ROD PIAZZA & THE MIGHTY FLYERS "FOR THE CHOSEN WHO" Liner Notes by Scott Dirks & Dick Shurman

“This is the biggest album I’ve ever done…I’ve never done anything quite like this before.” Pretty strong words coming from someone who has been in the recording business for almost forty years and released upwards of twenty albums. Those words come from blues harmonica icon Rod Piazza and he’s talking about the CD you’re holding, “For The Chosen Who.”

Piazza came up as part of the same musical generation as Paul Butterfield which is to say the first generation of white blues fans and players who in the early 1960s were embracing the driving urban blues sounds of post-war Chicago, Memphis, Texas and California. While still in his teens at the time he was seeking out many of the blues greats who were still active and vital on Los Angeles’s fabled Central Avenue blues scene. By 1967 Rod was a bona fide blues recording artist with an album on a major label, ABC/Bluesway, with his own group The Dirty Blues Band. After a second well-received and now highly prized LP the following year Piazza took a bold step and formed the band Bacon Fat. This was unique at the time and would be now as well in that it was led by two harp players, Piazza and his mentor George “Harmonica” Smith.

Bacon Fat made an immediate impact particularly in England where they soon signed with legendary record producer Mike Vernon’s Blue Horizon label. After Bacon Fat disbanded Rod continued to work with Smith and other artists such as Pee Wee Crayton, Big Joe Turner and Big Mama Thornton on both live performances and recording projects. He spent much of the 1970s leading the highly influential Chicago Flying Saucer Band which helped pioneer the now-ubiquitous blues hybrid that melded Chicago grit with swinging west coast sophistication.

The Chicago Flying Saucer Band released their only album in 1979 but the influence of the group continues to resonate for Piazza. It was in that band that he began a musical relationship with pianist Honey Alexander which continues to this day but has taken on deeper meaning – they’ve been married since 1989. Another musical friendship and collaboration from that band that has stood the test of time is that with bassist Bill Stuve who has worked with Piazza on most of his projects for the last quarter century. These three form the core of the band that by the 1980s evolved into The Mighty Flyers.

From the late ‘80s onward The Mighty Flyers earned their reputation as one of the hardest working band of road warriors in blues music. Individually and as a group they’ve either won or been nominated for almost every award and honor available in the blues field for live performances and recordings. They’ve continued to write and perform great material while always honoring the legacy of the blues legends who came before them, many of whom they also worked with over the years.

Which makes Rod’s assessment of “For The Chosen Who” all the more powerful. A combination of well-chosen covers, along his own witty and insightful originals, are part of the key. It helps when the material has some special personal meaning; for instance, two songs, “Broken Hearted Blues” and “Trace of You” are in tribute to Muddy Waters guitarist Jimmy Rogers. Piazza invests these performances with the same easy dignity and relaxed virtuosity Rogers brought to them – no surprise since Piazza, along with Honey and Bill knew Rogers well and served as his band on his 1985 “Feelin’ Good” album.

Piazza’s Mighty Flyers are in top form: guitarist Henry Carvajal, bassist Bill Stuve and drummer Paul Fasulo display their rare musical telepathy on Ike Turner’s “She Made My Blood Run Cold,” their soulful take on Gene Allison’s 1957 hit “You Can Make It If You Try,” and their cover of Red Prysock’s smokin’ “Shoestring.”

Which brings us to the other ingredients that make this Rod Piazza & The Mighty Flyers release special – the many guest musicians who push Rod onward in an exciting exploration of different musical territory and textures. Long-time friend Johnny Dyers stops by to share the vocals in a give-and-take session with Rod on “I Got To Find My Baby,” Woody Woodruff his contributes honking sax to the ensemble throughout and Choir of female singers add a deep gospel flavor to several numbers.

The Mighty Flyers sit on the bench altogether on a few tracks as funky, hard-core blues masters Phil Guy, Finis Tasby and James Gadson take their respective places. On the Piazza original “Description Of A Fool” this trio meshes so perfectly with Rod you’d swear they’ve been honing their act together onstage for years. The slow and greasy “Honey’s Blues” almost makes you smell the smoke and spilled beer and feel the grind of the last dance of the night – you half expect to hear the bartender yell out “Last call!” “Call Me Dangerous,” contributed by producer Randy Chortkoff, strikes an ominous vibe thanks to Phil Guy’s insinuating guitar and powerful understated harp by Chortkoff himself. Another Piazza original “Blues Player” benefits from the Louisiana roots in Guy’s past and taps into a perfect vintage New Orleans groove while Piazza sings a page from his autobiography. Also Kid Ramos’ lead guitar on the opening track, the classic "Broken Hearted Blues", starts things off in blistering fashion.

