Download some of our music with 100% of the proceeds going to help the non-profit, Hope for Longmont, with their work in Boulder County to provided needed services for the unhoused.
: Unreleased recordings from our performances from our 2021 Better Than Ever Tour, recorded live right off of our mixing board. Free to stream on SoundCloud. Also on Apple Podcasts.
Mad Dog Friedman, harmonica player, musical innovator and founder of many popular Colorado blues acts over the years including King Comfort, Harmonica Loowinski, Papa Juke, the Mojo Medicine Show & Blue Lightning, has put together an acoustic blues jam band with a unique blues style indigenous to Colorado in the 21st Century while still honoring the blues roots. We call this music Colorado Country Blues because it combines the “Colorado Sound” (jam grass) with traditional rural blues. The result is Mad Dog Blues, a coalition of top-notch, veteran musicians dedicated to exploring this new sound in both their song writing and performances. Along with Mad Dog Friedman on harmonica, Mad Dog Blues (5 piece band) includes Jeff "Bone Head " Becker (Hippie Buckaroos) on mandolin, Clark "The Champ" Chanslor (White Water Ramble) on stand-up bass, Sean "Rocket" Bennight (from St. Louis) on acoustic guitar and Mark "Kaz" Kaczorowski (Blues on the Lamb) on slide and acoustic guitar. We hope you enjoy our original “Colorado Country Blues” sound, a unique fusion of delta blues, bluegrass, honky-tonk, hokum and acoustic jam music. Our website is www.coloradocountryblues.com and our Facebook page is www.facebook.com/coloradocountryblues.
Here's what folks have to say about Mad Dog Friedman & Mad Dog Blues:
"Mad Dog Friedman — harmonica player and principal songwriter for the group Mad Dog Blues — knows what’s up. As he says it, he writes from the moment and sings from the heart." The act's newest, Happy Dance, was recorded live at the KGNU studio and amplifies the group’s "Colorado Country Blues" sounds, something hard to find amongst the cacophony of popular genres. And it is that: funky, heartwarming, and drenched with the old-school storytelling of folk songs past. It hits the soul." ~ Rooster Magazine, January 2019
"Now the rootsy musician, along with his band, the Mad Dog Blues Experience, kicks up a dusty fusion of acoustic blues and string band-influenced jamming." ~ Nick Hutchinson, Westword magazine, March 27, 2020
"Fine night of sharp, syncopated Blues. Wonderfully expressive performance with a depth of feeling and sense of humor and play you don't always find together." ~ Duane Davis, owner of Wax Trax Records in Denver, Colorado.
"Mad Dog Blues is one of our own - a Colorado band steeped in country blues but
expanding that genre to express its own eclectic approach to Colorado music."~ Jack Grace, Oct.-Nov. 2021 Holler from the Colorado Blues Society
"...rides the fine line between being both relaxed and energetic. Great musicianship, great songs and great production." ~ Rhys “Lightnin'” Williams, Sept. 5, 2021, Blues Blast Magazine
"Wow, awesome show. Blues bands like yours are the reason I like blues." ~ Nicholas S. Seigel, Owner and Founder of RadioCave
"Mad Dog's traditional acoustic blues harmonica playing...is a delight to hear." ~ Peter Madcat Ruth, Grammy Award-winning harmonica virtuoso
"It's as if E.T. plays the harmonica!!!! I dig your take on the instrument, seeking and speaking!!"~ Sugar Blue, Grammy Award-winning harmonica virtuoso
"Mad Dog Friedman who is absolutely an incredible harp player … That is something totally different. I think it is absolutely brilliant!" ~ Kevin Beale, British DJ
"...raw, real, fun and most certainly shines a beacon for live Blues the whole world over." ~ Steve Sheppard, presenter (DJ) at One World Music Radio
"While MDB works within a loose country blues framework - where else would you hear a Native American flute in the mix – the collective maintains its signature that makes it distinct along the Front Range blues scene." ~ Dan Willging, April-May 2022 Holler from the Colorado Blues Society
"Mad Dog Friedman’s ghostly and weathered voice is a perfect match of the been-down-this-road-too-many-times-before blues slices found on numbers like ... 'Never Lost Love.'" ~ Scene Magazine
Listen to 30 seconds clips from Mad Dog Blues' ground-breaking, pandemic double album, Family Reunion 2020.
"Splendid mandolin and guitar flatpicking are prevalent throughout...there is
usually something to be discovered with every listen. In short, ego-less music from a
tight-knit group who plays like an extended family." ~ Dan Willging, Feb.-March 2021 Holler from the Colorado Blues Society
"Family Reunion 2020 is the second album from Mad Dog Blues and is a highly enjoyable double album that successfully combines acoustic country blues, folk grass, singer-songwriter soul and jam into one thematically consistent whole. ...With a fun, down-home feel, Family Reunion 2020 successfully manages to ride the fine line between being both relaxed and energetic. Great musicianship, great songs and great production." ~ Rhys “Lightnin'” Williams, Sept. 5, 2021, Blues Blast Magazine
Listen to Hug with Our Heart, a pandemic EP recorded by Mad Dog Blues, recorded live at Mighty Fine Studio on December 7, 2020. (Released January 11, 2021).
