Aynsley Lister
Encyclopedia
Aynsley Lister is an English
blues-rock
guitarist
/singer and songwriter
.
, John Mayall
and Eric Clapton
. By the time he was 18, having already been in several bands, he formed his own, which recorded two albums Messin' With The Kid (1996) and Pay Attention! (1997). Three numbers written by Lister, on the second album, attracted the attention of Ruf Records
' owner Thomas Ruf. In 1998 they signed a record deal and Lister recorded his first major album, Aynsley Lister, produced by Jim Gaines. The tracks were primarily Lister compositions, and the album featured a guest appearance by Walter Trout
. The album led to him touring Europe and working with some of the top current blues players.
While Lister’s music is blues based, his own material incorporates contemporary influences with harder rhythms and guitar work, reminiscent of early Eric Clapton. Lister was the only British artist to be featured in Classic Rock
's 2007 "Top 10 Contemporary Blues Artists"; alongside The White Stripes
, The Black Keys
, John Mayer
, Jon Spencer, Jonny Lang
, Kenny Wayne Shepherd
, Joe Bonamassa
, Derek Trucks
and the North Mississippi Allstars
.
After his first album Lister began opening for artists such as Buddy Guy
, Robert Cray
, John Mayall
and contemporaries such as Bryan Adams
and Fun Lovin Criminals. Having become better known, he now headlines major festivals in Europe. He has twice played the Heitere Open Air in Switzerland to 12,000 people and in 2006 he played the main stage at The Bayfront Blues Festival, MN. Later that year he was invited to sit in with Delbert McClinton
at The Pinedale Blues Festival in Wyoming, where Delbert kept Lister on stage for the whole second half of his show. Lister's 2000 album Everything I Need was his debut US release in 2006, in preparation for a US tour, and received critical acclaim.
Lister has also recorded with Jesse Davey from the English blues band The Hoax
on Everything I Need (2000) and All Or Nothing (2002) both produced by Greg Haver (Manic Street Preachers, Catatonia). Lister's fourth studio album, and his first to only contain original material, was 2007’s Upside Down which Lister produced himself.
In June 2008 Lister changed to ARM Management and signed to Manhaton Records in August 2008, releasing Equilibrium in March 2009. Equilibrium was produced by Steve Darrel Smith and features Robbie McIntosh
, Paul Beavis and Simon Johnson.
In May 2009, Lister opened for Lynyrd Skynyrd
on the UK dates of their God and Guns tour.
and Erja Lyytinen from Finland who created the album Pilgrimage. The concept was for each artist to write a group of songs which they would complete and record in New Orleans, Clarksdale
and Memphis
, so that their songwriting would reflect and be shaped by the blues heritage of those musical towns. Unfortunately Hurricane Katrina
prevented them visiting New Orleans and the album was created at Delta Recording Studios, Clarksdale and Ardent Studios
in Memphis, where Jim Gaines was the producer. The trio spent much of 2006 touring Europe and America, including the Gladstone Summertime Bluesfest, where they played a two and a half hour show.
s. To complement the Live! album the show recorded by WDR Television for Rockpalast
at the Crossroads Festival held in the Harmonie, Bonn on 23 March 2005 was released and contains three acoustics songs and a full band set.
Along with the Blues Caravan Pilgrimage album there is a DVD of the performance at the Underground in Cologne, Germany – again recorded by WDR Television for Rockpalast on 7 December 2005, and released as Blues Caravan - The Next Generation . This DVD features performances from each section of the show; each of the three members of the Blues Caravan individually and also their joint acoustic and electric sets of songs written for the Pilgrimage album. The DVD also features backstage footage and interviews.
magazine, and been invited by both Guitarist and Guitar Techniques magazines to present a series of instructional DVDs. He also contributed to the specialist demonstration backing tracks on Bluesjamtracks, some of which can be seen on YouTube
.
Line up:
Previous line up:
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
blues-rock
Blues-rock
Blues rock is a hybrid musical genre combining bluesy improvisations over the 12-bar blues and extended boogie jams with rock and roll styles. The core of the blues rock sound is created by the electric guitar, piano, bass guitar and drum kit, with the electric guitar usually amplified through a...
guitarist
Guitarist
A guitarist is a musician who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselves on the guitar while singing.- Versatility :The guitarist controls an extremely...
