Bernard Allison totes

the same smokin’ six

string shooter that his
late father Luther Allison
assaulted the blues
with. Bernard is blessed
with his father’s soulful
voice, spiritual devotion,
and a musical freedom
which experiments with
the blues.

Born in Chicago on
November 26th, 1965,
he was the youngest of
nine children. Bernard
was first introduced to
the roots of black music
and the art of the
electric guitar by his
father, the late great
Luther Allison. Like Ken
Griffey Jr. hanging out
in baseball locker rooms
as a youth.

Luther’s son was the kid

running on stage
throughout the band’s
set. Experiences like
that profoundly
affect one’s aspirations.
“That’s when I decided
that I wanted to be up
there like him. I Think I
was seven.”

Photo by Bert Lek

I didn’t start to play until I was maybe ten years of age” Bernard recalled. “I picked up the
guitar and listened to his records.” While Luther was absent, his record collection played
a major role in shaping the son’s direction. Bernard listened to his dad’s influences like
Magic Sam, Otis Rush, T-Bone Walker, Lightnin” Hopkins, and BB King. He also got
influenced by the next generation that followed, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Johnny Winter,
and Jimi Hendrix.
Photo by Bert Lek 1984. Blues Estafette, NL.
Bernard made his first appearance on record at age 13, when he played on a live LP his
Father recorded in Peoria,IL. “When we moved to Peoria, Dad came home preparing to
do his live album in Peoria, I hooked up the amplifier and guitar in the basement and
started playing his first record, Love Me Momma, note for note. He freaked out and said
tonight you’re gonna record with me. That was my first recording, I played “You don’t
Love Me No More” and “Sweet Home Chicago”.

Luther bought Bernard his first guitar a Fender Stratocaster and he told him to first get
an education. At eighteen years old Bernard joined his father on stage at the 1983
Chicago Blues Festival. Then one week after he graduated from high school, Bernard
got a call from KOKO Taylor asking him to be her lead guitar player.

Bernard joined Koko Taylor’s Blues Machine for three years. “Koko and Pops Taylor
taught me the do’s and don’t’s of the road, Bein” really careful and watching people.
They were like my Mom and Pops, I was able to see different cultures it was a great
education. We backed Willie Dixon and Koko was the only group I played with besides
my father’s band.” The 1980’s became Bernards classroom as both a learner and
teacher. Relationships in the 80’s with Johnny Winter and Stevie Ray Vaughan
expanded Bernards guitar foundation. For a year and a half Bernard lived and played in
London and Ontario.

Photo by Michel Verlinden

Then in 1989 Bernard flew to Europe to record with his father and where Bernard was
asked to lead the band. Bernard like his father adopted permanent residence in France.
A recording of the furious collaboration between Luther and Bernard at the 1989
Chicago Blues Festival can be heard on the Luther Allison Album “Let’s Try it Again” on
Ruf Records.
One year later, Bernard released his first solo album in 1990 with the significant title The
Next Generation. Allison followed that in 1993 with Hang On, then Funkifino, No Mercy.
Bernard’s other titles during the 1990’s included Born With The Blues, Keepin’ The
Blues Alive, and Times Are Changing. In the new millennium, Bernard’s
recordings include Across The Water, Storms Of Life, Kentucky Fried Blues, the highly
personal Higher Power, and Energized, a live recording and DVD from a 2005 show.

One look at that DVD and it’s obvious that Bernard has inherited Luther’s knack for
igniting audiences; but he’s no clone of his famous father. He is definitely blazing his
own path with a style that reflects a unique mix of traditional and modern influences. The
Allison torch has been passed, and it’s clear that Bernard takes his role as its bearer
very seriously. He’s assumed the challenge of keeping the blues alive and growing – a
commitment he renews every time he takes the stage. “I’m gonna try my best to pick up
where he left off, but I can’t be Luther Allison, I can only be myself. In the beginning
everyone expects me to be exactly like him, but we are two different musicians.”

As a true “son of the blues,” Bernard possesses the requisite guitar feel and vocal
intonations necessary to push his blues into the next century. He knows the energy level
necessary to hold audiences and combines a enough showmanship and spontaneity to
push the performance in fresh, innovative directions each night.
Photo by Stephen Nitzsche

“In order for anything to expand, you have to take a risk,” says Bernard. “Blues is about
experimenting and getting your feelings across to someone else. And if you want to
keep it going, people are going to have to give it all a chance because we’re losing all
our creators. Because I’ve been taking risks on every album I’ve recorded, this record is
just a logical progression from everything else I’ve done. Instead of playing rippin’ 12 bar
blues guitar over and over, there are bluesy songs, soul, funk, R&B songs and a couple
of rock things which shows the overall musicianship of Bernard Allison.”

