Experienced, road-tested and tougher than a two by four, The 24th Street Wailers are five musicians who originally met in music school. Their major influence? The sounds from the freewheeling period in the ‘40s and ‘50s when the Blues gave birth to Rock and Roll in black communities in major American cities. When showmanship mattered. When the sax player, not the guitarist, got the girls.
It didn’t take long for The Wailers to develop the tightest of grooves, an original repertoire, and a balls-against-the-wall live show, and you can hear it in the three studio CDs they’ve made so far.
The Wailers’ 2010 debut album Dirty Little Young’uns reached Top 10 on the Roots Music Report, and the next one, 2012’s Unshakeable carried the band even further — Dan Aykroyd’s House of Blues radio show called it “raw and authentically funky.” And Bill Wax’s syndicated B.B. King Radio Show on SiriusXM confirmed the band’s widespread national and international radio play. The band also released last year’s riotous Live in Halifax, recorded over two packed nights in their favorite Canadian night spot, Bearly’s House of Blues in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Now, in time for yet another U.S. tour and a packed calendar of festival and club appearances from Yellowknife to Newfoundland, The Wailers have put the icing on the cake with a third studio album, released early this year. Wicked is the CD’s title, and the adjective perfectly describes the music.
Recorded in Austin Texas and produced by Billy Horton, Jimmie Vaughan’s bass player, Wicked is a collection of 11 songs by Lindsay and Emily, with two covers, both of them considerable departures from the originals. Horton’s worked produced a who’s-who of Texas bands, and he helped put The Wailers’ drive and energy into the record’s grooves.
The band’s put their autographs on a number of milestones along the road to success. They’ve been the only non-Quebec band to win both the Reléve en Blues and the Air Transat/Blues sur Seine competitions at Festiblues International de Montreal, which sent them to France to perform at The Blues sur Seine Festival.
The Wailers were nominated for major Maple Blues Awards two years in a row, and for Blues Group/Duo of the Year at the Sirius XM Indie Awards. In February 2012, the band were semi-finalists in the International Blues Challenge in Memphis, Tennessee, cementing their place among their musical peers.
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