"Do you like the smell of the guitar when you open the case? If that's true, this album may be your cup of tea."
Robert Crotty
"...exquisitely arranged tunes on the acoustic guitar,
inspired slide,
...a gift for anyone who feels like dirt."
New Haven Arts critic Paul Bass
"It takes just one listen to Robert Crotty moaning and groaning and pulling on the strings of that Stella. Then you know that somebody feels lower than you do. This guy truly has the blues. They course through his veins like whiskey running through a wino, evoking the same kind of staggered, plaintive, sometimes mournful, sometimes evil inner demons.
That's a compliment, a supreme compliment. Those fortunate enough to hear Crotty perform in bars around New Haven the past twenty years have learned that it is indeed possible to grow up in Connecticut and still develop into a genuine-article blues man. Steeped in the seminal styles of the delta-blues greats, Robert plays his own distilled brand."
The New Haven Advocate
"-he is what he is, the product of his blues."
Down Beat magazine
Robert Crotty is a walking encyclopedia of the blues and a powerful interpreter of popular American song. I have rarely heard him sing his own compositions, and I have known him all of his life. Robert is my younger brother. I am currently his technical support. Robert takes someone else's songs and makes them his own. In so doing he makes them all of ours. He takes popular song and helps turn it into folk music. The evolution of recording technologies over the last one hundred years resulted in the public's access to an unlimited flow of new music. Today there are hundreds of songs, written by known artists such as Roger Miller, or James Taylor or Alberta Hunter, or by Bob Dylan or The Beatles for that matter, that are never covered, seldom played, and virtually unknown to the younger audiences. There's just so many of them! Yet many of them are great songs, vital songs that show who we are as a people. Robert plays them, and plays them, and plays them. If he likes them. He spends more hours each week playing the guitar than he does any other thing, and it has been that way since the early sixties. And so in Robert's hands "Rock Me Baby" is "raw Delta blues", so is "Going to see the King" and so is "Watching the River Flow".
There's really no one else like him, and I mean that. I can tell you that he has been influenced by Blind Willie McTell or by Magic Sam. Lightning Hopkins is a big influence; B.B. King is a big influence, so is Eric Clapton, and J.J. Cale and Roy Buchanan, who was a personal friend of Robert's. Each has had their say. But when I am asked, "Who does Robert sound like?" I must always say he sounds only like himself. He is a uniquely trained and talented guitar player and a significant expression of this country's blues and country/pop/folk traditions. More people should hear what Robert has to offer. So we have sent out this first collection of blues, one set, recorded in our home. More will follow quite soon.
Thank you so much to CDBaby.
Tim Crotty
Check out the artist's website:
http://www.puddingbench.com
Track List:
1. Garbage Man Blues
2. Police Dog Blues
3. Washington D.c. Hospital Blues
4. Take Me Back
5. Rock Me Baby
6. Going to See the King
7. Travelling Riverside Blues
8. Watching the River Flow
9. Preaching Blues
Suggested CDs:Other Genres:
Robert Crotty
"...exquisitely arranged tunes on the acoustic guitar,
inspired slide,
...a gift for anyone who feels like dirt."
New Haven Arts critic Paul Bass
"It takes just one listen to Robert Crotty moaning and groaning and pulling on the strings of that Stella. Then you know that somebody feels lower than you do. This guy truly has the blues. They course through his veins like whiskey running through a wino, evoking the same kind of staggered, plaintive, sometimes mournful, sometimes evil inner demons.
That's a compliment, a supreme compliment. Those fortunate enough to hear Crotty perform in bars around New Haven the past twenty years have learned that it is indeed possible to grow up in Connecticut and still develop into a genuine-article blues man. Steeped in the seminal styles of the delta-blues greats, Robert plays his own distilled brand."
The New Haven Advocate
"-he is what he is, the product of his blues."
Down Beat magazine
Robert Crotty is a walking encyclopedia of the blues and a powerful interpreter of popular American song. I have rarely heard him sing his own compositions, and I have known him all of his life. Robert is my younger brother. I am currently his technical support. Robert takes someone else's songs and makes them his own. In so doing he makes them all of ours. He takes popular song and helps turn it into folk music. The evolution of recording technologies over the last one hundred years resulted in the public's access to an unlimited flow of new music. Today there are hundreds of songs, written by known artists such as Roger Miller, or James Taylor or Alberta Hunter, or by Bob Dylan or The Beatles for that matter, that are never covered, seldom played, and virtually unknown to the younger audiences. There's just so many of them! Yet many of them are great songs, vital songs that show who we are as a people. Robert plays them, and plays them, and plays them. If he likes them. He spends more hours each week playing the guitar than he does any other thing, and it has been that way since the early sixties. And so in Robert's hands "Rock Me Baby" is "raw Delta blues", so is "Going to see the King" and so is "Watching the River Flow".
There's really no one else like him, and I mean that. I can tell you that he has been influenced by Blind Willie McTell or by Magic Sam. Lightning Hopkins is a big influence; B.B. King is a big influence, so is Eric Clapton, and J.J. Cale and Roy Buchanan, who was a personal friend of Robert's. Each has had their say. But when I am asked, "Who does Robert sound like?" I must always say he sounds only like himself. He is a uniquely trained and talented guitar player and a significant expression of this country's blues and country/pop/folk traditions. More people should hear what Robert has to offer. So we have sent out this first collection of blues, one set, recorded in our home. More will follow quite soon.
Thank you so much to CDBaby.
Tim Crotty
Check out the artist's website:
http://www.puddingbench.com
Track List:
1. Garbage Man Blues
2. Police Dog Blues
3. Washington D.c. Hospital Blues
4. Take Me Back
5. Rock Me Baby
6. Going to See the King
7. Travelling Riverside Blues
8. Watching the River Flow
9. Preaching Blues
Suggested CDs:Other Genres:
- BLUES: Acoustic Blues
- BLUES: Delta Style
- TYPE: LIVE RECORDINGS