Adam Gussow - Kick and Stomp

Size: 434 MB
Time: 64:08
File: Flac
Released: 2014
Styles: Blues
Art: Front

1. Kick and Stomp (3:46)
2. Good Morning Little Schoolgirl (2:57)
3. Sunshine of Your Love (6:40)
4. Every Day I Have the Blues (4:56)
5. Poor Boy (4:11)
6. Shaun's Song (4:46)
7. Goin' Down South (4:45)
8. Buford Chapel Breakdown (3:43)
9. Crossroads Blues (5:48)
10. Mr. Cantrell (5:59)
11. Down Ain't Out (6:01)
12. My Baby's So Sweet (4:14)
13. Sugar (3:53)
14. The Entertainer (2:24)

Adam Gussow, a Princeton University graduate living in New York, was wandering near the Apollo Theater in 1986 and stopped to listen to Magee. The two soon started performing together. They were a pair often defined by their contrasts, not the least of which was their looks: Magee, a fiery black veteran guitarist, side by side with the young Gussow, a white and somewhat nerdy harmonica player. The duo began to attract crowds, then acclaim: They toured Europe, recorded an album that made the charts (“Harlem Blues”), and were featured on a U2 record. V. Scott Balcerek, the documentary’s director, tells the story (later parts of which are better discovered onscreen than spoiled here) using decades of well-shot footage and interviews, and an underlying sense of melancholy. You can easily imagine some Hollywood executive eyeing up the tale for a treacly feature film of interracial understanding. And certainly, this documentary highlights the strong friendship between the two men. Yet even with a short running time the filmmakers don’t shy away from more complex issues — racial tensions, gentrification, art and anger. Like the blues, there’s real pain here, mixed with real beauty

Kick and Stomp FLAC

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Satan & Adam - Living On The River

Album: Living On The River
Size: 145,2 MB
Time: 62:47
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 1996/1998
Styles: Blues, harmonica blues
Art: Full

1. No More Doggin' (4:10)
2. Unlucky In Love (5:39)
3. Ode To Billy Joe (5:54)
4. Sanctified Blues (4:15)
5. I'm A Girl Watcher (5:04)
6. Little Red Rooster (5:19)
7. Pick Up The Pieces Of My Life (5:36)
8. Proud Mary (4:54)
9. I'll Get You (5:45)
10. I Got A Woman (6:56)
11. Whole Lotta Nothin' (5:10)
12. Stagga Lee (4:00)

Satan & Adam continue to mine the same two-man streetcorner busker groove that has served them so well on this, their third album. The music is kept raw and alive in pursuing this, but on several tracks their sound is fleshed out with guest appearances from Ernie Colon on percussion, the Uptown Horns and background singers appearing on their version of "Proud Mary." But despite the additions, their basic sound is every bit as unfettered as one would expect from these two blues anomalies. /Cub Koda, AllMusic

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Adam Gussow - Southbound

Album: Southbound
Size: 99,0 MB
Time: 42:45
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2011
Styles: Blues, harmonica blues
Art: Front

1. Southbound (4:12)
2. You Don't Have To Go (3:25)
3. Sanford And Son Theme (The Streetbeater) (2:54)
4. Grazing In The Grass (6:05)
5. Old McDonald In Mississippi (3:46)
6. I'm Tore Down (2:54)
7. Why Not (4:07)
8. Green Tomatoes (3:11)
9. Home To Mississippi (5:59)
10. C.C. Rider (4:40)
11. Alley Cat (1:28)

Reading the detailed, autobiographial liner notes to Adam Gussow's Southbound, it sure feels like the guy's made the album he's been working towards for a lifetime. Gussow, who perhaps most notably was half of the Harlem blues duo Satan & Adam (along with guitarist Sterling Magee) for over a decade, is a veritable one-man Delta hammer. He's a schooled diatonic wizard, who performs with a bass drum at his feet.

Southbound not only owes a debt to Gussow's formative past (as in his inclusion of the Dickey Betts-penned title track, which helped spark a lifelong blues odyssey), but to more recent inspirations like the jazz vamp Old McDonald in Mississippi which Gussow crafted in response to a 'good-ole boy' radio exchange down south. Gussow's cerebral wit and irrepressible Delta hooks are the rocks upon which Southbound is built - think James Cotton's warbling excitement and R.L. Burnside's grifter stomp, tied up with Lightnin' Hopkins' dustbowl charm, and you've got the Adam Gussow sound.

In addition to the aforementioned material, Gussow includes a steady-handed, rambling boogie cover of Jimmy Reed's "You Don't Have to Go", a favorite of the blues jams Gussow cut his teeth on back in New York City. "C.C. Rider" is flavored with Gussow's classic Satan & Adam arrangement, a kick drum so frenetic that Gussow's harp competes to keep up with his own toe-tipped rhythm. Sonny Thompson's "I'm Tore Down" is a more organic and vocally aerobatic cover than other notables throughout the years. Minimal extraneous instrumentation is given to other tracks, like Bill Perry's inspired keys on a backyard-rave take on the "Sanford and Son Theme".

Seasoned harmonica brilliance, reading like a map of Gussow's musical high-points, the harp wiz says he's 'hungrier than ever to find out' what his music's about. He may still be on that journey of discovery, but the listener will get there with a couple of repeat listens. /Living Blues Magazine

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Satan & Adam - Harlem Blues

Album: Harlem Blues
Size: 118,3 MB
Time: 51:13
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 1991
Styles: Blues, harmonica blues
Art: Full

1. I Want You (6:03)
2. Groovy People (4:19)
3. Read My Lips (4:57)
4. Don't Get Around Much Anymore (4:50)
5. Ride The Wind (5:29)
6. Down Home Blues (5:44)
7. Sweet Home Chicago (4:35)
8. I Create The Music (4:26)
9. C.C. Rider (6:35)
10. Sunsine In The Shade (4:10)

Harlem Blues sounds exactly like how Satan & Adam would sound playing on a street corner - it's raw and tough, with a surprisingly adventurous streak. Satan and Adam stick to a basic acoustic blues duo, but their rhythms and techniques occasionally stray into funkier, jazzier territory. And that sense of careening unpredictability is what makes Harlem Blues so entertaining - they might be playing blues in a traditional style, but the end result is anything but traditional. /Thom Owens, AllMusic

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Satan & Adam - Back In The Game

Album: Back In The Game
Size: 93,3 MB
Time: 40:21
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2011
Styles: Blues, harmonica blues
Art: Front

1. Big Boss Man (3:41)
2. Broke And Hungry (3:23)
3. Thunky Fing Rides Again (3:31)
4. Fever (3:25)
5. Tell The World I Do (2:58)
6. Ain't Nobody (3:25)
7. Lotto 54 (6:32)
8. Hey, Hey, Hey (2:54)
9. Take You Downtown (Gone To Main Street) (3:33)
10. Listen To The Music (6:54)

Blues guitarist, singer, and songwriter Sterling Magee and harmonica player Adam Gussow have paid their dues. They began their career on the street - on the corner of Seventh Avenue and 125th Street, to be exact - and within a matter of weeks they were drawing crowds, people pausing on their way home from work to stop and listen. For five years, nearly every afternoon that weather permitted, the pair would meet on the corner and Magee would set up his simple stool, drum kit, guitar, and amplifier. Using a combination of foot stomps, tambourines, hi-hat cymbals, and guitar, Magee gave the duo a full sound.

Magee and Gussow specialized in funky, gritty, electric urban blues, and there were few groups or artists anywhere who sounded anything remotely like them. Gussow's exquisite harmonica solos complemented the driving, open-toned guitar playing of Magee, who preferred to be called Mister Satan, and who frequently referred to Gussow in live performances as Mister Gussow. Satan & Adam redefined and shaped the sound of modern blues so much that their track "I Want You" from their Harlem Blues debut is included on a Rhino Records release Modern Blues of the 1990s.

Magee, born May 20, 1936 in Mississippi and raised in Florida, began his career playing piano in churches in both states. During the '80s Magee played on Harlem streets and he toured widely with Gussow during the following decade, but in the 1960s he was a key session guitarist, playing on recordings by James Brown, King Curtis, George Benson, and others. Gussow, born April 3, 1958 and raised in Rockland County, New York, was a Princeton-educated harmonica player who had a little uptown apartment, and in passing Magee one day on the street in 1985, he asked if he could sit in on harmonica. That was the start of a musical and social relationship between the two that has continued - with some interruption - into the 21st century.

The pair recorded several critically acclaimed albums for the now-defunct Flying Fish label, including Harlem Blues (1991) and Mother Mojo (1993). Satan & Adam also performed in U2's Rattle and Hum movie. On the Mother Mojo album, the duo reinterpreted and funkified well-known songs like Herbie Hancock's "Watermelon Man" and Joe Turner's "Crawdad Hole." In 1996 Satan & Adam released Living on the River on the New York State-based Rave On Records label.

