Gamble Brothers Band - Continuator CD

In January 2001, Memphis-based keyboard player Al Gamble and his drumming younger brother Chad decided to take advantage of their years of jamming in the family rec room and form a band together. They filled out the lineup with a guitarist and a bass player, and four months later hooked up with tenor saxophonist Art Edmaiston, who shared their love of Southern R&B and their desire to push the envelope. In September the guitar player opted for the steady money of a gig in a Beale Street cover band, and as time went by the remaining four players grew increasingly fond of the space and freedom resulting from the absence of guitar. It was then that the Gamble Brothers Band, as they called themselves, located their sound. Five years later, on their third and latest album (Continuator, Archer Records), the band deftly demonstrates not only how captivating that sound can be but how much substance it can contain.

The world the GBB articulates on this intriguing record--in the working man's anthem "Overboard," about the ongoing act of trying to keep one's head above water, as well as songs like "Hold Out 'Til Monday," "Back at School," "Heart's Not in It" and "Shopping Cart" -- will be readily familiar to most listeners, because it's the world we live in today. These themes yanked from everyday life in contemporary America interact wondrously with the gritty grooves and smoky feel they've carried forward from the '60s and '70s R&B records on which they've based their sound. It's a sound to which these four natural-born musicians are the rightful heirs, considering the Gamble siblings grew up in Tuscumbia, Alabama, within spitting distance of Southern soul mecca Muscle Shoals, while Edmaiston hails from Troy, Tennessee, north of Memphis, which is the hometown of bass player Blake Rhea, who joined the group late in 2003.

You'll find their indigenous inspirations displayed proudly and impeccably on Continuator and in the GBB's scintillating live performances -- flavors cooked up and marinated to perfection several decades ago at Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, Memphis' Stax Volt and Hi, Allen Toussaint's joint in New Orleans and wherever Ray Charles and his band set up.

1- Overboard mp3
2- Hold Out 'Til Monday mp3
3- Back At School mp3
4- E Parkway Rundown mp3
5- Heart's Not In It mp3
6- Right Direction mp3
7- Vinyl mp3
8- Durty Walt mp3
9- Shopping Cart mp3
10- Theme From Little Champ mp3
11- Threw it All Away mp3
12- All Skate mp3
13- Best Defense mp3

Released 2/21/06