Singer Johnny
Rawls Boards the Soul-Blues Express on New CD, Waiting for the Train,
Coming
September 15
from Catfood Records
EL PASO, TX – Catfood Records
announces a September 15 release date for Waiting for the Train, the
new CD from Blues Music Award-winning singer Johnny Rawls. Produced by
multi-Grammy-winning producer Jim Gaines, Waiting for the Train was
recorded at the Sonic Ranch in Tornillo, Texas, with additional recording at
Bessie Blue Studio in Stantonville, Tennessee. On the new disc, Rawls is backed
by his long-standing recording unit, The Rays: Johnny McGhee – guitar; Bob
Trenchard – bass; Richy Puga – drums; Dan Ferguson – keyboards; Andy Roman –
alto/tenor sax; Mike Middleton – trumpet; Nick Flood – baritone/tenor sax; Joel
Chavarria – trombone; with Jon
Olazabal – percussion; and backing vocals by Janelle Thompson and
Shakara Weston.
Waiting for the Train features
six originals (five co-written by Rawls and one by labelmate James Armstrong
and Bob Trenchard), with Johnny adding his own distinctive vocal stamp on songs
previously recorded by Wilson Pickett (“I’m in Love”), Bob Dylan (“I Shall Be
Released”), Tyrone Davis (“Turning Point”) and Syl Johnson (“We Did It”).
Some
background on the players on Waiting for the Train: Jon Olazabal,
the percussionist, is a member of popular Southern California band The Dirty
Heads, who’ve hit it big headlining festivals and touring coast-to-coast.
Background singers Janelle Thompson and Shakara Weston are members of the Neo
Soul group S4TG. Johnny McGhee was an L.A. - Motown session player before
joining LTD. Richy Puga, Dan Ferguson, Andy Roman and Bob Trenchard have
been together since the group Kay Kay and Rays started 20 years
ago. Johnny Rawls is traveling to Europe three times in 2017 and still
playing 150 dates a year. His last CD, Tiger in a Cage, reached
#1 on the Living Blues Radio Chart and remained at #1 for 14
weeks on the Roots Music Soul Blues Chart. It also made the Downbeat
Magazine Critic's Best of the Year Poll list, just as his two previous
albums did.
About
Johnny Rawls
Born in the southern Mississippi
town of Columbia, and raised in Purvis and Gulfport, Johnny Rawls - while still
in high school - was already backing such stars as Z.Z. Hill, Little Johnny
Taylor, Joe Tex and The Sweet Inspirations when they toured in his area. In his
early 20s, Rawls was hired by the legendary deep soul singer, O.V. Wright, as
his band director. After Wright died in 1979, Rawls kept the band together and
toured for several years with Little Johnny Taylor and others.
By 1985, Johnny Rawls was touring
as a solo artist and had made his first solo recording. In 1994, he recorded
the widely acclaimed album, Down to Earth, with L.C. Luckett on
the Rooster Blues label. After a second Rooster Blues album with Luckett, Rawls
recorded a number of albums for JSP before starting his own label. Rawls first
met Catfood Records president Bob Trenchard in 1997 and the two have worked on
a number of projects together since then, culminating when he released his
first album for the label, No Boundaries, in
2005
Rawls garnered previous Blues Music
Award nominations for his albums Heart and Soul in 2007, and Red
Cadillac in 2009. Both Red Cadillac and Ace of
Spades were nominated for Album of the Year by Living Blues
and his last six albums have all
charted top ten on blues charts with Red Cadillac reaching
#1 on the Living Blues Radio Play Chart. Ace of Spades hit
the #4 spot, remaining in the top 20 for three months.
Johnny’s 2012 CD, Soul
Survivor, garnered him two more Blues Music Award nominations and
followed Memphis Still Got Soul (2011), which received three.
He’s been nominated numerous times in both the Soul Blues Male Artist and Soul
Blues Album categories by The Blues Foundation, and his Ace of Spades CD
won the BMA in 2010 as “Soul Blues Album of the Year. In 2014, he was voted Living Blues magazine’s
“Male Blues Artist of the Year” and three of his albums have won the Living
Blues “Critics' Choice Southern Soul Album of the Year.”
