Beaux Gris Gris & The Apocalypse guitarist and British Blues Hall of Famer Robin Davey has launched a new solo album and took the opportunity to issue an astonishing attack on Joe Bonamassa and today’s cohort of blues players.
Davey, whose credits include the Hoax and Well Hung Heart, writes on Facebook that contemporary blues guitar has been “screwed up” by Bonamassa (as spotted by Louder).
“His influence has permeated through the younger generations and it hurts my ears,” says Davey. “It is devoid of soul, it is all about maximizing profits and maximizing Joe’s ego.”
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He and Bonamassa have a different idea of what ‘keeping the blues alive’ looks like in practice. Davey claims his new album, The Blues According To Gutbucket Slim, is his “vision of what the blues can be”. Available via Bandcamp, the album – more an EP, technically – is a mash-up of blues and hip-hop, whose opening track is titled Hey Joe (Daddy’s on the Phone).
Perhaps Davey wants to inject a little Drake-Kendrick energy into the 21st-century blues scene. All scenes could use some spice. But then diss tracks and pop-cultural beefs usually work better when the audience is familiar with both parties to the feud – and especially when both parties in the feud are aware of one another.
Don’t expect to see Davey in Miami next March getting ready to board the Keeping the Blues Alive at Sea XII cruise to Grand Cayman. Bonamassa might make him walk the plank.
“I’m tired of the endless stream of white blues that dominates the blues festival circuit,” says Davey. “These people can’t write songs, they have no creativity and they all sound alike – their playing is so devoid of personality. There I said it.”
Davey’s Gutbucket Slim album was made some time ago but for a number of reasons he chose not to release it. He cites his core influences as Stevie Ray Vaughan, Rage Against the Machine, Beck, Lightnin’ Hopkins and B.B King, and Guy Forsyth, who guests on Migraine Blues. .
B.B. King? It’s a small world. Bonamassa played with B.B. King, and the King of the Blues even taught him how to use an iPod.
I don’t know if anyone will hear it, but I’m putting it out so that it may help people think differently about what the blues can be
“This record will not be hugely successful,” says Davey. “I don’t know if anyone will hear it, but I’m putting it out so that it may help people think differently about what the blues can be.”
Is Davey’s broadside going to be the opening salvo in blues guitar’s own version of the Bridge Wars, KRS-One vs Marley Marl? Oasis vs Blur? Gutbucket Slim has the stomach for a fight. But probably not. Still, it’s a good way of drumming up some attention, and it is always worth considering what the future of any art form is going to look or sound like.
You can give The Blues According To Gutbucket Slim a spin above and decide for yourself if Robin Davey has the songwriting chops to back all this future-of-blues talk up.
