Paul Karapiperis - "Fifteen Raindrops In An Ocean Of Blues Tales"

Comment

Comment by Small Blues Trap on April 11, 2010 at 12:26pm

Blues Blast

Blues is truly an international art form now, so when I received Fifteen Raindrops in an Ocean of Blues Tales in its original mail wrapping from Greece, I was intrigued over how the blues would be interpreted by a leading Greek musician.

Paul Karapiperis, founding member of the Greek blues band Small Blues Trap, is lead singer and harmonica player with the group; this CD with the awkward and overlong title, Fifteen Raindrops in an Ocean of Blues Tales, is his first recording without Small Blues Trap.

However, it is not really a solo album, because Karapiperis is accompanied by three other Greek blues musicians, Panagiotis Daras, Lefteris Besios, and Sotris Kouroutis.

Although the accompanying musicianship is unattributed, heard on the CD are drums and percussion, upright bass, acoustic and electric guitars, vibes, piano and organ, with Karapiperis featured on vocals and Sonny Boy Williamson II-style acoustic harp.

Fifteen Raindrops is all original music, with melodies and lyrics composed by Karapiperis.

Fifteen Raindrops opens with a rousing Sonny Boy Williamson II-like harp solo accented with percussion, “Welcome Onboard! Clap Your Hands!” a chugging train song built around a gospel melody.

It is one of three instrumentals on the CD, all extending this train-journey motif.

The ending track is an expectant, moody jazz instrumental with blues inlay, “The End—or The Start—Of the Journey,” while in the middle, on track 7, is another jazz-blues instrumental on the same theme, “Midnight Ride.”

Jazz-blues intersperses on the CD with traditional blues styling drawn from Delta blues, with seven tracks blues and eight tracks jazz-blues.

Yet, genre lines are by no means demarcated, as within individual songs there is frequently an effortless glide from one blues approach to another, or from blues to jazz.

While four of the ensemble numbers here, which are all guitar-based in accompaniment, are built around Delta blues styling, track 9, “There Is No Place For You,” has a Piedmont blues feel, while track 11, “A Dance With Shadows,” is a guitar-with-piano-emphasis torch song.

The four Delta numbers—track 3, “A Voodoo Woman Can…,” track 4, “In Wood Alcohol Line,” track 12, “”Up In Heaven & Down In Hell,” and track 14, “My Lonesome Song”—feature churning guitar riffs that are reminiscent of a simplified John Lee Hooker, and acoustic slide playing that will remind one of the early Muddy Waters.

The jazz-blues numbers—which aside from those already mentioned, are comprised of track 2, “let’s Do The Boogie All Night,” track 5, “Dr. Lonely,” track 6, “Crazy Tones,” track 8, “Goodbye My Good Luck,” track 10, “S.B.T.,” and track 13, “Mr. Rob”—are all much indebted to modern guitar jazz, but have an inlay of blues as well. Their blues is jazzy, and their jazz is bluesy.

Fifteen Raindrops is essentially an acoustic CD, although electric guitar is used for emphasis in solos, and acoustic guitar carries most of the instrumental burden aside from Karapiperis’s harp solos and accompaniment.

The playing is first-rate, soulful as well as technically well done, and Karapiperis’s harp solos are creative extensions of the basic Sonny Boy Williamson II approach, with strong showing by Karaperis as well on vocals.

His gruff bass-baritone is evocative and emotionally resonant, as he shifts from indignant despair on track 8, “Goodbye My Good Luck,” and track 9, “Up In Heaven & Down In Hell,” to a Mephistophelean seductiveness on track 2, “Let’s Do The Boogie All Night,” and track 5, “Dr. Lonely.”

The volume of Karapiperis’s vocals range from conversational to a half-whisper—he is not a shouter—and fully expressive over a range of themes.

His original lyrics, while partaking of some classic blues imagery and themes, are not copycat, but unique, poetic and evocative, with a true literary quality.

His truly original lyrics motivate songs of strikingly different themes and modes of expressing traditional themes that, while they originate in traditional blues and jazz, re-state them with maverick artistry.

Fifteen Raindrops in an Ocean of Blues Tales is an adventurous album by American blues standards: Not only does it blur style lines within blues and blur genre lines between blues and jazz, it does so with aplomb and effortless ease; it also punctuates the music with lyrics that are surrealistic, brittle and essentially poetic and literary—and does this with aplomb and effortless ease as well.

An unusual musical journey indeed—and well worth the ticket price.



