Congratulations to Dave Specter and his band on a top notch, world class record and sold out release show at Evanston Space!
Dave Specter with Delmark President/EARS Chicago President Julia A. Miller and live album recording engineer Fred Breitberg (Chess/Curtom/Alligator Records and much more!)
#davespecterliveatspace#delmarkrecords#ears.chicago #fredbreiberg#liveblues
Wonderful pics from Ren Picco-Freeman!
Thanks Ren Picco-Freeman for these cool captures from our album release party on Tuesday night at Evanston SPACE and thanks to everyone who came out to the show. We appreciate you!
DAVE SPECTER tearin’ it up and feelin’ it!
Bassist Rodrigo Mantovani has added so much to the band, an expanded groove!!
Vocalist/keyboardist Brother John Kattke is the not so secret weapon of the band and the Chicago blues scene!!
Drummer Marty Binder was one of Delmark’s Bob Koester‘s fave drummers after Fred Below!
Here’s more great pics from Jim Summaria
Dave Specter (guitar and vocals) and his band featuring Brother John Kattke on keyboards and vocals, Rodrigo Mantovani on bass and Marty Binder on drums put on one heck of a great blues, rock and some jazz show Tuesday (6.24.25) night at SPACE in Evanston. Master musicians at the top of their game! Check out Dave’s new album “Live at Space” on Delmark Records and our interview with him on our “That Rock Show’ podcast” at roadtorock.org/podcast.
Great shot of Brother John Kattke from Bruce Unruh
THE BAND from Bruce Unruh
DAVE SPECTER BAND PERFORMED TODAY AT WRIGLEY FIELD as a part of the ongoing partnership between the label and the Chicago Cubs.
The Dave Specter Band performed on Gallagher Way, and the Mike Wheeler Band performed in the Landmark record store. Dave’s new LP, “Live at Space” is available in Landmark Records, and Dave met legendary Cub’s pitcher Kerry Wood!
KERRY WOOD and DAVE SPECTER!
Grateful Dave listening to his album at Wrigley Field/Gallagher Way’s LANDMARK RECORDS
Fantastic new collaboration between CHICAGO BLUES and CHICAGO CUBS!!!!
@cubs @dave_specter @mikewheeler630 #delmarkrecords#landmarkrecords @officialwrigleyfield @johnkattke @martyb.58 @larrysmusic1 @jesselockridge
Recent review of the new album from Mark Baier at CHICAGO BLUES GUIDE!
Dave Specter – Live at SPACE
Delmark Records By: Mark Baier
With a career that’s spanned over four decades, Dave Specter has helped define Chicago’s most significant musical export with his graceful and poetic guitar style, bridging jazz with deep urban blues while adding soulful vocals and socially aware songwriting. Many of his recordings are instrumentals, elegant and memorable, emphasizing melodic movement and composition over gymnastic guitar playing. His instrumentals don’t want for lyrics, the music moves with a natural verse, his guitar playing having its own soothing rhyme and pace. It’s a guitar style that has a unique balance and form.
On his most recent Delmark release, his 13th for the label, Specter and his crack band (Brother John Kattke, Marty Binder and Rodrigo Mantovani) offer a set of tunes recorded at SPACE in Evanston IL which demonstrate why Dave Specter is among the pantheon of great modern blues musicians. Live At SPACE is a recording which captures Chicago’s finest blues musicians at one of Chicago’s best sounding venues.
SPACE in Evanston, is more an old fashioned night club than a traditional blues bar. Its high ceilings and sophisticated atmosphere harken back to an era when movies were in black and white and men wore ties when out on the town. The tasteful and debonair ambience makes it the consummate venue to capture Specter’s urbane performance. The recording quality is first class and could easily be mistaken for a studio proof rather than a live show. All the instruments are captured evenly in the mix and have a dynamic which is full of life.
Specter served as producer, with help from Delmark’s execs Julia Miller and Elbio Barilari. Live At Space was captured by recording engineer Freddie Breitberg, who along with Dave, mixed and mastered the project, creating one of the best sounding live performances in recent memory.
