XL Music

Black Joe Lewis' dancy take on the blues is a cool breeze

First, Black Joe Lewis has one of Austin's best guitar sounds.

As almost all electric guitarists know, size doesn't matter. A small tube amplifier can pump out a more extreme raunch than a thousand pedals and a Marshall. Lewis' rig is a Squier Telecaster fed through a Peavey Classic 30 amp. It's gritty, grimy, gnarly, grungy — all the "G" words.

Ricardo B. Brazziell
AMERICAN-STATESMAN

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Black Joe Lewis, whose band is ending its Hole in the Wall stint, hasn't always been into blues. 'I listened to lots of hip-hop,' he says.

Black Joe Lewis and Cool Breeze play Thursday night at La Zona Rosa with the Stepbrothers and the Bloody Tears. They also play Hole in the Wall on Sunday.

And it sounds perfect filling the Hole in the Wall, where his band Black Joe Lewis and Cool Breeze has been holding it down every Sunday night since December.

This is a fairly new band. Scene veteran Walter Daniel blows harp and saxophone for the group, hanging with Lewis for about a year. Trey Robles, former drummer with the Hard Feelings, has been playing with Lewis for about two months, about the same amount of time as bassist Dan Hoekstra, former guitarist with the Sons of Hercules. Guitarist Dustin Longfellow has played only a handful of shows with the band.

The crowd this night is small, but devout. Black Joe Lewis and Cool Breeze is coming to the final dates of its residency, but the band finds itself on more and more bills — not just blues, but Red River rock and plenty of garage punk.

The 24-year-old Lewis has been playing for only three years, so he's not exactly one of Austin's best players, but he's one of the most compelling. Born in Tucson, Ariz., and raised in the Austin area, Lewis says blues was not something he grew up with.

"I listened to lots of hip-hop, lots of gangsta rap," Lewis says in his trademark drawl. "8-Ball and MJG, UGK. Still do."

But after he was "done with" (rather than graduated from) high school and started kicking around odd jobs, Lewis found himself drawn to older electric blues. "I started listening to Elmore James, Lightnin' Hopkins' 'Herald Recordings,' some James Brown."

His pal Brian Salvi, also known as the Weary Boys' fiddler, introduced him to both the blues and the couch-gig-couch lifestyle of the working Austin musician.

"I bought a guitar for fun," Lewis says. "I was complaining about my job one day and he said, 'You want to quit working, try to play music.' " This sounded mighty appealing to Lewis. "The main thing that made me want to play was not to have a day job anymore. You ain't gotta be huge and you ain't gotta be rich. Just do what you gotta do."

"I tried to sound like the people that I liked — Hound Dog Taylor, Jimi Hendrix in the Band of Gypsies era," he continues. "But I also liked a lot of punk, like the Dead Boys and Rocket From the Tombs," he says. "I like that real minimalist attitude; two guitars, never overplay. I've always been into the rhythm side of music, and if you've got a good rhythm section, you can do whatever you want with the guitar, it's almost like a side instrument. When you get two people who can hold it down, I can focus more on singing and showmanship."

Last year, Lewis and an early version of Cool Breeze (Daniel, drummer Ed Miles and bassist Darren Sluyter) cut a self-titled seven-inch EP for the Italian Shake Your Ass record label. It's thin, trebley and righteous.

More songs from the EP session, as well as others, can be found on Lewis' upcoming album on the Weary Boys' own Weary Records label.

Daniel is the only guy left from that early version of the band, but he seems in it for the long haul.

"I'm having a great time playing with Joe," Daniels says. "I never wanted to play with a traditional blues band.

"I'm glad that Joe isn't a guitar hero," Walters says. "That mindset hurts the blues, I think."

jgross@statesman.com; 912-5926