Three Kiwi blues legends will perform at St Peter’s Hall, Paekākāariki this Friday 12 April, kicking off at 8 p.m. The newly-formed trio will play their own new country blues originals plus classics from the blues, rock, gospel and country repertoire. Admission to the BYO event is $20.
Rick Bryant has spent forty-five years on the road in New Zealand with unforgettable bands including Blerta, Rough Justice, The Windy City Strugglers, and Rick Bryant and the Jive Bombers.
His voice, says broadcaster Nick Bollinger, is in fine nick. “He does really work at it,” says Bollinger, “and he keeps refining it. Even though the texture of it has got grainier, and rougher, what he can do with it is so much more he can sing one note now that says a whole lot. I mean, we should regard him the way the Irish regard Van Morrison.”
Gordon Spittle is a long-time collaborator with Bryant, mostly recently writing the repertoire for the current incarnation of Rick Bryant and the Jive Bombers for their forthcoming album, ‘The Black Soap from Monkeyburg’. Spittle has been writing songs since the 1970’s for various artists including Dunedin’s legendary ‘Lutha’, winners of the Loxene Golden Disc Award in 1973 and 1974.
Chris Grosz, long active in the Melbourne acoustic blues scene, has recently returned to New Zealand. He was in two famous Kiwi jug bands: Christchurch’s ‘Band of Hope’ in the late sixties and Auckland’s ‘Mad Dog Jug Band’ of the seventies.
The village is in for a classic night. “You hear life lived in Bryant’s voice,” says actor-singer Jennifer Ward-Lealand. “You hear experience. You hear sorrow and pain. He gets it right.”
