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Back to > Joe Zook & Blues Deluxe BIO PRESS |
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On the blues circuit with Joe Zuccarello By BRUCE NIXON These are troubled times, even for the blues. Joe Zuccarello, who leads Blues Deluxe, has a definite flair for creating a scene of his own. He does make things happen. But carrying his brand of electric guitar blues beyond Trenton is a nut still waiting to be cracked. "It just feels bad sometimes when you're in an empty bar and you know you've got a job to do," he says. "You can cop an attitude real fast. But then we're at the White Horse (in Mercerville) and 350 people are" all pounding the table for an encore, and that's so, so good." "Our time is coming," he adds, "But it won't happen until it's supposed to." About a year and a half ago, Zuccarello turned Billy D's Rumrunner, a small East Trenton club, into something unique. A scene created, it seemed at times, almost by sheer will. By early spring, you needed a shoehorn to get into the place. The band was playing there almost exclusively four nights a week before moving on to new pastures earlier this year when the Rumrunner was briefly, but unsuccessfully, put up for sale. During the mid '70s, Zuccarello had created the same kind of stir sharing the stage with guitarist Paul Plumeri in a blues-rock band called Hoochie Cooch at Chick DiNatales, another Trenton club. Plumeri went on to Duke Williams and the Extremes. Zook had other scenes to conquer. "I remembered Joe from Hoochie Cooch and I decided to bring the blues back to" Trenton," explains Billy Dowd, the owner of the Rumrunner and, certainly, a patron of sorts during the band's early months together. Zuccarello had played at Dowd's Village Tavern on occasion. "When we first started the thing," Dowd adds, "It took four and half months before we could turn any kind of money. The money was one thing, though. What we had was altogether different. Ask nine out of ten blues fans where the scene was, and the answer would have been the Rumrunner." ZOOK HAS CONTINUED to build his following and he undeniably reigns as one of the most popular musicians on the local scene. Fact is, Joe Zuccarello, without too much effort, could blow the fingernails off any number of blues guitarists on the national circuit. But he's still here. At this point in his career, his tale mirrors 'the state of the blues. But it's just the continuation of a long story. After graduating from Ewing High in 1970, Zook's first important stop was the Lizard Brothers, a venture that included fine area rock players like drummer Steve Mosley and bassist Jody Giambelluca. "Those guys were always in love with a young guitar player with a bag of hot licks and a good voice," he says. "Playing with them really rounded me out. That was a true players' band." Then came Hoochie Cooch, born of the Allman Brothers' twin lead guitars. For a while, by all accounts, Zuccarello and Plumeri were the perfect combination as they waged their nightly guitar battles. By late 1975, Hoochie Cooch had run its course and Zuccarello joined Hara with pianist Jim Cheadle, playing originals and jazz-style tunes. "Hara broadened my scope a lot," Zuccarello remembers. "And at the same time I was doing some acoustic playing at the Turning Point on Roebling Avenue with Clyde Ethridge on rhythm guitar, all Robert Johnson stuff, and some new tunes. "SOME OF THE stuff I'm doing now, I experimented with then, more jazz lines, new chords and more melodic playing. I was getting away from screeching, playing one high note over and over." Finally, by mid '76, he decided to take some time off. But not for long. By the beginning of the new year, he was playing guitar with Chrome Waterfall, a lounge band that worked the circuit from Maine to Florida. "It was the right place at the right time," Zuccarello says of his stay at Billy D's. "It just happened spontaneously. It was something different. To tell you the truth, I was pretty sour on playing at the time. It gets disgusting, you come back from Florida with 20 bucks in your pocket." Still, an eventual move would have been inevitable. "I began to realize it's necessary, it's important to get around," Zuccarello says. "The more people that hear you, the better off you're going to be." Which brings us back, as always in the story of Joe Zuccarello, to the marketing of the blues. "I seem to run into a lot of dead ends," he admits. "Maybe it's the stigma of the blues. It's easy for somebody to get excited about an act coming up in popular music, but it's hard to get excited about a blues act. There's so many of them , the promoters know they're not going to make much money from it. It's still a cult thing. But, we're booked through April and you can't argue with that." During the early days at the Rumrunner, Blues Deluxe remained