Blues Review – Alive at the Deep Blues Fest by Trigger

Alive at the Deep Blues Fest is the convergence of many cool things. This summer, Minnesota BBQ magnate and founder of the Deep Blues Festivals Chris Johnson decided to revitalize the Deep Blues Fest after a 2 year hiatus. Between 2007 and 2010, the festival became the biggest alternative blues gathering in the world. Then financial hardship forced its discontinuation. The retooled version of Deep Blues that took place June 29th thru July 1st focused more on a sustainable, “quality not quantity” model that capped the attendees at a manageable 200.

To include the rest of us in the festivities, Deep Blues partnered with Alive Naturalsound Records to record the concert and showcase artists on Alive’s roster in a live context. Alive at the Deep Blues Fest is a full tilt listening experience. No tired, dragging renditions of “Mustang Sally” to be found here. Instead what you have is the raw, uncapped energy of true blues revitalization channeled through some of the strongest talent the roots world boasts.

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SOURCE : A selection of live two- and three-man blues

The Deep Blues Festival is a Minnesota celebration of alternative blues music, originally run from 2007 to 2010. After spin-offs in Cleveland and Ortin, WA, festival organizer (and BBQ restaurateur) Chris Johnson brought the original festival back to life at Bayport BBQ for a long weekend of shows leading into 2012’s fourth of July. Threaded through the festival were the seven acts collected here, all of whom record for the Alive label. The majority of these bands hail from the Midwest – Iowa, Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania – with fellow travelers Lee Bains arriving from Alabama, and Henry’s Funeral Shoe hopping over the pond from the UK. It’s a testament to Alive’s A&R department that they’ve fostered a stable of bands with similar roots but individual flavors.

At the blunter end of the spectrum are Radio Moscow, with Parker Griggs opening “Hold on Me” with stinging psychedlic wah wah atop a percussion section that takes no prisoners. Henry’s Funeral Shoe has often echoed the British blues-rock giants of the 1970s, but here they are more rough-and-ready, like the Live at Leeds-era Who. Philadelphia’s John the Conqueror is the sort of power trio you’d expect to hear in the run-down ballrooms of Almost Famous, forceful and melodic. Left Lane Cruiser sticks most closely to the classic blues progressions on “24 Hour Blues,” with Freddy J IV’s guitar a ragged, driving machine and Brenn Beck a one-man rhythm section on drums and cymbals. Mark Holder adds his harp to the band’s cover of Robert Johnson’s “Rambling on My Mind.”

More nuanced is Lee Bains III’s mix of sanctified soul and the aggressive electric aesthetic that is Alive’s hallmark. Similarly, Brian Olive’s take has the same core energy, but filled out less abrasively with keyboard, drums and bass lines that glide, roll and rumble in a powerful wall of sound. The Buffalo Killers, who often suggest James Gang-era Joe Walsh, expand on a nine-minute jam of “It’s a Shame” with harmonica player Mark Holder sitting in. It’s great to hear these bands together (even if only through the magic of editing), offering the numerous shades of two- and three-man blues that is their label’s stock-in-trade.

Various Artists
Alive at The Deep Blues Fest
Alive Natural Sound Records [2012]

Fire Note Says: Alive at The Deep Blues Fest is put together with perfection as every band here scratches that blues itch in its’ own special way.

Album Review: I thought reviewing my first compilation might be a challenge but, thank goodness that Alive at The Deep Blues Fest makes that so easy. You want rip snorting blues heft – they have that here, you want a Hendrix reborn – they also have that, and you want soulful tones of R & B and blues ballads – crazy as that sounds they have it here too. The Deep Blues Fest is a great interpretation of that raw, uninhibited sound of the 60’s and 70’s. The compilation was put together in the summer, live, over a 3 day, sold out period. The feeling here was to inspire the togetherness, camaraderie, and the communal spirit of the great fest of old, placing them as far away from some of the corporate sterility of the bigger fest that we know today. Damn, I wish I was there because the feeling that this music projects captures that feeling in spades.

Listening to this I’ve now learned who to watch and what to listen to, each band here is destined to do great things. Also, this was a great learning experience as I found out many things that I didn’t know, the most exciting being that Cincinnati’s own Buffalo Killers were bigger than I thought. At one point they opened for The Black Keys in 2008 as well as The Black Crowes in 2007 which is no surprise since lead vocalist Andrew Gabbard could compare to Chris Robinson with a swampy, delta drawl. The trio known as The Buffalo Killers, raised from the ashes of what used to be Thee Shams, creates songs with a mellow-down easy, bottomed out blues heft that made bands such as Cream so famous in the 60’s. “It’s A Shame(w/Mark Holder)” showcases this like none other, from the bottom up this song oozes with an authentic groovy heft that hard to come by these days, maybe even a touch of the Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young classic “Ohio“, Mark Holder takes on harmonica duty and honks with the strength and pace of a blues locomotive.

Other artist highlights appear in the form of Lee Bains III & the Glory Fires, with the song “There is a Bomb In Gilead” a gospel blues mold, that pours as smooth as liquid glass, but when Bains voice really starts to heat up it’s all belted from the throat and that’s the way it needs to be. One band to watch, Radio Moscow, shoots at you with a fantastic Hendrix reborn vibe, and the power of a Mississippi Queen, it all made apparent with the fantastic “Hold On Me”. Left Lane Cruiser isn’t anything to scoff at either. Please excuse my language but the only way to describe this band is in their rugged, shit kicking, riffs a plenty. These gentlemen take a 12 bar blues classic “Ramblin’ On My Mind” by Robert Johnson and turn it into a slide scorching, harmonica honking, blues extravaganza, it’s quite something to lay your ears on. Artist, Brian Olive brings a dark, jamming blues vibe to the album that more than earns his place here. John the Conqueror’s “Three More” give us an amped up, funky fuzz interpretation of the delta blues.

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