All of us are broken. But no-one is beyond repair. It’s a philosophy that WALTER TROUT has lived by during seven volatile decades at the heart of America’s society and blues-rock scene. Even now, with the world more fractured than ever – by politics, economics, social media and culture wars – the fabled US bluesman’s latest album, Broken, chronicles the bitter schisms of modern life but refuses to succumb to them.

“I’ve always tried to write positive songs, and this album is not quite that,” considers the 72-year-old of an all-original tracklisting that rages and soothes. “But I always hold on to hope. I think that’s why I wrote this album.”

For the last half-century, however rocky his path, hope has always lit the way. The beats of Trout’s unbelievable story are well-known: the traumatic childhood in Ocean City, New Jersey; the audacious move to the West Coast in ’74; the auspicious but chaotic sideman shifts with John Lee Hooker and Big Mama Thornton; the raging addictions that somehow never stopped the boogie when he was with Canned Heat in the early-’80s.

Even now, some will point to Trout’s mid-’80s guitar pyrotechnics in the lineup of John Mayall’s legendary Bluesbreakers as his career high point. But for a far greater majority of fans, the blood, heart and soul of his solo career since 1989 is the main event, the bluesman’s songcraft always reaching for some greater truth, forever surging forward, never shrinking back.

It’s a peerless creative streak underlined by the guitarist’s regular triumphs at ceremonies including the Blues Music Awards, SENA European Guitar Awards, British Blues Awards and Blues Blast Music Awards. The iconic British DJ ‘Whispering’ Bob Harris spoke for millions when he declared Trout “the world’s greatest rock guitarist” in his 2001 autobiography, The Whispering Years.

If he were a less questing artist, Trout could mark time and dine out on those past glories, leaving the polemics and calls-to-arms to a younger generation. But that’s not enough, considers the still-hungry veteran. “I have to grow. I want to be a vital contributing artist. I don’t want to come out every night and play my first hit, Life In The Jungle. I feel young. I know I’m not. But in my head, I’m still 25, still wanting to get better and do something I haven’t before. I have more to say.”

As the pandemic burnt out, Trout got back to business: the career-long cycle of writing, touring and resting still as natural to him as breathing. But scarcely had the world’s turntable needles dropped on his latest album, 2022’s Ride, when Trout felt the first tingles of incoming inspiration. Alternating between his homes in the remote Danish fishing village of Vorupør and Huntington Beach, California – or sometimes even in the back of the van, still slick with sweat after that night’s gig – the twelve songs of Broken demanded to be born.

Kingsize Soundlabs in LA was the scene of the crime – a familiar Trout Band haunt that also hosted 2019’s Survivor Blues – and producer Eric Corne once again the man behind the glass. “This is our 15th album together,” calculates the bluesman. “Eric and I just have a way of working, man. A friend who came into the studio and watched us and said, ‘Man, you guys are like a machine’. It’s unspoken.”

For most of the new record, Trout reached for his battle-scarred Fender Stratocaster or Delaney signature model, plugging into his trusty Mesa/Boogie MkIV stage amp (no pedals required). But for the closing Falls Apart, he pushed the sonic envelope. “Anyone who thinks I’m just a blues guy, I’m gonna hit them with my version of Pink Floyd,” he laughs. “That outro has three different electric guitar rhythms, and two acoustic guitar rhythms in different inversions. Then there’s a Nashville-tuned guitar. Our middle child Biscuit, AKA Captain Buzzface, wrote the song and arranged and sang all the background vocals. I think that the kid wrote an epic song that is very fitting for the state of the world today. I have a hard time getting through that one without breaking down.”

With gallows humour, Trout notes that his new album opens with a track called Broken and ends with one called Falls Apart. He can’t deny the socio-political mood in the air, and as such, between those two bookends lie some of the most personal, bruised songs of his career (albeit twinned to some of his most rocking and defiant guitar work). Yet as the man says, as long as there’s love and music, there is always a light to guide us. “That Sixties idealism still burns in me and I want to make music that means something or helps somebody. I may be naïve but I’m ok with that. In the face of what’s happening in the world, I will stubbornly hold on to my idealism and hope. I want to make music that matters…”