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Sample Sounds!
Buy Mike's CD's here! |
From the Rough:
|
Listen!A Bad Case of the In BetweensNow You Got Your Way (Instrumental) |
Mike's latest work!
A Step Ahead Of Trouble:
Get yourself a Step Ahead of Trouble!
Featuring Henry on slide trombone. Get Used to it! Tribute to Roy Buchannan. |
Listen!A Step Ahead of Trouble |
All My Blues:
Classic originals.
Tribute to SRV. I'm Vintage! |
Listen!Turn it on and Light it Up |
Mission Accomplished:
Life is Good,"Good Old Days". Featuring Super Dave Ward on blues harp.Snake Bit. |
Listen!Long Distance Woman |
The most recent Blues Mission studio effort.
My Brother from Another Mother!
Workin' In The Rust Belt: Compilation of three great CD's.
Remember" Blues from the Rust the Rust Belt", "Holy Live Blues" and the original Mike Dugan release" Workin". They are all combined into one fabulous CD. |
Listen!Rustbelt Blues |
News
Blues Bites
Blues Revue MagazineReviews in Brief by Tom Hyslop
June/July 2004
Pennsylvania's Mike Dugan & the Blues Mission emphasize solid grooves and tasty, blues-rock guitar and songwriting. Dugan lets the music breathe behind his powerful, Bluesbreakers style guitar. Between the shuffles ("Worst Is Over") and rockers ("Survival Blues"), his forays into other styles are successful; "Surfin' With My Baby" hints at surf and jazz, strings sweeten the ballad "When Things Ain't Right With You," "Snake Bit" is satisfyingly funky, and the slow blues "Blues Mind" (for Peter Green) and "Long Distance Woman" are especially strong. A nice range of tones, sparing use of slide, and the addition of harp, horns, and keyboards to the arrangements heighten the appeal of Mission Accomplished! (Top Shelf 780).
Rock, jazz influence Mike Dugan's blues
The Express TimesEnjoy by Robert Hicks
May 7, 2004
Mike Dugan savors the hard edge and quick tempos of his Rust Belt Blues. The 51-year-old New Jersey native moved to the Lehigh Valley in 1980 from Deptford Township, N.J., to enhance his' music career. "I like my music to be interesting, dynamic and unpredictable," he says from his home in Allentown.
His trio now includes Easton bassist Rob Fraser and Macungie drummer Dan Plowman. "Trio music is what I grew up " on, so it's what I've always aspired' to," he says. "As a teenager in the' late '60s, I was listening to bands, like Cream, Jimi Hendrix had a three-piece band. I fell in love with that format of guitar, bass and drums. There's a lot of freedom.
As a songwriter, he feels the muse of Bob Dylan, John Prine and Randy Newman. Blues guitarists such as B.B. King, Duane Allman and Mike Bloomfield inform his guitar playing. He also likes to reconstruct the jazz phrasing of George Benson and Kenny Burrell. "Blues and jazz, come together in my playing. The feel of the blues with the freedom of jazz. I love that," he says. "It's sort of like a spaghetti sauce, it's in there."
Humor remains important in his blues songs.
"I think people need to laugh," he says. "It's such a sad world. There's an abundance of that and not enough laughter. Somebody said laughter is the music of the soul." He particularly entertains his fans with his comic songs "Get Used To It" and "My Brother From Another Mother."
His latest CD, "Mission Accomplished," released in August 2003. He describes the opening track "Good Ole Days" as a straight blues shuffle inspired by Chicago blues guitarist Buddy Guy. "Snake Bit" pays tribute to slide guitarist Duane Allman. "Long Distance Woman" engages the listener in the slow blues style of B.B. King. Jazz inflections often creep into Dugan's playing and songwriting, too. "Surfin' With My Baby" reflects Dugan's love of jazz guitarists Wes Montgomery and Les Paul. "Life's Joy" celebrates the ja.zz organ trio tradition.
Dugan also likes '70's bluesrock, particularly guitarist Peter Green who replaced Eric Clapton in John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers after Clapton left to form Cream. Dugan pays tribute to Green on his tune "Blues Mind" on the CD.
American blues-rock musicians such as Roy Buchanan and Mike BloomfIeld have played a big role in shaping Dugan's guitar style, too. Like many of his generation, Dugan encountered the blues via blues-rock groups such as Jimi Hendrix, Cream, the Allman Brothers Band, Led Zeppelin and the RoIling Stones.
