David Mac (DM): How did you get started playing music? 

Otis Grand (OG): It was a long time ago. I first picked up the guitar in 1963. I was influenced by the guitar instrumental bands of that time, The Ventures, Dick Dale, Surfaris, Roy Clark and so on.

DM: Do you remember under what circumstances your ears and blues music crossed paths?

OG:  My love affair with the blues was fuelled when I became aware of blues through the black radio stations in the San Francisco Bay Area. They were playing blues records by artists like B. B. King, Bobby Bland and Albert King. My passion for the blues was always strong even as a teenager growing up in the mid 60’s.

DM: Was there any recorded material that had an impact on you fairly early on?

OG: One of the first records I bought was B.B. King’s Live at The Regal. It knocked my socks off. In my opinion the sheer energy and rawness that was captured on B.B.’s first live recording has never been surpassed nor even duplicated by any other blues artist to date. As the years passed, I literally wore out three or four copies of that album. In the days of old, the more you listened to your vinyl records, the more you destroyed them. I just listened over and over and absorbed B.B.’s guitar sounds and tone. I connected with B.B.’s guitar playing on such a deep, intense and all-encompassing level. It was the birth of my musical ambitions. My unbending rationale these past years was that if I couldn’t do it like B.B. in ‘65, I wasn’t going to do it at all.

DM: The impact of his playing from this period is clearly a central theme to your most recent album which I would like to discuss in a bit. Let me ask you at this time if you have any teachers who helped you in your development?

OG: No, I never had a music or guitar teacher. I always did it the hard way. I learned the licks by slowing the LP down. I guess I was lucky I never had formal tutoring because I was learning the feel & soul of the music instead of just the notes. I learned chords from just watching the left hand shapes from either photos or guitar players live on stage. That’s why I chord like the old blues guys.

DM: How’s that?

OG: I play triads instead of the full whack formal chords. You have to understand that nearly all the old black guys never had any formal musical training, like T-Bone Walker or B.B., they stuck to the well known chord geography on the fret board. T-Bone always played his solos around the chord shapes. He never meandered all over the neck like most white players do.

DM: There is something else about your background I find interesting and that is the fact that you have always been very well traveled. Let’s talk about that.

OG: I call myself a travelling troubadour and I’ve had an exciting career so far. When my father was re-assigned to another job out of San Francisco, I decided to go on my own. I lived in New York for a while and that didn’t work. I then went to Austin for a couple of months and slept on a couch at a friend’s shack. The heat and the Texas-sized roaches weren’t to my liking.

DM: I am guessing some of the music was to your liking.

OG: You are right some of it was. One night I saw Stevie Vaughan playing with Triple Threat Revue at a very small club, maybe it was the Hole In The Wall, I don’t remember. He was playing so loud I walked out after three songs. I drove to The Soap Creek Saloon were The Fabulous Thunderbirds were playing. Jimmie (Vaughan) was so cool. He was using a Super Reverb coupled to a Vibrorverb with a single 15” speaker. He was amazing. The T-Birds were playing authentic black music with incredibly authentic tone and feel. It was not like those long haired blues bands from California.

DM: Did that performance by Jimmie and The Thunderbirds have an impact on your playing or your thoughts as it relates to this music?

OG: I knew I had to do something more along those lines but maybe just not in the states. So I went to Paris because I had heard that Luther Allison and Mickey Baker were enjoying the blues scene over there.

DM: What kind of blues scene did they have in Paris in those days?

OG: There turned out to be hardly a blues scene at all. There were just few clubs with room for about twenty or thirty people.

DM: Were you able to find much work?

OG: I ended up playing pedal steel guitar with a western swing band made up of American expats living in Paris. I must say that was fun. I love Western Swing music. Bob Wills is still one of my heroes and I listen to his songs all the time. Nothing can beat tunes like ‘Time Changes Everything’ and “New Road under My Wheels’. ……”I've got a new road under my wheels/ My blues and my worries are over / From now on I'm drivin' alone”. How hip can you be in the 40’s? To me it was big band swing played on fiddles and steel guitars, but it’s still blues. Eldon Shamblin & Bobby Koefer were early guitar heroes of mine. One day I’d like to make jump and r&b versions of Bob Wills’ music.

DM: I would love to hear that. When did you move to the U.K. and what brought you to the other side of the English Channel?

