Blues Company - Encores (2017) Lossless

Since the '60s, the blues have inspired practically every generation of enthusiastic young, white musicians. Blues Company itself hasn't been around quite that long. The band started up its blues crusade on 20th May 1976. That was the day they first climbed on stage to fire up the audience into a twelve-bar frenzy. After countless other live missions, they proudly celebrated their first 30 years in the spring of 2006.

The Company itself has demonstrated tremendous staying power - and Todor “Toscho” Todorovic, the band's co-founder as well as singer, guitarist, composer and sound freak makes sure of this. The bluesman was born in 1951 in Lingen, in the Emsland region of northern Germany. His parents, who were born in Yugoslavia and who had fled to West Germany after the Second World War, gave their son a variety of opportunities to expand his musical horizons. And what Toscho learned from them and from grand old men of the blues including B.B. King and Muddy Waters would one day become the lifeblood of “his” Blues Company. Toscho not only plays the blues, he lives and breathes them. Blues without compassion would be unthinkable. Thus for years the band's leader has organised benefit events both large and small in his adopted country. For his commitment to social concerns, the city of Osnabrück awarded him the Public Service Medal in 1993.

Because the blues are performed live, Toscho has worked unceasingly on his image as an entertainer. It is pure delight to watch his facial reactions to a catchy refrain, to see how he electrifies the crowd with a breakneck guitar solo or entrances his listeners with a lush melodic figure, how he wakes emotions with his distinctive, dark voice. And with experienced band members at his side. The current line-up – in effect the core band – includes second guitarist Mike Titre (member of the band since 1980), Arnold Ogrodnik on bass and organ and Florian Schaube on drums.