Bob Aldo started out singing and playing the blues in Pittsburg in the late 1950's. Bob Aldo's a veteran of the NYC Folk Scene of the early 60's, the "hippie glory daze" of rock 'n roll in New Mexico with the legendary Oriental Blue Streaks, and the San Francisco rock scene of the early 70's with Dolly and the Lama Mountain Boys. Bob Aldo hosted "Morning Train," heard over KUNM in the late 70's and early 80's, and was known as the "Daddy-o of the Raddio" in Taos early FM days.

Sambhu, (pronounced sham-boo) a.k.a. Richard Vaughan, spent his formative years in Seattle, where he attended Garfield High School (the old school of Jimi Hendrix and Quincy Jones), and the University of Washington. During the early 60's, Sambhu played at some of the local folk clubs before leaving for New York and London, where he joined the fusion-rock ensemble Quintessence, which recorded 3 albums for Island Records, and 2 more for RCA. Sambhu moved to Northern New Mexico in 1979, where he jams the blues every day of his livin' life.

Bob Aldo and Sambhu opened their guitar cases, along with a briefcase full of memories, harmonicas and spare strings. They took out their guitars and played the blues.

They seem right out of the acoustic Southern folk blues tradition: Gray haired men wearing rusty black jackets and old blue jeans, playing guitars that have as much history about them as the guys who play them, felt hats and heart-felt songs.

In the photograph of them on the cover of their new compact disc, "Alive in the Hall of Blues," they look like they've been playing in front of the corner dime store for three or four hours. They are just getting warmed up, and a kid, out of sight of the viewfinder, is waiting to take over the corner with drumsticks and a plastic bucket.

Another part of the acoustic Southern folk blues tradition is how Northern white boys are drawn to a kind of music that came from the hearts and minds of Southern black men. In the history of popular American music, skinny English white boys like Eric Clapton, Paul Butterfield Paul Bloomfield, and other British Blues Invaders fed America its own music in the late '60s. Then there was George Thorogood (the "Bad to the Bone" guy), The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Blues Messengers and amazing prodigies like Johnny Lang. It seems like each generation of white boys has its own love affair with the blues.

Well, Aldo and Sambhu have seen it come, and they've seen it go. They are members of a generation that heard the shaping of American rock 'n' roll music first-hand. They can remember hearing Lighting Hopkins and Leadbelly albums while young and impressionable. They were worshiping and playing in the halls of the blues when the rest of America remained mostly deaf to its own music...

...The "Reverend Bob," as Aldo has sometimes been called, has been a part of America's awakening and reawakening to the blues. His professional music career as a musician, historian, and radio personality reveals a man whose love for American music runs deep.

In 1957 and '58, Aldo played solo postwar blues and originals for the live portion of record hops in Pittsburgh for R&B disc jockey "Porky" Chadwick. By the early '60s he was playing in coffeehouses and bars an over the East Village of New York with folks like Tim Hardin, Dino Valente, and Mark Spolestra.

Dylan jammed with my little band at the Inn and Out at 99 McDougal Street one time," Aldo said, name dropping and reminiscing about the old folkie days.

He came to Lama, he said, by way of California. After visiting Rick Klein, one of the founders of the New Buffalo commune in Arroyo Hondo, Aldo moved here and joined the Oriental Blue Streaks, a band from the golden days of Taos hippie history. In 1973 they made a go of it for several months in San Francisco - changed their name to Dolly and the Lama Mountain Boys and opened for the luminaries of the San Francisco scene; Jerry Garcia, Merle Sanders, Bonnie Bramlet and the Rowan Brothers.

"The Rowan Brothers may have opened for us; I don't remember," Aldo said, parenthetically. But the new hippie urban scene was not to Aldo's taste, so he returned to New Mexico in the mid-'70s and performed solo in Taos and Red River, playing blues, original and country. He turned to radio and became a blues disc jockey on KXRT, then on KVNM, early call letters for KTAO-FM. In 1978, he produced "Morning Train," a Soul and Gospel show which aired over KUNM in Albuquerque on Sun day mornings for five years.

He went back to performing solo, formed the Bob Aldo Blues Trio and in the mid-780s the Taos All Stars formed, with Klein Larry Audette, Mark Tribe, Sam Forrest, Aldo and Sambhu.

