WINNER OF THE 2012 BLUES FOUNDATION AWARD FOR BEST ACOUSTIC BLUES CD
CONVERSATIONS IN BLUE
David Maxwell creates four new blues piano duets from the classic 1960 Candid album, Otis Spann is the Blues. Also featuring one solo Otis Spann track, seven David Maxwell solo tracks, and a guest appearance by Robert Junior Lockwood.
CD, 16 tracks, 55 min. 32 sec. 84501 38694 $15.00 + shipping
It’s abundantly clear from the opening track that David Maxwell, longstanding veteran of Boston’s blues scene, put a lot of love into Conversations in Blue: his love of piano blues and its various iterations– boogie-woogie, country, etc.–as well as his love for Otis Spann, the piano king of the Chicago scene (and longtime member of Muddy Waters band.) The album is filled with musical and sentimental precision, and stands as a heartfelt tribute from student to master; “Spann changed the course of my musical direction,” he writes in the liner notes, adding: “his music satisfied a deep emotional need…this was the blues.”
ASHLEY KAHN, author of KIND OF BLUE
David Maxwell and Otis Spann have had a musical connection for nearly half a century. Maxwell first saw Spann perform with Muddy Waters in Paris in 1963 and in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1966. By the late 60s, Maxwell and Spann had become friends and their musical relationship was established. Since Spann’s death in 1970, Maxwell has been identified with Spann’s post-WW II blues piano playing.<pclass="product-description">In CONVERSATIONS IN BLUE, Maxwell collaborates with Spann in a remarkable recording that uses original tracks from the 1960 Candid Records recording OTIS SPANN IS THE BLUES. The original Otis Spann sessions were produced by Nat Hentoff, the writer and civil rights activist, who worked as Candid’s A&R director.