“I think music and perfection should not be mentioned in the same sentence. Especially blues music, or even blues influenced music. Music is about emotion, and emotion is imperfect.”
– Warren Haynes
Every once in a while an album comes along and stirs up your soul like a big wooden soup spoon. With their latest release “Heavy Load Blues,” Gov’t Mule has crafted a gumbo of roots blues standards and hearty originals that sounds and feels like the 1950s and grooves like the best roadhouse band you ever heard. Led by visionary guitarist, singer and songwriter Warren Haynes – with Jorgen Carlsson on bass, Danny Louis on keys, and Matt Abts on drums – the “Mule” is widely known for genre-hopping explorations and mind-blowing jams, so the news of pure blues sent this album directly to number one on the Billboard Blues Chart.
To capture the experience of playing a tiny old club (exactly where blues should be heard), the band recorded live to analog tape using vintage instruments and gear in a small room together late at night. “For the most part, everything we used was older than me,” Warren laughs. “We would plug these old guitars into some weird old amps that I’d never tried before and the sound would end up influencing our approach to the songs.” Both spontaneous and masterful, the unique approach lends a rich authenticity and emotional depth to Warren’s original tunes and the revered covers made famous by Howlin’ Wolf, Junior Wells, Bobby “Blue” Bland, Elmore James, Ann Peebles, and even Tom Waits and the Animals. After a quarter century and 20+ albums together – plus prior stints with the Allman Brothers, Dickey Betts, and several Grateful Dead reformations, the band sounds strong as ever.
And because you can never have enough of a good thing, we’re offering the extended Deluxe Edition of “Heavy Load Blues” with additional songs by Muddy Waters, Savoy Brown, Sonny Boy Williamson, Otis Rush, and more. Clocking in at just over two hours, this is music for wide-open roads and wide-open weekends, true blues that shouldn’t be missed. | 