Through it all Piazza rises to the occasion with not only the continuously adventurous virtuosity we’ve come to expect from him on harmonica but also some of the best singing he’s ever recorded. When everything comes together as perfectly as it does on this releaseyou don’t need someone to tell you about it – you can feel it. Obviously Rod feels this album is something special and if you’re listening right now no doubt you’re feeling it too. - Scott Dirks

Rod Piazza says he was on the bandstand when the phrase that eventually became the title of his most diverse and most roots-intensive CD (and DVD) hit him. "I was thinking about in the Bible, ‘the chosen few.’ One night I told the audience they were ‘the chosen who,’ who have the ears to hear this music and understand what it’s worth – the validity, the soul, the meaning."

Being chosen by the blues applies to fans who are motivated enough to seek out the knowledge and musical landmarks that mainstream culture doesn’t place in their paths. It also applies to musicians who add expressiveness to appreciation. For too many great artists through the years whose blues were forged in a crucible of hardship, playing or singing them has been a refuge from the cotton fields, steel mills or worse. But for the more fortunate with options in life, a bluesman’s existence doesn’t make any sense without the passion and inner necessity. Dubious and uncertain income, hard travel and long hours to chase most of it amid an environment full of lifestyle pitfalls, all take their toll on finances, home life, health and longevity. Credit and retirement plans as abstractions, sleep deprivation, cheap motels, greasy fast food at the wrong hours, playing in air too often full of smoke and violence, being unable to afford the road or staying home but having to seize every opportunity to tread water, and a lifetime of helpful suggestions to get a day job just don’t add up to what most would call a rational choice. Twenty-two hours a day of scuffling for what may be two hours of transcendent ecstasy on stage – or could just as easily turn into the frosting on the cake of the day’s tribulations – is a bottom line best left untallied. So it’s reasonable to conclude that "you don’t choose the blues, the blues chooses you." Like preaching, the blues life only works if one "gets the call" and life is intolerably incomplete without it. Being a bluesman is about recognizing one’s nature and identity in a heritage, being true to it all and possessing the resolve to tough it out. As is the case with his wife and musical partner Miss Honey, Rod Piazza has proven over a lifetime to be one of the toughest, and one of the best.

Delta Groove proprietor Randy Chortkoff is clearly one for whom the meaning and validity of the blues resonates. Enabled by the livelihood he calls "the movie scenario," he has established quickly a track record for the label as a no-compromise vehicle to affirm and preserve the art form of traditional blues. To Chortkoff, part of being chosen by the blues is doing homework and understanding the roots, and then making a financial and artistic commitment to honor the foundation well.

Naturally, being chosen by Delta Groove meant mining blues history for material, in this case eight of the twelve songs (plus three from Rod and a songwriting and harp playing cameo by Chortkoff). "Randy wanted it more traditional, go back to traditional days. A lot of it is pretty straight ahead stuff I grew up listening to and liking," says Piazza. But respecting the tradition hardly proves confining. "I think this one maybe would mark a little bit of a step from my past endeavors. There are some songs I would have liked to have done before, but couldn’t because of limitations in my abilities or the backing. The gospel feel of ‘You Can Make It If You Try’ is a good example, or ‘Ground Hog Blues.’ I think that’s the first time I ever recorded a whole song acoustic. This project is varied, multi-dimensional." Indeed, it covers ground from the stripped down John Lee Williamson evocation to background vocals, fat horns and four songs with gritty backup by Phil Guy, Piazza’s ’70s cohort Finis Tasby on bass and noted session drummer James Gadson. Piazza says Guy, who sat in with the band during one of Rod’s recent Chicago stops at Legends, "brought an edge, an urgency." His sparse style in contrast to his more famous brother strips a song down to its blue-to-the-bone essentials. In fact, all these extra components, added to the core of the esteemed and finely honed Mighty Flyers, never sound like gimmicks or diversions. Like Piazza’s own singing and playing, they’re about making the song work as a whole. That they do, as always for Piazza and company. It comes together as a finely crafted listening experience as well-rounded and grounded historically and musically as it is rewarding.

Rod is upbeat about the prospects for the legacy this CD reiterates so enjoyably. "I just feel it’s still a very vibrant and living music. We’re preserving a tradition, but it’s constantly being injected with new life and new spark from the guys who are doing it, making it real. For me personally, if you’re playing it and it only sounds ‘right,’ then it’s not a live music. But if you’re so involved that you’re injecting something of yourself into it, then you’re breathing life into it. It was done, it was great. You’ve just gotta keep it great."

Finding one’s self in the blues and adding that sense of self to the music which is being embraced have been everything to Rod Piazza. The depth of his involvement is matched on "FOR THE CHOSEN FEW" by the breadth of his palette, both harnessed in high style by a master. It’s a powerful call to ears and souls waiting to be chosen by the blues, or celebrating that choice.
– Dick Shurman