GARY CLARK,JR.

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GARY CLARK,JR.
2013 BREAKOUT STAR
CURTIS SALGADO
Singing With Grace
LARRY MCCRAY
An Under The Radar Hero
Introducing Two Exciting Blues Voices
TORONZO CANNON
ALEXIS P. SUTER

COLUMNS
4
6
28
30
From the Top ... CHIP EAGLE
Editor’s Solo ... ART TIPALDI
Down in the Delta ... ROGER STOLLE
Steady Rollin’... BOB MARGOLIN
DEPARTMENTS
7
32
72
REVIEWS
34
39
65
67
68
News From The Field
Legends Of The Roots
After Hours
Club BR
CD Reviews
Blues Books
BRavo!
ISSUE #137
Reissue Roundup
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COVER PHOTOGRAPHY © FRANK MADDOCKS
TO
PHOTOGRAPHY © JOSEPH A. ROSEN
FEATURES
10
14
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25
GARY CLARK, JR.
21st Century Blues Rising From Austin
BY TOM HYSLOP
CURTIS SALGADO
Another Shot At Soul
BY MICHAEL KINSMAN
LARRY MCCRAY
Playin’ From The Heart
BY ART TIPALDI
TORONZO CANNON
Chicago’s Newest Guitar Slinger
BY THOMAS J. CULLEN III
ALEXIS P. SUTER
The Big Voice Of The Blues
BY KAY CORDTZ

It’s a jungle out there
A lot of businesses are tough, but the blues is a jungle full of
animals. And I don’t just mean the party animals at your local
blues club!
When I flip through my contact list, I often smile as I feel
as if I am walking through a zoo. In the blues one can find an
Alligator and even a Blind Pig, with their hilarious porcine logo.
But that’s just the beginning. On the blues road you must keep
an eye out for a Yellow Dog, a Fat Possum, a Blind Raccoon, a
Blue Armadillo, an Iguana, a Blind Chihuahua, a Green Monkey,
a Wolf, even a Bear Family! And don’t run over a Blue Skunk
or a Smelly Cat! We all know that any of them can end up as
Road Kill, but when you are in the South (of France) make sure
you don’t step on a Dixie Frog or a Screaming Lizard or even
a Tadfrog!
But if you are sneaking through the Blue Corn to get to the
Black Market for some Catfood, watch out for the Black Hen
and the Rat Pak. If you hear a “Grr,” watch out, it could be Thirty
Tigers, maybe you should head on back to the Red House. And
if you are out on the Stony Plain, look up and you might see an
Eagle, a Raven, or a Blackbird. You might even see Kool Kat or
a rare Rip Cat.
4 BLUES REVUE
If you commit the Perfect Crime you might just end up with
some Proper Records or even Criminal Records. Of course, one
of my crimes would be forgetting to mention one of my friends,
so I better stop there.
It’s almost festival season and we’ve got the calendar out
and are burning up the airwaves talking to our friends about
where we are going when. Gonna try and make a couple of new
ones this year. Friends and festivals!
If you can, make to Memphis on May 9 for the Blues Music
Awards, the biggest night of the blues. You won’t regret it!
So, as winter winds down, it is time to get back into boogie
mode. The time of T-shirts, shorts, sandals, and road trips is
right around the corner and it couldn’t be soon enough for this
blues traveler.
So tip your wait staff, buy CDs from the band, take a kid to
a festival, always put a dollar in the open guitar case on the
street, and don’t forget to take care because it’s a jungle out
there in Blues World!
And as long as you do, we will continue to send…
Good Blues To Ya!

6 BLUES REVUE
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“It can bring people together, like nothing else...
it can wake up a nation, and give such sweet relief.”
I know this has happened to all of you reading this. You proudly wear a t-shirt with an
eye-catching design from a great blues festival or blues event. You stand at a counter in
a store, eat in a restaurant, stand with others watching your children playing a sport,
and someone says, “Great shirt! Where’s it from?”
You reply, “It was at a great blues festival.”
To which he or she replies, “I love the blues.”
At that moment, you proudly add, “Check out the line-up.”
Your back is covered with names like Marcia Ball, Lonnie Brooks, Lil’ Ed, Bobby
Rush, Shemekia Copeland, Charlie Musselwhite, Ruthie Foster, Irma Thomas, Tommy
Castro, Elvin Bishop, Eric Bibb, Duke Robillard, Joe Louis Walker, and blues icons from
the past like Ruth Brown, Koko Taylor, Little Milton, Pinetop Perkins, Honeyboy Edwards.
You turn around and await the ohhs and ahhs. Instead you hear, “I don’t know any
of those people.”
My guess is the blues to them is B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Eric Clapton, Bonnie Raitt,
Stevie Ray Vaughan, and maybe Taj Mahal or Robert Cray. This is the sad reality every blues
fan faces as we search in vain for recognition of the genre outside its core tribe of fans.
Being in Memphis during the Blues Foundation’s annual International Blues Challenge
each winter is clearly the tonic to erase those disappointing experiences. At every
turn, 225 blues bands from across the globe are fighting the notion that the blues is not
relevant in today’s world. The professionalism of each band’s shows coupled with innovative
musical directions and instrumentation beyond the simple I-IV-V format breathes life
into the genre.
Remember that each of these acts has won a local competition sponsored by one
of over 180 affiliated societies around the world. So for every band or solo/duo act in
Memphis, there could be as many as 15 others who competed for the honor. Does any
other music genre have this kind of local and regional support of its music?
And that’s the great blues paradox: local societies with grass roots memberships
keep this music thriving, while the culture at large gives it one Grammy category and
mostly ignores.
It’s that time of year for the 2013 Blues Music Awards at www.blues.org. Janiva
Magness and John Nemeth lead the slate of nominees with five nominations each.
Other noteworthy nominees include Curtis Salgado, Michael Burks, Joe Louis Walker, and
the team of Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi with four. There are also more then a dozen
first time nominees plus the six Best New Artist nominees. This year’s Awards will be held
on May 9, 2013 in Memphis. Once again, Blues Revue will be there to report on the event.
Also noteworthy are the blues records that were named tops of 2012 by DownBeat
magazine. Congratulations go out to the following four and five star records: Barbara
Carr, Keep The Fire Going, Otis Taylor, Contraband, Billy Boy Arnold, Billy Boy Arnold
Sings Big Bill Broonzy, Michael Burks, Show Of Strength, Mary Flower, Misery Loves
Company, Paul Rishell, Talking Guitar, and Catherine Russell, Strictly Romancin’.
The following historical albums were also named tops in 2012: Etta James Live at
Montreux 1975-1993, Ray Charles, The Complete ABC Singles, Muddy Waters and
The Rolling Stones, Checkerboard Lounge – Live Chicago 1981, Albert King, I’ll Play
The Blues For You, Howlin’ Wolf, Smokestack Lightning / Complete Chess Masters
(1951 to 1960).
“Let the music keep our spirits high.”
Blues Revue (ISSN Number 1091-7543) is published bimonthly by MojoWax Media,Inc., 1001 11th Avenue West, Bradenton, FL 34205. Periodicals postage is paid
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NEWS
INTERNATIONAL
BLUES CHALLENGE
WINNERS
REGI OLIVER, HUFF WRIGHT, CURTIS NUTAIL, AND SELWYN BIRCHWOOD
NATIONAL BLUES MUSEUM
On December 12, 2012, the National Blues
Museum in downtown St. Louis is closer to
beginning its work. Pinnacle Entertainment,
Inc. and Lumière Place Casino and Hotels
contributed $6 million to the museum’s soon
to be announced capital campaign to raise
the remainder of the funds. The 23,000square-foot
museum will offer an interactive
The HOME Project
It may take a village to raise a child, but a village can also save an
adult. Case in point: the Housing Opportunities For Musicians And
Entertainers (HOME) fund started last summer in Austin, TX. with a
goal to provide safe housing for Miss Lavelle White.
“I was the one who sent up
the red flag and said that we
needed to figure out a way to take
care of Lavelle,” said Nancy Fly.
“She was living at my house at the
time. She had no resources and no
place to go. We’ve helped her on
many fronts, like getting her SSI
disability payments straightened
out. We decided to start a nonprophet
corporation whose goal is
to see if we can make this work by
taking care of Lavelle.”
From that red flag, Carolyn
Wonderland, Ruthie Foster, Nancy
PHOTOGRAPHY © ART TIPALDI
experience that includes a mix of artifacts
and technology-driven exhibits. This emerging
cultural attraction will showcase the
blues as the foundation of modern
American music and illustrate its rich history.
Upon opening, projected for 2014, the
museum will include a performance venue,
highly interactive touch screen exhibits, and
Selwyn Birchwood and his
LITTLE G WEEVIL
band took top honors at the
29th IBC weekend in Memphis.
Like so many other winners,
Birchwood returned to the
finals for a second time and
took the Orpheum crowd by
storm. He also won the Gibson
Most Promising Guitarist
Award. Germany’s Michael van
Merwyk and Bluesoul took second
place while Dan Treanor’s
Afrosippi band featuring Erica
Brown finished third. Guitarist
and storyteller Little G Weevil
won first place in the Solo/Duo competition while the harmonica
guitar pair Suitcase Brothers from Barcelona finished second. With
over 225 bands, solo, duo performing over four days, nightly jams at
a variety of venues, afternoon showcases, and an afternoon of youth
bands on showcase, the Blues Foundation has once again proved
that Beale Street is the place to be every February.
educational programming that will include
onsite and in-classroom opportunities to
explore the history of blues music and its
influence on rock and roll, hip hop, jazz,
gospel, and R&B. Public programs will feature
intimate performances, lectures, screenings
of documentaries and other films, and
Q&A sessions with national artists and
music industry professionals. You can check
them out at www.nationalbluesmuseum.org.
Coplin, Sarah Brown, Marcia Ball, Nancy Fly, Shelley King, Cindy
Cashdollar, Sara Hickman, Denise Boudreaux, Susan Antone, Bev
Shaw, and others came forward with a benefit concert to raise the
necessary funds.
“We’ve got enough money to take care of Lavelle for a little
while. We plan on doing maybe two concerts a year as fundraisers
with the sole purpose to sustain
MISS LAVELLE WHITE
Lavelle for another year. We’re also
putting out a CD, a live recording of
the fundraiser we did last summer
where everybody sang a Lavelle
White song. That CD will be released
in 2013.
“The mission is to keep musicians
in homes that are safe. We
think of it as a safety net for people
who are in desperate need,” said Fly.
Visit the Facebook site, Housing
Opportunities for Musicians And
Entertainers to purchase the CD or
make donations.
PHOTOGRAPHY © ART TIPALDI
PHOTOGRAPHY © ART TIPALDI
BLUES REVUE 7