/singer and songwriter
Songwriter
A songwriter is an individual who writes both the lyrics and music to a song. Someone who solely writes lyrics may be called a lyricist, and someone who only writes music may be called a composer...
.
Biography
Lister started playing guitar at 8 and played his first concert at 13. He had learned guitar by playing along to his father’s old 45s of Freddie KingFreddie King
Freddie King , thought to have been born as Frederick Christian, originally recording as Freddy King, and nicknamed "the Texas Cannonball", was an influential African-American blues guitarist and singer. He is often mentioned as one of "the Three Kings" of electric blues guitar, along with Albert...
, John Mayall
John Mayall
John Mayall, OBE is an English blues singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist, whose musical career spans over fifty years...
and Eric Clapton
Eric Clapton
Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE, is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of The Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and...
. By the time he was 18, having already been in several bands, he formed his own, which recorded two albums Messin' With The Kid (1996) and Pay Attention! (1997). Three numbers written by Lister, on the second album, attracted the attention of Ruf Records
Ruf Records
The motto of the blues label is "Where Blues Crosses Over". The company's office is located in Lindewerra, Germany. As of 2008 Ruf has produced 120 releases, sold over 1 million albums, received two Grammy nominations and ten Blues Music Award nominations....
' owner Thomas Ruf. In 1998 they signed a record deal and Lister recorded his first major album, Aynsley Lister, produced by Jim Gaines. The tracks were primarily Lister compositions, and the album featured a guest appearance by Walter Trout
Walter Trout
Walter Trout is an American blues guitarist, singer and songwriter.-Biography:Trout's career began on the Jersey coast scene of the late 1960s and early 1970s. He then decided to relocate to Los Angeles where he became a sideman for Percy Mayfield and Deacon Jones...
. The album led to him touring Europe and working with some of the top current blues players.
While Lister’s music is blues based, his own material incorporates contemporary influences with harder rhythms and guitar work, reminiscent of early Eric Clapton. Lister was the only British artist to be featured in Classic Rock
Classic Rock (magazine)
Classic Rock is a British magazine dedicated to the radio format of classic rock, published by Future Publishing, who are also responsible for its "sister" publication Metal Hammer. Although firmly focusing on key bands from the 1960s through early 1990s, it also includes articles and reviews of...
's 2007 "Top 10 Contemporary Blues Artists"; alongside The White Stripes
The White Stripes
The White Stripes was an American rock band, formed in 1997 in Detroit, Michigan. The group consisted of the songwriter Jack White and drummer Meg White . Jack and Meg White were previously married to each other, but are now divorced...
, The Black Keys
The Black Keys
The Black Keys are an American rock duo consisting of vocalist/guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer/producer Patrick Carney. The band was formed in Akron, Ohio, in 2001. As of October 2011, the band has sold over 2 million albums in the U.S....
, John Mayer
John Mayer
John Clayton Mayer is an American pop rock and blues rock musician, singer-songwriter, recording artist, and music producer. Born in Bridgeport, Connecticut and raised in Fairfield, Connecticut, he attended Berklee College of Music in Boston. He moved to Atlanta in 1997, where he refined his...
, Jon Spencer, Jonny Lang
Jonny Lang
Jonny Lang is a Grammy award-winning American blues, gospel, and rock singer, songwriter and recording artist. Lang's music is notable for both his unusual voice, which has been compared to that of a forty-year-old blues veteran, and for his guitar solos...
, Kenny Wayne Shepherd
Kenny Wayne Shepherd
Kenny Wayne Shepherd is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He has released several studio albums and experienced a rare level of commercial success both as a blues artist and a young musician.-Biography:Shepherd graduated Caddo Magnet High School in Shreveport, Louisiana...
, Joe Bonamassa
Joe Bonamassa
Joe Bonamassa is an American blues rock guitarist and singer.-Early life:Bonamassa was born and raised in New Hartford, United States. His parents owned and ran a guitar shop. He is a fourth-generation musician...
