Andres Roots - Winter

Size: 95,0 MB
Time: 40:27
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2016
Styles: Acoustic/Electric Blues
Art: Front

01. Karlova Blues (2:19)
02. Winter Blues (2:54)
03. Thanks For Bringing Me Down (2:48)
04. Tea For Alex (3:13)
05. All In The Cards (2:58)
06. Morganfield Blues (3:13)
07. Get Me Back (2:34)
08. Spider In My Bed (4:33)
09. Spanish Run (3:54)
10. Solitaire (3:28)
11. Someplace Nice (3:04)
12. Alligator Blues (2:45)
13. Silver Lining (2:40)

Andres Roots is a slide guitarist, songwriter and bandleader based in Tartu, Estonia. Combining pre-war blues and swing with 1960's rock, his music has received airplay on five continents and featured in TV series and films, including the award-winning "Lonely Island" (2012), directed by the Berlinale-decorated Peeter Simm.

Roots has toured in the UK, France, Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Sweden and Finland, played with Honeyboy Edwards (USA) and Tuomari Nurmio (FIN), and opened for the likes of Dr. Feelgood (UK) and Otis Grand (USA). The 2015 Trad.alt.winter Tour saw the press in Finland, Sweden and Estonia greet the former Bullfrog Brown guitarist as the King of Estonian Blues.

In April 2016, Roots' latest release "Roots Music" entered the Estonian album chart at #1 - a rare feat for a semi-instrumental blues album, especially one that's only available on vinyl. Released to celebrate Roots' 40th birthday and 20 years on stage, "Roots Music" is a compilation LP of studio recordings made in 2010-2014. It is also the first-ever gramophone record manufactured in Estonia - while the first Estonian sound recording was released 115 years earlier, it wasn't until 2016 that the country got its own Vinyl Plant.

Preferring a guitar-and-drums duo format that highlights his "excellent slide technique complimented by great chording and simultaneously executed skillful basslines" (Sirp), with "the sound made with just drums and one guitar filling the stage more powerfully than your average rock band" (IDeeJazz), Roots also performs solo and continues to collaborate with harpists Ismo Haavisto (FIN) and Steve Lury (UK) in a more traditional blues vein.

Winter

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Andres Roots - Roots Music

Size: 102,8 MB
Time: 39:47
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2016
Styles: Blues
Art: Front

01. Link To Elmore (4:21)
02. Brothers Grim (2:10)
03. Chicken Man (2:38)
04. Lightnin' On Horizon (3:55)
05. Room Service (3:26)
06. Solitaire (3:24)
07. Watcha Do (2:58)
08. Spider Jam (3:09)
09. Someplace Nice (3:01)
10. Miss Carmen James (3:22)
11. Redecoration Day (2:36)
12. Django (2:31)
13. Southern Sky (2:10)

Celebrating 20 years as a touring musician in 2016, Andres Roots is a slide guitarist, songwriter and bandleader based in Tartu, Estonia. Combining pre-rock blues sounds with swing and 1960's rock influences, his music continues to receive airplay on five continents and has been frequently featured in cinema and television, including the award-winning Estonian/Latvian/Belarusian film "Lonely Island" (2012), directed by the Berlinale-decorated Peeter Simm.

