Tab Benoit
In 1992 Benoit released his first recording Nice and Warm on the Justice Label. The title track became a AAA Radio hit and Benoit’s touring career kicked into high gear. Nice and Warm prompted comparisons to blues guitar heavyweights like Albert King, Albert Collins and even Jimi Hendrix. Tab began playing two-hundred and fifty shows a year, a schedule he has kept up for over twenty years. He recorded four albums for Justice Records before being signed to the Vanguard label, and became Louisiana’s Number One Blues export. Vanguard allowed Tab to produce his own recordings; Tab wanted to record the sound that he was trying to create and in 1999 Vanguard Records released These Blues Are All Mine.
Tab Benoit’s music evolved again after he signed with the Telarc International/Concord Music Group in 2002. He began to strip it down to a three-piece group, where he found more freedom as a guitarist. He was also on a mission in wanting to use his music and his energy to bring attention to Louisiana’s coastal erosion issues. Tab began to spend more time in the Wetlands and it was where he began to write his songs. Wetlands was the title of his first Telac/Concord International release. The record combined many musical styles that are indigenous to Louisiana, while he began to play accordion lines and washboard on guitar. Wetlands was a mile marker that definitively marked Tab’s further musical progression into his own original sound and style.
Following the release of Wetlands in 2004 Benoit founded the Voice of the Wetlands non-profit organization and began to use music and gather other musicians to use their platforms for getting the message out. He put together an all-star band that featured Cyril Neville, Anders Osborne, George Porter Jr, Big Chief Monk Boudreaux, Johnny Vidacovich, Johnny Sansone, and Waylon Thibodeaux that became The Voice of the Wetlands All-Stars. The Voice of the Wetlands All-Stars have released two CDs and occasionally tour throughout the country.
Benoit recently launched his own imprint, Whiskey Bayou Records, with partner and manager, Rueben Williams. The label has thus far released albums by such established artists as Eric McFadden, Damon Fowler, Eric Johanson, Jeff McCarty, and Dash Rip Rock. In 2019 Benoit hits the road for a major U.S. Tour, the Whiskey Bayou Revue, featuring Benoit and several of his label’s artists.
Since 2018, GA-20 has been at the forefront of a traditional Blues revival. The dynamic throwback trio have long been disciples of the place where traditional Blues, Country and Rock ‘n’ Roll intersect. “We make records that we would want to listen to,” says guitarist Matthew Stubbs. “It’s our take on the song-based traditional electric Blues we love.” Stubbs, along with guitarist & vocalist Cody Nilsen and drummer Josh Kiggans, strives to bring traditional Blues to the front lines of the modern roots music scene. “The focus for us has always been on the story, the melody, and on creating a mood,” Stubbs continues. “Playing live as much as we do, we’re finding more and more that people are discovering how cool it all is. Traditional Country and Soul have had these massive recent revivals. We want to be part of doing that for traditional Blues music.”
GA-20 has drawn inspiration for their old-school sounds from the music they love from artists such as Otis Rush, J.B. Lenoir, Howlin’ Wolf, Junior Wells, Hound Dog Taylor, Earl Hooker, Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson and so many others. Performing with what feels like reckless abandon, GA-20 brings a timeless immediacy to every song they play with a sound that continues to grow and evolve. The band uses vintage instruments and amps to produce their authentic sound, and favours traditional recording techniques, like recording live off the floor, together in one room, to help recreate that energy and sonic connection.
In their short history, GA-20 have been 3x #1 Billboard Blues chart toppers, 4x Boston Music Award winners for Best Blues Act, and have received multiple wins and nominations at the Blues Music Awards, Blues Blast Awards, New England Blues Awards, and have ascended streaming and radio charts at home and internationally. Medium.com has appropriately declared, “This is the kind of music that travels through time while taking from the era where it was born and turning it into something fresh. Dirty and raw…timeless and modern.”
