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A1 Artist Spotlight.Com did a phone interview with Mark Knoll about
his CD High Time. Excerpts of the interview are also in the podcast.
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This is the second week in a row I’ve had a knock out CD. The very
first time I heard this CD High Time I was in love with it. It’s great
rock & blues with loads of great guitar solos. Everything about this
CD seems so natural and in the right place. It’s like Mark Knoll looked
at my top twenty records and spit out something new as a result of
hearing those. Did I tell you about all the guitars and great solos?
Oh, how about the unexpected surprise of keyboardist Ricky Peterson.
Ricky just got off the road with Fleetwood Mac and had a week off
before going on tour with John Mayer. Mark was laying down the basic
tracks that week so Ricky came over to play keyboards. If you
remember Brian Auger’s record, Closer To It!, Ricky Peterson’s
keyboard playing reminds me a lot of that. What makes this so much
better than most of Brian Auger’s records is that this is not a lot
of keyboards. Ricky does his parts very tastefully and then we’re back to
guitars. Mark said he just let Ricky break loose and do what he wanted
on the five songs he plays on.
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Mark Knoll was born in North Dakota where he started playing guitar
around six years old. Mark started listing to The Beatles as well as
The Rolling Stones, The Allman Brothers, and then the roots of their
music. This led to Mark falling in love with the old blues artist like
B.B., Albert, and Freddie King and his favorite Albert Collins. Mark
played in bands all through high school. He ended up at Musician
Institute in California, which was a great learning experience. Mark
played in a lot of different kind of bands as well as backing up other
musicians like Little Richards, Chuck Berry, played with Bonnie Raitt
a few times. He always was content to be a guitar slinger while
staying in the background. After a while he found this was not really
furthering his career. Mark decided to make his own CD.
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High Time took Mark Knoll about two months to write. Then he went into
the studio where the recording took about two months. Mixing was done
on down time over about three months in order to save on money. The
creation of High Time took a little over half a year to write and
record. Mark calls the CD “rippin’, bluesy, rock, and
fusion…high on energy…with good old fashioned song craft”.
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The first song is “Gotta Give It Up”. Mark described this as being kind of
like a Steve Winwood song from Back in the High Life days
(1986). This came together from two other songs he had been working
on and combined the two.
The song is about drug addition and how he has known people that have
had problems with it. As the song says “You gotta give it up, you
gotta put it down”.
Right from the very start of the CD, Mark is playing a great guitar
intro to “Gotta Give It Up”. As soon as I heard this song I knew this
was a keeper.
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The next song is a little faster and more upbeat, good lyrics about
all the problems we see in the world and how “It’s Gotta Matter
To Ya”. Part way into the song Mark does a solo that any of the
top-notch bands of the early seventies would have been highly praised
for. Then Ricky Peterson does a cool organ solo. A few minutes later
it sounds like Jeff Beck showed up with the last solo.
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Mark Knoll told me that the song “High Time” was inspired by Jimmie Vaughan.
It’s like something the old blues artist would have done. Mark will
sing a line, then play a line, then sing a line, and so on. Kind of like
what B.B. King is so good at doing. With Mark’s guitar playing it’s a
real treat to hear. The song is about people looking for more meaning
in their life in a spiritual way.
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“They Don’t Cry” is about the problems going on in this country. How
the politicians are lying to the people about why we are at war then
give you something to divert your attention as they pad their pockets.

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Mark said he really liked Jeff Beck’s Blow By Blow and that style influenced his
song “The Bird Flew”. Robben Ford is someone else who
inspired Mark on this instrumental track. This really will remind you
of Beck in his jazz-fusion days.
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Stevie Ray Vaughan’s “The House Is Rockin’” is the last great old
time rock song Mark could remember someone doing. He felt it was time
for a new one so he wrote, “It’s A Ball”. Great upbeat fast rockin’
song to end the CD with.
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Just like last weeks show on Smokin’ Joe Kubeck & Bnois King I could
go on and on about how good this CD is and why you should buy it.
Hey, just play the podcast Mark Knoll’s guitar playing and song
writing abilities are all you need to hear to get you to buy this CD.
If you’re like me and like that early seventies rock and blues sound
you’re going to love this. Did I tell you about all the guitars and
great solos, Oh, guess I did.
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Songs in the podcast:
1. Gotta Give It Up
2. High Time
3. The Bird Flew (This Bird Has Flu)
4. They Don’t Cry
5. That’s A Ball
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Guitar solo of the week is from “It’s Gotta Matter To Ya”
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Mark Knoll Band Website

Mark Knoll Band MySpace page

Buy Mark Knoll Band’s CD High Time at CD Baby Website
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Thanks to Mark Knoll for taking the time to do the phone interview and
making this show possible.
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Thanks to our good friend Barry McCabe who turned me on to the Mark
Knoll Band by way of Barry’s newsletter. Hey Barry, Mark said Mick Taylor
was a big influence on him in the early days.
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Check out this podcast I found, BluzNdaBlood really good blues music.
Dave’s been doing this show for two years. Some of the people he plays songs by are
Michael Burks, Eddy Clearwater, Kenny Neal, Hubert Sumlin, Koko Taylor,
Tommy Castro, Marcia Ball, Mike Zito, and many many more great blues people
you will love to hear.
Don’t miss his show # 27 interview with Watermelon Slim.
As you probably know Watermelon Slim won two awards at the May 8th 2008 Blues Music Awards
(formerly W.C. Handy Awards) one year after Dave did the interview with
Watermelon Slim.
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