Colin Dussault's Blues Project is a Cleveland, Ohio, based five piece blues-rock group best known for songs such as "Little Chicken Wing Girl," "Good Booty & BBQ," "O.J. Simpson's DNA," and "Tidioute, Pennsylvania Revisited;" and their 1998 remake of James Taylor's "Fire and Rain". The band's releases, live shows, and work schedule have resulted in the group being called the "Hardest Working Band in Northern Ohio. Their tag line is "Our Music is better than it sounds"."
Formed in 1989 in Cleveland, Ohio, Colin Dussault's Blues Project is a harmonica-driven, blues-based rock 'n' soul band. Founder and leader Dussault has been called "a powerful, yet warm singer" with a "howling phlegmatic voice that sounds like Bobby Bland trying to scream over the roar of a DC-9" with a blues harp style "...and a must-hear not only for blues fans but for fans of Cleveland's rich musical history". His "stage presence, charisma and wonderful voice are the makings of a national blues figure. His harmonica style is influenced by the Chicago blues of the '50s, the British blues of the '60s, and American country and folk idioms. An official endorser of Hohner harmonicas since 1994, Dussault plays the Hohner Big River model in second position, or cross-harp style.
History
Dussault began his musical career in 1985 as a sophomore at Lakewood High School, with the help of David Treaster, a classmate and a classically trained guitarist. The son of watercolor artist Richard Treaster, David Treaster exposed Dussault to B.B. King, Albert King, Freddie King, Johnny Winter, Stevie Ray Vaughan and the Allman Brothers. The two blues fans shortly teamed up with other classmates to form the short-lived Blues Junction, which performed at house parties, a battle of the bands and a high school talent show.
Dussault began to play professionally after graduating from Lakewood High in 1987. In the summer of, he sat in on harmonica with big band leader and CBS Records Recording Artist Al Serafini at a wedding reception the Dussault family was attending. Serafini, who over twenty years earlier had booked gigs for the Blackweles, a band that featured Colin's father, Artie Dussault, on bass, invited the younger Dussault onstage. The enthusiastic audience response prompted Dussault to find work with various local bands including the Delgado Brothers, Bill Dawg and the Extraordinaires, and Hitman. Eventually, Hitman evolved into Colin Dussault's Blues Project, which debuted at the Ultimate Sports Bar in Lakewood on Saturday, May 13, 1989.
The band was soon playing all over Greater Cleveland. It now performs more than 300 shows a year at venues such as blues clubs, biker bars, and upscale wineries, from the Lake Erie Islands to upstate New York, and often opens up for national touring blues and rock artists. Its membership has included alumni of such well-known Cleveland bands as Moonlight Drive, the Saxons, Gary Lewis and the Playboys, Calabash, Mr. Stress Blues Band, Anne E. DeChant, Jehovah's Waitresses, the Pony Express Band, and I-Tal. The current lineup, besides Dussault, is charter member Jimmy Feeney (guitar); John Atzberger (bass, vocals); Brent Lane (keyboards); Steve Savesky (drums) and roadie Robbie Green aka Robo, the Dali-Robbie, The Robbie Lama, ElToro-Roho and The Emporror Robo-Eeato.
In 2010, Dussault allied with Tie-Dye Harvest's Jim Tigue and Michael Stanley Band and Wish You were Here bassist/vocalist Eric "Eroc" Sosinski to form Colin Dussault's Acoustic Side Project.
In 2018 Dussault joined forces with Alex Bevan and Michael Stanley to write, record and release a CD single titled "A Song for our Children". The song was written in the aftermath of the Parkland, Florida school shootings. Proceeds from the sale of the CD single will be donated to Moms Demand Action For Gun Sense in America. momsdemandaction.org
Performances
Dussault and his band have opened for blues performers and rock groups including Johnny Winter, Glen Schwartz, Valerie Wellington, Big Jack Johnson and the Oilers, Joe Bonamassa, and Duke Robillard; Billy Branch, James Cotton, and Carey Bell; John Mayall and Chris Duarte, Johnny Lang, Buckwheat Zydeco, Robert Lockwood, Jr.; Bad Company and Eddie Money; Steppenwolf; Kim Wilson and the Fabulous Thunderbirds, Buddy Guy, Steve Miller and George Thorogood, Blue Öyster Cult, Ronnie Earle, Valerie Wellington, Robert Lockwood Jr., Chicago Legendary Blues Band, and Sugar Ray and the Broadcasters, Elvin Bishop Band with Little Smokey, Roomful of Blues, the Nighthawks, Anson Funderburgh and the Rockets, Bob Margolin's Rolling Fork Review, Hubert Sumlin and Levon Helm, and Michael Stanley.