Alastair Greene, Eric Johanson & Katarina Pejak
Release date: September 2024

It is now 19 years ago since label founder Thomas Ruf first sent three musicians under contract to his record company on a joint tour as Blues Caravan: Sue Foley, Candye Kane and Ana Popovic. For the 2024 edition of this package tour, this job fell to Katarina Pejak, Eric Johanson and label newcomer Alastair Greene, who, as in previous years, were also supported by a two-piece rhythm section.

The performances followed the tried and tested pattern, i.e. after a joint opening, each of the three played their own set with songs from their respective repertoire, before they all gathered on stage again for the finale to round off the gig with another joint performance of songs such as Dr. John's voodoo anthem "I Walk On Guilded Splinters" or the Elmore James cover "One Way Out", which is an integral part of the Allman Brothers' live repertoire.

This was also the case in April 2024 at the Blues Garage in Isernhagen near Hanover, where the trio's performance was recorded for this CD/DVD set, with 16 tracks on the CD and 27 songs on the DVD thanks to the higher storage capacity.

On that evening in April, they started with the Robert Johnson classic "Come On In My Kitchen", which they performed together, and then it was Katarina Pejak's turn to perform the first solo set. The singer, keyboardist and songwriter from Belgrade performed her own material as well as a version of the Pink Floyd classic "Money" on her setlist, which can also be found on her studio album "Pearls On A String", which was released at the start of the tour.

While Pejak had already gained Blues Caravan experience in 2019, the participation of her colleagues in the tour was a first for both. And while her current release marks her second studio album with Ruf Records after 2019's "Roads That Cross", both Johanson's "The Deep And The Dirty" and Greene's "Standing Out Loud" are their label debut. And Pejak also differs stylistically from the two, because while she usually tends to cultivate softer tones, both Louisiana-born Johanson and California-born Greene, once Alan Parsons' tour guitarist among other things, prefer guitar sounds of a heavier kind, enriched with plenty of distortion. Examples of this on this concert recording include Johanson's powerfully grooving "Undertow" and Greene's riff-driven "Am I Too Blame?". It is not only on these tracks that both prove to be representatives of blues rock in which the emphasis is predominantly on the second syllable of the word.

Last but not least, drummer Christin Neddens and bassist Tomek Germann, both professionals, were able to take the different stylistic accents of the three tour protagonists into account with their playing.

TRACK LIST CD

001 Come On In My Kitchen 00:03:04

002 Jeremy’s Boat 00:04:27

003 Notes On Boredom 00:04:09

004 Excuses 00:04:05

005 Money 00:04:34

006 Undertow 00:04:34

007 Familiar Sound 00:04:07

008 Galaxy Girl 00:03:57

009 Changes The Universe 00:06:19

010 Standing Out Loud 00:03:57

011 Only Do 00:02:51

012 Rusty Dagger 00:05:14

013 Am I To Blame? 00:04:35

014 I Walk On Guilded Splinters 00:11:07

015 Evil 00:05:49

016 One Way Out 00:06:26

TRACK LIST DVD

001 Come On In My Kitchen 00:03:15

002 Pearls On A String 00:04:37

003 Jeremy’s Boat 00:04:50

004 Notes On Boredom 00:04:18

005 Excuses 00:04:26

006 Money 00:04:48

007 Roads That Cross 00:04:24

008 Honey Jar 00:05:12

009 Undertow 00:05:10

010 Hammer On The Stone 00:04:51

011 Just Like New 00:06:01

012 Familiar Sound 00:04:34

013 Galaxy Girl 00:04:54

014 Changes The Universe 00:06:51

015 Don’t Hold Back 00:05:43

016 Temptation 00:04:22

017 Slow Burn 00:04:14

018 Standing Out Loud 00:04:52

019 You Can’t Fool Me 00:03:46

020 Rusty Dagger 00:05:32

021 Only Do 00:03:24

022 Am I To Blame? 00:05:36

023 I Walk On Guilded Splinters 00:11:44

024 Evil 00:06:35

025 Bullfrog Blues 00:04:57

026 Baby What You Want Me To Do 00:04:33

027 One Way Out 00:07:28