But it’s Specter’s guitar that takes center stage. His Fender Jazzmaster swings and stings with beautiful overtones that never need artificially effected gimmickry. It’s pure electric guitar tone, produced by exemplary technique and a straight forward approach. A Fender guitar, a cord and an amp are all Specter needs to coax growling blue notes and sweet delicate melodies. Though instrumentals are Specters forte´, his repertoire has always featured guest vocalists to add dimension to his recordings and this live release is no exception. Long time keyboard ace John Kattke, who has played with Dave for decades, takes the lead vocal on a handful of sides, including the biographical “Chicago Style.” The timely “March Through The Darkness,” with its tale of the struggles of inequity and discrimination in today’s complex world, is a modern R&B classic with its soaring B-3 whirls and smooth guitar lines.
Perhaps the most surprising vocal turns are by none-other than Dave himself. Not normally heralded as a lead singer, after hearing his moving and robust vocals on Otis Rush’s “Homework” and Allen Toussaint’s “On Your Way Down,” it’s clear that at this stage in his career, Specter is as comfortable behind a vocal mic as he is a guitar amplifier.
Standout selections include the dark instrumental “Rhumba & Tonic” and “Alley Walk” which features guitar tones that push the amplifier to the limit while maintaining a delicate control of melody. Dave also takes the lead on a swinging version of the old Grateful Dead chestnut “Deep Elem Blues” and he digs deep on Sonny Boy Williamson’s “Bluebird Blues.” Specter’s own “Ponchatoula Way” might be the CD’s hidden gem, a rollicking and catchy number that could’ve been the marquee cut on a vintage Little Feat record; it’s a really memorable song that begs repeated plays.
In short, Live From SPACE is a standout recording which features one of Chicago’s longtime blues stalwarts at the top of his game. His backing band of John Kattke (keys, vocals), Marty Binder (drums) and Rodrigo Mantovani (bass) are the best sidemen in town and they prove it on every cut. Everything about this release is first class and will define Dave Specter and Delmark Records for years to come.
For info, visit: https://delmark.com/2025/03/new-delmark-albums-coming-soon-from-tad-robinson-dave-specter-and-album-release-party-at-daves-space/
website: https://www.davespecter.com/new-music
https://www.chicagobluesguide.com/post/dave-specter-live-at-space
AND a killer new review of the album from Rev. Keith Gordon on his site, That Devil Music.com: The Reverend’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Archives
Friday, June 20, 2025
CD Review: Dave Specter’s Live At SPACE (2025)
“Live At SPACE captures a March 2024 show by the underrated guitarist and it documents a performance without peer, as electric and entertaining a blues album as you’ll hear this year, or any other.”
Dave Specter is the secret weapon of the contemporary Chicago blues scene. A guitarist of extraordinary talent, Specter is well-versed in, and adept at melding blues, jazz, and rock into a singular, unique style. He’s kept the flame burning for blues music in his hometown, and although he doesn’t seem to venture far beyond his Illinois base too often, he’s helped promote and support other artists as a co-founder of SPACE, the Evanston IL club that features a wealth of performers of the blues, folk, jazz, and rock persuasion. Even a glance at the club’s upcoming schedule – which includes a slate of ‘must-see’ artists like the Sun Ra Arkestra, Don Flemons, Cedric Burnside, Roseanne Cash, NRBQ, and Walter Trout – is enough to make any music enthusiast not in Chicago green with envy.
If Specter isn’t as well known to the casual blues fan, it’s not for lack of anything. The guitarist has played with some of the finest in the blues universe, artists like Sam Lay (Paul Butterfield Blues Band), Hubert Sumlin (Howlin’ Wolf’s guitarist), and Son Seals, and he’s produced a slew of records by talented bluesfolk. His relationship with the legendary Delmark Records goes back roughly 35 years, and the recently-released Live At SPACE album is Specter’s 14th release with the esteemed blues label. Specter doesn’t get nearly the respect he’s earned, nor the attention he deserves, but his legion of loyal fans wait in anticipation for each new album.
