The Hurricane Dale Thang: Jeff Dale’s Musical Journey

December 9, 2024

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Making a Scene Presents an Interview with Jeff Dale

“The Hurricane Dale Thang” is a powerful combination of blues talent, making its live debut in 2018 when longtime friends Jeff Dale and Bobby Hurricane Spencer were joined by L.A. superstar musicians Elizabeth Hangan on bass and Albert Trepagnier Jr on drums. Jeff had a batch of songs he had written that felt like they needed other voices to connect with and he enlisted Bobby, Elizabeth, and Albert to take possession of them. Augmented by keyboard wizard Derek Phillips from Jeff’s South Woodlawners band and with other stellar L.A. musicians such as Lester Lands, Pat Zicari and Jim Jedeikin adding to the mix, the Hurricane Dale Thang touched down and blew audiences away.

While initially preparing to record the debut Hurricane Dale Thang album, tragedy struck. Bobby had a massive stroke in 2019 followed by several more medical complications the following year that hospitalized him again. With the unrelenting encouragement Bobby received from his wife Retha, he began the long hard climb to get his playing and singing chops back. There were no guarantees that he would ever be able to perform again but Bobby persisted, working every day to get better. Miraculously, after several years of doggedly trying, Bobby began to perform again. This re-opened the door for The Hurricane Dale recording project to finally be realized.

About Jeff Dale

Jeff Dale is an award winning songwriter and performer, born and raised on the south side of Chicago

Having played all over the United States, he also reaches international audiences with recent shows in Europe and Central America. The City of Los Angeles presented Jeff Dale with a Living Legend Blues Award With to honor his 40 years of performing and writing original roots music.

Before he could shave, Jeff was exposed to the music and live performances of Hound Dog Taylor, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Koko Taylor and many more practitioners of Chicago blues. “In the neighborhood where I grew up,” says Dale, “if you had your antennas up, you could feel the blues right there.”

Jeff’s long blues lineage includes accompanying legendary performers such as Pee Wee Crayton, Etta James and Lowell Fulson. Finding tapes from a show Dale did with Fulson back in 1983, led to the recently released Lowell Fulson Live! With Jeff Dale & The Blue Wave Band (2021) which garnered so much airplay that it yielded a #1 track on the Roots Music Airplay Report.

Dale has collected tales and advice in his travels through the world of the blues, being in the company of greats like Muddy Waters, B.B. King, Willie Dixon, Albert King, Clifton Chenier and David “Honeyboy” Edwards, the last of the original Delta bluesmen.

After releasing two albums of original material in the ‘80s with the Blue Wave Band, (winning a Best New Blues Band award), Jeff reinvented himself in the 2000s with The South Woodlawners. The resulting album, Blues From The Southside Of My Soul (2009), was reviewed as “rowdy, loud, naughty-down-and-bawdy South Side Chicago style blues.” With every album since, Jeff Dale has consistently been delighting his ever-expanding fan base. Blues Room (2011) garnered international rave reviews and radio airplay. One notable track, “Stumblin’” was featured on the hit FX show “Justified.” The album Good Music (2014) followed, also receiving more critical acclaim. In 2016 Jeff produced a DVD/CD combo of the last recorded show by David “Honeyboy” Edwards, titled I’m Gonna Tell You Somethin’ That I Know. The film premiered at the Clarksdale Mississippi Film Festival as well as at the Chicago International Music and Movie Festival. The project won the 2017 Living Blues Best Blues DVD of the Year Award, All Music Guide’s “Best of 2017,” and was hailed all over the world as a priceless, historical treasure. The Southside Lives (2017) is a back-porch blues album of Jeff Dale originals featuring Handy Award-winning harmonica player (and friend since the third grade) Jeff Stone. The album garnered an Independent Blues Award nomination among other accolades. Blues Power, released in 2019 was a Top 10 Roots Music Report airplay album, with spins on over 150 stations and had critics raving worldwide

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