Magee subsequently moved from Harlem to Virginia and suffered a nervous breakdown in 1998, the same year that Gussow published a memoir, Mister Satan's Apprentice, telling of his years playing with his duo partner. The days of Satan & Adam appeared to be over, but Magee subsequently resurfaced in Gulfport, Florida and Gussow, now an associate professor at the University of Mississippi, joined him for some performances in the mid-2000s. After that, a sense of renewed activity surrounded Satan & Adam, with the publication of Gussow's new book about the duo, Journeyman's Road, in 2007; work on a feature-length documentary film; the 2008 release of a downloadable archival collection entitled Word on the Street; and, finally, the release of a new Satan & Adam album entitled Back in the Game in 2011. /Biography by Richard Skelly, AllMusic

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Adam Gussow - Kick And Stomp

Album: Kick And Stomp
Size: 146,8 MB
Time: 63:29
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2010/2014
Styles: Blues, harmonica blues, one man band
Art: Front, tray

1. Kick And Stomp (3:43)
2. Good Morning Little Schoolgirl (2:54)
3. Sunshine Of Your Love (6:36)
4. Every Day I Have The Blues (4:53)
5. Poor Boy (4:08)
6. Shaun's Song (4:43)
7. Goin' Down South (4:42)
8. Buford Chapel Breakdown (3:40)
9. Crossroads Blues (5:45)
10. Mr. Cantrell (5:56)
11. Down Ain't Out (5:58)
12. My Baby's So Sweet (4:11)
13. Sugar (3:50)
14. The Entertainer (2:23)

After a thirty-five year career as a blues performer, including more than two decades with the W.C. Handy Award-nominated duo Satan and Adam, harmonica player Adam Gussow has made his solo debut. Kick and Stomp showcases Gussow in an unexpected but logical setting: a harp-powered one-man blues band. Taking a cue from his Harlem mentor, Sterling “Mr. Satan” Magee, Gussow does it all, in real time—singing, blowing amplified harp, and stomping out some thump-and-metal grooves.

Kick and Stomp owes its stylistic breadth to Gussow’s background as a New York City-bred funk-blues player who has spent the past decade in the north Mississippi hill country. Ranging from old school blues like “Good Morning Little Schoolgirl,” “Poor Boy,” and “Goin’ Down South,” to Cream’s blues-rock standard, “Sunshine of Your Love,” and their power-trio version of Robert Johnson’s “Crossroads Blues,” all the way to a techno/house remake of Stanley Turrentine’s soul-jazz classic, “Sugar,” Gussow surprises. His original instrumentals mix sanctified Mississippi two-beats, hard bop (Art Blakey), and Stevie Ray Vaughan’s big-beat shuffles. The album concludes with a dazzling solo workout on Scott Joplin’s ragtime standard, “The Entertainer.”

Only a handful of players on the contemporary blues harp scene have developed an immediately recognizable voice on the instrument. Gussow’s sweet edgy tone, upper-octave pyrotechnics, and headlong swing make him one of those few. Kick and Stomp showcases his talents as a modern virtuoso, a player American Harmonica Newsletter praised for exhibiting the sort of "technical mastery and innovative brilliance that comes along once in a generation".

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The Blues Doctors - Same Old Blues Again

Size: 100,6 MB
Time: 43:19
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2018
Styles: Electric Blues, Harmonica Blues
Art: Full

01. Tequila (Feat. Adam Gussow) (2:38)
02. Rollin' And Tumblin' (Feat. Adam Gussow) (4:27)
03. Same Old Blues Again (Feat. Adam Gussow) (3:04)
04. Cry For Me, Baby (Feat. Adam Gussow) (4:41)
05. Mercy, Mercy, Mercy (Feat. Adam Gussow) (4:32)
06. That's All Right (Feat. Adam Gussow) (4:03)
07. Blues For Hank (Feat. Adam Gussow) (3:37)
08. Magic (Feat. Adam Gussow) (2:05)
09. You Don't Have To Go (Live) (Feat. Adam Gussow) (4:30)
10. Take You Downtown (Gone To Main Street) (Live) (Feat. Adam Gussow) (4:25)
11. Crossroads Blues (Live) (Feat. Adam Gussow) (5:13)

When I get ready to review a bunch of CDs, I generally take a handful of them out of their jackets, and keep them handy in my car. I have a 1-hour commute each way to my office, so that gives me plenty of alone time with each CD, and over a very decent sound system. I often don’t even know who I’m listening to until after I’ve played a CD all the way through. Such was the case with Same Old Blues Again, by the Blues Doctors.