OG: I moved to London in 1985. By this time the prospects in Paris were looking pretty grim, so I had to search for a stronger blues scene and decided to make the move to London. When I got to the UK in 1985, I started a big jump blues band. In the 80’s there wasn’t one single band on the scene in London playing anything that resembled real blues. The scene was full of plodding rock drummers and heavy handed bass players using plectrums. So I had to start from scratch and build the sort of band that would play the blues exactly the way that I wanted. This gave me the opportunity to start the one and only real big blues band in the style of B. B. King and Johnny Otis. I had a full ten piece band with five horn players and we did gigs at all the live music pubs and clubs all over the UK. From there I went on to play the college circuit, which was big back then. Then it was on to the festival circuit.

DM: It couldn’t have been easy to recruit the type of talent that can play this type of music the right way.

OG: It was hard work, finding the right UK musicians to play real, classic blues, let me tell you. I had to go outside the U.K. to find the right combination of musicians. So subsequently I had drummers from California or Norway, a bass player from France, piano players from Italy. I had guys from all over. It is still that way.  My current nine piece band is a multi-national ensemble.

DM: Outside of B.B. King who we have talked about, and I suspect will get back to before our conversation is over, what other significant influence(s) or models did you have that impacted your presentation of this music?

OG: Ike Turner and Johnny Otis were and still are the main influences in my life. Johnny Otis is a huge inspiration because he was a Greek-American who melted away into the black communities of Oakland and Los Angeles. He produced the best R&B recordings ever made. His double album “The Johnny Otis Show Live at Monterey” is a milestone in rhythm and blues live recordings. I still listen to it to this day. It should be compulsory listening for all bands that want to play blues. Big Joe Turner and Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson were supreme on that record. It was their comeback chance and they gave their best performances ever. It also helped to have that excellent Johnny Otis Big Band behind them with young Shuggie Otis just killing it on guitar.

Ike Turner however was the one who really dazzled me when I was young. I was listening to all his recordings and learning his guitar style. Then one day, I am in his band, touring and recording. What a genius. I still have great respect and love for him and his music. I called him my Pappy because he was like my second father. He took care of me and I took care of him during the bad days. I was his assistant, band member and trusted friend. I was with him until he passed on December 12, 2007. Ike Turner was a mentor to me in so many ways.

DM: Such as...  

OG: Everything from how to lead bands, how to write songs, deal with record labels, agents, you name it…anything to do with the record business.

DM: Getting back to something you said a moment ago. He took care of you.  I get that as he was several years your senior and an accomplished musician and experienced person in virtually all facets of the music business, but you said you also took care of him in the bad days. Let’s talk about that.

OG: He was permanently demonized for a caricature of him in a Disney movie that wasn’t like him at all. These movies always had to have a protagonist and of course an antagonist. Ike signed an agreement with the film producer which gave them a free hand to portray him in any form they wanted. So they got their bogeyman. The problem was that Ike never could get over the Tina issue. That Tina movie really fucked with his self-esteem, as it was intended to do. I always told him that his place in American musical history was secured even if he never made a single recording ever again.

DM: You have worked with a lot of the old masters through the years. Share with our readers if you will just some of the people you worked with.

OG: Thanks for bringing that up Dave. I also had the pleasure and good fortune to meet and play with many great musicians through the years, many of whom I grew up listening to. B.B. King, Hubert Sumlin, Luther Allison, Junior Wells, Albert Collins, Gatemouth Brown, Lowell Fulson, Snooky Pryor, Champion Jack Dupree, Rosco Gordon, Robert Ward, Jimmy T99 Nelson, Sonny Rhodes, Katie Webster, Eddie Bo, Earl King, Philip Walker and Steve Winwood are some of the players that come to mind.  

DM: That’s quite a list. The only Englishman you mentioned is Steve Winwood. Because of when and where his career got started he has achieved permanent rock star status.

OG:  Yea, Steve Winwood sat in with the band one night. He did a whole set playing straight blues guitar and singing stuff that he did in the early sixties. Regrettably, Clapton has maintained his aloofness.

DM: What do you mean?

OG: He never ever supported the blues scene in Britain and since the very beginning has brought in U.S. bands to open up for him. To his shame, he does zilch to promote blues in his homeland. The Crossroads Guitar Festivals never made it over here. Anyway, how much blues can you really have in an Armani suit?

DM: I can’t help you there Otis. I don’t own an Armani suit. Aside from your live gigs and touring, you have also had a rather impressive recording career. Let’s talk about some of those early experiences in the studio starting with your first album.

