Working Overtime [CD]

ONCE OR TWICE IN A GENERATION, it seems, a ferociously good slide player emerges. During the Roaring Twenties and Great Depression, Blind Willie Johnson, Tampa Red and Robert Johnson recorded unsurpassed bottleneck blues. After the war, Muddy Waters, Elmore James and Earl Hooker electrified listeners with amped-out blues. Following in their huge footsteps, roots-reverent innovators such as Duane Allman, Johnny Winter, Lowell George, and Ry Cooder conjured bottleneck magic in blues-rock arenas, each player adding his own distinctive stamp. Dave Hole, the mind-boggling slider from Down Under, belongs in such company.

He's never done hard-time in the hardscrabble American South or learned first-hand from a Delta bluesman, yet Dave Hole captures an utterly blues-approved sound. He specializes in original songs that mine deep urban veins, but has no trouble heating up difficult covers. (His concert high points include a shredding Purple Haze on slide and -- far more difficult -- a harrowing Dark Was The Night (Cold Was The Ground) that's precise without losing the raw feeling.)

While many bottleneck players base their styles on a few patented patterns, Dave sprays a steely fire all over the strings, navigating stratospheric leaps with the greatest of ease. A southpaw who holds the guitar like a right-hander, he defies traditional technique by playing overhand with his slide on his left hand index finger. In another unorthodox technique, he flatpicks slide and uses a fingers-only approach for his standard playing, which recalls Stevie Ray Vaughan and a pair of Kings.

Dave's magnificent debut, Short Fuse Blues, caught the attentionof blues and slide lovers around the globe. Working Overtime delivers more of the same righteous truth.

-- Jas Obrecht
Guitar Player Magazine

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MANY THANKS TO:  Janet Hole, Bruce Iglauer and all at Alligator Records, Jas Obrecht, Gary Moore, Terry Atterton, Bob and Shirley McKinnon, Les Hinton and Russell Symes, Rik Van Der Velde, Mark Whitehouse, Les Williams, Yoshito Hatano, Rob Formentin of Formentin Guitars, Chris Brady of Brady Drums, Rock Inn, Rock Force, Bill Eeg and all at Festival Records, Cliff Blackburn, Yamaha Australia, Zildjian Cymbals

ESPECIALLY FOR:
Joyce and Arnold Hole
Ada Rogers
Liley and Fred Lee
Susan, Ric, Nathan and Trudy Polhill
Trish, Claire and Erin O'Neil