{"id":28293,"date":"2024-10-12T05:30:46","date_gmt":"2024-10-12T09:30:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=28293"},"modified":"2024-10-04T15:08:10","modified_gmt":"2024-10-04T19:08:10","slug":"album-review-nick-gravenites-with-pete-sears-rogue-blues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2024\/10\/12\/album-review-nick-gravenites-with-pete-sears-rogue-blues\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Nick Gravenites with Pete Sears \u2013 Rogue Blues"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"NOTE:<\/strong> Gravenites passed away shortly after this review first appeared in Living Blues<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Nick Gravenites is music royalty. A prime exponent of Chicago blues, he was a towering figure in the blues-informed rock of the 1960s. Though he wasn\u2019t actually a member of the groundbreaking Butterfield Blues Band, he co-wrote their classic\u00a0\u201cBorn in Chicago,\u201d and (with guitarist Mike Bloomfield) co-composed their game-changing \u201cEast West.\u201d A contemporary (and musical associate) of Charlie Musselwhite and other giants, Gravenites moved west to San Francisco, becoming a leading light in that city\u2019s musical scene. He would be instrumental in the careers of Quicksilver Messenger Service, the Kozmic Blues Band (featuring Janis Joplin) and served as producer for recordings by Otis Rush and others. After Joplin\u2019s passing, Gravenites took over as lead singer in Big Brother and the Holding Company.<\/p>\n

By 1980, Gravenites was leading his own band, Animal Mind. A frequent associate\/sideman was British keyboardist Pete Sears, by that point a veteran of sessions for Rod Stewart, Jerry Garcia, Jimi Hendrix and many others. (Sears was also a member of rock band Jefferson Starship for more than a decade.)<\/p>\n

Gravenites\u2019 work in music slowed down a bit by the 21st<\/sup> century; between 2000 and 2023 he would release only two albums, both of them live sets. But in 2022 and 2023 he teamed up with longtime friend Sears to record this seven-song collection, Rogue Blues<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Opening with a reading of Howlin\u2019 Wolf\u2019s 1958 number \u201cPoor Boy,\u201d Gravenities \u2013 who sings but does not play on the album \u2013 delivers a soulful performance. Sears turns in a delightfully rollicking barrelhouse-styled paino part, plus overdubbed bass. Wally Ingram lays down a spare but sympathetic, shuffling drum part, and old pal Charlie Musselwhite wails wonderfully on blues harp.<\/p>\n

The remaining six tune on Rogue Blues<\/i> are all Gravenites originals. The name-checking \u201cBlues Singer\u201d delivers what its title promises, with Gravenites playfully telling us what\u2019s special about each of his heroes. Jimmy Vivino\u2019s steely acoustic guitar spars with Sears\u2019 piano.<\/p>\n

\u201cLeft Hand Soul\u201d strays from the standard blues changes, instead presenting a saloon-song arrangement that features only Sears and harmonica player Lester Chambers. The less-is-more aesthetic finds fulfillment here. The old-timey \u201cBlackberry Jam\u201d is redolent of early 20th<\/sup> century blues a la Louis Armstrong. Willard Dixon\u2019s clarinet and Keith Baltz\u2019s Sousaphone deftly double down on that character.<\/p>\n

Vivino\u2019s slide guitar is impressive on \u201cBlues Back Off of Me,\u201d but what really elevates the track is Gravenites\u2019 spirited vocal, backed by Vivino and Sears on harmonies. Musselwhite returns on harmonica. With mandolin (Courtesy Vivino) and Sears on accordion, the loping \u201cBrown Paper Bag\u201d is a delight, finding Gravenites regaling listeners with what seems like a true-life autobiographical lyric. The classic country of \u201cWhat Time Is It\u201d closes the album with a crying-in-your-beer melody, arrangement and lyrics. Sears does his best Floyd Cramer impression, and Bary Sless contributes the obligatory (and note-perfect) pedal steel guitar.<\/p>\n

With a run time of under 30 minutes, Rogue Blues<\/i> might be best described as an EP, not an album. But if one measures by quality rather than quantity, it\u2019s an important work nonetheless.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NOTE: Gravenites passed away shortly after this review first appeared in Living Blues. Nick Gravenites is music royalty. A prime exponent of Chicago blues, he was a towering figure in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28294,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,49,65],"tags":[5526,5527],"class_list":["post-28293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blues","category-new-release","category-review","tag-nick-gravenites","tag-pete-sears","cat-9-id","cat-49-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28293"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28293\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28295,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28293\/revisions\/28295"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}