NEWS FROM THE SHACK UP INN
What began as an offbeat idea has now become
a must-do on every blues lovers’ bucket list.
A stay at the Shack Up Inn in Clarksdale, MS.
offers blues fans more than just a night’s lodging.
According to Guy Malvezzi the expanded
Shacks accommodated almost 20,000 tourists in
2012. “But we want to be more than just a hotel.”
To that end, Malvezzi has grand Shack Up
plans. “Part of the plan from the start of this Juke
Joint Chapel building was to create a live recording
studio. We’re buying some vintage ribbon
mics and spending money on studio gear. We
don’t want a studio where people come in, practice
their songs and record. I want it to be like
what Chess or Sun Studios did. It’ll have an audience
there just like in a live show. That’s what we
want to catch. We want to be an out of the box
kind of label much like the
Shack Up Inn is out of the box.
“We’ve already recorded
Charlie Musselwhite in the
Chapel. Charlie was doing a
fundraiser for the Blues
Museum in Clarksdale. We
recorded him that day. The
next morning, I was playing
with the mix on it when Charlie
and his wife Henri walked in.
They loved it and said, that’s
gonna be our next album.
People like Lightnin’ Malcolm
and Kenny Brown both want me to put out their next CD.
“We are gonna pick the musicians we want to record here.
I want to record more then just blues. There’s some pretty cool roots
music out there I’d love to capture. I want to be able to create a CD
for an artist where he can buy it at a cheap price and make good
money from it. I don’t want to put an artist into debt to me at all.”
And there are other grand plans. Jon Gindeck, the author of
Harmonica for Dummies runs a harmonica camp here. “He started
doing camps here four or five years ago. Today he does camps in
March, May, and September. He’s talking with Charlie about teaming
up together and doing a camp for advanced players tentatively
scheduled for January 2014.
“I’ve got a blues guitar and bass camp run by Ralph Carter
scheduled for May 28 - June 1, 2013 and singer songwriter camps
in the works. And there is a Kenny Brown Birthday Bash scheduled
for July 4- 6 featuring Brown, Alvin Youngblood Hart, and Lightnin’
Malcolm.”
The Inn is also the venue for the Pinetop Perkins Foundation’s
fourth annual Master Class Workshops, where blues musicians
can continue the legacy of the late Pinetop Perkins on the year of
his centennial birthday. Open to both adults and youth over 12, this
year’s workshop will be held from June 12-14. The workshop features
features nightly jams and a final performance at the world
8 BLUES REVUE
famous Ground Zero Blues Club in
Clarksdale.
“I also want to create an affordable,
inland blues cruise experience here at the
Shacks. Maybe do four days of constant
music and food for the people who would
book to stay here. If you have two people
per bed, our capacity is about 100 people.
We could have major festivals here and fill
the grounds, but that’s not what we are
going for. We want something like this cruise
to be an intimate deal where the performer
can mingle with the crowd like they do on the cruise.”
You can check out all the happenings at the Shacks at
www.shackupinn.com.
PHOTOGRAPHY © ART TIPALDI
TROMBONE
SHORTY
and
TAB BENOIT
perform at
Woldenberg Park
in New Orleans
as part of
Super Bowl XLVII
week
PHOTOGRAPHY ©
AL PEREIRA

BLUES FOUNDATION
HALL OF FAME CAMPAIGN
Since 1980, the Blues Foundation has
inducted individuals, recordings, and
literature into the Blues Music Hall of Fame.
Once it found a permanent home, the
Foundation’s mission was to
build a physical Hall of
Fame. Early in 2012, The
Blues Foundation began
conducting the Campaign
for the Blues Hall of Fame,
a $3.5 million capital campaign
to add Hall of Fame
exhibits to the Foundation
offices at 421 South Main,
Memphis. Throughout the
year, donations have come
from fans, festivals, an Arts
Memphis grant, and many
other entities.
To date, over $1.2 million of the donations
has come from blues fans from around
the world. Two rock musicians with deep
blues roots, George Thorogood and Steve
Miller, have been most generous with their
early donation to this cause.
Most recently, the Legendary Rhythm
and Blues Cruise #19 sailed the Caribbean
October 27-November 2 and through the
good graces of Roger Naber and his team,
the Blues Foundation was offered a major
presence which proved very, very successful.
Cruisers pledged, donated, or contributed
through silent and live auctions
$185,000, including a winning $37,000 bid
on an autographed guitar by the four
Rolling Stones, signed during a 1999 visit to
Memphis. Also Denise Duffy at the Music-
Maker Relief Foundation and Shirley Mae
Owens and Robert Jr. Whitall at Big City
Rhythm and Blues helped raise contributions
to the Blues Hall of Fame via the very
successful high seas silent
auction, the proceeds of
which are included in the
$185,000 total. That same
week, another $90,000 was
donated on land for a oneweek
total of $275,000.
Earlier in the campaign,
LRBC directly contributed
$35,000 and Paul Benjamin
raised $55,000 from his
friends on LRBC #18. (Note:
Benjamin himself is responsible
for collecting over
$100,000 in donations.) The
January 2013 LRBC raised over $100,000,
while the 2013 IBC in Memphis raised
nearly $70,000 from societies and individual
donations.
This brings the fund to $1.5 million in
just over 15 months. According to Executive
Director Jay Sieleman, “Another million
dollars will get the fund to $2.5 million and
that will be enough to get to where we can
complete the physical construction of the
Hall of Fame.”
To do your part to help Raise the Roof
on the Blues Hall of Fame, simply go the
Blues Foundation site, www.blues.org.
BLIND PIG RECORDS
NEWS
Blind Pig Records has announced a live
recording date for a special tribute to Little
Walter Jacobs featuring some of the finest
harmonica players on the current blues scene,
Charlie Musselwhite, Billy Boy Arnold, Mark
Hummel, James Harman, and Sugar Ray
Norcia. The show took place on Thursday,
December 6th at Anthology in San Diego,
California. The band will include Little Charlie
Baty and Nathan James on guitars, June Core
on drums, and RW Grigsby on upright bass.
Blind Pig has also signed Southern
Hospitality, a band featuring J.P. Soars, Damon
Fowler, and Victor Wainwright, and Jimmy
Vivino. The Vivino project features Vivino
reunited with his R&B influenced band, The
Black Italians, for two shows in front of live audiences
at Levon Helm’s Studios in Woodstock,
New York. The shows took place on Friday,
November 30 and Saturday, December 1.
JACK
WHITE’S
THIRD
MAN
RECORDS
Jack White’s new label, Third Man Records,
has struck a deal with Document Records
to reissue the complete volumes from the
Document catalog. By the end of January,
White’s label will release the complete works
of Charley Patton, the Mississippi Sheiks, and
Blind Willie McTell. New volumes from the
Document catalog will be released when the
first series is complete. The albums will be available
on vinyl with new liner notes and artwork.
More information can be found on White’s
record label’s site, www.thirdmanrecords.com.
Congratulations Gaye
Congratulations to Gaye Adegbalola and her
educational blues CD, Blues In All Flavors.
We’ve just been informed that the CD has
won the Gold Parents’ Choice Award For
Music. It also received a starred review in the
School Library Journal.
BLUES REVUE 9

