Deep Blues:
The Rich Fabec Band

by Chris Wissmann

A formative moment in Rich Fabec's music career is not at all unusual for postmodern blues musicians-- seeing Stevie Ray Vaughan.

Before Vaughan, Fabec was already moving in a bluesy direction. Fabec, who grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, picked up the guitar at age ten, and began playing the city's nightclubs by age fifteen.

"Those guys [in the audience] did not want to hear Spandau Ballet," recalls Fabec. "They wanted to hear Cream, they wanted to hear John Mayall and 'Hideaway,' they wanted to hear B.B. King and the Paul Butterfield Blues Band."

Then Stevie Ray Vaughan came through and played the club where Fabec spent a lot of time performing. Vaughan's set sent Fabec into a deep exploration of blues history. Yet the path to establishing a blues career was hardly straight.

Fabec, who plays Saturday, October 15 at Mugsy's Entertainment Center, only released his first solo CD, Talking to Shadows, earlier this year. Along the way, he has played with hot-country band Wild Horses and contemporary-Christian band Calling Twelve. The long and winding road, however, has proven as beneficial as has his research into the blues, says Fabec.

"I don't think you can play the blues without that grounding," he says. "A house without a foundation falls down. Blues is the foundation all that music-- bluegrass and jazz and gospel and country-- and tradition makes a great building block."

Tradition may be a foundation, says Fabec, but it's not a millstone. Incorporating contemporary influences and technology-- as ZZ Top and Cream, or for that matter, Muddy Waters, did-- is necessary. "What if Muddy Waters never picked up an electric guitar?" he asks. "Knowing where you come from only helps to propel the music forward."

Thus he sees the need to stretch standard blues forms-- and to abandon traditional blues topics. His original songs, Fabec says, are inspired by "Life in general, the things I see. The things in most traditional blues songs I don't write about, because I've never picked cotton and I don't know what that feels like. But the way people treat each other, the way the government treats people, inspires me to write my own blues songs."

Though he does not play Christian blues, à la Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Blind Willie Johnson, or Roebuck "Pops" Staples, Fabec is not locked into a running battle between the sacred and profane-- like, say, Charley Patton, Son House, and Robert Johnson. Fabec simply sees nothing mutually exclusive about playing blues and still adhering to his Christian faith.

"Music has to be real," he explains. "You have to do it from your soul. It has to be part of your spirit.... There's a spiritual element in blues that comes over. Like when I listen to B.B. King, he almost sounds like a gospel singer preaching it. You need a certain spiritual inspiration for playing [blues]."

It's also driving charity on Fabec's part. He is donating a percentage of the proceeds from Talking to Shadows to victims of Hurricane Katrina. As he notes on his website, New Orleans is a source of much American music, blues included; consequently, Fabec feels the need to help those who were recently blown out of the Crescent City.

Meanwhile, Fabec is already at work on the followup to Talking to Shadows. Most of Shadows featured Fabec overdubbing parts, but the new one, he says, will feature his live band, which includes bassist Danny Vinson and Calling Twelve drummer John Shadowens. When he is not performing, writing, or recording music, Fabec teaches music at Shawnee College and Fred's Fair Street Music. "I've been very fortunate to be able to play the guitar for a living," he notes. "I don't have to work at Wal-Mart or anything like that [to afford to play music]."