Biography

Blues Radio Contact: Kevin Johnson
promo@delmark.com

Click Here for more Delmark Releases!


Rockwell Avenue Blues Band
Back To Chicago
Delmark DE 854

Featuring Tad Robinson, Steve Freund, & Ken Saydak

Despite the successes each member of the Rockwell Avenue Blues Band has achieved over long parallel careers, there was some unfinished business to attend to. Longtime bonds, which sometimes elude conscious recognition, drew them to Delmark's Riverside Studio on Chicago's North Rockwell Avenue in October of 2017. It was a joyous musical and artistic reunion. They had all recorded for Delmark over the past decades. Now it was time to join together again, as equals who had shared a lifestyle and craft, each in his own way, each with his own voice. So they took a week away from their routines to share a brief moment, frozen in time on Back To Chicago. Notes by Ken Saydak enclosed.


1. Blues For Hard Times 4:34
2. Boogie In The Rain 5:07
3. That Face 4:07
4. Free To Love Again 4:02
5. Lonesome Flight 6:19
6. Chariot Gate 3:03
7. We Believe 4:52
8. Stanger Blues 4:40
9. For A Reason 4:53
10. Rich Man 3:56
11. Hey Big Bill 3:36
12. Love Police 6:02
13. Back To Chicago 4:22
14. Have You Ever Told Yourself A Lie 5:33
15. Dream 4:07

Tad Robinson, vocals (1,4,7,10,13), background vocals, harp
Steve Freund, vocals (2,5,8,11,14), guitar
Ken Saydak, vocals (3,6,9,12,15), piano, organ, Rhodes
Harlan Terson, bass
Marty Binder, drums

Tad Robinson appears courtesy of Severn Records

CP 2018 Delmark Records



1. Blues For Hard Times 4:34
(Tad Andrew Robinson, DE Music, BMI/Robinworks Music, BMI)
2. Boogie In The Rain 5:07
(Steve Freund, Fishing Boy Music, BMI)
3. That Face 4:07 (Ken Saydak, Margan Music, BMI)
4. Free To Love Again 4:02 (Ken Saydak, Margan Music, BMI)
5. Lonesome Flight 6:19
(Steve Freund, Fishing Boy Music, BMI)
6. Chariot Gate 3:03 (Ken Saydak, Margan Music, BMI)
7. We Believe 4:52 (Mary-Ann Brandon, Nash Metro Music, BMI/Fred James, Fred James Music, BMI/Ken Saydak, Margan Music, BMI)
8. Stanger Blues 4:40 (Bobby Robinson-Elmore James-Clarence Lewis, Longitude Music Co., BMI)
9. For A Reason 4:53 (Ken Saydak, Margan Music, BMI)
10. Rich Man 3:56
(Tad Andrew Robinson, DE Music, BMI/Robinworks Music, BMI)
11. Hey Big Bill 3:36
(Steve Freund, Fishing Boy Music, BMI)
12. Love Police 6:02
(Harlan Lee Terson, Blues Person Publishing, BMI)
13. Back To Chicago 4:22 (Harlan Lee Terson, Blues Person Publishing, BMI/Ken Saydak, Margan Music, BMI/Tad Andrew Robinson, Robinworks Music, BMI)
14. Have You Ever Told Yourself A Lie 5:33
(Steve Freund, Fishing Boy Music, BMI)
15. Dream 4:07 (Ken Saydak, Margan Music, BMI)

Album Production and Supervision: Robert G. Koester
Produced by Richard Shurman
Recorded at Riverside Studio, Chicago on October 25-27, 2017 by Steve Wagner

Additional recording at Dying Wasp Recording, Navajo Ranch, Colorado, and Crumbly Studio, Colorado Springs, Colorado; Ken Wilson, engineer
Mixed by Steve Wagner, confounded by Richard Shurman
Photography by Howard Greenblatt
Design by Dave Forte, ForDzign


It was Ken Saydak who was most responsible for the making of Back To Chicago. It was his concept to bring these players together in his native Chicago for a bit of a reunion. Ken has enjoyed a more than 40-year career as a musician, writer, vocalist and producer. He currently hosts a two-hour weekly blues radio program, The Trinidaddio Blues Hours at KCRT-FM, a commercial station near his home in southern Colorado.

