Eric Lenz - Berlin - 030-8832734
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A bluesy voice, guitar, slideguitar, bassguitar, harp, bassdrum
and hi-hat - but only one musician. Eric Lenz lets survive the original
old Mississippi Delta tradition of the One Man Blues Band.
Berlins smallest blues band plays in clubs and blues joints,
in concerts, festivals, in the radio and television. Highlights in the
last years were gigs at the Jazzfest in Lünen,in the Berliner Franz-Club,
in the ORB-television, at the big, 3-days-festival in Osinov Dolny (Poland)
(besides the Puhdys and the Red Guitars ) and before all the eight weeks tour
with an old
Pontiac station waggon through the USA.
In New York's blues clubs "Dan Lynch" and "Manny's Car Wash" the
American audience sang with Eric Lenz "Got My Mojo Working". In the
W.C.Handy-Park of Memphis he had a session with local blues musicians.
Not without echo stayed the appearance of the One Man Blues Band at the
King Biscuit Blues Festival of Helena in the Mississippi Delta,
where as highlights so well-known musicians as Buddy Guy, Luther Allison
and Dr. John filled 70000 blues fans with enthusiasm. "Eric Lenz,the 'One
Man Blues Band', kicked off the festival as the first entertainer on the
Main Stage", wrote Andy Staten in The Daily World.
Unforgettable for Eric Lenz is the meeting with legendary Sonny Payne,
who runs the famous radio show
"King Biscuit Time" since 47 years. Three times Eric Lenz was invited to
his show.
Lenz is not the inventor of the "One Man Blues Band". Jesse Fuller,
Doctor Ross and Duster Bennett became famous in this genre. Lenz' music
has roots in the styles of Robert Johnson, Lightning Hopkins and John Lee
Hooker.
He plays many songs from the thirties until sixties as well as
his own material.
A special preference he has for Jimmy Reed. You can hear it in his harp
style. The last important LP of his Jimmy-Reed-collection he found a few
years ago through chance: In New York's East Village he bought it for
two Dollars in the street. New York, Chicago, New Orleans and the
Mississippi Delta are most inspiring
places for the blues man. Inspiration he found not only in the Juke
Joints of the small villages in the delta, but also in Chicago, in New
Orleans and in New York and in many places in the
streets everywhere around.
Rayne Gordon, president of the Sonny Boy Blues Society in
Helena/AR, invited Eric Lenz 1997 to play at the King Biscuit Blues
Festival for the second time. This time and now in the year 2000 Lenz had
his own
podium, sponsored by "Pasquale's Tamales", a mexican
restaurant in Helena, and he was featured in the
"Daily World", in the KATV 7 television and in KFFA Radio.
The CD "On The Road...And At Home" was presented in the Program "Bluestime" on radio KW and by the american stations KFFA and WSHA.
The last years brought an additional instrument: Between Hi-Hat and bass drum was space enough for a bass pedal with 13 keys, similar like a hammond organ bass pedal. It was not easy to learn, but it was worth the while.
The sound has improved a lot and now it sounds even more like a whole band. Eric Lenz got the opportunity to show his new sound on TV, on the Berlin station FAB in the program„Hallo Berlin“. You got curious? Here are some new recordings with bass. (The bass sounds better if you use reasonable loudspeakers or headphones.)
On YouTube you can see a flashback of the summer 2008. Pictures of the "Dancing Bear Open Air" in Behringen and of the 10. Belziger Altstadtfest.
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