David Mac (DM): Greetings Raphael. Where are you from and where do you reside now?

Raphael Wressnig (RW): I was born in Graz, Austria, and grew up in a small town in the south of Austria, pretty close to Slovenia. Now I live in Graz, Austria.

DM: What are some of your earliest exposures to music?

RW: My dad had a decent record collection and I always loved music. Basically I started playing music pretty late, but I was always into blues, soul, funk and jazz. These are pretty much the same styles that I play and try to blend now.

DM: Let’s talk a bit about your early musical training. Is there a mentor or music teacher that you would like to mention?

RW: I had no particular training, no teacher and never had any formal studies. Still I was fortunate enough to hook up with great, great musicians at an early stage of my career. I started my own group when I was sixteen years old. I teamed up with “Sir” Oliver Mally, one of the leading blues figures in Austria when I was eighteen. We recorded a bunch of feature albums together. Oliver had a great reputation already and I got to tour with him quite a bit.

Two years later we opened for Larry Garner in Switzerland. Larry loved my playing and got in touch with me a couple of months later. I joined his group for several years and we toured extensively. I would call Larry my mentor. I learned a lot and I learned it the old-school way. We toured all kinds of exotic places for blues such as Russia, Dubai and Tunisia. I visited Larry in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He took me to church and we played a bunch of shows in Louisiana.

DM: Do you recall some of your earlier musical heroes or people you listened to that might have had an influence on your development as a musician.  

RW: Honestly, I don’t remember so well. I live in the here and now.  I never stopped discovering new music. All I can tell you is that I discovered Jimmy Smith and Jimmy McGriff at some point and that was it.

DM: Did you play any other instruments before you got into the organ?

RW: I played piano and started my own group. I soon found out that it is hard to compete with wailing guitars and I experimented with sounds. Basically I started using a Rhodes, Wurlitzer piano sounds and organ sounds. I realized that for me organ was a lot more expressive. I found my voice. I knew I had to get a real Hammond organ.

DM: I have to ask the obligatory question. Who are your major influences on the organ?

RW: I mentioned Jimmy Smith and Jimmy McGriff before. I really loved Jimmy Smith’s blues and rhythm & blues recordings; Mojo, Hi Heel Sneakers, Back at the Chicken Shack. I found out that Jimmy McGriff was somehow greasier.

I loved the music, the groove and the feel. It was clear that all these players play different licks and have different styles, but they create music and vibes. This is an approach that I picked up at an early stage. I never think too much about licks and certain styles that I should play. Honestly, I couldn’t care less. For me the question always was: Why does this music attract me? What is the momentum that makes people groove and dance?

I learned to let loose, to let the music wash over me. I found out that the groove, phrasing is way more important than styles or certain licks. Don’t get me wrong I took my time to listen to McDuff, McGriff, Smith, Earland, Holmes, Patterson, Roach, Lonnie and the list goes on.

I have to add Booker T. Jones and Billy Preston and want to take a look at the soul side of things. There is Junior Walker & the All Stars with Victor Thomas on organ. Then there are all the New Orleans players like The Meters and Art Neville on the B-3 for instance. I love Willie T.

DM: The B-3 is a unique instrument in several different ways. Let’s share with our readers some of what you believe makes this particular instrument so special and unique.

RW: The aspect that attracts me the most is the power of the instrument. I love to make it sound big and fiery. There is an explosive element, yet you can make the B-3 whisper gently. There are thousands of colors and I love to show these colors during a concert. The organ can sound like an orchestra, but it can give you a powerful lead sound as well. I love the classic approach.

The organist covers the bass lines as well. This is the reason that I cut almost all of my albums without a bassist. George Porter, Jr. of the legendary Meters joined on one track on my Soul Gumbo album that I cut in New Orleans and Rodrigo Mantovani plays bass on The Soul Connection.

I love organ combos, in the blues environment. I always dug Jimmie Vaughan’s group with Bill Willis on organ. As an organist, if you play with a great drummer, you can cover a lot of ground. Add a tasteful guitarist and a horn section and you are set. This is very challenging but fulfilling.

DM: Are there other organs you play besides the Hammond B3?

RW: I just got a Farfisa organ. I want to use it more for fun and maybe to do some obscure recordings. Dr. John plays some Farfisa on the Black Keys produced Locked Down; great album by the way.

DM: What are some of your career highlights you would like to discuss?  

RW: I think around 2007 or so we toured a bunch of times with a very cool project, Women of Chicago Blues. It featured Deitra Farr, Zora Young and Grana Louise. The band was an all-star band with Kenny Smith on drums, Billy Flynn on guitar, Felton Crews on bass and myself on organ/keys. Producer Larry Skoller put together this project. Larry was a key person who always supported me.

