Print
If there’s one thing that guitarist Aaron “Chainsaw” Moreland and harmonica player/vocalist Dustin Arbuckle have learned about the music business it’s that if you have the talent and the conviction fate will often take care of the details.
“It was kind of perfect,” says Arbuckle thinking back to the chance encounter of the two Kansas musicians at an open-mic jam at a club in Wichita in 2001. “We had a shared vision, in a place where there really wasn’t much interest in – or support for – country blues.” That vision, really a musical empathy that links the wheat fields of Kansas to the cotton fields of Mississippi, is a potent concoction of hill country blues, rock and folk stripped down to its raw and raucous rhythmic essence that has made them one of the most popular acts at recent blues festivals.
The key to the success of Moreland & Arbuckle lies in their ability to dovetail a diversity of influences into a cohesive and distinctive style that appeals to audiences of all ages. “I think our sound is a direct reflection of our listening,” remarks Moreland. “We dig Led Zeppelin as much as Little Walter, the Sex Pistols as much as Hank Sr. Bits and pieces of every genre we adore are incorporated in the music we write and perform.”
Finding a format that worked proved to be a chore. A blues rock band was too generic while a quartet called the King Snakes – described by Arbuckle as “electrified Mississippi blues mixed with a sludgy, jam-oriented rock thing,” – was unsatisfactory largely because they had a hard time finding a bass player who would keep it simple. It was after they placed among the finalists at the 2005 International Blues Challenge in Memphis, Tennessee that they realized that with Moreland’s finger picking technique on electric, acoustic and resonator guitars he could handle the bottom end very well with just his right-hand thumb.
Subsequently, Moreland added a hand-crafted, fretless cigar box guitar to his arsenal. An electrified update of an instrument that harkens back to the home-made thrift of the early 1900s, he splits the signals from the single bass string and the 3 guitar strings between two separate amps, producing a sound that is as wild as the instrument looks.
Thus equipped, Moreland and Arbuckle quickly created a discography of three self-produced albums, Caney Valley Blues (2005), Floyd’s Market (2006) and 1861 (2008) that blend cover tunes with well-scripted originals of Moreland’s music and Arbuckle’s lyrics. In 2010, Moreland & Arbuckle made their debut on Telarc International with Flood. “Life experiences, emotive musical overtones and rhythms, honest and heartfelt music, primal and sincere,” comments Moreland explaining this latest chapter in their quest to capture the most authentic elements of American roots music.
Fat-toned, squalling harmonica and raspy vocals, damaged and distorted guitar riffs and cranked out grooves that grip like pliers and swelter like a sultry summer day, Moreland & Arbuckle stomp their footprint on the blues with a relentless frenetic energy that will have you on your feet. www.morelandarbuckle.com
Ken Wright
