Cold Blue Steel

[Don O.]

At 09:27 PM 4/10/97 -0400, Meri mf...@capecod.net wrote:

>Anyone out there familiar with this band? Comments?

on Thu, 10 Apr 1997 23:00:30 Jim Bardsley <bard...@UMDNJ.EDU> wrote:

>I think it's the band
>that was fronted by the owner of Charlie's Guitar Shop in Dallas.

This is a bar band that has been around Dallas for quite awhile now.
10-plus years, I think. They play a wide mix of material and styles ranging
from rockabilly, to old rock and roll, to R&B and some occasional good
blues. The two mainstays of the group are singer James Buck and bass player
Tony Dukes. Guitarist Mark Pollock, owner of Charley's Guitar Shop, was one
of the co-founders, but retired from the band about two years ago. Pollock
is a fine player who was in Freddie King's band for three years and toured
extensively with James Cotton. Needless to say he is a danged fine blues
player. He occasionally sits in with Anson and Sam here in town and they
sound mighty good together.

The band has two albums out. Driving To Mexico was a self released CD that
reportedly sold over 20,000 copies off the bandstand between 1990 and 1996.
I emphasize reportedly. The band keeps an exhausting work schedule so it is
possible. To give you an idea of the variety of styles they play, their
first CD had songs by Conway Twitty, Bo Diddley, and James Brown along with
6 originals of equal diversity. The highlights to my ears were a cool blues
instrumental featuring Pollock and a nice cover of Lowell Fulson's
Reconsider Baby.

Their second release, the one Meri heard, is called Headed Out of Memphis
and is on the Icehouse label (#p2-50523). It should be easily available.
This album was worked on over several years and features Pollock on 11
tracks and Texas Slim Sullivan on two (though he is uncredited). Of the 13
tracks, there are 3 nice blues numbers including one Pollock instrumental
and two original vocals. Texas Slim is a major player in his own right, but
left after about a year to front his own blues quartet. There have been two
other guitarists since he left, Shawn Pittman and, currently, Mighty Paul Young.

Direct contact for the band (James Buck) is at P.O. Box 720251, Dallas, TX
75372. Phone 214-823-3966. I'm sure James would be happy to sell CDs to
anyone that would like one!

Don O.

[William Shute]

From: Bill Shute

Following up on Don's informative post re the Dallas band COLD BLUE STEEL,
I'd like to say that I've really enjoyed their HEADED OUT OF MEMPHIS
album on the Icehouse label.
Even though it consists of tracks recorded with different lineups over
a three-year period, it's a wall-to-wall smokin' roots-rock/blues/rockabilly
album. I would recommend the album to fans of, say, The Leroi Brothers,
Omar and the Howlers, The Bluebirds, The Tailgators, the Blasters, etc.
It IS NOT, however, a purely blues album. When I saw the band, whatever
lineup it was, circa 1995 I felt they put on an exciting show. If a seamless
blend of rockabilly and blues elements played with abandon and with a
sense of joy is what you like, you should check out Cold Blue Steel.

I hope a third album is forthcoming.

Bill Shute
San Antonio, TX

ps, anyone know what Keith Ferguson has been doing musically recently?
I'd heard the Solid Senders split in two awhile back, but I don't know
what name to look for in The Austin Chronicle band listings. I hope
he is well.

[Don O.]

At 07:35 PM 4/14/97 -0400, Jon Duttweiler <t...@IX.NETCOM.COM> wrote:

>Unfortunately the liner notes of the Ice House disc don't list any
>personal info on the band other then the names of the members.

The liner of this CD is full of errors. Icehouse did a particularly sloppy
job. Looks like a Wolf liner. Mark Pollock's writers credits are written
as "Potlock", Texas Slim and Kevin Schermerhorn, who played on three tracks,
are not credited except in the "thank you's". There are no writers credits
at all on 5 of the songs, some pf which are original, others covers.
Credits for a song that does not appear on the CD are listed ("Marilyn In
the Moon"). It's just an overall shoddy job. Their self released/PeeWee Cd
had a more professional liner.

For the record, Texas Slim Sullivan, not Mark Pollock, plays guitar on the
song Meri heard, "Just Got In From Dallas". He also plays guitar on
"Shufflin' Little Lady" and "No More Doggin'". Pollock plays guitar on the
rest of the cuts. I confirmed this with Texas Slim last night.

I also heard some funny stories about the cover art for this CD. The
original cover showed a photo of the Sun Studio Cafe. The owners of the
cafe immediately demanded that the cover art be withdrawn as it was used
without their permission. Apparantly that was retribution for suits (or
threatened suits) against the cafe/studio by the Phillips family for use of
a logo similar to the Sun Records logo. Sam Phillips' son (I believe) is
the main guy behind Icehouse Records. New cover art quickly appeared. Now
here's the good part. They didn't fix any of the mistakes on the original
liner, just changed that one front panel and went back to the printer.

Don O.