Since 2018, GA-20 has been at the forefront of a traditional Blues revival. The dynamic throwback trio have long been disciples of the place where traditional Blues, Country and Rock ‘n’ Roll intersect. “We make records that we would want to listen to,” says guitarist Matthew Stubbs. “It’s our take on the song-based traditional electric Blues we love.” Stubbs, along with guitarist & vocalist Cody Nilsen and drummer Josh Kiggans, strives to bring traditional Blues to the front lines of the modern roots music scene. “The focus for us has always been on the story, the melody, and on creating a mood,” Stubbs continues. “Playing live as much as we do, we’re finding more and more that people are discovering how cool it all is. Traditional Country and Soul have had these massive recent revivals. We want to be part of doing that for traditional Blues music.”
Black Joe Lewis is the realest motherfucker there is. When Covid sidelined his touring, he started laying concrete to help support his baby mama and his kid. That’s fuckin’ real. When Joe and his band, the Honeybears, popped onto the national stage over a decade ago, many critics embraced him but still, there were some that maintained that they hadn’t paid their dues. Joe’s still here. Still going. Still cashing checks and snapping necks. The dues of hard work; the delirious heights of the industry as well as the disappointments and low hanging fruit. Through this all, Joe’s only honed his mastery over gut bucket blues guitar and his true voice. It’s a vital and distinctly American voice that never anticipated the attention he wound up receiving, never went looking for it either. It just started happening. The garage, the blues, the propulsive and synergistic live performances that inhabit the spaces of James Brown, Lightnin’ Hopkins, and the MC5…those things happened naturally from the very beginning and could only be accurately communicated in the live experience, not a press release or a slick brand campaign. Sharon Jones, Charles Bradley, Cedric Burnside and Lightnin Malcolm, The Dirtbombs, Detroit Cobras, the Strange Boys; these are some of the artists that Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears shared countless bills with; almost a roll call of the most influential soul and garage bands of the last twenty five years. Has the soul blues garage explosion from that era been commodified or worked into the overall template of pop rock? Sure. But the ground floor was a vital space for people that like guitars and grease and at this point Black Joe Lewis is one of the last standing that was there. Last of a dying breed. Or maybe a missing link. Does this make him a throwback? A throwback to a throwback? It’d be tempting and easy for Joe to go along with that but nah, we don’t think so. We know that Joe Lewis is genuinely doing his thing and that he’d do it regardless of what’s coming down the pipe. A stone cold original and a veteran at that. If you like whistling in your music and some floppy hat, quaky kneed dudes cloyingly singing at you, then you might not “get it” but whatever…there are enough intrepid, degenerate weirdos that do.