In addition to his native Estonia, Roots has toured in the UK, France, Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Sweden and Finland, played with Honeyboy Edwards (USA) and Tuomari Nurmio (FIN), and opened for the likes of Dr. Feelgood (UK) and Otis Grand (USA).
Preferring the duo format of Andres Roots & Raul Terep that highlights his "excellent slide technique complimented by great chording and simultaneously executed skillful basslines" (Sirp), with "the sound made with just drums and one guitar filling the stage more powerfully than your average rock band" (IDeeJazz), Roots also performs solo and continues to collaborate with harpists Ismo Haavisto (FIN) and Steve Lury (UK) in a more traditional blues vein. The 2015 Roots & Terep Trad.alt.winter Tour saw the press in Estonia, Finland and Sweden greet the former Bullfrog Brown guitarist as "the king of Estonian blues".
Roots' festival appearances since going solo in 2010 include the Shetland Blues Festival (UK), Le Blues Autour du Zinc (FRA), Stompin’ At The Savoy (FIN), Lahti Grand Blues (FIN), Ruska Blues (FIN), Saimaa Blues (FIN), Tammerblues (FIN), Louisiana Cajun Party (FIN), Kaavi Blues (FIN), Leppävirta Blues Picnic (FIN), Sigulda Blues (LV), Fontaine Festival (LV), Baltic Blues (LV), IDeeJazz (EST), Jazzkaar (EST), Viru Folk (EST), Tallinn Music Week (EST), Pärnu Kitarrifestival (EST), Mailaul (EST), Intsikurmu Music Festival (EST), Prima Vista (EST), Guitar Jamboree (EST), Pärnu Bluusipäevad (EST), Ugriblues (EST), Augustibluus (EST), UnderGround Blues (EST), Baltic-Nordic Harmonica (EST), Emajõe Bluus (EST) and Linna Pea Rock (EST).
Andres Roots is also active as an educator and a journalist, writing regularly for the Finnish webzine Blues-Finland.com and the Tartu jazz monthly Jazzi Pala; his articles on music have appeared in Estonian dailies and in various Swedish, British, German and Dutch music publications. In 2016, Roots will be delivering a series of public lectures on the history of the blues in Pärnu and Tartu, Estonia.

Roots Music

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Steve Lury & Andres Roots - Live In Lerwick

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 49:30
Size: 113.3 MB
Styles: Country blues
Year: 2014
Art: Front

[4:05] 1. Tomorrow Night
[5:22] 2. Born Blind
[3:23] 3. Rambler's Blues
[4:34] 4. Build Me A Statue
[3:47] 5. Take A Little Walk With Me
[7:06] 6. Driftin' Blues
[4:20] 7. Walkin' Blues
[5:46] 8. Gone To Main Street
[5:25] 9. You Can't Lose What You Never Had
[5:39] 10. What's The Matter With The Mill

English harmonica player-singer Steve Lury, Estonian slide guitarist Andres Roots and Estonian bassist Peeter Piik perform a live set recorded at The Shetland Blues Festival in the UK. Scottish drummer Paul Archibald joins in for the final three songs. The combination of Steve’s harmonica prowess and Andres’ fluid amplified acoustic slide guitar along with Peeter’s anchoring bass lines create a modern day country blues effect. Steve’s vocals are more akin to talking, but the lively music bolsters the performance. All but one song are mostly familiar tunes from various blues icons. The interpretations stay quite close to the originals, but the lively interplay of harp and slide add a freshness to the proceedings.

The band’s familiarity with their instruments is readily apparent as they make it sound so easy on the lead-off track, Junior Wells’ “Tomorrow Night”. Rice Miller’s “Born Blind”, usually called “Eyesight To The Blind”, finds the dynamic duo trading off licks while the ever steady bass maintains the beat. United Kingdom town references personalize Tampa Red’s “Rambler’s Blues” that benefits from a rollicking groove.

The sole original song is an instrumental written by Andres entitled “Build Me A Statue” that he lends a lonesome tone to with his excellent slide technique that plays well off the equally lonesome sounding harmonica. Some way wicked slide is all over Robert Jr. Lockwood’s “Take A Little Walk With Me”. At one point the two play some neat tandem notes. The longest song here clocking in at 7:06, Charles Brown’s classic “Driftin’ Blues” gives the guys to stretch out a bit. Speaking of classics, Robert Johnson’s “Walkin’ Blues” receives some sinewy slide guitar goodness.

The last three songs are associated with Muddy Waters as a tribute to the great man. Drummer Paul Archibald pops up to compliment the trio for these three. “Gone To Main Street” takes off like a shot. Screaming Banshee slide battles it out with equally intense harp playing. A nice reading of “You Can’t Lose What You Ain’t Never Had” follows. Bringing up the rear is Memphis Minnie’s “What’s The Matter With The Mill”, a song associated with Muddy. Steve says they had to learn this tune quickly, but you surely can’t tell as they are just as sharp here as everywhere else on the CD.

This international gathering of blues loving players will be hard for you to resist many repeated visits to your CD player. They are as tight as a bull’s posterior. I guarantee you many hours of enjoyment from this fine recording. Although most of these songs are readily recognizable to blues lovers, the performances stand on their own merit.

