TAS CRU Drivin' On CD Reviews, New Releases, Roots Music Report, and more! Order Today Click Here! Four Print Issues Per Year Every January, April, July, and October get the Best In Blues delivered right t0 you door! Artist Features, CD, DVD Reviews & Columns. Award-winning Journalism and Photography! Order Today Click Here! BLUES MUSIC ONLINE August 10, 2020 - Issue 16 Table Of Contents 06 - TAS CRU Drivin' On By Jack Sullivan 16 - CD Reviews Various Writers 28 - ROOTS MUSIC REPORT Week Of August 8, 2020 COVER PHOTOGRAPHY © SANDY ROE PHOTOGRAPHY © GARY GRAF Read The News Click Here! All Blues, All The Time, AND It's FREE! Get Your Paper Here! Read the REAL NEWS you care about: Blues Music News! FEATURING: - Music News - Breaking News - CD Reviews - Music Store Specials - Video Releases - Festivals - Artists Interviews - Blues History - New Music Coming - Artist Profiles - Merchandise - Music Business Updates PHOTOGRAPHY © GARY GRAF TAS CRU DRIVIN' ON By Jack Sullivan PHOTOGRAPHY © GARY GRAF he 2014 Keeping The Blues Blues Music Online Interview Alive recipient for Education, Tmusician Tas Cru has logged his Blues Music Online: When did you share of miles on the road has led to first discover the blues? a 2018 Blues Music Award nomination for Best Emerging Artist. Having had Tas Cru: My discovery was an the pleasure of being entertained by evolution that began when I was about the self-proclaimed road dog while ten years old. My Uncle Bert rented working at Camping with The Blues an apartment in the house next door festival in Florida, his knowledge and to my home. I used to visit with him delivery of multiple styles of blues every Friday after supper when he included in his performance that day. would be getting ready to go out on He’s got it! All of it! Country blues, the town. We would sit around and blues-rock, swing blues, and deep Hill play Gin Rummy, and he put on these Country blues. All of it! He gave it all records I never heard anywhere else. to us that day as he has done for so He loved Howlin’ Wolf especially. My for many days as a seasoned road uncle learned to love the blues from warrior, musician, and bandleader. friends he met when in the army. I With three new releases in the didn’t really know what this music was last five years – You Keep the Money, he was playing but more just liked Simmered & Stewed, and Memphis hanging out with him. Later, in my first Song, it is only appropriate that his band, we practiced at the drummer’s new album release is titled Drive On. house. His parents played in bands There is no doubt that he is going to too and did a lot of Sun Records stuff. continue to drive on with his growing They would come and show us some repertoire of 60 original songs. Drive things and play a few songs with their On is Tas Cru’s second release on son. I remember thinking these songs Subcat Records. This new album sounded a lot like my uncle’s records. takes his music down a different path I made that connection too when I with Anthony Geraci, (keyboards) heard the British blues-rock of the late and newcomers Anthony Terry (tenor 60s and 70s. All through my cover sax) and Gabe Stillman (slide guitar) band days in the 80s I was handed the along for the ride to the studio. Mixing songs to sing that were more blues- this fresh blood with his tried and based (some of these could pass for true studio companions proves the contemporary blues of today). The right turn to take at a crossroads that blues really took hold for good when is Drive On. We caught up with Tas I got serious about songwriting. Many Cru this week, and we thank him for of my first songs were built around the sharing his thoughts with us. traditional A A B lyric structure and the use of double entendre metaphors. PHOTOGRAPHY © GARY GRAF Blues Music Online: Who were the several years, in my family. I had a first blues artists you were listening sister, seven years older, who would to? invite her friends over and they would dance to records. They tried to get me Tas Cru: As I mentioned earlier, I to dance too, but I was having none was listening to blues artists before of that! We had a cheap “folk” guitar I even knew it. But when I became laying around the house. One day I aware, I sought out singer/guitarists, dug it out from a closet and started to either for their unique singing (Freddie pretend to play along to the Stones King, Luther Allison) or guitar work song “The Last Time” while they (Albert Collins, Johnny Winter). As I danced. I was like eight or nine years grew into songwriting I listened to pre- old. My sister's friends made like I was war singer-songwriters like Robert Keith Richards, pretending to flirt and Johnson and Charlie Patton. adore me. I liked it and never looked back. The deal was sealed when my Blues Music Online: What was it sister snuck me into a local Battle of about the blues that spoke to you? the Bands. I was able to snake through the crowd to the stage and watch one Tas Cru: To me it’s a mix of things. band before they kicked me out being First it calls me back to my pre-teen only ten years old. I stood mesmerized years when feeling like a grown-up in front of the guitar player and made meant everything. I got that when up my mind then and there I was going hanging with my old uncle who played to be THAT guy! his blues records while we played cards. He even let me take a few Blues Music Online: Can you explain puffs from his Lucky Strike and have your learning process? Do you use a sip of his Jim Beam. Now as a records, are you taking lessons, do musician I am in awe that the blues, you attend jam sessions? with stark simplicity at its core, offers boundless opportunities for creativity Tas Cru: To me jam sessions are both musically and lyrically. Most of the absolute best teacher. My most all, it is a genre that is best suited to memorable festivals I have played are my songwriting. The blues lends itself those where those of us on the bill get to storytelling. It prizes descriptive to jam together. I think most promoters language and meaningful use of who build jams into their fests do it metaphor but demands economy of more for the performer’s enjoyment words. It wants you to be poetic. than the audience. These jams are fun, and I always learn something. Blues Music Online: When did you To me you become better by being first pick up your instrument? in the mix with people who are better than you – whether you be a guitarist, Tas Cru: I grew up the youngest, by singer, or front man performer. I repeatedly tell musicians just starting sin of playing the song changes where out they should seek out the jams they thought they should be instead of in their area. And when you are just where the band leader/singer wanted starting out, almost everybody at the them. Big George did not adhere to jam is better than you. Taking part the typical 12 bar format, and this is in a jam you must have some skills. not that unusual with Delta players. In Developing those skills is where short, he was hung out to dry. Well, listening to records, watching video, at KFFA Big George saw that I had a and taking lessons first comes into guitar and asked me to play along as play. he sang and played harp. I was damn Of course, I want to learn from sure to listen to the man and give the best. To this day I’ve listen to blues him the changes when HE wanted and other records and watch videos them. He gave me a big smile when of live performances. Lessons have we finished up which was more than been useful to me to a certain extent. ample reward for the reminder lesson I have taken guitar lessons off and on about listening. throughout my career, mostly when I felt I needed to regroup to climb out Blues Music Online: What are some of a playing rut or when I felt it was of the most important musical lessons getting stale. I still do this on-line. about the blues these mentors taught you? Blues Music Online: Who were some of the mentors you were able to play Tas Cru: I also spent some time in with, tour with, or work with. Lafayette, LA. and got to play with Henry Gray a bit. One time, Lil’ Buck Tas Cru: I spent some time in Senegal was also on stage. I guess Clarksdale soaking up the Delta vibe I was a little cocky and overplaying and played with quite a few folks because Buck said to me, “There’s like T-Model Ford, Super Chikan, only one guy on this stage the people Razorblade, and one of the sweetest are here to see and you ain’t him.” fellas I ever met, a man they just called From that day on, I never overstepped Tater. Most memorable was my first or overstayed my welcome when meeting with Big George Brock.