Ken is the pianist, organist and accordionist on over sixty albums. His first two solo efforts are on Delmark, 1999’s Foolish Man (Delmark 725) and 2001’s Love Without Trust (Delmark 751). Prior to that Ken was one of the founding members of the band Big Shoulders and was sideman to countless hard-core Chicago blues artists most notably Johnny Winter (he recorded on four albums with Johnny), Lonnie Brooks and Mighty Joe Young. Ken recorded as sideman for Delmark artists Lurrie Bell, Karen Carroll, Dave Specter, Tad Robinson, Zora Young, Jesse Fortune, Johnny B. Moore, Bonnie Lee, James Wheeler, Willie Kent and others.

Young kid goes to a blues concert, falls in love with the music, meets the artist who invites them to visit them in Chicago, said kid decides to leave home town to move to Chicago to be a blues musician. It’s not an unusual story. It’s happened to at least a couple dozen active musicians on Chicago’s blues scene and that’s exactly how Steve Freund came to leave New York in June, 1976 and land in Chicago. It was Sunnyland Slim who made the invite and Steve ended up in Sunnyland’s band for 18 years!

Guitarist, producer and bandleader Steve Freund was praised by Rolling Stone magazine for his “masterful, no-nonsense guitar work”. Steve won a Grammy for his appearance on Koko Taylor’s Blues Explosion album. Steve’s Delmark albums include “C” For Chicago (Delmark 734), I’ll Be Your Mule (Delmark 752) and a co-led album with Dave Specter, Is What It Is (Delmark 779). Steve also appears on over 50 albums as a sideman including Bonnie Lee’s Sweetheart of the Blues (Delmark 676) and Barkin’ Bill’s Gotcha! (Delmark 672). Steve re-located to the San Francisco bay area in the 1990s and continues to be active on the blues scene there.

Tad Robinson is another native of New York who ended up in Chicago drawn in by the blues. Tad left Manhattan in 1980 to attend the Indiana University School of Music and eventually settled in Chicago. In the mid to late 80s Tad hosted the pro jam night at the then new Rosa’s Lounge and he made a lot of professional connections there. Later, as a member of Big Shoulders he appeared on their self-titled 1989 album. Tad hooked up with Dave Specter in the early 90s and made his Delmark debut on Specter’s 1994 release Blueplicity (Delmark 664). In the same year Tad released his debut album as leader One To Infinity (Delmark 673) later followed up by Last Go Round (Delmark 722) before moving on to Severn Records where he has enjoyed a string of successful albums and has been nominated for Blues Music Awards.

Harlan Terson - The Blues Person, as he’s fondly called around town, is a Chicago native who also became active on the Chicago blues scene in the 70s. He started in the Lonnie Brooks Band and worked with Ken Saydak who later joined. Harlan has worked with Otis Rush, Jimmy Rogers, John Littlejohn and countless blues legends and is on dozens of Delmark albums including releases by Saydak, Freund and Robinson.

Marty Binder went to see Junior Wells and Buddy Guy in 1980 at the Checkerboard Lounge. He even sat in at the drums that night and shared his contact info. Short time later he gets a call to tour with Junior and Buddy and so at the age of 21 Marty was on the road with some real blues giants. He ended up working with Junior through the 1980s and moved over to the Buddy Guy band in 1990. With Buddy he performed on The Tonight Show and played with Eric Clapton. He moved on to work with Albert Collins, Coco Montoya and Deborah Coleman before hooking up with the Rockwell Avenue guys.

All these guys have worked together in so many different units it’s impossible to take the time to list all of them. But it’s wonderful that they took the time to reunite to create this exciting album that brings it all back home.



