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MB meets Henry Carpaneto
Henry Carpaneto is a young yet very talented italian piano player. He's started his career as the man behind the keys in a blues band called Guitar Ray & the Gamblers. Now he's just steppin' out on his own with his first solo cd, produced by Bryan Lee and called Voodoo Boogie.
MB: First of all tell us something about you: when you have begun to play, when and how you have discovered the blues and what was your official debut as pianist.
HC: I have begun to play at the age of 5. My grandfather was a violinist and therefore I think about having taken the artistic vein from him. Unfortunately, I have not known him.... It would be a pleasure for me to have a talk with him today....
I have discovered the blues real late indeed, but as it is said, better later that never. I would say that, for me, everything starts with the The Blues Brothers movie and, since then, my search started. The Blues has filled the void that since that time the music, that was proposed us by the media, had not succeeded in filling. I said "that's what I want"!!! I had the first skirmishes when, still very young, it happened to listen to Status Quo's hit "Whatever you want". I literally went crazy about it!!! Years later I discovered that was the first shuffle I've ever listened to. At that time I didn't succeed to make that search start because there was no Internet and I was a child too, therefore everything was much more difficult.
MB: In your piano style it feels a lot, as evident, the influence of the classical blues pianists: apart the obvious names, which are the American pianists you admire the most and why?
HC: Let's go for order: Otis Spann, Johnny Johnson, Sunnyland Slim, Jay McShann, Pete Johnson, Ray Charles.
These all are the piano blues Bible. Whoever wants to approach the piano Blues must pass through them.
Recently, thanks to my American tour, I have got more deep into the New Orleans style and therefore James Booker, Professor Longhair and Fats Domino. More recently, Dr John too.
MB: Leaving alone Bryan Lee with which you have a particular relationship, among the different American artists you have had the occasion to work with, who is the one you feel much close and why?
HC: Otis Grand is the one that has changed my life as musician. I owe everything to him. Otis Grand is the kind of man that when passes by leaves the sign! He doesn't make any compromise: on the stage he transforms himself and becomes a person of pure instinct. He transmits you an energy that only few artists are able of. This thing just can't be learned: you have it or you are just one out of many. And he's got it, really! He's so deep into the blues that can change your way to play as soon as you get in touch with him! He throws things out of yourself that you didn't even think of having. In few words, he is a very stimulating person, artistically speaking; so much stimulating to make you do that necessary work to lift your artistic level.
MB: Can you tell us how was born the idea of Voodoo Boogie and how has it developed?
HC: Bryan was the father to it. During our tour, he told me "...we go to a studio.... we make some piano and vocals and we see what happens." Then, at the end, he decided to give me the whole recorded material to make my first cd. What else is there to say: a real gentleman!
MB: Despite the international appointments and this last solistic parenthesis, you're still in the Guitar Ray & the Gamblers band that, thanks to the recent collaboration with Paul Reddick, is living a new stylistic metamorphosis: how the Gamblers match with Reddick's style, sensitively different from your preceding orientation?
HC: To say the truth, with the Gamblers the roads are now separated. Their artistic demands and mine were, by now, very different. Personally, I have wanted to maintain myself close to the tradition, as they say, "sticked to the blues" and subsequently deepen it going back and back with my research. Paul is an unbelievable artist: he cannot be confined in a particular musical genre. Paul Reddick is one of those artists that belong to the music genre and that's enough.
MB: Beyond the other appointments, do you have in mind to continue with your soloist career and, if yes, what we might expect from your next cd?
HC: I am concentrated now on my personal project and on various international collaborations. Currently I am on tour with Tee Dee Young, an American artist that, in the next years and in my opinion, will climb the blues charts. And I am already also thinking about the next disk for sure. From this tour, the first featuring will probably be born. So, as they say, stay tuned!