Some records deserve far better than the silence that swallowed them. Blues For Daze by Flesh & Blood is exactly that kind of record, and the story of how it got made, and why it promptly vanished, is one of the more quietly tragic chapters in melodic rock history.
The bones of the thing go back to 1991. Keyboard player Mark Mangold, a veteran of American Tears, Touch and Drive, She Said, sat down to write a batch of blues songs with ex-Free and Bad Company vocalist Paul Rodgers in mind. Rodgers' then-band The Law, which paired him with The Who's former drummer Kenney Jones, recorded precisely one of those songs, "For A Little Ride," on their debut album. That left Mangold holding a pile of strong material and nowhere obvious to put it.
It took him six years to do something about it.
Blues In The Worst Possible Climate
By 1997, the music industry was still lurching around in grunge's aftermath. Nobody wanted to hear something that sounded like the Black Crowes jamming with Creedence Clearwater Revival, and that is almost exactly what Blues For Daze delivered. The record came out on Now & Then Records, an independent label, made no impression on the Billboard chart, and drifted away.
The personnel involved were not exactly unknowns. Mangold assembled Al Pitrelli, who had done time with Alice Cooper, Savatage and Asia, drummer Chuck Bonfante from Saraya, and bassist Mitch DeStefano. Then, at the last minute, Danny Vaughn came in. Vaughn, formerly of Waysted and Tyketto, replaced a mystery vocalist whose identity both he and Mangold have refused to reveal to this day. Whatever the circumstances of that switch, the result was something genuinely special. Vaughn sounds more relaxed and soulful here than on anything he had done previously, which is remarkable given that he was overdubbing vocals onto music that had already been recorded without him.
Mangold's Hammond organ is all over the record. "Man Enough" and "Shake Ya Tail Feather" are drenched in it. The title track is the album's heaviest moment. "Feel The Power" opens things up with a Cry Of Love quality that Mangold clearly believed in enough to re-record it in 2004 with his side project The Magic Freak Society. "Jenny Doesn't Live Here Anymore" is described as a moving lament for a late girlfriend. "Voodoo Moon" heads somewhere altogether more Cajun.
Pitrelli, who you might expect to be the loose cannon in this lineup, is restrained throughout. His best work comes on "Sweet Sister Rose," where his playing builds into something gospel-tinged and genuinely affecting.
Never Live, Nearly Forgotten
Because everyone except DeStefano had other commitments, Flesh & Blood never toured. The album's material did not see a live performance until 2002, when Mangold joined Vaughn on stage at a Belgian festival. They played "Feel The Power" and "Jenny Doesn't Live Here Anymore." Vaughn later told Classic Rock it was a fantastic experience, and mentioned that he and Mangold had discussed a follow-up album multiple times. "Never say never," he said.
In 2021, Bad Reputation Records reissued Blues For Daze. The reformed band recorded two new tracks for the release: an original called "Ready To Roll" and an acoustic version of "Riverside" featuring Vaughn on acoustic guitar and blues harp.
[Side projects that outlast the main event are more common than people admit](/uprise/music/steve-rothery-on-playing-pompeii-side-projects-and-the-future), but rarely do they leave behind something this good. Blues For Daze is the sound of the right people in the wrong moment. That it exists at all is worth something. That almost nobody heard it is still a genuine shame.