Willie McBlind is a Harmonic Series Blues band featuring vocalist Meredith ‘Babe’ Borden, guitarist Jon Catler, bassist Mat Fieldes, and drummer Lorne Watson. The Blues has always existed between the notes, but Willie McBlind goes all the way – using 64-tone Just Intonation and fretless guitars to recast the blues in a different Harmonic framework.
Willie McBlind plays original blues as well as modern rearrangements of some of the Delta masters including Charlie Patton, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Howlin’ Wolf and Blind Willie Johnson. The arrangements often start simply enough, and develop in new directions informed by the unique tuning. Willie McBlind has mastered the subtle shadings of pitch so crucial to blues feeling, yet so trampled in the modern day rush of our time. In songs such as the Catler composition Shallow Gray, the band unearths a mountain
of overtones evoking Clouds over the Delta………..
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UPCOMING 2012 NEWS ~
ANNOUNCING WILLIE McBLIND’S CD RELEASE SHOW, SATURDAY, MAY 12TH IN NYC AT BOWERY ELECTRIC IN NYC. Join the band for this exciting event held in conjunction with National Train Day to celebrate the new CD, Live Long Day. Opening act MadriGrrls. Click here to order your advance tickets now for $10 ($12 @ door).
Willie McBlind will perform at Bourbon Street Blues Festival on May 19th – Check back for ticket info ~
Bourbon Street Blues Festival website
2011 HIGHLIGHTS
Willie McBlind opens for Commander Cody on Friday, August 12th, 6pm @ WNTI Summer Concert Series in Delaware, NJ!
Tune in for a pre-show live appearance and interview on WNTI with Melanie Thiel – Friday, August 5th, 8-9am – go to: www.wnti.org to listen online!!
More info and tickets -
Willie McBlind heading to Boston for a one-night show at Smoken’ Joe’s BBQ & Blues – Saturday, May 7th, 9pm
NEW REVIEW OF WILLIE McBLIND’S BAD THING IN JANUARY/FEBRUARY BLUES REVUE MAGAZINE “Catler fingers either a 64-tone Just Intonation or fretless guitars with sounds as oddly intriguing as what W.C. Handy must have heard at a rail station in Tutwiler, MS. Borden uses her expansive, octave-spanning vocals to breathe fresh air into these up-to-the minute interpretations. Willie McBlind does have a radical answer to those who wonder what the future of the blues can sound like.” Read the complete review by Art Tipaldi
BAD THING LISTED AS ONE OF THE BEST CD’S OF 2010 IN DOWNBEAT MAGAZINE’S JANUARY 2011 ISSUE. August 2010 – 4 stars **** DownBeat Magazine Read the review by Frank-John Hadley about Willie McBlind’s CD, Bad Thing “No other blues band in creation sounds like the one fronted by microtonal (notes-between-the-notes) guitarist Jon Catler and New England Conservatory-trained singer Babe Borden.”
