we are going up to play at Darryl Hall’s.  He has a club called Darryl’s House and I’m going to Annapolis and Maryland.  Two weeks ago at BB King’s when we were playing, it was supposed to be the album release party as the album came out on November 20th.  We were going to be at BB Kings, but my wife says to me two days before the show that we got a call from a security team.  They want to come and scope out the exits and entrances for Paul Allen.  Paul Allen is Bill Gates’ partner.  He’s worth about 23 billion.  I know Bill is worth about 67 billion.  Anyway, we played at his Experience Museum in Seattle.  Paul Allen is a real guitar freak and loves guitars.  He built this great museum up there and he has a lot of Hendrix stuff there, so we played there.  Paul wasn’t there that night, but the staff asked if they could record the show so he can keep it for his archives and I said, “Sure.”  Now he wants to come see me in New York and I’m getting a little nervous.  I said to my wife, Jenny, “The place is sold out.  It’s standing room only.  Where is he going to sit?”  She says, “He’s sitting in the front row right in front of you.”  So I see the bodyguard and sitting next to him there was this beautiful blonde lady, his date for the evening, and I am watching him enjoying the show and was eating sliders and having a great time.  I had a meet and greet afterwards.  There were quite a few people and it takes a while to do all that and they knew about it.  The security team wanted to know if he could meet me before that because he didn’t have that much time and he wanted to come back stage and meet me and so on and so forth.  I said, “Sure.”  So right before our set ended, the bodyguards took him backstage with his lady friend, I go off stage now in the middle of the song.  The last song we do is Willie Nelson’s “Turn out the Lights the Party’s Over.”  They took Paul backstage before the crowd got up and the lights came on.  So I go backstage in the dressing room and I see two of the bodyguards outside of the room and the door to the dressing room is wide open.  There is Paul sitting there with his girlfriend.  He introduced me to his friend Monica, a really great looking woman.  I walk into the room and what am I going to say to him. I pretend I’m Howard Stern.  I said, “My hero.  I change guitar strings.  You change the world.”  I started to ask him questions about Microsoft, like how they came up with the name.  He said he and Bill were just sitting around contemplating a name for the company, and Paul says he came up with it.  He says we have something very small and it’s also software, so why don’t we call it Microsoft.  Bill said ok, let’s go with that.  I said also know that, I read a lot about him and Bill, is it true that you talked Bill into quitting Harvard.  He said, “Yeah, his mother didn’t talk to me for nine months.”  They grew up together as kids, and he said Bill’s mother was so mad at them.  I had a ball talking to him.  I have about five different models of Leslie West signature guitars and I was playing Mississippi queen.  I gave it to him after the show as a present.  I got a great picture of him and me.  He was playing around and he played a B chord.  He actually can play pretty good.

On top of being a software mogul, he is a guitar player, too.

He has one of the greatest guitar collections in the world.  I think it’s worth about 60 million dollars, all the guitars he has, which is chump change to me and you.

Is there anything else that you want to let the folks out there in the rock and roll world know about Leslie West, what is going on, or what is coming up?

I am really proud of this album because it sounds really good.  Every album I do, I want to make that much better than the last one or have something about it flow better and I had some really good guests on the album.  Usually when you have too many guests, it means you are not good enough to carry yourself.  In this case, it was Peter Frampton, Brian May, Jack Bruce, and Bonnie Bramlett.  That is a good bunch of people, most of them are going down, but I am really proud of how the album came out.  I hope you enjoy it and I hope your listeners and readers enjoy it.

