Music is an art form that is never simple to describe; it's a celebration of life, it's creativity, it's light and dark, good times and bad ones and, fundamentally, the soundtrack of everyone's life.
Said soundtracks though may not necessarily come from radio airplays or any media in general, but they might often come unexpectedly from the speaker of a car radio, or when we are at a restaurant, or at a beach, where we wouldn't necessary know the song title or the artist performing it, but we would remember the moment we were living with that song in the background, a song that, for some unknown reasons, never got the necessary attention from the music press it deserved, back then.
Rather fortunately, though, since their 1977's debut album, there is an extraordinary collective in the United States that tasked themselves to bring the right justice and exposure to those "forgotten songs" through their insane talent, especially those belonging to genres like Blues, R&B, Boogie, Soul and Swing, for example and that band, is called Roomful Of Blues.
Originally formed in 1967 and going through different changes in their line-up through the years, counting currently the longest serving band member Tenor and Alto Sax Player Rich Lataille (who joined the band in 1970), Guitarist and Bandleader Chris Vachon (who joined in 1990 and took the role of Bandleader in 1998), Christopher Pratt on Trumpet, Mike Coffey on Drums, Craig Thomas on Baritone and Alto Sax, John Turner on Upright and Electric Bass, Jeff Ceasrine on Piano and Organ and, for the first time ever in the collective's history and joining the band in 2025, a female Lead Singer, the hugely talented D. D. Bastos, Roomful Of Blues have released, prior to 2025, something like 20 studio albums and three live recordings, collecting 5 Grammy Awards nominations and 7 Blues Music Awards, throughout their remarkable career to date.
With a new album due to be released on October 11 and called Steppin' Out!, the wonderfully kaleidoscopic musical offer from Roomful Of Blues takes a new step forward, through the fresh recruitment of the aforementioned D.D. Bastos on vocals, a recruitment that enriches even more a well-oiled music machine such as Roomful Of Blues truly is.
What at first impresses the most, while listening to the 14 outstanding tracks included in Steppin' Out!, it is the depth of the emotional connection between the whole band and the songs included in the album, songs that belong to the less known body of work of some well-known artists too, like Etta James (Good Rocking Daddy), Big Mama Thornton (You Don’t Move Me No More) and Z.Z. Hill (You Were Wrong), among many more.
Whilst the American collective offers spotless sonic performances throughout the whole record, especially, in our personal view, on songs like Steppin' Up In Class, Well Oh Well, Why Don’t Cha Stop It and Boogie's The Thing, it's the addition on the band's line-up of D.D. Bastos that add an extra special spice to this masterfully played, sang and arranged record.
Steppin' Out is a record that fundamentally brings positive vibes all around, allowing the listeners not only to enjoy the overall high quality of this exceptional record, but also helps, at the same time, to bring back to the surface forgotten musical gems, like the Soul and Doo-Wop infused Lee Diamond's Please Don't Leave, the killer slow Blues performance of Dave Bartholomew's Tend To Your Business or the spine-tingling version of Buddy and Ella Johnson’s Why Don’t Cha Stop It, all songs where Roomful Of Blues displays, both vocally and sonically, why they are so much loved and respected worldwide by so many fans.
Another musical gem coming from one of the hottest Blues orchestras of the last half a century, Steppin' Out is a wonderful and joyful insight into Blues, Soul and much more brought by a band able to create a solid bridge between past and present of American music with enormous class and gusto.
Allow yourselves to enter the "Roomful Of Blues" world through this splendid record. You won't regret it.
Steppin' Out is due to released on October 11 through Alligator Records .
