Trout, Walter Ride

No matter how fast or far a man travels, he can never truly escape his past. Walter Trout knows that better than anyone. Even at the age of 70, the iconic U.S. blues-rock guitarist is still writing new chapters in his life story. In the last two years, Trout renewed his contract with his label Provogue Records and moved with his family from California to Denmark. With "Ride", his 30th solo album, Walter Trout can look back on a triumphant career.
And indeed, album number 30 leaves no doubt about it. "Ride" has a charging dynamism and an energy that strikes the pulse of an era shaken by all that is happening in the world. And yet, when the veteran songwriter picked up a guitar and notepad, he found himself back in the midst of the good, bad and ugly scenes of his extraordinary history. "This album is a snapshot of how I felt during that pandemic," he says. "I think I still have something new to say about the world, and that's important to me. But my life has been a hell of a ride, and when I listened to the album again, I realized that a lot of the songs are about my own coming to terms with the past."
The last time we saw Trout on stage, he was on the road supporting the 2020 album "Ordinary Madness": a universally praised album that entered at No. 2 on the Billboard Blues Chart. "And it would have gone to No. 1," the bluesman said, "if Peter Green hadn't decided to die a week before the album came out and the old Fleetwood Mac came back to the top of the charts." In Germany, too, he was able to celebrate at the beginning of Septemer 2020 with number 24, his best chart position in the official album charts so far.