Thursday, July 17, 2008
Like Trout with your BBQ?
Walter Trout headlines Saturday's Blue Ridge Blues & BBQ Festival
Blue Ridge Blues & BBQ Festival
- Music: Walter Trout & The Radicals (8:45 to 10:15 p.m.), Sean Carney Band, Stacy Mitchhart, Harper, Boo Hanks, Jesse Ray Carter, Scott Perry & Tom Ohmsen, The Biscuit Rollers, Roanoke Blues Agents, Worth Profitt, Billie Sutton & Roadhouse.
- Eats: Features Pitt Boss barbecue and beer
- When: 2 to 9 p.m. Saturday
- Where: Railside Plaza, downtown Roanoke
- Cost: $15
- Net: blueridgeblues.org, waltertrout.com
- Also: The Blues Fest After Party with Stacy Mitchhart is 9:30 p.m. Saturday at Blue 5 Restaurant in downtown Roanoke. Cost is $5. blue5restaurant.com.
Paul Bergen photo/Courtesy Walter Trout
Walter Trout
Jukebox
Walter Trout
Blues resumes don’t get much thicker than Walter Trout’s.
Trout, who is headlining Saturday’s Blue Ridge Blues & BBQ Festival, has played with Big Mama Thornton, Lowell Fulsom, John Lee Hooker, Canned Heat, John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers and plenty more. But for the past 20 years, he’s been a solo act, and he’s touring these days to support his most recent CD, “The Outsider.”
The record is loaded with great playing from Trout and his supporting players. Drummer Kenny Aronoff, who for years provided the inimitable snare drum crack for John Mellencamp, is on board.
“Kenny Aronoff sent me an e-mail and said he’d like to play on my record, and when you get an e-mail from someone like that you just say sure!” Trout wrote this week in an e-mail.
Trout was surfing the Web one day when he found the phenomenal harmonica player Jason Ricci. He made contact and soon, Ricci was in the studio, recording a track for the CD.
“I saw some footage of him on YouTube and figured he was the best harmonica player I ever heard,” Trout wrote.
Aronoff and Ricci won’t be on stage with Trout at the Blue Ridge fest, but keyboardist Sammy Avila and some other hot players will be.
“I think that right now my band is the tightest it’s ever been and they’re playing with more power than ever!” he wrote.
Q: According to your Web site biography, you had an inspirational meeting with jazz icon Duke Ellington. What were the circumstances of that, and what was your attitude about music walking away from that meeting?
A: When I was a kid, I was an aspiring jazz trumpet player and my mom arranged it that I could spend the afternoon with Duke and his orchestra. He was the most charismatic, warm, humorous, kind person I had met at that time and I came out of it thinking that guy seems to know some secret that the rest of us are still trying to figure out.
Q: Of all the iconic musicians you have worked with, who has been the most inspirational to you?
A: Undoubtedly, John Mayall! He’s unique and incredibly talented and just really a joy to work for, and that’s the truth!
Q: Who has been your biggest guitar influence?
A: Michael Bloomfield.
Q: Many musicians seem to have trouble with the bottle at one time or another, and your bio says that you did, too — Carlos Santana told you that you were wasting God’s gift. How tough is it to be out on the road as often as you are and stay away from alcohol?
A: I just hit 21 years clean and sober, and I can’t even imagine getting loaded now. It doesn’t cross my mind.
Q: Why are European audiences so much more receptive than American audiences to contemporary blues?
A: They seem to be not so influenced by the media as folks in America. They’re not so worried about what MTV tells them is the next big thing.
Q: Do you recall having played in Roanoke before?
A: Yes actually, I played in Roanoke in the mid-’80s with John Mayall. That’s the first place I ever played a Mesa Boogie!
