 Delta Wires, celebrated longtime Northern California blues ensemble, are set to release “Searching For A Woman (A Tribute To Chess Records),” with the single dropping on Mudslide Records, Wednesday, September 23. “Searching for a Woman” will be available on Apple Music, Amazon Music, Spotify, and the majority of world-wide digital download and streaming sites.
DW bandleader Ernie Pinata was a blues lover and collector, and an avid fan of the “Chitlin’ Circuit”. He was able to see many of the blues greats when they came to the Oakland/Bay Area. The band has stuck to its roots, always influenced by Chicago blues (with a horn section). Pinata had wanted to cover Albert King’s “Searching for a Woman” and also wanted it to be a tribute to Chess Records, as the importance of the music that came out of Chess cannot be underestimated. He wanted to put our own spin on a classic Chess recording – Searching for a Woman. “Searching For A Woman” (A Tribute to Chess Records) Info Recorded January 2025 at 2200 Studios, Sausalito CA (formerly The Record Plant)
Recording and Mixing Engineer: Sean Beresford
Mastering: Jason Haxton Productions
Musicians:
Ernie Pinata: vocal, harmonica
Richard Healy: guitar
Tom Gerrits: bass guitar
Anthony Malfatti: B3 organ
Tony Huszar: drums
David Bowman: trombone, cimbasso, horn arrangements
John Christensen: trumpet
Caleb Murray: tenor and baritone saxes
More About…Delta Wires The Delta Wires band was created out of a love of the blues, its beginnings in the Mississippi Delta, and the migration to Chicago of the Delta blues-men. Band leader, Ernie Pinata, started the band as a college project for sociology credit. It was a musical presentation with dialog, which followed the regional migration of the blues from the South [after the Cotton Gin came about] to Chicago, He wrote songs and received poetry credit. These studies culminated in the first performance of the Delta Wires.
Delta Wires have been generating powerful blues for over thirty years, performing at festivals from Monterey to Italy, and always with monumental audience response — all of which earned them membership in California’s Blues Hall of Fame in 2012. Delta Wires were also voted “Best Live Band” in a poll by the East Bay Express and Oakland Magazine.
It began with traditional field hollers, to Son House, Charley Patton, and Robert Johnson, along with a few of Ernie’s original compositions. A Muddy Waters-style blues band (or a “Little Walter style band with a sax added”) finished out the program. Ernie Pinata and his brother Stephen worked together on creating the concept and the band which performed the project, and Ernie’s childhood friend, bassist Tom Gerrits, became a part of the band around this time. A three-piece horn section was added and has been part of the Delta Wires’ sound ever since.
Delta Wires began by playing the clubs in Oakland – Esther’s Orbit Room and The Continental Club; Mandrake’s and The New Orleans House in Berkeley. Around this time, the great, late guitarist Lowell Fulson sat in with the group at the New Orleans House in Berkeley, while Pinata sat in with the Freddie King Band at Mandrakes in Berkeley. This was followed by performances with Buddy Guy and Junior Wells, Bo Diddley, John Lee Hooker, and Little Milton. The Delta Wires then began to open shows for these blues greats, and continued to grow as musicians and as a band. They release a critically-acclaimed album, If Somebody Told Me, in 2023. Fast-forward to 2025, they are still going strong.
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Source: dougdeutschPR |
