Dave Hole
Quotes
Electric slide...a dizzying, slash-and-burn, good time stomp."--Living
Blues
"Assuredly rocking...wild, over-the-top blues-rock...a whale of
a good time." --Guitar
"Ripping and roaring....He's an extraordinary slide guitarist
whose raucous sound recalls Elmore James and Johnny Winter...extremely
fluid...lacerating."--Washington Post
"Crackling electricity and raw energy flows from the man.
Ripping, speaker-melting play-every-note-like-you-mean-it, big-balls-out
guitar is what he's all about."
--Vintage Guitar
"Hole plays ferocious, adrenaline-charged electric
slide....throws swooping and swirling slide guitar notes into the
stratosphere for a dizzying, slash and burn, good-time stomp. Sizzling and
supercharged...a one-way journey to sonic joy."--Living Blues
"Dave Hole's overhand slide continues to blaze and amaze.
Elmore James, Hound Dog Taylor and Duane Allman resound in his swoops and
slides, while his fingers-on-the frets forays recall Albert King."--Guitar
Player
"Incendiary bottleneck blues...impressive. Highly
recommended."--Guitar Shop
"Slide sensation flaunts fretboard flash...slashing, burning
and raucous... Hole's slide technique is really astounding."--
Jazz Times
"One of the greatest blues slide guitarists in the
world....drips with emotion and controlled frenzy. Hole's playing defies
comparisons." --Chicago Sun Times
"One of the most incendiary guitarists ever...jaw-dropping
slide work."--Bikini
"Searing, steel-guitar-like tones....Long, fat, sustained notes
that screech like a siren with a wildly tremulous vibrato...an effective
composer of molten blues-rock tunes."--Los
Angeles Times
"A combination of wild abandon and surgical precision....soul
deep singing and incendiary fret work. Shuffles and swaggers in the best
road-house style. His slide work dive bombs with fat tone and vibrato,
played with string-melting intensity. His speed and dexterity will leave
you scratching your head and wondering how he can pull it all off with
style, fire and grace."--Blues Access
Biography
Seemingly out of nowhere, Australian
guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Dave Hole first burst onto the American music
scene in 1992. Since that time, critics and fans have declared Hole one of the
most exciting and original slide guitarists in the world. His five successful
Alligator albums have earned him heaps of critical praise and his jaw-dropping
live show leaves audiences around the world breathless and screaming for more.
"Magnificent, staggering, almost beyond belief," raves
Guitar Player.
Spin magazine agrees, simply stating, "The most accomplished slide
guitarist to come around in a long time…Hole's guitar says everything that needs
to be said." But Hole's fans want more. At live gigs around the world, fans
constantly ask Dave as they're purchasing CDs from him, "Where's the live
one?"
Dave Hole can now answer that question with his new Alligator album,
The Live One. Recorded in front of wildly enthusiastic
audiences in Dave's hometown of Perth, Australia in 2001 and in his spiritual
home of Chicago, Illinois in 2002,
The Live One captures
blistering live performances of songs from throughout Dave's career. Among the
many highlights on the album, Hole rips through versions of originals
Jenny
Lee, Short Fuse Blues, and
Up All Night Thinking, slows things
down on the tour-de-force instrumental
Berwick Road, and turns in
remarkable interpretations of
Bullfrog Blues and the Jimi Hendrix
classic
Purple Haze.
Dave Hole's love of blues started early. As a young teenager he followed the
musical trail of the Rolling Stones, the Animals and Them directly to records by
Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf and Jimmy Reed. When he joined his first band in
Perth at age 16, Dave recalls "mystifying" people with music they'd never heard
before -- the blues. But people were even more mystified -- and blown away --
when Dave discovered the secrets behind the eerie sounds of Waters, Elmore James
and Robert Nighthawk came from slipping a small piece of glass or metal over the
little finger -- a slide. He set out to master the style, but an injury to his
little finger forced him to take a rather unusual approach. Instead of sitting
on the sidelines waiting for his finger to heal, Dave put the slide on his index
finger and hung his hand over the guitar neck, creating a launching pad for a
sound and style all his own. When the finger finally healed, Dave continued
playing the wrong way for all the right reasons.
