Mike & the Mellotones featuring Enrico Crivellaro

From their inception in 1993 as Mike & the Mellotones they have been at the forefront of a new blues movement in Europe. In their native country of Holland they quickly made their way to the top based on a solid live reputation and an unparelleled ability to combine musicianship with showmanship. To stay on top it is essential, however, to reinvent yourself and keep up to date with new musical developments. Never the blues purists, The Mellotones have always managed to incorporate a number of styles into their music. First they named their particular blues brand Blues & Beyond but when they saw the term being used by more and more bands they chose a new title: Nu Bluz. These days they call their style of music Soul Rock.

2003 marked the transition from the three-piece format to a four-piece one renamed The Mellotones. With the addition of bassist Mike Sedee and guitarist Ruben Klabbers, frontman/singer/guitarist Mike Donkers and his drummer Lorenzo saw their taking shape as a kind of Texas Blues meets Classic Rock. In 2005, Jaap ‘Nick Nasty’ Lagerweij took Ruben’s place as second guitarist. Besides such blues influences as Stevie Ray and Jimmy Vaughan, The Paladins and Ronnie Earl, the likes of Cream, Free, Hendrix and Led Zeppelin have become equally influential to the style and sound of The Mellotones. It’s an approach which came naturally and which has also proven a successful one: ever since the band started treating audiences to this unique new style and sound the general response has been that the band has become even better and versatile than before!

The Mellotones are not about simply rehashing old stuff, though. Instead they are blowing off the dust and doing something new, different and exciting with the music they love. The Mellotones put the ‘Soul’ back in the ‘Rock’ and they do it with a force that’s impossible to deny. Key words used in reviews to describe The Mellotones are energetic, tight, powerful, intense, entertaining, original, and innovative.
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Phillip Walker & Gonzalo Araya

It is a matter of public record that Phillip Walker was born in Welsh, Louisiana, February 11, 1937. Phillip was the seventh of twelve children of Malvin and Viola Weber Walker, sharecroppers who were married at ages 14 and 13 and began raising a family when they were only children themselves. Malvin was a smart hardworking farmer who always managed, somehow, to keep a roof over the heads of his family. Malvin could fix anything, and Phillip seems to have followed in his dad's footsteps with a mechanical aptitude nothing short of amazing. When Phillip was 8 years old his family moved to Port Arthur, Texas. It is this combination of Louisiana Creole, French, and Indian (his mother’s mother was full-blooded Cherokee), and Texas western gunslinger that combines to prod Phillip’s unique speech patterns, accent and dialect. His mother spoke in the French Creole dialect (Cajun) of the area.
Things went smoothly in Port Arthur for a while, but by the time he was 12 years old, his father’s health had begun to fail and the biggest and strongest boys were expected to get the crops in. From that time, as happened in so many poor families, attendance at school became sporadic, and Phillip’s formal education was essentially finished. Phillip’s uncles, (his mother’s five brothers, including Uncle Phillip Weber), all played in bands in the 20’s and 30’s and often came around and played guitar; musicianship runs in the family. Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown is a second cousin. [For the record, Aaron “T-Bone” Walker, who also had a full-blooded Cherokee grandmother does not appear to be related to Phillip, though it has been documented otherwise in quite a few places and there is some question.] Phillip became interested in music at a young age. Not being able to afford a guitar of his own (his work in the fields earned no cash), Phillip constructed his first instrument from a cigar box, using the thinnest wire he could find (carefully and secretly removed from the family’s window screens) for strings. He had a natural ear and a God-given musical talent, and became very good quite early. He spent every spare minute, when he wasn’t working in the fields or helping herd or brand cattle, learning his instrument. He would play softly into the middle of the night, and to this day rarely sleeps more than 5 hours at a stretch.

Gonzalo Araya es el Primer armonicista chileno patrocinado por la prestigiosa marca Internacional de armónicas brasileñas HERING.
Nacido en la ciudad de Rancagua en Chile el año 1976. Gonzalo aprendió el arte de la armónica como autodidacta llegando a conocer con el tiempo a quienes han sido sus maestros en el camino de la música como Antonio Serrano (Banda de Paco de lucia),Carlos del junco ,Alexandre Rossi, Christian Galvez y Juan Moya entre otros.

Ha compartido escenario con los mas grandes artistas Internacionales y nacionales como :
-Eric Clapton,Scott Henderson,Little charlie and the Nightcats, Lurrie Bell, Carlos del junco , Howard Levy,Phil Guy, Eddie C.Campbell, Bob Margolin Phillip Walker,Melvin taylor, Maurice John Vaughn, Andrea Dawson,Michael Burks, Larry MaCcray Peter Madcat ,Randy Singer, Jefferson Goncalvez, Alexandre Rossi, Mariano Massolo ,Nicolas Smoldjan,Big Chico,Jose luis pardo, Flavio Guimaraes , Greg Rzab, Matthew skoller, Guitar shorty , Jehovah da Gaita, Thiago Cerveira, Miguel Botafogo,Memphis la blusera, Fernando Noronha & Black,
Christian Galvez, Gloria Simonetti,Joe vasconcellos, Daniel Retamal,Alexis venegas,Soledad Guerrero,El cruce y Pancho rojas entre otros


Gonzalo Araya ha sido uno de los referentes más fuertes de la armónica en Chile, siendo uno de los pocos músicos de la escena del blues que ha estado representando a Chile en diferentes países como Suecia ,España, Argentina y Brasil.
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Johnny Blues

You might go out of your house any day and come across in the dusty banking of the Square of Weapon, in the Orphans' land next to the Yellow House, perhaps in Providence along with a kiosk of newspapers.. The place does not matter really. He is always there, simply armed with a guitar and a sweet diatonic harmonica. And I say to you, you will not be able to avoid to be attracted by his talent, by his genius, by his sincerity, by his humility. Unconsciously everyone is influenced by the soft melodies and the free rhythms; they end up by humming, whistling, moving the head without noticing it. In this city full of sadness it is something very beautiful to see. Yes, Johnny canalizes the whole Blues that lives in the bends of Santiago; as a prodigious wandering Hamelin that in exchange for nothing manages to frighten, exactly, these crows of our hearts with a sound limpid, thin; nothing more raw.
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