A MODERN BLUES CLASSIC
"Perhaps the blues came up the River Thames before it reached the Mississippi..." - Angelo Palladino.
For some people the blues originated somewhere in the area of the winding Mississippi, but for many it came from other places. For some it came from within, for others it rolled up the River Thames to London's East End in the years following WWII.
With London's skyline battered beyond all recognition, the people that lived in that always downtrodden, much maligned area of Britain's capital city were more than used to darkness and struggle. Indeed anyone that has read turn-of-the-century American author Jack London's harrowing classic "The People Of The Abyss" will surely recognize where Angelo Palladino's own take on the Blues came from.
Angelo was born and raised in Jack The Ripper's former stamping ground in the Red Light district of London in 1949 to an ebullient East End mother and a P.O.W. Italian father. His family was forced to live in the Jewish quarter of the East End because of racial threats and bigotry against his father.
"My dad learned how to speak Yiddish in about a week, then he taught me how to speak it rather than Italian, because it was safer", Angelo says, "which is why I can still speak Yiddish today."
As Angelo got older, the Blues, became his calling. "When I heard this form of music, it became a constant tapping on my shoulder, a constant shadow that I moved through."
He turned this "Devil" into a friend, and that friend helped him write 'Blood, Blues & Bad Dreams.'
The album is full of bitter experience and failed hope enveloped in wonderful songwriting and intense storytelling. Having worked as a road builder, a dockworker, and a steel mill worker in his lifetime (as well as teaching guitar to delinquent teenagers of which Angelo comments "that was a great experience"), this should be no surprise.
Throughout his life as a musician, Angelo Palladino has become a highly prolific guitar- wielding troubadour, fine tuning his craft to write songs which paint vivid pictures with the Blues the way that Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, or Steve Earle can in their respective fields.
'Blood, Blues & Bad Dreams' on Outback Records is the epitome of everything that the label stands for i.e. "powerful music, powerfully played". The recording, which has been described as a modern blues classic, is a collection of stories-set-to-music based on characters that live in shadows, but are constantly pursued by ghosts from their past or in their imagination. Angelo has touched upon the fact that the songs could also be about the life of Robert Johnson (albeit loosely), and it is to the King Of The Delta Blues singers that the album is respectfully dedicated.
In concert, Angelo is a force of nature and not to be missed. His performances, whether solo, with his ever-present bassist Carl Iredale, or with his band, are described as "intense and harrowing, but always entertaining" by some journalists and "like a ritual blood-letting" by Angelo himself.
And that's just the start. Angelo has written enough material to fill another two albums. He will shortly be entering Outback's own Valve Studios to record 'Seven Farewells', a collection of songs dealing with people saying goodbye to things in their lives and sometimes even their own lives. A third album called 'Streethawks & Barflies' will follow.
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Check out the artist's website:
http://angelopalladino.comTrack List:
1. Just Can't Sleep
2. Twilight Blues
3. Two Crows
4. Long Dark The Night
5. Blood, Blues + Bad Dreams
6. The Devil, The Money + The Gun
7. [Lately] I Can Hear The Highway Calling
8. It Ain't No Lie
9. Midnight
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