Jamie Browning (lead vocals, author, composer), Iain Green (drums, back up vocals, arranger, composer, musical director), Jason Farrar (bass, back up vocals), Adam Rawski (guitar, back up vocals). PLUS: occasional live members Kenmi Chank and Victor Cruz (guitar if/when either of them are in town), Justin Snikkar (bass) and Frank Horvat (keyboards). With thanks to Jerome Tucker, Dane Wedderburn, Curtis Robinson, Dave West and Damon Hines.
STUDIO BLUES ELEMENT:
BABY’S GOT THE BLUES (2005)
Jamie & Iain were joined by Rod Phillips R.I.P. (B3 organ), Michael Fonfara (piano & B3 organ), Dave ’Slopie’ Powell (piano), Bryan Huntley (bass), Alec Fraser (bass), Michael Keith (guitar), and Kenmi Chank (guitar) for "Baby’s Got The Blues", produced by Alec Fraser.
ARE YOU READY (2008)
Jamie & Iain were joined by Jason Wilson (piano, B3 organ, Rhodes), Justin Snikkar (bass), Kenmi Chank (guitar), Garfield Stoddart (guitar), and Rebecca Campbell (back up vocals) for "Are You Ready", produced by Jamie & Iain.
Influences
What do people really mean when they ask who your influences are?
The people that inspire us do not necessarily inspire us to sound LIKE them...
Dinah Washington, Ruth Brown, James Brown, Louis Jordan... they are just a few of the folks that Blues Element covers if a cover song suits the moment.
Ruth Brown is the main reason why Jamie started singing and writing jazz & blues.
A surprising number of people have told us that our original tunes remind them of Steely Dan. (see our blog on that subject)
Iain and Jamie both LOVE Prince. Iain wants to produce and arrange like Quincy Jones. Jamie has been to almost as many punk gigs as Iain has played Soca gigs.
Iain’s top 5 are:
Duke Ellington,
Miles Davis,
The Police,
Bob Marley, and
James Brown.
Jamie’s top 5 are:
David Bowie,
Iggy Pop,
Nick Cave,
Ruth Brown, and
Nina Simone.
Some of the other artists that one or both of us likes or at least liked at some point on the path to here and now, in no particular order: Thelonious Monk, Grace Jones, Billie Holiday, Julian Fauth, P.J. Harvey, AmoebA QuichE, Paul Simon, Bauhaus, Kate Bush, Buddy Guy, Johnny Cash, The Velvet Underground, Patti Smith, Ella Fitzgerald, Etta James, Jeff Buckley, Radiohead, Sonny & Brownie, Hafdis Huld, Ronny Size, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Saturnalia, Ray Charles, The Jam, Dead Can Dance, Siouxsie and The Banshees, The Pretenders, B.B. King, Seal, King Tubby, Daphne’s Purple Closet, Martha Wainwright, The Supremes, Tabarruk, Otis Redding, Curtis Mayfield, Lee Scratch Perry, Tina Turner, DropDeadBeats (of the 3 bands with that name that we know of, we mean the 90’s all-girl funk band from Toronto) and all the other musicians and bands that we have added as friends - there are too many to list!
So, does that answer the question?
Oh, and a big thanks also goes to Ernst Haeckel’s Art Forms in Nature (Kunstformen der Natur) for our background image. As a scientist he was pretty much a fraud, but as an artist he was pretty much amazing. If you like this image and are curious you should Google Ernst Haeckel to see more of his amazing work.
HELLO! Thanks for visiting. This is where we are supposed to put our bio, but our bio is posted in a few other places already, so we (so far) haven't also added it here.
Maybe that will come if/when we ever get around to overhauling this page.
In the meantime, if you really want to read it you can always visit us here.
There's also tons of reviews and feedback there about our 1st release, "Baby's Got The Blues" as well as a few other tunes. We are pleased and amazed to say that BGTB is still receiving regular airplay, most recently/at the time of writing this in Belgium, The Netherlands, St. John's Newfoundland, and Kamloops B.C.
Here's another place to visit us and hear a few other tunes: Blues Element at MusicDirectx - Discover, Download, Watch
To contact the band remove the extra bits from: blues (at) blueselement (dot) com
NEW MUSIC: We've been rotating 4 tracks from the new album at a time here on MySpace (along with 2 songs, currently "Hockey Strike Blues" and "It's Not You" from our 1st cd)
Yes, that's right - our brand new 12 song cd "Are You Ready" has officially been released! We've had a party to celebrate (see video below) and we've started to receive radio play lists and emails from djs around the world. (Norway, Italy, Australia, Spain, and the U.K., Georgia and Nebraska in the U.S, and Kamloops, Montreal, St. John's, Waterloo, Ottawa & Toronto in Canada so far)
ARE YOU READY - shot during sound check at our January 2008 cd release party at the Cadillac Lounge (sorry about the sound...we plan to replace the clip someday with one that has sound from the board, but in the meantime...)
Well, you can read our BLOG to get the lowdown on downloads of the new cd. Also, this
link will take you to a page on our main site that will let you know where to purchase our cds via digital downloads. (most likely we are available at your favourite online store)
OR, get at least BGTB here now while you're thinking about it! (we do plan to post the Snocap store for "Are Your Ready" also, if it ever becomes available.)
HARD COPY CDs
Also, for your listening pleasure and shop at home comfort, :) Blues Element is NOW AVAILABLE at CD Baby in hard copy cd for those of you (like us) who still buy cds:
Dropping by to say Hi. Nice to have Blue Element, as one of our new Peeps. From the Inside Story newspaper in Queer West Village, Toronto Ontario, Canada. Don Quixote, editor in chief.
Gracias a todos, amigos. Hemos creado un nuevo espacio en el portal musicaclick: http://www. musicaclick. com/BABEL%20EXPERIENCE Buena acogida para las bandas que buscan promoción. El registro es gratuito
Awesome to hear from you, thanks so much for your comments! That really cheered me up. How ironic that the blues would brighten my day LOL!! Keep up the great work by the way, also nice to see my buddy George on your page too! Good taste!
