Josh Boyd & the V.I.P. Band list as their influences such artists as James Brown, Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Earth, Wind, & Fire, the Gap Band, Albert King, and Albert Collins. That’s a diverse group, to be sure, but believe it or not, the band touches on nearly all of these sounds in their self-titled, self-released disc.
To be sure, Boyd has guitar chops to burn and can blow the doors off when he feels like it (“Can’t Stop Your Love,” “I Don’t Wanta Think About It,” “High Heels”), but he’s also capable of getting funky as well on tracks like “Free,” “What’s Turning You On,” and “Funky Popstand.” The autobiographical “Down On The East Side” tells how he made his move to the blues and the guitarists who influenced him, including his father. The closing track, “Sometimes,” is a show-stopper and mixes rock, blues, and funk. I defy you to sit still while it’s playing..
This disc is a completely intense, high-energy set, with no let up between songs. There are no ballads here, just pure unadulterated blues, rock, and funk. The V.I.P. Band consists of Junior Springs (bass) and Charles Gaston (drums). If you look up “in the pocket” in the dictionary, you’ll find a picture of them..
If you like the up and coming blues guitarists like Anthony Gomes, Kenny Wayne Shepherd or Joe Bonnamassa, you will love this CD, pure and simple. Go to www.superboyd.com for more information on the band and to check out some of the tracks on this disc.
--- Graham Clarke - Blues Bytes
Blues Bytes was the winner of the 2006 "Keeping The Blues Alive" award from the Blues Foundation in the Blues on the Internet category.
Thanks to our loyal readers for making this recognition possible!
Thursday, December 27, 2007
- By Nancy Longo
These guys open up for many well-known national acts that come to the Toledo/Detroit area. They have played with Larry McCray. They have performed in Memphis, The Mohican Blues Festival, and have been part of the Legendary Rhythm and Blues Cruise numerous times. I love Bernard Allison, Shemekia Copeland and Indigenous. Their CD’s are great, but do they really give the listener the true sense of what they are like when you see them live? NO! This is the same. Josh is a little bluesier in person than what is on the CD. It is a good CD but his is a must see band. They are mesmerizing! The rhythm section is so hot and the band is just so in sync with each other. Josh’s vocals are a perfect fit. 
“My Guitar Gently Weeps,” is a well-known song they have taken and made their own. It is heavy, soulful and bluesy all at t he same time. The last four songs on the CD are my personal favorites. I love to listen to this CD on my feet.. It makes me want to move. I love this band.
Do not take my word for it…pack your toothbrush, make a road trip. Toledo, Ohio is not out of reach.. Go to this website at http://www.superboyd.com/. Get their schedule…go see for yourself. Thank me later.
(This band was an entry in last year’s IBC in Memphis. He created a lot of buzz in the “street.”)
Posted by Blues Society of Western Pennsylvania - Maria K at 8:11 AM
Josh Boyd and the VIP Band
(Self-titled)
A long-time devotee of Albert Collins, Toledo, Ohio, guitar virtuoso Josh Boyd confesses that you can hear the master's licks in his playing. And you can. But you hear a whole lot more as well - and it's all good.
Only in his twenties, Boyd's mastery of the guitar belies his age. While his playing may seem derivative at first listen, you soon realize that this is the sound of a serious guitarist coming into his own, paying tribute to the forebears who inspired him, but20making his own way in the world.
This is not strictly a blues album, a fact that Boyd freely admits. "Few need 90 minutes of straight blues, so we push the envelope...(with a) fusion of styles, funk and rock..." he is quoted about the bands live sets in his press kit.
That said, this is still a great album for fans of the guitar. Backed by Toledo-area sidemen Junior Springs (vocals/bass), and Charles Gaston (drums), Josh kicks into the first of the CD's ten cuts, "Free," with a display of craftsmanship which, although more rock than blues, showcases his virtuosity.
The next cut, "Can't Stop Your Love," is one of my favorites. I know how artists hate to be compared to other artists, but indulge me if I say it is sort of Santana-ish. Not that it sounds like Santana, exactly. It's just sort of -ish. And maybe it's my bent for a particular kind of music, but I could definitely see this cut and the soulful, "I Don't Wanta Think About It," getting airplay in a variety of radio formats.