That musicianship is no clearer than on his current record, Chills And Thrills. After 17
years of recording experience, Bernard has perfected his sound. Instead of just using his
guitar, Bernard has become mature the artist who uses the full palate of musical colors
in his band to paint his stories. If there ever was a CD for all occasions, this is it.
It’s got the chill songs to curl up with on a rainy day, or the thrill music you’ll blast when
you’re driving late at night. By adding the rhythm guitar of Bernard’s guitar soulmate Eric
Gales, every song explodes into a guitar player’s head trip.
Photo by Alex Dauns

The title cut opens the record with Bernard’s trademark funk meets blues sound. that
signature sound permeates other tunes like “Compromising For Your Need,” “Heart of
St. Paul,” and “Groove With Me,” Bernard’s treatise on the modernesque blues he’ll
continue to play around the world. But Bernard’s got so much more. On “So Devine”
Bruce McCabe’s piano and Jose James’ alto sax steals the show. On “Just Me And My
Guitar,” Bernard shows off the frantic slide techniques he learned in the 1980’s from
Johnny Winter. For slow blues, Bernard and pianist Rusty Hall turn in a first rate guitar
and piano performance on “That’s Why I’m Crying.” But any fan of Bernard Allison
knows that every show or record comes with one of his father’s songs. Here, Bernard
reprises Luther’s 1980’s tune “Serious,” played with Bernard’s eerie, Luther-like vocal
attack. In addition, Bernard strips “Serious” down to just piano and guitar in his after-
hours styled closer.
Amid all the daily pop culture pressures to be the next American Idol why does Bernard
stay rooted in the blues? “The blues is my roots. Regardless of how far outside of the
blues I reach for tones, I can’t ever leave the blues. Whenever I play, all those guitar
parts are Luther Allison coming through me. My dad was the same way, he wasn’t all
blues. He loved Otis Redding or Chuck Berry. I’m just showing where my influences
come from. And respecting the people who got me to this point.”
==
Bernard Allison Interview By Terry Mullins on August 19, 2011.

In the long and rich history of the blues, the path going south to north, from Mississippi
to Chicago, is a well-traveled one. Plenty of unknowns have left the rural pastures of the
Magnolia State with little to their name, only to end up as legends after their feet hit the
concrete in the Windy City. But as has been proven, that’s not the only path to stardom
in the world of the blues. There’s the path that starts out in Chicago and winds up in
Paris, France. While not the closest or the usual one, it is the path that the late, great
Luther Allison traveled to stardom. It’s also the path that his youngest son, Bernard,
continues to travel to this day.

“I’m in Europe more than half the year. I’ve got set tours over there (in Europe) that I do
every year. They’ve been fixed for years,” Bernard Allison said. “The biggest one is the
tour that my dad started in 1976 with John Lee Hooker and B.B. and Muddy and Taj and
Sugar Blue. And that tour was passed down to me when my dad passed away. So I’ve
continued that, as well as tacked on stuff that I’ve created on my own. So it’s really
grown.”

Kinda gives new meaning to the old “have guitar, will travel” adage, doesn’t it?
“The interesting thing is, I basically grew up with that (European) fan base. So that
makes it like I’m almost at home,” Allison said. “I was introduced to the fans by my dad.
And now they’ve grown to expect Bernard Allison to play around those certain times of
year. So I try to play over there in pretty much the same months and same places that
my dad used to.”

One of the biggest shames in the history of the blues is the way that Hall of Famer
Luther Allison never really received the widespread love and adoration from fans in the
United States that he richly deserved, until right before his death in 1997, just days
before he would have turned 58 years old.

However, it didn’t take Luther Allison very long to become a certified star over in Europe
– especially in Paris – where he was immediately embraced as the embodiment of true
American blues.

