The Kilborn Alley Blues Band: Tear Chicago Down (2007) CD

The Kilborn Alley Blues Band – Tear Chicago Down CD (uudenveroinen)

Label:Blue Bella Records – BBCD 1010

Format:CD, Album, Stereo

Country:US

Released:2007

Genre:Blues, Chicago Blues

Tracklist

1I'm Spent4:16

2Christmas In County4:42

3Fire With Fire3:40

4Crazier Things Mandolin – Gerry Hundt 4:49

5Come Home Soon3:38

6Redneck In A Soul Band2:52

7It's A Pity6:34

8Tear Chicago Down Saxophone – Dave Fauble Vocals – Abraham Johnson 3:13

9The Weight On You4:13

10Lay It Down3:31

11She Don't Know3:06

12Redneck In A Soul Band (Alt)2:21

Companies, etc.

• Phonographic Copyright ? – The Kilborn Alley Blues Band
• Copyright © – The Kilborn Alley Blues Band
• Made By – D2/DigiDisc
• Recorded At – Rancho de Rhythm Studio
• Mastered At – Studio Chicago

Credits

• Bass – Chris Breen (2)
• Design [Package], Photography By [Studio & Live Photography] – Kate Moss (2)
• Drums – Ed O'Hara (2)
• Engineer – Gerry Hundt
• Guitar – Andrew Duncanson (tracks: 2, 3, 6, 7, 9, 11, 12), Josh Stimmel, Nick Moss (5) (tracks: 5, 8, 10)
• Harmonica – Joe Asselin (2)
• Liner Notes – James Walker (26)
• Mastered By – Al Ursini, Gerry Hundt, Nick Moss (5)
• Organ – Gerry Hundt (tracks: 2, 5, 8, 9)
• Photography By [Cover Photo] – Charles W. Cushman Collection
• Photography By [Traycard Photos Of Band] – Douglas Cottle
• Producer, Mixed By – Nick Moss (5)
• Vocals – Andrew Duncanson

The Kilborn Alley Blues Band

The Kilborn Alley Blues Band - Biography

Blue Bella Records

Formed: 2000 in Champaign, IL.
Members: Andrew Duncanson - vocals & guitar; Joe Asselin - harmonica; Josh Stimmel - guitar; Chris Breen - bass; Ed O'Hara - drums.

Nominated for a Blues Music Award in the category "Best New Artist Debut" for their 2006 Blue Bella Records release, Put It In The Alley AND nominated for a Blues Music Award in the category "Best Contemporary Blues Album" for their 2007 release, Tear Chicago Down, the music of The Kilborn Alley Blues Band has impressed countless critics and fans worldwide.

Andrew Duncanson, Joe Asselin, Chris Breen, Josh Stimmel, and Ed O'Hara are a true band, together of personal volition and sheer joy. They are already hardened players and determined innovators with deep study of the music and with a real feel for the life. The Kilborn Alley Blues Band is not a super-group; they are a true band. It is their band, and their vision.

Chicago Blues matriarch Mary Lane and her husband Jeffrey Labon fell in love with The Kilborn Alley Blues Band the first time they saw them. Mary said, "A lot of people play the blues, but The Kilborn Alley Blues Band makes me feel the blues from the time they get on the bandstand to the time they get down. They make me want to get up there and sing those blues! You meet a lot of people in a lifetime in music, and the guys in Kilborn Alley are the kind I can say I am glad to know. They have that crazy love for blues and stay true to it."

Nick Moss, album producer and leader of his own highly respected Chicago Blues band, Nick Moss and the Flip Tops, had this to say, "The best thing they have going for them is that they have this great feel when they play together. In the Blues world, it is actually a compliment [in current lingo] when someone says you have an 'ignorant' sound. These guys have a real ignorant, authentic sound. They sound like the old records when they play. To me, the most endearing quality about them is that they just play for the love of the music."

The music here is not guitar-hero, guitar-solo-driven music. In the tradition of the Chicago Blues band created by Muddy Waters, the emphasis in each song is on the ensemble. For The Kilborn Alley Blues Band, whose guitar work from Duncanson and Stimmel has always received critical praise, the point of the act is not the virtuoso solo. Duncanson and the band meld the parts into the whole to transmit that special blues experience.

For more information: www.kilbornalley.com

https://www.kilbornalley.com/index.html

Kilborn Alley took the stage with a vengeance and got the crowd revved up from the first note as harp player Joe Asselin displayed his unbelievable lung power on “Train To Memphis”. Josh Stimmel tested the strength of his Gibson’s strings with his mighty note bending on some down-home licks on “Foolsville.” Andrew Duncanson’s commanding, soulful vocals, which alternated between the styles of Howlin’ Wolf and Otis Redding, thundered across the room. His show-stopping performance on “Better Off Now” elicited whoo’s and yeah’s from the fans and even had the wait staff stopped in their tracks. That number earned the quintet the award for Best Blues Song, the title track from the band’s CD on Blue Bella.

Linda Cain, Review of 2010 Blues Blast Music Awards at Buddy Guy’s Legends, Chicago - Chicago Blues Guide (online) • October 29, 2010

The Kilborn Alley Blues Band’s third album, Better Off Now, stakes a claim for the band as among the genre’s elite music-makers. . . .
It’s been a decade now since the Kilborn Alley Blues Band, with several members then barely out of high school, started their slow-but-sure ascent to the top of the pile on the competitive Chicago blues scene. While earlier albums earned them acclaim and award nominations, Better Off Now shoots for all the marbles, scoring with an inspired collection of raucous performances so authentic in their Chicago blues roots that you can smell the smoke and feel the heat.

