The Blues Standard Series, Vol. 4 - 50th Stage Anniversary Sessions (EP)

The Blues Standard Series, Vol. 4 - 50th Stage Anniversary Sessions (EP)

For Blues and audio CD friends, AAA Culture GmbH presents new songs and instrumentals on this release together with previously released singles from The Blues Standard Series. The recordings were made as part of Norbert Egger's 50th stage anniversary sessions in 2022 with City Blues Connection, Natural Blues and the Berchtesgaden Blues Band.

The EP's tracks begin with 1960's Soul and Blues and modern Blues Rock, musically taking the listener deeper and deeper into the earlier world of 1950's Chicago Blues (Dust My Broom), early 1940's electric Chicago Blues (Queen Bee) through Country Blues and New Orleans Blues of the 1930s and 20s to the transition phase from Ragtime to Blues (Fishing Blues). The additional bonus tracks were also included in this very "extended" EP with a playing time of over thirty minutes.

It was a special pleasure for the "anniversary" that not only "his" three bands but also several guest musicians took part in the various sessions in Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Working with some of them began in recent years, with Andy Winkler shortly after the millennium and with Steve Baker, Norbert looks back on joint sessions that date back more than 50 years.

In the first three songs At Last, Rattlesnake Blues and A Sunday Kind Of Love, City Blues Connection presents two Blues and Soul classics and one wild Blues Rock number. As a special guest, the young singer Anne Bischow took on the lead vocals for both ballads. In Rattlesnake Blues, the virtuoso Lutz Krajenski with his Hammond and Florian Kemper with his great guitar solo are guest soloists. In between, the long-standing City Blues Connection saxophonist Kurt Gersdorf can be heard in the sensitive solo in between.

The following three Chicago Blues tracks are from sessions with Natural Blues and guests. After the wild slide number Dust My Broom, Steve Baker can be heard with his outstanding Blues Harp playing in the instrumental version of Dust My Broom as well as the new song Queen Bee by Norbert Egger, which is played like the Chicago Blues of the late 1940s. In the two Dust My Broom versions, the two pianists Andy Winkler and Michael Alf also contribute to the sound typical of this subgenre.

In the two Natural Blues versions of the great classic Trouble in Mind, which take up the early blues style, Andy Winkler again plays the piano. Another guest and soloist is Franz Neumeier (saxophone) from the Berchtesgaden Blues Band.

Two versions of the Berchtesgaden Blues Band with significant Ragtime elements of the Fishing Blues together with Hubert Graßl lead back to the beginnings of the Blues. With his sousaphone, Hubert Graßl not only contributes the archaic sound and basic groove for this blues classic, but also a solo on this instrument, which is rarely heard in today's music world. In Take 2, Franz Neumeier completes the trio of the Berchtesgaden Blues Band and lends the track the sound of early New Orleans Blues with the ornate counter-melodies of the clarinet.

Catalog number: AAA-2023-0002

EAN (Audio CD): 0791732582802

EAN (Online Bundle): 0791732582802

Tracks:

1 At Last (03:04)

2 Rattlesnake Blues (02:43)

3 A Sunday Kind Of Love (03:10)

4 Dust My Broom (03:51)

5 Dust My Broom (Instrumental) (02:32)

6 Queen Bee (03:15)

7 Trouble In Mind 03:39

8 Trouble In Mind (Instrumental) (03:01)

9 Fishing Blues (Take 1 )(03:18)

10 Talk (00:13)

11 Fishing Blues (Take 2 )(03:22)

Total: 32:08