From the very first track, an up-tempo bluesy version of “Tequila,” the 1958 release by “The Champs,” I was drawn right in. From the first note from the harmonica, I could tell that this wasn’t your run-of-the-mill blues harmonica player. No, this was someone who clearly knew his way around the instrument… and then some. Only after hearing the entire CD was I able to confirm my suspicion that it was harmonica great, Adam Gussow. Many of you know him from his 25-year partnership with guitarist Sterling “Mr. Satan” McGee, performing as Satan and Adam. Me, I’m probably more familiar with him as an educator from the many in-depth harmonica tutorials that he so generously posts on his YouTube channel, with which I have spent considerable time. Educator that he is, a nice touch on the CD jacket has Gussow including the harmonica keys used for each song. Regardless of from where you might have heard him – you’re in for a treat!

This is the second CD for the Blues Doctors, which consist of Gussow on harmonica, vocals, and percussion, along with Alan Gross on guitar and vocals. Recorded at Hill Country Recording in Water Valley Mississippi, the 11 tracks on this CD include several blues standards, along with two of Gussow’s original tunes. All are relatively stripped-down in their arrangements, consisting of mostly Gussow and Gross, occasionally complemented with bass guitar, and on one track, a single snare drum. But don’t think for a minute that this is a laid-back, front porch acoustic affair. Gussow’s amplified – and seemingly effortless – harmonica drives much of this collection, and it swings hard. Real hard.

Some of the songs with which you might be already familiar include Elmore James’ “Cry for Me, Baby,” Arthur Cruddup’s “That’s All Right,” and Muddy Waters’ “Rollin and Tumblin’.” The album closes-out with some numbers recorded “live” at a North Mississippi Hill Country Picnic, and includes Jimmy Reed’s “You Don’t Have to Go,” Waters’ “Take You Downtown,” and their interpretation of the Robert Johnson classic “Crossroads Blues.” There’s also a cover of Joe Zawinul’s “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy,” and Gussow’s minor-key original, “Blues For Hank,” both of which feature Chicago-based jazz bassist Bill Harrison.

The one odd duck on this CD is “Magic,” a song you might be most familiar with from Olivia Newton-John’s performance in the 1980 film, Xanadu. Yeah… that one. Not a particularly great song to begin with, but hey… I give credit to Gussow for continually stretching his considerable skills to outside the traditional blues lexicon. His harmonica treatment of the song is fine, but the addition of R&B vocalist Zaire Love – both harmonizing with Gussow, as well as weaving an overlaid vocal in-and-out of the overall arrangement – might have made sense on paper. But , in real life, it’s more than a bit messy, and is conspicuously out-of-place with the other tracks on the album.

That track aside, it’s a very pleasing collection of catchy arrangements that will get your toes tapping. Gross’ guitar playing is not flashy, but is rather more rhythmic and percussive, and becomes the central underpinning of these song arrangements. It complements Gussow’s playing nicely, and the result is an up-tempo album of blues standards… and then some, all generously seasoned with Gussow’s masterful, very fluid harmonica playing. Highly recommended! ~Dave Orban

Same Old Blues Again

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Rich Russman - First In Line

Size: 74,4 MB
Time: 31:51
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2015
Styles: Blues Rock
Art: Front

01. Fine Way (3:09)
02. Waiting Blues (4:08)
03. Lone Soul (5:18)
04. Broken Song (Feat. George Belton & Adam Gussow) (3:19)
05. Big Bower's Hour (Feat. Quibee) (3:25)
06. In My Mind (4:40)
07. I'm Taking Notes (3:28)
08. Dirt Blues (Feat. George Belton & Adam Gussow) (4:20)

Rich’s approach to the blues feeds off high-energy funky grooves and doesn’t turn it’s back on the Delta roots or the Marshall-stack successors. The guiding principle is raw and fun.

His latest solo release, First In Line, features Sean Rickman on drums and appearances by George Belton (bass), James “Chordy” Teagle (keys), Quibee (vocals), and Adam Gussow (harmonica). Mixed by Andrew Dunbar, the 8 original songs are rooted in all aspects of blues, from hard-hitters (Fine Way, In My Mind), to funky (Waiting Blues, Big Bower’s Hour), to upbeat drivers (I’m Taking Notes, Broken Song), and traditional blues compositions (Dirt Blues, Lone Soul). First In Line was tracked at Rich’s Bradshaw Studios in Virginia.

First In Line

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