Back in action - Saturday July 24th at the Wine Cellar in Auckland's delightful Karangahape Road. Tom Rodwell with compadres Count Bassy (bass) and Darryn Harkness (drums) present more syncretic missives from the impenetrable citadel of boogie.
BLUES
RHYTHM & BLUES
RHYTHM MUSIC
CALYPSO
GOSPEL
SPIRITUALS
HARD GOSPEL
...and more.
Rodwell tunes into the disregard of musical convention of early country-blues players and prison gospel hollerers, building on the inherent dissonance, the wilful examination of the guitar vernacular shorn of all the bluster and noxious rock moves so many white players have encumbered the genre with.
But despite its minimalist austerity and lo-res recording, Rodwell is a pragmatist, and the music swings. This is no dry exercise in ethnomusicology but a subtle reinvention of the most daring and entertaining aspects of music styles long thought atrophied, and with just voice and guitar (and odd smatters of percussion), he wills it alive.
- METRO MAGAZINE
By turns wild, angry, hypnotic and sensual, it's as uncompromising as it is funky and some of the best live music I've seen.
- BLUES IN LONDON
