Terri Dunbar-Curran
TAKE 16 acts, 13 drum kits, 20 guitar amps and one studio and the ambition of Wouter van de Venter, and what you’re left with is the well-rounded SA Blues Breakers album featuring a collection of blues hits by some of the country’s top performers.
When he moved from Joburg a few years back, Van de Venter decided to put his Cape Town studio to good use by assembling some of the local artists he and co-producer Dirk Ace had come to know.
“Dirk got all the bands involved, he’s very big in the live music scene in Cape Town. And we started working on the album – they are all brand new recordings,” he says.
“Lots of the musicians are personal friends of ours, like the Black Cat Bones, Gerald Clark, Albert Frost and Blues Broers, but we also got the newer, younger acts involved, like De Wallen and Ballistic Blues. Ann Jangle is also a very new up and coming artist, and we also had Natasha Meister who is from Canada originally.”
The album includes tracks like Robert Johnson’s Crossroad performed by Meister, Albert King’s The Hunter performed by Black Cat Bones, Preston Foster’s Mojo Working performed by Crimson House Blues and Tracy Chapman’s Gimme One Reason performed by Jesse Jordan.
“It’s very much like a standard set for every blues band – top covers, top hits,” says Van de Venter. “We let them pick and choose what they wanted to play. And it came together so easily with no hiccups.”
Each artist was allowed the freedom to make their chosen songs their own, and it worked out to roughly four hours in studio each track. Van de Venter says each group brought their own equipment and backing artists into the studio.
“The whole project was a great experience,” he says. “Just to have all those bands in studio, to get all of those personalities through here. It was a seriously high quality of musicians. It was great fun.”
For his own track, Willi Dixon’s Twenty Nine Ways, he collaborated with musicians up in Joburg and used the internet to pull it all together. Which is part of what makes this album so successful, each of the artists worked with others they already knew very well musically.
The reaction from fans and media alike has been positive, and they’ve sold enough copies to be happy so far.
“We have such pride in this album – especially having all these wonderful acts coming together.”
Van de Venter remarks that the blues scene in Cape Town is very big compared to Gauteng.
“Here we have lots more festivals and events, and the scene is also very well organised. You get a great response from the fans.”
All of the artists featured on SA Blues Breakers gig often around the city. “So keep your eyes open for them,” says Van de Venter.
He is hoping that they will be able to bring the SA Blues Breakers theatre production featuring Frost, Clark and Meister to the Mother City in the near future. The aim is to record an album of the live show, which will be accompanied by a DVD.
Until then, Van de Venter and VH Music will be working on an album with Ann Jangle, having recently completed one with Ballistic Blues.
Due to the sad reality of South African music shops closing down more frequently, Van de Venter encourages fans to buy SA Blues Breakers through iTunes if they can’t pick it up locally.
l See www.vhmusic.co.za for information, or follow @vhmusic on Twitter.