Buddy Guy’s Influence Leads A Classroom Standard Back To The Bandstand
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Kaliopi Stavropoulos once taught “Watermelon Man”
so often that she vowed never to play it herself. For the vocalist and guitarist, Herbie Hancock’s composition had become a classroom fixture, familiar through years of secondary-school big bands and VCE students. Recording it with The Blues Messengers meant finding a way back into a song she thought she had exhausted.
Buddy Guy’s interpretation changed that relationship. “I heard Buddy Guy’s version and just thought, Wow, what a groove. Suddenly I heard the song completely differently.” She brought it to the band, whose response turned an old teaching exercise into something they wanted to play together. Their blues-led approach draws on that arrangement, making room for groove and improvisation within the familiar composition.
Recorded live at Woodstock Studios in Melbourne, the single brings together Kaliopi on guitar and vocal, Greg Rowan on drums, Paul Leeder on bass, Brendon Price on piano, John Drews on Hammond, and Wayne Albury on saxophone. Richard Stolz engineered the session, with mixing and mastering by Sean O’Sullivan at Highway No.9. The combination of piano, Hammond and saxophone places Kaliopi’s guitar within a full ensemble, giving the reinterpretation a collective character.
That interaction is central to the band’s account of the recording. “When I brought it to the band, their interpretation felt so authentic. The groove they found was irresistible. I couldn’t help getting completely into it, and before long it had become one of those songs we just loved playing together.” Her enthusiasm is rooted in the experience of playing it, after years spent explaining it to others. The song went on to become part of The Blues Messengers’ Australian live repertoire and Kaliopi’s performances with the Lava Blues Supergroup in Greece.
“Watermelon Man”
also belongs to the sessions for A Day at Woodstock, alongside “How The Caged Bird Sings”
and “One Woman One Love”
. It reveals a more playful side of the project, shaped by the pleasure of musicians finding a groove together. An instrumental vocabulary drawn from blues, soul and jazz makes the standard part of the group’s own repertoire, with its history still audible in the choice of material and the influence behind the arrangement.
There is a satisfying circularity to the return. A tune associated with repetition in the classroom becomes a source of curiosity on the bandstand. Kaliopi & The Blues Messengers give “Watermelon Man”
another place in their musical lives: a shared performance that grows out of rediscovery.
Main photo: Christophe Losberger. Body photo: Jason Rosewarne.
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