Interview by Lou Lombardi

Leslie West: Soundcheck Review

For his sixteenth solo album, Soundcheck, Leslie West, gives us his take on some of the coolest blues, rock, country, and traditional music from the past one hundred years. This well chosen set demonstrates that Leslie West’s monstrous guitar tone and crushing voice are still going strong. Soundcheck is raw and ballsy and a fun listen from start to finish.
The record opens with the slide guitar drenched blues rocker “Left By the Roadside to Die.” This sets the tone (pun intended) for what’s to come. Other highlights include West’s lick trading with Queen’s Brian May on the rowdy standard “Goin’ Down” (which also features Bonnie Bramlett and Bobby Whitlock).  Also of note is the acoustic guitar instrumental “Stern Warning,” an original that he penned for his longtime friend Howard Stern. One of the real surprises on this record is the Leslie West/Peter Frampton collaboration on the singalong  “You Are My Sunshine.” They replace the familiar major key sing-songy melody and give it a minor key treatment. This ends up being one of the most interesting tracks on the record. Other fun covers include the Gretchen Wilson hit “Here for the Party” and the Willie Dixon penned “Spoonful” featuring the late Jack Bruce on vocals and bass. Also of note is an instrumental take on the Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby” that’s played by band bassist Rev Jones.
Considering a career that dates back to the Vagrants in the late 1960s, hard rock titans Mountain during the 1970s, and a legendary solo career that has spanned five decades, Soundcheck is an excellent addition to the Leslie West catalog and legend. If you haven’t checked out what Leslie has been up to lately this Soundcheck is a great place to start.
The Review: 8.5/10
Can’t Miss Tracks
– Goin’ Down
– You Are My Sunshine
– Spoonful
– Here For The Party
-Left By The Roadside To Die
The Big Hit
-Left By The Roadside To Die

Dirty Streets: White Horse Review

For those of you who have been lamenting that there is no “good music” out there, let not your hearts be troubled. Dirty Streets are here to wipe away your tears. Their brand new record due out November, 2015 called White Horse is a collection of 11 rock and roll tracks that will make you swear that you’ve been transported back to 1970. Get out your lava lamp, throw on your cleanest dirty tie dye and fire up some incense so the folks won’t get a wiff.

White Horse from the Memphis power trio of Thomas Storz, Justin Toland, and Andrew Denham, feels like a natural progression from their last record, Blades of Grass, which had the boys experimenting a bit with keyboards and such. Here they just simply bust out the jams.  They describe their sound as proto-punk but do not let that fool you.  White Horse is some of the best rock and roll you will hear this year.  The production is lean and mean. All the sounds are very warm and natural. The vocals and guitar work are soulful and the bass and drums lay down one tastey groove after another.

White Horse opens with the sing along “Save Me” and the boys keep things rocking hard until we get to the acoustic country-soul of “The Voices.” The only other a brief respite from the ear bleeding is the psychodelic and very melodic “Dust” where the Streets reference the “Hey Joe” bass line.  The rest of the record is one catchy, grooving, guitar driven track after another.

While some may try to marginalize  Dirty Streets as some sort of revival act, there is no denying the passion and excellent songwriting craft here.  If you like your rock and roll down and dirty saddle up and take a ride on the White Horse.

The Review: 9/10

Can’t Miss Tracks

– Save Me
– Looking For My Peace
– White Horse– Think Twice– Good Pills

The Big Hit

– Save Me

Review by Lou Lombardi

Robert Cray: 4 Nights of 40 Years Live Review

Robert Cray has been recording his unique style of soulful blues for over forty years. That’s over twenty albums and thousands of live performances. 4 Nights of 40 Years is an attempt to present Robert Cray’s career in a fan friendly, three disc package.

The first disc is billed as the “Main Feature.” Recorded last December at several L.A. rehearsal halls and venues, Cray’s current line up of bassist Richard Cousins, drummer Les Falconer and keyboardist Dover Weinberg are augmented by  saxophonist Trevor Lawrence and trumpeter Steve Madio of Paul Butterfiedl and Stevie Wonder fame.  Producer Steve Jordan adds percussion to give the band a full R&B flavor with extra bottom. From the opening track “I Shiver” it’s apparent that both Robert’s voice and guitar work are still as soulful as his fans have come to expect. Guest vocalist Kim Wilson turns in a fine performance on “Wrap It Up,” which was a huge hit for the Fabulous Thunderbirds in 1980s. However, the band stays closer to the 1968 Sam and Dave original, right down to the horn section. Lee Oskar also sits in on “Sitting on Top of the World.”

Disc 2 is the bonus disc and includes performances from the Dutch television show “Countdown” from 1987, and the Robert Cray Band’s set at the 1982 San Francisco Blues Festival. The band was touring behind the Strong Persuader release and this show contains music from that period. Peter Boe on keys and drummer David Olson were the rhythm section for this outing, with Cousins on  bass, Some of the highlights are “Guess I Showed Her,” “Right Next Door,” “Smoking Gun” and “Still Around.” The 1982 tracks feature Warren Rand on alto and Mike Vannice on tenor and organ. “Too Many Cooks” and “T-Bone Shuffle”  from the festival are great examples of what a 28-year-old Robert Cray could do with a Stratocaster even at that early age.

The DVD is a treat for any Robert Cray fan. There is lots of well put together biographical information as well as footage from the 1982 and 1987 shows interspersed throughout the disc, showing the band members discussing the trying times early in their careers. There are interviews with a lot of great musicians, including Buddy Guy, Keith Richards, Jimmie Vaughan, Bonnie Raitt and Eric Clapton. Of particular interest is producer Steve Jordan discussing how Keith Richards introduced him Robert Cray.

All in all 4 Nights of 40 Years is one giant Robert Cray love fest. In addition to the 3 discs there is a full color booklet with some great photos and even more information about Cray’s illustrious career.  The package is a fun retrospective of one of contemporary blues’ most beloved artists and is a must own for all Robert Cray fans.

The Review: 8.5/10

Can’t Miss Tracks

– Too Many Cooks
– Wrap it Up
– Smoking Gun
– Guess I Showed Her

The Big Hit

– Right Next Door

Review by Lou Lombardi

Joe Bonamassa: Live At Radio City Music Hall Review

In January 2015, Joe Bonamassa took the stage at Radio City Music Hall for the first time for a sold-out, two-night run.  These concerts have been nicely captured on CD and DVD/Blu-Ray and a version will also air this fall on the Palladia HD TV network.

It seems that Joe has been on a mission to record and release a live album from all of his “fantasy” venues.  Live at Radio City Music Hall is live album number eight, and features over 75 minutes of music, including two newly recorded songs, nine unreleased live tracks, over 2.5 hours of live footage, a special 45-minute behind-the-scenes featurette, a 40-page collector’s book with exclusive photos, and a sneak peek into Bonamassa’s childhood home and musical heritage. The package definitely was obviously put together with the afficiando in mind.

These shows were the culmination and the finale of Bonamassa’s special half acoustic/half electric tour, which he showcased around the world for the past year and half. The first set has Bonamassa playing alongside the acoustic band The Huckleberries and features Irish fiddler Gerry O’Connor, Mats Wester on niyckelharpa and mandola, keyboardist Reese Wynans, and percussionist Lenny Castro. He then shifts into electric mode for the second set with his regular touring band of bassist Carmine Rojas, keyboardist Reese Wynans, drummer Tal Bergman, trumpeter Lee Thornburg, trombonist Nick Lane, and saxophonist Paulie Cerra. As one would expect, Joe covers a lot of territory here. The electric set has Joe sporting a slightly brighter guitar tone that seems to work nicely with the “uptown” horn arrangements.  On the acoustic set he gets a bit country-ish with “Trouble Town” and “Still Water.”  The acoustic material is very tuneful and provides a nice dynamic against the high energy electric set.  All in all, Live at Radio City Music Hall is more traditional both on the electric and the acoustic sets but never sacrifices the blistering lead guitar that we have come to expect from Mr. Bonamassa.

I wasn’t sure what to think when I read that J.B. was doing yet another live album.  However, this one has some nice variations on his style and as always the playing is flawless. Live at Radio City Music Hall is a must have for all true Joe Bonamassa fans.

