Most great blues albums are born out of hardship and turbulence. Crown, the so-far career-best new record by Eric Gales, is no different. In the run-up to its release, both he and his wife and manager, LaDonna, were hospitalised with covid – a terrifying and lonely experience in which they said their last goodbyes, fearing the worst. The blues community rallied, sending support of a spiritual and financial nature, and mercifully the pair made it through.
“I’ve never forgotten that prayers were being sent our way,” a healthylooking – if tired from a day of interviews – Gales says today, sitting in a room in his North Carolina home stacked high with guitars, as his huge, handsome cat Blue looks on impassively. “Because it was tough.”
Not everyone was so fortunate. The thank-you list on his new record speaks of loss, most recently of his father, and as Gales chats, a photograph of his family – his parents and his four brothers – gazes down on him. What they see is a survivor. But his grief is clearly still raw.
“Man, I
