The Swedish duo of Baba Blues is famous for on stage sounding like a whole big band going on with the minimalistic settings of voice, harmonica and two acoustic guitars put into a PA-system.
No faking machines or synthesizers, just pure handmade music…

When they make records they use a little more of technique and instruments as they make them for a different audience and listening situation.
They want to bring a story into your living room.

History

Richard Danielson and Clas Gustavsson (then mainly a drummer) met in 1984 as members of a touring blues band called “Diving Duck”. A little fed up with the cover-mentality of the ordinary blues band-concept they started to play acoustic on late hotel nights after the gigs to get the music out of their system. There they founded a form of blues rooted in the early pre-war blues, with no bas and drums, but with a modern rock attitude. In 1988 they started to play and make gigs under the name of Baba Blues duo and decided to make a tape to sell after the gigs.
They had both played in several band for many years being parts of the Swedish “progg-scene” going on in the seventies, with lyrics in Swedish and slightly psychedelic “make your own thing”- approach.

When they, in the early 90:s, started to write and record their own blues songs in Swedish and put them on the debut-album “Fishermen” the radio stations immediately started to played it. TV- shows invited them and they became favourites of the newspapers critics that put it on “the best of the year lists”.
They made two albums “Kompassernas man”(-93) and “Den rasande balansen” (-96) in Swedish with hits on the radios play-lists before they decided to try to communicate with the world outside of Sweden.

In 2000 their album “Excavations: blues is a rainbow” knocked the critics who again put them on “the best of the year lists”. This time the songs were in English, some of their own, some old blues stuff and unexpectedly a Motorhead song. All in very personal way with their very unique approach left.

"Deep down in the mirror" was released in 2005, with expressive lyrics, experimental settings (kora, violin and brass arrangements) and together with heavy touring they received the Swedish Blues Award of Jefferson Bluesmagazine in 2006.

Musicians

Richard Danielson

vocal. A real deep down heavy blues-voice, bleeding harmonica and acoustic guitar (that sometimes sounds very electric with the feedback from the monitors).

Clas Gustavsson

acoustic guitar with wha-wha, and backing vocals. On stage the engineer often puts a microphone to his foot. He has got rhythm…On the records he also occasionally plays bas, percussion & drums.

Sometimes they work with one or two more musicians, then the extended duo is calledBaba Blues XL.Very often it is these ones:
Klas Jervfors (trombone), Kai Sundqvist (saxophone)

(Picture from Mosebacke Stockholm 2006)

)
Jo Husmo ( bass) and Dan Magnusson (drums)

(picture from Amal BluesFest2005)

Sometimes even bigger settings of Baba Blues XXL is booked, then with six or seven musicans on stage.

During periods they have made co-operation with the gambian master Tata Din-Din on the harp-like string-instrument kora and digging in the West-African traditional music that is closely related to blues and made them sometimes plaing with other African musicians like Dembo&Roots Foundation.