The Review: 9/10

Can’t Miss Tracks

– I Can’t be Satisfied– Trouble Town– Still Water– I Gave Up Everything for You
– One Less Cross to Bear

The Big Hit

– One Less Cross to Bear

Review by Lou Lombardi

Buy the album: Amazon

Upcoming UK Tour Dates

Newcastle Metro Arena – Wednesday Oct 21
Liverpool Echo Arena – Friday Oct 23
Leeds First Direct Arena – Saturday Oct 24
Nottingham Capital FM – Arena Sunday Oct 25
Cardiff Motorpoint Arena – Tuesday Oct 27
Bournemouth BIC – Wednesday Oct 28
Brighton Centre – Friday Oct 30
Brighton Centre – Saturday Oct 31

David Gogo: Vicksburg Call Review

Vicksburg Call is the fourteenth album from British Columbia’s David Gogo and  Gogo shows no sign of slowing down. Vicksburg Call is one blistering rocking blues track after another.  The album opens with the power chord rock of “Cuts Me to the Bone.” This sets the tone for the entire record. Speaking of tone, Gogo’s guitar sounds like it’s on fire. His website says that he has recently acquired a new Les Paul but every musician knows that the tone is your hands. Gogo strangles and wrenches every bit of passion, soul, grit and grime from those six strings from start to finish.

Vicksburg Call features some fine blues rock writing. Of note are the title track,  “Vicksburg Call,” the boogie woogie rocker “Coulda Shoulda Woulda” and the hard driving shuffle of “Fooling Myself.” David also has a reputation as “the great interpreter.”  He lives up to that moniker with his renditions of Neil Young’s “The Loner” and the Stephen Stills penned “Jet Set (sigh)” but one of the most interesting tracks on Vicksburg Call is Gogo’s bluesy version of Annie Lennox’s “Why” which closes the album.

Gogos’ rhythm section of Bill Hicks (drums) and Jay Stevens (bass) is solid and gives Gogo lots of room to stretch out both on his Les Paul as well as vocally. Kim Simmonds and Shawn Hall appear as guests to round things out. Vicksburg Call is a solid album from one of Canada’s most electrifying guitarists and should satisfy the anyone one who is hungry for great roots and blues drenched rock.

The Review: 8.5/10

Can’t Miss Tracks

– The Loner
– Shoulda Woulda Coulda
– Vicksburg Call
– Cuts Me to the Bone

The Hit

– Cuts Me to the Bone

David Michael Miller Interview

Recently, singer-songwriter David Michael Miller gave Blues Rock Review the inside scoop on his journey from singing in church as a child to more recently touring the country with his band. Despite a hiatus several years back, the guitarist feels a pull to the blues scene that’s as strong as ever. With a sound that might be best described as “modern traditional,” the release of his second solo album is no doubt, anticipated.

Take us to the beginning – how did you get started with music?

You know, it started in the church for me. I was raised up with half my family [being] Pentecostal with Protestant circles on the other side, [who were] a little bit more conservative. So, I had those two worlds, which was interesting. My grandpa on the one side was an Evangelist. You have some pretty wild stuff happening there – I remember going to tent meetings and revivals. But, growing up singing in church, that’s what I remember from the little age. I was singing on my grandpa’s radio show at four, just singing spiritual hymns and choruses and that’s how it got started.

You have an interesting story because you started getting into music very seriously and then you stopped, right? You took a break?

Yeah, there [were] a couple of starts and stops. One is when I was a young man in high school [playing] in bands. Then in college I was looking to do music, trying to figure that out and did an internship in Nashville at a large distribution company that at the time owned some studios and I was having a hard time seeing myself in the industry. I mean I just saw it as kind of… for the lack of a better word, corrupt. I guess it seemed to be ruled by businessmen and I was trying to find the art in it. So I ended up getting married young and that was my first detour really; a…major detour where I kind of put that on a back shelf and worked every job I could to help support this young family that were starting out. [I was] trying to figure all that out and worked my way through it and eventually got more and more involved in the church and became involved musically in church. [I became] a worship leader and had a worship team on Sunday mornings. Then I did a small album but was it was more focused to a Christian audience. It was nothing commercial – that wasn’t really the focus. The focus was work. I started building a tech company doing software design and had folks working for me and we did a lot of fun stuff. Music was always kind of on the side or the back burner, you know what I mean? It wasn’t the focus. It wasn’t really until two years ago where I had gotten out of running my own business [when it became the focus]. I went to work for somebody else for six years [and] that was going well and then they went though some change. All the people that hired me were let go and then my day was not long after that. My whole team got wiped out then I was like, “What do I want to do? Do I really want to do this, or do I want to do what’s always been this passion of love that I’ve always had?” And that’s really [what] the last few years were like. We were just working as hard as we could and put out a great product and did some incredible shows trying to figure out how to lift this rocket off the ground.

