Eric´s Bluesband was born as a trio in november 1999. We started out playing at various pubs in Stockholm. The music we played at that time was infuenced by Cream, Jimi Hendrix, BB King, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eric Clapton. Bluesstandards mixed with our ow material. After playing a lot in Stockholm we got more and more gigs all around Sweden. In 2001 we recorded our first album (Take One) with great guestmusicians "Master" Henry Gibson and Allen Finney. After playing with different keyboardists for years, Henning joined the band in spring 2003, and we became a group of four. In spring 2004 our second album (There´s An Angel In My Tree) was released with producer Brian Kramer. Guests on this album was among others Clas Yngström and Brian Kramer. Our music is a mix of brittish blues and rock with a touch of american guitartradition (Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan), but we´re not scared of using influences outside the blues-genre, as long as it blends with the music and feeling... FROM TOWN TO TOWN About half a year ago, we reviewed the cd of Allen Finney, an artist from Michigan who lives in Sweden for quite some time. The backing band for that cd was Eric’s Bluesband a young band fronted by Eric Hansson, a great young promising guitarplayer. The result of that recording session was a laid back piece of work, sounding a bit like J.J. Cale’s music. A few days ago, we received a package from Sweden again, containing Eric’s latest cd "From Town To Town". It was recorded in as much as 4 different studios: The A-Stream, Gigstudion, Daddy Longlegs and for the lead vocals they used Vokalkraft studio. The cd is in a real nice and tasteful cover, designed by bassplayer Tomas Klinta. All songs on this cd are own compositions. Allen Finney helped with the lyrics, because English is his language. Besides Eric on guitar, there is Henning Axelsson keyboards and percussion, the bassplayer Tomas Klinta, mentioned above and drummer Patrick Fackt. This solid core gets help from some studiomusicians on harmonica, sax,trombone, trumpet, backingvocals and some extra percussion. The results in a full , warm sound, which is fresh and innovative and far removed from the 12 bar bluesbands who play "Sweet Home Chicago" or something simular you heard a thousand times before. Not here: own songs and own style, and most of all , a lot of diversity. The horn section gives everything an original sound. The changes in tempo, the breaks and that nice slidesound from Eric’s guitar bring us some interesting moments. A nice example of that is the second song, which is also the titlesong "From Town To Town" ending with a distorted saxophone solo, which gives the song a modern, hip sound. Also in "Im A Man", an own composition and not a cover of one the famous hits with the same title ( Chicago, Spencer Davis..) has some funky guitarparts. The slide in "Girl Please Don’t Cry" gives you goosebumps, it sounds desolate and creates, along with the harmonica, a real nice atmosphere but the song also shows one of the little weaknesses of the album: Eric’s voice is not that powerful and misses a bit of roughness, something what might have helped to bring this strong release to a still higher level. This is noticable in a few songs, but it is the only remark I have about this very strong release. "Tears Running" for instance is such a strong composition, it’s a Texan boogie, but it not as stereotype as other Stevie Ray Vaughan influenced numbers, because at the same time it brings in BB King influences and the horns add strongly to that. The wonderful "Another Sad Song" where Eric plays the Resonator is another highlight, even so "Glass Of Water" a second shuffle with Stevie Ray signature. No worries, these guys will surely make it, and young Eric’s voice will surely get some "grid", many loud performances in smokey bluesclubs will certainly take care of that, I’m convinced. RONNY BERVOETS