PHOTOGRAPHY © JOSEPH A. ROSEN
10 BLUES REVUE
GARY CLARK, JR.
21st Century Blues
RISING FROM AUSTIN
The
last two years
have yielded a dizzying
parade of triumphs for Gary
Clark, Jr., the 28-year-old artist
from Austin, Texas. With the
by Tom Hyslop
force of Warner Brothers
Records behind him, Clark has
received a promotional push that
rivals that of any mainstream artist,
one that certainly exceeds anything
witnessed in the blues realm at least
since the 1980s, with the mainstream
breakouts of Stevie Ray Vaughan and
Robert Cray, and possibly since the
highly-publicized signing of Johnny
Winter by Columbia Records in 1969.
In the course of the blitz, Clark has
performed at every major festival, including
Coachella, SXSW, Made In America,
Bonnaroo, Summerfest, Lollapalooza, Dave
Mathews Band Caravan, Newport Folk Fest,
Electric Forest, Sasquatch! Festival, Mountain
Jam, and others, along with dates in the most
coveted clubs; received ink in a dizzying variety
of publications, from MOJO and SPIN to such
unexpected settings as Esquire, Vanity Fair, and
even the mainstream Entertainment Weekly, with
recurring coverage in Rolling Stone, including a fivestar
rating for his debut EP on Warners, in a write-up
that led off the review section; and made appearances
on the major late-night shows: Conan, The Late Show
with David Letterman, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon,
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
He has taped an episode of Austin City Limits as
headliner. A fragment of “Bright Lights” provided the
soundtrack to a major mobile phone provider’s ubiquitous
TV advertisement, and the video for “Ain’t Messin’ ‘Round”
received regular rotation on VH1, America’s almost universally
available cable music television channel.
And the list goes on. Clark participated in the all-star
tribute to Hubert Sumlin at the Apollo Theater [February 2012]
alongside legends like Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, James
Cotton, Jimmie Vaughan, Henry Gray, and Billy Gibbons; and took
a prominent part in the Red, White, & Blues celebration at the White
House [February 2012] that featured B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Mick
Jagger, Jeff Beck, Shemekia Copeland, Derek Trucks, Susan
Tedeschi, Warren Haynes, and Keb’ Mo’. Clark opened eyes nationally
when he performed “Beat Up Old Guitar” with Copeland, and then tore
it up with “Catfish Blues” and a stripped down “In The Evening.”
He guest-starred in the Rolling Stones’ 50th Anniversary Tour in
December 2012, and then joined Jimmie Vaughan, as well as the full

ensemble of musicians onstage, during Buddy Guy’s December
2012 induction into the latest group of Kennedy Center Honors
recipients. Along the way, he charted a Top Ten album.
To the jaded, the sudden celebrity surrounding Clark may
look like hype designed to propel a neophyte into prime time.
Less cynical, but casual, observers may be forgiven for assuming
that Clark has emerged overnight, fully formed, into the
spotlight.
The reality is quite different. In fact, Clark’s success, if
often predicted, has been a long time in the making. He
began playing guitar at age 12, and, probably emboldened
by the example of his (much) older cousin W.C. Clark –
Austin’s Godfather of the Blues – first performed in public
two years later. The youth’s obvious talent and charisma
soon attracted the attention of important patrons, people
like Clifford Antone and Jimmie Vaughan.
Clark recalls some of his early supporters. “My friend
Eve Monsees, she kind of got me into the whole blues
scene. A lot of people came through. Walter Higgs and
Appa Perry. Derek O’Brien and Clifford Antone. James
Cotton, Pinetop Perkins, Hubert Sumlin, Doyle Bramhall,
and Willie “Big Eyes” Smith” were just some of the
noted musicians who encouraged him.
In the decade before he signed with Warner
Brothers, Clark recorded and released four independent
CDs. Although he is perceived as a blues artist,
and clearly comes out of that tradition, such a label
does Clark some disservice in describing only a
narrow range of his musical interests. His first album,
2001’s entirely self-penned Worry No More, included
not only solo acoustic blues in the title track, but
greasy shuffles, detours into Curtis Mayfield territory,
slow blues with a vaguely Jimi Hendrix feel,
blues inspired by Albert Collins (the funky “Shotgun
Man”) and Jimmy Reed (“Insecure”), steamy
jazz à la Howard Roberts, and the dreamy, wahwah-tinged
dreamscape, “Drifting.”
110, which arrived in 2004, marked Clark’s
arrival as both one-man-band (he graduated
from playing guitar and keys on his debut to
covering all the instruments, including harmonica,
bass, drums, and programming) and
visionary auteur. Opening with a spot-on
homage to B.B. King’s mid-‘60s playing, the
again all-original disc moves through
Dylanesque retro folk stylings, Texas shuffles,
sultry Hi Records-inflected ballads and
neo-soul along the lines of D’Angelo,
spacey meditations from a Shuggie Otis
bag (“Nighttime” and “Sad Song”), rumbling
roots rock (“Travis County”), acoustic
Delta blues (“Numb” and “Temptation
Starin’ Me In The Face”), and the ethereal
instrumental “On The Battlefield.”
Clark says, “I kind of played all of it
on my early albums. I was experimenting
on drums, bass, guitar, and keys,
doing vocal things, and just kind of
playing around, you know: not too
BLUES REVUE 11
PHOTOGRAPHY © JOSEPH A. ROSEN

much traditional stuff, more original material than traditional bluesy
type stuff. And what I would do when I was recording is just go in
different directions, and put it all on one album.”
He made an bold return to his roots on Tribute (2005), today a
much sought-after album cut live in the studio with bassist James
Bullard and the superb drummer Jason Moeller, uncannily recreating
the styles and spirits of Lightnin’ Hopkins, Jimmy Reed, Albert and
B.B. King, Hound Dog Taylor, and Albert Collins, and touching on
modern Delta boogie in a “Catfish Blues” that owes a solid debt to
the Clarksdale juke joint sound of the Jelly Roll Kings.
Around this time, Clark told Blues Revue in our first feature on
him that he was content to stay in Austin, performing and making
records at his own pace. But he was beginning to attract wider attention.
The noted independent filmmaker John Sayles (Return Of The
Secaucus Seven, Matewan, Eight Men Out) cast Clark in a key role in
Honeydripper (2007). As the itinerant bluesman Sonny, like Elmore
James an ex-military man with a flair for electrical work, Clark appears
by chance just in time to save a local juke joint from foreclosure by
appearing as Guitar Sam, a notoriously unreliable star modeled after
Eddie “Guitar Slim” Jones. In 2009, Clark played and sang on the
Omar Kent Dykes-Jimmie Vaughan tribute to Jimmy Reed, Big Town
Playboy, and appeared in the Austin City Limits episode promoting
the project.
In 2010, Clark and his band played onscreen in an episode of
the acclaimed television series Friday Night Lights, and saw the
release of his fourth CD, the self-titled Gary Clark, Jr. This album,
which marked his first recorded work with current drummer J.J. John-
12 BLUES REVUE
son and touring guitarist Erik Zapata, covered hard blues boogie
(“Don’t Owe You A Thing,” destined to reappear on his five-star
Warner EP), doo-wop, hip-hop-inflected R&B, and a Prince-like
pop/rock/soul mashup in “Breakdown.”
It also delivered Clark’s first reworking of the creamy, Al Greenstyle
ballad from 110, “Things Are Changing,” included a reprise of
“Drifting” (as “Outro”), and introduced his breakout number “Bright
Lights,” which he subsequently played to a huge Chicagoland audience
at Eric Clapton’s Crossroads festival, in what would prove to be
a star-making performance. The song, a boastful yet brooding, slowpaced
number, was built on an unforgettable instrumental hook that
would be heard countless times in the Verizon commercial mentioned
above, yet never grow tiresome.
Although buzz had been building for years, it was the Crossroads
appearance that made it virtually impossible for Clark to remain
Austin’s best-kept secret. The major-label deal followed, and with it,
the whirlwind of new fame, beginning with Rolling Stone’s unprecedented
review of The Bright Lights EP in 2011.
We spoke with Gary Clark Jr. during the period leading up to the
October 2012 release of Blak And Blu. That CD draws songs from
earlier releases (“Things Are Changin’,” again; “Travis County”; the
doo-wop number “Please Come Home”; the hip-hop-styled “The
Life”; the already-classic “Bright Lights”) and indulges Clark’s interests
in contemporary soul (the title track is deft neo-soul; “You Saved
Me” draws on Prince), hard-charging, horn-driven Stax soul (“Ain’t
Messin’ ‘Round”), and heavy, fuzz-toned blues-rock. The latter, heard
in the slightly psychedelic “Glitter Ain’t Gold,” the cool, yet deranged,
PHOTOGRAPHY © FRANK MADDOCKS

