

Stone In My Heart
Big Creek Slim & Rodrigo Mantovani: Stone In My Heart
Straight Shooter – SHOT 041
About the album.
In two distinct ways, Stone In My Heart is a time capsule. First, anyone familiar with Big Creek Slim knows that his music is steeped in the 1930s/1940s acoustic country blues of the American South. Big Creek is a master of the music of this time and place, both technically and in terms of the energy, the language and the overall vibe that bring the music to life.
Enhancing his performance is upright bassist Rodrigo Mantovani, who builds a musical framework that frees Big Creek from the rhythm constraints of performing solo.
“Rodrigo keeps the time and intensity, and I go crazy!” Big Creek says. “I can go anywhere I want, knowing he will follow. There are no limits.” Further liberation arrives on three tracks via drummer Mikko Peltola, who is tasteful and right in the pocket.
Mantovani, a native of Brazil, is an internationally acclaimed upright bassist who, at the ripe old age of 38, has been playing professionally for more than 20 years. He is currently a member of the Nick Moss Band and is based in Chicago. Stone In My Heart is his second collaboration with Big Creek, following their 2018 duo release, First Born.
Mantovani shares Big Creek’s enthusiasm regarding their interaction.
“I don’t have to think about anything when I play with Big Creek,” he says. “There is a natural chemistry between us and a unique opportunity to let the feelings and grooves flow. He is always ready to accept what we are playing, taking it to a higher level.”
Time capsule, part 2: Because it was recorded (live to tape) in November of 2019, Stone In My Heart precedes the impact of the pandemic and the various political insanities of the past two years, both of which Big Creek faced down, boldly, in his 2020 releases Twenty-Twenty Blues and Migration Blues. The themes of Stone In My Heart, captured in 12 Big Creek original tunes, center on male/female dynamics – the internal struggles between lust, the desire for companionship and the simultaneous desire to not be bound by such a relationship. Timeless themes, unfettered by vaccines, masks or travel restrictions. Those were the days… perhaps.
Tracklist
- 1. Don't You Whip Me With That ThingNo title 00:00
- 2. Hoochie Mama 00:00
- 3. Just Can't Be Free 00:00
- 4. Honey Badger 00:00
- 5. I Found a New Way of Lovin' 00:00
- 6. I Should've Listened 00:00
- 7. Chucky Chucky 00:00
- 8. Milk Man Blues 00:00
- 9. Mixed Up All the Time 00:00
- 10. I Get Rowdy 00:00
- 11. Just One More Dirty Job 00:00
- 12. Stone in My Heart 00:00


Vonloysi
Vónloysi
Terji Krossteig
Vónloysi
Ny single ude fra den Færøsk bluesmand, historiefortæller, sanger & sangskriver Terji Krossteig.
På Vónloysi finder man et skønt line-up af musikere.
Terji Krossteig: akustisk guitar og sang
Mikko Peltola: trommer
Paul Allen Jr.: bass
Peter Nande: mundharpe og jødeharpe
Jens Varmløse: orgel og elektrisk guitar
Sigrið Rasmussen: kor
Mere Fra TERJI KROSSTEIG


Dragon Of Love
Dragon Of Love
Marino Valle Band
Dragon Of Love
Straight Shooter – SHOT 039
About the album.
This is a real treat: It’s a debut album from a band that is busy establishing itself in Sweden and Scandinavia, but there’s not a moment among the album’s 13 tracks that suggests this is work in progress. This band is ready. Marino Valle brings a big, masterful, soul man’s voice and a broad stylistic range to the proceedings. The band is fluent and agile in the works of early rock ‘n’ rollers, soul balladeers and vintage blues artists. Catch the occasional Caribbean vibe, as well. The album features seven Valle originals and six diverse cover songs. Collectively, the tracks share two common threads: (1) a relentlessly romantic, man-needs-his-woman lyrical focus and (2) an unswerving danceability. Marino Valle Band has shaped this ambitious, varied set of songs into an entirely coherent collection.
Tracklist
- Dragon Of Love 00:00
- Give Me Time 00:00
- Packed Up And Took My Mind 00:00
- Hold One A Little Longer 00:00
- Underneath The Apple Tree 00:00
- Love Me Baby 00:00
- Driftin 00:00
- Please Help 00:00
- Brokenhearted 00:00
- Our Love 00:00
- Chocolate Blues 00:00
- My Baby Is In Love With Another Guy 00:00
- I Wanna Dance With You 00:00


