Delta Moon

Q & A with Tom Gray at pauseandplay.com
By Gerry Galipault
Pause & Play

BTW: "Our goals are usually moving targets," Delta Moon frontman Tom Gray tells P&P. "One was to solidify the lineup of the band. Franher Joseph (bass) and Darren Stanley (drums) have been with us over two years now, and for a lot of that time we've been working on this album.

"We've concentrated on playing together in the same room, everybody present with eyes and ears open, having fun and making no excuses. Of course, there are some overdubs on the record, but we wanted that feeling of a band playing together to come through in every song. I had some goals in songwriting, but they're getting foggy now, because I'm already working on the next project. One was to drop a lot of place names, to anchor the album in the American South and then sum up with a closing song about the South itself."

A former member of the Atlanta-based Brains in the early 1980s, Gray knows a thing or two about writing songs: He wrote "Money Changes Everything," which Cyndi Lauper covered for her smash "She's So Unusual" album in 1984.

Did it allow him a financial cushion and confidence to stay in this oft-fickle business?

"Well, of course that song has been very good to me," Gray says. "It has allowed me, as Joseph Campbell said, to follow my bliss. But I like to think even if Cyndi Lauper had never cut the song I would have found some other way. Not long ago a friend told me, after a few drinks, that I don't know anything about real life. My life is just as real as anybody's."
- Pause and Play

"Hell Bound Train" review on blogcritics.com
Delta Moon, Hell Bound Train

By Jon Sobel
blogcritics.com

"You'll never get to heaven on a hellbound train," singer Tom Gray croaks in this CD's opening number, whose rather obvious message blossoms into a pungent cautionary tale. Delta Moon churns out a thick blend of Chicago slide-guitar blues and Southern soul-rock, and Mark Johnson plays a mean slide guitar, but it's the pair's focused songwriting that makes this disc a keeper. "Are you lonely for me, babe, like I'm lonely for you?" sighs the character in "Lonely" – "I hold onto something, a drink or a girl / 'Cause I feel like I'm falling off the edge of the world."

The music is as emotional as it is economical and tough, with time-worn themes – stories about jailbirds, drifters, and dashed hopes – couched in powerful and sometimes poetic imagery. At the same time it's possible to enjoy this music with your reptile brain, which, if it's anything like mine, will dig the slouching beats and growling guitars.

The band nods to rootsy blues with a reverent acoustic cover of Fred McDowell's classic "You Got To Move," while "Stuck in Carolina" gets stuck in its jerky one-chord groove for a full five minutes and works just fine, thanks in part to a nifty sax solo by guest Kenyon Carter. "Ain't No Train" is another chunky lo-fi jam, compacted into three and a half growling minutes, with the guitar evoking soul-music horn riffs, and "Ghost in My Guitar" is that rarity, a song about playing music which – mostly because of its a haunting chorus – doesn't make you want to skip to the next track to find something less self-indulgent or self-referential. Humility found in surprising places – like in that song's message about the mysteries of inspiration – is one of the strains in Delta Moon's music that lofts it above and beyond the basic blues.
POSTED BY DELTA MOON AT 11:18 AM - blogcritic.com

"Hell Bound Train" review on bluesconnections.com
By John Stracey
Blues Connections

DELTA MOON – HELL BOUND TRAIN

If you're very lucky... you might just catch Delta Moon rolling down the tracks to a venue near you playing their new album ‘Hell Bound Train’, featuring the unmistakable whisky voice of Tom Gray on lap steel guitar perfectly in synch with Mark Johnson on bottleneck slide guitar along with Franher Joseph on bass and Darren Stanley on drums & percussion. One listen to this album and it's easy to see why Tom Gray was voted 'Blues Songwriter of the Year' at the 2008 Roots Music Association Music Industry Awards and had songs recorded by Cyndi Lauper, Manfred Mann and Bonnie Bramlett to name just a few!