So you are essentially a new artist even though you have been a musician for a very, very long time in the industry.

I would say so, yes. I would consider myself a new artist.

You have two solo records out – Poisons Sipped and Same Soil. You have a very wide range of things that you are able to accomplish vocally. This is one of the things that I really enjoy about your music, it doesn’t matter what setting you are getting into, you are able to just vocally, completely command it. Tell me about your vocal influences.

Growing up, it was listening to gospel music. I listened to a wide range of stuff but I remember listening to Andrae Crouch and BeBe and CeCe Winans and some great gospel music. But I remember hearing on the radio R&B and soul and everything from Motown all the way up through. I remember listening to Ray Charles, B.B. King, and blues and a little bit of Bill Withers even though I didn’t know who he was, I just knew a couple of his songs. I started listening to some guys, [thinking], “Man, they’re singing from some place deep.” That is what inspired me and that’s what I’d do in the shower. But I didn’t usually let that stuff out in public because it seemed a little out of place on this white country kid, like, “What am I doing trying to let myself out like that?” So it took me to pretty much be a grown man before I let myself off the hook and let myself be myself.

David Michael Miller

So when it comes to your vocal approach, when you sit down to cut a vocal or figure out what you want to do vocally, are you consciously drawing on people like Andrae Crouch and Marvin Gaye? Is it like that, or is it just how you feel?

It’s just how I feel. I can’t say that I consciously do it, [but] I’m sure that it happens. There’s a song that I wrote with my old band many years ago and that whole tune is just about all the influences that I have. It’s one of those things where I don’t think you always know, even though [you] do. I remember on my last album, the one before Poisons Sipped, I do remember singing a line and going, “That was so John Legend. What was all that about?’” And I recognized it. But sometimes it’s not really a conscious thing, I just try to sing what I feel, and what the lyrics and the emotion or even the moment is bringing out and however that happens, is how it happens.

Okay, so it’s just flowing and you’re just kind of being yourself with the music. What about songwriting? How does that come about?

It’s interesting. Songwriting has always come easy. I never felt like I had to reach too far for an idea. Ideas always come in. My phone right now is full of little messages to myself: here’s a line or a here’s hook – it’s just something that I’m hearing. I think where it becomes interesting is what happens with that idea. Every once in a while, a song comes out done. It just floats right out like it was pre-written and handed to me. But sometimes it’s like a concept or a feeling that I’m trying to communicate and with those I kind of have to let it come out when I’m ready. So I’ll run over the line and if something keeps going and I feel that there’s a flow, I’ll keep moving with it. If I feel that I’m hitting a stopping point, then I’ve learned not to force it because when I force those ideas, they never seem to stick with me. They feel like manufactured versus homegrown.

Talk to me a little bit about the progression from Poisons Sipped to Same Soil. You did one solo record that went pretty well. Does [your band] Miller and the Other Sinners happen in between and then Same Soil?

