The foundations of 4 The Blues go back a long way.

All the way back to 1968 when I was first introduced to Daryl Eastcott. Actually I think I made my own introduction - I'd been playing in a band that had been covering material by Led Zeppelin, John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, Free, Hendrix, The Beatles, Cream, The Rolling Stones and some more unusual stuff like Neil Merriweather and Johnny Winter. The drummer we had was contemplating selling his kit to buy a panel-van, or something, and I was in search of a replacement. Daryl was recommended so I rang him to see if he was interested. We were both about 15 at the time.

Daryl hadn't really played drums in a rock outfit but he became enthusiastic when he heard the type of material we were doing. He had been listening to similar stuff so decided to join and that became the start of a musical relationship that has lasted over 30 years. (Mind, you, I've spent a lot of time having to talk Daryl into stuff - he's learnt, over 30 years, that the call-ins aren't always totally hare brained). We've played in several outfits since then, but nothing in the last 20 years.

Enter 4 The Blues...

Daryl's drumming comes straight from the heart - it's part of the reason I dig playing with him. He has an enormous repertoire of feels and he can pick the eyes out of a groove faster than just about anyone I know. He is the consummate sideman - everything he plays is intended to make you, not him, look good. It's unselfish playing and the product is always gritty, tight, and oozing with pent-up energy.

The second connection is Dave (Max). I've known Dave Newton since we were about 14 and we suffered through puberty and high-school together. Dave's laconic philosophy and intellectual tenacity were the driving forces shaping his involvement in performing live music. In the early days, when I first started playing guitar, Dave would occasionally pick up mine, or a mate's instrument and mess around. There was never a real hint that he had any enthusiasm to be a player. It wasn't until we were both doing higher education (and some...) that I found myself in between bands. I had gone looking for some players to play in a band doing covers and some original tunes I had written. I'd been beating my head against a wall with most other halfway-decent musos doing other things when Dave innocuously suggested that he could probably pick up bass if I couldn't find anyone else. I snapped it up because the idea of having a mate in the lineup meant that the band would have some longevity.

We got two and a half years out of it and, since then, Dave has eclipsed even his own expectations of becoming a player. His musical CV is way longer than all of ours combined and he has gained considerable recognition as a session player, fitting in effortlessly with almost any style of material (except country - he hates country!).

This makes the third connection a little puzzling. Ian Noyce and I met about 1974 when I became associated with a local philanthropic production called Crosscurrents. The Crosscurrents shows ran regularly between 1974 and 1978 and showcased a cavalcade of artists from all over Victoria.

Noycey started his Luthering business in 1975 and I even worked for him, briefly in 1977. He's such an interesting bloke it's hard not to become mates with him. Mind you, it took a while for me to get enough credibility in the bank...

Noycey's musical pedigree drew heavily on country-blues influences and he played smatterings of harmonica, saxophone, guitar and mandolin in a number of acoustic/electric bands. I hadn't thought of him playing blues until I raised the idea with him - out came the old Paul Butterfield and Little Walter albums, Alan Lomax's Library of Congress history and other blues paraphernalia. It seems that we had both converged on a similar passion - we'd played all this stuff for years without investing any of ourselves in trying to understand the form. The band's alter-ego, 2 the Blues, provides a suitable vehicle for us to consolidate that understanding and to cover material not entirely suited to electric performance.

I suppose I make up number four. Since hearing Spoonful, Born Under a Bad Sign, and other Eric Clapton tunes with Cream I have always coveted the blues as a form. The Allman Brothers Band also gave it a push. My musical path has taken some odd turns since my first band in 1967 - from Rock to Trad Jazz with heaps of "eclectic" stuff in between. Most of my interest in recent years has come from listening to Jazz, starting with the more recent fusion and gradually moving back to the great innovators - Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, Dizzie Gillespie, Miles Davis, Freddie Hubbard and numerous others. I actually gave up my playing for about 7 years because of this. Way too hard.

It was while I was reading about Louis Armstrong that I started to become interested in Jazz's stepdaddy - the Blues. I really started to listen hard to Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, T-Bone Walker, Lightnin' Hopkins and some of the original Delta players. I already had albums by contemporary players like Stevie Ray Vaughan, Robert Cray, and Bonnie Raitt but listening to the old artists like Big Bill Broonzy really put it in perspective. I had to put together a band to play this stuff!

The opportunity finally came when I ceased living in Melbourne and moved to Ballarat. Within six months the band was shaping up to play some serious blues. Initially there was a little scepticism that just Blues might be a bit dull - too repetitive with similar motifs and progressions. It didn't take very long to realise that the Blues, like Jazz, offers a wealth of diversity in feels, rhythms, tempos, and style - more than sufficient to convince the most dubious of punters. That's us - rhythm section you can't shove a Tally-ho between, soaring guitar/harp riffs with growling vocals, all steeped in deep homage to the original greats.

I feel like I'm fifteen all over again...
Kim Sumner
May 2001