With his last two Bullseye Blues recordings (Blues Guitar Virtuoso Live in … Read Full Bio ↴With his last two Bullseye Blues recordings (Blues Guitar Virtuoso Live in Europe and Language of the Soul) Ronnie made evident a passion for melding blues and jazz stylings. The culmination of that passion is Grateful Heart: Blues & Ballads. Longtime band mates Per Hanson on drums, Rod Carey on bass and the incomparable Bruce Katz on piano and B3 organ, are joined by legendary tenor saxman David "Fathead" Newman. From the album's opener (a version of John Coltrane's "Alabama") to its final track (Ronnie's tribute to Carlos Santana, "Song for a Sun") Grateful Heart reveals Mr. Earl as a player of great depth and sensitivity. This exploration of the heart and soul of music is a voyage not to be missed.
"Not many guitarists can walk the fine line between jazz and blues, and of them, few do it as well as Ronnie Earl does ....." Paul Kennedy, The Hard Report
"Ronnie Earl's got it in spades, and he deals his hand so beautifully and plainly on his new Grateful Heart : Blues & Ballads .... He's probably the finest living blues guitarist on the planet" Boston Phoenix
Ronnie Earl is an astonishing technical guitarist. Even when he plays lightning-fast or oddly syncopated passages, his fingering is immaculate and his phrasing is sinuously fluid. Earl has never quite harnessed his rare ability, however. His tendency to overplay when he was a member of Roomful of Blues only got worse when he left to become his own bandleader. Grateful Heart: Blues & Ballads indulges the worst habit of such crossover-jazz projects: noodling. Earl and his bandmates meander through the chord changes with no emotional impetus behind them, no destination before them, and no hurry to get anywhere in particular. --Geoffrey Himes