Live In Lerwick mc
Live In Lerwick zippy

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Andres Roots - Roundabout

Bitrate: 320K/s
Time: 30:41
Size: 70.3 MB
Styles: Contemporary blues
Year: 2010
Art: Front

[1:18] 1. Duck Soup
[2:10] 2. Lemon Days
[2:17] 3. Southern Sky
[3:12] 4. Shades
[1:55] 5. Flowers
[3:10] 6. Dead Man Stomp
[2:48] 7. Redecoration Day
[2:38] 8. Thru The Valley
[2:14] 9. Homesick Sam
[2:08] 10. Brothers Grim
[3:01] 11. Watcha Do
[3:44] 12. Stick With You

Dubbed an "ambassador of the guitar" by Estonia's Kitarr magazine, Andres Roots is a slide guitarist and a songwriter from Tartu, Estonia who currently leads his own band, Andres Roots Roundabout, while collaborating with harpists Steve Lury (UK), Ismo Haavisto (FIN) and many others in a variety of international projects. He has played with Honeyboy Edwards, toured with Eddie Baytos and topped the music charts on Estonian national television with Eric "Red Mouth" Gebhardt. As a producer, he has received four consecutive Best European Blues Album awards from Canada's Blues Underground Network; as a composer, his music has been aired on five continents and featured in many TV productions, the award-winning Estonian/Latvian/Belarusian film "Lonely Island" (2012), and the documentary "Estonian Tennis 100", both directed by the Berlinale-decorated Peeter Simm. A Walden Guitars artist since 2009, he has taught guitar and given lectures on the history of the blues. His writings about music have been published in music mags in Estonia, Finland, Sweden, the UK, Germany and the Netherlands, and he has collaborated as a promoter with several Estonian blues festivals.

"A name is an omen. Andres Roots is one of the most notable operators in our area," writes Finland's "Blues Minister" Esa Kuloniemi in the Blues News magazine (see sidebar: BN 3/12). "The undertakings of this Estonian guitarist/band leader have done a lot for blues and roots music, across borders and continents."

Born in Tallinn, Estonia, USSR in 1976, Andres Roots made his first public appearance as a guitarist in Denmark in 1995 and his first recordings in Germany in 2000. After stints in several award-winning college bands in Tartu, Estonia around the turn of the century, he co-founded Bullfrog Brown in 2003. Quickly earning cult status in their native country, the alt.blues trio went on to play hundreds of shows from the Baltics to the UK, sharing stages with the likes of Deltahead, Havana Black and Gurf Morlix.

Roots’ solo debut “Roundabout” was released in November 2010 and featured collaborations with Eric “Red Mouth” Gebhardt (USA), Bottleneck John (SWE), Dave Arcari (UK), Black River Bluesman (FIN) and World Harmonica Festival bronze ’09 Jantso Jokelin (FIN). In Estonia, it produced several Eesti Top7 TV hits, including a #1 in “Redecoration Day”. In Britain, Andres Roots was voted 5th best international solo artist in Blues Matters magazine’s Writers Poll 2011 in a tie with Mississippi legend Jimmy “Duck” Holmes and Finland’s leading blues lady Erja Lyytinen.

Roundabout mc
Roundabout zippy

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Andres Roots & Raul Terep - Trad. Alt. Blues

Bitrate: 320K/s
Time: 39:35
Size: 90.7 MB
Styles: Electric blues
Year: 2014
Art: Front

[2:39] 1. Chicken Man
[2:31] 2. Django
[4:14] 3. Bullfrog Medley
[3:34] 4. Moby Duck
[2:43] 5. Greengrass Stomp
[2:09] 6. Wagon Swing
[4:04] 7. Pärnu Hambone
[3:42] 8. Build Me A Statue
[2:36] 9. Django (2)
[5:42] 10. Legacy Blues
[3:09] 11. Funky Rooster
[2:27] 12. Tartu Hambone

Before hitting the road as a duo in February 2014, Andres Roots & Raul Terep had been playing together for more than ten years, most notably in Bullfrog Brown and Andres Roots Roundabout, recording with Steve Lury (UK), L.R.Phoenix (UK/FIN), El Trio (LV), Bert Deivert (USA/SWE), and Bottleneck John (SWE), and touring in Finland, Latvia and the UK.

Their first duo shows were recorded by Antti Alanko of Finland's Devil Box, leading the German critic Nathan Nörgel to note in the Wasser-Prawda webzine: "It is clear why Andres Roots is considered one of the best guitarists in his homeland and on the European underground blues scene: from start to finish, the creative tension between his instrument and Terep's drums is palpable. At times raw and to the point, at times lyrical and swinging, they perform their ideas without wasting a minute on mindless strumming."

