Christopher Wyze & the Tellers

by Dawn Jones

“Sign out front says, ‘Blues Every Saturday Night…’”

So begins singer-songwriter Christopher Wyze’s haunting bio-ballad “Life Behind Bars.” And so it goes with Wyze’s music: out front, a monster dose of blues…inside, a mesmerizing array of stone-cold storytelling.
 

Twenty years a blues band frontman, singing the songs of others, Christopher Wyze has emerged as a powerful lyricist and stylist of his own music. None other than the Nashville Songwriters Association International named Wyze "One to Watch" in December 2023. His original outlook blends sounds and experiences that have shaped him: blues, rock-n-roll, Americana, and country, all melded together with Wyze’s distinctive voice and storytelling style. Born and raised in the hills of southern Indiana, Wyze has been deeply influenced by his time spent in the Mississippi Delta honing his narrative voice and musical sound.   

Wyze's ear-grabbing vocals deliver pure blues joy – soaring to the tenorsphere one moment – before a plunge to bone-rattling depths the next. And the stories? Vignettes that ebb and flow across time-frozen tales of humanity and hope, while not shying from the dark corners. Indeed, after one time through, listeners may find themselves returning in the days to come for frequent re-listens that add deeper meaning with every repeat.
 

Wyze's debut studio album takes listeners on a coast-to-coast journey through his Technicolor, movie-scape mind. The title track, Stuck in the Mud, tells the sometimes woeful, sometimes witty tale of a mucked-up serial loser. Back to Clarksdale about finding his oasis in music, and Three Hours from Memphis, about a musician looking for stardom, shed autobiographical light on Wyze’s own hopes and dreams. A swampy Delta sound lays out the regretful blues man's all-too-common refrain in Hard Work Don't Pay. While Good Friend Gone travels into Wyze's past to a life and death point in time when former teenage pals diverge onto two very different paths. 

 Other tracks depict stories of rich fiction: from the whimsical Money Spent Blues and Looking for My Baby, to the haunting Life Behind Bars, about a man imprisoned by his music and a string of bad decisions. The pensive Soul on the Road recounts the seemingly empty refrain of a million faceless roamers in search of roots, and salvation. Each of the 13-track’s plotlines represent small moments in time forged together in lyrics and music born of Wyze’s observations, experience and imagination.
 

To infuse the stories with a rich musical heartbeat, Wyze enlisted the help of Ralph Carter, accomplished multi-instrumentalist, composer, producer and performer. Carter reached rock and roll prominence early is his career as tour Musical Director, bass player and song co-writer with Eddie Money. Ralph co-wrote the smash-hit Shakin', and half the songs on Money's acclaimed No Control LP.  On their Big Radio Records debut, Carter's producer hand paints a soundscape that ranges from a hard-driving Bachmann Turner Overdrive groove, to a late-night lounge-singer vibe and classic 12-bar blues.

Wyze and the Tellers recorded Stuck in the Mud in Muscle Shoals, Alabama and Clarksdale, Mississippi. The Muscle Shoals Tellers feature artists Eric Deaton (guitar and background vocals, previous work with The Black Keys and Hank Williams Jr.), Gerry Murphy (bass), Brad Kuhn (keys, a FAME Studios musician), and Justin Holder (drums/ percussion, FAME Studios musician). In Clarksdale, singer-songwriter Cary Hudson, former frontman for the beloved rock band, Blue Mountain, and called "a national treasure" by Jason Isbell co-writes two songs with Wyze and joins the sonic ensemble. The rest of the Mississippi players include Englishman Douglas Banks on drums and Teller mainstay Gerry Murphy on bass.
 

Some stories deserve to be told. And in today’s blues music scene, a new band of storytellers – Christopher Wyze & the Tellers – has materialized to do just that. A word of advice: listen.

Dawn Jones writes about the blues and Americana music scenes and the artists who bring the genres to life.