In 1990, The Oriental Blue Streaks had a reunion concert. Vocalist Sara7n Baker inspired the reunion during the summer when she sat in with the W.C. Clark Blues Band during a Taos visit. Besides Aldo, Baker and Klein, from the original band, Sambhu joined the line-up. Since then, Aldo said he finds playing with Sambhu satisfying because they share the same work ethic when it comes to rehearsals and gigs.

Sambhu started life on the other side of the continent — Seattle and the Pacific Northwest. Born Richard Vaughan, he's an alumni of Garfield High school, a distinction he shares with other pop music luminaries as Jimi Hendrix, Buddy Greico, Quincy Jones7 Ernestine Anderson and Kenny G. Before leaving for Europe he played coffeehouses and foIk clubs in San Francisco and New York.

"I went to New York to study jazz," he said, "and was in England by 1967. I'm sure Bob and I frequented the same clubs."

He was dubbed Sambhu by a yogi in England in 1969. He said it’s another name for the Hindu god Shiva and it means "the marriage of the Absolute and the Relative, or the same thing."

Sambhu was in a European rock 'n' roll band that achieved a measure of critical success and popularity, called Quintessence. They used to open for groups like Santana and Grateful Dead during their continental tours.

"Essentially, we played hippie music in all its guises and disguises," Sambhu said. "One of the other members of the band, Phil Jones, lives here in Taos," he added. "We were like the European Grateful Dead. We would play all night if we could." Another way to describe their music was to contrast them with King Crimson. "Where Crimson was tight, we were loose," he said.

One of the high points of the Quintessence period was opening for Creedence Clearwater Revival at Albert Hall in London. He moved to Taos in 1980.

"I played with Jenny Bird for three years, and I played with Sandra Dancer for three or four years," he said. He’s quite and reflective, a contrast to Aldo’s more loquacious mood. He plays bottleneck slide guitar riffs under Aldo, who has another of what he calls "fits of talkativeness."

"That’s why I’ve been called The Reverend. Often times, though, I’m pretty irreverent, but I don’t want to offend anyone," Aldo said.

Since releasing "Alive in the Hall of Blues," they say their next move is to write some originals. They got a very positive response from Alligator Records and Artist Management, a blues label out of Chicago. Bruce Iglauer of the record company wrote, >hanks for the music. This was very enjoyable, taste fully played with subtlety and a lot of good blues feeling."

"Blues is an idiom," Aldo said. "It's all the subtleties and inflections that make it what it is. It's the people who think it all sounds the same that make the blues seem like a no-brainer. But it's really very rich and layered."

Like a painting of America using a million shades and variations of just one color—blue.

John Nichols, author of "The Milagro Beanfield War" and contemporary of Aldo and Sambhu, said he loves the record. In a letter he wrote, thanking them and telling them how much he enjoyed listening and playing along with the album, he wrote, "These are true blues, right from the heart ... and the gut. (You) seem to have come to us straight from the Delta through a whole lot of muddy water. Who says white guys can't sing the blues?"

Who, indeed?

Melody Romancito

The Taos News

ALIVE IN THE HALL OF BLUES

"This is good old blues, just like your mama used to make. These are true blues, right from the heart...and the gut. Bob Aldo and Sambhu seem to have come to us dtraight from the Delta through a whole lot of muddy water. Who says white guys can't sing the blues? - John Nichols (Author of The Milagro Beanfield War and former disciple of the Reverend Gary Davis).

Bob Aldo: Vocals, Harp (Harmonica), Rhythm Guitar
Sambhu: Lead Guitar

Songs:
1- Long Distance Call (McKinley Morganfield) 4:04
2- Cocaine (Traditional, Arranged BA & S) 6:00
3- 44 (Chester Burnett) 5:27
4- Last Night (Walter Jacobs) 5:11
5- Baby, Please Don't Go (Sam Hopkins) 3:38
6- Alimony (Robert Higgen botham) 4:45
7- Rock Me (McKinley Morganfield) 7:02
8- Stagolee (Harold Logan and Lloyd Price) 3:34
9- Maudie (John Lee Hooker) 5:04
10- Standin' Around Cryin" (McKinley Morganfield) 5:01
11- Drown in my Own Tears (Henry Glover) 7:07
12- Good Morning Blues (Huddie Ledbetter) 4:41

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