Poisons Sipped started off as just me trying to communicate what was going on in my life. It was something I felt I needed to do and I had no intention of releasing it other than just locally. I wasn’t going to try pushing it out in any fashion, but I wanted a producer because part of my struggle in releasing products is always trying to self-produce. I couldn’t figure out how to get past that initial recording. It just wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t capturing it and I would be hard on myself and it would never be released. So I found this producer, Jesse Miller, who is a wonderfully talented producer artist up here in Buffalo, and he listened to my stuff and he said, “Man, I know the rhythm section you’ve got to work with,” and he introduced me to Carlton Campbell and Darick Bennett of The Campbell Brothers. I wasn’t really familiar with those guys up to that point but as soon as I found out who they were, I dove in and listened and thought, “Oh my gosh, this is amazing.” We went to the studio and we tracked about eleven songs in about eleven hours. These guys just knew where I was coming from. It was amazing. I’ve never connected with a rhythm section in that way before – and I’ve had some great rhythm sections. It was on another level. Really, what happened is through the recording of that album and then having the Campbells’ say, “You have to get this out there. You need to do something with this.” As I started to go toward that we kind of started gelling into something and that something at first was David Michael Miller with members of The Campbell Brothers. Who wants to promote that? So it became Miller and the Other Sinners. As that band was forming, I also made an acquaintance with Mike Brown. He is the guy who recorded, engineered and co-produced Same Soil. He brought me down to his room. He’s got this killer studio called Temperamental Recordings and it’s been on American Pickers. He showed me his studio and I’m thinking, “I’ve got all this material that would work.” He was describing how he records and how he uses this minimum mic … and I’m thinking man the songs that I have and a couple that I want to write, together would be killer in this space. So that really is how that second album came about. At the same time, we started recording our first Miller and The Other Sinners EP. We now have about four songs that are close to done that I wrote that are kind of a continuation of Poisons Sippedwith that feel and that kind of an arrangement. Working with Carlton Campbell from the Campbell Brothers to record so now we’re doing it together, producing it together and getting everybody in the same room and the same page. It’s a little harder because they’re all busy, so we’re trying to move together toward making Miller and the Other Sinners the big stage band. That’s the dream. I had the opportunity and I didn’t want to pass it up because I knew there would be a time frame in getting to the first note of the Miller and the Other Sinners album. So I took advantage of it and went in and we came out with this album. It feels pretty good. This was what I was looking for with these songs that were raw and were paying tribute to me as the foundation of what I do and how I do what I do, which is all blues and soul and kind of that old country where country and blues were walking down the same road together. That’s the stuff that really moves me and I wanted to do that and I wanted to bring that out in this album. Now we’re promoting that album and touring that album with the goal of introducing Miller and The Other Sinners. We’re playing material from both albums and what’s going to be on the new album and trying to get the people ready for the big thing.

The band that you worked with on Same Soil – is this The Campbell Brothers?

Only on a couple of songs. I kind of wanted it that way because I wanted the sound different since this was going to be – at least for a while I envisioned – my last solo record. The record’s going be moving on and it will be Miller and The Other Sinners and it would be more of a collaboration in those key players. In this album I picked musicians that I played with in Buffalo that I just felt were going to give the songs justice that would give me the feel that I had in my head. On some of the songs I used Robert “Freightrain” Parker who was just inducted into the Buffalo Music Hall of Fame a week or two ago. I also used Shannon Street. Shannon’s been drumming with me for the last six years and he’s started to play a lot with Bobby.  And with the rhythm section, I kind of knew that for certain songs they’d give me a certain kind of feel. I did use Carlton Campbell from The Campbell Brothers on a few tunes: “Got Them Blues” and “If You Hear Me” and “Born to Lose.” And Ritchie Valentino because they’re a cool team for bass and drums that give a little bit of gospel flavor and funkify things just a little bit. I just knew that would work. I had the opportunity to work with my son, who actually in just a little bit we will be doing a rehearsal, and we have him play on, “Shoes to Shine,” he’s the drummer on that. And my nephew Nick Peterson is on that. Jim Ehinger is all across this album. Jim plays organ and keys on this. I’ve been working with Jim now for a while. If you look up his resume, it is amazing. He has toured with Bonnie Rait. He has toured with Albert Collins. You name an artist and he’s probably done shows with them, done sessions with them and it’s pretty incredible. I used a couple of saxophone players including Jason Moynihan and Barry Arborgast.  When I can do the big band those two guys together is a show in itself. Mike Brown is on there playing some percussion and other instruments like banjo. A couple of bass players pitched in as well. There was a couple of moments like that that happened. For the most part these were guys we worked with in some capacity around here and I knew that they would add the right flavor to theses songs.

There’s some great guitar work on Same Soil. Are you playing the lead guitar?

Yes, I did all the guitars on the album; all the electric guitars, the acoustic. Obviously Mike Brown did some mandolin and some tenor banjo but other than that, I think I did everything else.

We talked about vocal influences, what about with the guitar? You’re obviously a dynamite guitar player as well.