A lot of artists have covered, "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," but unlike artists like Kenny Rankin, Boyd doesn't treat the song with jazz-oriented kid gloves. Instead, he delivers a harder-edged interpretation that plays tribute to the original but treats it rough. I wasn't sure I cared for it on my first time through, but once I got rid of my pre-conceived notions about how it should sound , the quality of the work won me over.
Perhaps the most personal song on the disc is Boyd's autobiographical, "Down On The East Side." A musical chronicle of Josh's musical milestones from the time he first picked up a guitar at age 3, to his blues epiphany at a BB King/Koko Taylor concert when he was 12, etc., the song is great musically, and something every music lover - player or not - can identify with.
If you like the guitar (and who doesn't), and you don't mind your blues mixed (skilfully), with other genres, you should give Josh Boyd and the VIP Band a listen. It's the sound of somebody on his way up.
-Pat Jennings - The Wichita Blues Society
All right, I’ll start with that moaning and grumpy lot, who will say that the booklet is not a real one (true, it’s only got a front and back with just a couple of water colors, one on each side and without one single comment...!), that there isn’t one single information on the back of the sleeve (just the titles of the 10 tracks played, and even then, not one single time against one of them!), but let’s move on, let’s go to what really matters… the music, the real one, the best of the best, the one that Josh injects in your veins, in your brain cells, in each hair that stands up when you listen to these tracks which make you drown in happiness, like in the magnificent rendering of ‘I Don’t Wanta’ Think About It’ or the extraordinary ‘My Guitar Gently Weeps’, which gives an incredibly amazing punch to this song from the quietest of the Beatles.
It’s true that Josh does not play the six-strings, he lives it, and he breathes it. That’s not hard, will say that moaning lot... when you’re born in a family dripping in music (and I know people who were born in that world, up to their necks in it, and they could not do anything with it!)… a family where you get your first guitar when you’re 3 before moving on to an electric one at 12 and performing your first concerts age 14. Josh willingly admits he has been influenced by those white bluesmen and ‘guitar heroes’, who have revisited the blues: Peter Green, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton. An influence which inspires the way Josh plays the guitar, gives it its fiery sound: the mark of these special players who can sway in one solo the whole of a stadium as well as the smallest of juke joints. After these long flights with ‘What’s Turning You On’, you’ll be won over by ‘You Make Me Feel So Damn Good’: a raw and explosive energy without any unnecessary gloss. Josh is mind-blowing, faithful to the spirit of the ‘mercenary’ he was when he used to accompany Rick Derringer, or Edgar and Johnny Winter.
A truly great album of blues-rock which you won’t be in a hurry to put away, right there between Clapton and Johnny Winter… you’ll want to listen to it again and again, and tell your neighbors to buy it because an album of this caliber deserves to be listened to at full volume, with all the windows wide open. And for all those grumpy ones who always have something to say, send the cavalry in with ‘Funky Popstand’ before putting them away with this superb rendering of ‘Down On The East Side’. It’s an absolutely, definitely great album of rock & blues.
Frankie Rocky Pfeiffer
BLUES MAGAZINE©
http://www.bluesmagazine.net
Translated by Nathalie Harrap, Active Languages
10/22/05 - On Saturday,
October 22nd, Josh Boyd and the VIP Band won the 9th Annual
Black Swamp Blues Competition. They will be heading to Memphis
to represent Northwest Ohio/Southeastern Michigan in the
International Blues Competition at the end of January.
10/02/05 - On Sunday,
October 2nd, Josh Boyd and the VIP Band won the first round
of the Black Swamp Blues Society’s Blues Competition.
They will play in the finals on October 22nd at Mickey Finn's.
The winner will go on to Memphis to represent Northwest
Ohio/Southeastern Michigan in the International Blues Competition.
6/16/05 - Josh Boyd &
The V.I.P. Band have just released their latest CD! Come
out to any of our shows to pick up a copy for your very
own or click here to purchase it
online!
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