Tia Gouttebel (Vocals, guitar)
French guitarist and singer Tia started to tour in France and Europe heading her Tia & The Patient Wolves band in 2002. While performing in prestigious festivals and clubs she released two albums, “Foggy Head, Warm Heart”, in 2008, which is today sold out, and “Travellin’ With My Guitar” in 2011.
In 2012, the prestigious Cognac Blues Passions Award caps this outstanding career, giving her the opportunity to open for Ben Harper and Charlie Musselwhite in front of more than 6,000 festival goers.
Tia has a real signature sound, that can be recognized right away. Junior Watson, Kirk Fletcher, Larry Garner, Leroy Hodges have noticed her talent right away during her several trips to the United States.
This recognition by her peers took another dimension in January 2018, when brilliant artist Joe Louis Walker invited her for 20 days to be part of the Mustique Island Blues Festival lineup, along with Rick Estrin, Amar Sundy, Ian Siegal, Murali Coryell, Skip Martin (Kool & The Gang). Tia became the first French musician to be part of this renowned blues gotha.
Tia never stops exploring new horizons. When in 2012 percussionist Marc Glomeau invites her to form a trio along with Gilles Chabenat on the hurdy gurdy, she becomes part of Hypnotic Wheels. Together, they open a new path, the path to a universel blues that shakes the French blues scene with their first album, « Hypnotic Wheels », released in 2014.
Three years later, the trio moves to the North Mississippi countryside to record an second album, « Muddy Gurdy », with illustrious guests, such as Cedric Bunside, Shardé Thomas, Cameron Kimbrough et Pat Thomas. The recording was done like Alan Lomax’s field recordings. The album was released in February 2018 with the American label Vizztone Records. Praised by the press all over the world Blues Blast, Elmore Magazine, Les Inrockuptibles, fRoots Magazine, etc.), “Muddy Gurdy” offers a renewed international exposure to the French guitarist.
After this successfull album, the trio released « Homecoming » (Chantilly Negra-L’Autre Distribution) in 2021 and recorded his next album in Louisiana last october.
Tia didn’t stop her own career. She released, in late 2017, under the name of Tia, her third album, « Lil’ Bird », her most accomplished yet. She reveals herself as a great songwriter, taking listeners along with her into a universe filled with atypical characters, inhabited by the darkness of the bayous, electric mists, and even loses us in a colorful Mardi Gras crowd in New Orleans. For this album, brilliant Don Cavalli wrote two magnificent songs for her, which she interprets beautifully.
Tia is one of those musicians who build their own artistic identity more than they explore one musical genre. Her voice, the way she plays her guitar, her personality shine through during each of her appearances on stage. Tia is unique.
Books :
– Goin’ Down South, Mississippi Blues 1990 – 2020, Eric Doidy, (Le Mot et le Reste): Muddy Gurdy
– Blues Power, une histoire parallèle du blues, Stéphane Deschamps (GM editions) :Muddy Gurdy
– 50 Women in the Blues Book (US) : Jennifer Noble : 4 pages Interview Tia
– 20 ans Cognac Blues Passions book (F) : portrait from Sabine Eichler, Tia
– 25 ans, Salaise Blues Festival (F)
Gilles Chabenat (hurdy-gurdy)
Gilles Chabenat began playing the hurdy-gurdy with Les Thiaulins de Lignières, an association devoted to folk arts and traditions. Following lessons with Georges Simon, he won several music awards and subsequently devoted himself to his region’s traditional repertoire with a desire to branch out into other musical styles.
In the wake of Valentin Clastrier, he thus felt the need to reinvent the instrument and the playing techniques associated with it. Around that time and after several years of research, luthier Denis Siorat developed a contemporary-style electro-acoustic instrument which facilitated the integration of the hurdy-gurdy into the modern musical experience.
In 1992, Gilles Chabenat thus began a twelve-year partnership with the Corsican group I Muvrini. During that period, he met and worked with a number of artists: Véronique Sanson, Florent Pagny, Stepan Eicher,Jean-Jacques Goldman, Sting, as well as Frédéric Paris, Edouard Papazian and Gabriel Yacoub.
More recently, he has been collaborating with jazz musicians such as Jean-Marc Padovani, Alain Gibert, Claude Barthélémy with l’Occidentale de Fanfare conducted by Frédéric Pouget or Marc Glomeau with Black Chantilly.
His taste for experimentation then leads him to cross the worlds of theater and cinema as in “Le Frère du Guerrier” by Pierre Jolivet with music by Janick Top.
In recent years, he has taken him to Mississippi and Louisiana with the Muddy Gurdy trio, for a unique encounter between hurdy-gurdy and Blues.
Gilles’ musical experience and evolution are thus constantly sheped by the people he meets. In this approach to hurdy-gurdy playing, he draws essentially on the multifaceted nature of an instrument which has been in constant evolution for more than one thousand years. Plus d’infos…
Fabrice Bony (Drums, percussions, backing vocals)
A multi-instrumentalist, he composed 2 solo albums Between Day (2008) and Inner Lands (2013) in the tradition of Progressive Rock and Jazz Rock. One of his many sources of inspiration is also minimalist music (Steve Reich…) and the lithophone which he developed within the Spirales Ephémères project from 2011 to 2014. Then, he recorded his 3rd album Lithophonic (2016) dedicated to lithophones. including arrangements of two titles by American composer Steve Reich, Clapping Music & Music for Pieces of Wood.
Performs in France, Iceland and regularly with Japanese percussionist Tomoo Nagai in the Franco-Japanese improvised music collective LULI since 2013 in France and Japan with whom he recorded the album In The Middle of No Way (2016). In 2017, a French tour took place around the texts of Pierre Loti.
His 4th album 7 + ∞ was released in 2018 with numerous guests including saxophonist, cellist Satoru Kita and jazz trumpeter Marc Niess with whom he developed the live project Lithophonic, mixing improvised, minimalist and jazz music. Release of the album Live Concert in 2019. In 2021, he released his 5th digital album La Pierre tourne on the Cristal Publishing Releases label.
In 2020, he composed with Samantha Zaccarie the single Confit Funky and the Ep Métamorphoses. Then collaborated with Mira Cétii for the single Nuit Noire and the title Cailloux & Météores.
With the group ANGE, he was a drummer on the Les Larmes du Dalaï-Lama tour (1993), then composed the prelude to the title Nancy -Jupiter à la Nage on the album Heureux (2018) and participated in the 50th anniversary of the group during 2 concerts at the Trianon (2020 and release of the Trianon Dvd/Cd 2020.
In 2022, he participated in the Akamatsu project (Post Electronica) and recorded the album Seminsky, which is scheduled for release at the end of 2023/2024.
He toured and recorded two albums of French songs with Dorothée Daniel, La Compagnie des Anges (2005) and En Haut des Peupliers (2007) then with Joël Ségura the live rock Vu à la Radio (1999). He will work with Nino Ferrer on a studio album which will unfortunately not see the light of day following his suicide.
From 1992 to 2007, Fabrice worked and traveled the national and international Blues scenes with Tia and The Patient Wolves (2005-2007), Big Dave (2006), Rosebud Blue Sauce (2001-2005), Tom Cat Blake (1994- 1995) and Shot Gun Blues (1991-1994-1996) with whom he opened for John Lee Hooker (1992) in San Francisco (CA – USA).
Since September 2023, Fabrice Bony has joined the group Muddy Gurdy (Charles Cros Academy Prize 2018) with whom he is touring and recording the 3rd album from the fall of 2023 in Louisiana, Usa.
To date, Fabrice Bony has recorded 45 albums and soundtracks combined.
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