“ I think blues is fine
just the way it is. ”
medley of “Third Stone From The Sun/If You Love Me Like You
Say,” a new recording of “When My Train Pulls In,” and the radical
reimagining of “Numb,” invites comparisons not only to Hendrix but
to current scuzz-blues/alternative rock stars The Black Keys.
In extending the confident eclecticism of Clark’s earlier work,
Blak And Blu offers a tonic to the rock-flavored Bright Lights EP,
possibly to the consternation of some who had hoped for a new
Jimi Hendrix. While Clark shares Hendrix’s uninhibited experimentation
in sonics and song craft, and sometimes the same heavy
approach to slow blues, his guitar playing, rooted in feel, tone, and
groove, is unlikely to dominate his songs in the way many bluesrock
fans may desire.
But there is much to appreciate for anyone who cares for
blues, rock, hip-hop, or R&B. Asked about his wide-open style,
Clark laughs. “This may be open to interpretation, but when people
ask me, I just kind of describe it as blues, soul, and rock ‘n’ roll – a
mixture of all kinds of things. I listen to all kinds of artists and different
genres. And when I write something or am coming up with a
song, I don’t say, ‘I’m gonna write this in this genre, and take it in
one certain direction.’ An idea comes and I just kind of put it out,
whatever the idea happens to be. It might be a little bit different, not
straight up, I-IV-V blues, sometimes.
“I’ve been listening to Skip James lately. Freddie King had a
great influence on me. Elmore James. A lot of the Texas guys: T-
Bone, Albert Collins, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Johnny “Guitar” Watson. I
could go on and on and on. And a lot of the local guys right here in
Austin: Alan Haynes and Derek O’Brien, and W.C., all those guys.
Just being a kid when I first heard the music, I was completely
drawn in and wanted everything right away, so I would just soak
things up wherever I could. Lately, I’ve been listening to this band,
Black Owl Society, from Austin. Pretty heavy, three-piece blues,
kind of sloppy Delta stuff, but it’s cool. What else? Let’s see. Buddy
Guy’s ‘Worried Mind.’ Otis Redding. Some hip-hop stuff.”
Perhaps the most surprising part of the Gary Clark Jr. story is
the way he has connected with a wide, relatively youthful audience
– one that conventional wisdom says is out of reach for artists playing
in predominantly blues-rooted styles. Asked if it is due to his
charisma, the music itself, or to some secret sauce, Clark comes
down on the side of the music’s inherent appeal.
“That’s a good question! I think the major factor is just exposure.
I get out on the festival circuit and catch people walking up,
and a lot of them don’t know what to expect. We’ll go into, ‘Three
O’clock In The Morning Blues,’ and these folks will get into it, having
never heard us. Blues is the foundation of a lot of things, so
whether it’s the riffs or the vibe, society’s familiar with it. The instrumentation
may change, but, still, it resonates across time.”
This observation underpins Clark’s belief that real blues will
survive. “I think blues is fine just the way it is. Some people will stick
with traditional blues and some folks will try and do other things,
but the basic foundation stays the same. What you get out of it, and
what you want to bring to it, or whether you just want to leave it
alone for what it is, I think blues is just fine in any form.”
Of course, this opens the door to innovation,
and while Clark’s interest in continuing the
tradition is unshakable, he refuses to confine
his own music within any boundaries. “Growing
up in Austin and being around those guys
who brought me up, took me under their
wing, gave me an education in what the
music was all about, they taught me that to
put it out there was very important. But if I
didn’t do all the other things as well, I would
drive myself crazy if I was just putting it out
there and letting it be what it is.”
His high-profile appearances have
made a deep impression on Clark. Asked
about playing at the White House, Clark
said, “Red White & Blues was a tribute to
the blues, performed for the President.
I just wanted to be up there for the
event. The whole experience was pretty
special; it was great for me on a personal
level to be alongside a lot of the
people I’d been listening to for a long
time, like B.B. King. At Crossroads, in
Chicago, we played the finale. But we
rehearsed that one [“Sweet Home,
Chicago”] at the White House. That
was the first time we [B.B. King]
actually performed a song
together!”
At this point, it appears Gary
Clark, Jr. will have the chance to
play with just about anyone he
chooses. Asked to compare his
life today with the comfortable,
self-paced lifestyle he enjoyed in
Austin when we first spoke with
him, he reflects for a moment.
“That was a long time ago!
I must have been 20 or 21.
Things were simpler then, for
sure. The last couple of years
have been very busy: Lots of
travel, lots of obligations,
and lots of complications.
I don’t have as much freedom
as I should. Or, I don’t
have as much freedom as
maybe I’d like. But it’s
good. It’s good. Right
now, I’m just enjoying the
moment, enjoying the
journey.”
BLUES REVUE 13

Singer Curtis Salgado is all about
the show. He knows that every
time he steps onto a stage, he has
a chance to make an impression,
convert an unknown face into a fan and
cement his reputation.
Yet to hear Salgado tell it, it took a
while for this realization to sink in on him.
He knows today – better than most – that
you just might not get another shot at it,
so you’d better be on top of your game
every night, every performance, every
opportunity.
The 58-year-old soul singer and harmonica
player will tell you today that it is
only because of life lessons does he now
understand that. Salgado remembers a
gig in the 1970s when his band was hired
to back up singer Buddy Ace at a mountain
lodge in Oregon. Ace was based in
Oakland at the time. He’d recorded for
Duke Records and played the chitlin’ circuit
for years, leaning on his baritone
voice that sounded a lot like Bobby
“Blue” Bland.
“We drive to the gig in this RV and
find out the show is a private party in an
old mining camp,” he recalls. “The mining
shacks had been converted into cabins
and there was this lodge with a
sunken living room and a fireplace.”
And, then Ace came out, wearing an all-
14 BLUES REVUE
Curtis
Salgado
ANOTHER SHOT AT
by Michael Kinsman
white three-piece suit in stark contrast to
his t-shirts and shorts attired younger
band mates.
“He sang his ass off,” Salgado
recalls. “It was like he was at the Apollo
Theater as he moved around singing to
the crowd.” Ace made three costume
changes during the show, hiding behind
a door in the kitchen each time to don a
new suit.
“It was class; it was soul. He took
his business seriously,” Salgado says.
Today, the soul singer is a survivor
of three cancer surgeries, and he knows
that his performances matter ever time.
Last summer, Salgado was surprised to
learn that his cancer, in remission for
nearly five years, had reappeared.
“You would think someone like that
might just feel sorry for himself,” says
Bruce Iglauer, the owner of Alligator
Records which had just released
Salgado’s first CD on the label when his
touring was interrupted for the surgery.
“Curtis worked up until moments before
the surgery and was back performing as
soon as he could,” Iglauer says. “He
was whatever the opposite is of sitting
around feeling sorry for yourself.”
The past few years have been
sobering times for Salgado. His career
has been interrupted and plagued by
SOUL
cancer since 2006, yet his performances
belie his misfortune.
His new Alligator CD, Soul Shot, has
been a constant on the charts and in
May he was honored at the Blues Music
Awards in Memphis as Soul Blues Male
Artist of the Year. Humbly, Salgado told
those in attendance that the award
should have gone to Otis Clay.
“Curtis has never stopped being a
fan of the music,” Iglauer says. “When
he starts talking about the music and
musicians he loves, he’s like a kid.
That’s one of the really charming things
about him.”
Salgado has a long and bright history
on his musician’s resume. He was
once the lead singer for a young Robert
Cray Band, spent stints with Steve Miller
and Roomful of Blues, and off and on
had his own bands.
He’s celebrated for being an inspiration
for John Belushi to create The Blues
Brothers. Belushi had caught Salgado’s
act in 1977 while he was filming National
Lampoon’s Animal House in Eugene, OR.
They started hanging out, talking about
blues and soul records. Salgado
became a blues Svengali to Belushi and
was repaid when the Blues Brothers
named their reform school janitor and
blues inspiration Curtis.
PHOTOGRAPHY © MARILYN STRINGER

He has had a fruitful career, yet was
bewildered that day in March 2006 when
he learned he had a cancerous tumor on
his liver. He was suffering one of his periodic
incidents of gallstone attacks that
spring and attempted to ride out the pain
as he had done many times before. But
this time the pain wouldn’t subside and
he was convinced to go the emergency
room of a Portland hospital. Tests were
done, then more the next day, and more
the next day.
“ All I was thinking about what how
was I gonna pay the bills,” he says.
Like many musicians, Salgado has
found medical insurance an unachievable
luxury in his world. He knew he had
Hepatitis C, which he had contracted at
the age of 32 by sharing a dirty needle
with another individual. What he didn’t
know is that he had a lemon-sized
growth on his liver that would require a
cancer operation he clearly couldn’t
afford.
His friends rallied to his cause. Bonnie
Raitt sent him a check to pay his rent
so he wouldn’t have to worry about that
expense for a long-time. A Portland concert
was organized with Robert Cray,
Little Charlie & the Nightcats, Charlie
Musselwhite, Taj Mahal, the Portland band
Everclear, and others helped him raise
hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Smaller concerts were staged
around the West Coast and Midwest and
soon $1 million had been raised. And,
after evaluating where he might get the
operation, he settled on the Nebraska
Medical Center in Omaha.
BLUES REVUE 15

Then, only days before the cancer
surgery, he learned he was $100,000
short. “Two people put up their life’s savings,
$60,000 and $35,000, so I could
have the surgery,” he says. “Now, that’s a
lot of love.”
To this day, he wonders how to pay
these individuals back.
“The best thing you can
do is be nice to everyone
and take responsibility,”
he says. “Treat yourself
good and treat others
that way.”
Salgado had a second
surgery in 2008 to
remove cancer on his
lung. Mortality reared its
head again this summer
when Salgado learned of
his latest cancer. “I said,
‘What? It’s back? This is
it. I’ll be dead by 59.’ I
thought about Alligator
– I’d just got on the very
best label I could ever be
on and now this.”
The third cancer
was disheartening since
Salgado learned of it
when he went to the
doctor for a five-year
checkup, supposedly
the mark that would
mean he had defeated
cancer. His third surgery
occurred July 18 when
more of his left lung was
removed after cancer
was found. The latest
bout of cancer came
only a couple of months
after the release of
Soul Shot.
“The virtual demise
of retail record stores, touring becomes an
essential part of how well an artist’s CD will
sell,” Iglauer says. “Curtis had a group of
firm dates and then gets hit with this diagnosis
and has to take time off. He made a
remarkable rebound – kind of like he willed
himself back to health – and to his credit
he is returning to those cities where dates
were canceled and is a big hit.”
Only days after his July 2012
surgery, Salgado sat in with guitarist
Nathan James at Duff’s Garage in Portland
to test his lung power. “I passed the
test with flying colors,” he said. He soon
jumped back on the road to make up for
lost time and sales.
The bigger story behind this is the
lack of health insurance for working musicians,
Iglauer says. “Most full-time musicians
don’t have it unless they get it
through their spouse,” he says. “It’s not
just that musicians get sick like everyone
else, but most of them don’t have the
resources to pay for the treatment they
need.”
Generations of musicians have
wrestled with getting proper medical care.
Salgado says he was counseled by several
other musicians with Hepatitis C to
get treatment. He said he didn’t have the
economic means to take time off from the
road and pay for treatment. So he proceeded
without treatment,
knowing in the back of his
mind that he could be setting
off a time bomb.
Iglauer knows that even
the simple demands of the
business can damage
health. “How often do musicians
play a gig, drive hundreds
of miles, get three
hours of sleep, and then play
another gig?” he asks. “That
takes a toll on you, especially
if you are doing this
night after night.”
Salgado understands
that his role now is to manage
his cancer. He doesn’t
want to allow it to define his
life, but he is cognizant of it.
“When people get the kind of
cancer I have, they are usually
only given a year to live,”
he says. “I’ve been lucky. I’m
way past that.”
He disputes – as many
have contended – that his
music and performances
have changed because of
his illness. Longtime
observers have noted an
intensity and drive that are
more evident than ever. And,
there is little dispute that
2009’s Clean Getaway and
2012’s Soul Shot are among
his best CDs.
After his first cancer
surgery, Salgado made a triumphant
return in 2007. On the Legendary Rhythm
& Blues Cruise that fall, he stood on the
main stage of the ship and addressed the
audience.
“I literally owe my life to the blues,”
he said. “If it wasn’t for the support of the
people in the blues and the fans, I
wouldn’t be here.”
“ 16 BLUES REVUE
I literally owe my life to the blues. ”
PHOTOGRAPHY © DUSTY SCOTT

