Joe Price

12+ albums

acoustic bluesdelta bluesbluesChicago BluesClassic Blues

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about

In 1951, this current incarnation of Joe Price arrived in Waterloo, Iowa. Unlike most kids of his generation, Price was never seduced by pop or rock ‘n’ roll music. Although his love for music was virtually immediate, it was country blues that grabbed him early; a bond that has never been broken. It was a chance encounter with the late, great Chicago bluesman Earl Hooker, who the young Price caught in performance at a home town record store, that really sealed the deal. “He was unbelievable, that guy—he really flipped me out,” Price remembers. “He told me to cut the end of a bicycle handlebar off to make a good slide.” Joe’s music became a crazy elastic form of old-school guitar blues that sounds like nothing else. The rhythms bounce and hop like a super-ball on caffeine, and at times, it sounds like two or three guitars at once, but it’s all just Joe slapping and hammering those strings and layering vibrations and tones over each other into this heady cocktail of joyous musical energy. The crazy tunings, the breakneck rhythms and the growling, dancing bass notes work together to weave a unique and utterly un-copyable sound and tone. In 1971 Joe had made the move to Iowa City. It was a fertile time and place for the blues. Located on I-80, Iowa City was a natural stop for national touring artists connecting Chicago, St. Louis and Kansas City. Beginning with the Rocket 88’s (through 1974) and continuing with the legendary Mother Blues (an edgy, three-headed beast featurin