Anthony Gomes

Canadian-born guitarist and singer/songwriter Anthony Gomes is a charting modern blues artist whose playing style incorporates elements of riff-laden hard rock, R&B, and country/Americana. His singing voice recalls the young Rod Stewart in the Jeff Beck Group. He released seven consecutive efforts that landed on the Top Ten Blues Albums Chart. 1998's Blues in Technicolor, reflected the influence of Texas blues. A pair of 2006 albums, Long Way Home and breakout Music Is the Medicine, established his global reputation for dazzling six-string acrobatics and a swaggering attitude. 2009's New Soul Cowboys wed electric, hard-rocking blues to soul-tinged Southern rock and 2012's Up 2 Zero showcased a loving, raucous tribute to the Chicago blues tradition. 2015's Electric Field Holler almost perfectly wed gritty hard rock riffs to dramatic 21st century blues. While some of 2020's chart-topping Containment Blues showcased Gomes' debt to garage boogie and blues, High Voltage Blues marked a return to crunchy, metal-tinged, hard-rocking blues. Born in 1970 in Toronto, Canada, to a Portuguese father and a Canadian mother, Gomes fell in love with music as a child, listening to everyone from Muddy Waters and Jimi Hendrix to Jeff Beck. At 14, he began learning to play guitar. After grinding it out in local bands and sitting in with blues artists on Toronto's burgeoning club scene, he relocated to Chicago where he cut 1998's Blues in Technicolor. After honing his craft on the Windy City club circuit, he moved to Nashville, Tennessee, where he found a home in the city's renowned music scene. In 2000, he issued the acoustic country-blues, gospel, and R&B set, Sweet Stringin' Soul for Up 2 Zero Entertainment. He moved over to 33rd Street Records for the funky, hard-rocking blues outing Unity and proceeded to win the 2003 BluesWax Artist of the Year award. This accolade elevated Gomes to the top of the blues field, and consequently he was able to draw larger and larger crowds to his live performances, which increased in frequency and scope. While on the road, his chops caught the attention of B.B. King's bus driver who was in attendance. Extremely impressed, the driver introduced him to King who heard, believed, and invited Gomes to open up a host of 2005 tour dates. Gaining invaluable knowledge and exposure from that experience, he has since become a headliner and shared stages with a host of top-tier performers including Buddy Guy, Jeff Beck, Joe Bonamassa, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, and a host of rock artists including Heart. Gomes' Music Is the Medicine (2006), was released on the Adrenaline Music label, and his first to chart, peaking at number four on the Top Blues Albums chart. He followed it quickly with Long Way Home, issued the same year, privately released to his website. During his supporting tour, a 2007 show at the Triple Door in Seattle, Washington, was recorded and subsequently released in 2008 as Live; it features his band, the New Soul Cowboys, comprised of David Karns (bass, vocals), Peter Lang (drums), and Dylan St. John (keyboards, vocals). The first of his albums to document his on-stage performance ability, Live eventually gained the crowning spot on Top Blues Albums chart. Also in 2008, Gomes made Primary Colors available on his website. A self-recorded set from 1997, it showcased his early command of Texas blues. 2009 saw the issue of New Soul Cowboys, showcasing his band, now a power trio with Karns and Lang. The set reveled in hard-edged country-rock. Gomes and his band hit the road hard. They toured the festival scenes in the U.S. Canada, and Europe and followed with a grueling string of club dates for nearly two years. Up 2 Zero appeared in 2012 from its namesake label. Perhaps no album in his catalog showcased the influence of the Chicago tradition (in particular its mighty guitar slingers like Guy, Hubert Sumlin, and Jimmy Johnson) on his music like this one did. It landed in the upper rungs of the blues charts in North America and Europe and marked his seventh consecutive Top Ten. 2013's ... Before the Beginning was another acoustically wrought showcase for Delta blues, country gospel, and roadhouse R&B. Perhaps no Gomes album reveals his talent as both songwriter and vocalist with such abundance. 2015's Electric Field Holler was its mirror image, a (mostly) scorching exercise in bluesy hard rock that reflected the influence of AC/DC and Black Crowes. Once more, Gomes and his band proved themselves road warriors, playing across the globe for the next couple of years. He wrote constantly while touring. Upon return, the band entered the studio almost immediately. They released Peace Love & Loud Guitars in 2018. While not quite as raw and raucous as Electric Field Holler, it drew on similar sources of inspiration and also landed inside the Top Five on the Top Blues Album charts, while topping them at streaming. It was voted the best blues album of 2018 by readers of the prestigious Blues Rock Review. The band booked a typically long road trip, but it was cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic. During lock down, Gomes wrote and recorded constantly. He envisioned an acoustic singer/songwriter album, but as he sent demos, the tracks got fleshed out with added instrumentation from a host of global guest stars and became a raw, electric blues-rock date. The end result, Containment Blues, was privately released in November 2020 digitally and on CD-R. Despite its limited distribution, it became his second number one album. Gomes and a road band took to stages in 2021, but it became impossible to navigate ever-changing quarantine rules abroad. He signed to Rat Pack Records and began recording at the dawn of 2022. In September, High Voltage Blues appeared. A riotous hard-rocking blues album, it was at once a return to basics and a modern Chicago-centric focus. In addition to its 12 tunes, the Top Ten-charting album included three bonus tracks, one an extended version of the set's only ballad, the Southern-style soul song "Darkest Before the Dawn."
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