American Blues News - "Dedicated to the promotion and celebration of the Blues."

(Washington DC) Let me start this article by naming some favorite blues bands/srtists from the past ... Savoy Brown, Cream, Ten Years After ... not a bad start if I may say so myself. I have several CD's by these artists. Their music is timeless. I may have gotten away from this style music for awhile, but it's coming back to me now.



A local artist in the DC area named Tony Fazio sent me a CD and asked if we would consider reviewing it here. I told him I would give it a fair chance and listened to it as soon as it came in the mail. My first impression was that it was a good local artist CD. I wasn't totally convinced that we would be able to review it here, but I gave it another chance. My car stereo just didn't have the sound performance I needed to make a fair evaluation of the music. I put it in my stereo, put the headphones on, and started to hear bits of Savoy Brown here and there ... bits of Cream (Eric Clapton) ...Ten Years After (Alvin Lee).



The name of the band is Electrofied, and the name of the CD is Bad Case Of The Blues. The band consists of Tony Fazio on guitar, Scott Taylor on vocals, Rob Rusteberg, and Richard James Burgess on drums. The CD also features harmonica (harp) from legendary bluesman Charlie Sayles. I grew particularly fond of the second tune on the CD titled "Cadillac", which features great guitar licks from Tony Fazio, and excellent blues vocals from Scott Taylor. The band has a good solid sound, and I have probably heard this CD front to back dozens of times. First of all to give a fair review of the CD, but then because it got a bit addicting to listen to.

I am a huge fan of guitar driven blues which people like Eric Clapton, Duane Allman, BB King and so many other great blues artists made famous in the 60's. This CD treats its listeners to good blues licks in every tune, and the best part of it all is that these are mainly original songs written by Tony and Scott. The CD opens up with A Bad Case Of The Blues, an original song by the band, which lends itself well to the blues singers of the past, and excellent slashing guitar solos from Tony Fazio.



Rub Me Down, another original tune form Fazio/Taylor, makes me think of some of the good r&b I used to listen to in my younger days. I can't put my fingers on who exactly it reminds me of, but the song seems to have definite r&b influences to it. The song is hypnotizing, and sounds likes the first time everytime i hear it. It never seems to get old to listen to.

Early In The Morning is another tune that has an early r&b sound to it, but at the same time, a strong blues feel. It opens up with a fierce guitar lick from Tony Fazio and rocks the rest of the way with nice vocals and a more than competent job of drums and bass. I got a slight feel of Bill Black's Combo in this tune the more I listened to it.




This CD is a strong CD from a local band who should be making more of an impact on the DC area music scene very soon. I have only one complaint about the CD. It's beginning to show wear and tear on it from being overplayed, taken in and out of various CD players, and my general lack of taking care of the CD's as they need to be taken care of. This CD will make it onto my ipod, and I would recommend it to anyone who is on the lookout for some good guitar driven blues.

Rating: 4.0 blue stars out of 5 blue stars

For more info on this DC area band, and to hear samples from this CD, go to http://www.tonyfazio.com/

Feel free to Email me with questions or comments at virginiabluesman@gmail.com

All pictures used with permission from the artists
Bob Rusteberg (bass) photo unavailable at posting time