Keith A. Gordon
Blues Revue • June-July 2010

In the liner notes to the Kilborn Alley Blues Band’s latest disc, Better off Now, vocalist/guitarist Andrew Duncanson recalls the music scene of his hometown, Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, where people “expected their blues to be Honeyboy, Buddy, B.B., Denise LaSalle, Bobby Rush, and Stan Mosley.” That’s the pedigree of this band’s classic Chess-inspired blues.
The KABB is a sophisticated, R&B-soaked throwback to 1950s Chicago. While their music is vintage, their attitude is defiantly current. They’ve perfected a sinister shuffle a la Willie “Big Eyes” Smith, incorporated savvy, warbling harmonica that ricochets through the mix, and paired Jimmy Rogers-inspired guitar licks with . . . vocalist Duncanson’s deep southern inflected pipes. . . .The title track is a master work of soul, with Eric Michaels providing B-3 organ while Duncanson preaches with Wilson Pickett-inspired vocals.

Mark Uricheck, Living Blues • June 2010

The KABB sound is seamless in a way I rarely hear today.  Some bands would create an ensemble by divvying up the solos among their members, making sure each got equal time out front.  That's not what these guys do.  Solos are rare and spare.  They're there and you can pick out the different instruments from time to time, but the real sound of KABB is the way they can meld the harmonica and guitars and bond that to the rhythms being pounded out by Chris Breen and Ed O'Hara.  Their sound is thick and muscular, oozing and bloozing without overkill and ego.  The pieces don't just fit together, they belong together.  It's the way they approach songwriting. . . .
Kilborn Alley Blues Band delivers on the promise of their previous records and reaches new heights. They've broadened their musical horizons without diluting their sound. They confidently move through different components of the blues — shuffles, soulful ballads, and hardboiled blues — and demonstrate mastery of them all.  They are also more consistent than they've been on either of the first two records with no weak moments or missteps.  Better Off Now is more than just the best album of their young career, it's one of the best blues records of recent memory.

Josh Hathaway, Seattle Post-Intelligencer (online) • 17 March 2010

I very rarely give albums a “required listen,” but this one is a must. You'll be scraping the grease off your walls and the smoke out of your clothes, as Andy, Joe, Josh, Ed and Chris take you to Sweet Home Chicago's deepest southwest side dive. You'll like the sound so much you won't want to leave. I'm not saying this because these guys are great people, friends, or award winning musicians both locally and nationally; I'm saying this because is one of the best records I've heard in the past five years. You'll be better off if you don't miss this record.
Ben “The Harpman” Cox, Juke Joint Soul • 25 January 2010

This is not only KABB’s best album to date, it is one of the best blues albums I’ve heard for some time. I read somewhere that their mission was to smile in your face and then kick you in the ass, musically speaking. They succeeded. These guys are special and I have the bruises to prove it! Rating: 10 out of 10.

Morgan M Hogarth
Blues In Britain Magazine • 2010

The Kilborn Alley Blues Band kills. Picture a deep-dish Chicago version of the Fabulous Thunderbirds back 30 years ago.
Tom Clark, review of Tear Chicago Down, Hittin’ the Note • Issue 55, 2007

This thing doesn't begin with sweetness; no, it brings you directly to Chicago. You immediately feel the energy filling you, smashing you, and then the second tune arrives, wonderful, as you easily imagine it was composed by an old bluesman from the West Side-- even if the mid tempo disturbs you a little-- and then with the third song the madness deepens.

Tonton Erick, review of Tear Chicago Down, Blues & Co. (France) • December 2007

The Kilborn Alley Blues Band plays the blues like they mean it. No . . . Like they have no choice in the matter. They make me remember why I became attached to this music in the first place.

Mark Saleski, review of Tear Chicago Down, BlogCritics.com • 20 November 2007

The Kilborn Alley blues Band certainly have that X-factor. The only criticism I have is that there is an awful lot of reworking going on; but then it isn’t done in the usual clumsy fashion—they are putting on a Blues review. These guys are diamonds with lots of facets, and they are shining brightly.

Billy Hutchinson, review of Put It In the Alley, Blues Matters (UK) • August / September 2006

Chicago’s Kilborn Alley Blues Band sounds like one of those combos that
perform with so much spontaneity that they never play a song the same way
twice. . . . Five stars!

Gary von Tersch, review of Put It In the Alley, Blues & Rhythm (UK) • August 2006

The prescription for creating a Chicago blues album is well known, but it is difficult to achieve in practice. Andrew Duncanson is a killer singer—a cross between Junior Wells and Van Morrison; Joe Asselin is a harmonica player of considerable accomplishment, and the band has a hard working rhythm section, nothing loud or showy, but very attentive to details. Kilborn Alley takes you back to another time. These thirteen songs, twelve originals, are like magic; pass the cd from hand to hand, even bend it, and ask yourself, “Where is the trick?” This album is simply too good to be true.

Luca Lupoli, review of Put It In the Alley, Il Popolo del Blues (online) (Italy) • February 2007

Charisma, talent, joy and music that grabs you by the ears and doesn’t let go. I can count on 2 hands the bands that have had what The Kilborn Alley Blues Band has and I’m talkin’ about 40 years of listening to Blues. Yes, this band is THAT SPECIAL!

A. Grigg, review of Put It In the Alley, Real Blues (Canada) • November 2006

"Kilborn Alley . . . is the sort of blues band that makes rockers look bad."

Buzz Weekly, 17-23 • March 2005, p. 11