Blues is the root. Not the limit. That sentence probably sums up Big Man James better than anything else: a band born in Codogno around the voice, guitar and musical vision of Giacomo Cassoni. The project comes from a deep love for the blues, but from the very beginning it has refused to treat the genre as something to be preserved under glass. Instead, blues becomes a starting point — a language through which rock, soul, funk, seventies grooves and a strong live attitude can all come together. After My Clouds in 2017, the band’s identity took clearer shape with Another in 2018, before evolving further with Step Into The Real Life in 2022, a record where blues and rock opened up even more to soul and funk. In 2025, Big Man James released ASH — All Souls Heal, their most mature work to date. ASH means ash, but it is also the acronym for All Souls Heal: an album about what remains after something has burned, about wounds, change and rebirth. Across nine tracks, the blues remains the root, while the sound becomes broader, warmer and more personal. But the natural home of Big Man James is, above all, the stage. Over the years the band has performed in clubs and festivals in Italy and abroad, sharing stages with artists from the national and international blues scene and bringing their live show to the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania. It is live that the band’s identity truly comes alive: groove, dynamics, improvisation and the feeling that every show can take a slightly different path. Big Man James are not trying to reinvent the blues by erasing its history. They start from that history and take it somewhere else. Blues is the root. Not the limit.