Walter Trout is considered one of the greatest rock/blues guitarists across the world. Never heard of him? By 1996, Trout had an International Fan Club membership across 14 countries in Europe, America, Asia and Australia. Dutch National Radio asked their listeners to make up a list of what they felt was the blues song ever made. The list become a chart of 50 best blues songs, and Walter Trout topped the list with the song "Say Goodbye To The Blues" In a BBC radio poll, Walter Trout ranked #6 of the top 20 all-time greatest guitarists, behind a few famous lads named Clapton, Hendrix, Moore, Page, and Knopfler. The likes of BB King, Steve Vai or Jeff Beck didn’t crack the top 10 on the list.

So what does this mean for fans of Regina’s Mid-Winter Blues Festival? It means that you get to witness one of the world’s top guitar slingers, up close and personal in the Regina Casino Show Lounge. And it’s just not a night of hold-on-to-your-hat blistering blues rock, ebbed with occasional blues ballads. “I am a spiritual guy,” Trout offers. “I believe in a higher power as a force in the world and that playing music can be a religious experience. Music gives you an opportunity to speak directly to people’s hearts — it goes beyond words. And I know that there are times when I’m playing my guitar when I enter a state where I’m not consciously aware of what I’m playing. It’s like a signal coming through me.”

For Trout the journey began in 1965 when his brother brought the first album by the Paul Butterfield Blues Band into his family’s New Jersey home. “On the back cover it said, ‘Play this album loud,’ so we cranked it up and we literally had to sit down and stay there with our jaws on the floor.” The twin guitars of Mike Bloomfield and Elvin Bishop, and Butterfield’s juggernaut harmonica and voice, worked their magic. And the direction of Trout’s life was determined.

Trout became steeped in blues after moving to Los Angeles in 1973. There he supported legends like John Lee Hooker, Big Mama Thornton, Lowell Fulsom, Percy Mayfield and Joe Tex, assimilating a wide variety of blues.

In 1981 Trout joined the remaining members of the formative ’60s blues-rock group Canned Heat. But the real turning point in his career was his five-year tenure with British blues giant John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers. The affable Mayall — who has a well deserved reputation for spring-boarding the careers of great guitarists going back to the 1960s apprenticeships of Eric Clapton, Peter Green and Mick Taylor in his group — drafted Trout in 1984 and paired him with fellow six-string virtuoso Coco Montoya. Their twinned attack and Mayall’s leadership provided the Bluesbreakers a renaissance that took the group and its members to the apex of the international blues touring circuit.

Emboldened and encouraged by Mayall, Trout began his solo career in 1989. He was immediately embraced by European audiences and released his first album, ‘Life in the Jungle’ that same year. And the rest is, quite literally, blues and rock history still in the making.

“In a sense, I’ve almost created my own genre,” Trout says. “I’ve assimilated so many styles and so many influences from the great adventure of American music. I love Jeff Beck just as much as I love B.B. King. I believe in telling stories and honesty and searching for truth. And I have no interest in stifling my creativity. If I have a song in my head or I’m playing a solo and it gets a little outside of the box or off the beaten path, I’m going to let it flow and come out, or take me where it leads me. My quest in all of this is that I’d really love to be able to do it all.”

Hold on Regina, Walter Trout will be in town. See him Saturday February 25 in the Mid-Winter Blues Festival.

www.waltertrout.com