Blues Traveler is an
American rock band, formed in Princeton, New
Jersey
in 1987. The band has been influenced by a
variety of genres, including
blues-rock,
psychedelic rock,
folk rock,
soul, and
Southern rock. They are known for
extensive use of
segues in their live
performances.
Currently, the group comprises singer and harmonica
virtuoso John Popper,
guitarist
Chan Kinchla, drummer
Brendan Hill, bassist
Tad Kinchla and keyboardist
Ben Wilson.
Tad Kinchla and Ben
Wilson joined the band following the death of original bassist
Bobby Sheehan in 1999 of a drug overdose in New Orleans,
Louisiana
.
While Blues Traveler is best known among fans for their
improvisational live shows, the general public is most familiar
with the group from their singles "But Anyway", "
Run-Around" and "
Hook". They gainedmainstream radio popularity
from their fourth studio album
Four, released in
1994.
Sheehan's death and Popper's struggle with
obesity put a damper on the group's success, and
A&M dropped the band in 2002.
However, the band took this transition period as an opportunity to
start in new directions musically, going largely
independent and releasing on smaller
experimental labels.
Recently, Blues Traveler recorded a "best-of" collection of older
songs reinterpreted with
acoustic
instrumentation called
Cover
Yourself, released October 2007; a new studio album,
North Hollywood
Shootout, was released on the
Verve Forecast label August 26, 2008.
History
Formation
The genesis of Blues Traveler was a
high
school garage band formed in
Princeton, New Jersey in the mid 1980s. Harmonicist, singer and
guitarist John Popper and drummer Brendan Hill formed a group they
called The Establishment (later renamed Blues Band) with Hill's
brother on bass and a rotating roster of guitarists. The band
produced a few
cassette tape
demos. In addition to some original
songs, their repertoire included upbeat
covers of "
Gloria" and "
The Battle Hymn of the
Republic".
The group added guitarist and
football player Chan Kinchla. Although he
was a promising athlete, Kinchla decided to commit to playing music
instead after a knee injury. Popper met bassist Bobby Sheehan and
the two became good friends, with Sheehan becoming the new bass
player for Blues Band in 1987.
The quartet held a basement
jam session
(later christened The Black Cat Jam) which spawned the core
grooves for several songs on their
first album. A
black cat happened to be
nearby, and the group took this as a
sign and
adopted the Black Cat as their
mascot
figure.
The group changed their name to Blues Traveler, taking the latter
part from the name of the primary
demon in the
film
Ghostbusters, Gozer the
Traveler.
Early years
After
graduating Princeton High School
and moving to New York City
, Popper, Hill, and Sheehan enrolled in the music
program at The New School while
Kinchla attended New York University
. Blues Traveler began playing gigs along the
New York-area
club circuit, sometimes
nightly, the most prominent contract was playing Wednesday nights
at a club called
the Wetlands.
The group shared an apartment together, along with Popper's friend,
singer
Chris Barron, and developed a
close relationship with Barron's band,
Spin
Doctors (which formed out of another group Popper and Hill had
founded). The two groups would often share the stage, playing
non-stop concerts of multiple sets.
The group attracted the attention of David Graham, son of the
world-famous concert promoter
Bill Graham, and became one of
Graham's many acts. Blues Traveler then started a relentless
touring schedule, expanding their reach up and down
the east coast.
During this time, Blues Traveler acquired a devout follower, Gina-Z
(subject of the band's song "Gina") who is involved with the
group's business to the present day. At one New York show they were
discovered by an
A&M Records
talent scout,
Patrick Clifford, and
the band signed their first recording contract.
First albums
Blues Traveler released
their
self-titled debut album in 1990, with the song "But Anyway"
getting airplay on college radio stations. The album included
Joan Osborne on backing vocals on two
tracks.
A second album,
Travelers and
Thieves, followed in 1991. Upon Bill Graham's death that
year, they released a live
EP,
On Tour Forever, as a
tribute to Graham, which featured guitar legend
Carlos Santana. The group was becoming
well-known in the new wave of
jam bands
that was developing in the early 1990s.
