Australian blues guitarist Ash Grunwald has returned with a grand project titled Mojo (out 8/31) that has been almost five years in the making. First of all, Grunwald is a blues musician (and daily surfer known and active in the worldwide surf community) and has a new book (Surf by Day, Jam By Night) and he’s been nominated for five Australian “Grammys” (ARIA Awards).
Mojo was recorded in 2015 but the producer went through some major health problems and for whatever reason, it took Grunwald until the last year to finally get the tapes back. Highly acclaimed guests on the album include The Teskey Brothers, Joe Bonamassa, land legendary bluesmen Terry Evans and Eddy Clearwater both contributed to the record before their unfortunate passings. Barry Goldberg is on keys (played keys for Dylan at Newport, Steve Miller Band). Reggie McBride is on Bass (Recorded with Stevie Wonder, played with B.B. King, Rod Stewart, Elton John, Van Morrison). Alvino Bennet is on Drums (played drums for Willie Dixon and more recently Slash).
The discovery of the tapes in 2018 paired ever so perfectly with Grunwald’s growth mindset at the time. 2018 was a year of massive personal change for the guitarist, as he quit a career-long drinking habit, along with trying to get into a lot of positive psychology, which resulted in a return to the studio creating a renewed vigor. Once Grunwald got those tapes, he went into the studio in Byron Bay with long-time collaborator and friend Jordan Power, who helped re-track some of the guitars and vocals and add a few new songs to the mix.
Back home, he enlisted some of his favorite Australian musicians to feature on the record, to not only give the record some extra life but to make it feel like the ultimate blues record. Those artists included Kasey Chambers, The Teskey Brothers, Mahalia Barnes, Ian Collard, and Harry James Angus (The Cat Empire).
Grunwald explains the results as “My excitement about playing music, and especially playing the guitar, is something I hadn’t felt since I started this whole journey. Writing this album, I was drawing influence from many of the guitar greats such a Stevie Ray Vaughn, Jimi Hendrix, B.B. King, and some modern-day heroes of mine, Joe Bonamassa, John Mayer and Gary Clark Jr,” adds Grunwald. “By some incredible twist of fate, I was the lucky recipient of Joe Bonamassa’s generosity, who leant his guitar playing to me for the Townes Van Zandt cover ‘Waiting Around To Die’. Joe’s treatment of the song was very deft, and could bring a tear to your eye.”
Glide is proud to premiere the below take on the Townes Van Zandt song “Waiting Around To Die (feat. Joe Bonamassa, Josh Teskey & Ian Collard) – a scorching number with letal biting guitar that bleeds otherworldly tones with a soulful underbelly.
“When I was in LA, I was trying to get some interesting covers together for the album, and I just love this Townes Van Zandt song,” describes Grunwald. “The darkness just struck a chord with me. When I did it with the full band, I was sort of playing like B.B. King, which was weird because it’s a country song. Then to get Joe Bonamassa on there was incredible. For the past year, I’ve been working constantly on my guitar playing, and Joe is a big benchmark, but I had no idea I’d ever have him on one of my albums. He’s such a shredder, but on this song he didn’t really shred a million notes, he just played some beautiful, tasteful stuff. I felt very honored to have him on there.
“When I was in LA, I was trying to get some interesting covers together for the album, and I just love this Townes Van Zandt song. The darkness just struck a chord with me. When I did it with the full band, I was sort of playing like B.B.
King, which was weird because it’s a country song. Then to get Joe Bonamassa on there was incredible. For the past year, I’ve been working constantly on my guitar playing, and Joe is a big benchmark, but I had no idea I’d ever have him on one of my albums. He’s such a shredder, but on this song he didn’t really shred a million notes, he just played some beautiful, tasteful stuff. I felt very honored to have him on there.