Larry McCray is a bear of a man. His massive arms make him look
more ready to bear hug his guitars than to coax biting emotional tones
from it. McCray was born in 1960, so it’s no surprise that his blues
incorporates elements of all genres of music – rock, soul, funk, and
jazz. His guitar style suggests he was influenced by everyone from
B.B. King to George Benson, Guitar Slim, Slim Harpo, and back to
Freddie King.
“I term my sound as rhythm rock,” says McCray. “I’m trying to take
the blues stigma off the music. When you have that [blues] on your
resume, sometimes it can hold you back from a lot of opportunities that
are out there for other people. When you put blues on it, people take a
different opinion toward what I do. If a white man plays the blues we call
that rock and roll. If I play the same thing it’s blues. That’s just how
people regard the situation.
“Rhythm rock is just a different name for the same old shit. It’s all
about marketing out here now. I have never claimed to be a blues
purist, so my sound leans to a lot of different things other than blues.
I have a lot to offer in other aspects of music. I believe that music is
music and the more genres you can tie together, that’s more
PHOTOGRAPHY © DUSTY SCOTT
Larry
McCray
MY
GUITAR
SPEAKS
MY
HEART
by Art Tipaldi
BLUES REVUE 19

expression you can have and the more colorful you can be with your
expression.”
Born in 1960 in Arkansas, McCray listened to all music. “The
three Kings, B.B., Freddie, and Albert, were like meat and potatoes to
me, but everything from Junior Walker to Wilson Picket, Aretha,
Gladys Knight, Guitar Slim, and Slim Harpo.” It was through his sister,
Clara, that the 12-year old McCray first came to the guitar. McCray
said that when she found out he was serious and had respect for her
guitar, she encouraged him to get it out and play for her. She even
started him out with her Gibson SG.
“I went straight to the electric. When I moved in with her, I started to
tinker with the guitars she’d left around. She wanted me to play the other
guitars, but I wanted to play her guitar because the action was better.
When she found out that I was serious and had respect for her guitar,
she didn’t mind me play. She even encouraged me to get it out and play
for her. She was my main mentor. I wanted to be like my big sister.”
“Musically, B.B. was the first to
inspire me and touch me in a way that
no other music did. He’s a great musician
who sits there and makes you
feel what he’s feeling. He’s almost
spiritual in the way he plays,” says
McCray. “When I was in 10th grade, I
messed around with a blues segment.
I sang and played some B.B. and they
called me B.B. King until the day I left
school. It was a joke to them, but it
was embarrassing to me.”
Though McCray cites many
modern musical influences, it is the
boundless respect he has for Ray
Charles that most touches his heart.
“When I was a kid in the 1960s in
Arkansas, I went through school integration.
Ray Charles was one of the
first people who made it cool to be
black. You were happy to be associated
with Ray because he had so
much soul in his voice and his instrument.
His tone thing was electrifying
in my opinion.
“Because the soul and rhythm of his music, whether big band or
jazz combo, was so funky, he taught us all how to express soul,
gospel and blues. He was the man,” says McCray.
After the family moved from Arkansas to Saginaw, MI., McCray
really began to learn his chops. He would sit in on the weekend jams
at his sister’s house, absorbing the styles and techniques of other guitarists.
When he was 13, his mother sacrificed enough to buy him a
Gibson 335. With his brothers Carl on bass and Steve on drums, there
was little peace and quiet in the McCray home after that.
By the time he was 16, McCray and his brothers had a band
called the McCray Brothers. Once out of high school, the brothers
worked at the General Motors plant in Saginaw by day and punched
the music time clock at night. “I was on the second shift the whole
time I worked there honing power steering housings,” says McCray.
“My brother would start the gigs off at 10, do the first set, and I would
come in and join the band for the latter part of the night.
“We played together for the next 12 years. That was how I met
the people at Point Blank Records and got our first release. In 1987,
20 BLUES REVUE
we cut a demo and were promised studio time, but that never
happened.” McCray’s first record, Ambition, was released in 1991.
That was also when McCray became the singer/frontman. “I
never wanted to be the frontman. McCray Brothers were a funk band
playing 1970’s funk music. As a change of pace, I’d play two or three
blues numbers, then back to the dance thing.
“These guys who came to see us about our first recording told
me that I needed to be the frontman. I didn’t sing that much then, but
I’ve become more comfortable with singing. But as a baritone, I have
a limited range. I wish I had a better voice to express myself vocally.
But I try to make my voice and the guitar a complimentary package.”
Calling his guitar his true second voice, McCray connects with
audiences around the world directly through the emotional guitar
tones he finds. “My guitar has a range that my voice doesn’t. I’m a
baritone, but my guitar can go up high where I can’t sing. Because I
can reach ranges on the guitar outside of my vocal range, I try and
use my guitar as an extension of my voice. I don’t go for mechanics,
I want my guitar to sing.”
His second album, Delta Hurricane, was released on Virgin
Pointblank in 1993. It’s a hard-edged recording that encompasses
McCray’s contemporary approach: stinging notes, blaring uptown
brass and a liquid-smooth baritone. McCray’s intensity comes through
loud and clear on the sweeping story he sings on the title cut and his
soulful treatment of the classic “Soul Shine.” Still, it’s hard to get a real
fix on the man’s style from his recordings.
McCray’s late 1990’s releases included 1998’s Believe It on HOB
Records and Meet Me At The Lake on the Atomic Theory label, which
took a more relaxed approach to the blues and R&B landscapes he
explores. In 2000, he released Believe It, followed by a live recording
in 2006, and his self-titled record in 2007.
With artists recording an album every two years and touring nonstop
in support, McCray is an unusual exception. He’s gone five years
without a record, but continues to tour as an in-demand blues act.
One night he’s perform in a packed blues club for hours, the next day,
PHOTOGRAPHY © MARILYN STRINGER

he might be on a festival stage in front of thousands, and the next day
he might be on a plane to share his fiery brand of blues with overseas
audiences.
“The people give me the energy. If I see people responding to
my music or having enough interest in my music that they come out
to support me, that’s what gives me energy to give them everything
we have.
“The goal is to be as professional and rewarding as I possible
can. It would be great to headline some of these festivals, but the
people demand who gets where. It’s all about the presentation when I
entertain. I try and always show emotion when I play to connect with
each person in the audience. It’s a matter of reaching the people and
getting their approval.”
McCray is a member of a generation of blues guitarists who
were raised on the innovations and creativity of post war electric blues
guitarists like B.B., Albert, and Freddie King, Luther Allison, Otis Rush,
Buddy Guy, Magic Sam, and others. Today he feels his generation
has taken what they were given by the guitar masters and contributed
much to the evolution of the blues.
“You can see the changing face of it in every new generation.
We bring a different rhythm to the blues. Those guys were all part of a
style that was the face of the blues at one time. That’s who we learned
our blues chops from. The chops Albert and Freddie laid down are
what’s deep in our hearts. It’s the core of what we do. We’ve taken
those chops and added in other classic rock and funk elements from
what we grew up with – Sly Stone, Otis Redding, Joe Tex, James
Brown, Wilson Pickett, and others were our big brothers who we
learned from.
“Now you’ve got another generation like Joe Bonamassa,
Jonny Lang, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Derek Trucks who’ve come
along after us. I’m sure that our music influenced them somewhat.”
As talented as today’s blues artists are, McCray feels that this
music must be presented with more respect to the general public.
Selling the blues as the soundtrack to solving male ED is not what
Muddy, Wolf, and others intended when they created this sound. “I
think the whole problem with blues music in this world is that it’s never
viewed as an equal. They use it in every form of media – movies,
advertising, sports – but it’s all about the presentation. It’s always taken
lightly, like it’s not a serious music. It you don’t present it like it’s a first
class operation, people aren’t gonna regard it as first class.
“No one gives the music any credit for having evolved. Rock and
roll is not the same as it was 50 years ago. What makes people think
that the blues hasn’t grown. There are some very progressive blues
players who play their instruments as well as musicians in any other
form of music.”
Today, McCray understands the touring and performing climate
has changed drastically from a decade ago. But McCray is a musical
artist who has a vision. “My standard is to not sound like anybody
else. It’s to be the best that I can within the limitations of my own playing.
I’ll never be more than a blues player. Even if I can’t convey the
technique, I’ll always convey the emotion within the music.
“That’s the difference between a player like me and a player who
comes from the school of technique. Their technique and knowledge
of the instrument is gonna take them through all the passages. But I
don’t know where I’m going. I have to feel my way through. I know I
gonna get there one way or another, but sometimes I don’t know how
I’m gonna get there. So when I get there, I get there as Larry McCray,
not Larry McCray imitating B.B. King. However you play, the main
goal as a blues player is to not lose your heart and soul.”
BLUES REVUE 21