‘Hell Bound Train’ is raw contemporary southern blues music that has its roots firmly down the Mississippi delta! Atlanta based Delta Moon feature dual slide guitars and a tight pulsating rhythm section that forge infectious tunes with honest heartfelt lyrics that defy any listener not to be moved, because if these songs can't get you doing the 'Dixie Chicken'... then you know your goose is well and truly cooked. Only after the first five tracks have got you well and truly onboard do the band find time to tip their hats to Mississippi legend Fred McDowell, covering his classic 'You Gotta Move'. Five more original cuts follow confirming what you probably already know, which is that something special sure makes ‘Hell Bound Train’ compelling listening! Could it be your emotions have been stirred by those damn fine lyrics howled at the moon, telling tragic tales of life on the edge influenced by each roll of the dice, or maybe it's the sound of twin slide guitars and infectious rhythms urging you to get up and boogie that make it so addictive... maybe I should let you decide?

Simply click here to listen or download all the tracks from ‘Hell Bound Train’ by Delta Moon or see where they are playing live On Tour! - Blues Connection

"Hellbound Train" Review in "Music in Belgium"
MUSIC IN BELGIUM
December 15, 2009
(Translated from French to English)

DELTA MOON - You'll Never Get to Heaven On a Hellbound Train

Unlike Howlin' At the Southern Moon, released in 2008, this album is not a compilation. It is the new the studio opus of Delta Moon, an American group from Atlanta. It follows Clear Blue Flame, which was released in 2007. There are almost no cover songs here, but pieces written by the duet leading the combo, i.e. the guitarists Tom Gray and Mark Johnson.

It is Tom Gray who sings. His voice has shades of Southern blues, with this little bluesy slightly torn grain, a marvel. He takes us on board his Hellbound Train. The groove of the rhythm section is unobtrusive but effective. Delta Moon offers us a blues-rock'n'roll with shades of Allman Brothers, of Rolling Stones in the era of Mick Taylor, even of Fleetwood Mac with Peter Green. As they do that with plenty of feeling, they do not fail to captivate us.

Among the revealing pieces, there is this “Room 429,” a song with great sensitivity. One would almost cry. The melancholic “Lonely” marks the rhythm of the iron horse. One will also appreciate the very Stones-ish “Stuck In Carolina”, the transcendent “Ain't No Train” or the stripped bare “Plantation Song.”

There is only one cover, but a big one. It's "You Got To Move" by Fred McDowell, a title that was in particular taken by the Rolling Stones. We told you in the review of Howlin’ at the Southern Moon the band included "Shake 'Em On Down" by the same McDowell.

If you like blues-rock'n'roll coming straight from the South of the United States, you will like this new Delta Moon, for sure! Shades of John Lee Hooker, R.L. Burnside, Robert Johnson or J.J. Cale hover over the group. An album which brings us back to the roots of the blues for our pleasure!

Jean-Pierre Lhoir
(Four stars) - Music in Belgium

"Hell Bound Train" review in Vintage Guitar
Delta Moon
Hell Bound Train
(Red Parlor)

By Michael Dregni
Vintage Guitar

With guitarists Tom Gray and Mark Johnson playing mean slide guitars, Delta Moon is deep blues with a fury. The band's grooves are catchy and cool, and the setlist of mostly originals showcases fine songwriting. Hot stuff!
- Vintage Guitar

"Hellbound Train" Review in "Blues Bytes" (UK)
BLUES BYTES
January 2010

I reviewed the last Delta Moon CD (Howling At The Southern Moon) in December 2008, so a full year has passed since then. I said at the time that I expected to hear more from this band, and here it is, the prophesy has come true with their latest, Hellbound Train (Blues Boulevard Records)!

The band has changed its lineup, and if anything this CD is more bluesy than the last one. Again, most of the tracks are written, or co-written, by Tom Gray, the exception being Fred McDowell's "You Got To Move."

The CD opens with the title track "Hellbound Train," a medium tempo shuffle that gets your attention immediately with its catchy lyrics and slide guitar, the rest of the band supporting Tom Gray to the full. The other members, by the way, are Mark Johnson (also appeared on the last CD) on guitar and banjo, Franher Joseph on the bass, and Darren Stanley playing the drums.

Track two is a little slower, a story about a girl in hotel room 429, and that's what it's called, "Room 429," then comes "Lonely," one of my two favourite tracks on the album. It reminds me a little of some of the better ZZ Top material; it has a great feel to it with a driving beat.

Track four, "Get Gone," showcases Mark Johnson's six string banjo, giving the song a lovely country blues taste, and it slides into "True Love Lies" whilst getting the beat going.

Fred McDowell's "You Got To Move" is up next, and it's one of the best cover versions of the song that I've heard for a long time -- delicious slide guitar and simple backing. I'm guessing that Fred McDowell must have been an important influence on the band as the last CD also contained one of his tracks.

Then comes my other favourite track, "Stuck In Carolina." Slow Southern blues with something about it that I can't identify, but it holds me and makes me want to play the track over and over. Tempo lifts with "Ain't No Train," a real foot tapping track that I like more each time that I play it!

The next couple of tracks alternate rhythms and tempos, and lead into the final track of the album, "Plantation Song," a song about how things were in Dixie.

A very good follow up to Howling At The Southern Moon.
- Blues Bytes

TUESDAY, APRIL 6, 2010

"Hell Bound Train" review in About.com:Blues
Delta Moon
Hellbound Train
Red Parlor Records

By Reverend Keith A. Gordon
About.com:Blues

Since the early 2000s, Tom Gray and Delta Moon have forged a name for themselves in the blues world with constant touring, and a half-dozen studio and live album releases. Hellbound Train (not the Savoy Brown song of the same name) is another in a long line of fine albums to feature the band’s trademark twin slide-guitar sound fueling a lively collection of raw Southern roots-rock and Delta blues music. Gray’s songwriting stands among the best in the blues – he was named the 2008 “Songwriter of the Year” by the American Roots Music Association – so Hellbound Train should be a treat for fans of poetic blues music.
- About.com:Blues

"Hellbound Train" Review in Glitterhouse Catalog (Germany)
GLITTERHOUSE
[Translated from German to English]

Delta Moon
You'll Never Get to Heaven on a Hellbound Train

New studio album from the band out of Atlanta. After some reshuffling this tight foursome has steadied itself, led as usual by the two guitarists Tom Gray and Mark Johnson. The two are absolute masters of the slide guitar, bottleneck and lap steel. Fans of this style of playing will get their money's worth.

The style of last year's 18-track "best-of," Howlin' at the Southern Moon, is continued consistently: not too heavy, not too bland, but always with lush grooves. Very Southern, very laid back, and somehow always with one foot in the swamp. In principle I see it somewhere between the early rocking tunes of Tony Joe White and the feeling of the first few ZZ Top albums. Sometimes I'm reminded of a turbo version of J.J. Cale with shades of Chris Smither (whose gravely voice is reminiscent of Tom Gray's) and Sonny Landreth.

The album is rich, as previously mentioned, with lots of slide guitar, but also very efficient and to the point. I'm strongly reminded of my hero Lowell George, whose short, concise runs could say more than many technically adept but soulless master guitarists. With "You Got To Move" being the only cover, the other 10 songs were written by the band.

A description of the band is printed on the back of the digipak (CD plus 12-page booklet): Deeply rooted in the Delta, their gritty voiced, dusty Southern Blues has a unique resonance driven by the interweaving twin slide guitars that have earned Delta Moon comparisons to prolific two guitar acts like the Rolling Stones and the Allman Brothers.

The concluding name dropping does not do the band justice. The aforementioned comparisons are better suited.

If you can handle that, you will not be disappointed. Far from it.
- Glitterhouse

"Hell Bound Train" review in Sonic Boomers
Delta Moon - Hell Bound Train
Red Parlor Records

By Roberta Penn
Sonic Boomers

Ever been on a Hellbound Train? It's the ride that lulls you like a Quaalude with a vodka back. You don't know where you're goin' but it feels mighty fine, all liquid and loose. The trip starts off like a joy ride. Then, though you're still feelin' pretty damn good, you find yourself knee walkin' to your car, headed to the county jail with a sheriff who only looks at your tits or in the bed of a trouble man.

Tom Gray knows all about that ride, and he's written it down and put it to music. Hellbound Train is both the title and first track on Delta Moon's new album. Gray's version is about bad habits and worse decisions--we're talking gambling, guns and doin' time--passing from daddy to son and on to a third generation. Most times life is like that when genes and upbringin' echo each other. Gray is also the vocalist for Delta Moon. He's got a voice like good dirt, gritty and filthy rich. It has the power to make the seeds of a story grow into an experience.

