TKA Artists and Special Projects - Flipbook - Page 47
The New Album
TIMES HAVE CHANGED
Ronnie Baker Brooks, the son of Texas and Chicago blues legend
Lonnie “Guitar Jr.” Brooks, likes to treat each album he makes as a
platform for him to grow, but the reality is that he’s been climbing the
blues world’s ladder all his life. He was born in Chicago, and started
playing guitar around age six. At 19, he joined his father, who by then
had influenced some of the most well-known bluesman of our history:
Jimmy Reed, the Fabulous Thunderbirds, Johnny Winter, and Junior
Wells. For 12 years the two would tour together, putting Ronnie out
front with Eric Clapton, B.B. King, Buddy Guy, and Koko Taylor. In 1998,
when he was 32, his father told him to go solo.
Times Have Changed, Brooks’ first album in ten
years, carries with it the weight of grown perspective and time spent perfecting old material. Brooks
worked it with Steve Jordan, whose work runs from
Keith Richard to Stevie Wonder, John Mayer and Eric
Clapton. With that comes a lesson in rhythm and
blues history. Brooks refers to the director as “a
walking encyclopedia of music detail and equipment,” a professor through which Brooks could take
that next developmental step.