Back Home Again
In Indiana
Back Home Again In Indiana
Chris Andersen
Back Home Again In Indiana
Straight Shooter SHOT 037
Nyt single udspil fra Skagens egen bluesman Chris Andersen i samspil med Jens Varmløse og Sahra da Silva.
- Back Home Again In Indiana 00:00
Musicians
Chris Andersen – Vokal & Guitar
Jens Varmløse – Guitar
Sahra da Silva – Vokal


Alt Det Bedste
Alt Det Bedste
Terji krossteig
Alt Det Bedste
Straight Shooter SHOT 038
Terji Krossteigs nye album Nordisk blå udkom i januar 2021 på de digitale platforme.
Denne single er faktisk nummeret “Far Tú Væl” fra Nordisk Blå sunget på dansk. Nummeret hedder “Alt Det Bedste”
- Alt Det Bedste 00:00
Musicians
Terji Krossteig: guitar og sang
Kenneth Hove: Bas
Kristian Djernes: Trommer
Liam Ward: Mundharpe


Twenty-Twenty
Blues
Twnety-Twenty Blues
Big Creek Slim
Twenty-Twenty Blues
Straight Shooter – SHOT 033
All songs by Big Creek Slim
Certainly, 2020 was a year that most of us hope to forget, but never will. Big Creek Slim was in Brazil, “in quarantine in one of the world’s epicenters of coronavirus,” he says, “with all the polemics, boredom, paranoia, loneliness, despair and fading hopes that each and every one of us had to deal with.” His response was the album you hold in your hands, with 13 original songs, performed solo – “my contribution to the worldwide corona blues,” he explains. Big Creek makes an unflinching assessment of what he saw and heard. In “The Goddamn China Blues,” he’s more observational than judgmental, recognizing the loss, hardship, and broken lives in the wake of COVID-19. On the title track, Big Creek cites the killing of George Floyd as the latest in a history of lethal violence and discrimination that white America has perpetrated against the nation’s black population. He connects the Floyd killing to the murder of Emmett Till and the 1921 Black Wall Street Massacre in Tulsa, Okla., noting “how things didn’t change that much, and maybe they never will.” The album isn’t all social commentary, however, because a guitar player in quarantine is going to dig in and play some guitar. It features tunes such as “Little Wheel Rag” and “Up in Smoke,” which tap into the ragtime/medicine show legacy of such artists as Blind Boy Fuller and Pink Anderson. These offer a welcome counterweight to the burden of the year that was, because frankly, we’ll need to have something to smile about once these crazy days have passed.
Bryan Powell
Musician
Big Creek Slim – Vocal/guitar
Tracklist
Listen
- Twenty-Twenty Blues 00:00
- The Goddamn China Cough 00:00
- Little Wheel Rag 00:00
- Gotta Go Somewhere 00:00
- Mama Got Me Sweepin' 00:00
- Those Same Old Blues 00:00
- Up In Smoke 00:00
- Fishin' In My Pond 00:00
- That Medicine Show 00:00
- Going Back To Dimbo 00:00
- Black And White Blues 00:00
- I Flipped A Coin This Morning 00:00
- The Great Division 00:00


