All his life, Eddie 9V has been acting on instinct. Aged just 15, this old-soul artist turned away from the path of college & jobs to burst all guns blazing onto the roots & blues club circuit of his native Atlanta, Georgia. Eddie 9V specializes in the sounds of the 1960s: he punctuates this sound with live shows that keep people talking. A native of Atlanta, Georgia, Eddie 9V (born Brooks Mason in 1996) started playing local blues clubs when he was just 15 years old. Drawn to older blues & soul records, along with such Atlanta players as Mr. Sean Costello, he found a musical partner in his brother Lane Kelly. The pair played a lot of music toGether, especially focused in the blues. After some of these early projects wound down and looking for a place to channel his love for the blues and soul music, Brooks Mason reinvented himself as Eddie 9V, playing most of the instruments on Left My Soul in Memphis, a 2019 debut album recorded in large part in Lane’s bedroom. Within time, Eddie 9V caught the attention of Ruf Records and that contract gave the singer/guitarist the opportunity to hire local blues musicians for ‘Little Black Flies’, which the label released in 2021; the record was produced by Lane Kelly. Eddie 9V headed to the famed Capricorn Studios in Macon, Georgia to cut his next album. The aptly titled ‘Capricorn’, which was again produced by Kelly, which dropped in early 2023.
I had the pleasure of catching up with Eddie 9V ahead of his February 18th event at The Bur Oak here in Madison. After digging into his catalog over the years, what I always thouGht was ‘this kid has it’, and I’d bet his live shows are something else. The chance in Madison to be proven correct is here and Eddie and I get into what a live event is like once that first note is struck. We dive into the seed to flower of his latest release on Ruf Records, ‘Capricorn’ and how to me sounds like a dream come true time in Macon, GA pitting it together. Eddie and I have more than one person in common when it comes to some of our earlier years of ears, Mr. Sean Costello is one of them so we get into what it is about Sean that we both sorta felt. Before I let Eddie go, he choose one track (same track I’d have chosen) from ‘Capricorn’ and builds a sweet set list. You can thank me later after you catch this cat and his band out in the world live, it’s one of the somethings you are probably looking for.
