Blues talks about all aspects of life. Blues is about love, hate, anger, sex, frustration, joy, fun, hard times, good times! The whole spectrum! Throughout the years Raphael Wressnig has created a unique organ style that is both elegant and explosive. He has established himself as one of the top organists on the international jazz and blues scene. Raphael was born on the 14th of October in Graz Austria. Self-taught on both piano and organ starting at age 16, he was immediately drawn into blues, jazz and funk and has never looked back.
Other influences include modern interpreters John Medeski, Larry Goldings as well as rock, soul and gospel organist Billy Preston. Photo by Mirjam Koch. He started a 4 year, 6 record association with the Austrian guitarist and songwriter "Sir" Oliver Mally.
Blues great Larry Garner from Baton Rouge, Louisiana asked Raphael to join his band — a collaboration that has lasted many years. In Wressnig started to record a great album with guitar ace Alex Schultz. The beautiful instrument, the B-3 organ, is replacing the singer, its sound carrying the band and playing the leads. Raphael Wressnig celebrates 20 years on stage releasing this powerful package, yet he proves that there is more to come! On November 15th in we laid down some funky tracks in Los Angeles.
Interview by Michael Limnios. I started playing piano when I was 7 years old, but I was never really into it. When I was 15 I realized that I can actually start to play by ear and really try to get down songs that I like. What were the reasons that you started the researches and experiments of Hammond B3 and Organ? I started out as a pianist at the age of I was playing classical piano at the age of 8 already, but I was not into it and so I stopped after a couple of years.
As a teenager I got more into music and started it again as an autodidact and soon had my first band. Playing blues, soul and jazz, I found out that on the keyboard I prefered the organ sound a lot better than the piano sound.