"I don't think I've changed that much over the years. I still have the same influences. I still love the people that have touched me deeply. I just feel I'm better at it now. You get to the point where you do gig after gig after gig and you get really fluent at it. You're flowing and less conscious about it, so I find myself going to a place inside myself and just really letting it flow. It's all connected now. It's all one thing..." he says...
COAST WEEKLY MONTEREY COUNTYJANUARY 31-FEBRUARY 6, 2002East Coast blues man Mike Dugan comes to Sly McFly's The Rust Belt Never Sleeps Guitarist Mike Dugan has been playing the blues on his own terms for more than 20 years. By Chuck Thurman |
||
| There
are at least a couple of different ways to determine musical success. The
easiest one to define - and the hardest one to achieve - is measured by
gold records hanging on a musician's wall, representing a musician's ability
to capture a mass audience. But those gold records, pretty as they are,
don't necessarily have much to do with musical quality or the musician's
ability to carve his or her own niche out of whatever genre they're working
in. Which brings us to another kind of success, the kind where a musician speaks to enough people that his music is heard but which expresses enough personal or regional individuality that it stands out against other musicians working in a similar style. Mike Dugan has that kind of success. Out here on the West Coast, most audience have probably never heard of |
Dugan.
But on the East Coast, where he's been a nightclub and festival mainstay
since the early '80's, it's another story. Born in New Jersey and raised in Pennsylvania, Dugan created a style of blues that are as rough-edged as his native landscape, dotted with steel mills and rusting smokestacks. After spending several years in the '80's working clubs in New York City, Dugan returned to Allentown, Pennsylvania (made famous by the Billy Joel song) where he still lives, creating what he calls "Rust-Belt Blues." Over the years, Dugan has shared the stage with a host of headliners including Robert Cray, Leon Russell, Duke Robilard, Chris Cain, BB King and Crosby, Stills and Nash. On his most recent album, A Step Ahead of Trouble, Dugan's style is abundantly clear. While it swings with enough verve to keep any dance-floor junkie happy, |
there's plenty of depth to the music, driven primarily by Dugan's gritty, no frills guitar originals, ranging from the humorous "First Date Blues" to the melancholy "Mudhole Blues," which is a tribute to the late, great blues guitarist Roy Buchanan. Just as Buchanan was known for pulling emotion-soaked guitar solos from his electric guitar, Dugan follows suit with "Mudhole" showcasing his ability to move easily from an almost Delta-style opening to pyrotechnics reminiscent of BB King. While the album features a full horn section playing behind Dugan, drummer Mark Tomlinson and bass man Rob Fraser, while on tour, the band is stripped down to just the three-piece outfit. Although the horn section definitely rounds out the sound of the band, one gets the feeling that the pared-down trio might do an even better job of representing work. All the songs on the album are Dugan's music. |
| The Weekly / Jan. 31 - Feb. 2, 2002 /www.BestofMontereyCounty.com | ||
Mike with Jonny Lang
Mike with B.B. King
Discography Reviews
A Step Ahead of Trouble
The sound quality is great but the real point here is that Mike Dugan's brand of modern blues is both well honed and to the point. -Smokin' Joe Miklos, Billtown Blues Notes. Mike Dugan & the Blues Mission2000
CD
All My Blues
In "All My Blues," Dugan, of Allentown, Pa., doesn't reinvent the blues wheel, he just keeps it turning in the right direction. Never too fancy and always keeping focused, the vocalist and guitarist, proves he can do it all, from blues with a swing to straight-out rockers. -Scott Cronick, Sounding Board, At The Shore, The Press of Atlantic City.Mike Dugan & the Blues Mission
1997
CD
Workin' in the Rust Belt
This is a new release that combines tracks from 3 previous CD's by Mike Dugan that are now out of print. The good news is that all the hottest songs from "Blues From the Rust Belt ", "Holy Live Blues", and the 1989 collector's item, "Workin' ", are now available on one disc.Available on Top Shelf Records, be sure to get this to complete the Dugan collection.
Check us out at: myspace.com/mikeduganandthebluesmission
Record Labels:
Top Shelf Studios
San Jose, California
RaveOn Records
Croton, New York
Booking Information and Mailing List:
MCD MusicP.O. Box 264
Allentown, PA 18105-0264
Phone: (610) 797-7952
E-Mail: MCD@MikeDugan.com
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