An
Interview
with
Southside Chicago native Toronzo Cannon
is a genuine triple threat artist (guitarist/
singer/songwriter) as he amply demonstrated
on Leaving Mood, his dazzling
Delmark debut from late 2011. The southpaw
guitar slinger was born in 1968, but
didn’t start playing until his early twenties.
22 BLUES REVUE
“ There’s a lot of blues to be given
and I’m here to do my part. ”
TORONZO CANNON
by Thomas J. Cullen lll
PHOTOGRAPHY © AIGARS LAPSA
By the mid-nineties he was active on the
Windy City scene playing with a variety of
artists like Tommy McCracken (who gave
him his start), Wayne Baker Brooks, Joanna
Connor, and L.V. Banks, all the while maintaining
his job as a bus driver for the
Chicago Transit Authority, which he still
does to this day. Although the influence of
Jimi Hendrix is pervasive in his music, the
deep Chicago blues he first heard in his
grandfather’s house as a small child is paramount.
Major talents like Toronzo Cannon
give blues fans hope for the future of
the music.
BLUES REVUE: Your uncles used to hang
around the legendary Theresa’s Lounge.
What are some of your earliest memories of
the club?
TORONZO CANNON: My uncles never took
me there, but I would sneak down the block
with my sister and my brother to the ice
cream shop right before they closed. When I
was a kid, I only knew that’s where my
uncles used to hang out. My Uncle Rickey
used to help Theresa with whatever she
needed and with the band. If the drummer
was late, he would play until the drummer
came. My Uncle Pee-Wee was a ladies man;
I’ll just keep it at that. He would help Theresa
buy the liquor she needed when times got
tough. The only memory I really have is looking
over the banister trying to see what the
PHOTOGRAPHY © CONNIE TAYLOR

grown folks were doing. I would hear the
inside stuff at the kitchen table and at
family gatherings.
BR: Did you hear much blues around the
house growing up on the South Side?
TC: Oh yeah, blues and soul music.
Whenever family came over, aunts,
uncles, older cousins and me would peek
through the “blues beads” leading to the
living room. My grandfather loved Little
Walter, especially “My Babe,” and Al
Green. Many nights I would wake up to
the same song that was playing the night
before. As far as radio in that era, it was
early funk and R&B like Chaka Kahn, Sly
Stone, Funkadelic, etc. So, I would hear
that too.
BR: When did you start playing guitar?
What was it about Hendrix that most influenced
you and why does he continue to
be a major influence on guitarists? Any
favorite Hendrix tunes?
TC: I was 22-23 when I first started to play.
My sister bought me an acoustic guitar – a
Harmony that I still have. At that time I was
listening to a lot of reggae. That’s where I
learned my first chords. Then I saw my
first video of Jimi Hendrix, man; it was
visually and audibly beautiful. The lyrics
were right there for you to see. Dig the
lyrics to “Voodoo Child,” “Are You Experienced?,”
Hear My Train A-Comin’,” “Bold
As Love” without getting caught up in the
music part of it, you can see his lyrics.
What Hendrix put down in three and half
years is huge. I don’t care who you are, if
you play electric guitar, there is no way
you can avoid what Hendrix did for guitarists,
and for sellers of electric guitars.
Some try to deny his influence and talk
about their heroes, which is cool, but
chances are their hero was touched by
Hendrix, so they are getting touched by
proxy. Favorite songs would be “Hear My
Train A-Comin’,” “Message To Love,”
“Machine Gun,” “Spanish Castle Magic,”
the list could go on and on.
BR: Who are some of your favorite blues
guitarists?
TC: Right now it’s Gary Clark, Jr. But in the
beginning it was, of course, the three
Kings, B.B., Albert, and Freddie, Buddy
Guy, Otis Rush, Chris Cain, Elmore James.
Hound Dog Taylor, Joe Bonamassa,
Lonnie Brooks, Magic Sam, Ronnie Earl,
Shuggie Otis, TuTu Jones, and Son House.
There’s more but it would take too much
time.
BR: Your Delmark debut is not just a showcase
for your musical and vocal talents but
also for your songwriting. You said that
working as a bus driver for the Chicago
Transit Authority provides inspiration for
your songs. Does your job continue to
influence your new songs? Any favorite
songwriters?
TC: I owe a big thanks to my writing partner
Lawrence Gladney. He has helped me
get my words and thoughts out. He helps
with the music also. I would have lyrics
and situations that I would write down at
work. When I couldn’t go any further in the
songs he would go into this Zen state and
come up with some amazing hooks or
connecting lyrics to my words. Everyday
my job is an inspiration for songs. I work
in a very rough side of town. I see so
much bad and good in the bad (if that
makes sense) to come up with different
situations. But I’ve lived some life too, so
some of my lyrics come from personal
experiences. I find it easier to sing about
things I’ve been through or had some first
hand knowledge of. Some of my favorite
songwriters are Keb’ Mo’, Chris Cain,
Bobby Womack, Robert Cray, Bob Marley,
and Lawrence Gladney.
BR: Your CD is dedicated to the memories
of Chico Banks, Little Jimmy King, L’il Dave
Thompson, L.C. Walker, and L.V. Banks.
What are your feelings about each?
TC: I’ve played with all of those guys
except Little Jimmy King. Chico Banks
was a beautiful dude, funny, fun to be
around, and he could rip your face off with
the guitar! I actually used him as a gauge
about my playing ability. When I first came
on the Chicago blues scene there was a
jam at B.L.U.E.S. that he was part of.
Whenever new cats were in a situation to
play with him, he would come down off
the stage. So, I told myself I’m going to
play with him. I took it as a challenge. I’m
sure he didn’t think two thoughts about
getting up with the jammers, but it motivated
me. Before his death we played San
Jose, Lima, Ohio, and were supposed to
do a show in Michigan before he got sick.
BLUES REVUE 23

Little Jimmy King’s Live From Monterey
album made me start playing and buying
Flying V’s. His tone, his licks, and his voice
made me a fan. I met him one time in Memphis
before I knew he had a twin. I had mistaken
his brother (Daniel Gales) for him.
That was funny. Been a fan of L’il Dave
Thompson when he was playing his guitar
with a quarter and spraying his fretboard
with 10-40 oil. I would run from my gig to
play his last set when he was in Chicago.
L.C. Walker, another good dude gone.
He’s the reason I carry around business
cards today. He wanted me to play with him
on a gig, so I go to write my number down
on a napkin. He says, “Would you trust a
dentist writing his number on a napkin?” He
took the napkin and the next time I saw him
he had four sheets of business cards that I
had to cut out myself. He said, “This should
get you started.”
L.V. Banks was an elder statesman of
Southside blues. He was my first experience
playing on the South Side. So you
know I had to learn something! I would
have one pedal on the floor and he would
look down and look at me, then look down
24 BLUES REVUE
again and look at me and say, “This ain’t no
rock-n-roll show. This is my sound right
here” and wiggle his fingers. Very good
memories of these dudes no matter how
small or great.
BR: What’s the current Chicago blues scene
like? What are some of your favorite clubs?
TC: The current state of Chicago blues is
like everywhere else: bands want to work
and show their stuff and keep the genre
alive. There might be added pressure on
Chicago musicians because of the history
of Chicago, as we know it. I have to thank
Delmark Records for giving new Chicago
blues guys and ladies a chance in getting
our music out. People like Mike Wheeler,
Demetria Taylor, Linsey Alexander, and
Quintus McCormick. My favorite clubs in
Chicago are B.L.U.E.S., Buddy Guy’s Legends,
House of Blues, and Rosa’s.
BR: You recently came east for the first time
in July to play the Bucks County Blues Society
30th Annual R&B Picnic. Any plans to
tour the West Coast or Europe?
TC: I just played the San Jose Jazz Festival
and I do have tentative plans to return to
France and Latvia.
BR: Are you working on a follow-up to
Leaving Mood? If so, can you give us a brief
preview?
TC: Oh yes. It’ll be more songs from my
experiences in life. I try to write songs that
you can see, songs that someone has felt in
life. But the whole CD won’t be downer
songs. I have fun too, BIG FUN. All of that
will come out on the next CD.
BR: What do you envision for the future of
the blues?
TC: In some ways Chicago artists are under
represented at some festivals. If they want
Chicago blues, we’re here, ready to give it to
you. But the future relies on everybody doing
his or her part to keep the genre alive.
Attention: promoters, booking agents, record
labels, club owners, fans of the music, radio,
and musicians – there’s a lot of blues to be
given, and I’m here to do my part!

