Scottsdale, AZ (Top40 Charts/ Mark Pucci Media) Solo Delta and Chicago-style blues guitarist Mark T. Small announces a
September 20 release date for his new CD, Blacks, Whites & the Blues, on Lead Foot Music. The new album features 14 songs bursting with his trademark incendiary blues guitar work on a variety of vintage instruments that emphasize his improvisational playing within the framework of classic Delta and Chicago-style blues idioms.
"Blues is a 20th century music with roots in the 1880s and 1890s," Small says in the album's liner notes. "It is music 'of the people' that evolved from the trials and joys of everyday life. This CD is a collection of songs from the late 1800s through the early 1950s. My intention is to highlight various pieces and styles that have shaped my guitar playing. From Rags to Traditional, Delta to
Chicago - this is the music that has kept me pickin' those guitars."
To that end, Mark T. Small wails from the get-go on Blacks, Whites & the Blues, kicking things off with his take on Muddy Waters' "Trouble No More," and sailing through nods to such other
Chicago masters as Willie Dixon ("Little Red Rooster") and John Lee Hooker ("Bang
Bang Bang Bang"); as well as Delta legends Mississippi Fred McDowell ("61 Highway" and "A Few More Lines") and Robert Johnson ("Sweet Home Chicago").
He also delves into the obscure blues songbook with a number of traditional titles, including "Hesitation Blues," "Old Gray Mare," and "A Georgia Camp Meeting," among others. Other special treats include his cover of the B.B. King classic, "The Thrill is Gone," and the Scott Joplin Rag, "Solace."
Small's early background playing in bluegrass bands has enabled him to utilize his blazingly-fast flat-picking style and apply that to the gritty, urban and country blues he showcases on the new CD, along with some terrific ragtime and blues fingerpicking.
His last album, Screamin' & Cryin' the Blues, released in 2009, hit the Top 20 on the national radio chart from Living Blues magazine and garnered rave reviews from critics and fans alike.
Originally from New England, Mark T. Small began playing in his early teens by learning to play old fiddle tunes on the guitar in the styles of Doc Watson and Norman
Blake and also learning to play the Dobro. This music took him to
Indiana to play and record with a five piece Newgrass Band called The Brown County Band. At the same time, Mark was playing harmonica and listening to the likes of
Junior Wells and Charlie Musselwhite.
After returning to the East Coast, Mark dug deeper into the blues, playing electric guitar and listening to Johnny Winter, Roy Buchannan, Albert King and many others. This would lead him to starting his own Chicago-style blues band, The Lonesome Strangers. The band ranged anywhere from three to ten pieces on a given night and was a staple on the New England club circuit for over a dozen years. The band worked all types of clubs due to Mark's ability to transform the band to suit any venue. Many of the gigs were played as a power trio, with Mark singing and filling the band out with scorching electric blues guitar. Other times, the band included a keyboard or sax player and/or the addition of the Newport Navy Band Horn Section.
In 2000, Mark began to gravitate back to his acoustic roots and began to pursue a solo career, developing into a performer who was as hard hitting as the band, but all in a one man show.
"I started developing the solo show because I love the freedom associated with playing alone," he states "Musically, you can frame a song and take it wherever it leads you during the performance. I hear so much of that when I listen to guys like John Lee Hooker and Lightnin' Hopkins. They break the rules and the song is all about the moment. The more I play solo, the more I prefer it over a band situation - It is absolute musical freedom. Occasionally, I still do strap on an electric guitar and play in a band setting. I love doing that and could not live without it, but my first passion is playing solo."
Mark T. Small will support the release of Blacks, Whites & the Blues with a series of showcase performances at clubs in Scottsdale and the southwest as well as his former stomping ground in the New England area. Blacks, Whites & the Blues will be available for CD sale at both CD Baby and Mark's website, https://www.marktsmall.com/; and for digital download sales at all the major sites such as iTunes, Amazon.com, 7 Digital, EMusic, IHeart Radio, Liquid Digital, Deezer, Napster and Rhapsody.
