Hamburg Blues Band & Friends

Description

Over 40 years of St Pauli Blues! For over 4 decades, five guys have been touring through crowded clubs who are among the best the European blues scene has to offer. The Hamburg Blues Band stands for intense, cleverly arranged and live dazzling roots blues that regularly leaves purists mentally reeling. The band, led by singer Gert Lange, who is often compared to Joe Cocker, mixes hard-hitting guitar blues rock with soul, psychedelic, rhythm & blues, boogie and even excursions into the realms of jazz. In 1982, the Hamburg singer and the English saxophonist Dick Heckstall-Smith spontaneously founded the Hamburg Blues Band after a midnight session at the legendary ‘Onkel Pö’ in Hamburg. ‘Dick Heckstall-Smith was our key to the British blues scene, our Brit blues connection’. ‘He was to us what Alexis Korner was to the Stones and many others,’ says Lange today. So it's not surprising that the band went on tour with the stars of the scene over the years: Jack Bruce, Chris Farlowe, Maggie Bell, Mike Harrison, Arthur Brown and guitar heroes such as Clem Clempson & Miller Anderson became band members. ‘We were also very lucky that Dick Heckstall-Smith brought us together with lyricist legend Pete Brown (Cream), who wrote our lyrics until his death in 2023 & was also a welcome guest on our tours’. Hamburg's renowned blues/rock shouter Gert Lange, voice of various commercials (including Carlsberg beer) as well as the title song of the road movie ‘Burning Life’, which won the German Film Award in Gold, and the famous rhythm section, bassist Reggie Worthy (Ike & Tina Turner, Eric Burdon, Stoppok), drummer Eddie Filipp (Inga Rumpf, Sweet, Clem Clempson Band) & the only 32 year old exceptional guitarist Krissy Matthews, a conspiratorial band that works with consistent punch, complemented by their ability to control dynamics on demand and spice it up with perfect harmony vocals.Names such as Jimi Hendrix, Muddy Waters, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Johnny Winter, Rory Gallagher and Pete Townsend come to mind when talking about the 32-year-old Krissy Matthews. They are all said to have been the inspiration for the guitar style of the young exceptional guitarist and indeed Matthews' playing is anything but one-dimensional. Sometimes he sounds fresh and raw, then again weird and wild. He performed on stage for the first time at the age of three, got his first guitar at the age of eight and was gripped by the blues at the age of eleven. A year later, he met John Mayall at a gig in Norway, and the godfather of white blues did not hesitate for long and took the twelve-year-old on stage with him. Fellow musicians, critics and the press are full of praise; ‘This guy is the real deal’ (Beth Hart), ‘Oh boy, this kid can play’ (Hubert Sumlin).Vanja Sky is Croatia's answer to Sheryl Crow and Norah Jones. An artistic career could hardly develop more rapidly. Five years after she learnt to play the guitar, Vanja recorded her debut album with renowned artists from the international blues scene. The highlights of her blistering career to date include close collaborations with greats such as Bernard Allison and Mike Zito, as well as her debut album ‘Bad Penny’, recorded at the Bessie Blues Studios in Stantonville, Tennessee, the workshop of Grammy award-winning producer Jim Gaines. Followed by the second, much rockier album ‘Woman Named Trouble’, which was selected by ROCKS MAGAZINE as one of the best records released in 2020 alongside releases by AC/DC, Deep Purple, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen! Even after 40 years, the Hamburg Blues Band is always good for surprises & presents its very own sound far removed from any clichés. On the ‘40th Anniversary VOL. II’ tour, the audience can expect musical fireworks with real guys and originals.