2/5/14: #10 for January 2014 on Living Blues's top-25 national blues radio airplay chart!
3/15/14: #4 on Amazon mp3's "Hot New Releases in Acoustic Blues"; #19 on the Roots Music Report "Weekly Top 50 Blues Album" chart
Adam Gussow and Alan Gross, a.k.a. TheBlues Doctors, are Mississippi-based blues veterans who play a mix of Delta standards and urban grooves from the Texas-to-Chicago axis with some New Orleans funk thrown in. They're a two-man band with a full-on sound: Gussow on harmonica and drumset, Gross on guitar, with both men sharing vocal duties.
Roosters Happy Hour is their debut recording as a duo. It includes blues standards such as "Next Time You See Me," "Rock Me," "Pride and Joy," and "Sweet Home Chicago," jazz and R&B favorites such as Stanley Turrentine’s "Sugar" and the Crusaders’ "Put It Where You Want It," and a handful of originals by Gussow, including a funky chromatic harp workout, "Staten Island Hurricane Blues," and the Hooker-style boogie, "I Need Your Love."
Named for the steady Friday gig at Rooster’s Blues House in Oxford, Mississippi where Gussow and Gross hammered our their dynamic two-man sound, Roosters Happy Hour will please traditionalists and adventurous blues fans alike.The Blues Doctors are a power blues trio without the bass, driven by Gussow’s thumping kickdrum; they’re a hard-swinging jump combo distilled to the bare essentials, propelled by Gross’s jangling guitar and Gussow’s dazzling harp lines.Roosters Happy Hour is down-home blues with a big-city angle of attack.
Marking Gross’s debut as a recording artist, Roosters Happy Hour also continues Gussow's transformation from a harmonica virtuoso into a one-man rhythm machine. Those who remember the early 1990s recordings of Satan and Adam will enjoy the Blues Doctors’s remakes of “Watermelon Man” and “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore”—this time with Gussow in the percussion chair.
Roosters Happy Hour is a joyous, funky, deep-dish feast. It’s two seasoned veterans having a great time with the blues.
To preview and purchase the album directly from the artists (as downloaded mp3s from Tradebit with liner notes included), click THIS LINK
To preview and purchase the album directly from the artists (as downloaded CD-quality WAV files from Tradebit with liner notes included), click THIS LINK
FOR BOOKINGS OR TO SCHEDULE AN INTERVIEW, please contact Adam: asgussow@aol.com
BIOGRAPHY:
Adam Gussow, a blues harmonica player and one-man band, is best known for his twenty-five year partnership with Mississippi-born guitarist and one-man-band Sterling "Mr. Satan" Magee. As the duo Satan and Adam, their releases include the W. C. Handy-nominated Harlem Blues (1991), Mother Mojo (1993), Living on the River (1996), Word On the Street: Harlem Recordings, 1989 (2008), and Back in the Game (2011). Gussow has performed and recorded with many guitar-men during his career, including Wild Jimmy Spruill, Larry Johnson, Charlie Hilbert, Robert Ross, Andrew "Shine" Turner, Bill Sims, Jr., Irving Louis Lattin, and Brian Kramer. Gussow's debut solo album, Kick and Stomp (2010), spent many weeks at #1 in the "Hot New Releases in Acoustic Blues" chart at Amazon mp3's and rose to the #2 position in the "picks to click" category on Bluesville (SiriusXM), America's premier satellite radio blues show. His second solo album, Southbound (2011), spent most of March and April 2012 at the #1 position on the Mississippi Roots Rado Airplay Chart. An author as well as veteran musician, Gussow has written three award-winning books about blues literature and culture, including Mister Satan's Apprentice (1998), a memoir about his time as a Harlem street musician.
Alan Gross is best-known for his long association with Mississippi bluesman Terry "Harmonica" Bean--he's played guitar in his band for a decade--and work with hill country performers Kenny Kimbrough, Lightning Malcolm, and Eric Deaton. He's also gigged with R. L. Boyce, a mainstay of Otha Turner's Rising Star Fife and Drum ensemble, and played numerous festivals across the state of Mississippi. His guitar influences include Muddy Waters, Duke Robillard, Jimmie Vaughan, and Warren Haynes.
album design by Grant Kessler......photography by Steve Likens
