“The music brims with good humour and rolling rhythm…”
The Age

As Roots Fusion pioneers THE VANGUARDS continue to challenge the Blues status quo
with artful musicianship and progressive stylings…

Dale “Gloveboy” Lindrea’s musical journey includes tap dancing at age 8, trombone at 15, bass guitar at 19, tenor guitar at 30,
some schooling, three U.S. pilgrimages and 4000+ gigs along the way.
Dale is also much sought after as a sideman with various top tier Blues acts
including Collard Greens & Gravy and Benny Peters & The Mistreaters.

As a much admired Blues guitar supremo, Dave Birtwell has featured in such popular Melbourne groups as
The Chris Wilson Band, The Redliners and Rod Paine’s Fulltime Lovers.

When expanding to a trio format guest drummers have included Andy Swann, Liam O’Leary, Sharky Ramos and Mark Grunden.

THE LONE VANGUARD is Dale’s latest solo project allowing him to more intimately develop his original material alongside his renowned reinventions of Blues standards. Dale’s vocal and tenor guitar approach is at once unique yet familiar
as he passionately draws upon his deep knowledge of the Blues.

“Girls In Slacks” THE VANGUARDS (Independent) 4 STARS
★ ★ ★ ★

“Bassist-singer-composer Dale Lindrea is a man with an audacious vision. Reviewing here last year The Vanguards’ debut album, First Time Round, I described the stark combination of Lindrea and guitarist Dave Birtwell as “skeletal chamber Blues” – intimate, quietly forceful
– and called it exceedingly brave, or foolhardy.

For the second Vanguards’ outing, Lindrea and Birtwell enlist, as they sometimes do in performance, two stalwarts of the Melbourne Jazz and R’n’R scene, drummer Ronny Ferella and Dean Hilson on tenor sax. The expanded sound makes for a broader, more entertaining listening experience.

The music brims with good humour and rolling rhythm; imagine the compositional wit of Leiber and Stoller harnessed to, not the Coasters, but the Paul Butterfield Blues Band – or, more specifically, as Lindrea points out, Butterfield of the two Better Days albums (1972, 1973).

Lindrea uses a variety of voices and textures to project his music, whether his diverting originals or the refreshing treatments of well-travelled material such as the Blues ballad Evenin’ (Jimmy Rushing, T-Bone Walker) and the elastic-riffed You Don’t Love Me.”

Ken Williams THE AGE, Friday 28th Nov 2003