George "Blues Fin Tuna" Fish

Comment by Small Blues Trap on July 28, 2009 at 6:42am

Blues Matters

Comment by Small Blues Trap on July 14, 2009 at 7:45am

Bobtje's Blues

Blues for sure, but then experiment-style, and not unimportant, with a high Tom Waits contents. This is how you could describe the album ‘Fifteen Raindrops In An Ocean Of Blues Tales’ in a nutshell.

Multi-instrumentalist Paul Karapiperis (voice, mouthorgan, percussion, acoustic and steel guitar) brought out an album once before with his band Small Blues Trap. The album “Crossroad Ritual”, from 2004, was then welcomed by Bobtjes Blues Pages, as well as a whole lot of other blueszines- and magazines with praising critics.

Paul and band have their home in Malesina (a city in Phthiotis, central Greece).

This new CD seems to be Paul’s solo project.

That Paul is a great mouthorgan player straightaway shows in the first song (with title) ‘Welcome On Board! Clap Your Hands’. A Mississippi Delta blues song which shines by his simplicity and purity.

Also very nice is ‘Crazy Tones’ which has a really jazzy undertone.

A lot of songs have got something mythical about them.

So has ‘A Voodoo Woman Can...’, (mainly due to Paul’s steel-guitar sound), an almost hynothic effect.

Something else that can be said about the song ‘S.B.T’.

Just as on the previous CD Paul and band made use of percussion attributes. This time, again it’s enjoyable with Paul’s smoky heavy voice.

The other band members Panagiotis Daras (guitar), Lefteris Besios (bass) and pianist/keyboard player Sotiris Kouroutis know their task, which means they just limit themselves to the essential. Assist wherever necessary and for the rest let the master do his own thing.

OK, maybe not a CD to everyone’s liking. But the blues lover who likes a bit of experimenting will know how to appreciate it.


Soundguardian

Singer and harpist Paul Karapiperis with his band called the Small Blues Trap has created a very personal album which he solely produced himself. The title of the album is Fifteen Raindrops In An Ocean Of Blues Tales. Admit it. Do you think you have heard it all? Well, keep on reading this text.

Paul Karapiperis as well as the rest of the band, comes from Greece. In 2004, they formed the Small Blues Trap. Certainly, there are bands and musicians from all over Europe who care about the blues. Although I hadn’t the opportunity to listen to their previous releases, I did listen to their latest work titled “ Fifteen Raindrops In An Ocean Of Blues Tales” and it is indeed a very good work with elegance and richness full of elegance and concerning the traditional blues music. It is unquestionably a treasure trove of traditional blues.

Although thousands of kilometers away from the roots of that old specific music style, Karapiperis and his band will surely be a pleasant surprise to everyone who listens to that album since it is a very expressive, sensitive and luxurious in terms of playing styles, work. Furthermore, it clearly depicts the bands wide affiliation with traditional blues values which is something rather difficult and demanding.

Yes, I know that many are not very much inclined to listen to traditional blues saying that it is a genre that is quite difficult to listen to but I personally had no such problem since I happen to be fond of traditional blues expressions. In addition, it is rather clear that the band worked with great enthusiasm and passion for this CD.

RECOMMENDATION:

In the abundance of many different music styles, a small number of some very unique productions such as this one, are definitely worth of our attention. My opinion is that this particular album is far beyond the European standards and should be a trademark of blues achievement produced in our continent.

Undoubtedly, there is plenty of space for such music and my purpose for writing this article is not to play the role of a critic wishing to pinpoint weaknesses and faults in this work but instead, to encourage other gifted artists as well to follow the example of Paul Karapiperis and produce similar Cds.

So, the only thing that remains is to check out this album for yourselves and enjoy the music that is “trapped” inside.

Mladen Lončar


Rootstime

Just a year ago, we at Rootstime were surprised by a very original CD from a blues band from Greece, of all places!

"Small Blues Trap" that band was called and the singer, guitarist and frontman Paul Karapiperis especially attracted our attention: their music was, thanks to him, a very special blend of all the good ingredients fromthe Delta, and especially Paul's typical Tom Waits-like vocals and singing style was remarkable.

The only minor complaint we had about that release was the abundance of extravagant and sometimes carnival-esque additives in their sound which sometimes was a bit "over the top ", especially given the very short duration time of the whole release, about forty minutes .

However, The frontman now has released his own debut and the first problem is solved, no more or at least less crazy additives,what we get here instead is a nice balanced blues CD with only the strong elements remaining.

Paul's wonderful voice, which we only can describe again as " very regularly reminding of Tom Waits, is very strong, but this time focused on the blues.

Mainly with a quiet atmosphere, acoustic, and with occasionally some nice mellow harmonica work.

