Grant Garland

We were introduced to the house-band The Memphis All Stars, before their evening performance. The Memphis All Stars originate out of Memphis, Tennessee and opened as the house-band at B.B. King’s Blues Club in Las Vegas, August 2010. The band plays a variety of blues cover songs and originals with soul packed vocals, backed by extraordinary guitar work, and a horn section that creates the perfect mix of full blues sound performed with style. The band consists of lead vocalists Larry Springfield and Kalila Rofa, lead guitarist and vocalist Grant Garland (superb guitar style), bass player Nate Holleman, Edward Cleveland on drums, Prentice Wulff on trombone, Derrick Williams on sax, and Steve Ware on trumpet. The combination of this band and the decor of the club create a feeling of Memphis blues right in the heart of Las Vegas. - Mississippi Blues Club

Certainly, leaving Memphis and driving across the country to play blues in Las Vegas seems sort of backward. But trading the home of the blues for B.B. King's Blues Club at The Mirage has worked out pretty well for Grant Garland.

"I played on Beale Street in Memphis for probably over three years," says Garland, who began playing music full time in northeastern Arkansas and Memphis after graduating from college in 2004.

But, he says, "I've basically been singing and into music for as long as I can remember."

Garland began taking piano lessons at age 7 -- his parents' idea, and, he says, "apparently it was a good one" -- and gravitated toward jazz and blues around 11.

"It was just more fun, to me at least," he says. "My parents had good musical tastes. I heard a lot of cool music from them."

Still, music "was sort of a hobby for a while," Garland says. Then, at 12, he joined his school band. He played trumpet, but "I started playing guitar when I was 14. That's really when I started getting, I guess, obsessive about it."

The capper: the Christmas he got his first electric guitar and a copy of Stevie Ray Vaughan's greatest hits.

"I pretty much wore that record out and bought every (other) one I could," Garland says. "There was just so much soul in that recording. I kind of decided right there that I wanted to be able to play like that."

Garland studied music in college -- he was a trumpet major -- and "was kind of looking into the cruise ship thing, playing trumpet, or even piano stuff," he says. "I was really into Harry Connick Jr., and I thought it'd be great to be able to do that kind of music."

But, Garland continues, "I just, by chance, met a piano player who played gigs constantly all over northeastern Arkansas, and we just kind of started playing music around together. He kind of started my music career for me. I was able to pretty much make a living out of college playing gigs with him.

"That's the reason I kind of gravitated back to blues and the type of music I do now."

In July, Garland moved to Las Vegas and, along with several other Memphis expats, became part of the house band at B.B. King's. In addition to playing with the Memphis All Stars, Garland heads the Grant Garland Trio and the five-piece Grant Garland Band.

"I love being able to play with a bigger group," Garland says, although a trio does offer "kind of more liberty to stretch out a bit."

And, notwithstanding the obvious differences that exist between the Strip and Beale Street, it turns out that Las Vegas and Garland are meshing well.

"I actually love the weather here," he says. "It isn't as humid as it is in the South. I got to experience moving a U-Haul trailer with all my stuff into my apartment here, and I barely broke a sweat."

The Grant Garland Trio plays B.B. King's Blues Club inside The Mirage, 3400 Las Vegas Blvd. South, at 6:30 p.m. Fridays and at 7 p.m. Wednesdays.

-- By JOHN PRZYBYS - Las Vegas Review Journal

The night began with rising BLUES star Grant Garland and a top notch band...
http://www.ameriblues.com/2010/02/bobby-blue-bland-80th-birthday-bash.html - American Blues News

Grant Garland loves plying his art and craft as a professional musician and entertainer. And if there's any justice in this fickle world, the young man from Eastern Arkansas may one day find himself singing and playing for audiences at a far remove from the places where he first learned his skills and started earning his keep as a professional artist whose music emanates from the wellsprings of his artistically capacious heart and soul.
- Occasions Magazine

If nothing else, this album is eclectic. Blending influences from a wide variety of sources, Grant manages to create a nice jazz-rock-blues-soul-funk hybrid that's easy enough on the ears to be summer listening, yet deep enough to keep you interested beyond the first few plays. Easily one of my new favorites. If I had to describe this album in one word: "Groove". Everything fits together as it should; the horns are both burning and classy, the lyrics soulful and clear, and the entire band locked into the groove tighter than a maximum security prison. If you've begun to doubt American music in recent years, this album's the perfect antidote. Buy it! - Review in iTunes