A year on from the release of his career-defining album, 'The Dockside Sessions (Where The Wind Blows)', and Australian guitar slinger James Southwell returns to a familiar haunt playing at Blues On Broadbeach (Gold Coast).
The album was the culmination of James' extensive writing and touring over the past 12 years that has seen him play over 2,000 shows and develop as a songwriter. “For the album, I chose 11 of my original songs that I've written over the past 12 years.
“I had a really good idea of how I wanted it to sound from the production standpoint as well as more of a trained, musical approach in telling the other musicians how I wanted them to perform the songs and the approach I wanted them to come at the tunes with,” James says.
'The Dockside Sessions' was recorded at the famed Dockside Studio in Maurice, Louisiana where greats such as B.B. King, Clarence 'Gatemouth' Brown, Sonny Landreth, Mark Knopfler, Mavis Staples and many more have created blues history.
James says producing the record in the heartland of American blues helped imbue it with that quintessential southern quality he was trying to achieve. “The songs seem to be recorded a bit slower and a bit groovier because it's so hot and humid in Louisiana,” he says.
“I was actually doing a gig in Georgia, Atlanta and a guy came up and said 'what are you playing?' and I said 'the blues'. He goes 'you're not from the South, you can't play the blues'.
“Then after the set he said that it was really great and that he loved what I did, and I said 'well, I'm from further south than you are',” James laughs, referring to Australia.
“My point was that it doesn't matter where you come from and if you say 'the South', there's not really anywhere further south than where we are.”
James and his band will be performing at this year's Blues On Broadbeach festival, an event he says is close to his heart as a travelling artist.
“It's been a couple of years since I've been there and it's a festival that – considering it's free – the amount of talent that you've got to see, the environment you're in, the weather and atmosphere, it's worth a million bucks.
“I think it's an incredible festival and all of us [in the band] are really excited to get back there and blow the roof off it,” he says.
“We spread the set list out a bit, it depends on the vibe we have. A lot of the set is from the record, but it depends on the groove we're in; if it's a chilled vibe we'll play a bit slower and if it's more upbeat we'll play more funky stuff.
“It's horses for courses and it just depends on how we feel at that point in time. Until that afternoon and I'm onstage I won't really know what's going on; keep it fresh.”
