Music
Press
This band has no press
Discography
Ballads and Bluesabilly (Eight self-produced sides recorded at Sun Studios in Memphis, TN, in 1999).
Songs from the Low Side of the Road (A suite of original, country blues an americana songs home recorded in 2004).
Photos
Bio
I was eight. I came home from school to find a convertible cadillac eldorado in my driveway, top down, coffee-colored, Texas longhorns mounted over the radiator. The license plate read, "A KING".
I walked up the stairs, into my living room to find the biggest, blackest, meanist looking man I'd ever encountered. He smoked a stinking pipe. He slung a bizarrely shaped guitar that I later learned was called a "Flying V". I thought he was the devil. His name was Albert King, and my daddy, the Big B, was playing guitar in his band. To this day I remember that tone, that guitar, that voice. That was my introduction, my real introduction, to the blues.
Albert and I eventually made our peace. One night, before a gig at the Country Club in Los Angeles, Albert declared he was hungry and pointed the horns of that eldorado towards McDonalds. McDonalds had the "Monopoly" promotion going at the time, and Albert handed me his game pieces, saying, "Tell me little brother, tell me if I've won." I was terrified. What if he didn't win? He would surely kill me. And he didn't win, but, needless to say, I've survived. I didn't realize until much later that the lyrics of the song "Born Under A Bad Sign" are true -- Albert really couldn't read, and I -- an eight year-old, white jew boy -- was his interpreter. That's really the blues.
My music is designed to capture that rawness, that spirt in the weird american night, the place that I call the Low Side of the Road. My influences are many, from Albert, to Muddy Waters and Big Bill Broonzy and Hound Dog Taylor and R.L. Burnside (who, I might say, once shot at me -- but that's another story) to Bob Dylan, Doc Watson, Johnny Cash, Richard Thompson, and, of course, Big B.
And I know my music can take you all of these places, and, at the end of the night, take you to the best place of all, The Low Side of the Road. I look forward to playing for you.
I can currently be found doin' the stomp every Saturday at the Little Rock Farmer's Market.
September 2005: Placed in the top 15 (out of 70) in the Telluride Acoustic Blues Festival contest.
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