SONNY LANDRETH
''BOUND BY THE BLUES''
09 JUNE 2015
41:27
1 Walkin' Blues (Robert Johnson) 04:48
2 Bound By The Blues (Billy Henderson, Sonny Landreth) 03:08
3 The High Side (Sonny Landreth) 03:56
4 It Hurts Me Too (Elmore James, Marshall Schorn) 03:35
5 Where They Will (Sonny Landreth) 04:27
6 Cherry Ball Blues (Skip James) 04:10
7 Firebird Blues (Sonny Landreth) 03:42
8 Dust My Broom (Robert Johnson) 04:06
9 Key To The Highway (Willie Bronzy, Charles Segar) 05:32
10 Simcoe Street (Sonny Landreth) 03:59
Brian Brignac/Drums, Percussion, Backing Vocals
Sonny Landreth/Guitar, Vocals
David Ranson/Bass Guitar, Backing Vocals
ABOUT THE ALBUM
BY OFFICIAL SITE
Mascot Label Group's Provogue Records will release Sonny Landreth’s new album Bound By The Blues on June 9. The recordings mark a return to the slide guitarist's musical roots, presenting a bold, big-sounding collection of tracks that swagger like the best of classic rock, climb to stratospheric heights of jazz informed improvisation, and inevitably remain deeply attached to the elemental emotional and compositional structures that are at the historic core of the blues. Landreth offers, "Ever since The Road We’re On [his Grammy-nominated 2003 release], fans have been asking me, 'When are you going to do another blues album?’ After expanding my songs for Elemental Journey into an orchestral form, I thought I'd get back to the simple but powerful blues form. I’d been playing a lot of these songs on the road with my band, and we’ve been taking them into some surprising places musically. So going into the studio to record them with just our trio seemed like the next step.”
With Landreth’s mountainous guitar tones and nuanced singing leading the way on its ten songs, Bound By the Blues is a powerful tribute to the durability and flexibility of the genre, and to his own creative vision. It’s also a radical departure from his previous two albums, 2012’s classical/jazz fusion outing Elemental Journey and 2008’s guest-star-studded From the Reach.
The lean Mississippi native, who grew up in Lafayette, Louisiana, has enjoyed a prolific career for decades, dating back to his solo debut album Blues Attack in 1981. Although that album fanned the flames of his reputation as an emerging force in roots music, Landreth kept a parallel career going as a celebrated sideman and session player. Over the years he performed and recorded with artists that include John Hiatt, British blues innovator John Mayall, and he toured as a member of Jimmy Buffett’s Coral Reefer Band. He also collaborated with Eric Clapton, and has performed at all of Clapton's prestigious Crossroads Guitar Festivals since 2004. Along the way Landreth has continued to develop his vision and his musical voice, growing increasingly original and diverse, expanding from blues, zydeco, folk, country and jazz into increasingly category-blurring musical excursions like Bound By the Blues. He offers, "Developing a style and an approach that is your own musically is not something to be taken for granted, I'm at a point in life where I want to make the most of every moment I can and that changes your perspective, your priorities and how you relate to everyone else. And at the end of the day, I think that's the essence of what I wanted to express with Bound By The Blues."
The track listing for Bound By The Blues is: "Walking Blues," "Bound By The Blues," "The High Side," "It Hurts Me Too," "Where They Will," "Cherry Ball Blues," "Firebird Blues," "Dust By Broom," "Key To The Highway," "Simcoe Street."
REVIEW/AMG
by Thom Jurek
The last time Sonny Landreth released a stripped-down blues trio date recorded in a studio was 2003's The Road We're On in 2003, and his previous album to this was 2012's maximal Elemental Journey, which ranged over blues, jazz, zydeco, and reggae and had ambitious arrangements that included everything from steel drums to strings and winds. Bound by the Blues features his longstanding group (bassist David Ranson and drummer Brian Brignac) and was recorded at his Comoland Studio in Lafayette, Louisiana. It was co-produced by Landreth and Tony Daigle, and includes originals and standards, vocal tunes and instrumental workouts. A raucous version of Robert Johnson's "Walking Blues" opens it with blazing slide guitar. Courtesy of Daigle, it has an enormous (but natural-sounding) drum mix and offers a killer bridge. Landreth reprises Johnson's "Dust My Broom" later and recombines Elmore James' version with hard-strutting Chicago bravado and a Hendrixian flourish. Speaking of James, his "It Hurts Me Too" is also here; it has a roiling, midtempo churn with Landreth's guitar playing extended by his soulful vocals. The title track is an original, with the guitarist on an acoustic National Steel with his electric, bumping, almost funky bassline and martial snare shuffle adding balance and illustrating the Como style. On "The High Side," he offers an excellent modern take on the country-blues. The instrumental "Firebird Blues" is dedicated to the memory of Johnny Winter. Landreth evokes the late guitarist's slow, wrangling, Delta-cum-Texas style in scorching form. But there's a surprise in the bassline which is mixed like a tuba at a New Orleans funeral march. Landreth's version of Skip James' "Cherry Ball Blues," with its strident pace and distorted, wrangling solo, offers an entirely new interpretation. On Big Bill Broonzy's "Key to the Highway," Landreth simultaneously pays tribute to Buddy Guy and Jimmy Reed. "Simcoe Street" is another original instrumental, this time a choogling boogie made for the roadhouse dancefloor. Bound by the Blues is certainly a welcome return for the guitarist and his trio doing what they do best, and well worth the wait. Here, Landreth reaffirms his commitment to the blues as a free-spirited and still vibrant creative form.