Around this time, the mainstream national audience was exposed to
Blues Traveler by
television host David Letterman, who has introduced them as
"[his] favorite band". The band has since made more appearances on
The Late
Show than any musical artist. Letterman's band leader
Paul Shaffer has played on a number of
Blues Traveler recordings.
In 1992, the group founded the
H.O.R.D.E.
festival as an alternative to others such as
Lollapalooza, along with other bands such as
Phish and Spin Doctors. Blues Traveler began
recording their third album,
Save His
Soul. Recording was temporarily interrupted by John
Popper's
motorcycle accident, although
the band resumed touring shortly thereafter with Popper in a
wheelchair. Two singles were released
from the album, "Defense & Desire" and "Conquer Me", which
reached #34 on the
Mainstream
Rock Tracks chart.
Mainstream breakthrough
The band's fourth album, titled
Four, was released in late
1994. The upbeat pop single "
Run-Around"
became a smash hit and was followed by the catchy "
Hook". "Run-Around" won a
Grammy Award and broke a record for most weeks
on the chart.
Blues Traveler appeared at
Woodstock
'94 and later became an opening act for
The Rolling Stones.
The band played on the 1995 season premiere of
Saturday Night Live as a
last-minute replacement for
Prince. They were featured in an episode
of the sitcom
Roseanne, and later recorded the
show's
theme song for its final season.
The 1996 comedy film
Kingpin
featured the group playing their song "But Anyway" during the
closing credits. The song then became the band's third
top 40 hit, peaking at #12.
The group recorded the
Johnny Rivers
song "
Secret Agent Man" for
the film
Ace Ventura:
When Nature Calls and the
Bob
Seger song "Get Out of Denver" for the film
Things to Do in Denver
When You're Dead, as well as
Fats
Domino's "I'm Walkin'" for
Rebel
Highway: Cool and the
Crazy. Several previously-recorded Blues Traveler songs
were included on film soundtracks, including
The Last Seduction,
Speed,
Very
Bad Things,
White
Man's Burden, and
The Truth About Cats &
Dogs. The band also appeared in the 1998 film
Blues Brothers 2000 and on its
soundtrack, playing "Maybe I'm Wrong".
Blues Traveler recorded the
Sly & the Family Stone song
"
I Want to Take You
Higher" for the
NORML
compilation album Hempilation and the
John Lennon song "
Imagine" for the Lennon
tribute album Working Class
Hero. The original song "Christmas" was included on the
benefit album
A Very
Special Christmas 3.
The double live album,
Live from
the Fall, was released in 1996. It featured recordings
from the band's autumn 1995 concerts and showcased the strength of
the band's live performances.
The next studio album,
Straight On till Morning, was
released in 1997. It achieved
platinum status, reaching number 11 on
the
Billboard 200 albums chart, but
did not perform as well as
Four. The single "Carolina
Blues" peaked at number four on the Mainstream Rock Tracks.
The band made an appearance performing in the 1999
independent film Wildflowers.
By the end of 1998, the band had prepared a
concept album called
The Sun, The Storm
and The Traveler, based on
Aesop's
fable of
The North
Wind and the Sun, and they planned to record it after a
recess in the fall of 1999.
That summer, John Popper had emergency
heart surgery due to artery blockage, forcing the band to cancel their
annual July
4th Red
Rocks
shows at the last minute.
During the hiatus, Popper released a solo album with a backing band
consisting of
Dave Matthews Band
drummer
Carter Beauford and members
of the group Cycomotogoat.
Sheehan's death and new lineup
On
August 20 1999, Bobby
Sheehan was found dead in his New Orleans, Louisiana home, where he had been recording music with some
friends the night before. Sheehan's death was ruled an
accidental
drug overdose, with
cocaine,
diazepam,
and
heroin found in his system.
The remaining members of Blues Traveler convened and agreed that
Sheehan would have wanted them to continue as a band. Auditions for
a new bassist were held in concert, and included Chan Kinchla's
younger brother Tad, who was unanimously determined to be the best
choice for the role. Additionally, an open call was sent for a
permanent keyboard player, a role of which Sheehan had often been a
proponent. Ben Wilson of the band Big Dave and the Ultrasonics was
chosen, and has since become a central contributor to the band's
songwriting.
