In the late '90s, as Delta Moon arose over Inman Park, a bluesy afterglow quickly spread throughout the city. Gina Leigh, Mark Johnson and Tom Gray put together a sound with two slide guitars and a slinky, soulful female vocalist who sounded like Bonnie Bramlett. It wasn't exactly blues — more like a blend of soulful garage and Southern rock without the beer gut or bare feet.
"We've never considered ourselves a straight-up blues band," Gray says. "The two slide guitars, I think, are a real signature sound."
By the time its Live album – recorded at the Cave in Duluth in '03 – came out, Delta Moon's glow was spreading. The band won the International Blues Challenge that year in Memphis. Since then, Leigh dropped out; now Gray handles vocals. He pulls his feet out of the Mississippi mud for some Hill Country blues on "Jessie Mae" from the band's latest, Clear Blue Flame.
Like R.L. Burnside, whom Gray cites as a big influence, some of the music has a high and lonesome mountain tinge: "I'm the Appalachian of the group," he chuckles. But Gray and Delta Moon are also influenced by Big Joe Turner, whose jump blues Gray admired. "I'd like to keep perfecting it, keep exploring and get somewhere nobody else has been," Gray says. "Not just to be weird, but to put some new music on the Earth."
Delta Moon plays the Northside Tavern at 10 p.m., March 14. $10. 404-874-8745. www.northsidetavern.com.
To hear music from Delta Moon, click here.
