You were part of another band for a while, Sons Of The Blues, with you and some other second generation Chicago Blues musicians. Was that just for the one album or did you guys stay together for a while as a band?
We played together as a band for a good while. Just played the 30th anniversary show at The Chicago Blues Festival this summer.
Did you, or any of the other sons, ever find it, I don't know a little frustrating to be thought of in terms of being the "son of " instead of being yourselves? Or was that never really a problem for you?
No Not really. Being a “son of” gave me the opportunity to meet and learn from some of the greatest blues artists in history. Because of my dad. What can be frustrating about that?
Your new release, Let's Talk About Love is a collection of what might be referred to as standards. You were very deliberate in your choices of material – in the liner notes your producer Matthew Skoller says you took almost three months working up the material and finding just the right songs. The result is almost an affirmation of the power of love. Was that your intent with the CD, or was there more than that to it?
I paid a lot of attention to the lyrics. Blues has always made me feel love and I was thinking a lot about Susan and I guess the songs I picked reflected that.
You picked a wide variety of styles for this disc. Some of the songs reminded me more of Sam Cooke then anything else, and Pop Staples "Why (Am I Treated So Bad)" is Gospel. Was that a deliberate decision not to do a "straight" Blues recording and mix it up, or did it just happen because of which songs you ended up selecting?
There are blues in all music and if you notice almost all the songs were written by Chicago musicians. I like to play around with lots of styles. I like to think any song becomes a blues when I get to it.
Let's Talk About Love is the first album produced on your own label, Aria B. G. Records, are you going to be opening the label up for other performers or will this be for your personal projects only?
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