Back To Chicago. A fitting title for an album from veterans of the world of Chicago Blues. But in this case, not just a clever name designed to trigger the image of a legitimate blues pedigree, but a literal journey to their onetime shared hometown to confirm their art, their friendship, and their love of this extraordinary musical world from whence they all had come. Tad Robinson, Steve Freund, Ken Saydak, Harlan Terson, and Marty Binder: this band had been floating in the air for decades, all of the members having performed and recorded with each other since the 1970s, at various times, in various bands, with various blues stars. The names which linked them during that span are many, and now form the early part of the legacy of their lifelong work. Sunnyland Slim. Big Walter Horton. Lonnie Brooks. Otis Rush. Mighty Joe Young. Albert Collins. Buddy Guy. Junior Wells. Koko Taylor. Johnny Winter. Mark Hannon. That's the short list. And I'm not talking about “shared the stage with”, I'm talking about having recorded, toured, lived, and worked with a plethora of blues originators, stylists, and artists. Great school to have studied in, and these guys are all graduates. With honors.
They met in the Windy City, some born there, others drawn to the blues mecca that was Chicago back in those days. Although the music didn't arise from their personal ethnic cultures, it was American and they were Americans, and their sensibilities were wide open. They were ready to embrace anything which eschewed the bland mainstream culture of their origins. Rock 'n' Roll had invited African American culture into America's largely white living room, and these guys greeted it with open arms at the front door. And they respected it, respected the artists who created it, and were eager, willing students at the feet of their mentors. But their sources were also broader, having heard the big band music of their fathers' generation, having absorbed the cultural impact of Elvis, The Beatles, Motown, Memphis, and all of the popular forms that had emerged from the very simple, honest folk art that is the blues. They had started their teenage quests in Rock 'n' Roll cover bands, served their apprenticeships in the blues clubs of Chicago, evolved into professional groups like The Fabulous Fishheads and Big Shoulders, and gone on to continue their own careers, standing on stages with many bands, in some cases bands bearing their own names. As they grew older, adjusted priorities, chose partners, had families, and drifted into their lives beyond their youthful passions, they still remained somehow linked by their shared experience and the fact that they were all grounded in a commitment to the excellence that had first lured them toward an art form which they loved.
Time gives us the gift of perspective; it's unavoidable, part of the contour of human life. Despite the successes each of these artists had achieved over long parallel careers, there was some unfinished business to attend to. Aging, illness and the resultant acceptance of the fragility of our presence here on earth caused these men to consider what they had already done and what they had yet to do. Bonds, which sometimes elude conscious recognition, drew them to Delmark's Riverside Studio on Chicago's North Rockwell Avenue in October of 2017. It was a joyous musical and artistic reunion. They had all recorded for Delmark as sidemen and some as featured artists over the past decades. Now it was time to join together again, as equals who had shared a lifestyle and craft, each in his own way, each with his own voice. So they took a week away from their routines to share a brief moment, frozen in time on this Back To Chicago release. The effort was seamless. Steve Wagner at the board and Dick Shurman in the producer's chair were naturals in their roles here as part of this family reunion. The sessions were sprinkled with heartfelt original tunes, brilliant moments of performance, almost endless laughter, and some great order-out lunches. All of the stridency and insecurity of the youthful musician persona had been replaced by the wisdom and gratitude that life grants in due time. There was nothing to prove here, no one to best, no roadblock too large to remove, no pressure to define their work or their art. Love, camaraderie, and mutual consideration flooded the studio and bathed the project with the most powerful artistic potion that exists: authenticity. They came back to Chicago as friends and compatriots and emerged as The Rockwell Avenue Blues Band, the project highest on their blues bucket list, one founded on respect and love for each other and their music.

We all hope you enjoy hearing this music as much as we enjoyed creating it and sharing it with both the initiated and the newcomers to our collective brotherhood.

- Ken Saydak

http://www.tadrobinson.com/
http://www.stevefreund.com/
http://www.kensaydak.com/
http://www.harlanterson.com/

Tad Robinson plays Hohner Harmonicas exclusively and would like to thank Amy Robinson, Phil & Ingrid Berman. Steve Freund endorses Seymour Duncan, Eminence Speakers and GHS Strings. Steve would like to thank his wife Jan Fanucchi and remember Clark Dean, David Maxwell, Bobby Wolf, and Barrelhouse Chuck. Ken Saydak “would like to thank my lucky stars, my loving friends and family, my diligent doctors, and the incomparable Keli Kringel for my ongoing ability to stand among the breathing." Harlan Terson ensorses GHS Strings and would like to thank Kristin Huysken and remember Sophie and Al Terson. There are many wonderful musicians and personalities who have crossed our collective paths over the decades, but one in particular is well missed and was remembered frequently and fondly during the sessions, so this music is dedicated to the memory of Mark Hannon, The Blues Cannon.



www.delmark.com
CP 2018 Delmark Records

Other Delmark albums of interest:
Tad Robinson, One To Infinity (673) with Ken Saydak, Robert Ward
Last Go Round (722)
Ken Saydak, Foolish Man (725): Love Without Trust (751)
Steve Freund, “C” For Chicago (734) with Boz Scaggs, Kim Wilson
I’ll Be Your Mule (752)
Dave Specter & Steve Freund, Is What It Is (779)
Dave Specter, Blueplicity (664) with Tad Robinson
Live In Europe (677) with Tad Robinson
Karen Carroll, Had My Fun (680) with Ken Saydak
Barkin’ Bill, Gotcha! (672) with Tad Robinson
Junior Wells, Hoodoo Man Blues (612) with Buddy Guy