Bound By The Blues

Description

Mascot Label Groups Provogue Records release Sonny Landreths new album Bound By The Blues. The recordings mark a return to the slide guitarists musical roots, presenting a bold, big-sounding collection of tracks that swagger like the best of classic rock, climb to stratospheric heights of jazz informed improvisation, and inevitably remain deeply attached to the elemental emotional and compositional structures that are at the historic core of the blues. Landreth offers, Ever since The Road Were On [his Grammy-nominated 2003 release], fans have been asking me, When are you going to do another blues album? After expanding my songs for Elemental Journey into an orchestral form, I thought Id get back to the simple but powerful blues form. Id been playing a lot of these songs on the road with my band, and weve been taking them into some surprising places musically. So going into the studio to record them with just our trio seemed like the next step.

With Landreths mountainous guitar tones and nuanced singing leading the way on its ten songs, Bound By the Blues is a powerful tribute to the durability and flexibility of the genre, and to his own creative vision. Its also a radical departure from his previous two albums, 2012s classical/jazz fusion outing Elemental Journey and 2008s guest-star-studded From the Reach. The lean Mississippi native, who grew up in Lafayette, Louisiana, has enjoyed a prolific career for decades, dating back to his solo debut album Blues Attack in 1981. Although that album fanned the flames of his reputation as an emerging force in roots music, Landreth kept a parallel career going as a celebrated sideman and session player. Over the years he performed and recorded with artists that include John Hiatt, British blues innovator John Mayall, and he toured as a member of Jimmy Buffetts Coral Reefer Band. He also collaborated with Eric Clapton, and has performed at all of Claptons prestigious Crossroads Guitar Festivals since 2004. Along the way Landreth has continued to develop his vision and his musical voice, growing increasingly original and diverse, expanding from blues, zydeco, folk, country and jazz into increasingly category-blurring musical excursions like Bound By the Blues. He offers, Developing a style and an approach that is your own musically is not something to be taken for granted, Im at a point in life where I want to make the most of every moment I can and that changes your perspective, your priorities and how you relate to everyone else. And at the end of the day, I think thats the essence of what I wanted to express with Bound By The Blues.