Vargas Blues Band

Vargas Blues Band is a Spanish blues and blues rock group formed in 1991 by guitarist Javier Vargas. The project grows out of Vargas’s long experience as a player and session musician, and it develops a style that combines blues rock and electric blues with Latin, flamenco and other crossover elements.

Background

Javier Vargas is born in Madrid and moves with his family to Argentina at the age of nine. He lives in Mendoza, San Luis, Buenos Aires and Mar del Plata, where he begins playing guitar with other young musicians and takes lessons while also listening to live blues in clubs. His first guitar is a nylon-string Spanish guitar given by his father, and he later receives his first electric guitar at 12. Early influences include Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Cream, The Rolling Stones, The Doors and Jimi Hendrix, alongside blues players such as B.B. King, Albert King, Freddie King and Albert Collins.

When his family later moves to Venezuela, Vargas goes to the United States to study further, living in Nashville and Los Angeles. There he plays in clubs and works as a session guitarist, jamming with American and English musicians and meeting artists including Alvin Lee, Roy Buchanan and members of Canned Heat. In the 1970s he also works as a guitarist on a cruise ship leaving Vigo, with routes that include the Caribbean, where he is exposed to Jamaican musicians and reggae. In the 1980s he returns to Spain and plays with Miguel Ríos and La Orquesta Mondragón, while also working as a session player and composer in London, Paris and New York. Before forming his own group he plays with RH +, Entrega Inmediata and Blues Express.

Recording career

The band’s first album, All Around Blues, is released in 1991 and features Elena Figueroa and Philip Guttman. Madrid-Memphis follows in 1992 and includes contributions from Carey Bell, Louisiana Red, Rafael Riqueni, Philip Guttman and Jeff Espinoza. Both early albums receive strong support in Spain and reach the highest sales figure for a blues album in the country to that point.

Blues Latino appears in Spain in 1994 and includes support from Chris Rea, Junior Wells, Flaco Jiménez and Andrés Calamaro. The title track is written by Javier Vargas and is later included on Carlos Santana’s Santana Brothers; Santana also performs it live at Woodstock 94. The band tours Buenos Aires for the first time in 1994.

Texas Tango, produced by Jim Gaines in Austin and Memphis, is released in 1995 and features Double Trouble, Larry T. Thurston and Preston Shannon among others. Vargas appears as a guest with Carlos Santana in Paris in 1996, again in Madrid and Paris in 1998, and on Santana’s Supernatural tour opening in Spain in 2000.

Gypsy Boogie is released in 1997 and recorded in Madrid and Memphis, with mixing in Florida and mastering in New York. Guests include Raimundo Amador, Carles Benavent, La Chonchi and David Montes, while the Memphis sessions involve Chester Thompson, Lonnie Brooks, Larry McCray, Little Jimmy King, David Allen and Larry Graham. Larry Graham introduces Vargas to Prince, and Prince invites him on stage during the “Jam of the Year” tour in Spain in 1998.

Feedback/Bluestrology is recorded in 1998 at Hook End Studios in England and co-produced by Ian Taylor. It includes Steve Potts, Dave Smith, Ernest Williamson, Bobby Alexander and David Montes, and Bluestrology is later reissued as a solo album in 2000. The band’s first live appearance in the United States takes place in Chicago in 1999 at Buddy Guy’s Legends Club, with guests including Larry McCray, Sugar Blue and Elena Andujar. The resulting live recording, Madrid-Chicago Live, is released in 2000.

Chill Latin Blues, released in 2003, is the band’s first entirely instrumental album and draws on drum and bass, acid jazz, African and Latin rhythms, hip-hop and Spanish guitar. Love, Union, Peace follows in 2005, with recordings made in several cities and contributions from Alex Ligertwood, Jack Bruce, Glenn Hughes, Devon Allman and Elliott Murphy, alongside other Spanish musicians. It also includes a version of “God Give Me Strength” and a new recording of “Magic of the Gods”.

Style and performances

Vargas Blues Band’s music combines rock, soul, flamenco and Latin influences with blues and electric guitar work. The group performs in Europe at events including Montreux Jazz Festival, Pop Korn Festival in Germany, the Great British R&B Festival and the Antwerp R&B Festival, and tours in Spain, France, Italy, Portugal and Argentina.

Members

The group includes Javier Vargas, Peter Kunst, Luis Mayo, Tim Mitchell and Bobby Alexander.