Flesh & Blood Blues For Daze arrived in 1997 into a music scene still nursing its grunge hangover, and it barely registered, yet the album has quietly built a reputation among those who found it, and its story is worth telling properly.
The whole thing began with a keyboard player and a stack of songs nobody wanted. Mark Mangold, whose credits include stints with American Tears, Touch and Drive, She Said, sat down to write blues material for former Free and Bad Company vocalist Paul Rodgers. When Rodgers’ then-new project The Law, a pairing with The Who’s former drummer Kenney Jones, recorded only one of those compositions, For A Little Ride, on their 1991 debut album, Mangold was left holding a considerable body of work. It took him six years to find the right vehicle for it.
The band that almost wasn’t a band
By the time Flesh & Blood came together, the quintet looked, on paper, like a melodic rock supergroup. Alongside Mangold were guitarist Al Pitrelli, whose previous credits stretched across Alice Cooper, Savatage and Asia; Saraya drummer Chuck Bonfante; and bassist Mitch DeStefano. Former Waysted and Tyketto vocalist Danny Vaughn came aboard at the last minute, replacing a mystery original singer whose identity both Mangold and Vaughn have steadfastly refused to reveal to this day.
Vaughn’s contribution turned out to be central. He sounds more relaxed, soulful and confident on Blues For Daze than on much of his previous work, which makes the fact that his vocals were overdubbed onto already-recorded tracks all the more impressive. The seams don’t show.
Released through the independent Now & Then Records, the album made no impression on the Billboard chart and generated little press attention. That was partly bad timing: a record that sounded, as Mangold intended, like the Black Crowes jamming with Creedence Clearwater Revival was not what most rock audiences were chasing in 1997. It found its audience slowly, through word of mouth and the kinds of late-night listening sessions that don’t generate chart positions.
What Blues For Daze actually sounds like
Mangold poured his blues-enriched background into the record, layering Hammond organ throughout. Man Enough and Shake Ya Tail Feather carry that organ front and centre, and the title track is where the album comes closest to outright hard rock. Feel The Power, which opens the record in a Cry Of Love-flavoured vein, made enough of an impression on Mangold that he re-recorded it in 2004 with his side project The Magic Freak Society.
The more introspective moments land just as hard. Bed Of Roses and Jenny Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, the latter a particularly moving lament to a late girlfriend, show a band capable of stillness as well as swagger. Voodoo Moon leans into something approaching ersatz Cajun territory. And then there’s Sweet Sister Rose, where Pitrelli, regarded by many as a metal-oriented shredder, turns in a performance that the report writer Dave Ling described as ‘Thunder-meets-Whitesnake’, with soaring playing that brings the track to a gospel-tinged climax. It’s the album’s most unexpected moment.
Because all members except DeStefano had prior commitments elsewhere, Flesh & Blood never toured behind the record. The material sat unplayed live until 2002, when Mangold joined Danny Vaughn and his band Vaughn on stage at a Belgian festival. ‘We got to kick out Feel The Power and Jenny Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, which was a fantastic experience,’ Vaughn told Classic Rock. ‘In fact, Mark and I have talked several times about doing another Flesh & Blood album, but we’ve both been pretty busy. Still, never say never.’
The 2021 reissue and what came with it
That ‘never say never’ eventually bore some fruit. Blues For Daze was reissued in 2021 by Bad Reputation Records, and Flesh & Blood reformed for the occasion to record two new tracks: a brand new song called Ready To Roll, and an acoustic version of Riverside featuring Vaughn on acoustic guitar and blues harp. For an album that spent years in obscurity, that’s a more substantial afterlife than most forgotten records ever get.
