Bert Wray Blues brings together slide-guitarist/singer Bert Wray with drummer Mitch Cooper and bassist Dave Wall. The band’s music merges the vintage juke joint sound with plenty of Carolina twang and fresh songwriting. Equally inspired by Delta blues pioneers, rockabilly cats, and 1960’s blues-rockers, the trio hits the sweet spot between classic blues and good ol’ rock and roll. The new album Gut Bucket Radio will be released on March 10, 2017. The recording captures the band's energy and slide blues antics in an 8-song album that takes the listener on a road trip across the blues landscapes of the past like a gut bucket radio blaring into a new century. Bert Wray Blues will be playing live to promote Gut Bucket Radio throughout 2017.
German conductor, arranger, composer, multi-instrumentalist, and record producer, whose hits included the chart-topper "Wonderland by Night." Stars like Ella Fitzgerald, Shirley Bassey, Caterina Valente, Engelbert, Dean Martin, Nat "King" Cole, Sammy Davis Jr., Duke Ellington and Count Basie were successful with Kaempfert's compositions. Bert Kaempfert had almost too much talent, ability, and good luck rolled into one career to be fully appreciated, even by his own chosen audience, the lovers of fine orchestral pop music. He was one of the most successful conductors, arrangers, and recording artists in the latter field, but was also a major producer and played a key (if indirect) role in the roots of the British beat boom of the early '60s, which evolved into the British Invasion of America in 1964.
Sanctuary's mammoth triple-disc Pentangle overview poses a bit of a dilemma. First of all, it's called Pentangling, which is already the name of a 1973 compilation, and secondly, while not deliberately misleading, it focuses more attention on the solo careers of John Renbourn and Bert Jansch than it does on the entity that supplies the collection's title. Despite these petty gripes, Pentangling is filled to the brim with some of the finest recordings the British folk movement had to offer, and hearing the group as a whole, followed by an entire disc – one apiece – of two of the genre's most gifted guitarists, is rewarding in more ways than one: both men, as well as the band, released material well into the 21st century, but Pentangling focuses only on their treasured late-'60s/early-'70s output. Listeners looking for a more comprehensive take on Pentangle would be better off with Castle's excellent Light Flight: The Anthology, and Renbourn and Jansch both have lovingly packaged retrospectives that fare better than the ones offered here, but as far as entry points go, Pentangling does more than skim the surface.
Comprising Bert’s seminal 1960s output (alongside his only album as a duet with Pentangle bandmate John Renbourn) this four disc set covers an era that forged creative paths for everyone from Neil Young to Johnny Marr. New listening notes from Bill Leader, as well as unseen photographs from Brian Shuel complete this special collection.