Blues singer and guitarist T-Model Ford was born as James Lewis Carter Ford in 1920 in the small rural town of Forest, Mississippi. By age eleven he was plowing a field behind a mule on his family’s farm, worked at a local saw mill in his early teens and eventually became a truck driver for a bigger lumber company. In his 20s he was sentenced to ten years on a chain gang for murder but, luckily, was released after serving only two years. He didn’t even pick up a guitar until he was 57 and immediately began developing his own self-taught style. (Fellow musicians have referred to his playing as “in the key of T” because not only is he unable to read music, his entire sense of tuning and rhythm is completely unique.) After becoming a regional legend of sorts, working from his adopted hometown of Greenville, MS, Ford signed to the then-upstart blues label Fat Possum in 1997 and recorded his stunning debut album, “Pee-Wee Get My Gun,” later that year. On it’s release he was thrust into the spotlight, garnering international critical acclaim. Touring on a nearly full-time basis ensued and his hypnotic presence as well as his raw and ragged Delta style and razor-sharp lyrics helped his stature as a legitimate blues legend grow by leaps and bounds. Over the next six years Ford recorded three more albums and an EP for Fat Possum, and played hundreds of shows worldwide. He was also prominently featured in the highly regarded blues documentaries “You See Me Laughin’,” (2005) and “M For Mississippi” (2008). He began to cut back his touring schedule in 2002, but since having a pacemaker put in in 2008 has hit the road harder than ever (in fact, he was back out playing within three months of that operation). In 2008 he also began working with the Seattle- based down ‘n dirty juke blues trio GravelRoad, who have since become his permanent backing band. Now regularly touring upwards of five times a year, even still selectively playing lengthy sets that have been known to go for upwards of 2 or 3 hours when the mood strikes, he is–more than ever–a blues force to be reckoned with. In late 2008 Ford recorded the album Jack Daniel Time for the Mississippi-based blues label Mudpuppy Records and toured across the US and Europe in support of it for most of 2009. T-Model Ford’s latest disc, The Ladies Man (on the Los Angeles-based rock label Alive Natural Sound), was released in January 2010. Despite being temporarily sidelined by a stroke in April, he is already back in action and just finished the fourth of five scheduled “90th
http://www.myspace.com/gravelroad
Bio:
GRAVELROAD is a Seattle band that has covered nearly 60,000 miles touring domestically and internationally in the last 2 years, including backing up an underground “legend” for multiple tours, and you likely do not know who we are. We’d appreciate 5 minutes of your time. When we began to play together about 7 years ago, we were simply playing. We were 3 people brought together by a love of rock-n-roll and distinctive Mississippi blues sounds. GravelRoad went about putting out our first record in 2004 in order to simply document where we were at during that time. Our continued efforts, mostly below-ground, kept us quietly active playing live shows and traveling for the purposes of sharing music and learning lessons from those that came before us. We released an album in 2008 called “Shot the Devil” on a tiny little indie label from Wichita KS, again, with no delusions of grandeur. With no machine behind us and hampered like many artists by limited financial resources, we maintained a simple D.I.O. (we prefer this over “DIY”) attitude and approach. Again, our goal was make a record to document our progress and basically give it away to anyone interested. We were surprised when we received positive reviews from a variety of sources and satisfied when some people did not “get” our music or simply did not enjoy it. At least people had a reaction … we saw this as a greater than people being indifferent. We remained determined to continue.
We began to get a little more attention when we started to formally become the backing band for octogenarian alt-blues man T Model Ford. 7 U.S. & international tours later, we continue to be band of choice for Mr. Ford. We are proud to have assisted him with his album release entitled “The Ladies Man” (Alive NaturalSound Records – January 2010). GravelRoad will be releasing our next album slated for Winter 2011 release. We will continue touring, on our own and behind T Model. We will continue to do multiple trips through the US, and select local shows & festivals (we have recently played the Folklife festival & Pickathon in Oregon), as well as joining T Model for a special festival Labor Day weekend 2010. T-Model Ford & GravelRoad was hand-picked to play the All Tomorrow’s Parties Festival in New York by the always amazing American Independent filmmaker Jim Jarmusch.
Read more: http://www.myspace.com/gravelroad#ixzz152Ttioa1