Richard Cagle and the Voodoo Choir on the Blues Music Chart in Denmark

I am often amazed by the number of Texas musicians that attain notoriety in European countries before getting any attention here at home…

Case in point – Houston based Richard Cagle and the Voodoo Choir spent some time recently in the top 100 on the Denmark Blues Music Chart with their song “ You Got The Shake” from the CD “Texas Voodoo Blues”. The concept and development of the CD “Texas Voodoo Blues” is an amazing story that I would like to share…

I have known Richard Cagle for over twenty years. The following is how Richard described the concept and development of his debut CD to me on a recent visit to his favorite Houston pub – where he can be found every Thursday evening without fail.

“I knew I wanted to produce a Blues album, but instead of putting together a band, writing the songs, rehearsing and then recording, I wanted to do it all at once. I wanted it to be a true Zen moment. I invited some of the best musicians in Houston to join me in this adventure. The simple concept for each session was; four of us walk into my garage studio without knowing what we were going to play. “Abandoning thoughts of yesterday or tomorrow and concentrating only on what happens NOW – truly living in the moment”. In many of the sessions, the players had never met each other or ever played together. We wrote the songs on the spot – then turned on the recorder to capture the results. Streaming our parts is the best way to describe it. Each of the songs on this album took an average of two and a half hours to write and record. After the initial songs were written and recorded, I brought in Rick Thompson to play keys on all of them, Gary Sapone played Harmonica on two of the tunes, James Hoover replaced my bass on Uptown/Downtown, and Gideon Cheshire helped me fine tune the lyrics. I’m proud of the outcome of this project and I hope you enjoy listening as much as we enjoyed creating it. The Blues is all about feeling, and on this project, we all poured our hearts into it.” – Richard Cagle.

I have enjoyed listening to my copy of Texas Voodoo Blues by Richard Cagle and the Voodoo Choir and I hope more true music fans give it a spin… Chris Harkness for MM55productions