Mike Gallo Returns...

Photo Courtesy Mike Gallo

RALEIGH, N.C. - Mike Gallo's return to playing the blues will not see him try to become the next Stevie Ray Vaughan. "I try to stay away from that (Vaughan style), since everyone around here is trying to do that," said Gallo, the Raleigh, NC blues guitarist, whose influences are decidedly "more BritishÓ than Texan. Gallo had all but given up playing for over ten years until, in 1995, he happened upon a video of British guitarist Gary Moore playing in a London club.

"That video got me going," he said. Given the tremendous level of enthusiasm he generates at Raleigh-area open-mic nights, where he has been regularly playing for the last few years, he is Ôgoing' indeed.

One of his goals is to win a contest sponsored by the Raleigh-Durham area's Triangle Blues Society. The contest sends the region's best blues band on a trip to the home of the blues Ð Memphis

"I definitely have to get to Memphis and Beale Street," he said, while citing B.B. King multiple times as a major influence in his work.

When I first saw Gallo play at Yancey's, a fairly upscale bar in downtown Raleigh, my first impression was that he seemed sharper and less self-indulgent than the heavily SRV-inspired sound of the guitarist who preceded him on stage. Performing alongside a good harmonica player and two horns, Gallo needed to be sharp. He succeeded, while exhibiting some powerful flashes of the Mike Gallo I'd see more of in the coming week.

The following Wednesday, I found him at a cozier venue where he had a better chance to showcase his talents. He was on, beginning confidently with "The Thrill is Gone," which was more upbeat and thrilling than the previous week's rendition, and simply smoked on "Before You Accuse Me."

The British influence, which he attributes largely to Robin Trower, Eric Clapton and Gary Moore, is evident in his solos, which he describes as "blues with a rock edge." Whatever you call it, the players, friends and onlookers at the fairly diverse open-mic loved it. The emcee was ready for another act after three songs, but the crowd demanded "ONE MORE!"

Indeed, Gallo said he has seen a fan base begin to develop over the past few months. With a regular band that has been solidifying of late, that fan base should continue to grow.

"There are more people coming up to me (at shows), saying 'hello,' saying they like what I'm doing," he said. Beyond recognition, Gallo has his eye on that trip to Memphis.

Yet the first step for Gallo, who began playing in rock bands while growing up in New York City, is to play in the Durham Blues Festival in a city where, today, legendary blues seems to be a rare find.

"If (the blues scene) does exist, I haven't seen it," said Gallo of Durham, home of Duke University, but he says he's heard that a Durham blues scene was Òabsolutely huge in '40s through the '60s."

Perhaps the spark will have to come from outsiders like Gallo, part of Raleigh's active blues scene.

"(Durham)'s an untapped market, but they gotta start with some good players" Ð something the yuppier towns of Raleigh and Cary now have but Durham, oddly enough, doesn't.

Such seemingly backward regressions are normal in the twisted roots of the blues, a genre which undergoes constant revival. Gallo, like so many other white American musicians, discovered the music's U.S. origins via the British rockers like John Mayall and even Led Zeppelin. He also says he likes Stevie Ray Vaughan, by the way.

Good blues, described by Gallo as "all nuanced, with a seemingly simple format," has a power transcending time and place that he seeks to channel in his own direction Ð away from the SRV clones. Based on what I've heard, blues fans should follow.

As Gallo added, "The people that gravitate towards the blues will stay there."

Warren Wilson is a BlueSpeak agent, working undercover, at the University of North Carolina.