Italian blues/rock virtuoso Eliana Cargnelutti took a few moments out of her busy schedule promoting her excellent new studio album Aur to share with us her five favourite blues songs of all time. And what a list Eliana has prepared for the readers on Blues Matters.
We hope you enjoy!
1) Someone Else Is Steppin’ In – Buddy Guy
“I love the version by Buddy guy. It’s the very first blues standard I ever played with my band. I’ve had it in the strings since I was 16! It has a bursting groove, sexy and decisive. It has fun lyrics, and it is impossible not to dance when you hear it. Buddy Guy is one of my favourites, and he sings this song like no other. It will always be one of the greatest influences on me that I will always carry with me on stage.”
2) The Sky Is Crying – Stevie Ray Vaughan
“It’s the song that made me fell in love with the blues. I was 14 years old. I was watching the live tape of SRV’s Live et el Mocambo. Seeing the passion with which he was playing and singing moved me completely. The next day, I started going to blues guitar lessons. I decided to buy a Fender Stratocaster to start studying improvisation.”
3) Key To The Highway – Eric Clapton
“It’s a song that never fails in my acoustic repertoire. I think that singing this song accompanied only by guitar and harmonica is the apotheosis of the blues. Of a man who is ready to leave the past to take over the present and to continue his journey alone, ready for anything. And all of us should be able to close the bad things in a drawer and to continue the right path, with the right key, which can only be found within ourselves.”
4) Going Down – Freddie King
“From the first time I heard this song, I fell in love with it. I know many of my friends who played it at concerts I was going to see when I was young, and one day I decided to play it with my band too. It gives me crazy energy, and it gives me a fresh taste of freedom to play it. I discovered just a few months ago that the original version comes from Memphis, composed, and played by Lee Baker’s Moloch. I appreciated that slower version.”
5) Walkin’ Blues – Robert Johnson
“It’s a song I played at least 60 concerts in 2015 when I was on tour with the Girls with Guitars project. There is nothing more direct, solid, raw, and rural than this standard. You can never have played blues if you have never devoured this song by playing it in so many different musical styles. He never betrays you, and it always transmitted to me the desire and the need to move forward. To continue your way and to get up again when you fall.”
‘Aur’ the latest album from Eliana Cargnelutti is out now. Make sure to read the interview with Eliana in the latest issue of Blues Matters to find out more about her latest release.
We interviewed Quinn in the June/July 2021 issue of Blues Matters – you can get your copy here and see what he had to say:
