Blue Largo Biography

Blue Largo was formed by guitarist Eric Lieberman and vocalist Alicia Aragon in 1999. Eric has
been a fixture on the Southern California blues scene since 1981, when he began his four year
stint with San Diego’s now legendary King Biscuit Blues Band. He then went on to form The
Rhumboogies, which featured vocalist Earl Thomas, and subsequently The Juke Stompers. As
part of the Southern California blues community during the 1980’s, Eric became closely
associated with The Paladins, The James Harman Band, Hollywood Fats, Kid Ramos and Junior
Watson. He was even lucky enough to play a gig with Hollywood Fats at the Belly Up Tavern in
Solana Beach, California, just two weeks shy of Fats’ untimely and sudden death. Both The
Rhumboogies and The Juke Stompers have shared bills with B.B. King, Clarence Gatemouth
Brown, Hank Ballard & The Midnighters, Little Charlie and The Nightcats, Anson Funderburgh &
The Rockets, The Paladins and The James Harman Band. And two of Eric’s greatest disciples,
Robby Eason and Nathan James, both went on to play guitar for James Harman in the nineties
and 2000’s. In addition to Robby and Nathan, pretty much any blues musician who has lived in
San Diego at any time from 1981 to the present, regardless of what instrument they play, will
attest to Eric’s major influence on the San Diego music community for almost the past four
decades.

Eric first met Alicia Aragon when he was playing guitar with The King Biscuit Blues Band in 1982.
That band had a steady gig, every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night at a club in San Diego
called The Mandolin Wind, which lasted longer than the four years Eric was with that band.
Because Eric was all of twenty seven years old at the time, and meeting girls at the gig was high
on his list of priorities, he had a self imposed policy of not dating the waitresses who worked at
the club. But when Alicia started waitressing there, that rule went right out the window. While
Alicia was too shy to be singing in public back then, she always had a deep and genuine love for
blues and jazz, and therefore very deliberately sought out work in venues that featured such
live music. Subsequent to working at The Mandolin Wind, she worked for fourteen years at
Elario’s in La Jolla, where artists such as Kenny Burrell, Barney Kessell, Herb Ellis, Jimmy Smith,
Jimmy McGriff, Hand Crawford, Pappa John Creach and Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson performed
on a semi regular basis. Now that’s a lot of music and soul to ingest over fourteen years!

Eric is a band leader who doesn’t sing himself, and that’s not the best spot to be in. You’re
always dependent on having a great singer, who fits into the band both stylistically and
personally, and that is not always so easy to find. So throughout the years, whenever Eric lost a
singer, he would try and talk Alicia into singing with him. He knew Alicia’s genuine love for the
music he loved, and how supportive she had always been of his music. But more than all that,
Alicia would learn these Billie Holiday or Sarah Vaughan songs on her own, just for the love and
desire of learning them, and when Eric would hear her singing them a cappella, he was almost
moved to tears. And that convinced him that she could bring the same passion, emotion and
honesty to the forefront of his band. But it took many pleas and many rejections, before Alicia
finally acquiesced one day in 1999. And once she said “yes,” Blue Largo was born!

Blue Largo released its debut album, What A Day, produced by Mavis Staples’ guitar player and
musical director, Rick Holmstrom in 2000, and released its second record Still In Love With You
in 2002. While maintaining its home base in San Diego, Blue Largo has traveled up and down
the California coast, playing such well known venues as Biscuits and Blues in San Francisco, The
Derby in Los Angeles and the legendary Blue Café in Long Beach in the early 2000’s.

But in November 2006, Eric developed a neurological condition known as Focal Dystonia, which
caused him to lose coordination in his right hand. He probably should have stopped playing
altogether at that point, as he could barley even play in time. If he could hold onto a pick at all,
it was as if it was attached to a rubber band. But playing guitar is an addiction for Eric, and he
couldn’t force himself to stop, just as most addicts can’t force themselves to stop whatever
their addition is. So, he kept the band going, playing mostly small local gigs, while doing
everything possible to overcome his Focal Dystonia, including learning to read Braille and taking
formal piano lessons. The idea here is to learn new tasks, using the affected parts of the body,
in order to create new neurotransmitters, which hopefully replace the damaged
neurotransmitters that are causing the dystonia. Because Eric tried such a multitude of
remedies to help him conquer his dystonia, it is difficult to know which were the most effective.
But he believes that if it was any one specific thing, it was spending approximately five hours a
day for over eleven years, retraining himself how to play, one note at a time, without the
dystonic, spasmodic hand motions. And while he’s still not one hundred percent free of his
dystonia, he’s about ninety five percent back to normal, and still spending those five hours a
day working towards getting back to a hundred percent.

Because of Eric’s condition, Blue Largo didn’t record another record for fifteen years, from 2003
to 2015. But by 2015, with Alicia’s encouragement, he became convinced that he was healed
enough to once again commit something to tape, and the result is the band’s third album, Sing
Your Own Song. Up until this time, Blue Largo has always been a traditional 1940’s / ‘50’s era
blues band, specializing in covers by such artists as Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington, Louis
Jordan, T Bone Walker and Julia Lee. But Eric started jotting down some song ides of his own
over the years, which he and Alicia revisited when they decided to record this new record, and
lo and behold, Sing Your Own Song contains seven original songs, dealing with life’s big
issues…….. confronting challenges, despair, hope, perseverance, and ultimately prevailing!
Music wise, the record contains everything from gospel to Louisiana swamp grooves, 1960’s
rhythm and blues, jump blues, sensual ballads and lowdown acoustic country blues. And as a
result of the spark that this new record gave Blue Largo, the band played the Gator By The Bay
Festival in 2016 and 2018, and both The Baja Blues Festival in Rosarito Beach, Mexico, and The
San Diego Blues Festival in 2017.

Blue Largo has now completed its fourth album, Before The Devil Steals Your Soul, scheduled for
release on October 19, 2018. Believing Devil to be the band’s strongest and most creative
record yet, it contains ten original songs, as well as Nina Simone’s Feeling Good, Jimmy Ruffin’s
What Becomes Of The Brokenhearted, Nat Adderley’s Work Song, and a mambo guitar
instrumental entitled Bodas De Oro, which pays tribute to the great Cuban guitarist, Manuel
Galban. As for the original compositions on Devil, once again Eric chooses to write in his own
voice, addressing life’s big issues, such as the political and social state of our country in Wash
Away and Same Race, the loss a loved one to terminal illness in The Long Goodbye, and the
need to live our lives to the fullest, in truth and righteousness, before it’s too late, in Before The
Devil Steals Your Soul. If I Can Make It To Augusta is a tribute to all the musicians who have
been out there paying their dues on the road for decades, and who now wish to settle down to
a more serene, peaceful life at home. Monrovia is the first song Eric has written as a fictional
story, the theme being betrayal of love, infidelity, jealousy and ultimately murder. For its
musical ambience Eric was channeling a Quentin Tarantino or Ennio Morricone Spaghetti
Western soundtrack. And finally, I’m Alive addresses the incredible inspirational healing power
of music itself!

With the completely organic and unforced stylistic change from playing vintage blues covers to
writing its own original material, Blue Largo now likes to think of its music as “Original Vintage
Rhythm and Blues.” The songs are definitely original, and Eric just lets them come to him as
they do. He doesn’t intentionally try to write in anyone’s voice other than his own. He most
certainly doesn’t try to write in the voice of some African American blues artist from the 1940’s
or ‘50’s, because in spite of his great love and respect for that music, it is not his music, nor
does it reflect the life and times in which he grew up. In spite of dedicating the better part of his
adult life to studying and paying tribute to the blues of the 1940’s and ‘50’s, it only makes sense
that the songs which come out of Eric are much more evocative of the rhythm and blues and
soul music from the 1960’s, that he came of age hearing on his parents’ car radio. And in the
end, because Eric, Alicia and all of Blue Largo’s musicians have been so genuinely steeped in
vintage blues for so many decades, Sing Your Own Song and Before The Devil Steals Your Soul
can’t help but to capture and evoke the essence of that sound and vibe, without even trying.
In addition to Eric and Alicia, Blue Largo’s current line-up consists of Taryn “T-Bird” Donath
(piano), Raphael Salmon (organ), Marcus P. Bashore (drums), Mike “Sandlewood” Jones (Fender
bass), and Dave Castel De Oro and Eddie Croft (saxophones.)