Eric Gales To Release A Powerful and Moving Album In Honor Of His Late-Brother on A Tribute to LJK
Featuring appearances by Buddy Guy, Christone "Kingfish" Ingram and Joe Bonamassa
Eric Gales is set to release his new album, a powerful and moving homage to his late brother Manuel Gales, on A Tribute To LJK. The album will be released digitally on 29 August and physically on 24 October via Provogue and features appearances by Buddy Guy, Christone "Kingfish" Ingram, Joe Bonamassa, Roosevelt Collier and Josh Smith.
To celebrate, he has revealed the first single, "Somebody", featuring Buddy Guy and Roosevelt Collier.
There comes a time when every musician must look their past squarely in the eye. And while Gales' latest release, A Tribute To LJK, is a thrillingly modern record for the here and now, it's also a nod to his bloodline and the roots of his family tree.
"This record has been a long time coming," Eric says of the speaker-rattling release co-produced by Bonamassa and Josh Smith. "I wanted it to be the ultimate tribute to my late brother, Little Jimmy King, to keep his memory alive and make sure people remember who he was and still is. All of these songs, except one, are his originals. I wanted to deliver his tunes to the world through my eyes. And I wanted it to be badass – and that's exactly how it turned out."
The blues is an ecosystem, and it's a measure of the respect commanded by both Eric – and his fabled older brother, real name Manuel, who sadly passed away in 2002 – that these ten explosive covers are delivered by an all-star cast with deep ties to the project.
To understand why A Tribute To LJK might be the proudest moment of Gales' meteoric career, you have to follow the thread back to the late 1970s and a hectic family home in Memphis, Tennessee. "I'm the youngest of five siblings, so I grew up with all my brothers, and everybody played guitar," he recalls. "Manuel was ten years older, and it was great to have him to look up to. I was so proud when he started his own band and began his career; he was off to the races. And then, after all his years of grinding away at his craft, to hear that he was touring with Albert King's band in the late-'80s was awesome."
And while Manuel made his mark in the world – graduating from King's lineup to front his own '90s outfit, Little Jimmy King & the Memphis Soul Survivors – Eric and his sibling Eugene signed to Elektra Records for 1991's debut album, The Eric Gales Band. "I had a deal at 15, and the record came out when I was 16," he recalls. "Even at that age, I already felt this was what I was gonna do in life."
In 2002, Manuel died of a heart attack aged just 37 ("It hit me hard, man. It's still not easy that he's no longer here"). As for Eric, he recalls a string of "wrong turns" that led to his 2009 incarceration at Shelby County Correction Center for possession of drugs and a handgun. "It was my own decisions that led to that," he admits.
Gales' trajectory since those dark days has been dizzying. Revisit the past decade, and you'll find him working at superhuman pace with an acclaimed run of Provogue releases that include 2017's Middle Of The Road (featuring Gary Clark Jr and Lauryn Hill), 2019's Billboard #1 The Bookends, 2022's Grammy-nominated, chart-topping Crown and the soundtrack of director Ryan Coogler's 2025 smash-hit horror movie, Sinners.
