In chronological order.
Recorded during a tour through Slovenia and Croatia — then still parts of the former Yugoslavia — this was the very first release for Blues Trio.
In the summer of 1990, after a German tour and appearance at the Bluest festival in Trieste, Italy, Blues Trio played a couple of gigs for Radio Belgrade 202 in the centre of Belgrade and made a few recording sessions in the radio studios. The whole idea was to finish the formative period of the band and move to a new stage with our first official LP for a major label.
A compilation of music played by blues bands from Belgrade at the time. A snapshot of a scene we had spent years building.
The very first release for Homesick Mac as a solo act. Issued both as a cassette and as a CD.
Recorded live in 1990 during a live broadcast — the 10th anniversary of Radio Belgrade's show "All That Jazz — Good Morning Bluesmen."
We recorded and mixed this CD over 9.5 hours at the Musikhuset in Helsingborg, Sweden. The idea came from my agent Podlovics Péter from Mafioso Records — the same label that had released my solo CD in 1994. He thought it was great that I started playing with Sam, so he said: "Go to the studio and record — I'll release anything you end up with."
We went in with our mutual friend Bo Wilson — a musician himself but also a sound engineer — and rigged a very humble setup. Although in a real studio, Bo suggested we skip the high-end condenser microphones and use simple dynamic mics like the Shure SM58 and SM57. Sam's guitar was also lined in directly.
We sat close, facing each other — and just played. Sam would suggest a song, then I'd go with one. There were no planned overdubs — except for Sam's harmony vocal in "Sitting On Top Of The World" and my solo part in "Come On In My Kitchen." All the rest was live to tape.
A special release — only 500 copies were made. Recorded live at the KST Club in Belgrade.
Blues Trio was invited to play at this event in the city of Pancevo, which had a lively blues scene. I was having a terrible cold and was close to cancelling the gig — I'm happy I didn't. The reaction from the audience when we started playing "Today Today Blues" by Jimmy Rodgers was so wonderful that it became one of our most treasured memories from all the concerts we've done over the years.
Pera Joe was — and still is — one of the hardest working studio musicians in Belgrade. He played harmonica parts for various bands, jammed with colleagues and recorded. Over the years there were many songs to choose from when the time came for the "Sessionman" release. This was his first one.
Almost 10 years from my first solo CD, the time felt right for this new recording. The title reflects my experimentation with other styles — moving a little away from country blues. Songs like "Johnny B. Goode" and "Blue Moon Of Kentucky" were a nice challenge, specially the Chuck Berry song that's usually played fast. I turned it into a slow take of this great song, with help from singer Frida Möller and piano player from Hungary Szabolcs Nagy. I also took a leap into recording my own instrumentals.
I used to play a lot in Denmark — participating in festivals and working at clubs like Mojo in Copenhagen. I got an invitation to play at a gathering of Danish blues musicians at the Bar Blues club in Copenhagen, where everybody would perform one song to be recorded for the CD release. The CD was technically a self-released festival showcase, distributed without a traditional commercial label imprint on the jacket.
The Guitar Art Festival in Belgrade was established in the year 2000. Over the decades it has grown from the first professional guitar festival in the Balkan region into one of the largest and most prestigious classical guitar festivals in the world. Blues Trio participated in 2002 and we have one song featured on this CD — our version of Bo Diddley's "Who Do You Love."
A compilation of live recordings from various clubs and festivals between 1994 and 2002.
The original LP recordings from 1991 — the Radio Belgrade sessions after our German tour and the Trieste festival — reissued on CD by the label Blues Time (Vladislav Pejak), since the LP had gone out of print. The CD added two bonus recordings.
Recorded live at the Youth Center in Kragujevac, Serbia in 2003. Blues Trio was celebrating 20 years in existence and our promoter Milorad Stojaković-Dača organised a mini tour in Serbia. One of the cities we visited was Kragujevac — where one of the most famous rock bands of the former Yugoslavia, SMAK, had been formed. All young guitar players of that time were influenced and inspired by the band, especially their guitar player Radomir Mihajlović-Točak. I was around 15 when they became known.
Another compilation of recordings where Pera Joe performed with many well-known artists from Serbia and abroad. A testament to just how much ground that harmonica has covered over the decades.
Digitally remastered recordings originally on the Blues Trio first ever release — the cassette tape from Slovenija Koper in 1987. This CD was released exactly 30 years after the cassette came out. It included 8 previously unreleased songs and a rich booklet with the complete story about that first tour.
"Belgrade Blues Days" in 1988 marked the first official meeting between Belgrade blues musicians and international guests. During a week-long festival, local musicians shared the stage and jammed with Louisiana Red, John Hammond, DeLuxe Blues Band, Johnny Mars, William Boyd and others. This was a true live school for all of us — having the chance to talk, hang out and play with amazing musicians from abroad.
The festival was recorded and Blues Trio issued an official Bootleg Vol. 2 on cassette tape — the easiest format to print and distribute at the time. We sold these at concerts and used the money to finance playing accessories and new bootlegs. This release is a compiled CD edition of those recordings, with 2 bonus tracks.
Exactly 30 years after recording our first cassette in 1987, and almost 35 years after Blues Trio started playing together, the label Vertical Jazz — Dragoljub Stojaković-Dača — suggested we gathered our original lineup with Zoran Katrinka-Kuki and bring in guests we'd been playing with over the years. A night at one of the best venues in Belgrade — SKC, the Student Cultural Center — saw seven distinguished guests joining us on stage, sharing great songs from different periods of blues history.
We played a lot — and so it became a double CD. Due to the production size and many musicians on stage at the same time, recording and producing all of this was quite tricky. Big kudos to co-producer Dejan Aksić, and to Pera Joe for supervising the whole thing. We cannot thank Vertical Jazz enough for releasing so many of our CDs and organising tours over so many years.