These days, not only as a tribute to his late father, but also as a way to say ‘thank you’
to the legion of fans overseas who made it possible for his dad to continue to play the
blues, Bernard Allison, the youngest of Luther’s nine kids, sees to it himself that the
European blues community is well taken care of.
“My European fan base is who has put me in the position that I’m in today. I do a lot of
dates in the United States and could probably tour over here the whole year, easily. But I
have to be loyal and have to stick to the word that I promised my dad. That comes first,”
he said. “So I’m trying to keep the Allison tradition that my father created going, for sure.
That’s something that I promised my dad and my family that I would continue. And
hopefully, if not another family member, then some other youngster can come in and
take over when I say that I can’t do it anymore.”

Not wanting to leave his stateside fans feeling left out, Bernard Allison is taking care of
those who can’t travel to see him with his newest project – a live two-CD or single DVD
set, titled Live at the Jazzhaus (Jazzhaus Records). Slated for a late September release,
Live at the Jazzhaus is an audio and visual document of the way the Bernard Allison
Group has been burning up stages all across Europe the past year.

“Yeah, it’s basically what Bernard Allison is doing now. We wanted to capture the
moment with the band that I’m using before going on to the next project,” he said. “I just
want to make sure people are kept up-to-date, step-by-step with what I’m doing,
because I had just released my last studio album, The Otherside, just the year before.
And that album really hasn’t kicked in gear here in the States, so I wanted to follow up
as soon as I could with this live one.”
Live at Jazzhaus boasts blistering workouts of a number of songs off The Otherside and
Chills & Thrills, Allison’s two latest albums, along with a white-hot reading of the classic
“Rocket 88.”

“This unit (George Moye, bass; Toby Lee Marshall, keyboards; Jose James, sax,
percussion; Erick Ballard, drums; Mike Goldsmith, guitar) I’m playing with is pretty
intense, because they all come from different genres of music,” Allison said. “Yeah, it’s
all blues-rooted, but it captures the direction of each one of the players. I’m really proud
of it. These guys are just fantastic players and we really have a good time. They have
absolutely no egos. And our Allison family motto is, ‘Leave your ego, play the music,
love the people.’ And I’ve really got the right guys now that represent that. They’re just
as hungry as I am and play for the love of the music, not for the money.”

Bernard’s passion for playing the blues was absorbed from his legendary father, even
though there were long stretches of time when Luther was apart from his family, with
them in Peoria and him on the other side of the globe, working hard to provide for his
loved ones the best way that he could.
“He wanted us to finish school and
we knew that the only way that dad
could support the whole family was
to make music and to travel,” Allison
said. “So we saw very little of him,
other than holidays when he would
come back to Peoria. But one thing
he wanted all of us to do was to stay
in one place so we could finish high
school. After that, he said, ‘it’s your
choice what you do.’ But he insisted
we got our educations first.”

And once his own education was out

of the way, Bernard relocated to
Paris in 1989, with intentions to stay
just long enough to play on a live
album with his father, and then to
record his own solo debut (The Next
Generation).

But as often-times happen, plans

change and Bernard ended up
staying in the City of Lights for 12
years, working as his dad’s
bandleader for a majority of those
years.

“Dad was really into the way I wrote

music and arranged songs,” Allison
said. “And he was interested in
learning to play open-tuning slide,
which Johnny Winter had taught me.
Dad was playing everything in
standard (tuning), so I showed him
open-tuning and then he was on fire.”

Not only did hanging and jamming in

Paris re-connect Bernard and Luther
musically, more importantly, it also
re-connected them as father and
son, even though that dynamic was
not as straight-forward as it sounds.
With Jimi Primetime Smith Duisburg Steinbruch, 23-Jan-2016

“Our relationship was more like brothers. And the main reason I wanted to stay, was to
get to know my father and spend time with my dad – more so than for the music. I knew
the music would come, but to get to really know my dad and just hang with him was just
a blessing,” Allison said. “We really got a chance to bond, man-to-man. He called me
B.A. and I called him LuLu. It wasn’t dad or pops or son … so we had our nicknames for
each other. That was one of the smartest moves of my life – going to Europe. I already
knew Luther Allison the musician – I had all the tapes. But I got to know Luther Allison
the man, the friend, the father.”

And like father, like son – B.A. would find out just what LuLu had to go through in order
to put food on the family table.

“He explained to me that someday I might be in the same situation that he was in when I
was young, having to choose between taking care of your family here or going
somewhere you can be successful and support your family,” said Allison. “And that was
totally the case with me in raising my daughter Dominique, who just graduated from ISU
and just had her first child. So now I’m a grandfather. But if I would have stayed in
Peoria, there’s no way I could have supported her and put her through college. It would
have been impossible. There’s just not enough venues there, so I had to go to Europe.”
However, Bernard’s first exposure at what it was like to be a part of a working blues
band came a few years before he made his trek across the Atlantic Ocean. Still in his
teens at the time, Bernard played for the Queen of the Blues, Koko Taylor, in her Blues
Machine for three years.