In the Australian Rhythms Magazine, Samuel J. Fell adds: "This is a man who can play the blues... Raul Terep tears it up behind him on drums, the pair stomping and striding through a set of up-tempo, highly charged electric blues 'n' drums. There's nothing new here, but damn they do it well." And in the French Soul Bag mag, Christophe Mourot writes: "The injection of soul licks and traditional Estonian airs... turns the difficult task of a full-length instrumental concert into a happy moment where you feel you've heard as many stories as if there'd been a singer recounting them."

While those first two shows arose from necessity, Roots & Terep have continued to gig as a duo even with Roundabout back in action, and August 2014 will see the CD release of "Trad.alt.blues" - an album combining the live bootleg with two new studio cuts.

Trad. Alt. Blues mc
Trad. Alt. Blues zippy

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Andres Roots Roundabout - Three!

Size: 82,9 MB
Time: 35:25
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2013
Styles: Instrumental Blues, Blues Rock
Art: Front

01. Greengrass Stomp (2:44)
02. Room Service (3:26)
03. Link To Elmore (4:21)
04. High Noon (1:54)
05. Orient Express (3:20)
06. Moby Duck (3:23)
07. Saucer Full Of Cream (2:59)
08. Three Sticks (2:55)
09. Wagon Swing (1:57)
10. Miss Carmen James (3:22)
11. Onion Boy (4:59)

The New Voice And Sound Of The Old Blues was how I described the music I first heard from Bullfrog Brown, a blues group based in Tartu, Estonia, which at that time consisted mainly of Alar Kriisa on Vocals and Andres Roots on Guitar, with the odd special guest on a few of their Albums, such as, Steve Lury & Peeter Piik. For me their sound was a instant favorite of mine, of which they became one of my favorite blues bands.

In 2010, Andres Roots branched out on his own releasing his solo debut album "Roundabout” in November of that year. Roundabout, the band, was actually born on stage the night the album was released and at that time consisted of Andres Roots, Martin Eessalu (Guitar), and Indrek Tiisel (Harmonica), "and continued as a loose association of musicians, with live appearances featuring two to five players". The band, which now consists of Andres Roots (Guitar), Martin Eessalu (Guitar), and Raul Terep (Drums), released their first trio EP "Electric Dixieland" in May 2012, to huge critical acclaim. Their sound was said to be a melding of "traditional blues with dashes of Hawaiian, Western Swing and, of course, Dixie". "Three" marks the first full length release for Andres Root Roundabout, an amazing all instrumental album, that totally reflects their all instrumental live shows that they mainly do as the trio.

"Three" consists of 11 Tracks and as mentioned, they are all instrumentals and all written by Andres Roots. All four Tracks from each of their EP releases "Rock House" and "Electric Dixieland", made it onto this album, which was an absolute treat for me because I had not previously heard those EP's.

One thing that has always amazed me with the bands Andres Roots has been involved with, is how many amazing sounds those bands were able to get from so few instruments, with "Three" absolutely being no exception, with only 2 Guitars and a set of Drums. This groups immense creativity allows for the success of their music to constantly shine threw, with a great example being Track 8 "Three Sticks", in which Andres Roots plays his Rhythm Guitar "with a "third" drum stick, diddley bow style". It is that kind of creativity and sound that made all of the bands Andres Roots was involved with, absolutely and totally unique.

With the release of "Three", Andres Roots with his band Andres Root Roundabout, have not failed to, once again, totally impress me with their music. Whether it be the R.L. Burnside infused opening Track "Greengrass Stomp", the Drum/Slide Guitar infused thriller Track 5 "Orient Express", or the Blues/Hawaiian/Swing Guitar feel of Track 9 "Wagon Swing", or all the others in between and after, "Three" will leave you with the feeling that you truly have just listened to something that was quite fresh and unique, with elements of the old Blues mixed in.

"Three" had no problem becoming, as with all the music that has come my way via Andres Roots, another instant favorite.

5***** for "Three", the best Blues and Beyond instrumental album I have heard all year. "Three" takes what you thought about the Blues to a whole new level. ~Review by John Vermilyea (Blues Underground Network)

Three!

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