| Roots guitar guru Damon
Fowler has just finished recording his third solo project for
Blind Pig Records, after spending much of the past year touring with the band
Southern Hospitality. Entitled Sounds
of Home, the album is scheduled for a late January 2014
release. It was produced by award-winning swamp blues master Tab Benoit at his
Whiskey Bayou Studio in rural Houma, Louisiana. |
 |
Damon decided to join forces again with Benoit, who produced the
critically acclaimed Southern Hospitality album at the same location. That CD,
Easy Livin', was just named the winner of the 2013 Blues Blast Music
Award for "Best New Artist Debut." On
Sounds of Home, Tab sings
background vocals on several tracks and contributes pedal steel and acoustic
guitar on others, while Big Chief Monk Boudreaux is a special guest on the title
track.
Damon found working with Tab a "great experience." They play lap steel and
pedal steel guitar respectively, and they share a love and affinity for the
marvelous mixture of down home sounds prevalent on the Gulf Coast. "We speak
the same language," as Damon put it. Their collaboration has resulted in
Damon's strongest effort to date.
Reflecting the laid back atmosphere of the setting and surrounding area,
Damon felt very comfortable in the studio and "the creative process was cool,"
according to Damon. Tab and Damon worked out the material together. "We have
the same tastes in songs so it was easy to communicate," said Fowler. He also
enjoyed the fact that they came into the studio with just "skeletons" of songs
rather than fully finished pieces. "We just wanted to see where the spirit of
the moment took us," says Fowler. "The older I get, the more I would like to
bring positivity into it, so I tried to write more positive songs for this
record, and you can feel it in the spirit of the record. I'm really proud of
it."
Damon says the title of the album sums up the spirit and approach of the
project. While his music is deeply rooted in the blues, it's also strongly
tinged with country, rock, and roots music. Growing up in Florida, Damon was
exposed to, and influenced by, the variety of roots music styles popular in the
Gulf Coast - country, swamp blues, rock, old-timey, sacred steel, soul, and
Latin.
Guitar Player called Fowler, a master of slide guitar, lap steel,
and dobro, "one of the swampiest guitar pickers to emerge from the humid
Southeast since Lightnin' Slim and Tony Joe White," while
Hittin' the
Note magazine said,
"Damon Fowler has become one
soul-oozin', rock 'n' rollin', swamp stalkin' blue monster of a talent."
Sounds of Home takes the listener on a tour through the rich traditions
of American roots music, presented by one of its foremost practitioners.
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