Erwin Helfer - Erwin Helfer Way - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

In early March 2020, The Sirens Records gathered some of Erwin Helfer's closest friends and musical collaborators to record a jam session. Through the years, the band members, John Brumbach, Davide Ilardi, Lou Marini, and Skinny Williams, developed and honed a magical musical comraderies with Erwin. All of them, accomplished musicians in their own right, shine even brighter when working with Erwin. They groove, they swing, and they show their love and admiration for this piano master. On this disc, Erwin will charm you with his distinctive blues and jazz piano style creative, crafty, dexterous, and fun. This recording celebrates Erwin's lifetime achievements in Chicago boogie-woogie and blues piano as well as his upcoming 85th birthday in January 2021. This session captures the good time party atmosphere and, as you listen, you share in the celebration. - Steven B. Dolins

Heavy Chevy's emotional, blues-genre-spanning album of new songs delivers some Motown-funk meets Mississippi Hillstomp bleeding into soul-searing torch-tune house-rockers with a voice like Etta James channeling Adele and Aretha Franklin, backed by the guitar-licking sounds of Albert 'Stevie Ray Vaighan - Hound Dog Taylor - Keith Richards' Collins and an overwhelming saxophone presence that stabs your heart, sweeps you up and carries you off with a horn that sobs harrowing tears of joyful despair.

Erwin Helfer follows up his 2003 W.C. Handy nominated solo recording I'm Not Hungry But I Like To Eat - Blues! With a trio on Careless Love, a diverse collection of blues, boogie, and jazz piano. Helfer has been an integral part of blues piano history for the past fifty years, and he is the last living link to the Yancey's legacy of Chicago blues and boogie piano. On this disc Erwin plays Mama Yancey's signature piece 'Make Me A Pallet On The Floor'; an original composition 'Paris But I Don't Know Why' which sounds like a classical etude, but also has a spunky barrelhouse flavor; jazz standards like 'Sunny Side of the Street' and 'All of Me' which jump off the keys; and the calypso-tinged 'Jambalaya'. Erwin has been an integral part of blues piano history for the past fifty years. As a teenager, he broke racial barriers, socializing and playing with Billie and DeDe Pierce, leaders of the first Dixieland jazz band at Preservation Hall in New Orleans. He 'rediscovered' Cripple Clarence Lofton (famous for recording 'The Fives'), and brought his music to the attention of others. In 1956, he made the only recordings of house rent party pianist Doug Suggs and also recorded Speckled Red, Billie Pierce, and James Robinson (on the LP entitled Primitive Piano for his Tone Records and subsequently reissued by The Sirens Records SR-5005). In the 1970's and 1980's Erwin toured and played with Chicago blues musicians, such as drummer S.P. Leary (who recorded with blues pioneers on Chess Records), and the great vocalist Estelle 'Mama' Yancey (wife of the 'Father of Chicago Blues Piano' Jimmy 'Papa' Yancey). Erwin Helfer has four other recordings on The Sirens Records I'm Not Hungry - But I Like To Eat Blues! (5001), St. James Infirmary with Skinny Williams (5006), Heavy Timbre - Chicago Boogie Piano with Sunnyland Slim, Blind John Davis, Willie Mabon, and Jimmy Walker (5002), and 8