NEWS

RIVERA RELEASES HIS SOULFUL DEBUT ALBUM

Los Angeles session musician Jonah Rivera has announced that his bluesy, vocal-driven debut album is out now and available everywhere courtesy of Messenger Bird Music. 

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RIVERA BLUES BAND is composed of 8 jamming tracks – 2 of them original compositions  – arranged by the singer, performed and produced in a way that feels like a vintage blues album. Inspired by long nights gigging in the jazz clubs of Los Angeles, Rivera was driven to arrange, produce, and perform his own blues LP.  “While arranging these songs, many from the legendary song writers of 1980’s blues rock , I said, ‘Why don’t I take a time machine back to the early 1970’s and record these songs in one place?’”

The songs on the album are familiar to blues and blues rock fans, but they take on new life with live jam-session energy. There are re-imagined covers of songs written by Robert Cray, Doyle Bramhall & Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jerry Lynn Williams, Eric Clapton, Lenny Kravitz & Craig Ross, and J.J. Cale  - all part of a common blues thread. As Rivera says, “Modern Blues connects to the past and the present, connects time and space with colors, sounds, and textures like a 4-Dimensional sculpture.”

WATCH THE ALBUM TRAILER HERE

Album tracks include an electrifying take on Robert Cray’s blues classic “I Wonder,” recorded in Los Angeles where Jonah performs as a session musician and big band jazz orchestra guitarist.  It’s an attention-grabbing debut performance – Rivera’s smokey vocal and lyric delivery is soulful, poetic, and always passionately performed.

And “Forever Man,” with a Cadillac-smooth groove pairs Rivera with the incomparable songwriting of Jerry Lynn Williams. The original version, featured on Eric Clapton’s 1985 album, Behind the Sun, inspired Rivera’s contrasting, Bobby “Blue” Bland style pocket and soul-shaking singing.

With the album release this spring, listeners will get to hear “Night Voices” for the very first time.  It’s a introspective piece of Jonah Rivera’s song writing.  A hypnotic musical exchange between guitar and vocal – Jonah reaching for emotional highs and lows with modern day contemplativeness, and a rhythm section laying down a silky groove while a haunting 12-string guitar weaves the song together for an unforgettable listening experience.

MORE ABOUT RIVERA BLUES BAND