Later we toured with the male version of this project and I’m sure all the blues lovers are aware of the Grammy nominated Chicago Blues A Living History project. It was Larry who always inspired me and asked me the right questions. Actually Larry just talked to me again and offered that he could produce one of the future albums. He knows a lot about music. He asked me the right questions.  Hanging out with Billy Flynn was great. Man, Billy is like an encyclopedia of blues and roots music. I kept collaborating with Deitra Farr. I had Deitra Farr and Tad Robinson as guests on my Soul Gift album.

I have to point out my partner Alex Schultz. I played my first show with Alex in 2002 or so. A bit earlier I met Enrico Crivellaro. Both great, great guitarists and up until now I used both of them in my group, Raphael Wressnig & The Soul Gift Band. Basically Enrico does most of the shows now and I’ve been working with him for fourteen years. Back then if Enrico couldn’t do a festival show I asked Alex. We kept working together and he was a guest on some of my early recordings. Soul Gift was a concept album and I would say this album really defined my style. We brought in two great, great vocalists (Deitra & Tad) who penned a few vocal tracks and the other tracks were catchy instrumentals. I’m pretty comfortable and proud in the role of playing the leads. Alex makes the guitar sing and it is just beautiful to listen to him. Dig the instrumental version of Freddie King’s Same Old Blues on Soul Gift.

I have to mention “Sax” Gordon at this point. He is one of the feature guests on Soul Gift and a lot of my recordings for that matter. He is the person who introduced me to Igor Prado. Gordon is a phenomenal player and it’s just so much fun to work and tour with him.

DM: I would like to talk about The Igor Prado band in a bit, but first let’s talk about your Soul Gumbo album.

RW: Thanks for bringing that up Dave.  I cut that record in New Orleans. This one is another concept album. In Europe a lot of people categorize and the jazz and blues scene don’t necessarily intertwine. There is the jazz audience and the blues crowd and there are some younger folks that are into funk. If you hang out in New Orleans there is just a lot of music that is funky and groovy, there is r&b, blues, soul and funk. In my music I want to blend all these styles and for this reason I wanted to record in New Orleans and I wanted to record my songs and add some spices.

I used one of the funkiest drummers, New Orleans’ own Stanton Moore and we brought in r&b master Walter “Wolfman” Washington on guitar. My former mentor Larry Garner drove down from Baton Rouge and I flew in Craig Handy from New York City. Craig is another artist who I’ve been working for years. Eric Zawinul, jazzman Joe Zawinul’s son was booking my group for a while and put me in touch with Craig. Craig was working on a new project recording Jimmy Smith songs, 2^nd line style. Both of us share the love for the grooves and vibes from New Orleans. It was obvious for me to bring in Craig. It had to be Alex Schultz on guitar again since he had a cool history with New Orleans. He has been backing Earl King with the Mighty Flyers in the 90s and his mum’s family was originally from New Orleans. We had a lot of fun and sparks were flying during those two days we cut the record at the Music Shed Studios in the Lower Garden District in New Orleans.

DM: You describe yourself as a multi-genre artist. I guess that is fairly self-explanatory, but you are welcome to elaborate on this concept. As you alluded to I don’t think you can talk about New Orleans music without mentioning this aspect of music and how you relate to music in general.

RW:  I guess one reason that I came up with this amalgamation and fusion of styles is that I wanted to show different colors and flavors. We are talking about instrumental music mostly and still I want to entertain the listener. Our live shows are pretty powerful and high-voltage, but I like to change the pace and shift gears, but I also want to take them on a trip. Nowadays my music is pretty groovy, a good amount of Boogaloo beats, soul and funk.

A lot of modern blues acts blend a lot of styles and sometimes I’m lacking a deep and raw feel for the blues. We might not play a lot of lowdown blues tunes, but if we do we “do” get down. I want to dig deep and discover the essence of each groove and style to offer different flavors and I want them to be intense.

DM: Let’s talk about your association with Igor and his band. How did you meet? How did the idea for this project start? 

RW: I see music as a universal language and I love communicating with people who speak the same dialect. That’s a key aspect of the collaboration with Igor Prado and the guys from Brazil.

As I mentioned before Sax “Gordon” Beadle put us in touch. All three of us have put out soul records. Igor had Blues & Soul Sessions out, I released Soul Gift and Gordon had released Showtime. We all teamed up to perform at Poretta Soul Festival in Italy. For me it was just great to meet up with a young man that is my age from another part of the world playing the same styles so well. Igor invited me to guest on Way Down South which came out on the Delta Groove Music label out of Los Angeles and pretty soon we had a bunch of tours together. I toured with him in Chile and Brazil and we had some tours in Europe. We had two days off in Sao Paulo and just a couple of days before leaving for Brazil Igor called me and asked me if I was into recording something. We booked a studio and rented a B-3 for one day. We cut most of the tracks in one day. Another afternoon recording in Igor’s studio and the record was done. We recorded, produced, mixed and mastered this album.  So this really is some homegrown stuff. We are pretty proud of The Soul Connection.