WEBSITE
BIOGRAPHY/AMG
by Richard Skelly
Southwest Louisiana-based guitarist, songwriter, and singer Sonny Landreth is a musician's musician. The blues slide guitar playing found on his two Zoo Entertainment releases, Outward Bound (1992) and South of I-10 (1995) is distinctive and unlike anything else you've ever heard. His unorthodox guitar style comes from the manner in which he simultaneously plays slide and makes fingering movements on the fretboard. Landreth, who has an easygoing personality, can play it all, like any good session musician. His distinctive guitar playing can be heard on recordings by John Hiatt, Leslie West and Mountain, and other rock & rollers.
Landreth was born February 1, 1951, in Canton, Mississippi, and his family lived in Jackson, Mississippi, for a few years before settling in Lafayette, Louisiana. Landreth began playing guitar after a long tenure with the trumpet. His earliest inspiration came from Scotty Moore, the guitarist from Elvis Presley's band, but as time went on, he learned from the recordings of musicians and groups like Chet Atkins and the Ventures. As a teen, Landreth began playing with his friends in their parents' houses.
"They would ping-pong us from one house to another, and though we were all awful at first, as time went on we got pretty good. It's an evolutionary process, just like songwriting is," Landreth explained in an interview on his 44th birthday in 1995. After his first professional gig with accordionist Clifton Chenier in the '70s (where he was the only white guy in the Red Beans & Rice Revue for awhile), Landreth struck out on his own, but not before he recorded two albums for the Blues Unlimited label out of Crowley, Louisiana, Blues Attack in 1981 and Way Down in Louisiana in 1985. If anyone is living proof of the need to press on in spite of obstacles, it is Landreth. The second of those two albums got him noticed by some record executives in Nashville, which in turn led to his recording and touring work with John Hiatt. That led to still more work with John Mayall, who recorded Landreth's radio-ready "Congo Square." More recently, he's worked with New Orleans bandleader and pianist Allen Toussaint (who guests on several tracks on South of I-10, as does Dire Straits guitarist Mark Knopfler).
On Landreth's brilliant albums for Zoo, the lyrics draw the listener in to the sights, sounds, smells, and heat of southwest Louisiana, and a strong sense of place is evident in many of Landreth's songs. Although his style is completely his own and his singing is more than adequate, Landreth admits that writers like William Faulkner have had a big influence on his lyric writing. The fact that it's taken so long for academics at American universities to recognize the great body of poetry to be found in the blues concerns Landreth as well. Robert Johnson is Landreth's big hero when it comes to guitar playing. "When I finally discovered Robert Johnson, it all came together for me," Landreth said, noting that he also closely studied the recordings of Skip James, Mississippi John Hurt, and Charley Patton. Landreth finally released an all- instrumental album, Elemental Journey, in 2012, his 11th solo project that wed blues to classical and jazz stylings with a full orchestra. In 2013, the guitarist made his fourth appearance at Eric Clapton's Crossroads Guitar Festival.
Landreth and a trio toured hard over the next year in preparation for a new recording, and signed to Provogue. He decided on a simple, back-to-blues roots offering. He entered the studio with drummer Brian Brignac and bassist David Ranson in late 2014, and emerged with Bound by the Blues, a set of some of the earliest blues standards he ever learned to play as well as original material. The album was released in June of the following year.
TO THE TOP
''BOUND BY THE BLUES''
09 JUNE 2015
41:27
1 Walkin' Blues (Robert Johnson) 04:48
2 Bound By The Blues (Billy Henderson, Sonny Landreth) 03:08
3 The High Side (Sonny Landreth) 03:56
4 It Hurts Me Too (Elmore James, Marshall Schorn) 03:35
5 Where They Will (Sonny Landreth) 04:27
6 Cherry Ball Blues (Skip James) 04:10
7 Firebird Blues (Sonny Landreth) 03:42
8 Dust My Broom (Robert Johnson) 04:06
9 Key To The Highway (Willie Bronzy, Charles Segar) 05:32
10 Simcoe Street (Sonny Landreth) 03:59
Brian Brignac/Drums, Percussion, Backing Vocals
Sonny Landreth/Guitar, Vocals
David Ranson/Bass Guitar, Backing Vocals
ABOUT THE ALBUM
BY OFFICIAL SITE
Mascot Label Group's Provogue Records will release Sonny Landreth’s new album Bound By The Blues on June 9. The recordings mark a return to the slide guitarist's musical roots, presenting a bold, big-sounding collection of tracks that swagger like the best of classic rock, climb to stratospheric heights of jazz informed improvisation, and inevitably remain deeply attached to the elemental emotional and compositional structures that are at the historic core of the blues. Landreth offers, "Ever since The Road We’re On [his Grammy-nominated 2003 release], fans have been asking me, 'When are you going to do another blues album?’ After expanding my songs for Elemental Journey into an orchestral form, I thought I'd get back to the simple but powerful blues form. I’d been playing a lot of these songs on the road with my band, and we’ve been taking them into some surprising places musically. So going into the studio to record them with just our trio seemed like the next step.”
