Andy T - Nick Nixon Band - Drink Drank Drunk (2013)

Tracklist

01. Midnight Hour
02. Don't Touch Me
03. Drink Drank Drunk (feat. Anson Funderburgh)
04. No Use Knockin'
05. Have You Seen My Monkey?
06. Dos Danos (feat. Anson Funderburgh)
07. No End to the Blues
08. On My Way to Texas
09. Hi-Heel Sneakers (feat. Anson Funderburgh)
10. Life Is Too Short
11. You Look So Good (feat. Anson Funderburgh)
12. I've Got a Woman


Like many kids growing up in the '60s and '70s, the first blues Andy Talamantez heard as a teenager was British blues and he fell under the spell of Eric Clapton. But he rapidly traced the music from there, assimilating elements of the vocabularies of B.B. King, T-Bone Walker, Albert Collins, Muddy Waters, Otis Rush, Magic Sam and others until striking out on his own. He performed in various bands around Southern California until 1996, when Los Angeles-based blues legend Smokey Wilson practically plucked him off the stage for his first tour. It was at this time that Andy abbreviated his given name to the stage-friendlier Andy T. In 1998 Andy also began playing with Guitar Shorty, a Houston native known for his blistering six-string attack and on-stage acrobatics. During his 7 years on the road with Smokey and Shorty, Andy learned how to back up a vocalist with economy and perfection as he honed his own playing style, developing a clean, mile-wide tone that cuts to the essence of every song he plays with absolute precision.

James "Nick" Nixon's musical education began in his native Nashville, singing in church as a boy. He began performing opera after his high school music teacher heard the rich resonant tones that seem to naturally leap from his throat. His first working band was King James and the Sceptres, a rock 'n' roll outfit with Nick in the royal role. After the Sceptres, Nick took the helm of NTS Limited, with Billy Cox on bass, but his scrape with the big time came in 1974 when his group Past, Present and Future signed with Chess Records and released the single "Behind Closed Doors"/"Let's Boogie." Nick formed another band, the New Imperials, and continued to tour nationally, but eventually he took a job teaching music for Nashville's Parks and Recreation Department. He kept that position for 35 years — earning the Blues Foundation's prestigious "Keeping the Blues Alive" award for education — while still occasionally touring the U.S. and Europe, but mostly remaining one of Nashville's best-kept and highly revered musical secrets.

Produced by renowned Lone Star State blues guitarist Anson Funderburgh, the duo's brand new debut "Drink Drank Drunk" is an old-school barn-burner; the kind of disc that blows the dust — and the doors — off the Texas, Chicago, Louisiana, West Coast and deep soul traditions with a vital song-oriented approach rare in the blues today. It was originally planned as Andy T's long overdue solo debut, but the more the guitarist collaborated with Nick Nixon on stage, the more he heard Nick's powerhouse voice in his head, singing the tunes Andy was writing and culling for the studio. "For me, this album is really about where Nick and me are today as artists," says Andy. "We've both had a lot of experiences and influences, and drawn a bead on the music we love and how we love to perform it in a way that gets to the bottom of what the blues is all about."

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