The Windy City Strugglers are one of

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

's most enduring

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

bands. Their music is based on the singing, songwriting, and guitar playing of Bill Lake, and the vocals of Rick Bryant. Their long-serving band members are Andrew Delahunty on guitar,

harmonica The harmonica, also known as a French harp or mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used worldwide in many musical genres, notably in blues, American folk music, classical music, jazz, country, and rock. The many types of harmonica inclu ...

and

mandolin A mandolin ( it, mandolino ; literally "small mandola") is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a pick. It most commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of 8 ...

and on

double bass The double bass (), also known simply as the bass () (or #Terminology, by other names), is the largest and lowest-pitched Bow (music), bowed (or plucked) string instrument in the modern orchestra, symphony orchestra (excluding unorthodox addit ...

Nick Bollinger who has a career as writer, critic and broadcaster and head of Red Rocks Records, the band's label. Their music is a unique amalgam of mostly black

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

styles, which has evolved into a personal expression combining the band's blues roots with a wide range of other historical and contemporary influences. Moving with ease from an acoustic format to a full electric lineup, the Strugglers are equally at home in a folk club, blues bar, or concert hall. The group made its debut at the 1968 National Folk Festival when the line-up consisted only of Lake and Geoff Rashbrooke on piano and Mike Rashbrooke on

jug A jug is a type of container commonly used to hold liquids. It has an opening, sometimes narrow, from which to pour or drink, and has a handle, and often a pouring lip. Jugs throughout history have been made of metal, and ceramic, or glass, and ...

. Bryant, already a fixture on the

Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by me ...

R&B scene, joined soon after. Though numerous musicians passed through the ranks of the early Strugglers, the group has existed in more or less its current form since Delahunty and Bollinger joined in the mid-1970s. While Bryant and Lake also played in rock groups such as Mammal, the Pelicans, and the Jive Bombers, the Strugglers always existed as an entity in its own right, performing whenever busy schedules make it possible. In 1990 Bryant and Lake released ''We're in the Same Boat, Brother'', a cassette-only

album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...

that included some Strugglers material. In 1994 the Strugglers released their own self-titled CD, which won Best Folk Album in the

New Zealand Music Awards The Aotearoa Music Awards (previously called the New Zealand Music Awards), conferred annually by Recorded Music NZ, honour outstanding artistic and technical achievements in the recording industry. The awards are among the most significant that ...

. In 1998 the Strugglers released their second CD, ''On Top of the World'', which also became a Music Awards winner. While the Strugglers' blues and jug-band influences have been documented extensively on their previous albums, the 2001 ''Snow on the Desert Road'' broke new ground in consisting entirely of original songs by singers Bryant and Lake (in collaboration with songwriting partner

Arthur Baysting Arthur Baysting (17 April 1947 – 3 December 2019Bourke, C.,Arthur Baysting: Farewell to a champion of NZ music and TV" ''Radio New Zealand'', 3 December 2019. Retrieved 3 December 2019.) was a New Zealand writer, producer and children's advocat ...

Discography

References

Sources and external links

Band's web site"The Windy City Strugglers: A Lifetime in Music"
– by Trevor Reekie, for ''New Zealand Music Magazine''.
Blues artists in New Zealand documenting Rick Bryant, Jubilation, Windy City Strugglers and others
{{DEFAULTSORT:Windy City Strugglers, The Musical groups from Wellington Blues musical groups