Damon Fowler knows what you're thinking, some of you at least:
Here comes another fresh-faced, guitar-slingin' white boy with a new album out on a national blues label, further populating the already crowded ranks of guitar-slingin' white boys who play real fast and real long and can't sing worth a damn but think of themselves as real bluesmen.
Damon Fowler doesn't blame you for thinking this, but he wants you to know: It's not true.
"It is a trap — a white boy with a guitar," Fowler says. "It's terrible for me. I mean, I like some of those blues hotshot guys like Stevie Ray Vaughan, but there was only one Stevie Ray Vaughan, and now you got all these guys in ponchos boot-scootin' and playing [Stratoscasters] and it's all so contrived. It's what's wrong with the blues — that and harmonica players in purple suits who try to sing like something they're not."
No, really, Damon, don't hold back.
"A lot of times that shit's just an excuse for playing guitar. Put together a little song like "I'm lonely for my baby, I'm lonely for my baby, oh yeah. She don't come to see me" — and then you wail [on guitar] for 10 minutes."
"It's not a blues record."
That's how Fowler, 29, succinctly describes his new CD, Sugar Shack, released Jan. 27 on Blind Pig, a long-standing indie label that has been the home of Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, Magic Slim and a few artists who fit the stereotype that Fowler outlined above.
He is correct in his assessment. Sugar Shack contains not a single 12-bar blues song. But — "it has a lot to do with the blues," Fowler adds. "Anything I ever do will. But I really tried to stretch and write more songs that showed my influences growing up. I think of it as more of a roots record than a blues record."
Sugar Shack shows ample stylistic range: There's the acoustic guitar-driven hop of "Some Fun," the slinky boogie of "VFW," the hard-luck ballad "James," the riffy blues-rock of "Lonely Blues." Nine of the dozen tracks are originals. The covers skew country, including a revved-up take on Merle Haggard's "Tonight the Bottle Let Me Down" and "Third Rate Romance," a 1975 hit for the Amazing Rhythm Aces.
Fowler delivers the tunes in an unforced R&B croon. While his voice wouldn't scare Muddy or Wolf, it's clear that singing isn't just an excuse to get to the playing. And when he does get to the playing, the solos that is, he keeps them concise, favoring razory slide over single-note flamethrowing.
Oh, there were those days as a kid when Damon had dreams of being a pure six-string monster. He grew up in Tampa, an only child who never knew his father. He and his mom lived with his grandparents, who owned a septic tank business. At age 10, Damon took to the bedroom and quickly learned the blues scale on guitar; soon he could play licks over chord changes.
Before you could say "got my mojo workin'," Damon Fowler had become a kid guitar phenom on the local scene, playing gigs at Skipper's at age 15, sometimes opening for fellow phenom Derek Trucks. "I always thought he was amazing and never felt competitive toward him," Fowler says of the still thoroughly amazing Trucks. "Oh, we'd get some drunk guy in a Fender shirt saying 'You guys kicked his ass,' but I never bought into it, never cared."
Fowler played a small circuit of local clubs as the singer/guitarist for Fake Native, which he describes as "a cover rock band with a blues emphasis."
In his late teens, Fowler released his first solo album, Riverview Drive, produced by veteran guitarist Rick Derringer. It sold surprisingly well, Fowler says. About six months after the album came out, he was having lunch at a sandwich shop when Tom White from Skipper's Smokehouse called. "What are you doing tonight?" he asked.
"Going to see Jeff Beck," Fowler replied.
"How'd you like to get there early and open the show?" White said.
Beck's co-bill, Jonny Lang, was sick, so Fowler was pressed into duty. "People didn't know Jonny wasn't going to be there," Fowler recounts. "So this DJ comes out and goes, 'Jonny Lang couldn't be here. Ladies and gentleman, welcome to the stage, Damon Fowler!' And then he hauled ass.
"The people started booing, which made me a little shaky. There were a little over 4,000 people there. But by the middle of the second song, people changed their attitude. We got a standing ovation at the end."
His set earned flattering write-ups in the local press, and instantly more fans started coming out to his gigs around Florida. Fowler ditched Fake Native and formed the Damon Fowler Group, landed a booking agent and played van tours far and wide.
On Dec. 5, 2005, the worst-case scenario of small-time touring life occurred. After a hectic jaunt around Florida and Georgia, Fowler and his two bandmates were on their way to a gig in Inverness, driving in rainy weather, when the van got cut off, flipped and crashed.
The other guys were OK, but Fowler busted up his shoulder and lost part of his skull. He was choppered to the hospital, where he spent 13 days.
The local music community banded together and played benefits to help out with medical bills, crowding into his room for visits. Get-well cards and letters came in from all over, including a note from Gregg Allman. A friend gave Fowler a ukelele to help him regain his fretwork.
But there was no guarantee that Fowler would make it all the way back to his prior form. "I would tell them I'm a professional musician," he says, bemused. "And [the physical therapy people] would be like, 'OK, sure you are.' They said they couldn't promise me anything, said it was mostly up to me, how hard I wanted to work at rehab."
The guitarist lived with his mother and stepfather during his recovery, which took about a year. Fowler says he's back to full strength.
Sugar Shack could, should, raise his profile and expand his touring sphere. Nevertheless, he's not about to let his expectations run amok. "It's a record deal that allows us quite a bit of creative control," he says. "Blind Pig is really helping us get it out there. We're all on the same team. At the same time, I know it's not a record deal where we'll all be driving Ferraris and living in mansions. Maybe we can get two hotel rooms on the road instead of one."
This article appears in Jan 28 – Feb 3, 2009.