music

Thirteen Bar Blues tm

Official Site:

www.myspace.com/thirteenbarblues

Graphics:

History:

The band was formed in 2002, from the ashes of an unnamed 3-piece "country" band; featuring John "Jack" Coray on vocals and acoustic guitar, Ryan "The Kid" Howcroft on electric guitar and C. F. "Frenchie" Basset on drums. When Jack moved to kentucky in '97, that band dissolved and Frenchie and The Kid went their separate ways. The Kid continued to hone his guitar skills, while Frenchie sold his drum kit and pursued other interests- mainly painting and photography.

Jack went on to play in a bluegrass band, had a short gig with an Elvis impersonator and currently leads the rockabilly riot, Rumble Club.

In 2001, The Kid contacted Frenchie and they started talking about forming a new band and Frenchie had a clear idea of what he wanted to do- full throttle f*cked up noisy blues, in the vein of The Gun Club, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, etc. OK, it's rock-n-roll, deeply rooted in the blues... The Kid was OK with this and the band was born! Frenchie borrowed a Squier Stratocaster and pulled out the ol' country songs he had written in '96-'97. The Kid laid down some riffs on a cassette tape and Frenchie put words to those numbers as well. The search was on, for a drummer and a place to play. Meanwhile, Frenchie and The Kid exchanged ideas over the phone.

A year passed and still no place to play. Finally, The Kid said, "Why don't we just play acoustic for now?". Frenchie bought a Regal steel resonator and they started playing every thursday night in one or the other's apartments. They played songs by Danzig, Leadbelly, Skip James, Neil Young, The Gun Club, ZZ Top, Muddy Waters, Roosevelt Jamison, Marty Robbins and Sonny Boy Williamson. They rocked up some numbers from the country band, including "#13 Train", "The Ballad of Broken Justice" and "Faded Tattoo Blues".

A couple more years, and with more originals under their belt, the band needed a name. Since most of the songs The Kid written were 12-bar blues and Frenchie's lucky number was 13, they agreed on Thirteen Bar Blues. A little online research revealed only an album by Luc Houtkamp's pow3 by the same name, so it was done. By the beginning of 2004, the band had a name- albeit somewhat accidentally borrowed from a fantastic dutch sci-fi blues album by a computerized jazz ensemble!

By the time Thirteen Bar Blues hit the recording studio in 2008, they had 25+ original songs to chose from. Frenchie had met a musician named Gabriel Edgar, who with a mutual friend Dallas Brown, was recording an interesting mix of flamenco guitar and native american flute. Gabriel invited Frenchie and The Kid to come record in his home studio. They quickly agreed and narrowed the set to the 13 best acoustic songs. The songs were recorded two tracks at a time, with the vocals and Kid's guitar in a "live" first take, then Frenchie's guitar or harmonica dubbed on top. Gabriel mixed and edited four tracks that first day, "Workin' Girl", "Untitled Love Shake", "My Home Town" and "One Way Street". You can hear these songs at the site below...

www.myspace.com/thirteenbarblues

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