Specter’s Live At SPACE isn’t his first live effort – the wonderful Live In Chicago came in 2008, and the equally-engaging Live In Europe way back in 1995 (with soulful vocalist Tad Robinson on the microphone). Still, 40 years into his career, Specter pursues growth as an artist and Live At SPACE displays a still-creative performer using his guitar as the brush and the stage as his canvas. It helps that his firecracker band, comprised of keyboardist/vocalist Brother John Kattke, bassist Rodrigo Mantovani, and drummer Marty Blinder, has developed a closeknit musical chemistry with the bandleader and is skilled enough to follow his every move on stage. The result is an entertaining and enticing live performance that would thrill any Chicago blues fan.
Live At SPACE opens with a pair of rambunctious instrumentals – “Rumba & Tonic” and “Alley Walk” – that are reminiscent of Booker T. & the M.G.’s and Stax Records. The former offers up an exotic, jazzy guitar intro and a loping rhythm that sways from one speaker to the other, with some elegant guitar licks along the way. Kattke adds a rollicking piano jam in the middle, followed by some Southern-fried keyboards. The latter song offers up more of a menacingly slow-paced, low-slung groove that allows the band to revel in some free-wheeling instrumentation like Specter’s livewire fretwork, Blinder’s jazzy brushes, and Mantovani’s fluid bass lines. It’s an invigorating performance that, at nearly six minutes, still ends too soon. A cover of the 1962 Otis Rush single “Homework,” by way of the J. Geils Band, is a clever amalgam of both versions, jazzy six-string flourishes and soulful vox vying with Kattke’s lively keys.
Specter’s own “Blues From the Inside Out” offers a jaunty, up-tempo performance that matches its sly lyrics to a jump-blues framework with plenty of jazzy guitar and a swinging rhythm while the original “Chicago Style” is both a reverential tribute to those who came before, from Howlin’ Wolf to Otis Clay, while establishing a Chicago blues sound for the new millennium, with vibrant guitarplay, hearty vocals, and an infectious walking rhythm. A cover of Memphis music legend Don Nix’s “Same Old Blues” (originally recorded by Freddie King) is a pastiche of 70 years of rhythm and blues history, honoring the soulful original while embellishing it with some hot licks and subtle, yet powerful Gospel-tinged keyboards. Specter’s original “March Through the Darkness” offers an uplifting, almost anthemic performance marrying a spiritual, Staples Family vibe to Specter’s gorgeous fretwork and Kattke’s soulful, Booker T-styled keyboard runs.
A cover of the traditional folk song “Deep Elem Blues,” best known as recorded in 1935 by country outfit the Shelton Brothers, but resurrected in 1981 by the Grateful Dead as an Americana-styled excuse for extended jams, hews closer to the Dead’s version in spirit, but puts a ‘Chicago blues’ stamp on the song with a distinct Midwest vocal drawl, lively guitar strokes, and a funky groove punctuated by Kattke’s honky-tonk piano-pounding. Specter’s take on the great Sonny Boy Williamson’s “Bluebird Blues” is a blissful blues romp with heartbreak vox, late-night piano trills, and nuanced but emotionally-powerful guitarplay while Specter’s reverent take on Chicago blues legend Magic Sam Maghett’s “Ridin’ High” closes the album with an upbeat, intoxicating blend of Chicago-styled guitar pyrotechnics delivered against an exhilarating rhythm track.
The Reverend’s Bottom Line
Dave Specter may not be as well known as some of his contemporaries, but he’s been a constant presence on the Chicago blues scene for better than four decades – so long that he’s helped refine and define the city’s traditional sound with disparate elements that have expanded and improved upon what stalwarts like Tampa Red, Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, Paul Butterfield, and others had accomplished. Live At SPACE captures a March 2024 show by the underrated guitarist and it documents a performance without peer, as electric and entertaining a blues album as you’ll hear this year, or any other. If you’re a blues fan and haven’t yet picked up Dave Specter, you owe it to yourself to check out the transcendent performance offered by Live At SPACE. (Delmark Records, released June 6th, 2025)
http://www.thatdevilmusic.com/2025/06/cd-review-dave-specters-live-at-space.html
