It was probably ten years or so ago when my wife asked me when exactly I become such a big blues music fan. I was taken aback by the question, because, at least in my mind, it didn’t make sense. I mean, I became a blues fan when I really started listening to music. Not just hearing it. At the risk of sounding a little bit “out there”… it was almost like I would become a part of it.
This would have been back in 1968-69, when I would spend countless hours listening to albums by bands like Cream, The Rolling Stones, The Allman Brothers Band, and the brilliant one/two punch of Led Zeppelin’s first two albums (both released in 1969). Back then we just called it rock, even though we understood that it had blues at its core. It was, and remains to this day, majestic.
Over the ensuing five and a half decades, I’ve listened to a LOT of blues rock. If possible, I love it even more today than I did as a fourteen-year-old listening to “Dazed and Confused,” over and over and over again. Like all things, blues rock has changed a lot over the years. I don’t mean that in a bad way… oh no, far from it. It’s grown, expanded, and branched out. There are so many variations of blues and blues rock music being played today… and that’s a beautiful thing.
But still, every once in a while, I like to get down and dirty with some good old-fashioned, boogie like you mean it blues rock. The kind where you’re not really sure where the dividing line between blues and rock falls, and you don’t even care, because it doesn’t matter. Music that you feel as much as hear.
And that’s where the Kurt Allen Band comes in. Kurt Allen knows how to play blues rock. This past Friday night, at Lincoln’s Roadhouse (my absolute favorite neighborhood dive bar in the Denver area), Allen reminded all of us in attendance what real blues rock is all about.
But as they say in the infomercials, “wait, there’s more”…
Yes, Kurt Allen knows blues rock. But he also knows blues soul. And blues funk. And even a little bit of blues swing. And every combination you might think to conjure up.
I talked to Allen the day before he and his bandmates (Sean Pflum on drums and Adam Swartz on bass and vocals) arrived in Denver for the Lincoln’s Roadhouse show. He explained it this way… “I’ve always listened to as much stuff as I can. You know, very diverse musical influences. I try to draw little bits here and there from everything that I’ve ever heard or been influenced by. I’ve been highly influenced by funk and soul, and that creeps into my playing and my songwriting a lot, you know, mixing funk, soul, blues, and rock.”
Allen’s musical journey began at an early age. Neither of his parents were musicians, but they nonetheless contributed to his early introduction to the power of music. Ultimately, though, it was his uncle who provided him with the spark to pursue music as more than just an interest.
“I remember riding around with my parents when I was three, four years old, in the back my mom’s little Toyota, and I would crawl in the very, very back of the car and curl up in a little ball with my ear next to the speaker. My mom would always be listening to Casey Kasem’s Top 40. Some of my first memories are right there, being curled up with my ear next to the speaker.
So from the get-go I’ve been fascinated with music. Then I met my uncle, my mom’s younger brother. He was always around, and he played guitar. I was about seven years old, and we’re all at my uncle’s house, and I was wandering around. I just happened to wander into a room where he had a Fender 100-watt tube stack and a 1971 ES-335 (a semi-hollow body Gibson electric guitar). I was like, what is this!? So he started teaching me to play. He had me strumming chords, and the first song that he had me learn was “Johnny B. Goode,” by Chuck Berry. My uncle and I spent a lot of time hanging out together, playing and learning things and stuff like that.”
Allen’s uncle did more than teach him to play. He infused in him a love of 60s and 70s rock. Music that owed its very existence to the blues.
“Without Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, Albert King, Freddie King, Hound Dog Taylor… we wouldn’t have Led Zeppelin, or the Beatles, or anybody that came after that. So many of those acts from the late 60s and 70s, they were redoing old blue songs. Many bands still do. The foundation for so much of that music was the blues.”
Allen cites a number of guitar players as being primary influences on his style, including Alvin Lee from Ten Years After and Rory Gallagher. But there’s one guitarist in particular who truly inspired him to pursue a career in music…
“Jimmy Page. I was probably around five years old the first time I heard “Heartbreaker,” and I was like, that’s what I’m going to do. Yeah, that’s what I’m going to do.”
The influence of all three of those legendary players, plus a whole lot more, was on full display at Lincoln’s Roadhouse on Friday night. This wasn’t a ‘play a set and you’re done’ kind of thing. This was a good, old-fashioned bar gig. Allen, Pflum, and Swartz took the stage at straight up 8:00 pm to deliver the first of what would be three sets which, when added up, included thirty-one songs, and had a running time of close to three hours and fifteen minutes.
All three sets included a mix of Allen originals and covers crossing numerous genres and styles. (See the photo gallery for a listing that includes all three sets, in order.)
