Jay Walter and the Rectifiers

Bio:

Welcome to my page. Glad you're checking it out. I've been fronting some type of blues band around the Twin Cities for about 20 years now. Started off in the mid 80's when I got laid off of my day job and a friend was playing in the house band at the old Blues Saloon jam. The first real gigging band after a few years was a blues rock outfit called Mojo Workin'. Like a lot of blues guys, I had always kept on digging deeper into the stuff and eventually wanted to get hooked up with a more traditional band. In 2000 I was fortunate enough to be asked to front a band made up of Jeff Hester (guitar), Dave Larson (drums), and Jack Taylor (bass). These guys are all seasoned veterans of the Twin Cities scene and at one time or another all had been in one R.J. Mischo's bands among others. Jack was leading a jam band at the time under the name Blues Kings so we settled on that for a name. The Blues Kings released two self produced records. The first, simply called "Blues Kings", was recorded live in about three hours at Brad Moe's studio in May 2000. There are no overdubs and everything was the first or second take. The second, "Keep on Rollin'", was released in '03 and was recorded in Jeremy Johnson's studio. We took more time with that one and the vocals are overdubbed, otherwise everything was recorded live on that one too. In the fall of 2007 The Blues Kings disbanded after Jeff decided to leave and not having a regular guitar player for quite awhile. Just to drive myself nuts, I decided to try and put another thing together under my own name. Hence, it's Jay Walter and The Rectifiers.

Member Since:

January 04, 2008

Members:

For a period of time after the Blues Kings disbanded I hired a sort of revolving cast of the "usual suspects" in the Twin Cities scene. Dan Schwalbe was most often in the guitar slot, although John Franken, Phil Schmid, John Gunvaldson, and Jeremy Johnson were also on the call list. On bass was either Jack Taylor, Dave Sanny, or Jon Schroder. On drums it was Marty Bryduck, Dave Larson, or Dwight Dario. Bruce McCabe had also been joining a few gigs on the piano. The last six months or so I've settled on a pretty regular line up of Jeff Hester - guitar, Greg Shuck - drums, and Jack Taylor or Jesse Petrowski - bass. Greg has played with everybody in town. Most recently he and Jesse anchored The Lamont Cranston Band for about three years.

Influences:

I suppose I have all the usual influences for a blues harp player. Among the old guys it's most notably the Walters, George Smith, Jimmy Reed, James Cotton, and Slim Harpo. In the more modern era it would have to be Kim Wilson. Those early Thunderbirds records were a main inspiration in getting me started. Now, considering that the classic '50's "straight up and natural blues" seems to be pretty much dead, I'm trying to expand my set list to include more of the roots/Americana end of things. With the Rectifiers I've added some pre Elvis Sun Records and early 60's Excello stuff. I like how those recordings blur the lines between white, black, blues, country, rockabilly, and gospel. .

Record Label:

Unsigned