GravelRoad - Duty To Warn (2023)

Full-blown ambassadors of the blues, Seattle’s own GravelRoad are sending another charge into their beloved Mississippi Delta source material with a ninth release, a Jack Endino-engineered blues rocker DUTY TO WARN.

On their ninth album, DUTY TO WARN explores GravelRoad’s well-earned weaving guitar interplay-earned with tens of thousands of miles of touring through the US and Europe in support of their last eight albums over 20 years. Truly, GravelRoad are a confident, masterful institution of guitar-driven blues with a passion for the heavy back beat and storytelling.

This is the band’s fourth release with co-conspirator Jack Endino, with the rock institution helming engineering, mixing and mastering duties. Endino also worked with the band on CROOKED NATION (2019), CAPITOL HILL COUNTRY BLUES (2016) and EL SCUERPO (2014).

While maintaining a base with gigs at Tractor Tavern, Sunset, Slim’s Last Chance and The Funhouse, GravelRoad has continued to pile up the frequent flier points, touring Europe and the US consistently for the last decade. The band’s songs are featured in the TV shows POWER (“Monkey with a Wig” Season 5 epi 3); ARROW (“The Run” epi 512); BLOODLINE (“The Run” epi 302), THE AFFAIR (“Bring Me Back” epi 104) among other movie and TV show appearances.

Like earlier proselytizers Canned Heat and Mike Bloomfield, GravelRoad apprenticed the genre, traveling to their beloved Hill Country section of Mississippi and helping their good friend T-Model Ford (James Lewis Carter Ford) tour the US, performing as his band at ALL TOMORROW’S PARTIES, among other festivals. With T-Model, GravelRoad recorded the outstanding TALEDRAGGER (Alive Natural Sound 2011) and LADIES MAN (2010), masterful performances captured to vinyl to preserve the legacy of one of the great characters of the blues. The band continues pushing into new territory, but their legacy of documenting and supporting this unique American folk art continues. The band maintains a presence in Mississippi, appearing regularly at blues festivals including the Deep Blues Festival in Clarksdale, Mississippi.

With DUTY TO WARN, and their accompanying US and European tour, GravelRoad continue to record, tour, and bring it where it needs to be brought, celebrating the guitar, the beat, the joy and the groove.