VuduBlu

Chuck Baxter - Vocals, Guitar, Harmonica and Keyboards Chip Bennett - Guitar Mike Paluszynksi - Guitar James Wheat - Bass Gil Linares - Drums VuduBlu can only be described as a band that serves up the blues with a little bit of funk and a whole lotta soul. It's in 'em and it's got to come out. Solid grooves, great guitar playing, well-written lyrics, and strong vocals, what more could you want? It does the blues from one end to the other.

Chip Bennett - Guitar
Mike Paluszynksi - Guitar
James Wheat - Bass
Gil Linares - Drums

VuduBlu can only be described as a band that serves up the blues with a little bit of funk and a whole lotta soul. It's in 'em and it's got to come out. Solid grooves, great guitar playing, well-written lyrics, and strong vocals, what more could you want? It does the blues from one end to the other.

The band has set its sights on preserving the blues, not just by playing the songs of the great blues masters, but creating its own original brand of blues. The influences of band are obviously guided by the masters that made the blues what it is today.

The four members of the band all come from various backgrounds which enabled the band to capitalize on a vast amount of song ideas. If you happen to catch them at a blues festival near you, expect to be drawn in to every conceivable emotion as the band winds in and out of the varied styles of blues.

Baxter found inspiration for most of the original material on the band's debut CD, I Blame it On the Blues, in the normal places. Songs are about paying bills, relationships, women and life's other mysteries and struggles. By design, the album runs the gamut of blues genres. No real Vudublu sound emerges, but that wasn't Baxter's goal.

Instead, this group of 40-something bluesmen -- Baxter, drummer Gil Linares, bassist James Wheat and guitarists Chip Bennett and Mike Paluszynksi -- tried to fuse their various influences. Baxter called the result a little Texas blues, a little swing, a little Mississippi Delta blues.

Graham Clarke, reviewer for online blues magazine Blues Bytes, called I Blame it on the Blues "equally impressive, mixing blues, soul and rock into a cohesive package. ... It's a fine, well-produced release by a band that has a firm vision of what the blues ought to be."

Baxter's vision brought Vudublu together in the first place. He had performed for years around town in the band After Midnight and then made a conscious decision to focus on original blues music about four years ago. He already had a home studio and formed the band's nucleus with Linares and Wheat. Bennett and Paluszynksi joined later, after the CD's release.

Vudublu also is bucking the common musical trend of following up a new release with some sort of tour or at least a string of club dates. Vudublu plays out rarely; Baxter said the group wants to focus on playing larger festivals, places where they can take the whole family.

"We're real people just like anyone else," Baxter said. "Being a musician for so many years, you don't have to continue to spend time day in and day out playing the clubs to get the ideas you need or think about the music."

One thing Vudublu has in common with many other groups is a fierce independent streak. Baxter said he and his bandmates formed BluHippo Records and put up a Web site, (at Jacksonville.com, keyword: vudu), so they could take each step in their career on their timetable. All five members have families and careers, so dropping everything to be at a label's last-minute concert three states over just wouldn't work.

Baxter said he'd be lying if he said they wouldn't like to have a major-label contract. But he said the band members have talked about working with other Beaches blues bands and bringing them aboard their label.

Expect the unexpected because the groove is evident, the style is genuine...the music is VuduBlu.

VuduBlu performs a high energy, emotionally draining, get your butt off of your seat, ride to satisfaction for the true blues lover and those new to the blues scene as well. Hardly a novelty, VuduBlu stands out in a sea of talent. Without a doubt, the band will carry Blues way into the Millennium. The past, the present and the future, all rolled into one.

VuduBlu decided they would help carry the torch for blues by injecting new ideas into the proven product of this wonderful music, not just copy what all the others have done.