"...it incorporates the best of blues played elsewhere and adds its own unique twists. We are fortunate to have
Colorado bands such as Mad Dog Blues that build on true traditions while absorbing and blending our local
piquant flavors." ~ Jack Grace, Feb.-March 2021 Holler from the Colorado Blues Society
LIVE LOVE(Our first ALL LIVE JAM BAND ALBUM - 2021)
"Mad Dog Blues is one of our own - a Colorado band steeped in country blues but
expanding that genre to express its own eclectic approach to Colorado music. Live Love
is the band’s third recording in ten months: Family Reunion 2020, Hug with Our Heart,
and now Live Love. That’s a lot of music in a short time and each CD explores a new
musical direction. ...Jeff Becker contributes some impressive mandolin. ...There are some really interesting lead guitar lines with complex but perfect
timing."
These are our favorite recorded performances from the Mad Dog Blues’ “2021 Better Than Ever Tour.” Featuring eight new original songs as well as three live versions of original songs from our first Happy Dance CD (“Goodbye Mister Blues,” “Alone Is My Home” and “Never Lost Love”), and one from our Family Reunion 2020 double CD (Siren). These songs were all recorded from July through December of 2021 at various Colorado venues: The Muse Performance Center in Lafayette (11-22-21), Rule 105 in Greeley (12-05-21), Wibby's Pavilion in Longmont (7-1-21), Globe Hall in Denver (12-12-21), Niwot Tavern in Niwot (7-26-21) and Grossen Bart Brewery in Longmont (10-31-21).
... "it’s an honest, undoctored representation of MDB’s live shows. While MDB works within a loose country blues framework - where else would you hear a Native American flute in the mix – the collective maintains its signature that makes it distinct along the Front Range blues scene." ~ Dan Willging, April-May 2022 Holler from the Colorado Blues Society
Pinned Down by the Rain is a classy live Blues album created from favorite performances by the band from 2021; it includes segments from various venues that have the good sense to hire live acts, and to be able to hear innovative songs like Hear Me Crying and the longest piece off the release Never Lost Love, just shy of 14 minutes in duration and containing some crafted solo performances within one very full flowing offering. Pinned Down by the Rain by Mad Dog Blues is a rarity today, true live Blues from the very heart and soul of the planet; played how only Blues can be played, from one heart to yours. The album contains classy performances in an album that is raw, real, fun and most certainly shines a beacon for live Blues the whole world over. ~ Steve Sheppard, presenter (DJ) at One World Music Radio (READ ALBUM FULL REVIEW).
Gratitude, Mad Dog Blues’ fifth full-length,album is an innovative take on contemporary acoustic blues.
Recorded “live in the studio” at
Mighty Fine Productions in Denver and mastered by the two-time Grammy-winning David Glasser of Airshow Mastering, Gratitude represents a step up in audio fidelity from Mad Dog Blues’ last two live albums. Since the 2019 release of their first album, Happy Dance, Mad Dog
Blues has not looked back, exploring the possibilities of their unique, harmonica string band in their prolific song writing. Over the last few years their music has developed and matured, and their signature “Colorado Country Blues” sound has expanded to incorporate even more influences including jazz, world music, trance blues and pop along with our root influences of blues, folk and Americana. "Gratitude" is more than an album name; it can become a way of life that offers us all a ray of hope in these troubled times.
"We’re back on the Blues trail with Mad Dog Blues on this new release Gratitude, a 13 track album of some of the best new, vibrant and innovative music from that genre that you may have heard for quite some time, the collective charm of this album is that the whole project is thoroughly addictive and completely enjoyable with each and every track played. ... Gratitude by Mad Dog Blues is without doubt the best album so far for the band and there illustrious leader Mad Dog Friedman. Here lays an album of pure character, an album of artistic class, and a release that anyone who loves contemporary Blues music must surely mark part of their collection at all costs, it is that good."
Alone Is My Home-- A benefit release with 100% of all proceeds going directly to support the needs of Boulder County's homeless population through the good work of Hope for Longmont.
And now for all those hardcore Dog Heads who made it all the way to bottom of our web page, a special little listening treat from your favorite acoustic blues jam band featuring unreleased excerpts from our 2021 Better Than Ever Tour, recorded live right off of our mixing board. Many of these tracks are our favorite extended versions of previously released songs featuring spontaneous jams and occasionally bordering on trance blues. Some are rare public debuts of original songs that we had barely, if at all, rehearsed. Pure madness for all Dog Heads! Enjoy and share as you want!
Mad Dog Blues supports and promotes diversity and equity and wants to thank the many African American, Native American and people of color that have inspired and influenced us with their music. In general, the rural American musicians and hokum songsters of 20's and 30's were playing music influenced by the players around them. Musical influence was more regional than genre-based and quite often color-blind. Radio airplay and the recording industry is more genre based. Segregation and racism in the music industry was responsible for the splitting up the true American music into the existing genres (like Country and Blues). It is our hope to go deep into the roots of this music and come up with our own songs that transcend the divisions in American music created by commercialism and racism.