Bernard Allison - Luther's Blues Tour | Berlin

Luther's Blues Tour
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Anyone who has ever been to a Bernard Allison concert or knows his discography well knows how much it means to him to keep his father's musical legacy alive. “At the beginning of my career, I made a promise to myself and my mother, Fannie Mae Allison, and that was that every album I made would feature at least one or two pieces by my father,” he explains.


Bernard kept his word: he still faithfully performs his father’s songs both at concerts and on his records. He does this mostly in a funky, rock-oriented style that is clearly different from the traditional blues he grew up with. When he was still finding his own musical voice, his father encouraged him to “play it the way you feel it,” rather than copying what was before him. Just in time for the 30th anniversary of Ruf Records and more than three decades after the debut of blues guitar master Bernard Allison, Luther's Blues extensively celebrates the musical legacy of Bernard's father Luther Allison - a true legend of Chicago blues and a central figure in the record label's history. The double CD contains 20 outstanding recordings by Bernard Allison, each of which is a composition by Luther Allison that previously appeared on one of Bernard's many albums. Allison herself selected the tracks for this collection; Pauler Acoustics, a renowned address in the hi-fi scene, has lovingly remastered it. The 20 Luther Allison songs on Luther’s Blues have been updated for the 21st century by a representative of the next generation of blues. They are not necessarily Luther's most famous pieces. When he's working on a new album, Bernard says, he often looks for "songs that were overlooked with my father back then. I then put my own spin on them."

The track list on the two CDs spans exactly 30 years, from "Hang On" - recorded in Paris in the summer of 1992, when Allison was only in her mid-twenties - to the two tracks from the last studio album Highs & Lows, which reached number 1 on the Billboard Blues Chart in 2022 and earned a nomination for Blues Rock Album of the Year at the Blues Music Awards. New versions of familiar Luther Allison songs such as “Bad Love”, “Life Is A Bitch” and “Let’s Try It Again” can also be heard. Bernard Allison has played a large part in ensuring that these songs, now considered classics, have remained in our collective consciousness. This also and especially applies to “Serious”, an exceptional title that first appeared on a Luther Allison record in 1987. His son plays it at every concert without exception and considers it his father's most popular song in the world. He never lost sight of where he came from and is back on tour!