Thorbjørn Risager

Thorbjørn Risager, a Danish blues musician and songwriter with a hard-swinging style, draws his vocal approach from equal measures of Ray Charles, Bob Seger, and Joe Cocker. He doubles as a skilled guitarist while fronting the octet Black Tornado, which he established in 2003. Drawing from Southern soul, roots rock, and Chicago blues, Risager blended those elements with jump jazz on his well-received first release, Live 2004, issued by Cope Records, the label operated by trumpeter Peter Kehl. Following seven full-length projects, among them the award-winning From the Heart in 2007 and the charting Dust & Scratches in 2012, he placed the group with Ruf Records, an association that has continued through a series of widely praised albums including Change My Game in 2017.

Born in Copenhagen, Risager trained at the Rytmisk Music Conservatory. He launched Thorbjørn Risager Blue7 in 2003, and the ensemble performed at festivals throughout Denmark and neighboring nations. After the appearance of their opening album, Live 2004, the collective adopted the name Black Tornado. Under that banner they put out the studio album From the Heart in 2006; radio programmers and writers alike praised the set, which earned the German Critics' Prize for Best Blues Album. The next year brought Here I Am, and as the band's reputation grew across Europe on the strength of both their recordings and their high-energy concerts, they maintained a demanding tour schedule. Their musical direction incorporated additional roots rock and rockabilly while adopting the vintage R&B flavor associated with Muscle Shoals. Following the loose and gritty Live at the Victoria in 2009, Risager and Black Tornado returned to the studio for Track Record, later licensed in France through DixieFrog; that collection highlighted their fusion of swampy, hard-driving blues rock on original material alongside a horn-rich, funky version of "Baby Please Don't Go." By the release of Dust & Scratches in 2012, funky soul and jump blues had become central to the group's sound. The following year they offered the digital-only ten-year anniversary compilation Between Rock and Some Hard Blues: The First Decade exclusively as a download via Risager's website before making it available for streaming.

Attention from listeners in the United States and Canada prompted the band to depart Cope for Germany's Ruf Records, whose extensive global reach, especially in America, proved decisive. The live album Too Many Roads appeared that same year and received widespread international acclaim. It was succeeded in 2016 by Songs from the Road, issued as a combined live audio and video package, which also captured the PdSK (German Critic's Award). Risager's initial studio recording for the label, Change My Game, was tracked in Copenhagen from January through August of 2016 amid touring commitments; engineers Henrik West and Lars Andresen handled the sessions, with mixing by Søren Bøjgaard. Extensive performances on the far side of the Atlantic helped the album reach the Canadian and U.S. charts ahead of its domestic entry. In January 2019, Risager and Black Tornado returned to Viktoria Studio alongside engineer Peter Iversen. Incorporating psychedelic touches and the influence of J.J. Cale, they composed and recorded whenever schedules allowed, completing the project in October. On January 10, 2020, precisely one year after tracking began, the title-track single "Come on In" was sent to streaming platforms, with the full album arriving on January 31.