Allen’s catalog includes two studio albums, Titanium Blue (2014) and Whiskey, Women & Trouble (2020), plus one live album, Live From The Red Shed (2022). Most of the nineteen tracks from his studio albums, plus one previously unreleased song that appears on the live album, found their way into the overall setlist. All but one of those songs are Allen originals. The one exception was a cover of the Son House classic “Death Letter.” Allen’s studio cover of that song (which appears on the Titanium Blue album) is extraordinary, and its live presentation is always a highlight of Allen’s live shows.
The Kurt Allen Band is not a cover band, but when you play a four-hour bar set, you more or less have to become one. On Friday night, this band made that look easy. Eighteen of the evening’s songs were covers (not including “Death Letter”). They covered an incredible range of artists, style and genres, including (in alphabetical order) Albert Castiglia, Albert Collins, Black Sabbath, Buffalo Springfield, Freddie King, Mountain, Pink Floyd, Robin Trower, Ten Years After, The Allman Brothers Band, The Beatles, The Black Keys, The Clash, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, The Rolling Stones, Tom Petty, and ZZ Top.
Yeah, I know. That’s a crazy list. Serious deep cuts mixed in with recognizable classics. Albert Castiglia’s “Big Toe” following The Beatles’ “Come Together”. Robin Trower’s “Too Rolling Stoned” following Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb”. It takes serious guts to take on a song like “Comfortably Numb,” which includes a guitar solo widely acknowledged as one of the best in the history of classic rock. Allen killed it.
And Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs”? Swartz took on lead vocal duties for that one and managed to do major justice to both Ozzie Osbourne’s vocals and Geezer Butler’s bass playing.
As great as the song selection was (both originals and covers), the actual performance was better. Swartz and Pflum are the perfect rhythm section. They’re the glue that holds everything together, allowing Allen to shine as the front man. Both are excellent musicians. In addition to the “War Pigs” cover, Swartz assumed lead vocal duties on a number of songs, including “For What It’s Worth,” “Tush,” and “Start Me Up.”
But let’s face it… the star of the show is Allen. The man is a supremely gifted and talented guitar player, with extraordinary range. Whether it’s a slow burn like “How Long” (the opening of that song is so Led Zeppelin-like that it gives me shivers every time I hear it), a funky blues number like “Graveyard Blues,” or a flat-out rocker like “Sweet T,” the man had it covered. “Comfortably Numb” was the sixth song of the second set. In the break between the second and third sets, I told Allen that David Gilmour would be proud. And I seriously meant it.
Friday was a long day for the Kurt Allen Band. Drive to Denver from Kansas City… eight and a half hours on the road. Check into the hotel, get maybe a few minutes rest, then on to the venue for load in and soundcheck. Start playing at 8:00 pm… wrap up at midnight. Load out, and head back to the hotel to crash, before getting up tomorrow to drive to the next gig (they played in Keystone on Saturday night). Ah, the glamorous life of a touring musician.
But it’s a life Allen loves. He takes great pride in being the ultimate road warrior. After wrapping up their two-night swing through Colorado, the band will head east for their next gig in Gravois Mills, MO. Over the course of the next month, they’ll be making stops in Arkansas, Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and South Dakota. It’s a grueling lifestyle, but one he wouldn’t change for anything.
“You know, there’s pros and cons to everything. I’ve said for years that I would rather spend eight hours in a van driving to some place to play for three or four hours, than spend eight, nine, or ten hours punching a clock working for somebody else. At the end of the day, the gratification, the satisfaction, is ten times what it would be if I was just punching the clock and then going home and watching whatever’s on TV.”
Before I let you go, I have a couple of HUGE shoutouts I feel compelled to make.
First, I cannot thank Kurt Allen enough for how generous he was with his time, both in the interview we did on Thursday morning, and all through Friday night at Lincoln’s. It’s one thing to be a tremendous musician, songwriter, and performer. (Well, maybe that’s more than one thing.) It’s another thing altogether to be a gracious and genuinely good dude.
Second, to Lincoln’s Roadhouse. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. I absolutely love this place. I don’t hesitate for even a second to call it my favorite Denver dive bar. Great food, darned chilly beer, friendly staff, and awesome live music. If you’ve never been, what in the world are you waiting for?!?!
In our pre-show conversation, Allen said about Lincoln’s Roadhouse… “We’ve been playing Lincoln’s for maybe 10 years. (Owner) Jim Bob’s a good guy. I like the whole staff. It’s going to be a blast, man. We always have a lot of fun there and do our best to knock the walls down.”
I thought about that comment as I was walking back to my car in the early minutes of Saturday morning. I paused for a moment, turning to look back at the bar. Yep, the walls were still up. But it seemed to me that they just might be leaning a fair amount more than I remember when I entered the building about six hours earlier. Well done, Kurt Allen Band.
Story and photos by Rick Witt www.rickwittphotography.com