“If it wasn’t for Koko and Pops Taylor, I wouldn’t be the musician I am today. First of all,
they taught me how to play behind someone. I learned how to play in a rhythm section
behind a vocalist,” he said. “They also taught me the do’s and do-not’s of the road.
When I joined Koko’s band, I was 16 years old. I really wasn’t of age to be in the clubs
that we were playing. So they basically adopted me and were my guardians on the road.
So I give them all the credit. I mean, I was a baby out there with the Queen of the
Blues.”

Bernard’s next big task was finding his own identity. And as he found out, it took a while
for some fans to realize that Bernard Allison was his own man, with his own personality
and style.

“It did take a few years to break out of the ‘let’s go see Luther’s kid play’ thing,” he said.
“They never used to call me by my name. It was always ‘Luther’s kid.’ So it wasn’t easy
to break out of his shadow, but I did manage to do it. But you know, I’ve always been
different than my dad. We’re two different guitar players and two different singers. For
years in Paris, I had an eight-piece band with a horn section.
 It sounded something like Albert Collins
meets Big Twist or something. It was
different from Chicago or straight Texas
blues.”

With Luther Allison being the kind of

man that never met a stranger and a
person that was so-beloved by those
that knew him, it’s no wonder that so
many people saw Bernard as just being
“Luther’s kid.’

“My dad just had so many friends all

over the world. Not just the ones that
knew him through music, but the ones
that knew him on a personal level,” said
Allison.

“People that knew he loved to fish and

talk about the days in Peoria when he
used to work at Keystone and
Caterpillar.

People just couldn’t believe how

humble he was, how he just could jump
on stage and then tear it up for a
couple of hours.”

Photo by Michel Verlinden

With the way that blues music always seems to get the short-end of the stick when it
comes to being a widely-popular form of entertainment, taking a back seat to things like
the disposable pop stuff that’s crammed down people’s throats, it’s a wonder that there’s
still a batch of up-and-comers that continue to be interested in playing the blues.

“I think that years ago when MTV came out and saturated a whole generation and you
didn’t see any blues, or any blues rock, it just threw everything off,” said Allison. “Blues
has never been able to sit at the top of the mountain anyway, but I always say every
genre of music is like a number on the clock. Everyone has their turn, so all these
phases and fads go in and out, but the blues and jazz and gospel never go out, but they
never reach 12, either. God bless guys like Buddy (Guy) and B.B., guys like that who are
still out there doing it after all these years.”
Whether he calls Paris, France or Peoria, Illinois home, Bernard Allison’s agenda
remains the same:

“Leave your ego, play the music, love the people.”

“My dad always said that you have to go out and give 110-percent all the time and be
loyal to your fans. That’s what will make you happy,” he said. “And that’s what I do. I
could care less if I top the charts with a number-one seller. That means nothing to me.
It’s the respect of the people that I’m trying to reach that’s important to me.”

While releasing a studio album and then a live CD/DVD in the span of about 12 months
indicates a busy year, the way things look, Bernard Allison’s plate shows no signs of
emptying any time soon.

“I’ve got quite a few ideas that are being tossed at me, so you may very well see some
more Bernard Allison in different situations. It’s just a matter of time,” he said. “There’s
talks of the “Who’s Your Daddy? Tour,” with me and Ronnie (Baker Brooks) and
Shemekia (Copeland), along with an album. That’s a great packaging. If we get the
proper support, that could be a Showdown II. Then, we’re looking at a pairing of maybe
Bernard Allison, Eric Gales and Lance Lopez. So we’re just all putting our heads
together, because we all understand things are getting tougher.

There’s just so many great players out there that need to get that one big break. I was
lucky because I moved to Europe. So I try to help everybody that I can. I try to turn
people on to whatever I can, because this music (blues) does not belong to me. It was
passed down to me. It wasn’t my father’s, either. John Lee Hooker passed it on to him.
That’s what it’s all about – passing the torch and keeping it going. You have to enjoy
every day, because tomorrow’s not guaranteed. I want to leave the Allison stamp on as
many continents as possible, because I love to play.”

==