The inextinguishable U.S. blues-rock guitarist WALTER TROUT will release his thirtieth solo album this summer!
Titled “Ride” the album is due for release on 19th August 2022 and is out via Provogue/Mascot Label Group.
Trout continues to be the luminary pulsar in the celestial vaults of blues guitar. Esteemed by the retro-traditionalists, mythologized by the new cowpunchers on the block, and venerated by fans all over the world, after five decades in blues-craft, Trout remains an hyperphysical figure blessed with almost semi-legendary guitar gifts that see him prodded beyond the physical vista of most contemporary blues-players and into a mystical realm.
In the 1960’s and during the 70’s the Ocean City guitarist, now aged 71, worked as a sideman for John Lee Hooker, Percy Mayfield, Big Mama Thornton, and Joe Tex. He was the lead guitarist for Canned Heat 1981-84. He followed Peter Green and Eric Clapton into John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers to play lead guitar (1985-89) and formed his own band the year he left the English blues-rockers. Trout’s first two albums sold over 100,000 copies.
His almost semi-legendary guitar gifts see him prodded beyond the physical vista of most contemporary blues-players & into a mystical realm…
Raw Ramp Music Magazine
But his unparalleled achievements on stage were accompanied by a self-destructive lifestyle offstage that found him rock sliding into alcohol and substance abuse. The first signs of trouble were in June 2013, while the musician toured Germany, when he recognized the first signs of cirrhosis of the liver. He was told told he’d need a liver transplant in 90 days or he wouldn’t survive! One reason that Trout is still with us, making music, is due to the overwhelming generosity of his fans & supporters, which included a YouCaring campaign (set up by Kirby Bryant, the wife of British blues guitarist and Trout protégée Danny Bryant.) This generosity of spirt — alongside various concert tributes — raised $245,000 toward his lifesaving health care. It’s as if his fans, and all the younger blues musicians on the circuit, now have a “stake” in the great man’s life. It seems we all hold shares in his prolongation!
As ‘Ride’ took form in his mind and in the studio, such nuances could not help but perfume its creative output. “This album is obviously what I was going through mentally and emotionally,” Trout considers. “All I did was express it. I spent a lot of time crying, because I would dig down into my emotional core. I want my songs to have some sort of truth to them.”
The title track “Ride” (video shared below) is a nostalgic locomotory chug with a sparkling percussive firebox and reciprocating squeals from harmonica. This number has the type of consistent motive power we expect from a musician of Trout’s quality. Like all great blues frescoes, it’s a storytelling canvas that delivers reawakening and vivification. And the artist’s voice is better, fleshier and jauntier, than it has seemed for years! Plus, the guitarwork is, of course, intuitive and beamy.
The more soulful “Waiting For The Dawn” is why we adore this artist so much! It’s heartgrief on strings, it’s oversorrow on lips, and it’s salvation waiting in the wings… each note is designd to assuage the pain we all sometimes face. If you like your blues to be melancholy as nightshade, but healing as sweetbriar, this number is for you.
“Ghost” is one of the standout tracks on the disc: a constellation of guitar sounds delivering huge corpuscles of regret that spread out and fill smoldering riffs. All this and a surefooted bass-beat too. The guitar solo on this number is dynamically liberatory. Scorching!
Words: @neilmach 2022 ©
Ride is due for release on 19th August 2022 and out via Provogue/Mascot Label Group.
Pre-order here: https://lnk.to/WalterTrout
RAW RAMP 