Blind Raccoon
JT Lauritsen & Billy Gibson

J.T Lauritsen & the Buckshot Hunters with Billy Gibson

The mystical way in which the blues enter the body and spirit suggests a primal force at work. Something that connects to a universal DNA or shared cultural traits that cut across boundaries of race and ethnicity. How else to explain the authentic as fried catfish blues by juke joint jumping J.T. Lauritsen & the Buckshot Hunters from the cold shores of Scandinavia?
Jan Tore “J.T.” Lauritsen 43 years old, born and raised in Norway.
The music of B.B. King, Charles Brown and Ray Charles compelled him to begin playing the Hammond B-3 organ at age six. By 14 he was performing professionally. However, years of carting the behemoth convinced him to wrap his arms around the more portable accordion, a rare blues axe outside of Clifton Chenier, for example. Shaving off even more pounds, he turned to the harmonica in 1987 and since 1995 has mostly manhandled the “squeeze box.”
JT convened the Buckshot Blues Band in 1989 and released his debut CD, Buckshot Hunters, in 1995. The hot set of electric country and Chicago blues featured JT singing, blowing harp and tickling the keys with authority in conjunction with string bender Arnfinn Torrisen. It made an ear-opening impression on the competitive Norwegian blues scene, setting up the band for an even more robust sophomore effort. My Kind of Blues from 1999 was no lie, with mostly original material released on their Hunters Records label. Brimming with confidence, the Buckshot Hunters exuberantly flaunted their musical muscle and a passion for New Orleans on the prophetic Make a Better World in 2001 that acknowledges zydeco, Johnny “Guitar” Watson and Earl King. Three years later the aptly-named Perfect Moves showed the band enjoying an appetizer of jalapeno-flavored Tex-Mex music along with rock, soul and blues. Concurrently, the music got wilder and rowdier as JT and his posse found their mojo and made it work for them and their growing audience of ecstatic fans. Literally heading northeast in 2007, JT and his sharp-shooters went to Severn Records in Maryland for Squeezeboxing that served up a sumptuous smorgasbord of fatback and greasy southern specialties.
In 2008 JT welcomed harmonica virtuoso Billy Gibson from Memphis into the band. Gibson, the “Prince of Beale Street” 42 years old was raised in Clinton, Mississippi. He started blowing harp as a precocious kid and after high school headed north to Clarksdale where he played with Johnnie Billington and the Midnighters. Like all southern cats born to the blues, he eventually packed his grip and figuratively hopped a Greyhound north to Memphis. By 1993 he was the West Tennessee Bluegrass Harmonica Champion and in 1999 his talent was further acknowledged when he received an endorsement from Hohner harmonicas. In 2002-3 he won the NARAS Memphis Premier Player Award for harmonica. In 2005 he was the Beale Street Entertainer of the Year and in 2009 Gibson won the Blues Music Award for Instrumentalist of the Year – Harmonica.
Meanwhile, he was racking up recording credits with A-list blues musicians like Deborah Coleman and Michael Burks. In 1996 he cut his self-titled debut for the North Magnolia Music Company and beginning in 2001 made the first of four albums for Inside Sounds with The Nearness of You that showed his amazing versatility on a choice selection of jazz standards. There followed the live In a Memphis Tone in 2004, The Billy Gibson Band in 2005 and the funk ‘n’ shuffles of Southern Livin’ in 2006. On a roll, in 2007 Gibson recorded Live at Rum Boogie Café for DaddyO Records. Likewise, in 2008 he was again captured live for The Prince of Beale Street on North Atlantic Blues Records where he bends the reeds of his harp into pretzels.
Live from 2009 features the glorious result of JT and Gibson blowing through a smoking live set in Norway with the band, who could be the “Band” for their uncanny ability to internalize roots music. The expansive 15-song set ranges far and wide from the original chugging shuffle of “Bug” to Jimmy Reed’s “Big Boss Man,” Dwight Yoakam’s “Buenos Noches from a Lonely Room,” B.B. King’s “Dance with Me, Babe,” Norton Buffalo’s “Is It Love” and, appropriately, Tom T. Hall’s “That’s How I Got to Memphis.” JT continually stirs the simmering melting pot as his fingers dance up and down his squeeze box, blending harmony vocals with guest songstress Stina Stenerud while Gibson, guitarist ArnfinnTorrisen and keyboardist Iver Olav Erstad punch up every solo over the locked in grooves of bassist Atle Rakvaag and drummer Big John Grimsby. The record turns every environment into an instant party while music this real and rousing is a cause for celebration anytime and anywhere.

Dave Rubin
Author, Hal Leonard Corporation