Blues Hammer ruined the blues.
A fictional band from the 2001 Scarlett Johansson and Steve Buscemi film “Ghost World,” Blues Hammer has become shorthand for any band that claims to love Muddy Waters and Big Mama Thornton but sounds like Led Zeppelin overdosing on Adderall.
A lot of bands, too many bands, fit this description.
Boston act GA-20 hopes to rescue the blues by playing tunes more concerned with nuance and style than volume and two-minute guitar solos.
“Blues has come to mean blues rock thanks to guys like Joe Bonamassa,” guitarist Matthew Stubbs said ahead of the band’s Friday gig at Atwood’s Tavern. “There’s nothing wrong with blues rock. It’s just not what we want to do. We also aren’t trying to copy some Chess Records release note for note, but we are trying to write songs that are in that bag.”
Born out a mutual love of Buddy Guy, Junior Wells, Lazy Lester and other mid-century acts, Stubbs and singer/guitarist Pat Faherty formed GA-20 when Stubbs found himself with some unexpected free time. Stubbs typically spends much of the year touring as the guitarist in blues legend Charlie Musselwhite’s band. But when his boss spent a year on the road with Ben Harper in 2018, Stubbs needed more music.
“It was the first time in a while I had a year to work on something new,” he said. “My other band, the Antiguas (which holds down a weekly Monday residency at the Sinclair in Cambridge), has been busy, but I needed more.”
Stubbs easily fell into a partnership with Faherty, and the two quickly had enough originals to shop to a label. Soul label Colemine Records snapped up GA-20 in short order and will release their debut LP, “Lonely Soul,” this fall on its subsidiary Karma Chief Records.
Fans of the Antiguas will find plenty to enjoy in GA-20. While the two bands mine deeply different aesthetics — the Antiguas groove on psychedelic soul, surf and garage rock — Stubbs’ tone and taste remain impeccable. On both GA-20’s originals and covers, the guitarist never rushes into a solo or asserts himself aggressively.
“A lot of what we do is song based, not just an excuse to solo,” he said. “When I do solo, I don’t try to do what T-Bone Walker did in ’58, but I am thinking of that sound. I’m not going to start tapping or step on a phase-shift pedal in this band.”
Still a young band, GA-20 plans on getting out of town as much as possible. In May, they will play the Doheny Blues Festival in California and a week of dates across the South and East with Boston’s Eli “Paperboy” Reed before wrapping up at the Sinclair on May 30.
“We like the idea of opening for acts who don’t play blues and sharing bills with artists from different styles,” Stubbs said. “We don’t want to just play blues clubs.”
GA-20, with Hayley Thompson-King, at Atwood’s Tavern, 877 Cambridge St., Cambridge, Friday. Tickets: $10-$12; atwoodstavern.com.