true to the raw, stripped down power of basic Chicago blues. AS THE CROWDS grew, so did the music. Zuccarello's guitar work became more thoughtful and more exciting, his solos began to flash with imagination and thrilling technique. The jazz and rock 'n' roll began to creep out of his past, adding a new dimension to his blues interpretations. "I've tried to grow all the time," Zook says. "I think we sound pretty original, but we're not as good as we could be. I use a lot of licks, but there's a way of playing them, a myriad of things you can do, phrasing, inflections, attack. "I have my way of doing things, and I try to stick by them," he adds. "I just won't compromise us. What we're doing is dead serious. You don't see us smile very often, but the only way it gets good is by bearing down. When we do something that we know is good and connect just right, we know it and we smile inside." |
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| Band delivers a righteous dose of the blues
Inside The Rock Wednesday night, Vernon's on Woerner Avenue in Levittown received a righteous dose of the blues at the hands of Blues Deluxe, tie Trenton based band headed by local notable Joe Zook. Blues Deluxe, currently in a four piece configuration - drums, bass, guitar and saxophone - can really kick out the blues from the variety offered up by B.B. King, to the crying blues of Freddie King. It will take you from an up-tempo shuffle to a down-and-dirty gut wrencher but through it all, the group can take pride in the fact that it is maintaining an authenticity to it's source material. Musically, the group is highlighted by the stinging lead guitar lines of Zook, which are matched in spirit and intensity by the squealing saxophone interludes of Bo Parker. For those blues enthusiasts and fans of Blue Deluxe, the group will be on the upcoming bill of the Bucks County Blues Society when it presents Johnny Copeland and Jimmy Johnson at it's next show, April 15, at the Knights of Columbus Hall on Woodbourne Road in Levittown. For those in attendance at Vernon's Wednesday, Blues Deluxe gave more than a fair sampling of what people planning to attend the upcoming show will receive - blues as it was meant to be played. |
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| As A Culturally Underdeveloped Country Again Puts It's Bored, Deprived Head Down To Rest, Some Actual Culture Steals Into The Night
BLUES FESTIVAL '84 / City Gardens / October 12 TRENTON. NJ.- The Fall Blues Festival at City Gardens was hopefully the beginning of a long and meaningful relationship between first rate blues artists and loyal followers among the culturally deprived around the state capital. Opening the festival to appreciative applause. Joe Zook and company waded through some classic blues numbers with an inspired sax solo from Bo Parker on "Good Mornin' Blues". Bass player Bill Holt's well seasoned pipes were use to full advantage on lead vocals throughout the set which ended with a most energetic version of "Everyday I Got The Blues" and a juicy encore of "Got My Mojo Workin' ". I must mention drummer "Snuff" who can beat the skins with the best of em'. If blues is your bag, you can have a capital time every Tuesday night with Jersey's own Joe Zook and Blues Deluxe at Trenton's City Gardens. With their mixture of Chicago Blues, fusion and real blues rock it's hard to categorize them. Just take it from Steve Arvey of West Side Heat, "I've played all over this country and these guys are one of the best I've heard-no bullshit!" |
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The Music Scene The River Reporter - April 2001 Joe Zook’s Blues Deluxe, Blues With a Capital B, Bluesamongous Records I get hundreds of blues CD’s every year, many by white-boy blues wannabes who’ve gone the DIY route: Do It Yourself. In other words, record your stage show, press it up and sell it at gigs. No harm in that. Truth is, many of these local blues bands aren’t worth listening to. I could name names, but what’s the point? I’d rather talk about a fine local blues band than flame 50 fakers. Joe Zook and Blues Deluxe, natives of Trenton, New Jersey, are among the very best area blues bands this writer has ever heard, most definitely on a par with any nationally known act I can think of. Featuring the sometimes soothing, sometimes frantic and always compelling lead guitar and vocals of Joe “Zook” Zuccarello, Blues Deluxe (which eschews keyboards for a trumpet/sax horn section), burn from start to finish on eight originals and two covers. One will hear traces of roots rock, soul and jazzy instrumental workouts mixed in with the down-home blues sounds that have made them a favorite in their home area of New Jersey/Pennsylvania/Delaware. Get a copy by emailing Joe at [email protected]. Highly recommended! |
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