The New Deja Line-up

This is the current and future line-up of Deja Blooze. Russell Sparkman [L] on bass, David Gregor [C] lead guitar and vocals and Dave 'Langley Slim' Gignac on guitar, harp and vocals.

Photo courtesy of Russell Sparkman.

First Saturday at Prima

Well, the first Saturday Langley Art Walk with the lively blues of Deja Blooze is upon us once again. The Deja Trio will play at Prima Bistro this coming Saturday evening from 9 to 11 pm. Put on your high-heeled sneakers and bring your mojo into town and join us for another rousing evening of top-tapping blues--Deja style.

The Deja Blooze "Live At WICA" CD is now available. This live recording features fourteen songs, nine of which were written by guitarist and vocalist David Gregor. The song list includes: John the Revelator, Gone Up Country, Someone's Calling My Name, Sky is Crying, Going Down Slow, Lonesome Woman Blues,Long-Legged Blues, We All Gotta Change, Look What Love Has Done, Photograph Blues, Good-bye Blues, Guitar King/Crossroads, Jacksboro Highway, and Who Do You Love.

Cost is $17.00 domestic postage included and can be ordered directly from the band off our secure website at http://www.gregorbooks.com/cgi-bin/gregor/20122.html International postage at cost.

New Deja Blooze Line-up and gigs

The Deja Blooze concert in January as part of the Whidbey Island Center for the Arts' Local Artist Series was the highlight of the Deja experiment that began in the fall of 2007 with a handful of listeners at a coffee house in Clinton Washington. To play WICA's beautiful theater to a sold-out house of 250 fans, some of whom took the ferry over from Seattle to join us, was an exhilarating experience. Playing with four of Langley's best musicians made the whole evening sizzle and is something I would like to reprise in the not too distant future.

The January show had been scheduled since June of 2009 and was to feature the original Deja Blooze trio. In September of 2009, the Deja lead guitarist and bassist left the band leaving the WICA Concert in jeopardy. Not wanting to cancel a great musical opportunity and firmly believing in the old coda that the show must go on, I quickly solicited the help of the best players I knew and all four of them immediately signed on to the project. As they old saying goes, you never know who your friends are until you need them, and I quickly found out who my friends were. The show did go on and it was even better than I had initially envisioned it when I applied to the Local Artist Series. The end result of several months of focused rehearsal was an electrifying evening of inspired playing on everyone's part. And the enthusiastic reception of the audience contributed greatly to the success of the evening. Luckily, we recorded the show and is now available on a CD called "The Deja Blooze Electric Band--Live at WICA." The CD can be ordered off my secure website at the following link: http://www.gregorbooks.com/cgi-bin/gregor/20122.html

Since January Deja Blooze has been rebuilding itself into a new trio with the addition of Langley resident Russell Sparkman on electric bass. There is a great new energy with the group bringing a freshness in arrangements as well as new material to the group especially with more original songs. All three of us are enthusiastic about our musical direction and our future public performances.

Starting in November of 2010, the new reformed Deja Blooze Trio has been booked for the first Saturday of each month to play at the Prima Bistro, coinciding with Langley's Gallery Walk openings. The Gallery Walk starts at 5:30 pm and goes until 7:30 pm and then we play at Prima from 9 to 11 pm. Makes for a great evening of art and entertainment on the first Saturday of each month.

Deja Blooze Live at WICA on Youtube

Deja Fans,

My wife took a rough video of our encore at the WICA show and I offer here the links to that video. It is in three parts because of the size of the files so watch them in the order presented at your leisure.

WICA Concert & New Deja Product

Hello Deja Fans,

Well, the Deja Blooze concert at WICA as part of their Local Artist Series is now history and what an evening it was. The show was sold out and the crowd was enthusiastic beyond belief. The guys in the band were spirited and ready to play the blues and what a performance they gave, especially on relative short notice.

In conjunction with the event, a new Deja CD was released--Alone with the Blooze, $12.50--featuring 9 original songs written by David Gregor, a commemorative Deja Blooze t-shirt, $20.00, and an original poem broadside in tribute to Robert Johnson, $10.00. All items are available through me at gregorbooks@gregorbooks.com.

The sold out event was a huge success. The four musicians accompanying me were in rare form and delivered the goods in spades. While many in the audience had at some point had a previous Deja experience the WICA show was a totally different performance--specifically designed for the concert venue. The 19 song set began with a single voice with minimal guitar accompaniment delivering my own version of the traditional blues spiritual John the Revelator, then adding my harp player for an original song I wrote paying homage to M.L. King followed by our version of The Sky is Crying with me playing electric slide and Levi Burkle on bass. We then brought out guitarist David Licastro to play slide on another traditional spiritual that I arranged and wrote lyrics for called Someone's Calling My Name. We brought out our piano player Larry Neubauer for our up-tempo version of James Oden's Going Down Slow. We finished the first set with a Robert Johnson tune and two written by me--Lonesome Woman Blues and Long-Legged Blues. After a short break the full band launched the second set with four of my songs: We all Gotta Change, Look What Love Has Done, Photograph Blues and Goodbye Blues then slid into an extended version of Willie Dixon's Spoonful. We paid tribute to Robert Johnson with a medley of "I'm a Guitar King/Crossroad Blues" followed by a soulful version of "Jacksboro Highway" and a lively version of "Good Rockin' at Midnight". We ended the program with Johnson's "Travelin' Riverside Blues" and Bo Diddley's "Who Do You Love" as an encore. The crowd was enthusiastic and very generous with their vociferous applause. It was a great evening of music interspersed with tidbits of blues history and lore that made for a full evening of the blues.

The show was recorded (audio only) and if all went well, I will be making that recording available. So stay tuned. Our collective thanks to all who attended and made the show a rousing success.

This is the poster for the upcoming Deja Blooze concert at the Whidbey Island Center for the Arts in Langley on Saturday January 16th at 7:30 pm. Tickets are $12.50 adults and $7.50 youth.