The Buddy Blake Band

The Buddy Blake Band is a rock ’n’ roll drive with The Who riding shotgun—R.E.M., Counting Crows, Grand Funk and Zeppelin riding in the backseat of a car once owned by Tom Petty.

That description has a lot of passengers, but it gets at the spirit of the band: big guitars, songs with stories in them, a little Southern dust on the dashboard, and no particular interest in taking the shortest route home.

Born in Northwest Florida, The Buddy Blake Band is four longtime friends: Buddy Bolter on lead guitar, Blake Bell on vocals, rhythm guitar and keyboards, Bob Matteson on drums and percussion, and Tom McMillan on bass and keyboards. They have spent years learning each other’s musical instincts. Buddy might take a guitar part somewhere nobody expected. Bob and Tom might turn a loose idea into something that suddenly has a heartbeat. Blake might find the line that tells them what the song has been about all along. Then somebody says something ridiculous, and they have a title for the next album.

They record live in the studio, leaving space for the unexpected. A guitar part can pull the song in a new direction; a drum fill can give a lyric a different meaning. The point is to catch what happens between the four of them while it’s happening. In the early days, that meant recording parts on separate laptops and putting the pieces together afterward. The setup has changed, but the instinct has not: play together, pay attention, and keep the moments that feel alive.

The catalog grew out of that way of working. Undiscovered began the album trail, followed by records including Love What Happens, Big In the Neighborhood, Face Value, Riptide and Seven Ways From Someday. Even the titles tell you something about this band. It’s All Funny ’Til It Ain’t can make you grin and wince at the same time. All Wallet No Cash sounds like somebody you know—or somebody you’ve been. Lawrence of Albuquerque suggests there may be a story behind it, and there probably is.

The band keeps making full albums because some songs belong in each other’s company. One might be loud and impatient; the next might sit with a loss for a while. Across the catalog, the music moves through heartland rock, Americana, blues rock and album rock, with a Gulf Coast character that is easier to hear than to pin down. There is room for a driving chorus, a wandering instrumental passage, a strange joke, and a quiet line that catches up with you later.

The songs often follow people at uncertain moments: trying to get home, trying to make amends, remembering what they lost, or working up the nerve to begin again. Regret and hope ride together. So does humor, because life has a habit of being ridiculous even when it hurts. The band doesn’t tidy those contradictions away. They’re part of what makes the stories worth telling.

Records such as kNOw More Kings and Perpetual Density carry on another band tradition: finding a phrase odd enough to stick, then discovering how much it can hold. The names can be playful, crooked, or hard to explain to someone who wasn’t in the room when they appeared. That’s all right. The Buddy Blake Band has always made room for the unexpected, whether it arrives as a title, a lyric, or a take that changes the plan for the day.

After all these years and all those songs, the four friends keep returning to the same starting point. Get in a room. Play the song together. Listen for the moment none of them could have planned.
 

• THE BUDDY BLAKE BAND presents, "Lawrence of Albuquerque" - By Adam Jones, Music Farmer
• THE BUDDY BLAKE BAND – “Lawrence of Albuquerque” – A Journey Through Rock’s Heartland-Music Hit Box
• THE BUDDY BLAKE BAND – “Lawrence of Albuquerque” Rock’s Glorious Return - by John Pinkerton, Music USA Today
• THE BUDDY BLAKE BAND – “Lawrence of Albuquerque” – A Symphony of Spheres in the Key of Legend - New Music Times
• THE BUDDY BLAKE BAND presents full-length album, “Lawrence of Albuquerque” – The Soundtrack Of Triumph - Top Hitz