Blues In Britain
Interview
by Chris Kerslake
Nov. 2003

  This year’s Handy award ceremony was notable for the emergence of a new generation of artists who look capable of bringing the blues to a wider audience than ever before. Artists like Robert Randolph and Richard Johnston are far removed from the stereotypical image of bluesmen, but play music that is deeply rooted in the blues and most importantly they are attracting in a whole generation of new fans. Included in this new wave are Atlanta based Delta Moon, fronted by singer and piano player Gina Leigh and featuring the twin slide guitars of Mark Johnson and Tom Gray.

  Gina explains how the band came about. “I always wanted to be in a band and I put up a flyer in the local music store. Mark was looking for a keyboard player and hired me. When the band split up Mark and I started playing our own little mish mash of blues and rock and roll.” The twosome soon became a threesome however with the addition of guitarist Tom Gray. Previously leader of 80s rock band The Brains, Gray is also a songwriter of some repute having had songs recorded by Manfred Mann, Carlene Carter and Cyndi Lauper amongst others. “Mark had known Tom for a number of years and he thought it would be interesting to have a combination of slide players” continues Gina. “Mark is pretty much a Delta style player and Tom is more Hawaiian to early country blues. As it turns out their styles compliment each other extremely well.”

  Delta Moon’s sound has developed since their early days. “The acoustic thing was focussed on very early Delta blues but we’ve broken out of that mould” says Gina. The first part of that development was going electric. Gina resumes the story. “It was volume wars that led to the decision. Tom’s acoustic guitar was always louder than Mark’s – partly because Tom plays with finger picks, partly because of his lap style playing, but it was also just a more resonant guitar. Mark was always fighting to be heard and finally decided to play an electric guitar and it sort of morphed into ‘OK, let’s make it loud’ and we bought in a rhythm section.”

  Since going electric the band have gone from strength to strength, starting with their victory in their local round of the International Blues Challenge in Charlotte, North Carolina, and culminating in their win in the finals in Memphis earlier this year. How much difference has this made? “Oh, good lord, a lot”, says Gina. “Apparently some other bands have not been able to capitalise quite as much, but it really made quite a big difference for us. We have been getting concert gigs we wouldn’t have gotten before. It’s been much less of a struggle getting really good quality shows and being booked into lots of high visibility festivals. It’s been a bigger change than I would have imagined.” From a circuit of gigs mostly confined to the South East, the travelling has increased taking in festivals in Montreal, New York and Portland, Oregon. They also made their first appearance at the legendary King Biscuit Blues Festival in Helena, Arkansas in October.

  With such a high profile it hasn’t taken long for the record companies to sit up and take notice, but for the time being the band are happy to continue releasing their own CDs. “It’s kind of a catch 22”, says Gina. “If you sign with a record company, you make a lot lower percentage of the profit off of the product you’re selling. But on the other hand you would benefit from the large record companies distributors.” For now though the band are doing quite nicely out of sales at gigs and via their internet site. Their first two albums – Delta Moon and Live – are well recorded, well packaged and have sold in large numbers. A third album is at the planning stage and studio time is available at Ardent Studios in Memphis as a result of their win in the Blues Challenge.

  So what should you expect if you see Delta Moon during their first UK tour in November? Firstly, there’s the music. “We have a sound that’s rooted in blues but takes a lot of pathways in different directions.” Those different directions have led to the coining of the term deltabilly. “Somebody ran that in an ad”, says Gina, “they described us as a rollicking deltabilly band and we liked that word so we kept it on some of our promo stuff. I guess they’re thinking there’s some hillbilly kind of stuff, and we do draw very heavily from early country blues, poor white trash blues. It’s delta country, with a bit of barrelhouse because of the piano that we use in the live shows. Other people classify us under Americana.” Like Randolph and Johnston, Delta Moon play music that has no age limits. “We can go to Knoxville and the kids just out of high school are going ‘Wow what do you call this music? This is great I really love it.’ We also have a lot of the more mature audience.”

  The music isn’t the only thing you get at a Delta Moon gig though. “We have a very energetic stage performance”, explains Gina. And that performance has been directly responsible for one of many other awards that have come Delta Moon’s way this year, for Best Blues Band To Shake Your Ass To. Although it’s not a category at the Handy’s yet, the award gives a pretty clear idea that this isn’t a gig where you’ll be sitting quietly with your hands on your laps, applauding politely at the end. “We really have a lot of fun”, continues Gina, “for me it’s just plain silliness.”

  Silliness it may be, but that is just the result of a band that clearly get immense pleasure from playing and performing. Behind the silliness Delta Moon know exactly where they want to go and they’re setting about it in a way that is bringing them increasing critical acclaim through plain hard work, through sound business sense, and through simply being one of the best bands on the circuit today.

  Gina is pretty clear about what the UK tour means to her and the band. “There’s nothing we’ve been more excited about. We were excited about Montreal but that’s nothing compared to this. This is a big deal.” If Delta Moon are playing anywhere near you make sure you go and see them. If you like blues you’ll enjoy their show, if country music or Americana is your thing you’ll love them, if you like rock and roll you’re bound to enjoy them. This is just great music with no need for classification. Oh, and if you do see them, be prepared to shake your ass. Quite appropriate for a band who call their fans Moonies.