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These days, naming your debut album after an obscure unpronounceable island in the Indian Ocean is hardly a formula for commercial success. Nor is recording the material on a "four track analog tape deck" an industry standard. (Even the Beatles switched to eight track tape mid-way through their career.) But conventions are hardly a thing to be daunted by or even considered by Walter and his merry band of rag-tag musicians.
Born in Shreveport, Louisiana, Walter Boyd moved to Jackson, Mississippi when he was 10 years of age where he was immersed in Delta blues music. Walter, "the King of the Six-String guitar," befriended Chicago rocker, Elliot Rosewater an art school drop-out, who had recently become disillusioned with the pop scene of the late eighties."I had dropped out of the Art Institute [of Chicago] to pursue guitar and had been making an OK living as "gun-for-hire" guitarist in the Chicago music scene," Elliot recalls, "but I just wasn't excited about the kind of music people were making. When I met Walt it was amazing because I finally met someone who wanted to write guitar based music again!"
The two musicians immediately set to work writing their unique compositions, but neither of them had any money to hire studio musicians to flesh out an album. They decided to put their meager resources towards their live shows and want ads in the newspaper. No musicians responded to the advertisements, but Walter and Elliot continued to play small venues around the midwest with modest success.
After several years of wallowing in relative obscurity Don [no last name given] and Chet Parker were added to the line up on drums and bass respectively. The band set up a makeshift studio in Elliot's basement using mostly borrowed equipment. The album "Mauritius" (Moe-ree-shus for those of you who are geographically challenged) represents these early efforts in the basement studio and was released on Dodo records on October 17, 2003. |
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