Sstarting professionally at age 14. He's carried this soulful gumbo from New Orleans to the rest of the world with national and international performances. Duffey has created his music long enough and powerfully enough to be enshrined in the National Blues and Louisiana Halls of Fame, and the Northeast Louisiana Music Hall of Fame. In short, to paraphrase Willie Dixon, Duffey has dug the roots, and we harvest the sweet fruits.
Now Duffey has dug deep into his traditions for the riches of his latest album, Ain't Goin' Back, a celebration of his music with his band, BADD (a title carved from the initials of band members' first names). BADD includes Duffey on vocals and keyboards; Dan Sumner on guitars incl. electric and acoustic bass, percussion, vocals, and trumpet; Adam Ryland on drums and Ben Ford on bass. A few talented players complete this lineup: Dave P. Moore on harp, Jonathan Patterson on trombone and Bert Windham on trumpet. Duffey and Sumner coproduced.
Ain’t Goin' Back is tightly packed with eleven bitingly concise and lyrically gorgeous originals from Duffey and Sumner, capturing a range of styles coaxed from the timeless mists of the blues. “Whirlpool” sets the tone for the session, opening with a lonesome guitar, a solid backbeat and ethereal harp leading into Duffey's deep blue tale of a troubled mind: “I said my mind be like a whirlpool, thoughts be swimmin' round and round / and I ain't gone find no peace until I'm on solid ground.” “You've Got What it Takes” slinks along next behind a tough musical backing and carries a straightforward message: “You got what it takes to take everything I got.” The delicate strains of “The Wishing Game” introduce a melancholy tale of unrealized love told with elegant lyricism – “If wishes were horses … beggars could ride away from the wishing game.”
“Rock It All Night” rocks hard as it steps up the pace with the promise of good times: “Well the joint is burnin' like a house on fire / yeah the joint is jumpin' and ain't nobody tired / cause the joint is swinging.” “Front Porch Blues” conjures a moody blues image of the finality of a solitary existence: “I said I'm just sittin' here in my ole rockin' chair / you know I hear a train in the distance but I ain't goin' nowhere.” Another fatalistic message about lost love drifts along in the lilting “Get ‘Er Outa Yo Head” – “You got to get a grip and get her outa yo head / if you don't end this bad trip, you gonna find yourself dead.”
The driving rhythms of “No Mercy” add a feral intensity to his mistreatment: “No mercy, no mercy for me / yeah you'se as hard-hearted as a body can be.” The gentle folksy balladry of “Turn It Around” offers a hopeful note: “Got to make some changes, got to make some plans / got to rearrange everything on hand.” The heartfelt poetry of “Promised Land” suggests a yearning for something not quite known: “Yeah I'm sittin' outside the station, an open ticket in my hand / I got no real destination, goin' lookin' for the promised land.” The title of “Gallus Pole” hints at a traditional song, lost in time, when the phrase was ominously “gallows pole.” Duffey's take is similarly foreboding -- “Well I mortgaged my soul for rock and roll / now the payment is overdue. / Well, ain't got no silver, I ain't got no gold / next they'll be had me down to the gallus pole.”
The title track and closer, “Ain't Goin' Back,” is another gentle lyrical gem with a delicate harp tapestry woven throughout as a counterpoint to its finality: 'Well, I ain't going back not even in chains / to that two room shack full of torture and pain.” And just as the words “Ain't Goin' Back” suggest, Doug Duffey's prescient music carries him forward through the shrouded mists where his music lives, into this smartly written album filled with the eternal truths of the blues.
Jim White (a former music writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette & now writes the Blues Roadhouse
Tracklist:
1. Whirlpool 2. You Got What it Takes 3. The Wishing Game 4. Rock it All Night 5. Front Porch Blues 6. Get ‘Er Outa Yo Head 7. Turn it Around 8. No Mercy 9. Promised Land10. Gallus Pole 11. Ain't Goin Back
BIOGRAPHY
Multi award-winning Doug Duffey And BADD are a North Louisiana-based quartet specializing in 100% original ‘Bayou Funk’, ‘Swampadelic’, Bluesiana and Delta Soul music. Influenced by old school 70’s funk and soul classics, as well as their native regional New Orleans funk, Memphis Soul, Louisiana R&B, and Louisiana Delta blues, they’ve recycled, refried, refunked, redefined and repackaged it all into their own personal post-modern slammin’ jams. Ain’t Goin’ Back is the band’s fourth studio album.
DOUG DUFFEY
A member of the National Blues, Louisiana, and Northeast Louisiana Music Halls of Fame, Duffey comes about his pedigree quite naturally. Born in Louisiana in the Mississippi Delta, he gained his early chops playing in local clubs. He spent time in Little Rock, New Orleans, Hollywood, and Nashville, where he lived and performed on and off from the ‘60s to the ‘ 90s all the while developing his seminal style. His songs charted on Billboard, Cashbox and Record World. He has spent the last 32 years performing between Europe and the USA.
Even now, some 50 years later, his music continues to capture the imagery of his storied realms. His virtuosic piano playing reflects the traditions of the Mississippi Delta that’s won him respect and renown throughout a startling, prolific career — on his own, with BADD and as part of the Louisiana Soul Revival. Given his soulful vocals and incisive, poetic lyrics, he’s become known for sharing dynamic performances interspersed with imagination, improvisation, and celebratory sense of spontaneity. Having gained acclaim in Europe, he’ s become a fixture at such prestigious gatherings as the Montreal International Jazz Festival, the Heineken Jazz Festival, the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, the Louisiana Folklife Festival, and an impressive array of other music gatherings, clubs, concert halls and music venues both in the U.S. and overseas.
At the same time, he’s contributed a wealth of songs to other artists as well, including Marcia Ball (“ If It Ain’t One
Thing”), George Clinton (“Silly Millimeter,” a co-write), Funkadelic (“ One Nation Under a Groove,” a co-write), Rare Earth (“ B. What R Ya,” “Happy Song,” “Delta Melody”), Zakiya Hooker (“A Memory Left To Lose,” “New Orleans Rain”), Billy Gregory (“ Time & Money,” “Didn’t We Ramble”) John Autin (“Publicity”), and Jerry Beach (“Victim of the Blues”).
This year Duffey was honored with a historical marker on the Northeast Louisiana Music Trail.
FOCUS TRACKS
1. Whirlpool, 4. Rock It All Night, 11. Ain’t Goin’ Back
For more information: Betsie Brown, Blind Raccoon, betsie@blindraccoon.com
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