RAUMA BLUES 2025

Willy Jordan, Annika Chambers. Photos courtesy of Pertti Nurmi.

 On August the 16th in the city of Rauma in Finland it may have rained heavily in the evening, but inside the music tent by the Rauma Canal the atmosphere was – freely after Stevie Wonder – “hotter than August.” The Rauma Blues festival celebrated its 40th anniversary, and the top performers of that night were

Chambers DesLauriers. Photo courtesy of Marjo Parjanen.

CHAMBERS DESLAURIERS

 Annika Chambers had visited Rauma for the first time seven years ago. We met in Italy at the Porretta Soul Music Festival in 2019, and there she kindly told me about her earlier career: https://www.soulexpress.net/annikachambers.htm

 Only one month after our meeting, Annika married a Canadian musician named Paul DesLauriers. Their eyes, however, had locked already one year earlier. Annika: “I had a boyfriend and I needed to tie up loose ends. When I met Paul, it was just a few seconds and we barely said anything to each other. That was a strange meeting, but later I realised what they mean by ‘love at first sight.’ It was just like in the movies.” After that August, the next time they met was in January in Memphis. Paul: “Still in March in 2019 we both played at the same festival in Florida and we danced together.” Annika: “I took his tip jar around and made a lot of money. I told people that ‘he’s from Canada. We’re in Florida, and they need money to get back to Canada.” On August 20 this year, the couple celebrated their sixth anniversary. 

PAUL DESLAURIERS

 Paul DesLauriers hails from Canada. Paul: “I grew up in a city in Ontario called Cornwall. It’s about one hour west of Montreal.” Annika: “I lived in Canada, when we got married, but it was too cold. I’m still a Texas girl. We live now in Florida.”

 Paul: “My first record was in 1994 with my band called Black Cat Bone. The album was called What a Way to Make a Living. The second album from that group was in 1995. It’s called Bone-ified.” After that there was a serious car accident and the co-founder of the group, Paul Buonassisi, almost lost his life. Paul: “Then I released a Limited Edition EP in 2004.” Two years later on Big Toe Productions, Paul released his next album titled Ripping into Red. “Then I did some work with Dawn Tyler. …En Duo was the first record (2007) and Southland (2013) the second record, and I did some work with Angel Forrest at that time. With Anwar Khurshid, who is a dear friend, we did Enter the Gate (2013), which was a mixture of Indian classical music and blues. Then I released three albums with my Paul DesLauriers Band – self-titled (2014), Relentless (2016) and Bounce (2019).” There’s still one live album in 2022 with Denis Coulombe and Angel Forrest named Live Love at the Palace.

GOOD TROUBLE

 Annika’s and Paul’s first joint CD titled Good Trouble was released on VizzTone in 2022, and it went as high as # 3 on Billboard’s Blues charts. By Paul being a noted blues-rock musician, the overall sound marks a difference also in Annika’s vocal technique and singing style. Earlier soulful and even gospely vocalizing has given way to more big-voiced rocky interpretations. Paul: “It’s my fault” (laughing). Annika: “That record is more blues-rock, because we just went into the studio during the pandemic, and we were just really playing around with JP Soars, a drummer and our bass player. We were making music… until we had a record. It was like musical therapy for us, because we didn’t have any gigs.”

 Annika names the two opening cuts on the CD – the mid-tempo You’ve Got to Believe and the almost aggressive rock number called Stand Up – as her favourites. Annika: “A lot of chaos was going on in America. There was the pandemic and there was a lot of police brutality, so I think Stand Up is a really cool tune.”

 Paul: “I like I Need More Power.” Annika: “That’s the last tune on that record. Pete Seeger was at a chain gang prison years ago, and they recorded these chain gang men singing, and I was like ‘I want to do this. I want to add some music to it.’” Pete Seeger visited the Ellis Unit prison in 1966, which is documented in a film titled Afro-American Work Songs in a Texas Prison. Annika: “I think that tune even now speaks like a lot of volumes that we need more power. You have power, exercise your rights to full, because that’s where your power is.”

 The eleven-track Good Trouble still contains a country-rock type version of George Harrison’s Isn’t It a Pity, an easily flowing and almost gentle cover of Joe South’s Walk a Mile in My Shoes, and a couple of heavy blues-rock covers, such as Mississippi Queen, Money’s Funny and We Got the Blues.

OUR TIME TO RIDE

 Annika: “Our Time to Ride is where you are hearing the mix of sounds like my gospel & soul background and Paul’s doing all kind of guitar work from blues, soul, funk. We want to merge our sounds. We want you to hear all our influences.”

 It took three years for the couple to come up with their follow-up named Our Time to Ride.  Paul: “The pandemic did a lot of damage to a lot of people financially, and it even took a while, before we started to work again, playing in shows. We focused a lot on that and finally came time, when we said ‘we need to have another project, we need to have record number two.” Altogether for Paul this is project # 13 and for Annika # 5.

