Songs (click on the -icons for audio)
1. Intro (Well you needn't - Thelonious Monk)
2. Mr. B (Mr. PC - John Coltrane)
3. Mornin' Light (Morning Light - Benoleil/Regavoy)
4. Hoodoo (I've been hoodood - Mac Rebennack)
5. Swing Sister Swing (R. Lewis / W. Clarence / W. Bishop)
6. Monkey Doodl (Let the dady hold you - Otis Blackwell)
7. Bongo (B. Gaillard)
8. 300 Pounds of Joy (W. Dixon)
9. Shotgun Boogie (Tenessee Ernie Ford)
10. Boogie (Mambo Chillum)
11. Tonight my God (For you my love - Paul Gayten)
12. Hate to see you go (Walter Jacobs)
13. Dreamin' stuff (Mambo Chillum)

Muzikanten :
- Fred Verhaegen (vocals, harmonica)
- "Super Bruno" De Groote (guitars)
- Frederik Van Den Berghe (drums)
- Kristiaan "Boss" Bosschaerts (bass)

Produced by Geoffrey Burton

Coverdesign : Bruno "O'Hara" Janssens

Press Release

Mambo Chillum are not only like one of the great tunes recorded by the blues legend, John Lee Hooker, but also a fantastic Belgian band who blend Blues and Mambo into a unique cocktail of music.......or at least did,before their recent sad demise.

Before their wonderful recordings are lost forever, Kinky Star Records released a full CD, starting with a two track PROMO single. Morning' Light is a sunny swinging track with a hint of jazz and is a potential Summer hit. "Tonight My God" moves more towards raw Rock and is a track John Spencer could certainly get his head around. These are two numbers that are tailor made for the music lover who doesn't give a shit for current fashions and trends!!!

Source : Kinky Star Records.

In the press:

- Weekend Knack, november 1998: "The most low & dirty sound of our own country is a product of Mambo Chillum, a combo that has already broken up in the meantime. The cd that has been released, can be seen as a beautiful farewel gift. A grubby cd filled with a muddy kind of blus. Sniffs of jazz and mambo are like pepper & sault to bring it up to taste."".
- Stage, januari 1999 : ***** "As soon as the first notes of the instrumental opener Mr. B bang their way through the speaker, it becomes clear that there some horribly good playing going on here, not without a certain sense of humour. They sound like hell ... The harmonicaplay of singer Fred Verhaegen just might blow Steven de Bruyn of El Fish off his trone... You just gótta get this into your homes".

Did you see a good (or bad) review of the album ? Send it to me !

My opinion

In February of last year, there was a letter to the editor in Humo's Uitlaat, a week after that magazine had done an interview with two young belgian bluesbands, Soul Sucker & The Seatsniffers, in which a certain Guido Belcanto from Antwerp (possibly thé Guido Belcanto ??) brought the notice of "another band that at least equals, but might well outclass these two combo's : The Mambo Chillum, a club of young gansters that seem to have run straight on stage from a Tarantino movie, and brew an irrisistible cocktail of surf, latin, blues & rockabilly". How right this man was !!
It must have been about that time that the group had finished the recording of their debut-record (with Geoffrey Burton, the right hand of Arno & Pieter-Jan Desmet), and started looking for a record firm to bring it out. By August however, the members of the band had grown weary of each other, and - although they now had the certainty the record would be released - the group gave their farewell concert.
On the cd itself, none of this can be heard : there's some maniacal musicmaking going on here, the guitars are dipped in grease, the drums hammer away, the harmonica plagues the high notes, the voice tears down a wall of feedback ... in short : swamp blues (examples : Mr.B, Hoodoo, Boogie). Every other song the guys give themselves some breathing room with somewhat more civilized blues songs, with influences of mambo, jazz, swing ... (examples : Morning' Light, Dreaming Stuff).
The scorching tempo & quality of the first tracks doesn't last 'till the end of the record and in some songs the blues monotony takes it's toll, but in it's peaks, this material would fit in without a problem on one of the Nuggets collections.

And your opinion?
Did I get it all wrong, or was I spot-on ? Do you want to share your opinion about this cd ? Send it in, and I'll put it up here !

More about this group :

- More about this group can be found at the website of Kinky Star
- Contact :
through Kinky Star Records, Vlasmarkt 9, 9000 Gent, Belgium
Tel + Fax : 0032-(0)9-223.48.45 email : kinky.star@planetinternet.be

Where to buy this CD ?

You can order this CD from a number of locations (prices researched on February 10th, 1999, but nothing guarantees they still are the same when you read this).

Shop	Price of the CD	Shipping + other expenses	Total	Direct link
Frontstage	---	50	---
Azur	713	0	713 BEF
HVH-Megastore	738	54	892 BEF
Proxis	561	95	656 BEF	Proxis

The Lowest price is in yellow, the highest in red. This price comparison doesn't take things into account like deduction of shipping expenses when ordering more than 1 cd, bonus points, differences in guarantees ... Shipping prices are those for customers in Belgium.

Have you seen this record elsewhere, do you own a CD-shop with Belgian products in it, or if there's something wrong with my calculations : let me know.

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