, Derek Trucks
Derek Trucks
Derek Trucks is a Grammy Award-winning, American guitarist, songwriter, and record producer. He founded The Derek Trucks Band and worked as a session musician when he was still in his early teens. Throughout those teenage years, he toured with The Allman Brothers Band primarily as a slide...
and the North Mississippi Allstars
North Mississippi Allstars
North Mississippi Allstars is a Southern rock/blues jam band from Hernando, Mississippi, founded in 1996. The band is composed of brothers Luther Dickinson and Cody Dickinson , and Chris Chew...
.
After his first album Lister began opening for artists such as Buddy Guy
Buddy Guy
George "Buddy" Guy is an American blues and jazz guitarist and singer. He is a critically acclaimed artist who has established himself as a pioneer of the Chicago blues sound, and has served as an influence to some of the most notable musicians of his generation...
, Robert Cray
Robert Cray
Robert Cray is an American blues guitarist and singer. A five-time Grammy Award winner, he has led his own band, as well as an acclaimed solo career.-Career:...
, John Mayall
John Mayall
John Mayall, OBE is an English blues singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist, whose musical career spans over fifty years...
and contemporaries such as Bryan Adams
Bryan Adams
Bryan Adams, is a Canadian rock singer-songwriter, guitarist, bassist, producer, actor and photographer. Adams has won dozens of awards and nominations, including 20 Juno Awards among 56 nominations. He has also received 15 Grammy Award nominations including a win for Best Song Written...
and Fun Lovin Criminals. Having become better known, he now headlines major festivals in Europe. He has twice played the Heitere Open Air in Switzerland to 12,000 people and in 2006 he played the main stage at The Bayfront Blues Festival, MN. Later that year he was invited to sit in with Delbert McClinton
Delbert McClinton
Delbert McClinton is an American blues rock and electric blues singer-songwriter, guitarist, harmonica player, and pianist....
at The Pinedale Blues Festival in Wyoming, where Delbert kept Lister on stage for the whole second half of his show. Lister's 2000 album Everything I Need was his debut US release in 2006, in preparation for a US tour, and received critical acclaim.
Lister has also recorded with Jesse Davey from the English blues band The Hoax
The Hoax
The Hoax is a 2007 American drama film directed by Lasse Hallström. The screenplay by William Wheeler is based on the book of the same title by Clifford Irving and focuses on the autobiography Irving supposedly helped Howard Hughes write...
on Everything I Need (2000) and All Or Nothing (2002) both produced by Greg Haver (Manic Street Preachers, Catatonia). Lister's fourth studio album, and his first to only contain original material, was 2007’s Upside Down which Lister produced himself.
In June 2008 Lister changed to ARM Management and signed to Manhaton Records in August 2008, releasing Equilibrium in March 2009. Equilibrium was produced by Steve Darrel Smith and features Robbie McIntosh
Robbie McIntosh
Robbie McIntosh is an English guitarist. McIntosh is well known as a session guitarist and member of The Pretenders from 1982 until 1987. In 1988 he began doing session guitar work for Paul McCartney joining his band full time until early 1994...
, Paul Beavis and Simon Johnson.
In May 2009, Lister opened for Lynyrd Skynyrd
Lynyrd Skynyrd
Lynyrd Skynyrd is an American rock band prominent in spreading Southern Rock during the 1970s.Originally formed as the "Noble Five" in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1964, the band rose to worldwide recognition on the basis of its driving live performances and signature tune, Freebird...
on the UK dates of their God and Guns tour.
Collaborative projects
The Blues Caravan is an annual Ruf Records project which brings together three of the label's artists. In 2006 the artists were Lister, Ian ParkerIan Parker (singer-songwriter guitarist)
Ian Parker is an English singer-songwriter and guitarist.Born in Birmingham, he was brought up in near-by Stourbridge. Inspired by The Beatles, he began playing guitar at the age of 8...
and Erja Lyytinen from Finland who created the album Pilgrimage. The concept was for each artist to write a group of songs which they would complete and record in New Orleans, Clarksdale
Clarksdale, Mississippi
Clarksdale is a city in Coahoma County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 20,645 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Coahoma County....
and Memphis
Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....