OG: I have had a few lucky breaks. A big band was a breath of fresh air for the UK scene and we were ahead of the curve as far as that is concerned. I landed a booking agent who immediately got us a deal with Tony Engle’s Special Delivery label in London. My first vinyl album came out entitled Always Hot, which was actually my first production effort, although it says otherwise on the sleeve. It was recorded in two days on a real cheap budget. I don’t really like the mix. 

DM: One of my favorites from the 1990’s period of your career is Nothing Else Matters. This CD, like so many others, features primarily American musicians.  

OG: Nothing Else Matters was a very enjoyable recording for me personally. I recorded it in Boston at the beautiful Sound Techniques Studio opposite of Fenway Park. So we managed to squeeze in a few Red Sox baseball games. The recording was so smooth and fun. We were cutting five songs a day. I had invited Rhode Island’s and Boston’s finest blues players and naturally that included the Roomful of Blues horn section along with vocalist, harp man Sugar Ray Norcia and the rhythm section from his band the Bluetones. I think the rhythm section of Neil Gouvin on drums, bassist Mudcat Ward and Anthony Geraci on piano, is the best in the world. The late Bob Enos from Roomful played incredible trumpet and also had a major role in the horn arrangements. I miss him. Curtis (Salgado) flew over and sang his tunes beautifully. He really is a GREAT singer. I managed to corral all of this talent to produce one of the best and most enduring CDs of my career. It is still selling, although I don’t own the rights to it.

DM: Just the very next year you recorded an album that went in an entirely different direction, Perfume and Grime.

OG: I think that my CD Perfume and Grim, which is on the Sanctuary Label, is also one of the best goddamn records I made in terms of songwriting, in terms of lyrics and in terms of concept which is very important today. I made it in New Orleans with some of Dr. John’s band and a few guys from the New Orleans scene like the great Eddie Bo and Al Rapone. It’s a record of feel, a record of no compromise, great players, great songs and the production values are the best. It’s titled that way because "Perfume" is love and soul, sweet southern soul, and "Grime" was the new name for blues in the 90’s, dirty, rude and tough, which is what New Orleans is all about; love, soul, dirt, toughness and nasty blues. I had Luther Allison play on it too, but it was cursed from the start.

DM: How so?

OG:  A major American label had taken it over for distribution, but filed for chapter eleven a couple of months later. Somewhere in New York there is a warehouse full of that CD sitting there. That’s why not too many have heard it.

DM: There are two singers who are all over your records going way back, Sugar Ray Norcia and Curtis Salgado.

OG:  I love both of them and I think that they are both horribly underrated especially Sugar Ray Norcia who is one of the best and most versatile vocalists alive today. He is not into self-promotion. I have used Curtis on some of my albums as well and European tours. Sugar is the main vocalist on the last three albums. He is so neglected and seems to be by passed over and not given the recognition he deserves. I think Sugar is the best white blues singer ever and he can do it all jump, Chicago, big band and gutbucket and also plays great harp to boot.

When I am working in the studio, I like to be with people I love and understand and who also appreciate what I am trying to do. It is stressful enough trying to be creative in the sterile environment of the studio, let alone having to deal with ego-tripping cats. Hence I have used the same guys on all my records since the New Orleans recorded, Perfume & Grime. I am really comfortable with the people I know.

DM: There are two albums in particular I want to talk about. They are the two most recent recordings, Hipster Blues and Blues ‘65. Even though they were recorded a few years apart they feel like companion pieces that are very different, yet complement one another nicely.

OG: I am very fond of both of these albums and they are the beginning of a cycle of retrospection in me.  As you grow older you begin to see life’s full reflections. For me, I began a process of introspection and matured wisdom. This includes being very outspoken about the music you love. Some people give up. To me, the current music scene sucks and what is labeled “blues” nowadays won’t even pass as flunky garage music. These two recordings are really me saying, ‘Look here, it still can be done the way the old guys did it.’

DM: Tell me about Blues '65. What is the concept behind this project?

OG: Every track will deliberately take you back to the good old music scene of the 60’s when blues men like B.B. King, Freddie King and Buddy Guy would find their music played on the radio alongside the work of the hippest sounds on Atlantic, Motown or Stax. You know, there were no demarcation lines between pop, r&b, blues and country music in those days on radio. Some of the tracks could have been recorded for Blue Note or by Ray Charles with Albert Collins on guitar. The minor key Warning Blues is full of fire and brimstone like Buddy Guy would have played in the clubs in 1960’s Chicago. This is the first recording where I don’t get into long guitar solos.

