thedailytimes.com : Your 24/7 news source

It's fitting, in a way, that Damon Fowler is bringing a new album -- "Sugar Shack," out now on Blind Pig Records -- to "The Shed" at Smoky Mountain Harley-Davidson in Maryville this weekend.

Like a fine Harley, the album rumbles with barely contained power. It's a stripped-down, bare-bones record put together by a three-piece who wanted to be able to take what they did in the studio and recreate it on stage without anything missing.

It's a record that moans and howls and blusters and blows, perfect for cruising or going full-throttle up an empty four-lane in the dead of night.

"Really, just as a goal, we wanted to do a record we could recreate live," Fowler told The Daily Times this week. "People buy our CDs and come out to the shows, and if there's too much production involved -- keyboard, horns, what have you -- then it doesn't sound right live.

"We tried to make it as stripped-down as possible, as close on record as we could recreate live. I've been using the word 'organic' a lot to describe it, and playing these songs live, each night is different. We're firing on all cylinders, and it's all going great."

Playing a fiery brand of rock and blues is what keeps Fowler and his bandmates -- bassist Chuck Riley and drummer Scott Key -- going. With a take-no-prisoners approach to their live show, the guys focus on generating energy, winning over the crowd and entertaining those in attendance.

For blues aficionados, Fowler is a wonder to behold -- master of the six-string, he's also adept on the lap-steel, dobro and slide guitars. Over the years, the band has performed with such acts as Jeff Beck, Buddy Guy, Johnny and Edgar Winter, Robin Trower, Gregg Allman, Jimmy Vaughan, Junior Brown, Rick Derringer, Little Feat, The Radiators, Delbert McClinton and others.

Derringer, in fact, produced the band's first album, "Riverview Drive," and the Damon Fowler Group has three other CDs to its credit -- the all-original "Roots and Branches" and the live effort "Live at Skipper's Smoke House," as well as the new album, which was picked up by high-profile blues label Blind Pig.

"With this record, we really had no interest from Blind Pig, so I was going to record it independently and release it on my own," Fowler said. "But, through the good luck and the sheer wonderful niceness of (fellow blues artist) Nick Moss, Blind Pig got wind of us and was interested, so they picked us up and put it out."

In a live setting, the songs translate into a party that runs the gamut, from the scattergun licks that get feet moving to those drawn-out notes that inspire women to do that shimmy-snake dance that starts in the hips and undulates down to the tips of their toes. Every so often, the guys will throw in a good cover tune as well, and "Sugar Shack" features two songs not written by Fowler -- one by Billy Joe Shaver and another by Merle Haggard.

"When you're playing live for a bunch of people, it always helps bring it in to play something they recognize, especially if they've never heard you before," he said. "It's nice to have one or two that are familiar to people, especially if you can put your own weird spin on it."

Saturday's show marks the fourth year in a row that the Damon Fowler Group has played the Harley "Shed." It's a testament to owner Scott Maddux's love of the blues and of the way Fowler plays it -- which is to say, it's a style that he's proud to call his own.

"I'm not even calling our record a blues record -- I'm calling it a roots-music record, because it's got elements of country and boogie and rock 'n' roll in there, too," he said. "That's the direction I want to take music, something more than just concentrating on whether this is blues or that's rock 'n' roll.

"Whatever. You can get too caught up sometimes in saying that this is blues and this is not blues. I think trying to classify it as this or that takes away from the element of music that's cool."