PaulKeim.com

So you are here because you love the blues ....well me too.

When I was about eleven, I was sitting in the basement of the place I lived in Washington D.C., checking out the local R&B / soul station. Since this would have been 1967 we are talking 'real' R&B - Booker T, Otis Clay, Sam and Dave .... Motown for the more pop audience. It was getting on midnight on a Saturday and the station switched, as they always did on Saturday, to a blues format. Wham! Howlin Wolf’s Smokestack Lightning came raining down on me like some electric storm from the radio ... throwing caution (baby sisters asleep upstairs) to the wind I cranked up that little tube radio and swayed around the room with the hair on the back of my neck about a mile high ... which is approximately where I still go when the music is tight and right.

I like electric blues, a lot. And I like acoustic blues, loads. But I am not so sure about the slave-ish historical regurgitation of the idiom anymore than I fancy the blisteringly loud rock - ization of the music. Blues has always been an intensely personal music with groove and passion being its foremost expression. My feeling is - let’s get on with it and keep it alive. I favour the tunes with the deep feel, somewhere between a New Orleans Street Parade feel, a Memphis back beat, the haunting keen of Muddy Waters and the raw power of Blind Willie Johnson.

When I first started playing blues, it was an underground sort of thing ...now I know.... people think California; they think Los Angeles pop music.... But California was where a lot of blues people landed after WWII. Lowell Fulsom, T-Bone Walker, Joe Liggins, Luther Tucker, George Harmonica Smith, Pee Wee Crayton, these guys all lived in California and played all the little clubs cause that’s what it was like prior to about 1984, just your regular old corner bars.

A few people knew what was up. Mike Jr Watson, Hollywood Fats, Rick Estrin, Bill Clark, James Harmon. It was happening! There was this underground scene, and it was really inspiring. The first guy I met that was into it was Andy Santana (no relation to any guitar player). He had gone to high school with Mike Watson and was really gone into the real deal. We went to all the jams and concerts we could find then started a band.... and as a result we opened for all kinds of folks.... Buddy Guy, Albert King, Dr. John, Paul Butterfield, James Harmon and Hollywood Fats, Albert Collins, Robert Cray, Roomful of Blues, Duke Robillard, Jimmy Witherspoon ..... that was all she wrote. I went through a whack of other bands until I had the privilege of backing up Nappy Brown in 1992. After that it seemed every mother's son had a strat, a hat, a super reverb and a “tex-ass” attitude.

Well I moved on and played western swing for about five years. Then I came back to it and recorded an electric blues cd - Tall Paul and the Brazos Band and an acoustic blues and guitar cd - Cuesta Grade. I still play blues, mostly for myself - it's cool ... it's a great feel to wander around in, a vibe that can't be denied and ultimately an intensely personal music. Right now I have another guitar instrumental cd in the works that has quite a few down home pieces in it including my current favourite - Baked Bean Sandwich. Look for release in October ’08. there are rumours of a new Brazos Band cd in fall of 08 as well -stay tuned!

Nuff said ... Please check out some of the tunes. Thanks! pk