 The CD was officially released on August 22, on Forty Below Records (https://fortybelowrecords.com), which has also Charlie Musselwhite and Sugaray Rayford in its roster. The founder and the president of the company is Eric Corne, who during these past twenty years has worked with a wide range of artists including John Mayall, Glen Campbell and Nancy Wilson. He produced Our Time to Ride as well. Paul: “We’ve known Eric for almost ten years and we’ve always talked that we should work together, and now we just figured the time was right. It was time to take the next step in our careers.” Annika: “I’ve always had producers and Paul has produced a lot of his own stuff. For this new project we wanted that extra ear and also a person, who’s in the know, when it comes to modern Americana music. Eric has all these great ideas and he was able to merge our sound, so - when you listen to the music - you hear the soul, you hear the gospel, and then you let Paul just do whatever he does on guitar. Every song was like a different taste of my background and a different taste of his.” Paul: “Eric brought it all together and took a lot of work responsibility off of us, so we could concentrate on making music. For me it was luxury.”

 Besides Annika on lead vocals and Paul on guitar and vocals, there are Sly Coulombe on drums and Gary Davenport on bass. Paul: “Sly has been a friend of mine for over twenty years, and we’ve played together. Gary was Annika’s bass player for years, so our touring unit obviously is Sly and Gary. That’s also the core recording band. Others were added, like my friend from Canada, Jesse O’Brien, playing piano on one track, In the Heart of the Night.” Annika: “Nicoya Polar has been on all of my records, since Making My Mark in 2014. Anytime there’s anything to do with background vocals, I can give her direction or I can just say ‘do your thing.’ On this record it was ‘do your thing’ - and she just is so good.” Among other musicians, there are still Sasha Smith on keys, Mark Pender on trumpets and David Ralicke on saxophones.

 With the exception of Eric Corne’s melodic, heavily swaying and almost sing-along number called Sing, Annika and Paul were involved in composing the rest eight new tunes, with some help from Eric Corne and Gary Davenport. The moody and hooky Love You Just the Same was chosen for the first single. The up-tempo Written in the Stars has country-rock flavour to it, and the rolling People Gonna Talk offers a similar, “modern Creedence Clearwater Revival” type of sound.

 Believe in Love starts off like a slow ballad, but accelerates notably towards the end, whereas the rocky Temperature of One-O-Nine kicks off almost like Stevie Wonder’s Superstition. In the Heart of the Night is a jolly, fast-running contemporary boogie-woogie number, and similarly Our Time to Ride features a pulsating freight train rhythm, again not far away from country-rock. The closing One in a Million is a romantic and soft duet and runs over seven and a half minutes.

  Paul: “This is a big investment for us. We’re trying to take it to the next level. So far, we’re getting a lot of radio play. We’re really looking for to see what happens with this record.”

Chambers DesLauriers on stage. Photo courtesy of Pertti Nurmi.

THE RAUMA SHOW

 Annika, Paul, Sly and Gary gave us 75 minutes worth of raw and booming rock-blues, spiced with many Paul’s guitar solos and Annika’s big-voiced vocal delivery. There were songs both from the new Our Time to Ride album – such as the title tune, In the Heart of the Night, Temperature of One-O-Nine, Written in the Stars and Love You Just the Same – and from the previous set, Good Trouble, like Isn’t It a Pity and a mellow duet of Little Willie John’s Need Your Love So Bad. One of the most touching moments was Annika’s tribute to her late mother, an emotional delivery of Johnny Copeland’s Flying High.

 Paul: “Travelling and performing with the 4-piece gives us a lot of freedom musically. I was used to playing as a trio in my own band for years. Now we have a great connection and it gives us a lot of liberty and chances to experience musical adventures together on stage.”

 After Rauma, “Chambers DesLauriers” performs still in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, and then heads home to Florida. Paul: “We’re very excited to be back in Europe. It’s just the beginning of our new career together.” Annika: “Everyone, who sees us and has seen us before solo, they all say the same thing – ‘whatever this is, stay on it.’”

https://annikaandpaul.com

Willy Jordan. Photo courtesy of Pertti Nurmi.

APSO with WILLY JORDAN

 For R&B and soul music fans the highlight of the evening was the 1 1/2-hour set by the headliners, the Anthony Paule Soul Orchestra with Willy Jordan on lead vocals. Besides Anthony on guitar, the rhythm section of the orchestra consisted of Tony Lufrano on organ and keyboard, Endre Tarczy on bass and Bowen Brown on drums. The members of the horn section included Charles McNeal on tenor sax, Ethan Pires on trumpet and Derek James on trombone. You really couldn’t but admire the marvelous work of the sharp horn section, not to mention Anthony’s skillful and nuanced guitar playing. But then, it is no wonder considering it is something that he has done for over fifty years, and his debut album was released already thirty years ago.

