Desert Fox Blues

This is a wonderfully improbable record. An Iowa boy packs up his guitar and travels to Tucson to create sounds with veteran players whose roots stretch from Chicago to New Orleans, the Mississippi Delta and the Desert Southwest. It was a unique moment in music that defined itself in a room full of mojo. I wish you could have been there to feel the genuine blues spirits moving.

What is that sound? The music on this record is raw, scratchy, dirty and pure old school. Live room mics, and minimal overdubs. That crunchy guitar tone is the 'Brown Turd', a hacked and repurposed 1940's DuKane reel to reel recorder. It drips post war joyfulness from its capacitors and smells like an old attic. It was live in the room on every track and it glues everything together.

Groove is king on this record, and the songs are straight up blues from the river of the player's influences. The foundation is unshakable, with Winston Watson on drums (Bob Dylan, Alice Cooper, MC5) and New Orleans native Nick Agustine on bass (Ranier & Das Combo, Eddie Papa Gabriel & The Crescent City Connection). Tom Albanese cut his harmonica chops on the Chicago blues scene (Big G & The Real Deal, Bo Ramsey), and Kent Burnside (grandson of the great RL Burnside) adds Mississippi Hill country guitar grit and vibe. These are heavy cats, but they are not guests performing cameo roles, they are friends, expressing their authentic musical selves and contributing to a unique collaboration down familiar roads.

The lyrics are thoughtful and evocative. Todd is also a published poet, and he sings about traditional blues philosophies, and things like accepting life's difficulties with dancing shoes and a smile, about beating depression and the musings of the shamanistic 'Old Picker'. To keep things interesting there are unlikely name drops, like Jimmy Carter, Isaac Asimov, Carl Sagan and Dylan Thomas.

Like a bar packed with friends on a cool fall evening, the old jukebox plays a gritty modern blues soundtrack for all the happy moments hidden in the shadow of tragedies.

Thank you for listening. Enjoy the groove!

But who is Todd Partridge?

Todd is an Iowa musician who has been performing live music for over 30 years. With 12 albums of original music and tours across the US and Europe he has made a name for himself as the front person and songwriter for the 'Whiskey Gospel' band King Of The Tramps, and as a solo artist. This is his 1st blues focused record, and he says blues is his 1st love, since his 12th birthday, when his parents gave him a phonograph and a "BB King Live" album.