GA-20
Since 2018, GA-20 has been at the forefront of a traditional Blues revival. The dynamic throwback trio have long been disciples of the place where traditional Blues, Country and Rock ‘n’ Roll intersect. “We make records that we would want to listen to,” says guitarist Matthew Stubbs. “It’s our take on the song-based traditional electric Blues we love.” Stubbs, along with guitarist & vocalist Cody Nilsen and drummer Josh Kiggans, strives to bring traditional Blues to the front lines of the modern roots music scene. “The focus for us has always been on the story, the melody, and on creating a mood,” Stubbs continues. “Playing live as much as we do, we’re finding more and more that people are discovering how cool it all is. Traditional Country and Soul have had these massive recent revivals. We want to be part of doing that for traditional Blues music.”
GA-20 has drawn inspiration for their old-school sounds from the music they love from artists such as Otis Rush, J.B. Lenoir, Howlin’ Wolf, Junior Wells, Hound Dog Taylor, Earl Hooker, Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson and so many others. Performing with what feels like reckless abandon, GA-20 brings a timeless immediacy to every song they play with a sound that continues to grow and evolve. The band uses vintage instruments and amps to produce their authentic sound, and favours traditional recording techniques, like recording live off the floor, together in one room, to help recreate that energy and sonic connection.
In their short history, GA-20 have been 3x #1 Billboard Blues chart toppers, 4x Boston Music Award winners for Best Blues Act, and have received multiple wins and nominations at the Blues Music Awards, Blues Blast Awards, New England Blues Awards, and have ascended streaming and radio charts at home and internationally. Medium.com has appropriately declared, “This is the kind of music that travels through time while taking from the era where it was born and turning it into something fresh. Dirty and raw…timeless and modern.”
Now, the chart-topping power trio forges ahead into the last days of 2024 and into 2025 with Cryin’ & Pleadin’, the first single from their upcoming EP, VOLUME 2, and with a renewed commitment to their mission. Recorded at Rare Signals studio in Cambridge MA, and produced by Stubbs, the highly-anticipated EP showcases the best of GA-20’s Blues chops and gutsy approach.
Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears
When Joe and his band, the Honeybears, popped onto the national stage over a decade ago, many critics embraced him but still, there were some that maintained that they hadn’t paid their dues. Joe’s still here. Still going. Still cashing checks and snapping necks. The dues of hard work; the delirious heights of the industry as well as the disappointments and low hanging fruit. Through this all, Joe’s only honed his mastery over gut bucket blues guitar and his true voice. It’s a vital and distinctly American voice that never anticipated the attention he wound up receiving, never went looking for it either. It just started happening. The garage, the blues, the propulsive and synergistic live performances that inhabit the spaces of James Brown, Lightnin’ Hopkins, and the MC5...those things happened naturally from the very beginning and could only be accurately communicated in the live experience, not a press release or a slick brand campaign. Sharon Jones, Charles Bradley, Cedric Burnside and Lightnin Malcolm, The Dirtbombs, Detroit Cobras, the Strange Boys; these are some of the artists that Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears shared countless bills with; almost a roll call of the most influential soul and garage bands of the last twenty five years. Has the soul blues garage explosion from that era been commodified or worked into the overall template of pop rock? Sure. But the ground floor was a vital space for people that like guitars and grease and at this point Black Joe Lewis is one of the last standing that was there. Last of a dying breed. Or maybe a missing link. Does this make him a throwback? A throwback to a throwback? It’d be tempting and easy for Joe to go alongwith that but nah, we don’t think so. We know that Joe Lewis is genuinely doing his thing and that he’d do it regardless of what’s coming down the pipe. A stone cold original and a veteran at that.
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