This Chico Blues CD release is part of a multi-media offering by Raphael Wressnig, the 38 year old Austrian master of the Hammond B3 organ and Brazilian guitar phenom Igor Prado. Wressnig and company are also releasing The Soul Connection on vinyl as well as a Deluxe Edition which features this CD in its entirety along with a second live recording on disc two which features Italian guitarist Enrico Crivellaro and vocalist Deitra Farr.

Wressnig considers himself a multi-genre artist and that pretty much describes the music on The Soul Connection. Blues, jazz, funk and soul get stirred up into a tasty gumbo of groove. The band is comprised of the rhythm section of the Igor Prado Band which is Yuri Prado on drums and Rodrigo Mantovani on bass. As always, they are superb. Frequent Prado collaborator “Sax” Gordon Beadle handles tenor duties and does all the horn arrangements. 

Here at the JUNCTION we have been fans of Igor Prado’s music for almost a decade, but he and his band of brothers had already been making music for five years or so before that. They were introduced to American audiences by Lynwood Slim in January of 2007 when they performed at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Pasadena, California. At the time nobody in the band had reached their 25^th birthday. It was astonishing to hear players this young performing this brand of music with this kind of immense maturity and authority. It was also just as astounding to hear players coming from Brazil, of all places, playing this quintessential American music. Their performance that night, backing Slim was nothing short of exhilarating. As Lynwood Slim told me upon first hearing this band, “I was literally in shock at how good they were.”   

Meanwhile, a young European based Hammond B3 player was making music with the same type of verve and style. Raphael Wressnig, the Austrian based musician, was wowing audiences with his own brand of American music. With over 20 CDs in his catalogue, Raphael is also an experienced young man. In hindsight it seemed to be a natural that the Sao Paulo based Prado and the Austrian based Wressnig would join forces. After hearing The Soul Connection my only question is, ‘What took so long?’

If the two were plotting world domination they would need help. No problem. They put a call out to Wee Willie Walker who is enjoying a career renaissance like few have ever experienced. After a decades’ long recording hiatus, the soul man from another era found success recording the very well received masterpiece, If Nothing Ever Changes for Jim Pugh’s Little Village Foundation label. This 2015 release, which was recorded at Kid Andersen’s Greaseland Studios in San Jose, put Walker in front of festival audiences worldwide, as he fronted Anthony Paule’s terrific band as a featured vocalist. Walker sings on five of the tracks on this thirteen song CD.

Both vocalists David Hudson and Leon Beal sing on one song a piece. Beal even takes on the great Bobby Bland as he and the band do Don’t Cry No More, which originally appeared on that seminal soul-blues classic Two Steps From the Blues. That old Joe Medwick number gets a fresh makeover and is but one of this album’s many highlights. I would love to hear more from these two vocalists.

The melding of originals and covers as well as the elasticity of these musicians as they present various strains of African-American musical dialects is quite astonishing. The Soul Connection is an aural feast and is something very special. Prado’s guitar playing is crisp and succinct throughout while Wressnig lays down a firm bed of soulful organ which threatens to erupt and gush all over the proceedings. However, he, like his guitar slinging counterpart, remains firm in his conviction to tasteful restraint. The deity in The Soul Connection is the almighty groove and the band worships that God with the religious fervor of a gospel preacher.  

This isn’t so much a blues album, but a sampling of all the blues based elements of the American music that we love so much. Congratulations to Chico Blues for the delivery of another great album. Highly recommended...

- David Mac



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