The Ghost Town Blues Band is a group of young Memphians that first garnered a lot of attention during the International Blues Challenge a couple of years ago. They’ve had a couple of albums out, and, despite the name, these young men play everything from blues, to soul, to funk and even rock and roll. This year, they decided to record and release their third album Hard Road To Hoe themselves rather than working with a record label, and they decided to hold the album release party at the Rum Boogie Cafe on Beale Street during the International Blues Challenge.
With it being a Thursday, I really hadn’t expected a large crowd, even if the IBC was going on, but in fact the cafe was packed to the rafters, and there was absolutely no place to sit, so I grabbed a standing spot in front of the stage, and soon the Ghost Town Blues Band came marching into the club like a brass band playing “When The Saints Go Marching In.” After that, it was a good mix of rock-n-roll and blues covers, as well as GTBB originals, with the most outstanding song being “Seventeen”, the single from the new album, which is a soulful slab of down-home rock and roll.
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