NEW RELEASES: "Crackdown": GA-20's third album

This Boston, Massachusetts, trio are both a throw-back and one of the launch pads for a growing real blues revivalist move­ment. Their third album, Crackdown, has just been released, the original (in every way) follow up to 2019’s debut Lonely Soul, with the brilliant Hound Dog Taylor tribute album, Try It You Might Like It, sandwiched in between.

The band plays with an energy and drive that is reminiscent of the best early new wave bands but also the raw Chicago blues of Hound Dog himself and guys like Magic Slim and JB Hutto. Those guys weren’t making it up, they were the real deal. The other noticeable thing at a GA-20 show is the healthy breadth of audience, young music fans mix shoulder to shoulder with wizened old bluesers.

The band was formed in 2018 by guitarists Pat Faherty and Matt Stubbs. Pat had been a long-time fan of classic blues and early rock ‘n’ roll while Matt had already established himself in the blues community having toured as guitarist for Charlie Musselwhite for a decade, also having played with James Cotton, John Hammond and James Harman amongst others. He had also gained recogni­tion on the Boston scene with his rock band The Antiguas. Early shows included a harp player and original drummer Chris Anzelone before the present line up of two guitars, with Tim Carman on drums, settled in early 2019 - another similarity with Hound Dog Taylor and the Houserockers. As well as be­ing lovers of classic roots music, the guys are aficionados of vintage music gear too, thus the band name, GA-20 being a Gibson Amp manufactured between 1950 and '61.

The band released their first single in December 2018, Naggin’ On My Mind. It included guests Charlie Musselwhite on harp and Luther Dickinson on slide guitar. The sessions in the studio at this time would eventually form the bulk of their debut Lone­ly Soul album, released late 2019 and pro­duced by Matt. Without a huge promotional budget, it peaked at No2 in the Billboard Blues chart. The Hound Dog album came out in the Summer of 2021 in collaboration with Alligator Records celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Hound Dog and Alligator debut album release and GA-20s own label Karma Chief. They recorded Crackdown through the pandemic, but held back because the band badly wanted to be able to tour in support of the release.

So, what's next on the agenda for GA-20? It seems these hard-working bluesmen already have another album almost ready to go, hopefully it will see the light of day in the earlier part of next Spring. This one will be a live recording.