Powder Blues Quotes

As a kid growing up in Chicago, back in the early 50's, I was lucky enough to have an aunt who was into 'counter-culture' music. When I was as young as seven or eight, she used to take me to shows in a little theatre at the University of Chicago on the South Side to see the likes of Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, Lefty Dizz, Hound Dog Taylor, Southside Johnnie Young, Otis Spann, James Cotton, Little Walter and others. In those days blues was regarded in the intellectual community as a form of 'folk' music and in fact, it was, having come up with the black farm workers turned assembly line help from the Deep South after World War II.
Tom Lavin

I first started playing in Gastown with the Powder Blues in March of 1978. It began as a four piece: piano, bass, drums and me on guitar but I really wanted a horn section. We kept trying different guys and finally settled on a couple of tenor players and a baritone sax man. We started by playing for the door and as it was an Irish pub that no one went to in the first place it was a challenge. But one thing was for sure; whoever came in was definitely there to hear us. We played six nights a weeks, four sets a night and as the band got tighter and enlarged it's repertoire, the crowds got bigger.
Tom Lavin

Powder Blues has never played less than 50 shows in any of the last 23 years, sometimes doing as many as 300+ shows in a year. We've been around long enough that we don't record until we feel there's something else we have to say. Being 'free agents' musically speaking, affords us the freedom to release what we want, when we want. There's no record company or 'star making machinery' that's on our case telling us we have to 'put out more product'.
Tom Lavin