DM: On Blues 65’ I hear a whole lot of B.B. up in your playing. Is that a fair assessment?

OG: Absolutely! B.B. King has three distinct styles of playing the guitar. I lay my sound on his mid 60’s to mid 70’s way of playing, hard, fierce and bloody soulful.  B.B. himself recognized his own feel in my playing. He told everyone, which is extraordinarily kind of him. I am still in awe of the man for his body of work and his influence on both my guitar playing and band formations as well the music in general. B.B. King made me feel honored and privileged in many ways especially in the numerous talks we had together and the advice he had given me about playing and career choices. I always seemed to ask the right questions and he would respond in the most lucid and intelligent way. B.B. King is now 88 years old and still so full of life that you just want to stand where his light can shine on you. I still get to see him and talk every chance I get.

DM: The 60’s holds a continuing fascination for Americans for a variety of reasons. On Blues 65’ you hone in on one particular year, 1965. Why?

OG: 1965 was more profoundly pivotal and more productive in many ways than any other year. It contained so much great music. It was a swaying, swinging, hippy trippy year, but it was also the last year of innocence in popular culture. From start to finish, 1965 was filled with exciting music, fashion, youth awareness and activism. Everything seemed connected one way or another.

DM: When people think of the 1960’s from a blues music stand point they might think of the folk/blues revival but there was so much more going on. Vanguard was putting out some great stuff. Chess continued to make great recordings all through the decade.   

OG: Exactly, and Delmark Records was putting out some of the greatest blues recordings ever on guys like Buddy Guy, Junior Wells, etc. They also put out the series Chicago: The Blues Today. Man, almighty! Those were exciting days.  

DM: Let’s talk about the band you assembled for the record Roomful of Bluetones.

OG: (laughs) Roomful of Bluetones! I love that. However, that is exactly what it is. It’s a combination of both those two great East coast bands that happens to be the greatest exponents of American rhythm & blues and now firmly trusted friends. All the musicians on this CD are the same guys I have worked with since 1994. They know my style perfectly and I know theirs. The major criteria when producing this CD was always, ‘if it’s not danceable, it’s not recordable’ and that applied to both up tempo and ballad tracks. All the tracks were recorded live in one take, no playbacks or second takes.

DM: Earlier when we talked about the first time you tapped into this wonderful resource of New England based musicians, you referred to the rhythm section as “the best in the world.” You can’t make a good record or have even a half way decent performance without a great rhythm section.  

OG: That’s right. You can’t have a real blues band without the proper rhythm section. The drummer is the most important ingredient in playing blues. They are the ones who establish the feel and the groove. Muddy knew it and B.B. King’s sound and style essentially come from his long term drummer, Sonny Freeman. B.B. held on to him until Sonny died and it was never the same again. I’ve had an on-going battle with drummers ever since I moved to the U.K. I just can’t find a drummer who can actually play blues. They all want to be John Bonham. I must have hired and fired a hundred drummers. Neil Gouvin, who you hear on this album, is great. Even though we live 5,000 miles apart he is my best friend. Neil also works with John Hammond as well as Sugar Ray and the Bluetones.

Scandinavia has the best blues drummers who have learned their skills directly from Sonny Freeman and Freddy Below, not from Mitch Mitchell, Keith Moon or Ginger Baker. The drummer in my road band is a 22 year old from Norway, Andreas Westhagen and he is fantastic. He can sound like Smokey Johnson or Earl Palmer. Also, the bass player needs to know where to lock in with the drummer to complete the groove. In a four or five piece blues band, every instrument has to play a different part and these parts make up the overall sound and keep it “in the pocket”. The Chicago guys pioneered this, especially Muddy’s bands. Rock bands tend to have all the instruments and vocals playing and singing the same lines, which tends to badly overload the beat.

DM: This attention to detail also paid dividends as a producer. Let’s talk about that aspect of your career.

OG: Aside from touring and playing live, in the 90’s, I had also become the JSP label’s house producer. JSP was famed for financing and releasing recordings by little known and under recorded black American blues artists. The label’s owner, John Stedman, recognized how valuable I could be when recording artists whose music required that authentic big band blues and r&b sound. He knew he had a problem with English backing bands that were too “rock” oriented. This collaboration provided me with a further opportunity to demonstrate my versatility by linking me as a producer/performer in the studio with some of the cream of the American blues artists. My abilities as a producer are really just a manifestation of those years and years of listening to blues records on vinyl and soaking up the sounds.