With Landreth’s mountainous guitar tones and nuanced singing leading the way on its ten songs, Bound By the Blues is a powerful tribute to the durability and flexibility of the genre, and to his own creative vision. It’s also a radical departure from his previous two albums, 2012’s classical/jazz fusion outing Elemental Journey and 2008’s guest-star-studded From the Reach.
The lean Mississippi native, who grew up in Lafayette, Louisiana, has enjoyed a prolific career for decades, dating back to his solo debut album Blues Attack in 1981. Although that album fanned the flames of his reputation as an emerging force in roots music, Landreth kept a parallel career going as a celebrated sideman and session player. Over the years he performed and recorded with artists that include John Hiatt, British blues innovator John Mayall, and he toured as a member of Jimmy Buffett’s Coral Reefer Band. He also collaborated with Eric Clapton, and has performed at all of Clapton's prestigious Crossroads Guitar Festivals since 2004. Along the way Landreth has continued to develop his vision and his musical voice, growing increasingly original and diverse, expanding from blues, zydeco, folk, country and jazz into increasingly category-blurring musical excursions like Bound By the Blues. He offers, "Developing a style and an approach that is your own musically is not something to be taken for granted, I'm at a point in life where I want to make the most of every moment I can and that changes your perspective, your priorities and how you relate to everyone else. And at the end of the day, I think that's the essence of what I wanted to express with Bound By The Blues."
The track listing for Bound By The Blues is: "Walking Blues," "Bound By The Blues," "The High Side," "It Hurts Me Too," "Where They Will," "Cherry Ball Blues," "Firebird Blues," "Dust By Broom," "Key To The Highway," "Simcoe Street."
REVIEW/AMG
by Thom Jurek
The last time Sonny Landreth released a stripped-down blues trio date recorded in a studio was 2003's The Road We're On in 2003, and his previous album to this was 2012's maximal Elemental Journey, which ranged over blues, jazz, zydeco, and reggae and had ambitious arrangements that included everything from steel drums to strings and winds. Bound by the Blues features his longstanding group (bassist David Ranson and drummer Brian Brignac) and was recorded at his Comoland Studio in Lafayette, Louisiana. It was co-produced by Landreth and Tony Daigle, and includes originals and standards, vocal tunes and instrumental workouts. A raucous version of Robert Johnson's "Walking Blues" opens it with blazing slide guitar. Courtesy of Daigle, it has an enormous (but natural-sounding) drum mix and offers a killer bridge. Landreth reprises Johnson's "Dust My Broom" later and recombines Elmore James' version with hard-strutting Chicago bravado and a Hendrixian flourish. Speaking of James, his "It Hurts Me Too" is also here; it has a roiling, midtempo churn with Landreth's guitar playing extended by his soulful vocals. The title track is an original, with the guitarist on an acoustic National Steel with his electric, bumping, almost funky bassline and martial snare shuffle adding balance and illustrating the Como style. On "The High Side," he offers an excellent modern take on the country-blues. The instrumental "Firebird Blues" is dedicated to the memory of Johnny Winter. Landreth evokes the late guitarist's slow, wrangling, Delta-cum-Texas style in scorching form. But there's a surprise in the bassline which is mixed like a tuba at a New Orleans funeral march. Landreth's version of Skip James' "Cherry Ball Blues," with its strident pace and distorted, wrangling solo, offers an entirely new interpretation. On Big Bill Broonzy's "Key to the Highway," Landreth simultaneously pays tribute to Buddy Guy and Jimmy Reed. "Simcoe Street" is another original instrumental, this time a choogling boogie made for the roadhouse dancefloor. Bound by the Blues is certainly a welcome return for the guitarist and his trio doing what they do best, and well worth the wait. Here, Landreth reaffirms his commitment to the blues as a free-spirited and still vibrant creative form.
WEBSITE
BIOGRAPHY/AMG
by Richard Skelly
Landreth was born February 1, 1951, in Canton, Mississippi, and his family lived in Jackson, Mississippi, for a few years before settling in Lafayette, Louisiana. Landreth began playing guitar after a long tenure with the trumpet. His earliest inspiration came from Scotty Moore, the guitarist from Elvis Presley's band, but as time went on, he learned from the recordings of musicians and groups like Chet Atkins and the Ventures. As a teen, Landreth began playing with his friends in their parents' houses.
TO THE TOP