Blues Rock

9 MP3 Songs
BLUES: Blues-Rock, BLUES: Harmonica Blues

Show all album songs: Perfect Example Songs


Details:
This well loved Los Angeles west side neighborhood blues-rock band got their start in the fall of 2004 at the Venice Bistro.
This album âPerfect Exampleâ, features 2 original tunes by these talented artists as well as such favorite standards as "Just a Little Bit" and âI Ainât Superstitiousâ.

The Venice BlueCats are known for their distinctive musical style that seamlessly blends delta slide with western blues-rock. Tony âHarpmanâ Battelle plays a mean blues harmonica that is once reminiscent of Sonny Terry yet rings out a unique tone that distinguishes itself separately from all others. His vocals are warm and seductive on âRock Me Babyâ, and strong and powerful on driving blues-rock numbers like âStatesboro Bluesâ yet whimsical and light hearted on upbeat numbers like âBig Boss Manâ

Guitar player songwriter Gregory Dean adds his own distinctive blues rock guitar and also sings lead on his own song entitled "Blues in 2s".
Blind Rick, a founding BlueCats member makes a cameo contribution on Statesboro Blues with his fusion of delta slide guitar and contemporary rock licks. Veterans Michael Jay Smith (bass) and âDr.â Al Slivick (drums) hold down a rock solid driving rhythm section.

The Venice BlueCats began in the summer of 2004 when slide guitar player Blind Rick heard recorded blues standards and a live harmonica playing on the Venice Boardwalk. When he went to investigate he found Tony âHarpmanâ Battelle set up on the boardwalk with a portable amp, playing his harp to the blues standards Rick was so familiar with.

The two immediately hit it off and resolved to get together to practice and play the âbluesâ which they both so loved.

It wasnât long before Rick and Tony began playing every Monday night at the Venice Bistro. They soon added a bass player and Tonyâs long time drummer from previous bands âDr.â Al Slivick and moved to Wednesday nights. By the spring of 2005 The Venice BlueCats were the regular Saturday night band at the Venice Bistro. This was the home base where their popularity and following grew. The Bandâs web site www.venicebluecats.com now sports over 900 local Westside fans.

Today The BlueCats are comprised of vocalist / harmonica player Tony "The Harpman" Battelle, drummer Al Slivick, bass player Michael Jay Smith, and lead guitarist Gregory Dean. The band is pleased to make this recording âPerfect Exampleâ available to you for your listening pleasure.

The Band Members;

Tony Battelle (Lead vocals/Harmonica)

Tony has been performing professionally as an actor since age 15 when he made his off Broadway debut with Rip Torn and Geraldine Page in a production of the Bard's Scottish Play.
His legit vocal training has served him well as an actor and as a musician. Aside from singing show tunes, Mr. Battelle has always enjoyed the blues and soul classics from a young age.

Inspired as a teenager by such old time greats as Sonny Terry, he began to play the harmonica in Greenwich Village in NYC where he grew up. There Tony met and played with people like Allan Gittler (The inventor of the Gittler Guitar) and Sugar Blue of Rolling Stones fame who often played under the square's famous arch. Many hours were also spent at the West End Café in uptown Manhattan listening to the old great jazz and blues performers who took the A train to 135th St. Station.

Since then Tony has been in a variety of local bands and shows, including the Jamaganza Band, Work In Progress, and currently The Venice BlueCats. âPerfect Exampleâ will be the first blues album featuring Mr. Battelle. In the future Tony is looking forward to touring europe and playing Las Vegas with the BlueCats and perhaps cutting another album.

âDr.â Al Slivick (Drums)

Al has been in a variety of bands and has worked with Tony in the past with the Jamaganza Rock band that played the Tryst in Chatsworth for two years (2000 -2002). He also worked with Tony in another band in 1999 called Work In Progress which played in and around the San Fernando Valley and Most notably Qs Riverbottom in Burbank.

Michael Jay Smith (Bass)

Michael has an extensive and varied blues background. In New York he played with the Lucky Peterson Blues band. After moving to California, he played in the house band at the legendary blues club Fergies, there he had the privilege to back blues artists such as Albert Collins, Pee Wee Crayton, Lowell Fulsom, Big Mama Thorton, and Luther "Snake Boy" Johnson."

He then did a stint with vocalist/harp player Bob "The Bear" Hite of "Canned Heat" fame and played with harp player Kim Wilson, founder with Jimmy Vaughn of the Austin hit blues band, "The Fabulous T Birds." Michael J. moved to the Bay area to play with blues guitar virtuoso, Luther Tucker before returning to California.

Gregory Dean (Lead guitar)

Greg was born in Los Angeles where he started playing the guitar in 1963, and began songwriting in 1965. In college he majored in music and electronics. Through the course of the years he has played in many rock bands, in addition to providing private instruction in guitar and bass.

Greg writes music (notation/orchestration), and is well versed in midi programming and music theory. Having written well over a 100 songs and received a publishing contract in 1990 for a song that had its ups and downs and never went anywhere which was ironically titled âGoing through the Motionsâ.

Major influences include: Eric Clapton, George Benson, Beatles, Jimmy Page, Albert King and Dickey Betts.


Blind Rick (Slide Guitar)

Blind Rick has shocked and awed countless musicians and other local degenerates with his âhard drivinâ West of Lincoln blues music as well as by his inspirational commitment to a life seemingly gone bad. While single handedly thwarting a bungled bank robbery attempt in West Covina, Blind Rick was tragically disfigured, sacrificing his left pinky by using it to plug the barrel of a chrome plated 5 shot .32 caliber Smith and Wesson. Although he was declared a local hero in West Covina (and Covina), Blind Rick has been forced to bear the burden of a chrome plated left pinky ever since.

Undeterred, he rose from the obscurity to near complete musical adequacy in less than a decade, relentlessly touring desolate stretches of West L.A. wasteland stretching as far as Mar Vista and Playa Del Rey almost all the way to Santa Monica.

Contact Anthony Battelle
AWB Records
info@awbrecords.com
TonyB@VeniceBlueCats.com