One Look at Bluesman Rod Piazza

Brown Burnett Rod Piazza Bluesman Rod Piazza’s website will tell you a lot about him. He’s a most modern man. He has TWO websites -- one for himself, rodpiazza.com, and another for his band, themightyflyers.com. Here you can buy Rod Piazza and the Mighty Flyers T-shirts and recordings, old and new. Find out where the band’s gonna be over the next few months. On Rod’s own site you can get the group’s E-newsletter, written by the band’s keyboardist, who happens to be Honey Piazza, Rod’s wife. On Rod Piazza’s own site, you can get an instructional video on blues harmonica – "harp, amps, mics and photos of 35 years experience, plus live footage of full band performances." And oh, yes, we also must mention that Rod Piazza is also a real-life bluesman – the genuine article, with albums going back to 1967. His new album, Beyond the Source (Tone Cool) has just been released and it shows that the singer/harmonica player from California continues to grow and excel, even after all these years. "This one I think captured the core of every song we did, so I’m really pleased with it," he said. "I guess I’ve recorded about 20 albums, and the early ones you don’t really think about ENJOYING doing them. You just hope someone doesn’t say, "‘STOP! THIS IS TERRIBLE!’" "But since about 1980, when I began being able to control things, I’ve been able to enjoy doing them." Two tracks from the new album were recorded in Memphis with Jim Dickinson producing, and the album trumpets Piazza’s Memphis connections, citing that the Mighty Flyers won Handy Awards for Blues Band of the Year in 1999 and 2000, with Piazza winning Harmonica Player Award in 1998. "I had a rough go in Memphis in the early ‘90s," a tired Piazza said in a phone interview from California. (He’d just returned from a whirlwind trip to Norway and a gig in Michigan was waiting.) "I almost got killed. I got robbed and mugged and lost so many dear things there." But Piazza’s feelings about Memphis changed when he won a Blues Record of the Year for an album he cut live at BB King’s on Beale Street. "The National Independent Record Distributors gave me that award and it means a lot to me. Ever since then I’ve always had a good time down there (in Memphis)." Piazza and his Mighty Flyers most recently played the Rum Boogie Café, also on Beale Street. Piazza uses Marine Band Chromatic harmonicas but he makes and sells his own microphone – the Hot Rod. "A guy kept modifying mine and people kept asking me if I would do theirs, so I thought maybe someone would want to buy mine. There are lots of copies of mine anyway," he said. Being a California guy, Piazza differentiates between West Coast blues and other types. "West Coast is a little more r&b swing beat on the drum. More of that floating type of swing on the shuffles instead of the straight ahead backbeat like some of the Texas or Chicago blues.’’ Norway one night, Kalamazoo the next, now in his 5th decade of traveling and playing the blues, Piazza is constantly reminded of where the fine line between work and music is drawn. "The travel part is the hard part. It took me 24 hours to get from my hotel in Norway to my house here. On the road you travel six, 10 hours – whatever. THAT’S the work. And if the music don’t sound good, then IT’S work. "But I just keep going. I get my inspiration from the sound – the sound of the blues."