Migration
Blues
Migration Blues
Big Creek Slim
Migration Blues
Straight Shooter – SHOT 032
All songs by Big Creek Slim
Otherworldy. That’s an apt description of the music of Big Creek Slim. Big Creek lives in the 21st century, here with the rest of us, but his country blues is borne of another place and time — specifically, the pre-WWII American Deep South. His musical family tree includes Son House, Charlie Patton, Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters, to name a few. That said, Big Creek is his own man. He writes his own songs, including all 14 solo tracks here. He is fluent, absolutely, in the language of this musical genre. His vocals resonate, even in his quietest moments. His fingerstyle guitar arrangements reveal a man who has immersed himself in this music. There’s not a false moment to be found. Hear it, and you will believe. Still, Big Creek is writing and singing in the present tense, tackling modern problems. In such tracks as “Deportation Blues” and “Hard Times,” he airs his frustrations, he says, in “applying for family reunion under the rather hostile Danish government. By doing so, I turned into a second-class citizen in my own country, trying to satisfy the system, the landlord and my wife. No surprise – I didn’t manage none!” Enough to give a man the blues, no doubt.
Bryan Powells
Musicians
Big Creek Slim – Vocal/guitar
Tracklist
- Hard Times 00:00
- Demolition Man 00:00
- Black Tammie 00:00
- Working My Way Back Home 00:00
- Landlord Blues 00:00
- Hot Boiling Water Blues 00:00
- Hyperborean Blues 00:00
- Three Kind Words 00:00
- Limeburg Blues 00:00
- Headless Chicken Blues 00:00
- Deportation Blues 00:00
- Ain't Going Back Down To That Lonesome Place 00:00
- Going To Bristol 00:00
- Things Are Gettin' Better 00:00


Nordisk Blå
Nordisk Blå
Terji krossteig
Nordisk Blå
Straight Shooter SHOT 031
Det har været nogen tid undervejs, men nu skulle det være ganske vist: Den færøske bluesmand, sangeren og guitaristen Terji Krossteigs nye album Nordisk blå udkommer i januar på de digitale platforme.
Albummet har været på tegnebrættet siden begyndelsen af forrige år. I maj 2019 igangsatte Terji Krossteig en crowdfunding-kampagne, der skulle muliggøre en udgivelse af albummet på vinyl. Det er stadig planen, men i første omgang må man tage til takke med streaming og download.
Uddrag fra Bluesnews.dk
Tracklist
01. Ik For Hvide (Søren L. Hansen/Terji Krossteig)
02. B L Ú S (Terji Krossteig)
03. Falsk Matematik (Peps Persson)
04. Teit Blús (Terji Krossteig)
05. Flaskedrengen (Terji Krossteig)
06. Merkið (Terji Krossteig)
07. Pappegøjen Med De Flotte Fjer (Terji Krossteig)
08. Spælimaður (Tim Lothar)
09. Thi Kendes For Ret (Terji Krossteig)
10. Far Tú Væl (Terji Krossteig)
Musicians
Terji Krossteig: Sang, akustisk guitar, resonator guitar, tamburin
Oscar Mukherjee: elguitar og sang
Uni Debess: akustisk guitar, kor og mundharpe
Frederik Tygesen: resonator guitar
Kent Thomsen: guitar
Peter Nande: mundharpe
Kenneth Hove: bas
Mads Dalum Poulsen: elbas
Olav Gudnason: kontrabas
Kristian Djernes: trommer


