Calgary acoustic blues duo Bill Hills and Ray Lemelin returned to the Slice to play for another sparse audience, Feb. 24.
Bill Hills blew an upbeat harp solo to kick off the show, while Ray Lemelin added some sweet acoustic guitar, then launched into the blues classic ‘Easy Rider,” which sounded like it was being sung by Elvis.
Hills was a bundle of energy throughout, slapping his knees, snapping his fingers, dancing in his seat while stomping his feet.
what the audience lacked in numbers, they made up for in enthusiasm. They played a lot of their latest CD ‘Neither Here nor There,’ blues standards including a really laid back version of ‘Bring it on Home,’ and a really cool song about the music business called ‘Frogs to Snakes.’
They will be beginning work on a new CD this summer including four or five songs in French.
“The first side will be in English and the second side will be in French. We’ll see how it goes,” said Hills adding they are planning this project because Lemelin is from Quebec and also they home to get more exposure in Quebec from it. Tim Williams is set to produce this CD , as he did the previous CD.
“The last one came out in March, so it’s about time for another one,” he continued adding they are taking part in Calgary’s winter blues festival, where they were opening a show for slide guitar master Sonny Landreth.
— By Richard Amery, L.A. Beat Editor
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