DM: As you should be...It is simply a stunning album and one we listen to around here frequently. Let’s talk about Igor, Rodrigo and Yuri as musicians.

RW: I want to focus on Rodrigo and Yuri first. The guitarist gets a lot of spotlight always, but a lot of people forget about the rhythm section. The whole thing was only possible because of the band and the rhythm section was nothing but outstanding. You won’t be able to cut an album in one day and do just two takes per track. Only absolute masters of the genre and the instrument can pull that off. I love the recording and I love this band because it is absolutely clear that they know all these styles so well. They are perfectionists even though some things are loose and dirty. Especially in that music grease and dirt is the key. Yuri knows all the New Orleans and funk beats, yet he swings like hell. This is very, very rare. I love when musicians have a unique style.

Igor and the cats definitely have a unique and remarkable style. Igor once told me, after I congratulated him on a very cool and catchy solo: “Yeah Raph, that’s just a mix of a bunch of fucked-up styles”. Well, shitty is pretty. That’s all I can say.

DM: You got that right. We would be remiss if we didn’t talk about the three exceptional vocalists that appear on The Soul Connection.

RW: I love working with stellar vocalists. It all started when we plugged in the date for the recording session in Sao Paulo with Willie Walker. We cut in one room, at the same time and even without headphones. We had five guys in one room playing music, listening to each other feeling it and letting loose. I still love the recordings. I love Willie’s recordings for Goldwax and I’m so happy for him that he has this comeback.

We met David Hudson in Poretta. I worked with Igor the first time in Poretta and we dug David’s show and it was great to bring all this together. Gordon proposed Leon Beal since they work together constantly. The Soul Connection is about bringing people that dig the same things together.

We actually wanted to have Otis Clay on the album as well, but unfortunately he passed two weeks before the session. Willie later told us that Willie Mitchell wanted him to sing Tryin’ to Live My Life without You in the first place. Otis Clay later had a hit with that song. It was obvious for us to cover that song and have Willie paying tribute to Otis Clay. We are blessed and fortunate to have these three gentlemen helping us on the album.

DM: Let’s talk about the multi-media aspect of this release.

RW: Indeed...I should mention that all my latest records are out on vinyl which include Soul Gift, Soul Gumbo as well as The Soul Connection and now in February Captured Live will follow. Captured Live is a fiery live recording with my steady band; Two horns, Enrico on guitar, Silvio Berger on drums and Deitra Farr guesting on one track. I was celebrating ‘20 Years on Stage’ last year and my label Pepper Cake Records put together this Deluxe Edition – The Soul Connection/Captured Live. It features the new studio album The Soul Connection and the live album in a nice digi-pack with extended booklet.

DM: In addition to your recording career you are quite the road warrior.  

RW: That’s what I do Dave. I’m on the road with my steady group all year. Mostly we go out as a six piece which includes two horns, a guitar, a singer and myself on the B-3. Most of the songs or two thirds of the repertoire are instrumentals and we do the vocal tracks of my albums. Occasionally we go out as an organ trio. We do a bunch of tours with Deitra Farr guesting with my band and then I have the tours with Igor. We tour in Latin America and in Europe and beyond. Last year we played in Russia. Pretty much I take the music that I record on the road.

DM: What can we expect from you in the future? Are there any projects you have on the fire you would like to talk about?

RW: I have a feeling that a lot of musicians out there do some things that are “in fashion” or “hip” or do things that worked for somebody else. I want to surprise my audience and I want to surprise you Dave.  All I can tell you now is that I’ll try hard, it will be soulful and groovy, so watch out. (laughing)

DM: What interests and or hobbies do you have outside of music?

RW: I love traveling, I love being on the coast.  It doesn’t matter if it is Croatia, Italy or Spain. It doesn’t matter if I’m in Europe or Brazil or Mexico. It’s great to spent time on the seaside. I love the mountains as well. I live in Austria, so it is natural for me to go mountaineering or skiing.

DM: What would you like people to know about you?

RW: I would like people to know that I love to share ideas, thoughts and concepts. Music is one of the most beautiful things in life. It brings people together. It is my vehicle to communicate, to show feelings, colors and flavors. I think I will never get bored creating and tasting these flavors.

DM: What should I have asked you?

RW: You didn’t ask me about my motto.

DM: Hell, I didn’t even know you had a motto. Let ‘er rip.

RW: “Laying it deep, playing for keeps. Live long, party strong!” Thank you so much David for the support and for taking the time to do this interview. It was a big pleasure for me. 

DM: The pleasure was all mine Raphael. Dammit, I need to get me a motto. (laughs) Take care my friend.


To support fine interviews like this (and learn about more talented artists not on your radar), Click here:

<-