I thought the musicianship on this CD was excellent. Not surprisingly, the instrument dominating the recording was the Hammond organ! The vocals were very good. Well executed, Joe has a convincing blues voice.

I thought that Joe's song writing skill was really good. Everything sounded very fresh to my ears. I really enjoyed the overall feel of the music. Everything just flowed together really well. There was no cut that didn't progress well into the next one and I felt I'd like to be up dancing instead of sitting at the computer keyboard!

I liked the cover art on the CD and I liked the simplicity of the liner notes. Everything was nice and easy to read, in big clear type.

Some bio or background info on artist.
Joe Andersen is the band leader; head honcho; main man. He plays Hammond organ and piano, and performs the vocals. Joe has been playing for over 30 years. His jazzy style adds an interesting twist to the down and dirty blues grooves generated by the band.

When Joe was a teen, he heard the song "96 Tears" on the radio. He grooved on the tune and thought, "I could play that". Joe saved enough money to buy a used Farfisa organ and found out he could play the tune! He's been hooked ever since. Learned about Cannonball Aderly, Elmore James, Paul Butterfield, Dave Brubeck, Jimi Hendrix and a bunch of others all at the same time. A major influence for Joe was the all time great organ player, Jimmy Smith.

With his new found instrument, Joe played some "underground rock" and lots of blues. Joe just played and played... Then, eventually, he become good enough to make money with his playing. He went the usual route of playing a lot of commercial music; he traveled regionally and made some money. But he wasn't having fun; he was playing "money gigs" and was not playing the stuff he really loved - jazz, blues and underground stuff. Joe quit playing music publicly for a while, but he never stopped playing. He spent a lot of time in the basement honing his jazz improvisational techniques, writing and recording.

Eventually the desire to play with other people became overwhelming, and Joe ventured out of the basement to play in public. But this time he was playing for the love of music again, not money.

Joe played around with a few local bands, but kept on feeling that the organ was getting drowned out by the guitar players (who all sounded way too loud to his ears). He thought to himself "my son plays better guitar than this!" - The cool thing was, it turned out he could!

So pretty soon, son Aaron started coming out to the jam sessions with his dad, and joined up with Joe's pals Kent "Dice" Hamele (5 string bass) and "The Doctor" Mike Morgenthale (drums). At first it was just a lot of fun, but gradually they started calling the jams "practices" and pretty soon they had a band happening, and that's how Cadillac Joe and Blind Wolf Blues band was born. And from that band, this excellent CD.

Order information on CD: B-Sharp Recordings, cadillacjoeblues@hotmail.com
http://www.geocities.com/blindwolfband

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