Product Description
BOB STROGER - BOB IS BACK!
RELEASE DATE AUGUST 1, 2025. ORDER YOUR COPY TODAY!
BOB IS BACK! Is BOB STROGER'S second album as a leader on DELMARK RECORDS, and the second with Bob's favorite Brazilian partners, The Headcutters. After the huge success of "That's My Name", their first Delmark album, Bob, Joe, Ricardo, Leadro and Catuto returned to the studio, this time with pianist Ben Levin as a guest musician. The resulting "Bob Is Back!" is another selection of "old school blues" sure to delight audiences around the world. In recent years Bob Stroger received the "Jus' Blues Music Award", won several polls as Best Bass Player, including the prestigious "Living Blues" Awards, was awarded a Lifetime Tribute at the Chicago Blues Festival. The release of this new album aligns with Bob Stroger's upcoming induction into the Blues Hall of Fame in Memphis, TN. The right thing at the right moment.
- 1 Look Over Yonders Wall
- 2 Champagne and Reefer
- 3 Jazz Man Blues
- 4 Don't You Lie to Me
- 5 My First Love
- 6 Loan Me Train Fare
- 7 Thinking and Drinking
- 8 Bob Is Back in Town
- 9 Love You Baby
- 10 Bob Is Back
- 11 Gold Tailed Bird
- 12 Let the Good Times Roll
BOB STROGER & THE HEADHUNTERS
Bob Is Back
Delmark Records
Here are some facts that you may not know about the legendary bassist Bob Stroger: He is 94 years young. He joins the list of other eminent blues nonagenarians who played into their 90s like guitarists David “Honeyboy’ Edwards and Robert Lockwood Jr., pianist Henry Gray, and still performing 91-year-old Bobby Rush. (Buddy Guy is just a year shy of 90.) \
He played in a jazz band before dedicating himself to blues.
He performed as Joe Russell for a while.
He has played with a jaw-dropping list of greats, including Otis Rush, Pinetop Perkins, Willie “Big Eyes” Smith, Carey Bell, and Sunnyland Slim.
He has won five (!!) Blues Music Awards from the Blues Foundation as Bass Player of the Year, among his sixteen nominations.
This year he was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame.
In 2022, Stroger released That’s My Name, recorded in 2019 with top echelon Brazilian blues band The Headcutters. (Yes, blues is big in Brazil.) Thomas J. Cullen III’s review of that album in this magazine lauded the band’s “stellar old school chops.”
Apparently Stroger and Delmark were also pleased, because this new release, recorded in autumn 2023, combines the veteran bassist with the same group: guitarist Ricardo Maca, drummer Leandro Cavera, bassist Arthur Catuto, and harmonicat Joe Marhofer. Stroger wields bass and does the vocalizing, and the ensemble benefits from the keyboard artistry of Cincinnati’s Ben Levin, who excels throughout.
Of the dozen tunes, five were composed by Stroger. Two of them, “Jazz Man Blues” and the instrumental title track, allow for extended bass solos (presumably by Stroger, not Catuto) amply demonstrating his rock-steady and creative rhythmic aptitude. This is a Chicago twelve bar blues album – no surprise there – with about half the tunes at mid-tempo and several revved up.
Among the covers are versions of several classic numbers: Elmore James’ “Look Over Yonder Wall,” Muddy Waters’ “Champagne And Reefer,” Tampa Red’s “Don’t You Lie To Me,” and Jimmy Rogers’ “Gold Tailed Bird.” Unfazed, this group digs deftly into each. Eddie King’s “Love You Baby” is buoyed by the backing vocals of Candice Ivory and Renee Gros.
Stroger’s singing is laid back, oozing comfort and conviction rather than bombast; he leaves the propulsive energy to the band. That energy is manifest on the closing track of the set, a zesty version of the hoary classic “Let The Good Times Roll” from the 1940s jump band era. Let’s hope that the good times roll years longer for the venerable Bob Stroger.
– Dan Stevens