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| Littlwolf, Steve Lott and Kristi Clanton |
Sunday Music LITTLEWOLF
Experience and Youth
Guitarist Steve Lott has been playing music for longer than singer Kristi Clanton has been alive. Yet somehow these two Texans found common ground to build the band Littlewolf, a blues-based, country-influenced, rocking ensemble blending experience and youth.
“It’s a partnership,” Lott says. “You have a young person’s point of view on life, art and music. Then you have the old guy. I’ve got time in the business. In Littlewolf we blend that in a way that honors both. We’re not playing pop music, but there’s no reason why an older sound can’t be accessible and given a modern touch.”
But in 22-year-old Clanton, that “modern touch” arrives with an old soul (want proof? Suss out her rendition of Eddie Burns’ “When I Get Drunk”). Singing around Texas since she was just 4 years old, Clanton had her mind set on singing the blues, and told Lott as much after meeting him in her parents’ barbecue restaurant in Lubbock.
“I scoffed,” Lott says of his initial reaction to Clanton’s claim. “And then out of this little person comes this great big voice.”
Clanton further showed her mettle when she wanted Lott to teach her lap-steel guitar in order to further develop a distinctive, yet rootsy sound.
The veteran — who, after leading his own bands as well as being a sideman to Roy Buchanan and Peter Tosh, decamped to Australia for more than a decade before returning to this country — and the kid holed up in West Texas and developed songs that would appear on a stellar self-titled, self-produced album.
Clanton says she was surprised how easily she and Lott meshed as songwriters. Their first collaboration yielded the sultry “The Trigger on Your Gun,” a song that became a calling-card single.
“I brought him a sheet with some lyrics and little pieces of music, and he showed me some stuff, and it all melted together,” Clanton says.
Lott sent the finished record to his music contacts in Australia, not really expecting much of a response, when to his surprise he ended up with an invitation to play a big blues festival in Queensland. So Littlewolf spent May and June of last year down under.
Around the same time, Steve Gaetz, a veteran nightclub manager in Massachusetts, stumbled upon Littlewolf’s video for “The Trigger on Your Gun” on the musicians’ social network website Fandalism. Gaetz shot off an e-mail to Littlewolf telling Lott and Clanton that if they could get to New England, he could supply backing musicians and a string of fall tour dates.
Littlewolf took the New England blues scene by storm, catching the ear of radio DJ Carter Alan, who helms a popular Sunday morning blues show on WZLX in Boston. Alan championed the Littlewolf album, listing its “Twenty Lies Ago” at number 6 in his Top 25 songs of 2012.
Littlewolf is back in the Northeast for an extensive run that includes a stop into Chan’s in Woonsocket on Friday. Singer Diane Blue is also on the bill.
“This isn’t a gimmick,” Lott says, acknowledging the temptation to slap a label on an old-school band with a young frontwoman. “We’re not limited to any one thing. Everything we’ve done has felt fresh and interesting. This band has given me a lot of room to experiment.”
Scott McLennan can be reached at smclennan1010@gmail.com Follow him on Twitter @ScottMcLennan1
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