Five years ago, Scott Tipping (Cornmeal, Magic Box, Bluesman, Guitarman, Friend, Father, Good Man) and Steve Warrenfeltz (Kiss The Sky & Waterloo Sunset Records), started a project that was born out of being turned on to the knowledge of some mighty old and influential Blues recordings that were made right here in our own backyard. The recording sessions took place in the Sky Club atop the Leland Hotel in downtown Aurora, Illinois between May of 1937 and December 1938.
Those sessions were produced by Bluebird records which was founded by RCA Victor during the Great Depression and was intended to be a low priced or budget line of recordings primarily representing the Blues and Jazz genres. Historians and musicologists aptly refer to the recordings of that era as the Bluebird Sound.
For those of you that may know Scott and Steve, both are big big fans of the Blues and have been such for most of their lives beginning with their teen years listening to the likes of Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf as introduced to them by way of The Paul Butterfield Blues Band and The Yardbirds and Rolling Stones just to name a few. So, it came as no surprise that Scott and Steve would team up to put together a “tribute” to those Leland Bluebird recordings of 1937-1938 and calling that project The Leland Bluebird Sessions.
Beginning in November of 2013, Scott started to record interpretations of a dozen and half songs culled from the 320 plus that were originally recorded, and brought on board some of the best Roots and Blues and R&B musicians that Chicago had to offer and were known to Scott to be perfect for the project.
Featured artists included Robbie Fulks, Mae Koen, Mick Ducker, The Steepwater Band, Chicago Farmer, Mary Lou O’Brien, Nora O’Connor, Dave Nelson and Scott Tipping. Fantastic contributions were made by the many musicians, including Gerald Dowd, Scott Stevenson, Matt Thompson, Chuck Lacy, Anna Jacobson, Pete Galanis, Dave Herrero, Gary Schepers, Alex Hall, Rick Sherry, Don Stiernberg and John Abbey, in support of the featured artists
The Tribute Project Sessions took place at John Abbey’s Kingsize Soundlabs studios located on Chicago’s west side in an old print factory building and concluded in September of 2015.
The tribute tracks were mixed by John Abbey and mastered by John for compact disc production, and by Chicago Mastering Service for pressing to vinyl. The vinyl was pressed at Gotta Groove Records located in Cleveland during what turned out to be the days of the Chicago Cubs and Cleveland Indians World Series, oddly enough!
The compact disc version was released in June of 2016 while the vinyl version is scheduled for release in late February of 2017 to coincide with a performance by a representation of the artists involved in the project. We are calling that “representation” Leland!
For more information regarding the project, visit www.thelelandbluebirdsessions.com or www.skyclubrecords.com.
