Robert Hill's long strange trip back to the blues fills dance floors
Bluesadelix recorded their first album, Neptune Beach, live at The Rathskeller in the basement of the Alameda Elks lodge. The set includes 11 tunes that have filled dance floors since the band's inception.
"We have a swinging, boppy kind of sound," said Robert Hill, the band's lead guitarist, frontman and main songwriter. "It's nice to see people get up and shake their thang. We cut the tunes in one long session, all live. We played the songs in alphabetical order. When we did the mixing and mastering, we chopped them up, to put them in a more coherent order.
"We brought in recording equipment and produced it by ourselves," he continued. "That gives us the freedom to go where we want to go with the music. We all like the same sounds, the same feel and the same kind of energy."
The Rathskeller also had a stage big enough to accommodate the entire band and all their equipment, including two drummers, Deirdre McCarthy and Scott Irwin; bass man Mark Ungar; rhythm guitarist and keyboard player Kristoph Klover; and Hill.
"That space was a blessing," Hill said. "We wanted to record in Alameda, not only because that's where I'm from, but the album is a tip of the psychic hat to the old Neptune Beach amusement park that put Alameda on the map."
"Into Midnight" has an upbeat tempo and a playful lyric, with Hill inviting a friend to sip a drink and hit the dancefloor. His playful growl and Klover's piano work keep the energy high. Hill adds a short, sharp solo to end on a high note.
"I'm Cool Just Waiting On This Bench" is a fast blues number. It describes a man sitting on a park bench, telling a security guard to let him be, as he waits for his woman to return. Klover's organ moves the tune along, underscoring Hill's matter-of-fact delivery of the lyric.
"The story is based on real events," Hill said. "I was sitting outside the building I work in, waiting to see a woman I'd been dating. Officers kept telling me to move along, but I didn't. I also married that person."
The album's lone instrumental, "Stang Thang," sounds like a hit, with its memorable hook, Hill's impressive guitar work and a propulsive beat supplied by the band's two drummers, McCarthy and Irwin.
"I got a guitar from Thin Man Music some years ago," Hill said. "It's a 1964 Fender Mustang that has an unbelievably smooth neck, and that tune just leapt out of it. It's been in our repertoire since I wrote it. We often use it as our opening song. It loosens up the band and the audience. It's a real knuckle-buster for Mark [Ungar, the band's bass player,] but it's a great way to get the adrenaline flowing at the start of a show."
The band also covered Willie Dixon's "Dead Presidents" with a hard-rock edge. Hill plays a long, impressive solo, with McCarthy and Klover's mellow harmonies backing him up. "I'm a huge fan of Dixon, one of the best blues songwriters, not to throw shade on Robert Johnson or Big Bill Bronzy," Hill said. "Bluesadelix is able to put its own spin on it and really make it a hard-driving blues rock song."
Hill grew up in the South Bay, in a house full of music. "My mom gave piano lessons to neighborhood kids," he said. "My dad played cello in college and decided to teach himself to play the guitar. He didn't follow through, so I picked it up and taught myself to play by listening to Meet The Beatles, the Monkees' Headquarters and Robert Johnson's King of the Delta Blues Singers. I played violin in grade school, but I don't do well in a scholastic setting.
"I joined a cover band with some older boys; then it was off to the Army," Hill added. "When I got out, I worked day jobs and played in the Old No. 7 Band, doing Southern rock. I also went solo as Buddy Boy Blackjack, playing blues covers on the dobro. When I moved up to Alameda, I started playing Irish folk music with some friends at the Renaissance Faire."
When he grew tired of playing traditional tunes, Hill set up a little home studio and cut an experimental rock album, Paroxyms of Apathy, under the name Papa Rah. "That got me back into the blues and I formed Axis of Blues, with Scott [Irwin] and Mark [Ungar]," he said. "Over the years, that slowly morphed into Bluesadelix. We gigged a lot until Covid hit, but now we're back, ready to see what comes next."
'Neptune Beach' will be released in early February. More info: Bluesadelix.com.