Latvian Blues Band releases first solo CD

Egils Kaljo

March 03, 2009

Latvian Blues Band has released Unreal, its first solo compact disc.

Band members are Jānis “Bux” Bukovskis on guitars and vocals, Reinis Ozoliņš on bass, Rihards “James” Bērziņš on piano and organ, and Rolands “Rolx” Saulietis on drums.

The producer of the album is guitarist Duke Robillard, who has received the “Best Blues Guitarist” award from the Blues Music Awards four times (2000, 2001, 2003 and 2004) and was also nominated for a Grammy in 2007 for his CD Guitar Groove-a-rama.

The album contains 14 songs, 10 of which are original works by the band.

The band, whose history goes back to 1997, frequently performs in the Rīga blues club Bites Blūza Klubs.

The group has released CDs of performances with other artists, including One Hot Night with Frank Bang & Latvian Blues Band, Blues Party (with Johnny V) and three volumes in the series Latvian Blues Band & Friends: Live in B.B.C..

More information about the band is available on its Web site, www.latvianbluesband.com or on its page on draugiem.lv.

Egils Kaljo is an American-born Latvian from the New York area who lives in Rīga, Latvia. When not working in the information technology field, he plays the guitar, sings in the University of Latvia Choir Juventus and does translation work for the Latvian Music Information Centre. Kaljo began listening to Latvian music as soon as he was able to put a record on a record player, and still has old Bellacord 78 rpm records lying around somewhere.