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Guitar Slinger Comes To Town
Monday, September 14, 2009
Chris Duarte is inevitably compared to fellow Lone Star state guitar hero Stevie Ray Vaughan.By Brian Wise.
“I’ve got over that,” says Duarte when I ask if the comparisons are frustrating, “because I’m fully confident in my abilities and my capabilities to know I’m not a clone.
"I do have my own thing going but I’m not afraid to admit that I do take from other people, like all great artist have in the past and in the future. Stevie’s definitely one of my influences, so are Jimmy Vaughan, John Coltrane and Beethoven. Those are big influences in my life too. But it’s what people need to familiarise themselves with to get introduced to somebody.”
Duarte was raised in San Antonio, took up guitar at age 14 and moved to Austin two years later to pursue a career in music and ended up playing in his friend Clark Ellison’s band for a few years until they were both recruited for Bobby Mack’s Night Train where they played blues and R&B. Ellison left the band but Duarte continued for three years and one recording until the band broke up.
After playing in various bands around town, Duarte eventually recorded his own album with his band, The Bad Boys, in 1986. Five years and several other bands later Duarte hit out with his own group and by 1994 the band’s first album, Texas Sugar Strat Magik, was out and creating a name for this fiery guitarist.
Now, five albums later, Duarte and his band – comprising drummer Chris Burroughs and bassist Matt Stollard - will be visiting Australia for the first time.
“When I moved to Austin I was over at somebody’s party and they were playing the T-Birds first album and I thought that was kind of a novelty,” he recalls, never thinking that he would be playing his own music rather than cover versions. “That’s when I got a sense that Austin’s different, this is going to be a different town and so I started finding out about the blues. Actually, the T-Birds were bigger than Stevie when I moved here; Stevie was popular but not as popular as the T-Birds.”
While Duarte acknowledges the influence of players like the brothers Vaughan, his own music was adventurous from his first album. An early album featured a tune titled ‘Opus 13’ and he admits he was a huge fan of Steve Howe, the Yes guitarist.
“I know ‘opus’ just means it’s a composition like it’s your own work and that’s why I just put it as that,” he explains. “Maybe at the time I just thought it was cool sounding because I was just 21 when I did that material and I just thought it will sound sophisticated. Tony Iommi [Black Sabbath] was one of my first guitar idols and then when I heard Steve Howe I went through a huge, huge Yes phase. I went and brought a guitar just like the one Steve Howe played. In the early years he was my sort of benchmark and then after that I heard Al DiMeola and I was like, ‘Wow I can’t believe someone can play like this’ and then the whole flood gates were left open.”
I mention to Duarte that these days it’s not cool to mention Yes but that the band was certainly packed with virtuoso musicians.
“I can believe people would think it was not cool,” he agrees. “I mean these guys are, I guess, progressive rock but for me Yes are incredibly virtuosic so I freak out on those guys.”
As a complete contrast, Duarte recorded The Meters’ ‘Just Kissed My Baby’ on his first album and then did a stunning version of their classic ‘People Say’ on his third album, Tailspin Headwhack in 1997.
“We still play that song to his day,” he says. “ I just love that tune. ‘Just Kissed My Baby was on my first album and I remember how long it took me to learn that rhythm and to sing at the same time. It was so hard, in fact that’s my high water mark there, if I learnt how to play ‘Kiss My Baby’ and sing at the same time I can learn anything.”
While Duarte grew to maturity in the Austin scene, he is now a resident of Atlanta, Georgia. “It was time for me to get out of Austin,” he explains. “My second wife had left me and I was starting to do all the bad things again in Austin and then I met my current wife here in Atlanta and it just all worked out. She is like my soul mate. I mean it got all back, I got my head back together and now I am continuing my career.”
While Duarte released his latest American studio album Vantage Point late last year, he recently recorded another album, 396, with Japanese band Bluestone Company.
“That’s a band that I go over and play in Japan,” he explains, “then I bring them over to the USA and we play over here. They are a band that I got introduced to through my wife, she knew the guys. Their singer left the band and they were looking for someone else to sing in English and they couldn’t find anybody and they knew of me. They are like upper-tier musicians in Japan and now we are a full collaboration now. At first it was we play their songs and we play my songs and now we’re writing songs and we are getting a larger catalogue together of songs we do together.”
Chris Duarte is appearing at the Great Southern Blues & Rockabilly Festival.
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