Album Notes

Przemek Draheim, "Glosem Bluesa", "Z Bluesem na Ty" www.blues.pl/draheim, Poland, 12 Dec 2004:
-"Black River Bluesman don't play no pretty music. Their blues are raw and powerful, played straight from the heart. Black River Bluesman brought the house down with their performance at Torun Blues Meeting this November (2004) and people went crazy. This is the blues played the way I like."

Magazine Twoj Blues, Poland, nr 19/2004:
-"Musicians from Finland deserved the special attention. Nobody expected that
from such cold country would come so fiery formation as Black River Bluesman.
This quartet attacked Torun's audience with the dose of blues mixed mainly with Hooker's boogie and elements of postpunk sounds. Plus good vocal of Jukka Juhola. All resembled not-well-known sound straight from American label Fat Possum."

The story of Black River Bluesman and the Cockroach Combo:
We are all countrymen born in the 50´s and live out in the woods of Southern Finland in a tiny village called Mustio - Black River in English, except Kid, who used to live in a close-by county called Kisko.
Harry and Risto have played dance-hall music for almost 30 years (it works- RL Burnside said: "The Blues ain´t nothing but dance music.") Me and my cousin Kid have been blues enthusiasts since the early 70´s.
September 2002 we all got together and decided that these new songs represent kind of an original style of blues&roots and decided to rehearse them. The CD was recorded already next December - live in three hours, on a one-take-basis, with everything left the way once played. We wanted it to sound authentic, like recorded spontantiously at a street-corner.
Made and marketed without economical resources or personal contacts, this self release CD has got publicity a lot more than we expected. It has been played on the radio by some 50 stations in more than 15 countries like Canada, USA, France, Danmark, Australia... with high rankings in playlists. There has been positive reviews and articles in Finnish and international newspapers and magazines. Our CD was voted the second best blues record of the year 2003 by listeners of the national Finnish blues program. Among other gigs, we have played at the legendary Rawa Blues Festival and Torun Blues Meeting in Poland as well as in Germany and the Czech Republic. We recently received an initiative to play gigs in the USA and are now planning a tour there, as well as in the UK.
Our new cd "Ants in my Kitchen" has now been published (June 2005). Another, yet rougher, non-trickery live recording and analogical mixing by Esa Santonen. Because of the success on our gigs we believe that the new songs do have potential .
Samples from our CD and radio shows can be heard at our web-address: www.bluesman.fi