It's been a long time in coming!
After a thirty-five year career as a blues performer, including more than two decades with the W. C. Handy Award-nominated duo Satan and Adam, harmonica player Adam Gussow has made his solo debut. Kick and Stomp showcases Gussow in an unexpected but logical setting: a harp-powered one-man blues band.
Taking a cue from his Harlem mentor, Sterling "Mr. Satan" Magee, Gussow does it all, in real time--singing, blowing amplified harp, and stomping out some thump-and-metal grooves.
Kick and Stomp owes its stylistic breadth to Gussow's background as a New York City-bred funk-blues player who has spent the past decade in the north Mississippi hill country. Ranging from old school blues like "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl," "Poor Boy," and "Goin' Down South," to Cream's blues-rock standard, "Sunshine of Your Love," and their power-trio version of Robert Johnson's "Crossroads Blues," all the way to a techno/house remake of Stanley Turrentine's soul-jazz classic, "Sugar," Gussow surprises. His original instrumentals mix sanctified Mississippi two-beats, hard bop (Art Blakey), and Stevie Ray Vaughan's big-beat shuffles. The album concludes with a dazzling solo workout on Scott Joplin's ragtime standard, "The Entertainer."
Only a handful of players on the contemporary blues harp scene have developed an immediately recognizable voice on the instrument. Gussow's sweet edgy tone, upper-octave pyrotechnics, and headlong swing make him one of those few. Kick and Stomp showcases his talents as a modern virtuoso, a player American Harmonica Newsletter praised for exhibiting the sort of "[t]echnical mastery and innovative brilliance that comes along once in a generation."
PLEASE NOTE: If you purchase the album here, you'll download it in the form of a large (75 mb) zip file which contains 14 high-quality (160 kb/s) mp3s plus a PDF version of the liner notes, sized so they can be trimmed to fit a jewel case.
Recorded and mixed by Bryan W. Ward at The Tone Room in Oxford, Mississippi during the heat wave of late July and early August, 2010. (bryan@the-tone-room.com). Mastered by Jeffrey Reed at Taproot Audio Design in Oxford, Mississippi (www.taprootaudiodesign.com). Produced by Adam Gussow with Bryan W. Ward
All harmonica, percussion, and vocals by Adam Gussow. No overdubs!
track ________________running time___harp key__
1) Kick and Stomp (A. Gussow) 3:46 Bb
2) Good Morning Little Schoolgirl (J. Williamson) 2:55 D
3) Sunshine of Your Love (Bruce/Clapton/Brown) 6:38 C
4) Every Day I Have the Blues (P. Chatman ) 4:54 Eb
5) Poor Boy (traditional) 4:09 G
6) Shaun's Song (A. Gussow) 4:44 D
7) Goin' Down South (R. L. Burnside) 4:43 A
8) Buford Chapel Breakdown (A. Gussow) 3:41 Bb
9) Crossroads Blues (R. Johnson) 5:46 D
10) Mr. Cantrell (A. Gussow) 5:57 A
11) Down Ain't Out (A. Gussow) 5:59 Db
12) My Baby's So Sweet (A. Gussow) 4:12 D
13) Sugar (S. Turrentine) 3:51 Bb (3rdposition)
14) The Entertainer (S. Joplin) 2:21 C (1st position)
Photo courtesy of Bruce Newman and the Oxford Eagle. Cover design courtesy of Adam Marsh. Free Download Now
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