DM:  Let’s talk about your recording philosophy as it applies to your own records.

OG: I am very well known for a one take recording, no listen-back and no over-dubs. If you can’t get the feel for a song, drop it. I don’t make the same recording twice, so each one has a different sound to it. My policy was, and still is, never to enter the studio unless I had something to say. It may take several years between recordings, but that doesn’t bother me. Recorded music is a legacy and should be meaningful and everlasting.

DM:  You have developed somewhat of a reputation that some might describe as ‘difficult to work with.’  

OG: I am known as a hire and fire band leader. That is true. I never suffer fools gladly. I had a mission with the blues and all I could do was to become a taskmaster with London musicians who were accustomed to jobbing everywhere and never did take any style seriously. I couldn’t really allow them to drag me into different and opposite directions and away from what I had set out to accomplish. So, on a bad night, it was me versus the band. I am up there doing my best and I have this lazy rhythm section plodding their way through jump numbers and just murdering that shuffle beat. I stood for what I believed in and, in the end, what matters is that as a band leader I got the sound I wanted.

DM: Let’s shift gears and talk about gear.

OG: I don’t collect guitars, only Blackface Fender Amps. I have twenty two of them. I have a couple of vintage guitars and the rest are all modified Tokai guitars that I use on the road. Altogether, I have about twelve, all used. I am now in the habit of giving away some of my guitars to needy kids provided they only use them to play blues. Tokai Strats are excellent, better than Fender re-issues and if you lose them or get stolen, you don’t have to carry that guilt for the rest of your life. I just replace the pickups with early Van Zandts. My other favorite tool is a heavily modified Japanese Epiphone Sheraton. Only the wood remains, all the hardware has been replaced to professional standards.

DM: I love talking gear with real blues musicians because it is always very basic.

OG: Exactly, I never used any sound modifiers or effect pedals. Never did, never will. I don’t understand people who are always searching for a sound, by buying all kinds of effects pedals that distort and interfere with the guitar’s natural beauty. They are never satisfied and continue to pursue the use of many a pedal in lieu of investing in their own talent.

DM: Even though there are many influences that have impacted your playing, let’s talk about your style.

OG: My style of playing is squarely based on mid-sixties B.B. King and his biggest influence, T-Bone Walker,  as well as the other older traditionalists right up through Magic Sam. That is, a guitar plugged straight into an amp and turned up all the way. However, throughout the long years I managed to put all these different styles - using pick, thumbs and fingers and the steel guitar claw picking technique - all together and come up with my own style which is staccato lead runs, peppered around the changes.

DM: One of the things I admire about you Otis is that you manage your own career.

OG: Dave, the music industry has always been a magnet for vermin, vipers and psychopaths.  

DM: ...and that’s the good news. If we have time we can talk about the bad guys.

OG: (laughs) That’s right. After the new millennium, I decided that I wanted nothing to do with the corporate world and I have since done everything by myself. I have deliberately done away with the middle man, no manager, no agent and no guitar tech. I write my own songs, devise my own album concepts, produce and record my own music without the involvement of other people who don’t add anything to the mix. I decided to take a principled stand and tackle this head on.

DM: What are your interests and hobbies outside of music?

OG: I read a lot of books. Not the fictional, crap fairy tale stories, just pure, well researched works by some incredible minds. I have as many books as vinyl records and that is saying a lot. I read mostly books on Archaeology, History and ancient Greek and Egyptian Mythology. One of the greatest books I read was “Empires of The Word” by Nicholas Ostler- a remarkable and highly technical and unmanageable work for anyone who is not keen on the subject.

DM: What’s the subject?

 OG: He covers the invention, history and development of the world’s major languages as well as the isolated and dying languages spoken by a few hundred people.

DM: Sounds like a book written about blues music. What’s on the immediate horizon for you Otis?

OG: I will continue to strongly and openly defend true blues from unwanted attacks from pilferers, opportunists and the plain old silly perpetrators. I will continue to speak out against these transgressions.

I teach younger kids what real blues is all about. I am so passionate about blues and would like to see it survive. I developed a Blues in Schools Program were I do lectures at high schools in the UK and all over Europe. I teach from scratch and it is a properly prepared lecture with a PowerPoint Presentation that covers blues history, blues heroes, sample tunes, blues chords and lyrics. It ends up with a demonstration by me on guitar of the different styles and then a jam with the students. Attendance is mandatory and some schools give credit. There is so little opportunity for these youngsters to have exposure to the blues, so if I turn on five kids out of a hundred to blues then I am a happy man.