Alexis P. Suter
THE BIG VOICE OF THE BLUES
Aby Kay Cordtz
Alexis P. Suter commands your attention the instant she walks
onstage. The plus-sized singer moves slowly and deliberately, like a
cherubic African queen in her flowing tunic, pants, and black top
hat. She is all business as she approaches the microphone, plants
her feet, throws back her head, and attacks the song in a startling,
bass-baritone voice as formidable as her stage presence.
Nominated in last year’s Blues Music Awards as Best Soul
Blues Female Artist, her talent has been publicly recognized by
music icons like B.B. King and Levon Helm, as well as by no less
an authority than Blues Brother Dan Aykroyd, who once called her
“America’s number one contender for Queen of the Blues.” But
Suter discovered her affinity for the genre just seven or eight years
ago after a lifetime of singing gospel music and a whirlwind few
years as a house music phenomenon in New York City and Japan.
The daughter of well-known gospel singer Carrie Suter, she
started singing in church as a young child and played drums, tuba,
and sousaphone in her Brooklyn elementary and middle school
bands. She quit playing those instruments in high school, but
continued to sing, notably in the All-City High School Chorus, where
she was the only female bass-baritone in the 250-voice choir.
“Any chance I had to sing, I would take it,” she said. “Watching
my mother sing with gospel choirs, I knew what I wanted to do.
The difference is that my mother also taught music in the school
system and for me, singing is what I do for a living.”
PHOTOGRAPHY (ABOVE) © JOSEPH A. ROSEN
PHOTOGRAPHY (RIGHT) © MARILYN STRINGER
BLUES REVUE 25

Suter became a parent at a young age, but continued on her
path. (Daughter Carrie is studying to be an opera singer and son
Albert is a Seattle-area hip-hop musician.) She had her first measure
of success when a young man with an independent record label fell in
love with her voice and introduced her to the dance music scene. She
wrote some lyrics to an electronica beat track and in 1989, a group
called 4 To The Bar featuring a roaring Alexis P. Suter put out a 12-inch
disc titled “Slam Me, Baby.” It became an overnight underground hit.
Another house music hit, “Stop! (We Need Each Other),”
attracted attention overseas and in the early ‘90s, Suter became the
first African-American woman signed to Sony Japan; she toured that
country and elsewhere on the strength of the recordings she did for
them. Suter attributes the termination of that relationship to poor management,
and she left the music business for several years as a result.
But her luck changed when she met Vicki Bell. “A young man
who I grew up with had a group called Jack and Jill,” Suter said. “He
knew I had been really down, so he asked me to come and sing with
his band. Vicki was one of his background singers.”
Bell not only sang in blues and rock bands, she had worked for
years on Broadway as a singer and dancer. Not easily impressed,
she was amazed by Suter’s vocal power. “I had the same reaction as
everyone does who hears her sing,” Bell said. “I thought ‘wow, I’ve
never heard a voice like hers, ever!’ She was also very respectful to
me and the other singer and we hit it off immediately.”
Not long after, Bell married drummer and fellow Broadway veteran
Ray Grappone, and they formed Hipbone Records with the intention of
showcasing dance music’s soulful side by incorporating live music in
26 BLUES REVUE
every mix. But they needed a marquis performer. “We needed a singer
who could really knock them out, and Alexis came to mind right away,
“ Bell said. “It was the perfect way for us to get back together.”
It proved to be a perfect fit, and Suter became the first Hipbone
artist. Starting with 1998’s “All Night Long,” together they put out several
dozen 12-inch vinyl dance records. “Vicki and Ray, they saw
something in me and never quit,” Suter said. “But we knew that we
were much more than house music.”
Grappone also played in a Brooklyn blues and rock band with his
college friend Jimmy Bennett and his bass player brother Peter. Bell
also sang with the band but was expanding her role in the business.
“We were all kind of growing and maturing as artists and producers
and writers, and we thought the dance music genre just wasn’t
good enough for Alexis,” Bell said. “We had to do something that was
not like a DJ genre for her and that’s how Shuga Fix, Hipbone’s first
full length CD, on which we all played, came about in 2005.”
The record includes Robert Johnson’s “Rollin’ And Tumblin’” as
well as a version of Suter’s dance hit “All Night Long” and two original
songs, “Teacher Man” and “Ride Ride,” that would soon become fan
favorites and staples of the band’s growing repertoire.
At about the same time, Suter impressed another musician who
would become crucial to her career. Levon Helm had been sitting in
on drums occasionally with the Bennett Brother Band while recovering
from vocal chord cancer. At the same time, Bell had become friendly
with Helm’s daughter Amy, who recorded her own 12-inch dance
record for Hipbone. At a benefit concert in a Brooklyn church, Suter
finally met the man who would be an important mentor.

“Amy, Vicki, and I needed a place to rehearse and there were no
dressing rooms,” Suter said, “so Amy said we should get in the limousine
where her father was waiting to be called in to play. After a
while, Vicki and Amy went to the ladies room and left Levon and me
by ourselves. It was a bit awkward at first but we started a conversation
about movies he had appeared in, then we started talking about
his career and I told him about what I wanted to do with mine. After
the show that night, he invited me to come sing at the Ramble.”
The Midnight Rambles, which he hosted at his barn/studio in
Woodstock from 2004 until his death earlier this year, were exclusive
house concerts for Helm’s fans from around the world. Soon Suter
and her band became the regular opening act. At first, they were
billed as the Bennett Brothers Band featuring Alexis P. Suter, but when
Jimmy Bennett had to temporarily relocate to Florida with his family,
they became the Alexis P. Suter Band. Between 2005 and 2008, they
opened at the Ramble 96 times.
“People really embraced us there,” Suter said. “I owe so much
to Levon and his legacy. He really saw something in us, saw something
in me. He taught us a lot about this business and a lot about
people.”
Suter’s second record, the CD/DVD Live At The Midnight Ramble
was recorded in 2006. It includes her versions of “Precious Lord,
Take My Hand” and “Louisiana 1927,” which fans still request at her
shows, having first heard her sing them at the Ramble.
As word of her vocal prowess spread, doors opened for Suter
and her band. In 2006, they opened for B.B. King at his New York City
club and he praised her performance at the beginning of his set.
(They have opened for him twice since.) After other bands began
playing the opening set at the Ramble several years ago, Suter
quickly became a familiar name on the roster at blues festivals on the
east coast, the Midwest, and in Canada.
She released her second studio album, Just Another Fool, in
2008. The band did a two-week tour of Italian festivals in 2010 and
opened for Etta James at B.B. King’s. In 2011, they released their latest
record, Two Sides. Along the way, they added well-known Brooklyn
keyboard player Benny Harrison to the lineup.
“I have much respect and love for all of the members of my
band,” Suter said. “Like any family, we have our ups and downs, but
we work it out. That’s why I love this band so much. These are people
who have longstanding relationships with each other and I think
that’s what really has sustained us for so long.”
During the summer of 2012, the Alexis P. Suter Band made
appearances at festivals including Tampa Bay, Jacksonville, Memphis/
Beale St., the Crawfish Festival in New Jersey, and Briggs Farm in
Pennsylvania. They also performed at the Blues Music Awards in
Memphis, where Suter was nominated for Female Soul Blues Artist.
Although Denise LaSalle won, Suter said, “I still feel like a winner
because I got beat by royalty. Being at the awards was overwhelming
in such a good way. Those beautiful people paved the way for me.”
Through the years, the Alexis P. Suter Band made occasional
appearances at Helm’s Midnight Ramble and was scheduled to play
there the week he died. “He always kept track of what we were
doing,” Suter said. “He would even call my mother from time to time.
It was very hard for all of us when he passed away.”
Suter and her band are at work on a new studio album and
live DVD for 2013. In the meantime, her fans can see her at the
Falcon Arts Center in Marlboro, NY, where the band has been playing
once a month. “We’re happy right now,” she said, “and working
on being content.”
BLUES REVUE 27

The Hook Up
One bluesman had never flown overseas. Another doesn’t
like European food. And the third…well…he’d rather drink than
eat. Armed with this knowledge, my buddy Jeff Konkel of Broke &
Hungry Records and I crossed our fingers, said a prayer, and proceeded
to book a We Juke Up In Here Mississippi-to-Switzerland
blues caravan in August 2012.
To be fair, we had a fine conspiratorial team in the Rootsway
Roots & Blues Association of Parma, Italy. They helped us get the
hook up with the Geneva Arts Festival. And what a hook up it was.
Each August, the festival builds a huge, semi-permanent
amphitheater for one month of major concert and film events. It
was an enormous stage, complete with a drive-in size screen
behind it. The seating was stadium style, and the backstage green
rooms consisted of a series of attached trailers. Built for rock
stars, we filled the venue with three of the most real-deal Delta
bluesmen we know: Terry “Harmonica” Bean, Jimmy “Duck”
Holmes, and Louis “Gearshifter” Youngblood.
The night before our We Juke Up In Here: Mississippi’s Juke
Joint Culture At The Crossroads screening and concert debut,
reggae-rap star Shaggy packed the house. When our two nights
28 BLUES REVUE
YOUNGBLOOD
HOLMES, BEAN, AND YOUNGBLOOD
were done, Kool & the Gang took to the stage. (The Gang
checked out our second night, incidentally, though they seemed
more bewildered by it than anything.)
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s back up.
THERE ARE ABSOLUTELY NO GUARANTEES
While the plane tickets may have been purchased, when you are
dealing with Delta-crazy blues characters in Mississippi, I’m here
HOLMES
HOLMES
to tell you that there are absolutely no guarantees of anyone with
a guitar or harmonica gettin’ on no airplane.
For one thing, Holmes had only ever flown once before (to
NYC – and not a good flight!) and had turned down many previous
offers to fly across the big pond. And then there’s the fact that of the
seven of us going (Jeff, me, three musicians and our two cameramen
– Damien Blaylock and Lou Bopp), none of us even live in the
same town. You may think you know “iffy”? Well, we know iffy.
Somewhat surprisingly – though not without many phone calls
and a seriously sleepless night – everyone made it to the Memphis
airport. Everyone even remembered passports. The flight over was
actually pretty good. Harmonica hit on the stewardesses, Duck
slept, and Gearshifter drank. However, upon our arrival we learned
that some of our luggage had gone left when we went right.
PHOTOGRAPHY © LOU BOPP

