Today is album release day for COME TOGETHER, the debut album from my new trio, Sir Rod & The Blues Doctors. Rod Patterson is Sterling "Mr. Satan" Magee's nephew. He saw the Satan & Adam documentary and reached out to me about the possibility of recording a demo and putting together a little tour that would serve as a tribute to his uncle. One thing led to another. I certainly didn't think we'd end up here, with a new act and an album, when I got his first email!
The album consists of 11 tracks, 9 of which were songs that Satan & Adam either recorded or performed or both. It's also got two SRBD originals, "Come Together" (lyrics by Rod, music by yours truly) and "So Mean" (lyrics and music by Rod).
We recorded it in two weekends, mid-January and mid-February.
Here's the eleventh and final track, "What'd I Say," which was live in the studio, no overdubs or other musicians.
Here's a PSA produced by a nonprofit called Common Ground Committee, using a portion of the lead single, "Come Together."
And here's a longer preview video in which I introduce the band and talk through most of the tracks. I realized that I had woefully ignored my "legacy" YouTube channel, the original Modern Blues Harmonica channel founded in 2007, so I've uploaded this there.
On the equipment front, I used the smallest pair of amps I've got, what I've come to think of as my restaurant set: a 1952 Masco MU-5 (1 x 8") and a Kay 703 from the early 1960s. Plus my Shure PE5H mic and an MXR Carbon Copy analog delay.
The amps were miked with a pair of Sennheiser e906 mics and there were also several other overhead mics dangling in the room and one out in the hall. We recorded the entire album in a bedroom on the second floor of a big old Victorian house in Water Valley, MS. The bed was right behind me--a good place to lay out my gear.
Rod has been dancing since his mid-teens and he's also performed in various R&B groups, but this is his first serious immersion in blues, and it's his very first album release--at age 54. I was amazed by how well he found his pocket with the Blues Doctors.
Once a vaccine exists and the pandemic dies down, we do of course hope to tour. For the moment, all we've got is the album. I hope you folks enjoy it. And buy it, of course:
That's a pretty wicked take of "What'd I Say'! Been waiting for this kind of energy and vocal accompaniment to your brilliant harmonica playing since "Living on the River", Mr. Gussow. Holy smoke! Thank you. I'm buyin' it!