 Anthony had visited Finland for the first time in January in 1987, but Willy Jordan was here for the first time. If you wish to get acquainted with Willy’s chequered career, please read my recent interview with him at https://www.soulexpress.net/willyjordan.htm

Anthony Paule. Photo courtesy of Pertti Nurmi

 The concluding APSO set at Rauma Blues started with a couple of instrumentals, including surprisingly Anthony’s version of Gene Pitney’s small hit in 1961, Town Without Pity. Anthony: “I recorded it in 2001 on an album titled Hiding in Plain Sight , I did with Italian musicians. I did not want to record this song! Christine made me do it! But, as usual, she was right. People love this song, and it’s gotten a lot of attention on radio. Even Bruce Springsteen has played it on his radio show on Sirius XM radio. It has remained in my repertoire ever since that time. It was on the live recording with Frank Bey from 2012, You Don't Know Nothing . Anyway, I choose it because I think it’s good to do something familiar to the audience. It can be a good icebreaker.” Christine Vitale is Anthony’s wife and also a prolific songwriter on many APSO albums.

 After the instrumentals, Willy hit the stage, and what a dynamic performer he is! With his dancing and choreography, he gave an extra boost to the music. Whether it was rough, up-tempo funky numbers, or emotional, passionate ballads, he put his soul into each song. There were many tunes from his latest CD with APSO, What Are You Waiting For?, such as the quick-tempo title song, the swinging You Ain’t Old ‘Til You Cold, a pounding blues titled That’s Not How the Story Goes, a mid-tempo groove called Bruised, a slow blues named You’re Somebody Else’s Baby Too and an easy mover called Love Out Loud. A special mention goes to a personal favourite, the Memphis-inspired melodic mid-pacer, One Way.

 Among the twenty songs in the program there were also tunes from the period, when Wee Willie Walker used to record with APSO and tour as their vocalist - mostly swinging up-tempo numbers like Don’t Let Me Get in Your Way, Heartbreak, Look What You Done to Me, I’m Just Like You and If Only. The show-stopper, however, was Willy’s intense and heartfelt delivery of WWW’s deep soul ballad, After A While.

NEXT ALBUM IN JULY

 In the article above, Willy also lists other acts that he’s currently involved with.  Willy: “Today there’s work in The Bay Area, if you’re good (laughing). I got my share. I’m getting enough to make me happy. With Elvin Bishop we’re doing some more Big Fun Trio work. Elvin takes time off during the summer for his garden. When he gets that together, we start going out again.”

 Willy’s focus, however, is also on the new project with APSO. Willy: “The idea is to start doing some songwriting with Anthony, Christine and Larry Batiste.” Anthony: “The concept is the same as on our previous one, What Are You Waiting For? – only a couple of new band members. We’re writing the songs right now. We have a few that were written before we even met Willy. The release date is July the 10th in 2026. We’re going to record in February, and we need to deliver the masters to the record company in March.”

 The first lead vocalist in APSO’s recording history was Frank Bey. Anthony: “Willy is the third, who recorded with us. After Wee Willie Walker died, we started working with Marcel Smith, but then the pandemic hit and in the end Marcel only did four or five gigs with us. Christine Vitale, Larry Batiste, and I wrote four good songs with Marcel, because we were attempting to do an album. Marcel recorded three of these songs - I'm Coming Home to You, If You Miss Me and What Can We Do . We recorded the fourth song Where Is Justice for our most recent album, What Are You Waiting For? together.”  You’ll find Marcel’s story as an insert in the Willy Jordan article above.

 Anthony: “Then we did work with Terrie Odabi (similarly, look for an insert above) for about two years. Two times we had recording sessions scheduled and they got cancelled. In 2023 Terrie decided to concentrate her efforts on her own band, and this is when we began working with Willy Jordan."

From L to R: Marjo, Heikki, Anthony, Willy and Pertti

 The pandemic hit hard on the music business. Willy: “I think that many of the festivals have had to restructure. A number of promoters never came back after the pandemic. They were replaced by new people with varied experiences in running music festivals. These new people have brought new ideas and approaches to producing. The new blood has brought about a natural and positive evolution to the festivals."

 Anthony: “There were some venues that never came back after the pandemic. What I heard - in Europe and in the USA to a point – they get grants from governments for funding these festivals, and now a lot of the funding has dried up. A lot of the funding in the US has been cut, resulting in a difficult year for booking. We have many prospects for next year, and I expect we'll be in Europe in 2026.”

https://www.anthonypaule.com

Interviews conducted on August 16 in Rauma; Acknowledgements to Annika & Paul, Anthony & Willy; Tunnu Pärssinen, Eppu Pärssinen and Pertti Nurmi.

© Heikki Suosalo