While it's been just over 10 years since Dave Hole first put himself on the
United States musical map, he's actually been playing and performing for 35
years. Born in England in 1948, he moved with his family to Perth, Australia
when he was a child. After falling in love with the blues, he wanted to hear
more, but because of Perth's isolation it was difficult to find blues records.
It was even rarer for a blues artist to perform there, so Dave had to teach
himself how to play. At first, only Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix albums were
easily available, but with persistence (a trait Dave Hole has in abundance) he
got his hands on records by Blind Willie Johnson, Skip James, Blind Lemon
Jefferson and many others. His main teachers -- on record -- were Robert
Johnson, Elmore James and Mississippi Fred McDowell. Hole listened to their
recordings over and over, until he knew all of their licks, and he then
developed his own, radical instrumental technique.
Beginning in 1974 and throughout the 1980s, Hole was playing steadily around
Perth and the country towns of western Australia, only twice venturing to major
eastern cities like Sydney and Melbourne. In 1990, the blues magic struck again
for Hole when he self-financed and recorded his debut album,
Short Fuse
Blues, primarily for sale to his fans at his live gigs. Acting on a
whim, he mailed a copy of his record to
Guitar Player magazine. An
April, 1991 review and a July, 1991 feature story launched Hole into the blues
stratosphere. "Magnificent slide work...ferocious, fire-breathing. What more
could you ask?" declared the influential publication. Then a copy of the story
and the album landed on the desk of Alligator Records president Bruce Iglauer,
who took a chance by releasing the album and making Dave Hole the label's only
overseas signing. "I was very reluctant to sign an artist based on the other
side of the world," recalls Iglauer. "I usually like to work with artists who
are constantly touring the U.S., but love of the music overcame my good business
sense."
The gamble more than paid off. Critics all over the country heaped mounds of
praise on Hole, and many new fans heard Dave on the radio as hundreds of
stations spun the disc in their rotations. Rave reviews appeared in
Guitar
World, Billboard, Audio, Spin, The Chicago Tribune, and in many other
publications, as well as on the
Associated Press newswire. Even without
setting foot on American soil, Dave's name was being mentioned alongside those
of Duane Allman, Ry Cooder and Johnny Winter, taking him from virtual obscurity
to international recognition. And it wasn't just the critics who were paying
attention. When veteran rock and blues guitarist Gary Moore heard
Short
Fuse Blues, he was so impressed he invited Dave to join him on two
European tours. People everywhere were moved, including Metallica's Kirk
Hammett, who named Dave Hole as one of his favorite guitarists, saying, "His
slide playing kills me."
To support his growing success, Hole made his debut North American tour in
1993, playing almost 50 shows in nine weeks in every major city in the United
States. Night after night, screaming crowds came out to cheer him on. His next
five albums, 1993's
Working Overtime, 1994's
Steel On
Steel, 1996's
Ticket To Chicago, 1999's
Under
The Spell and 2001's
Outside Looking In, along with
multiple American tours, made Hole a bona fide slide guitar hero.
Billboard exclaimed, "Slide guitar fanatics will have their brains
blown out by this Australian fret-melter...remarkably inventive…prepare to hear
your jaw hitting the floor."
DownBeat raved, "Harrowing slide-guitar
solos and rampaging vocals...wickedly seductive, playfully inventive."
"Dizzying, supercharged," shouted
Living Blues, "A one way ticket to
sonic joy."
Mixing his blistering, over-the-top slide work and supercharged vocals on
The Live One, Dave continues to place more and more people
under his unbreakable blues-rocking spell. But even with a slew of
globe-crossing tour dates, can Dave Hole - one guitar player from Perth,
Australia - possibly live up to all of this praise? "Yes," said
Blues
Revue, "he's that good." Want proof? Just listen to
The Live
One.