Album Notes

Time and place of the action: A small recording studio at the end of the nineteen fifties in the basement of a building in the Swiss boondogs, the Zurich-Leimbach district. In there (surrounded by two old Revox reel-to-reel tape-machines, guitars, a piano and several percussion instruments) a blues addicted teenager, although a little shy, still stubborn enough to challenge the then popular Swiss dixieland mainstream with his beloved rhythm & blues music on his guitar. That's how the story began for Christof "Chris" Lange, one of Europe's very first blues instrumentalists. The arrival of blues singer Champion Jack Dupree at Zurich's 'Africana' club in December 1960 came as a blessing. Chris soon became Champion Jack's regular guitarist, played a lot with him at the 'Africana' and on several albums for the 'Folkways' and 'Storyville' labels and accompanied him also on his many other gigs in Switzerland and the surrounding countries. This all happened between 1961 and 1965. Thanks to the influence of the black bluesman from New Orleans, Chris's basement studio stayed an active venue for Chris and his Swiss blues friends for several years. The result was a huge collection of tape recordings. Some of them were meant as demos and were sent to blues labels such as Chess, Excello, Blue Horizon or Atlantic, and a few others saw also the light of day on an old vinyl album back in 1969. But the bigger part of those recordings stayed unissued and is now being made available on the CD-album "RUSTY STRINGS" for the first time. Chris Lange's co-musicians on this album are the same who played with him in his blues bands during the late fifties to the mid sixties. Featured on one track ("Woodchopper Blues") is also famed bluesman Champion Jack Dupree.
Chris and his soulful guitar music can also be heard on recent recordings on his 1998's comeback-album "BACKDOOR TO YOUR SOUL" (also available at CD-Baby). On this CD, Chris plays all the guitar and piano parts as ever, as well as the electronic keyboards, which results in a more modern soul/blues/funk sound.