Thanks to Covid, Greg Gomola recorded “Solstice” the third Zojo Black CD remotely.
He had a CD release party for it in November, but the CD’s hadn’t arrived.
So he is is excited to return to Lethbridge for New Year’s Eve at the Slice, and this time with the CD.
“Paul Kype produced it. I helped a little, but it was mostly Paul,” said Gomola, who used to play with Paul Kype and Texas Flood for 10 years before moving to B.C, where he now lives in Bull River east of Fernie to work at the hatchery. He recruited most of the band members to be part of “Solstice.”
Kype plays guitar and bass on the CD.
Mike Wedge, who has played with a prominent crew of Canadian blues musicians, including Kenny Blues Boss, Wayne, James Buddy Rogers and the Slidin’ Clyde Roulette band, plays bass on five tracks.
Brady and Brad Valgardson and Brad Brouwer play most of the drums and percussion , though Chilliwack”s Jerry Adolphe, who is also on Paul Kype’s latest CD, plays drums on “Eleanor Rigby” and “Black Marlin Blues.”
TJ Waltho plays keyboards on most tracks except for Jim Good, who plays keyboards on “I’m Going Home.” Steve Keenan adds fiddle to one track. Gomola’s girlfriend Kelsey Reichert sings background vocals on several tracks.“ I’ve got musicians from all over Canada on this CD,” Gomola said.
“I wrote 20 songs for the CD and sent them to Paul. He picked the ones on the CD,” he said, adding most of them are new songs and all original except for a countrified cover of the Beatles‘ “Eleanor Rigby.”
“Most of the songs were written over the past year. I started recording about a year ago. I wrote all of the songs, except Eleanor Rigby, which was written by Paul McCartney,” he said, noting “Solstice” isn’t available on streaming platforms yet, just CDs.
“ You can order the CDs online. I’m still stuck in the ’90s,” he said.
“It was a difficult process, because of Covid. I sent them to Paul and let him pick the ones for the album,” he said.
“ But I only did one or two takes for most of the songs,” he said.
His favourite song is “In the End.”
”I wrote it about my buddy who passed away. It}s about looking back at life, about where we’re going as people,” he said.
He explores several different musical styles. Most of the CD is country influenced, there are a lot of bluesy solos as expected and he tries reggae on “Port Louis Blues.”
“Port Louis is on Haida grounds off the coast of B.C. It’s a six hour boat ride to get there.”
He hasn’t been playing a lot live lately because of Covid, so didn’t get a chance to road test most of the the songs before recording them.
“ I played a couple of times on Vancouver Island with a Beatles tribute band,” he said, adding he is looking forward to returning to Lethbridge to play the Slice.
“I’m always excited to be coming back to play the Slice,” he said.
He expects there will be $10 cover for the show, which is expected to start early due to new Covid guidelines. Southern Comfort aka Jenn and Paul Kype are opening the show.
— by Richard Amery, L.A. Beat Editor