Now, the chart-topping power trio forges ahead into the last days of 2024 and into 2025 with Cryin’ & Pleadin’, the first single from their upcoming EP, VOLUME 2, and with a renewed commitment to their mission. Recorded at Rare Signals studio in Cambridge MA, and produced by Stubbs, the highly-anticipated EP showcases the best of GA-20’s Blues chops and gutsy approach.
VOLUME 2 is a natural continuation of their most recent release, the full-length live LP, Live In Loveland, which debuted at #2 on the Billboard Blues chart. Live In Loveland highlights a mix of band originals and vintage covers, from early electric Blues and honky-tonk Country to proto Rock ‘n’ Roll. The album was recorded direct-to-tape at Plaid Room Records in Loveland, Ohio, home of the famous Colemine Records, and was nominated for a 2023 Blues Blast Award.
2022’s Crackdown, which landed at #1 on the Billboard Blues Chart & #1 on ITunes Blues Chart, found the band expanding their Blues songwriting to include greater Country and Rock n Roll influences. They were rewarded with features on the covers of both Guitar Player & Vintage Guitar Magazine. Rolling Stone coined the album “100% Blues….A pure marvel and delight.”
With GA-20’s sophomore 2021 album, Try It…You Might Like It! GA-20 Does Hound Dog Taylor, the band resurrected and reinvented the raw and dirty blues music of the late six-fingered slide guitar Chicago blues legend, Hound Dog Taylor. Released in partnership between Colemine Records and iconic blues label Alligator Records, the album debuted at #1 on the Billboard Blues Chart as well as #1 radio charting in the UK and Australia, and it was nominated for a 2022 Blues Music Award. Songs from the record received airplay on over 350 radio stations worldwide. Critics from home and abroad heralded the coming of a new wave of blues for the next generation of blues fans.
The namesake EP, LIVE: VOLUME 1, was the first taste of the band’s live sound for those not lucky enough to experience their live performance. Released in late 2020, the searing collection debuted at #1 on the Billboard Blues chart.
LIVE: VOLUME 1 was close on the heels of GA-20’s landmark debut album Lonely Soul, the 2019 Billboard #2 charting introduction that caught everyone’s attention, including acclaimed Soul/R&B label Colemine Records, and signalled a movement to watch.
GA-20 is the musical brainchild of Matthew Stubbs, a 16-year veteran of legendary blues master Charlie Musselwhite’s touring band. Matt elevated his early love of Blues music with the hard-won experience and tutelage of Musselwhite and a host of Blues icons, including James Cotton and John Hammond. He formed the band in Boston in early 2018 and quickly drew a devoted following. With the help of their subsequent relentless tour schedule, GA-20 have thrilled both Blues lovers and many fans who had never heard traditional Blues. “We’re proud to bring this sound to a new audience,” says Stubbs. “When people hear it, they get what we’re doing and they’re into it. It’s very important to us to make a personal connection,” he continues. “Blues is meant to be played live. It’s about telling stories. We love making records but performing live is even more important to us.” Accompanying Stubbs in this pursuit are the vocal and guitar powerhouse, Cody Nilsen, and drummer Joshua Kiggans. Both Cody and Josh have acclaimed histories in Boston as sought after session players and sidemen, with dynamic range both instrumentally and vocally. Their extensive backgrounds in traditional American music, including Blues, Country and Rock n Roll, bring a palpable dimension to GA-20’s already exhilarating approach to traditional Blues.
Since its inception the accolades continue to roll in for GA-20. American Songwriter says the band plays “rough and tumble, relentless blues” with “maximum intensity rocking.” UK tastemaker magazine MOJO says GA-20 makes “a joyful noise,” and the Guardian UK writes, “If you care to know how a rowdy 1950s Chicago juke joint sounded, GA-20 are here to help. They keep things simple and fierce…scything, growling riffs, driving grooves, blistering boogies and defiant vocals”. Now heading into 2025 and beyond, the band looks forward to retaining their reputation as one of the hardest working bands on the scene, with a slew of new songwriting and inspired releases, and a relentless tour schedule.