DM: Otis, the cyber world is a big classroom and we have a large world wide audience. What would you tell young people about becoming a blues musician?

OG: If you're not serious about it, leave it alone. The real blues audience knows their music and you can’t jive them with Carlos Santana or Steve Vai rock techniques using a dozen stomp boxes. Throw all those pedals into the nearest river and start all over again. The tone and sound everyone is looking for is in the flesh and the wood. The rest is total consumerism trap. The truth is that nobody can sell you tone. 

So learn your craft.  Don’t go into it for the money. Unless you truly love the art of blues, don’t bother with it. You will never get the feeling and true inspiration for it, which is the most essential ingredient for playing blues. I find that there so many talented musicians and guitar players, but they still suffer from what I call the “Rock Star Syndrome,”  heavy metal performances, which if transferred to electric blues, deprives their audiences of the subtleness, nuance and tone of the blues.

DM: You also said something earlier that I would like to discuss and that is you said, “You will continue to openly and strongly defend true blues...”

OG:  That’s right. We are losing track of the original music that we all learned to love. Stevie Ray Vaughan did a great thing by redefining the blues and making it palatable for a large commercial audience. He also pointed out his influences and tried to attract attention to his heroes. He helped the real blues men whose careers got derailed in the 70’s. On the other hand, it was the worst thing that could have happened to blues.

DM: Why?

OG: In the wake of the SRV phenomenon, this music attracted masses of blue eyed pilferers and swindlers. It was hijacked purely for profiteering and later dumped entirely by the major labels for lack of immediate financial returns.

DM: Let me play devil’s advocate. There is a pervasive argument (which I don’t believe for a second) that by having watered down, blues-light, rock-blues or whatever you want to call it, some of the awareness created by these artists, will result in greater exposure and therefore create revenue to legitimate blues players.

OG: People may be buying millions of Joe Bonamassa records no matter how awful they are, but they’re certainly not buying anybody else’s CDs.

DM: So are you saying that this forty plus year experiment that rock-blues will somehow help blues music, isn’t working?

OG: Listen Dave, Muddy coined the term, “UnBlues” when he heard young white bands opening up for him. He was talking about the long haired, super-charged, rock-blues bands that bastardized his songs. He was always astounded and pissed-off at the staggering amount of money white bands like the Rolling Stones and Johnny Winter made off of his songs. He never forgave and never forgot.

By the way another freaky trend in blues today is the popularity of what I call the “Sex & Strat Blues”– young Caucasian girl guitar slinger acts. There is no limit to what people do these days to reach the top of the glory pole.

DM: Are you sure it’s not a stripper pole?

OG: Salivating men go see them by the hoards. Nothing wrong with that, except that it is just another misplaced tangent the blues has to deal with. Ninety five percent of them can’t really play the guitar and haven’t put in the amount of hard work necessary to truly be part of this idiom.

DM: I must be missing something. I haven’t heard that other 5%.  

OG: Many legitimate hard working blues artists are being excluded and rejected from festivals around the world in favor of the new crop of “Strat & Sex” image. It is a sad day when worthy blues artists are out of work because they are “not a blond sex symbol noodling on the guitar”. I feel this trend has cheapened the blues. This is just another form of “UnBlues” that is being marketed out there.

DM: These are all very harmful trends, but what are some of the positive things you see out there in the blues world?

OG: Well, I am still in awe of Anson Funderburgh and Junior Watson, but I am always on the lookout for any new person who is true to his blues and shows that sparkle of “real” in their playing. There is a kid from Nova Scotia, Garrett Mason who is amazing. Otherwise, I really do enjoy listening to these wonderful Scandinavian blues bands. Some of these bands are so good it is scary.

Blues music’s survival will depend entirely on the breed of players who must carry on with the tradition and not try and bastardize it for the sake of commercial gains. I am confident that the younger generation is being directed correctly especially in places like Spain, Eastern Europe and in the Scandinavian countries, as I mentioned.   

Blues is an international language and contrary to what some people might believe, it is also great party music. So long as there are people, there will be blues because it is the only music that speaks across borders, languages and cultures. It is music that speaks to the universal experiences of the human race.

DM: ...and you can dance and hump to it. Otis this has been a blast. I enjoyed it very much.

OG: Let’s do it again sometime Dave. Stay in touch.

Want to donate?

<- click here