Biography

Big Al Jano's Blues Mafia Show ....Meet the Mafia....

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Big Al Jano's Blues Mafia Show is not your "typical" blues band, one with the obligatory strong front man or woman and an inhomogeneous assortment of back-up musicians. Quite the contrary, the boss of this well-dressed mob creates a "mini-blues revue" by giving each of his musical henchmen equal time at center stage. Big Al believes that this keeps the show moving and the ear candy stimulating in this day of audiovisual SoundBits.

First, there's Butch "Doo-Wop" Cooper, Capo of Drums and Big Al's partner in rhythm section crime for more than a quarter of a century. Cooper handles the vocals on the gritty delta-type blues and the R&B songs. He is also an excellent writer of songs with great hook lines and melodies that probably stem from his interest in 1950's Doo-Wop music. His first commercially released tune was nationally charted (Record World, Jan 1,1977) and became a dance favorite in Japan.

Daniel Summers, the newest member of the group was "discovered" by chance in the non-musical environment of a suburban Super Bowl party. After a brief conversation during the game Big Al had a gut feeling that Summers might be the conventional style blues player he needed to create the unique sound he had envisioned. He invited him to come out and jam with the Blues Mafia at a local club without any knowledge of his playing ability or expertise. Within three weeks, Daniel Summers became the Capo of Traditional Guitar for the group. He is a true aficionado of old style playing techniques and vintage instruments. To recreate the pure sounds of the past, he doesn't use any electronic effects when playing his guitars. Daniel also handles vocals for blues, blues-rock and traditional "jump" and swing tunes, which are popular once again.

Rockin' Rick Ware, Capo of Contemporary Guitar, is next. The combination of Ware's dissimilar guitar tone and playing style juxtaposed with that of Summers is the wild card in the musical deck that creates the Blues Mafia's sound. Although out of the box for the blues traditionalist, most will agree the blending of Rick's sound on stage with the tones of the "pure" guitar is truly amazing and unlike anything else they've ever heard. No one believed such a contrast of playing styles and tones would work together, but Big Al stuck to his guns until it gelled.

Keith "Foots" Andersen, Capo of Keyboards, is a fine piano player and an accomplished composer. "Foots" is a natural at belting out those New Orleans and Delta styled blues tunes we all love. Because of his powerful blues voice, Big Al enjoys showcasing Andersen...... and the ladies don't seem to mind it either!

The patriarch and driving force behind this organized blues mob is Big Al Jano, and he started playing blues when it was regularly programmed on all the black radio stations in the South! Considering himself a blues bassist first and foremost, he also writes and sings tunes in the almost forgotten comedic blues and satirical vein of Bullmoose Jackson, Spike Jones and Louis Jordan. During the AIDS epidemic scare in the mid-1980's, his tune "The Condom Man" was a cult hit on almost every college campus in the USA. Interviewed on New York radio after headlining a controversial show in the East Village, he was pursued back to Atlanta and photographed by People Magazine for an article that the senior editor deep-sixed for "political correctness". A psychedelic/blues album he authored years ago now sells for over $1000 per copy in mint condition to high roller record collectors all around the globe. (“Square Root of Two” by The Night Shadows; Osborne’s The Money Records Catalogue 1999 Edition, Page)

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