Sultans of Slide
Big Monti, Henry Cooper, Mark Riley, and Rod Cook
Waterfront Blues Festival
Portland, OR.
July 5, 2013

Again this year recorded from KBOO FM 90.7 here in Portland. A volunteer radio station that has broadcast the festival each and every year. It has become a huge festival & we stopped going due to the big crowds. I now record all that I can & enjoy sharing with you all. As with any all volunteer station there are a few blurps along the way, which I have "fixed" as well as I can. Enjoy, twofthrs

FM> H2 Zoom> SD card> HD> FLAC> U.

Big Monti Amundson conceived of the idea for The Sultans of Slide with Franck �Paris Slim� Goldwasser in 2010. With the addition of slide master, Henry Cooper, the band recorded their first album in 2011. After two tours of Europe and a number of shows in the Northwest United States, Goldwasser left the group to work on other projects. The current line-up of slide guitarists, Big Monti, Henry Cooper, Mark Riley, and Rod Cook is truly the Best of the Northwest!

BIG MONTI AMUNDSON (Portland, Oregon)
His name is Monti Amundson but most people call him Big Monti. Not just because of the man�s physical appearance, but because of his larger than life voice, guitar virtuosity, and sheer presence. When Big Monti takes the stage, it�s clear that there�s more going on than the usual extended guitar solos � the man plays and sings larger than life. From 1987 to 1992 Big Monti shared concert stages with some of the biggest names in the business, including John Lee Hooker, Johnny Winter, Buddy Guy, The Stray Cats and The Paladins. In 1991 Big Monti�s band, The Blubinos won Portland Music Association�s award for �Outstanding Blues Act�.

In 1993 while performing in Europe, Big Monti signed a recording contract with Munich Records, based in The Netherlands, and ever since has split his time between touring in Europe and the Northwest United States, building on his reputation as a songwriter and dynamic live performer. Between 1990 and 2013 Big Monti released 10 CDs, including the award winning �I See Trouble,� his best selling CD on Munich Records.

When compared to Stevie Ray Vaughan or Johnny Winter, Big Monti just says �thank you.� The fact is, the big man has his own style. �I�m a blues guitar player in a band that plays rock n� roll,� is how Big Monti explains the sound of his hard working trio of the same name. He doesn�t so much as straddle the line between the genres as bend it, ignore it, or race back and forth across it until both sides go up in flames.

HENRY COOPER (Otis, Oregon)
Henry Cooper is in love with a sound, a high-water-mark of blues guitar tone that had been set by the likes of Elmore James, Earl Hooker and Robert Nighthawk.
It was in 1987 that Cooper�s band, Los Falcons, was booked into a New Year's Eve show with Screamin' Jay Hawkins. That event led to a year�s worth of West Coast and European tour dates with the flamboyant performer. When the tour ended Henry moved to Portland, Oregon and started one of the city�s most popular trios, The Terraplanes.

Henry's relationship with Duffy Bishop began in the early nineties, when he became one of the guitarists for her new band. Little did Henry know that The Duffy Bishop Band would take him on a seven-year ride as one of the hottest blues bands in the Northwest. The Duffy Bishop Band along with Cooper on guitar recorded two CD's, "Bottled Oddities" and "Back To The Bone", before he decided that it was time for him to fly solo. Since then Cooper has released four CDs, the last one being, �The Gin Years� in 2007. Henry Cooper is also a seven-time recipient of the Washington Blues Society�s �BB Award� for best Slide Guitar.

Splitting his tone time between two Portland bands, The Sultans of Slide with Big Monti and Bill Rhoades� The Party Kings, look for Henry at a music venue near you.

MARK RILEY (Renton, Washington)
Mark Riley picked up his first guitar when he was 12 and has never let go. His dedication to music has been recognized as a guitarist, instructor, songwriter and has been named the Washington Blues Society�s Best of the Blues (BB Awards) Acoustic Blues Guitarist of the Year for 2012. Riley has received this award nine times since 1998. Riley has also received BB Awards � as an individual and as part of his various bands � in a number of categories including songwriting, band and traditional act.
Besides performing with The Sultans of Slide, Riley also works regularly with his band, The Mark Riley Trio, The Bill Mattocks Band, Blues Redemption and Snake Oil Elixer. He has also played with Little Bill and the Bluenotes� whose frontman "Little Bill" Englehart has been in the music business for 57 years. "Music has been my passion," he said. That passion has led him to open for blues legends Sonny Landreth, B.B. King and Taj Mahal.

Riley has five CDs out on the market and is working on a sixth. And while he has come in contact with music royalty, he acknowledges that most people outside of the blues community probably haven't heard of him. "I'm not a household name and I don't need to be," Riley said. �I just love to play.�

ROD COOK (Des Moines, Washington)
Rod Cook is a well respected, in demand Seattle area guitarist known for his stylistic versatility and soulful, melodic playing. Apart from fronting his own band, Rod Cook and Toast, and doing solo acoustic shows, Rod has been a mainstay in NBC's The Voice Season One finalist, Vicci Martinez Band for nearly a decade. He is also known for his work with folk/funk, Americana artist Laura Love in the 1990's and the early part of this century, which yielded two albums for Mercury Records, his work with Steve Miller Band founding member, the late James 'Curley' Cooke, Pacific Northwest icon Little Bill Englehart and too many regional artists to list. Currently Rod is involved in no less than eight musical projects that perform on a regular or semi-regular basis. Rod has also backed up blues legend Taj Mahal and opened as a solo act for Todd Rundgren, Sonny Landreth, and Charlie Musslewhite. He has been nominated numerous times for the Washington Blues Society's "Best Of The Blues" Awards, including nominations for all three guitar categories (Acoustic, Electric and Slide) in 1999, 2000 and 2004. In 2004 and 2012 Rod received the award for"Best Electric Guitar" and in 2004 and 2006 was awarded the "Best Acoustic Guitar" award. In October 1998 he was featured in the national publication Acoustic Guitar magazine.

Set List
01 Unknown
02 So Long Blues (station id edit)
03 Drop By
04 Unknown
05 Dime At a Time
06 Lay Me Down
07 Unknown
08 Mercury Blues