The band discarded their concept album material, instead releasing
a smaller online EP,
Decisions
of the Sky: A Traveler's Tale of Sun and Storm, and went
to work collectively composing a new set of songs with the new
lineup. The resulting album was
Bridge, which had the working title
Bridge Outta Brooklyn as a tribute to Sheehan (with both
the acronym B.O.B. and his nickname "Brooklyn Bobby"). The songs
"Girl Inside My Head" and "Just for Me" received airplay, but the
album's sales fell somewhat short of expectations.
The live album
What You and I Have Been Through and the
compilation
Travelogue: Blues Traveler
Classics were both released in 2002.
Recent years
Blues Traveler were one of dozens of artists who were jettisoned as
part of
A&M's
corporate restructuring. The band signed with
Sanctuary Records for their next album,
Truth Be
Told, which only reached number 147 on The Top 200
chart.
The band's 2003 Independence Day concerts at Red Rocks Amphitheatre
were released on the CD
Live on
the Rocks and the DVD
Thinnest of Air.
The band left Sanctuary for
Vanguard
Records and released
¡Bastardos!, which was produced by
Wilco's
Jay Bennett
and was touted as the band's return to music that they wanted to
play. The album charted at 49 on the
Top Independent
Albums, and
a live EP of
songs from the album was released to independent record
stores.
On
September 19,
2005, Blues Traveler played their cover of
Beetlejuice's song "
This is Beetle" on the
Howard Stern radio show.
In April 2006, the band headlined the first annual "OH-Fest"
concert in Oneonta, New York.
Blues Traveler have been featured on
VH1's
Behind the Music,
A&E's
Private Sessions[25381], and
Austin City Limits. The group
recorded the title track to the
Sandra
Boynton children's album
Dog Train, which was also
used as the promotional music for the
American Kennel Club's
National Championship event. The
band's music has been used in video games (
NASCAR 2000) and commercials (
Busch Beer). The songs "Business as Usual" and
"Money Back Guarantee" are used as transitional music on the
public radio finance program
Marketplace and its sister
show
Marketplace Money.
The group recorded "Rag Mama Rag" for the 2007 tribute album
Endless
Highway: The Music of The Band.
Blues Traveler's latest album was
Cover Yourself, a "best-of" album of
previously-released songs re-recorded and reinterpreted with
acoustic instrumentation. It was released October 30, 2007 through
Columbia/Red Ink Records.
Blues Traveler
appeared at the
2008
Lollapalooza festival. At their
June 2008 shows, the band debuted new songs off their new album
North Hollywood
Shootout. The album, which features a guest appearance by
Bruce Willis, released in August
2008.
Concert recordings
Blues Traveler allows and encourages fans to record and trade live
performances, provided that no money changes hands and no profit is
made.
The band has also given permission for live fan-made recordings to
be hosted on the
Live Music Archive. Recordings available there span
from 1986 through the present day.
Concerts can also be found at
eTree.org.
On their current tour, Blues Traveler sells recordings of that very
night's performance. Fans can pre-purchase a copy of the show until
30 minutes into the performance and then pick up the CD after the
show.
Discography
Studio albums
Live albums
Miscellaneous
Singles
| Year |
Song |
Chart peaks |
Album |
| US |
Main. Rock |
Mod. Rock |
US
AC |
| 1993 |
"Conquer Me " |
— |
34 |
— |
— |
Save His Soul |
| 1995 |
"Run-Around" |
8 |
13 |
14 |
4 |
Four |
| "Hook" |
23 |
15 |
13 |
28 |
| 1996 |
"But Anyway" |
— |
19 |
17 |
— |
Blues Traveler |
| 1997 |
"Carolina Blues" |
— |
4 |
30 |
— |
Straight On till Morning |
| "Most Precarious" |
— |
27 |
25 |
— |
|
External links
Notes
- BluesTraveler.net - News Archive
- Blues Traveler's recording policy
's live music archive
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