A Little Tweaking of the Blues

Blues musician Rick Holmstrom was clearly ready for negative reactions to his new album, “Hydraulic Groove.” For the last couple of months fans have been invited to listen to a few songs on the Web site of Tone Cool Records and weigh in with their opinions.

The title of the comments section: “Holmstrom Controversy Postings.”

That’s because Holmstrom, who for the last 15 years has carved out a career as a fairly traditional electric blues and R&B; player, has strolled into the world of sampling and electronics.

“I figured making this record that there would be a lot of people not into it,” Holmstrom says. “All the time we were making it, we were saying, ‘Get your rhino skin on. Be tough.’ ”

Indeed, a couple of the fans have been brutal (“Samples and such--that is not the blues”), but that’s been about it for the controversy. The rest of the several dozen comments posted since June are almost entirely positive.

“So far, most people can still see the heart and soul of the blues in there,” says Holmstrom, who plays Saturday at the Blues on the Bay Festival in Newport Beach.

He says that musicians often go astray when they go into new territory, because “they try to change the whole thing to where it becomes nothing. This is, ‘Let’s keep the lo-fi element of old blues recordings and emphasize the beats and the wackiness of samples.’ ”

Holmstrom, 37, admits that this is not an untested concept. In fact, he played on blues veteran R.L. Burnside’s 2000 album “I Wish I Was in Heaven Sitting Down,” in which Burnside’s rough-edged Delta sound was given electronic treatment.

“Some friends of mine were working on that and called me in to play,” Holmstrom says. “The way we recorded was how we’d always done, everyone in the same room, funky little amps and going for a sound like the old Chess or Excello [labels]. Then they took the tracks and put them in a computer and tweaked them around and when I heard them I was blown away.”

Around the same time, Holmstrom was exposed to such experiments as Moby’s “Play” album, which used samples from vintage blues and gospel, and started to conceive a comparable approach in an entirely blues context, with samples, urban beats and even DJ scratching as fully integrated elements of his blues combo.

Holmstrom began the project a bit tentatively, working with producer Genome. Engineer-mixer Rob Schnapf worked on several Burnside sessions.

“What I originally intended was to just do two or three tracks that were tricked out like this,” Holmstrom says. “And as we got into it, it became more, ‘Let’s see where we’re going.’ ”

The results range from “These Roads” and “Shake It, Pt. 2,” which are built on samples from R&B; guitarist Robert Ward and singer Rufus Thomas, respectively, to the Delta-fied funk of “Gravy” to the fairly straight-ahead groove blues of “Last to Know” and “Back It Up.” There are also bonus tracks, including one remix each by Genome and top dance music figure DJ Logic, plus two solid instrumental jams featuring guest organist John Medeski of the progressive jazz-jam trio Medeski, Martin & Wood.

Holmstrom grew up in Fairbanks, Alaska, where he was given a strong grounding in rock by his radio DJ father, developing eclectic tastes and an appreciation for the music’s roots and history.

He also messed around playing guitar, but sports was his primary pursuit. He moved to Southern California and played basketball at the University of Redlands, where he also sat in on guitar with some teammates’ casual band. As his college time wound down, his musical motivation grew.

“In ‘86, ’87 I got into it,” he says. “It gave me that same feeling I got playing basketball. Saturday night, gym full of people--that was ending. I knew I wasn’t going to the NBA. I was the shortest guy on the team and the slowest. But I got the same kick out of playing music.”

After graduation, Holmstrom moved to L.A., started hanging out at blues clubs and “practiced night and day.” He got regular gigs with Smokey Wilson, harmonica player William Clarke and then in 1996 with Rod Piazza & the Mighty Flyers, one of the most popular bands on the L.A. blues circuit.

But through most of that time, any inclination toward experimentation wasn’t evident.

“I became a traditionalist with blinders on. I didn’t want to even listen to anything later than when Magic Sam died, which was ‘69,” he says of the blues guitarist. “Absolutely drove my wife crazy. All I wanted to hear was old scratchy records.”

But now he’s changed his tune, so to speak.

“If we pretend the last 50 years didn’t happen, we’re going to be like Dixieland music,” he says. “I’d walk into stores in Santa Monica and see kids bopping their heads to the R.L. record, and they wouldn’t have been into my records. It was cool--like kids getting into the blues from the Rolling Stones.

“We can’t say, ‘Oh, Muddy Waters didn’t do it like that.’ If Bo Diddley and those guys were around now, they’d be DJs, using turntables and [samplers] instead of harmonicas and guitars. My friends look at me like I’ve lost my mind, but I believe that.”

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Rick Holmstrom plays Saturday at the Blues on the Bay Festival, American Legion Post 291, 215 15th St., Newport Beach, 11 a.m. $20. (949) 673-5070.