Nick Gravenites “ROGUE BLUES” reviews in:

AIRPLAY DIRECT
Recorded in 2022 and 2023, Rogue Blues features special guests Charlie Musselwhite, Jimmy Vivino, Barry Sless, Wally Ingram, and Lester Chambers. Pete Sears co-produced … Read More

BLUES NEWS—The Newsletter of the Kentuckiana Society
The illustrious career of Nick Gravenites began in the 1960’s with his friendship with Mike Bloomfield and Paul Butterfield and the creation of The Electric Flag with Barry Goldberg … Read More

ROCK AND BLUES MUSE
The distinctive voice of the Butterfield Blues Band and the Electric Flag, Nick Gravenites, returns with a solo album, Rogue Blues, his first in eight years … Read More

LET IT ROCK MAGAZINE
Hard to believe but, at 85, the great Nick Gravenites still grinds in the field of music – if “grinds” is a correct word for someone doing what they love and what they helped define … Read More

BLUES BLAST MAGAZINE
Born in 1938, Nick Gravenites grew up on the southside of Chicago where he learned the blues from a number of the Chicago greats including Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Jimmy Reed, and Otis Rush among others … Read More

THE ROCKING MAGPIE
Gravenites had major league success as lead singer in Electric Flag, then again when stepping into Janis’s shoes in Big Brother and the Holding Company; but as fashions changed over the decades his particular brand of Chicago Blues … Read More

TWANGVILLE
Nick Gravenites is cool. For his instinct for finding the moment, particularly back in the 1960s, I’d liken him to Neal Cassady,* the counter-culture icon who was taken into the beatnik fold in 1950s New York by Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg … Read More

BLUES BYTES
Nick Gravenites was a key figure in the Chicago blues/rock scene of the 1960s, hanging around with the likes of Mike Bloomfield, Elvin Bishop, Paul Butterfield, and others. He played with Janis Joplin and was also part of The Electric Flag … Read More

AMERICANA HIGHWAYS
I’m pleased yet filled with wonder & pleased to hear legendary South Side of Chicago blues artist Nick Gravenites with an all-star cast of musicians. I’m filled with wonder as to why it clocks in at a mere 27 minutes. This is the first recorded work of Nick in 8 years … Read More

NORTH JERSEY BLUES SOCIETY
Rogue Blues, recorded over the last two years, is a genuine charmer, radiating the warm, easy and utterly natural ambiance of a close clutch of blues-loving friends simply laying it down for the sheer fun of it … Read More

HOUSTON PRESS
The phrase, “If you know, you know,” certainly applies to musician Nick Gravenites. While the name may not be familiar to some casual fans, hardcore music geeks are well aware of his contributions … Read More

JAZZ’N’MORE
Nick Gravenites? Was there something there? Correct: As a youngster at the end of the 1950s, Gravenites was part of the clique around Paul Butterfield, Mike Bloomfield, Charlie Musselwhite and Elvin Bishop, who played Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf in the black clubs on Chicago’s South Side Learned to play the blues directly and unfiltered. Nick wrote, among other things, the classic “Born in Chicago” from the first Butterfield Blues Band album and later moved to the West Coast, where he played with Electric Flag and Big Brother & The Holding Company, for example, and also released solo albums. Together with Pete Sears (Long John Baldry, Jefferson Starship, Hot Tuna), Gravenites – now 85 years old – is now back with the unfortunately very short but fine “Rogue Blues”. The six original songs plus one co-write with Howlin’ Wolf are loosely laid out, exude old-school charm and demonstrate a splendid understanding of roots music. Deep Blues – no ifs and buts!
—Marco Piazzalonga<

BLUES NOTES AND CONVERSATIONS BY JOHN MULLER
Cearly a project of admiration , love , and friendship , a project that is the blues at its’ most basic form – wrapped in the lifeblood of the human experience , raw, powerful , and uplifting , cheeky and ironic , the blues is life’s soundtrack . Pulsating with emotional intensity, the blues presented here is carried along on waves of uncomplicated , easy-going guitar work , and talented journeymen adding their own distinctively unique touches , with vocals as weathered as a sunbaked Mississippi juke joint . Just the blues here, plain and simple , expertly performed, with well-written songs, a very cool project of classic blues with that slightly modern edge … Read More

Nick Gravenites With Pete Sears – Rogue Blues – M.C. Records MC-0093

A new collection by groundbreaking Chicago blues legend Nick Gravenites, his first in eight years, will be released on April 5th by M.C. Records. The CD is entitled Rogue Blues, and blues fans have every valid reason to highly anticipate this release after my having listened to it!

Now, though the entirety of this CD is a meager 25 minutes, a rightful, valid, and on-point argument can be made that Gravenites packs more perspective, reflection, and mindfulness into this collection than most compilations with double the running time.
Here we find the axiomatic “lion in winter,” one with a voice that resolutely sings the tales of a life well-lived, the good, the bad, and all points in between with a weathered, world-weary delivery that leaves no room for misunderstanding about a particular composition’s subject matter.
Gravenites’ conveyances are compellingly powerful in the way a well-written memoir is; the bandage is ripped-off, the wound revealed, and it is left to heal slowly for all to see. This is songwriting of the highest craftsmanship, and the depths of his human condition that he mines are to be applauded.
 
From the days of his south side Chicago ramblings in the dingy blues clubs sopping up the lessons taught by the living blues greats of the time, to where he finds himself now in latter-day repose, his legacy in the blues assured, it is an absolute joy to hear his telling voice impart upon us the deviations life brings forth, and in Gravenites’ case, how he navigated them and has come out the other side. With guests Charlie Musselwhite, Jimmy Vivino, and Lester Chambers, among others, and with Pete Sears’ sterling co-production and piano, accordion, and bass throughout, all cuts are superlatively constructed.
This is a moving testament to Gravenites’ stately place in the American musical landscape, and comes with the highest recommendation. Bravo