It’s the kind of story they always tell you never to expect, or waste your time waiting around for it to happen. Because it won’t happen to you. But it happened to Patrick Dodd.
Patrick would be the first to tell you he “fell into” playing guitar for a living. And in a way, he fell into Future Blues. He was playing in a Beale Street club one night, as he’d done so many nights before, when some new fans came up to introduce themselves, as fans had done so many times before. But these fans were different. They were in town on business from Iceland, and they wanted to buy his album. Literally.
The blues lovers made him an offer he couldn’t refuse: we want you to make a record, and we want to pay for it. All they asked was that Patrick write a song called “Future Blues,” because they wanted to use it as their company’s official song. He made good on his end of the deal; they made good on theirs.
Not long before that fateful night, Patrick had met Harry Peel (John Kilzer, Mad Jack Records, Alvin Youngblood Hart) when Harry was subbing in for a gig at another Beale Street club. Then came noted session bassist Landon Moore (North Mississippi All-Stars, Chris Robinson Brotherhood). Then came the Icelandic businessmen, the recording studio, and Future Blues.
A band that had barely formed a month before completed its debut EP in shotgun style—Harry called it “some sort of magic.” They recorded every track live, often keeping the scratch vocals on the final cut. It felt so right that it’s hard to believe this was Patrick’s first time in the studio. Harry played big brother a bit, and the two visited just about every studio in Memphis before deciding on Ward Archer’s Music + Arts Studios. Patrick said it was where they felt at home, and that having Kevin Houston (Buddy Guy, Jim Dickinson, Beale Street Caravan) behind the boards sold him on making the record there. And Cody Dickinson brought his blues ear to the producer’s chair.
For all their experience, for all their talent, this was a young band making its first record. Patrick never imagined he’d be playing music for a living, and Harry, fresh off of heart surgery, never imagined he’d be back in the thick of it, either. But they were, and they did it—and it may just be no coincidence at all that it’s called Future Blues.
This article was published in The Local Voice #158 (June 14-28, 2012)…Click here to download the PDF of issue #158.
