More Information About Popa Chubby in Concert

Website

http://www.bbkingblues.com/bio.php?id=1713

Description

Popa Chubby has had a prolific career spanning several decades. From the breakout early '90s hit "Sweet Goddess of Love and Beer" to his inspired interpretations of Jimi Hendrix on Electric Chubbyland (2006), he continues to output a steady stream of fire and brimstone. Born Ted Horowitz in 1960, Chubby is a native son of The Big Apple. Fueled by an early experience at a Chuck Berry concert, he initially took up drums before claiming the guitar at 14. In the late '70s, he answered an ad for a guitarist in the Village Voice and became a mainstay of the early CBGB punk scene. He played, recorded, and toured with punk godfather Richard Hell, becoming an in-demand session player on the New York scene. Then, in 1990, The Popa Chubby Band was born. The name was taken from an impromptu jam with Bernie Worrell of Parliament-Funkadelic. "He was singing a song called 'Popa Chubby' and he pointed at me," Chubby recalls. The name captured the essence of what his music has come to represent. "Popa Chubby basically means to get excited. The core of my music is about excitement. I think music should make people feel alive."

Chubby's debut release, Booty and the Beast (1994), spawned the single "Sweet Goddess of Love and Beer," which swept the country and became a summer radio hit in 1995. His subsequent releases on the French Dixiefrog label were a huge success and allowed the guitarist to tour virtually nonstop, earning him critical acclaim overseas. In 2001, he signed with the American label Blind Pig Records, which released How'd a White Boy Get the Blues? (2001) to great critical acclaim. Calling the album "a fresh take on the genre," Billboard declared: "If Muddy Waters was a modern blues artist, then Popa Chubby is a post-modern bluesman." The disc was the first of a string of releases on the label over the next decade, including The Good, The Bad, and The Chubby (2002), Peace, Love, and Respect (2004), Stealing the Devil's Guitar (2006), and Deliveries After Dark (2007).

In 2009, Chubby changed things up, joining the Dubtch Provogue label and releasing the blues rock masterpiece The Fight is On. The following year saw Chubby enjoy his highest-grossing year to date, with concerts in 11 countries. His latest release on the label, Back to New York City, came out last year. A commentary on the decade that has passed since the tragic events of 9/11, the disc finds Chubby in top form, sounding like "a gigantic guitar machine coming down the mountain, or Stevie Ray Vaughan morphing into the Hulk" (AllMusic.com).