, so that their songwriting would reflect and be shaped by the blues heritage of those musical towns. Unfortunately Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was a powerful Atlantic hurricane. It is the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. Among recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall...
prevented them visiting New Orleans and the album was created at Delta Recording Studios, Clarksdale and Ardent Studios
Ardent Studios
Ardent Studios is a recording studio located in Memphis, Tennessee. Ardent Records/Ardent Music is the in-house label.- History :Ardent Studios was founded by John Fry and was initially a studio in his family's garage, where he recorded his first Ardent Records 45's. In 1966 the operation moved...
in Memphis, where Jim Gaines was the producer. The trio spent much of 2006 touring Europe and America, including the Gladstone Summertime Bluesfest, where they played a two and a half hour show.
DVDs
Lister has released two DVDDVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
s. To complement the Live! album the show recorded by WDR Television for Rockpalast
Rockpalast
Rockpalast is a German music television show that broadcasts live on German television station Westdeutscher Rundfunk . Rockpalast started in 1974 and continues to this day. Hundreds of rock and jazz bands have performed on Rockpalast...
at the Crossroads Festival held in the Harmonie, Bonn on 23 March 2005 was released and contains three acoustics songs and a full band set.
Along with the Blues Caravan Pilgrimage album there is a DVD of the performance at the Underground in Cologne, Germany – again recorded by WDR Television for Rockpalast on 7 December 2005, and released as Blues Caravan - The Next Generation . This DVD features performances from each section of the show; each of the three members of the Blues Caravan individually and also their joint acoustic and electric sets of songs written for the Pilgrimage album. The DVD also features backstage footage and interviews.
Other media
Lister has written a series of instructional articles for GuitaristGuitarist (magazine)
Guitarist is a monthly music making magazine published by Future Publishing in the United Kingdom. The magazine features reviews of newly released guitars, amplifiers and other equipment, plus interviews with guitar players, features on the guitar industry, news articles, and features on playing...
magazine, and been invited by both Guitarist and Guitar Techniques magazines to present a series of instructional DVDs. He also contributed to the specialist demonstration backing tracks on Bluesjamtracks, some of which can be seen on YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
.
Line up:
- Aynsley Lister (Guitar & vocals)
- Midus Guerreiro (Bass & vocals)
- Dan Healey (Keyboards)
- Tim Brown (Drums & vocals)
Previous line up:
- Jo Nichols (Bass)
- Rich Spooner (Drums)
- Alex Thomas (Drums)
- Sarah Jones (Drums)
- James Townend (Bass)
- Paul Winterhart (Drums)
- Colin Peters (Bass)
- Steve Amadeo (Bass)
- Simon Small (Drums)
Discography
| Year | Title | Label |
|---|---|---|
| 1996 | Messin' With The Kid | Tasty Records |
| 1997 | Pay Attention! | Tasty Records |
| 1999 | Aynsley Lister | Ruf Records Ruf Records The motto of the blues label is "Where Blues Crosses Over". The company's office is located in Lindewerra, Germany. As of 2008 Ruf has produced 120 releases, sold over 1 million albums, received two Grammy nominations and ten Blues Music Award nominations.... |
| 2000 | Everything I Need | Ruf Records |
| 2002 | Supakev 'n Pilchards | Ruf Records |
| 2002 | All or Nothing | Ruf Records |
| 2004 | Live! (and DVD) | Ruf Records |
| 2005 | Pilgrimage (and DVD) as part of Blues Caravan Blues Caravan Blues Caravan is a 1962 studio album by Buddy Rich and a sextet. Rich later took this sextet on a United States Department of State tour of the Far East and Asia. -Track listing:LP side A#"Blowin' the Blues Away" – 8:40#"B.R... |
Ruf Records |
| 2007 | Upside Down | Ruf Records |
| 2009 | Equilibrium | Manhaton Records |
| 2010 | Tower sessions | Manhaton Records |
External links
- Official Website
- Official Fan Forum
- Official Twitter Page
- Official Facebook Page
- Music-News.com Review of the new album Equilibrium