Off The Wall Blues Band

"An unusual and right-on melting pot, in my opinion, are these five characters who give muscle, brain and blood to the Off the Wall Blues Band...This is a jolt of life and originality in the boring discographic panorama of the past few months." --il Blues, Milan, Italy

The CD: On the Money (JGM232)

Click to hear   Big Bad Wolf   by Eugene Halton, (c) BMI, 1996.

Musicians: Michael Phillips, vocals; Jumpin' Gene Halton, harmonica; Hiro Konishi, guitar; John Baker, bass; Kirk Wright, drums

Bookings and CD Purchases: (219) 631-7140 Address: JakeGem Music, P.O. Box 209, South Bend, IN USA 46556

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

--FROM THE LINER NOTES

"The life so short, the craft so long to learn." --Geoffrey Chaucer

Among other elements -- sex, class, violence -- blues music chronicles life's experience. Rarely does a blues song tell the story of a naive kid just setting out on his journey; bluesmusic comes from that journey.

On the Money captures the Off the Wall Blues Band -- named for a Little Walter song -- at a significant and creative moment in their music. Their experience as musicians, individually and collectively, governs the sound of On the Money, from their expertise with blues forms to their choice of material.

Singer Michael Phillips' voice rivets the listener's attention with its directness and expressiveness. He and harpist Jumpin' Gene Halton played together in both The Swingin' Crawdads and The Mighty Hurricanes in the early 1990s before forming The Off the Wall Blues Band.

Guitarist Hiro Konishi, a transplant to Chicago from Kobe, Japan, sets the mood for many of the songs with his original riffs and contributes well-timed melodic fills, stirring solos --as in Otis Rush's "As the Years Go Passing By" -- and expert rhythm work throughout the album.

Another Chicagoan, John Baker, a veteran roadman with Eddie Burks and Hubert Sumlin, leads the rhythm section with his bold bass lines.

Drummer Kirk Wright has played with South Side Denny Snyder's blues band and with the soul group E.Z. Ed and the Essentials. He drummed for London Fog, whose music was featured in the film The Idolmaker.

All this experience comes together in the music.

Phillips' voice burns with the white hot heat and intensity of great soul masters -- William Bell and Otis Redding both come to mind -- on his own "Somebody Watchin' You." Halton's drawn out, country-style harp notes provide a perfect counter-point to Phillips' voice as they seduce the listener and numb him or her to the menace implicit in the singer's apparent concern for a former lover.

Phillips eschews wolfish cliches when he promises to "blow your house down" on Halton's "Big Bad Wolf." Instead, his calmness and self-assurance make his vocal all that more threatening and real. He simply will blow it down, and you won't mind a bit.

In his instrumental "Jammin'" Halton celebrates the versatility of the harmonica while drummer Wright lays down a tight shuffle beat.

And that's what they do with just half of the six original tunes on On the Money. In these and the six songs they cover, the members of The Off the Wall Blues Band demonstrate how well and how much they've made blues music something very much their own as individuals and then translate the private into the public -- and back again -- as a group.

-- Andrew S. Hughes, WSND-FM, Notre Dame-South Bend.
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Musings

Entering a recording studio is something like Jonah being swallowed by the whale: you feel as though you will never get out. Surrounded by masses of wires and mikes, you try to play with the same intensity as a live performance. And sometimes magic can happen, such as when we played"Big Bad Wolf" for the first time ever, and nailed it in that one take. Or when Michael improvised most of his lyrics for "Somebody Watchin' You," revealing his remarkable narrative sense.

Some of us are from Chicago, and some from South Bend. And just as South Bend is within the orbit of Chicago, our songs are within the orbit of Chicago blues. But there is some South Bend too, as in "Cleo's Mood," by South Bend native Junior Walker, who passed away while we were in the studio. Well, we're out of the studio now, thankfully. And we are grateful to have washed up upon your shore.

--Jumpin' Gene Halton
Produced by Jumpin' Gene Halton Recorded by Andy Peck and Michael Brinker at Dirty White Couch Studio, South Bend, IN between 10/95 and 2/96. Mixed by Michael Brinker, Andy Peck, Gene Halton, and Michael Phillips Cover Design: Eugene Halton Art: Watercolor by Fritz Janschka Photo: Andy Peck

Special Thanks to: our families and their patience, to Jacob for "on the prowl," to Doug Rice, Rockin' Johnny Burgin, Dave Waldman, Dave Myers, Lola Gordon, Andy Hughes, Fritz Janschka, Linda Babat, Tom Moore, Kelly Hoggard, Lisa Plecner, Harvey Stauffer, Pierre Lacocque, Steve Behr, Marlan "Mouse" Moore, Stevie Jones,Larry Barber, and to the many other people who have helped make this recording possible.

Click Here to go back to the Band's Homepage

Thanks to Joseph Kominkiewicz for designing first version of the band page.