Album Notes

Patrick Hazell and the Mother Blues Band

In 1968, PATRICK HAZELL co-founded the MOTHER BLUES BAND in Iowa City, Iowa. The band quickly became one of the most popular in the region and established a strong home base in the upper Mississippi Valley. Well-known for their original and progressive approach to rhythm and blues, they toured from Indiana to Kansas, Minnesota to Oklahoma, Wisconsin to Arkansas, and points between. They shared concert billings with Led Zepplin, Jefferson Airplane, Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Clifton Chenier, Asleep At The Wheel, Eddie Harris, George Thorogood, Junior Walker, and many others. In an era when most local/regional bands did not have albums (unlike today!) they released four vinyl record albums and several 45rpm records; were the subject of countless press articles, and made many radio, and television appearances.
From 1968 through 1982, over forty musicians have been a part of the MOTHER BLUES BAND performing in various combinations of four to eight people at any one time. However, as testimony to upholding a standard of excellence, between 1978 and 1982, they were voted top Blues Band four different times in the Peoria-based Prairie Sun Music Magazine's annual reader's poll covering a six-state distribution area. The band achieved a status that is now legendary and is still revered in various present-day (1999) music reviews for its seminal influence in the Midwestern Music scene. They exposed countless listeners to the blues for the first time and provided the inspiration for the establishment of a number of nationally important blues societies that still continue to function.
Economic hard times in the music business in the early 1980's necessitated a break-up of the band and in 1983, PATRICK HAZELL decided to launch his solo career. Performing as a one-man-blues-band without using pre-recorded or sequenced material, he sings his many original compositions while simultaneously playing his electric grand piano, organ, casio keyboard, bass drum, harmonica, and ankle shakers. As of 1999, he continues to actively tour presenting this unique and highly acclaimed show.
However, in 1993, PATRICK HAZELL assembled members of the MOTHER BLUES BAND for a highly successful reunion in Iowa City. In 1996, the Mississippi Valley Blues Society sponsored a second, and even more successful reunion in Davenport, Iowa. These two events gave Hazell the inspiration to form a new MOTHER BLUES BAND for occasional concerts to supplement his solo career.
Beginning in October, 1997, HAZELL started a new version of the MOTHER BLUES BAND and performed mainly at the BLUE SHOP in Burlington, Iowa. Because of the small and intimate atmosphere and the wonderful acoustic upright house piano, this venue allowed the band to get that raw, earthy, "real blues" sound typical of the 1940s and 1950s. Through the following years the band occasionally performed amidst Hazell's busy solo schedule. On September 2, 2007, Patrick Hazell and the Mother Blues Band were inducted into the Iowa Rock N Roll Music Association Hall of Fame.