It has been a great year for Canadian bluesman David Gogo.
Gogo, who plays an acoustic show with Suzie Vinnick at the Geomatic Attic, March 5, has received a Juno nomination for his latest CD “Soul Bender,” and has just been nominated for a Canadian Independent Music Award for bluesman of the year.
“It’s kind of odd, my next 10 shows are acoustic shows, while I’ve been getting nominations for the CD which is with my band,” said Gogo from Regina where he just finished a gig with Magic Slim and the Downchild Blues Band.
“It’s great to get all of these accolades now. I’ve released 11 albums so I just want to keep people interested. But it’s very encouraging. After that long I just hope people will continue to be interested,” he said.
“2011 was such a great year from a professional standpoint, I was sad to see it go, but 2012 is starting off great,” he said.
The new CD has a prevalent theme of aging, which wasn’t intentional.
“ I read a lot of reviews of it and a lot of people picked up on that. But that’s just where I was at the time. And that’s what you do in blues music, you sing about what is going on in your life,” he said joking the next CD will be about “imminent death.”
“I’m in Regina now and I’m going to Saskatoon and I still get excited as I was when I was 19 about going to Saskatoon and playing music, and eating some food and meeting some new folks,” he said.
He has had the pleasure of meeting and playing with quite a few famous folks, like renown blues pianist Pinetop Perkins in Austin’s Antones bar.
“I was down there for SouthbySouthwest and he was just sitting there in a chair with all of his CD. I got him to sign mine,” he said.
“I was talking with Donnie Walsh from the Downchild Blues Band last night about how many great bluesmen we lost last year like Pinetop Perkins and Willie Big Eyes Smith and Etta James,” he said.
He still gets excited when talking about his idols.
“As a guitar player, Albert Collins was my number one guy, but I love the Chicago blues guys like Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf. I played a lot of shows with Johnny Winters who produced a lot of his records. So just to sit and chat with him about becoming friends with Muddy was very cool.” He said.
“ And to sit in his Winnebago playing my old 1930 National guitar was very cool,” he said.
Gogo likes the community and camaraderie of blues musicians.
“It’s not as competitive. The first time I ever met big Dave McLean was in Saskatoon and he was playing a show. He came up to me and said ‘I’ve heard a lot about you. Do you want to sit in?’ I’d never met him before, but I was playing with him and he even plugged my show because I was playing Saskatoon too,” he said.
He met Suzie Vinnick in Saskatoon as well and is looking forward to playing a one off show with her at the Geomatic Attic.
“We’ll each do a set, but she e-mailed me and offered to learn one of my songs if there’s an encore. So if there is one, we’ll play together,” he continued.
But don’t expect to hear the new CD in the show.
“The acoustic show and the electric show are two completely different things. I think I can only pull off one of the songs from the new album acoustically. It should be a lot of fun,” he said adding he enjoyed opening for magic Slim and the Downchild Blues band with an acoustic set.
“It was a lot of fun to just sit there with my 1930 National and my 1920 Gibson and entertain 700 people,“ he grinned.
He is looking forward to playing his second show in Lethbridge.
“I’ve only ever played there once before. It was about eight years ago and I was playing at Fort Whoop-Up with Jack Semple and my buddy Tony D doing a back to back thing. I’ve got to get to LA more often and I’m finally going to do it. I’d like to make it a regular occurrence,” he said encouraging people to check out his Facebook page for concert updates and pics and even a link to vote for him as best blues artist of the year for the Canadian Independent Music Awards.
He is still woking with the new CD ‘Soul Bender’ and touring to promote it.
“I haven’t written anything new yet, but my songwriter’s radar is starting to make sounds,” he said.