Songwriting has been good to Gray. His "Money Changes Everything" has been recorded by more than a thousand artists, including Cyndi Lauper who made it the opening song on her 1983 debut She's So Unusual. Among the many other musicians who've recognized Gray's way with words and are Manfred Mann and Carlene Carter. He also wrote a lot of the songs recorded by the Brains, an 80s new wave rock band that included Gray on keyboards. But past success doesn't mean a thing when it comes to Gray's get-down on Hellbound Train. Band members have added their say to some of the songs, but the hot-steel flow of Gray's pen and his fearless, almost ruthless, way with a story are central. All of the tunes here are frighteningly, and gloriously, true to the roots of all popular music--the blues. And just as poetic. It's the poetry in any song of troubles, transgressions and trials that takes the story from the insular world of a soap opera to the soul's universe.

The players, playing, instrumentation and arrangements behind the tunes on the album move the music from the mind to the body; pulling in from the pain, rolling with the sexual undercurrents and spinning on the solos. Though Gray still plays keyboards his main instrument with Delta Moon is lap steel guitar. In concert with guitarist Mark Johnson the two slide players lay down in the Mississippi mud for a sound as thick as that of the ol' Crawlin' Kingsnake of electric blues, John Lee Hooker. Other sonic scenarios of the guitarists talkin' to each other recall the early days of the Allman Brothers. Fellow Southern rockers Drive By Truckers also come to mind. But Delta Moon is more subtle than either of these bands, taking care with each song as if it were a baby. Johnson takes up his six-string banjo on "Get Gone," adding a deep mountain darkness to the tale of a man who has got to keep moving. For the only cover, Mississippi Fred McDowell's "You Got to Move," the band takes to tradition. Franher Joseph exchanges his electric bass for an acoustic one, and drummer Darren Stanley goes with percussion. The final cut, "Plantation Song," is acoustic. Though the playing is gentle and plaintive the theme is about the uneasiness that Southerners feel accepting the dichotomy of the shameful history and vibrant culture they all share. Being proud to come from Dixie only comes with making peace with it.

Delta Moon has recorded a handful of good albums already. Personnel changes influenced the mood of the recordings though Gray's songwriting has remained constant. For the last three years this foursome has been together, and they've solidified their sound, found their groove. Hellbound Train is their strongest set yet. And you know it before you even hear the music. The cover is a picture of what's inside. It was designed by the artist Flournoy Holmes, whose illustrious works include the cover of the Allman's Eat A Peach, and realized by his son. Cooper Holmes created a linocut of that Hellbound Train; it's an old locomotive charging through a landscape that bursts into flames. An owl sits above the scene on a tree branch, signifying the wisdom that only comes from trusting roots and taking risks. That's the essence of Delta Moon.
- Sonic Boomers

"Hell Bound Train" review in Elmore Magazine
Delta Moon
Hell Bound Train
(Red Parlor)

By Mark Uricheck
Elmore Magazine

Don't let the band's name fool you. Sure, Delta Moon has an ominous, Mississippi Delta vibe, but the band is more about gritty, southern-tinged storytelling and creating an atmosphere for their casual, roots-based rhythms, not simply a vehicle for deep acoustic blues.

Built on a foundation of solid blues, the band adds a fresh, expressive vision to its sound on its latest album, Hell Bound Train. These guys don't recycle the same old Albert King licks or Texas-boogie patterns, they'd rather take advantage of ideas like a thick and economical slide riff, played over a slightly off-kilter shuffle, while the gravel-throated voice of Tom Gray spills soul throughout ("True Love Lies"). They also employ haunting, tremolo-laced guitar tones within a funky grove, rippling with seductive saxophone to great effect ("Stuck in Carolina"). The pure acoustic Delta sound does rear its head, with a sparse, angelic cover of Mississippi Fred McDowell's "You Got to Move," while a gruff sense of countrified charm turns up in the rousing "Take the Back Road Home."

Distilling the blues through their ragged, Dixie-inspired songwriting and stimulating sense of musicianship, Delta Moon emerges as a standout within the Americana genre.
- Elmore Magazine

"Hell Bound Train" review in Elmore Magazine
Delta Moon
Hell Bound Train
(Red Parlor)

By Mark Uricheck
Elmore Magazine

Don't let the band's name fool you. Sure, Delta Moon has an ominous, Mississippi Delta vibe, but the band is more about gritty, southern-tinged storytelling and creating an atmosphere for their casual, roots-based rhythms, not simply a vehicle for deep acoustic blues.