Oh, well, thank you, well there’s a bunch of them. Obviously, I think it’d be silly to hear some of the stuff on there and not go, “Hey did you ever listen to Derek Trucks?” Derek’s a hero of mine, he just is. I actually made a fool out of myself with him the other night because we got back stage passes. I opened for him once in Buffalo a year ago. So we went back stage talked to the folks, talked to him and you know I always stick my foot in my mouth around him for some reason. He’s just a humble, wonderful dude and a monster (in my opinion) of phrasing. I can almost hear words when he plays. It’s incredible. He’s a big influence. And I learned a lot from jamming with the Campbells’ – Darick Campbell and Chuck Campbell and some of those guys… then trying to vocalize like that on my 335 you know, that’s kind of cool. But then I’ve listened to a bunch of guys. Joe Bonamassa was an influence on me for a while and I got the chance to open for him as well years ago. [He is] a guy who can pretty much play whatever he wants, stylistically. I love listening to B.B. [King], man, I really do. To this day, he’s quite a player but even in his simplicity …[it’s] the right notes, the right space, the right feel at that point in time. I’ve drawn from a lot of those guys and local guys. There is an incredible guitar player around here by the name of Tommy Z, whose last album was really great. I’ve learned a lot from watching him play and just trying to absorb it. But mostly I try to play like I sing. I try not to learn riffs. I just try to play what I would try to sing because I want it to be an extension of my voice.

You mentioned different things about the Buffalo scene. Could you talk a little bit about that? From what I hear, there are some very cool things happening in the Buffalo music scene.

Oh absolutely. We’ve got a strong blues society here – the Western New York Blues Society. There’s a lot of cool events – not just blues, there’s all kinds of music happening in Buffalo. I travel a lot …and [when you’re traveling] you can go into a really great club on a weekend and you can hear that band, that killer weekend band, and go, “Man, they’re good.” If you come to Buffalo on a Tuesday night for an open mic, that’s what you’ll hear. That’s a Tuesday night open mic band. We’ve got a lot of incredible, talented music and an incredibly nurturing music scene here in Buffalo – people jamming with each other. There are so many gigs: you can work a lot in Buffalo as a musician and that’s great because you can sit in with guys and learn on the job and I really think that’s where great music happens: where you get inspired by the guy next to you while you are on stage. And so we have a lot of that going on. I call it the “Austin of the North.” I think we get paid a little bit better, but it’s that kind of a thing [where] you know you can pick a night and there’s a dozen clubs that have great music. You just go to one and enjoy it. That’s the Buffalo scene.

Well, David you’re not just hanging out in Buffalo – you are doing some touring. Tell us about the tour – what’s the band, is this Miller and the Other Sinners? Where are you going to be touring?

We’re taking a few of the Sinners. We’re doing a four-piece band and tomorrow we head out to Pittsburgh and we’re doing some shows through Pennsylvania and come back up to Central New York the following week. Then we’re heading down again to Pennsylvania, and we’ll work toward the Philly area then to Northern Virginia, and then a few weeks later, we head out for a five-week tour that’s taking us out to 14 states. We are heading out to the Midwest. We are opening for Shemekia Copeland on one of those dates, but we’re heading out through Illinois and Iowa and Kansas, Denver, New Mexico, Phoenix, Utah, back through Kansas and Tennessee and Ohio and home. We’re all over the place for five weeks, which I’m really excited about. Even beyond that we’re booking right now on the East Coast and then down into Florida in January and February because, hey, I live in Buffalo – it’s nice to get out during that time of the year.

So there’s a method to the touring schedule, I see. There’s some ulterior motives here.

Completely self-serving – no question about it.

Okay, David, that’s pretty much it. Is there anything you would like to add or promote or talk about here before we wrap up?

Well you know I just think that obviously we all know that the music industry is in a weird spot. We’re all trying to figure out how to make it work. I have respect for anybody who is trying to figure it out. We still need people to support our music, both our live shows and maybe pick up an album… because that is still a part of the picture. That’s how we try to do it. So we encourage folks to not forget about your local musicians who are throwing it down and offering their CDs up at gigs. Take advantage of it and try to help them make more art.

Interview by Lou Lombardi