My name is Maury "Hooter" Saslaff and I'm an American musician who's been living in Norway since August '00. Coming under the spell of the blues as a teenager in the early '70s, I ended up falling somewhere musically between my 2 biggest influences: the late, great Duane Allman, who along with brother Gregg, formed the Allman Brothers Band in '69, and the equally late and equally great Chester Arthur Burnett aka "Howlin Wolf," the greatest of all the blues singers.
In the course of my 27 year career I've played in 17 European countries and counting, 45 US states, 4 Canadian provinces and even a week long tour of Israel in March '00. Inspired by my first visit in May '88 to the blues mecca of Chicago I decided to make the blues my life's work and formed the South Jersey Blues Society (Philadelphia area) in Nov '88 and over the next 5 years promoted a fewdozen shows with people like Charlie Musselwhite, Duke Robillard, Kenny Neal, Saffire, Melvin Taylor and Carey Bell to name just a few and played with/booked many bands and international blues artists including former Muddy Waters sideman Luther "Gtr. Junior" Johnson, Gatemouth Brown, James Cotton, Earl King, Tabby Thomas, Johnny Hearstman, Sonny Rhodes, Frankie Lee and many others, chief among them a 6 year partnership with Mississippi Delta Blues legend Big Jack Johnson from Sept. '94 to July '00.
Jack and I recorded 3 cds together on New York City based MC Records: Stop This Killin in '96, All The Way Back in '98 and Roots Stew in '00 which got a total of 5 WC Handy (the blues Grammies) nominations plus articles in all 3 major US blues magazines, Blues Revue, Blues Access and a cover story in April '98 with the most prestigious of them all, Living Blues. There were many other articles worldwide including a National Geographic story on the blues in July '98, a cover story in the Norwegian Blues Unions' Blues News in June '98 and The Finnish Blues News in Oct. '98. We were also featured on CNN's Worldbeat in Oct '98 and played some of the biggest and most famous blues/music festivals in the world including The Chicago Blues Festival in June '00 and The Montreal Jazz Festival in July '97. In Norway we played The Mai Jazz, Ole Blues (Bergen Music Festival) Notodden and Lillehammer Blues Festivals, Finlands' Scandinavian Blues Party & Blues Live Festivals and at least 2 dozen others plus over 20 Bluesklubbs throughout Scandinavia and countless others in Europe including the Torrita and Suoni Dal Mondo (IT), Luzerne and Bellinzona (CH), Isla De Blues (ESP) and Schrozberger and Ulm (DE) Blues Festivals.
After moving to Norway I joined The Blue Devils and hit the ground running with over 500 gigs in the 2+ years we were together with Daniel Eriksen/Bjorn "Hurricane" Hansen. In Norway we did The Notodden, Lillehammer, Skånevik and Soulsvær Blues Fests, over 40 bluesklubbs and venues like Muddy Waters in Oslo, Ricks in Bergen and our final gig, '03s Notodden Musikk Forums' Color Line Blues Cruise which was on 10 May which was a fitting finale to my time with the band. We also played many, many festivals, kulturhusets and blues/musikk klubbs throughout Scandinavia like The Langelands Festival in Denmark with James Brown, The Gipsy Kings and other int'l headliners in July '02, The Imatra Big Band, Kalott J&B and Tykki Blues Festivals in Finland and even Augusti Bluus in Haapsalu, Estonia in '02 and again in '03 backing Phil Guy, the brother of the legendary blues guitarist Buddy Guy, along with another music legend, headliner Robert Plant, the voice of Led Zeppelin.
Hooter's Blues, will feature many US guitar players including: Lil' Dave Thompson (www.davethompson.info); Johnnie Marshall, Lonnie Shields (both at www.jsprecords.com -- look under New Blues); Johnny Rawls (www.johnnyrawls.com) and others; Mike Gallaher, who has played with Joe Cocker, Delbert McClinton and many other international artists (www.mikegallaher.com); and others. It will also feature a great Norwegian guitar player named Kurt Slevigan, as well as drummers Tom "Dysa" Stølan (Dysa Tunes), and Asbjoern "Assy Asbjoern" Husby.
I'll look forward to hearing from and seeing all my blues friends at our gigs and hope to be playing in your town soon. So come and join the fun & GIVE A HOOT!