Built on a foundation of solid blues, the band adds a fresh, expressive vision to its sound on its latest album, Hell Bound Train. These guys don't recycle the same old Albert King licks or Texas-boogie patterns, they'd rather take advantage of ideas like a thick and economical slide riff, played over a slightly off-kilter shuffle, while the gravel-throated voice of Tom Gray spills soul throughout ("True Love Lies"). They also employ haunting, tremolo-laced guitar tones within a funky grove, rippling with seductive saxophone to great effect ("Stuck in Carolina"). The pure acoustic Delta sound does rear its head, with a sparse, angelic cover of Mississippi Fred McDowell's "You Got to Move," while a gruff sense of countrified charm turns up in the rousing "Take the Back Road Home."

Distilling the blues through their ragged, Dixie-inspired songwriting and stimulating sense of musicianship, Delta Moon emerges as a standout within the Americana genre.
- Elmore Magazine

"Hell Bound Train" review in Elmore Magazine
Delta Moon
Hell Bound Train
(Red Parlor)

By Mark Uricheck
Elmore Magazine

Don't let the band's name fool you. Sure, Delta Moon has an ominous, Mississippi Delta vibe, but the band is more about gritty, southern-tinged storytelling and creating an atmosphere for their casual, roots-based rhythms, not simply a vehicle for deep acoustic blues.

Built on a foundation of solid blues, the band adds a fresh, expressive vision to its sound on its latest album, Hell Bound Train. These guys don't recycle the same old Albert King licks or Texas-boogie patterns, they'd rather take advantage of ideas like a thick and economical slide riff, played over a slightly off-kilter shuffle, while the gravel-throated voice of Tom Gray spills soul throughout ("True Love Lies"). They also employ haunting, tremolo-laced guitar tones within a funky grove, rippling with seductive saxophone to great effect ("Stuck in Carolina"). The pure acoustic Delta sound does rear its head, with a sparse, angelic cover of Mississippi Fred McDowell's "You Got to Move," while a gruff sense of countrified charm turns up in the rousing "Take the Back Road Home."

Distilling the blues through their ragged, Dixie-inspired songwriting and stimulating sense of musicianship, Delta Moon emerges as a standout within the Americana genre.
- Elmore Magazine

"Hell Bound Train" review in Downbeat
Delta Moon
Hell Bound Train
(Red Parlor)

Downbeat

This Atlanta-based roots rock band, a past winner of the International Blues Challenge, has several things going for it. The slide guitars of Tom Gray and Mark Johnson impressively slash or wend through textural thickets of rhythm. Gray's a top-grade songwriter, spinning memorable melodies and lyrics about restlessness and loneliness that he sings with shadowy vividness. Beyond all their bluesy insinuations, Delta Moon shows an unaffected, honest appreciation of the blues canon when hitting all the right notes of the Fred McDowell masterwork "You Got to Move."

DB - Downbeat

“Hell Bound Train” review in Blues Revue
Delta Moon
Hell Bound Train
Red Parlor

By Art Tipaldi
Blues Revue

It may be the year’s coolest song. Fast forward to “Ghost in My Guitar,” pick up your own battered axe, and see what might happen. D-Mooners Tom Gray and Mark Johnson’s “crossroads” meeting happens on a stormy night in a hotel room tradin’ licks with the supernatural force that inhabits the box. Gray and Johnson’s haunting, double slide guitar shade the song with as ominous a color as any midnight meeting. This is a great vehicle for explaining how every guitar player comes under the spell of obscure, country blues.

The other 10 songs are just as riveting. Gray’s scratchy, dirt road vocals tell the tales as he and Johnson articulate a variety of string arrangements from lap slide to banjo to a deluge of twin slide guitars. There’s the hard driving title track, a top down, slide guitar ride through the Mississippi hill country, the smooth glide of “Get Gone,” with Johnson’s banjo augmenting Gray’s eloquent slide, and the back porch arrangement of Mississippi Fred McDowell’s “You Got to Move.”