Catawampus
Catawampus
The Cornbread Project
Catawampus
Straigh Shooter – SHOT 025
The Blues, as You Have Never Heard Them Before
As the saying goes, there are two sides to every story.
One side of the story regarding Catawampus, the debut release by The Cornbread Project, involves an idea for a fresh approach to the blues. The Cornbread Project is comprised of musicians/producers Laust “Krudtmejer” Nielsen (Krudtmejer Productions, “Trainman Blues”) and Peter Nande (Straight Shooter Productions). Their concept: Apply contemporary music production techniques – samples, loops, beats, etc., as found in R&B, hip-hop, reggae and dancehall – to themes from traditional blues and roots music. For about half the songs on this album, Nielsen and Nande pulled vocal and instrumental tracks from unreleased recordings that Nande had on hand from a variety of gifted artists, including James Harman and Big Creek Slim. The pair built the remaining songs from the ground up with new recordings. Then, Nielsen applied his musical ideas and production magic to the performances to elevate the songs to a place they’d never been before.
That was the concept in action. Why title the album Catawampus? Simply, it’s a term for something that’s out of alignment, askew, and the tracks on this recording often fit that description. This is not your typical, predictable blues album. It’s more than a little off-kilter, in the best way possible.
Now that you have the concept clear in your mind, forget about it, because Catawampus is not a cerebral experience. The title word also describes something fierce, a dark force of reckoning, and this album is one that you feel, not think about. It’s a visceral experience, and not always an upbeat one. (This is still the blues, after all.) Still, even in its heaviest moments, Catawampus is a recording that makes you want to move. It leans forward. It has momentum. It travels in the present tense. It also rides well in your vehicle, turned up loud.
That’s the other side of the story. On to the songs:
The opening track features Big Creek Slim singing John Lee Hooker’s “Hobo Blues,” but this is not the train-hoppin’ man-and-guitar homage that Big Creek recorded on his 2015 Straight Shooter album, Hope For My Soul. This version carries a more demanding weight, delivered primarily by a ghostly chain gang-inspired chant that recalls a time past.
“Rollin’ & Tumblin’” has been a staple for slide guitarists since it was recorded in 1929 by Hambone Willie Newbern. Here, the track, featuring Sahra da Silva, is fully reimagined with a slinky bassline, jazzy drum work and a jangly rhythm guitar that gives way to an Albert King-inspired solo. It ends too soon. Da Silva also appears on the simmering “Change My Ways,” in which the singer laments a Devil-at-the-crossroads encounter.
James Harman performs on two tracks. “You Got to Choose” frames Harman within a funky ‘70s-inspired bass line and rhythm guitar, and features lean, sinewy harp lines, while “Grandma Lurleen’s Recipe” showcases James in a spoken piece that offers exactly what the title suggests (right down to the size of the cast iron skillet and the oven temperature setting). Take notes!
Other tracks include “Kokomo Blues,” featuring Troels Jensen, which transforms the Fred McDowell classic into a barn dance worthy blues-meets-country stepper; the haunting “Autumn Shakedown,” featuring Richard Farrell; Mud Morganfield honoring the family tradition with “Mannish Boy,” which features intriguing rhythm variations and dynamic range; and “My Little Machine,” which gets a swinging treatment for vocalist Big Joe Louis.
Collectively, the music on Catawampus embraces the traditions of the blues while also inviting them into the 21st century. As sure as Muddy Waters, Little Walter and others plugged into amps and cranked them up in the clubs of post-WWII Chicago, so the blues will continue to evolve and change with the times. Something to think about… Or, just listen to the music and let it move you.
Musicians
Big Creek Slim – vocal
James Harman – vocal
Big Joe Louis – vocal
Troels Jensen – vocal
Richard Farrell – vocal
Sahra da Silva – vocal
Mud Morganfield – vocal
Peter Nande – harmonica, backing vocal
Niklas Kure – guitar
Laust Krudtmejer – bass
Marco Diallo – drums
Tracklist
- Hobo Blues - feat. Big Creek Slim 00:00
- Rollin’ & Tumblin’ - feat. Sahra Da Silva 00:00
- You Got To Choose -feat. James Harman 00:00
- On My Way - feat. Big Creek Slim 00:00
- My Little Machine - feat. Big Joe Louis 00:00
- Autumn Shakedown - feat. Richard Farrell 00:00
- Kokomo Blues - feat. Troels Jensen 00:00
- Mannish Boy feat. Mud Morganfield 00:00
- Change My Ways - feat. Sahra da Silva 00:00
- Grandma Lurleen’s Recipe - feat. James Harman 00:00