The Boxer Rebellion Open Arms

Since Full Moon Fever was an unqualified commercial and critical success, perhaps it made sense that Tom Petty chose to follow its shiny formula when he reunited with the Heartbreakers for its follow-up, Into the Great Wide Open…

Hard rocking blues, featuring Andy Watts' virtuoso guitar, Dov Hammer's soulful harmonica and vocals and some unique original songwriting. The Blues Rebels began in 2012 as a one-time friendly jam between two veteran Blues artists – guitarist Andy Watts and singer/harmonica player Dov Hammer – but the immediate chemistry between the two and the powerful stage show that resulted was undeniable. The Blues Rebels soon became one of the hottest Blues bands on the scene, playing with world-class Blues artists such as Joe Louis Walker, Lucky Peterson and Bernard Allison. The band was also chosen to open for the legendary Johnny Winter, who told the band how impressed he was by their performance.

Open All Night had the unwieldy pressure of being the follow-up album to a surprise hit. The Georgia Satellites' self-titled offering, issued in 1986, yielded the smash single "Keep Your Hands to Yourself," which was also an MTV staple for six months. The track and its accompanying video were viewed as novelties by radio and MTV, so when Open All Night appeared, the "joke" was over. Too bad. If ever a band was miscast as class clown, it was these guys. Songwriter and frontman Dan Baird wrote another slew of tough rootsy rockers that evoked everyone from Chuck Berry to AC/DC. Boogie, biker bluesy rock, Faces-style garagey rawness, and the swagger of the Rolling Stones along with the overdriven razored guitar of Rick Richards powered Baird's songs.

Ben LaMar Gay's Open Arms To Open Us was produced and recorded at International Anthem Studios in Chicago between March and June of 2021. Across sixteen tracks Gay fluently interweaves jazz, blues, ballads, R&B, raga, new music, nursery rhyme, tropicalia, two-step, hip-hop and beyond in a beaming expression of his signature omni-genre “Pan-Americana” brew. Alongside his own sizable toolkit of instruments (cornet, keyboards, synthesizers, flutes, percussions), Gay surrounds himself with steady bandmates (including Tommaso Moretti on drums, Matthew Davis on tuba, and Rob Frye on woodwinds), while also shining the spotlight on female artists from his cast of regular collaborators.