The love of Paul for short songs which create a sort of soundscape or cinematic soundtrack still remains, and sometimes it feels like little films, as the title already indicates, fifteen short fragments full of bluesy feelings .

Together, these fifteen songs are just enough for three quarters of music.

However, I fully enjoyed this CD, soul filled songs about love, reflections and obsessions, like a somewhat theatrical scenario.

Paul's quiet harp playing and his tricone steel guitar bring the Delta to Malesina ,Greece.

Songs like "In wood Alcohol Line", "SBT" and "Up In Heaven & Down In Hell" are great examples of how Paul's blues is at his best, and we would like to see it evolve that way, with both feet planted deep in the pre-war blues and using that unique voice of him.

This would even get him some attention in America, we think.

In that case, we would advice him to reduce the"soundtrack" style songs to a minimum, and add some more deep, pure blues tracks. He has proven he's a master in that!

(RON)


Blues Bytes

The last time that I came across Paul Karapiperis was with the CD Crossroad Ritual by the Greek band Small Blues Trap, of which Karapiperis is the main man. That was an excellent album which proved that European blues can be almost as good as any.

This CD, 15 Raindrops in an Ocean of Blues Tales, reinforces the view that I had of Crossroad Ritual – it has 15 tracks all written (music & lyrics) by Paul Karapiperis and he has assembled some good musicians to help him along.

Incidentally, my only criticism of the CD is that it is slightly lacking in information about who plays which instrument – we know that Karapiperis is the harp player, but there are three other guys in the band who play something. That’s a very small criticism, and it can be forgiven by the fact that Paul Karapiperis has produced the CD himself.

The content of the CD is best described as experimental blues, I guess, but behind the different sounds incorporated in the album, plenty of good blues guitar and harmonica shines through.

The CD opens with an intriguing harmonica solo “Welcome Onboard! Clap Your Hands” and then moves into a very slow blues “Let’s Do The Boogie All Night.” Track three, “A Voodoo Woman Can,” features Karapiperis’ stylish harmonica playing on another slow blues, whilst the next track, “In Wood Alcohol Line,” picks up the tempo ever so slightly and features some well picked guitar.

There’s not much up-tempo music on here, it’s all fairly laid back, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not a good album – you just need to be in the mood for some slow blues.

Terry Clear

Comment by Small Blues Trap on April 29, 2009 at 6:30am

Paul Karapiperis-Fifteen Raindrops In An Ocean Of Blues Tales

CD REVIEW-ELMORE MAGAZINE

Comment by Small Blues Trap on February 17, 2009 at 7:51am

CD REVIEW(D.Epikouris)

Strange but good things do happen in the land of the Olympian Gods after all. Who could imagine that a young man from Malesina Greece would be so imaginative and talented as well as deeply interested in the blues music? Mr. Paul Karapiperis is a sociologist and a blues musician with exceptional skills when it come to playing the acoustic guitar and harp. He and his very promising band, the "Small Blues Trap" literally "trap" the interest of every blues lover who gets the chance to expose himself to their music. Paul's Tom Waits like voice blended with his passion that is so well expressed by his body motion and his gestures when he is performing on stage constitute a must see event for everyone who wishes to discover blues scenes outside of the US. Furthermore, Paul's unstoppable energy and thirst to keep on creating innovative stuff, have been materialized in his latest personal CD called "Fifteen Raindrops in An Ocean of Blues Tales".

Paul unfolds his charismatic personality through a series of songs that relate to each other in a very unique way. In this CD, Paul is not just a musician but a story teller, a modern day "Homer" writing his blues Odyssey. He narrates and plays, he improvises and he creates with his imagination a new blues story that is as old as it is new. Old because it possesses all kinds of human emotions and new because it really escapes from the "I woke up this morning" blues style.

This very unique CD reminded me a lot of Alexis Korner as well as the psychedelic touch of Graham Bond with Ginger Baker and the rest.

The Cd requires a certain state of mind to be well appreciated because of its poetic elements that jump right out of the music. One should listen to it at least three times to get a good understanding of Paul exceptional talent. The impression that I got after having listened to many hundreds of Cds in my life, is that here we are dealing with a very multi-talented man who attempts to speak to our hearts and walk us through a mysterious but deeply emotional Nordic forest where druids gather seeking their inner self. Undoubtedly, blues is the finest key that helps us unlock our inner selves simply because it is simultaneously human and humane.

All I hope is that Paul continues to offer us such precious surprises in the future to come.


Dimitris Epikouris

(Author of the book "Blame It All On The Blues")