THE HOLLYWOOD BLUE FLAMES "DEEP IN AMERICA" Liner Notes by Miriam Hospodar

All of my life, I’ve been a music man; I play my guitar, I do the best I can.
— Al Blake, “Music Man”

Although they may play different instruments, Blake’s ode to the bluesmans’ life expresses the personal commitment and history of each member of The Hollywood Blue Flames. Watch out: “the best they can” is the synergy of stunning talents honed over decades to create music so true to tradition yet superbly original that it will grab hold of you and never let you go.

Says Al Blake of the band’s credo, “For over thirty years integrity, authenticity, humility and perseverance are the bedrock principles on which we have built our best-of-the-best-reputation. For the most part, our aim is not to imitate those who have come before, but to play in such a way that we reveal the profound underlying intelligence found within the widely diverse styles of the blues, something often times so subtle, so deep and mysterious, that far too often its qualities have been overlooked or missed altogether. We are all very blessed to have discovered that wellspring of musical truths many years ago, to have found each other and to have the same common vision for our music. That wellspring is what we draw from in everything we play today.”

The international accolades for guitarist Michael “Hollywood Fats” Mann and the band were nonexistent when the tracks on The Hollywood Fats Band, “Larger Than Life, Volume Two” were recorded in 1980 at The White House, a small club in Laguna Beach, California. Discouraged and unable to find work in an age of disco and glam rock, the band split up shortly after these live recordings were made. The Hollywood Fats Band tapes languished in storage until the new millennium, when bassist Larry Taylor discovered them in a box while cleaning out his garage. (Even some of The Hollywood Blue Flames recordings on Deep In America were “frozen” in the obsolete ADAT technology, and needed to be reconfigured in order to hear them at all.)

Hollywood Fats didn’t live to witness the eventual recognition of his unparalleled genius and contribution to blues. After his untimely death in 1986, the band decided to re-form as The Hollywood Blue Flames, adding to the benchmark talents of Al Blake, Larry Taylor, Fred Kaplan and Richard Innes the brilliant and highly original guitarist Junior Watson, and later the exemplary guitar work of young virtuoso Kirk “Eli” Fletcher as well. There is no other band today that embraces such a wide variety of traditional blues genres to inform their original material. You’ll find all the longing, joyous boogie, pain, deep spirituality and good-time raunchiness that you can handle: the humanity and honesty of great blues. The tracks often embrace a complex and soul-stirring marriage of sweetness and low-down qualities sometimes found in older recordings, but uncommon in blues today. This union of opposites lures you in with its tenderness, then reveals its gritty edge.

A more nuanced interpretation of Freddy King’s “Hideaway” than Hollywood Fats’s isn’t out there. The controlled insanity of “Nit Wit” celebrates the time when big band music was morphing into rock ‘n’ roll, and a single guitar might replace an entire horn section. “Jalopy to Drive” showcases the band’s ability to interpret a great Sonny Boy Williamson I recording. “Hush Puppy” is Fred Kaplan’s rocking homage to pianist Roosevelt Sykes. And you could swear that Al Blake’s acoustic country blues “Music Man,” “Leavin’ California” and “Hip-Hoppin’ Toad” hail from the pre-war era. The last four cuts on “Larger Than Life” feature Al Duncan, session drummer for Chess/Checker and VeeJay Records, and house drummer for the Regal Theater (Chicago’s equivalent of the Apollo Theater) for eleven years. He was also a songwriter and author of Little Walter’s “Ain’t No Need to Go No Further, Brother.”

The Hollywood Fats Band/Hollywood Blue Flames hold high a torch that illuminates the many paths of blues that run deep in America, and it will light your way on a musical journey that you will want to take again and again.

— Miriam Hospodar