To make it all work, Delta Moon’s rhythm section of Franher Joseph (bass) and Darren Stanley (drums) drive the sound. The steam rollin’ rhythm section drives the Delta Moon engine on “Ain’t No Train” and “Room 429.” The pounding groove and hardcore slide of “Lonely” only adds to the feeling of abandonment. “Stuck in Carolina” features a broke and dejected Gray reachin’ out to his girl. As the CD ends, the band off-roads on “Take the Back Road Home,” a country tonk styled tune led by Gray’s weathered voice and finishes with “Plantation Song,” a dirge to the horrors of the Southern plantation system. Acoustically performed with only a solemnly picked guitar, Gray calls out with the statement, “We’re all from Dixie too.”

The consistent mood and atmosphere created here makes this 11-song record a pleasure each time it plays. With clever songwriting, stripped down arrangements, and Gray’s toughened vocals, Delta Moon has crafted a solid album. - Blues Revue

"Hell Bound Train" review in Hittin' the Note
Delta Moon
Hellbound Train
Red Parlor

By Tom Clarke
Hittin' the Note

Delta Moon's songs fascinate like the vestiges of a shotgun shack, pitted planks that retain the essence of what thrived way, way back. This Atlanta-based quartet wrings slippery, piquant juice from yesteryear's Mississippi blues and enhances it with dual slide guitars and incredibly catchy beats. In what might seem a crowded field, they're one of a kind, triggering excitement all through the twists and turns on their new Hellbound Train. Founders Tom Gray and Mark Johnson are instinctive partners. On "You Got to Move," Johnson unleashes liquid devil on the bottleneck while Gray wrenches jagged daggers from his lap steel and sings like a washboard caked with leftover grit. Listen as well to bassist Franher Joseph and drummer Darren Stanley as they bend through the groove with shared solidity. The living room video of that classic Mississippi Fred McDowell tune (the album's lone cover) on the band's site allows one to share in the incredible feel these gentlemen possess. Real-life songwriting is a Delta Moon hallmark. "Take the Back Road Home" waves a cautionary finger while setting the ass in motion, singer Francine Reed adding understated gospel fervor. A sign of the times reveals crude callousness in "Room 429," and the tough, hypnotic beat in "Lonely" stresses the despair of a broken union. The album closes with "Plantation Song," which Gray performs alone and gracefully on Dobro. Despite the powerful subject matter and frank truths, the song is just wonderful-one of the many bright blue beams reflecting the beauty of Delta Moon. - Hittin' the Note

Hell Bound Train" review in All Music Guide
Delta Moon
Hell Bound Train

By Hal Horowitz
All Music

Atlanta's swamp-blues kings add another notch to their belt of tough, Southern, slide guitar-dominated blues/roots rock with this, the band's fifth studio release. Although little has changed musically since slimming to a quartet, frontmen/guitarists Tom Gray and Mark Johnson's songs have continued to refine their sense of groove, and Gray is increasingly comfortable with his lead vocal status. The group's confident dynamics and the combination of Gray's homey sandpaper voice with the intertwining guitar leads, perhaps best exemplified by "Stuck in Carolina"'s low-boil funk, keeps getting more incisive. Although there are plenty of solos, they are in service to the tunes, not vice-versa, surely an anomaly for acts that boast the sheer firepower of these two guitarists. When Gray nails a grimy, rust-colored riff as he does on the opening title track or the obsessive "Lonely," it seems like something ZZ Top would kill for in that band's earlier days. Add the dueling/overlapping guitar lines and the result is a gritty, distinctive attack that is driving when necessary, yet subtle enough to keep the spotlight on Gray's detailed, occasional story-song lyrics that often find him or his protagonists down but not quite out somewhere in the South. Country overtones inform "Take the Back Road Home," altering the approach somewhat, similar to the haunting unplugged, acoustic ballad "Plantation Song" that closes the disc. It's a sporadically spooky, even ghostly vibe, a point Gray articulates on "Ghost in My Guitar" with a distinct Dr. John feel enhanced by bubbling congas. Johnson's six-string banjo and the occasional guest saxophone also shows that though Delta Moon isn't straying from its core sound, there are plenty of ways to tweak the basics without changing the result. Even after five albums over the past eight years, it seems that the group is just starting to explore the possibilities inherent in their blues-based Southern genre. It's a style that could be confining, but in their hands, never is. - All Music Guide