An experienced world-traveler, Mr. Bopp was just short of tracking
down the president of the airlines in search of his missing camera
bag while Gearshifter took on a generally depressed demeanor as
he stared at the empty baggage carrousel going round and round.
All of his luggage was missing. (Ok, all one piece of it.)
IT’S NOT JUST FOR BREAKFAST ANY MORE
The next morning, I came downstairs at the hotel in search of coffee
and breakfast. I was greeted by a slightly scruffier Gearshifter – still
in his travel outfit – eating a bowl of potato chips and drinking a
beer. He was pondering the fate of his luggage.
This pondering lasted for another bowl of potato chips and two
more beers as the rest of us woke up to caffeine and muesli. (Later,
he had the “worst beer I’ve ever tasted” from his room’s mini-bar.
Upon closer examination, we informed him that it was actually a very
expensive – if mini – bottle of brut champagne.)
On our first night of shows, we arrived early at the concert/film
venue and took all the guitars back to the green room trailers. They
were outfitted comfortably with chairs, tables and – wait for it
– beverages. Yes, the first night, mixed in with the bottled waters
and soda cans, there was a surprisingly tasty selection of beers in
all of the trailers.
To be fair, our musician-friend Gearshifter was nervous. Back in
Mississippi, he rarely plays outside of his hometown, and he’s only
been overseas one other time – about five years ago. Fortunately, he
is a man who can handle his booze.
You may have noticed above that I said there were beers back
stage the first night? Well, let’s just say that after…uh…“someone”
finished all of them off, they didn’t restock for the second night.
Still, and this is the honest truth, Gearshifter played amazing
the first night and second. The first night he attacked the blues, diving
in headfirst from the get-go. The second night was a slow, slow
burn but every bit as effective.
THE BALANCE OF THE “WE JUKE” TRIO
Aside from an aversion to non-soul food, Harmonica Bean is turn-key.
You wind him up, point him towards the stage, and he takes over. He
is an energizing performer who loves his people. Holmes, on the
other hand, wins over his audience with his mesmerizing, deep blues
groove. He brings Bentonia, Mississippi, to wherever he plays. And
you believe it. We concluded each night with the trio of Gearshifter,
Holmes, and Harmonica jamming out a song or two together.
Initially, there was some trepidation (and a lot of trash talk) about
this encore jam since only Holmes and Harmonica had played
together previously, and Gearshifter’s style might be considered relatively
more modern. But, the excitement (or was it tension?) that
resulted really pushed it over the top, making the encores truly
memorable highpoints. Once the encore applause died down, we
screened the film featuring these fine bluesmen and others, and the
rest is history.
For more on the “We Juke Up in Here” film and caravan tours,
visit www.wejukeupinhere.com.
BLUES REVUE 29

Blues Project 2012
“This is the best crowd I ever
played for that wasn’t drunk!” Blues Mandolin
Maestro Rich DelGrosso quipped
last August 17. Bittersweet – a rowdy blues
audience can gratify a player, but ours was
mostly cancer patients grabbing joy and
escape as they fight for their very lives.
The Project Blues shows at LifeCare
Alliance in Columbus, Ohio, were redeeming
for both the players
and our audience. The
next day, we did a second
concert for donors
and sponsors who help
support this mission.
BluesWax.com
reported on 2011’s
Project Blues concerts,
2012 was the third
series, but my first time.
Before I left Columbus
I knew I wanted to tell
you about it.
When I was five in
1954 I sat on my front
stairs, enjoying my
safe, sunny, sheltered
world in Brookline,
Massachusetts. An old
man, probably younger
than I am now, limped by on crutches with
dignified determination. Childishly candid,
I asked, “What happened to you?” He
winced even as his mouth almost smiled
at my innocence. He looked into my eyes
and explained in a hoarse, tremulous
voice I can still hear with perfect sound
memory, “I had Polio.” It was hard for him
to speak.
Only one year later, Medical Science
produced the first Polio vaccine, and I got
mine at my excellent public school. In
1955 public health care was not an “entitlement”
to be weighed socially or politically.
Little Bobby didn’t think about that,
but I remembered the crippled old man
steady dragging the legs he once walked
with, with his arms and wooden crutches. I
even craved the sting of my Polio needle
and wiggled my toes in my U.S. Keds in
30 BLUES REVUE
hope that I might always be able to. I
expected fulfillment of the other human
aspirations of 1955: We would “go to the
moon,” and “cure cancer.”
I am still brokenhearted that not only
did we fail on the cancer part, but our
world is more toxic than ever. The clients
of LifeCare Alliance and the Columbus
Cancer Center, as well as Project Blues’
DIUNNA GREENLEAF, KENNY “BEEDY EYES” SMITH, MARTY ROMIE,
JOHN DEL TORO RICHARDSON, BOB MARGOLIN, AND TOM HOLLAND
musicians friends, families, and they themselves
still face this cruel disease. Cancer
is so ubiquitous that we all are touched
and have a personal story. One of mine,
briefly, is that my mother passed from
Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma in 1997. I rode
it down with the woman who brought me
into the world, sheltered me, and taught
me how to love and live. I watched her
lose a little bit of herself each day until she
was gone.
I have musician friends today, you all
know them too, who battle both cancer in
their bodies and the health care industry.
While I don’t have the money to be a philanthropist,
or even be secure myself as
the cost of living rises, I take opportunities
to donate my time and music.
I was thrilled and honored to perform
at Project Blues with old and new friends:
Diunna Greenleaf, Kenny “Beedy Eyes”
Smith, Bob Stroger, Dave Specter,
Omar Coleman, Columbus' own Marty
Romie and Brian Duress, Dave West,
Rich DelGrosso, John Popovich, Sean
Carney, Anson Funderburgh, and Christian
Dozzler. Jonn Del Toro Richardson and
Tom Holland hosted and turned our gang
into an entertaining revue. Onstage, we
had magic moments where the blues
transported us all to a place where
nothing hurts.
All the musicians had to do was
close our eyes and look inside to our personal
losses for motivation to push back
against cancer. And when our eyes
opened, we were inspired and moved by
Columbus’ cancer crusaders right in front
of us.
When I arrived for sound check
before the first show, I had a very powerful
experience taking the tour of LifeCare
Alliance provided by President and CEO
Chuck Gehring. Today, treatment and
patient life services are less affordable
than ever to cancer victims who suddenly
have less earning power when they need
it most. Cancer centers in the U.S. are
underfunded and closing. LifeCare
Alliance is a model of “find a way” in a
world of “don’t get sick but if you do,
die quick.”
PHOTOGRAPHY © DUSTY SCOTT

The Columbus Cancer Clinic is the
oldest free cancer clinic in the United
States. It was founded in 1921 by Catherine
Nelson Black, to assist those dealing with
cancer. It merged into LifeCare Alliance in
2005 in to save administrative costs and
create a more efficient and effective delivery
model. They provide education about
prevention and early detection, head-to-toe
screenings, examinations, and mammograms,
regardless of ability to pay.
Last year, they served 3,469 clients,
providing 1,593 mammograms, 1,163
screenings, and 713 families
with home care support
services. Generally, these
clients would not have
access to these services
due to lack of ability to pay.
Home Care Support provides
low income, underinsured
or uninsured
individuals living with cancer
with medical supplies
and equipment, medication
assistance, transportation
to and from cancer related
medical appointments,
pantry items, nutritional
supplements, and emergency
financial assistance,
including rent and utility
payments.
They prevent homelessness.
They provide
skilled nursing care, home
health aides, social work,
therapy, and dietary assistance
needed to maintain
the client and their family in
their home. All Home Care
Support services are provided
free of charge.
Columbus Cancer Center also provides
wigs and breast prostheses. Almost 60% of
their clients have incomes below $20,000
annually, and 80% of their clients are
female, and 42% are minorities.
Due to the merger, Columbus Cancer
Clinic clients also have access to LifeCare
Alliance help such as Meals-on-Wheels, pet
food, wellness and homemaking services.
Chuck Gehring told us that 70% of their
clients have pets. That doesn’t surprise me,
I understand how animal companions help
and soothe the spirit.
These services do not just rely on
government assistance or the charity of
kindhearted donors. LifeCare Alliance
operates Social Entrepreneurship enterprises
to assist in accepting all clients in
need. The Project Blues concert was held
in their Catering Event Center. LifeCare
Alliance Catering is a full service catering
company operated by LifeCare Alliance.
The profits from it help to pay for clients
when funding does not exist. In 2012,
catering will pay for over 400 clients. For
the past decade, LifeCare Alliance has
accepted all qualified clients in need.
Most similar programs in the United States
have large waiting lists.
Jonn Del Toro Richardson told me,
“My family was impacted by this when my
dad was diagnosed with lymphoma cancer
and my mom had to quit work to tend
to him. I thank God my mom taught us
about family and my sisters and I pulled
together to get through those tough days
ahead. We had each other, but there are
many out there that have no one to turn to
and rely on the help of others. When Mike
Berichon approached me about Project
Blues I was in right away. We put a show
together for the patients and it all just went
from there.
“I personally enjoy performing for the
patients and clients, to see them light up
PHOTOGRAPHY © DUSTY SCOTT
and enjoy themselves is an amazing sight.
I'll never forget one lady thanking us for
coming, she said to me ‘I haven't been out
of my house for a year other then hospital
and doctors visits and haven't had any visitors
except for the food bank this made my
year.’ I can't begin to tell you how much that
statement affected me.”
Mike Berichon is a Columbus music
lover who was instrumental in conceiving
Project Blues. He took on much of the organizational
work, and it is no surprise that he
too is driven by what cancer has taken from
him. Mike wrote his feelings for his sister in
this poem, and works so that others might
not have to experience his loss:
Roses And Thorns
by Mike “Bear” Berichon
Helplessly…
Watching darkness overtake the day
I’d give anything to find a way
To keep the darkness at bay
I don’t know what to say
To give her hope…to give me hope
I love you….this hurts
Roses and Thorns
I want The Power to change
Snap His fingers and re-arrange
I am her, she is me
If I pray it, can He make it be?
Out from the gloom, show her light
You’re beautiful…I am empty
Roses and Thorns
Runnin’ down the road at 90 plus
Blues a blarin’ and comforting us
I am me, and she is she
He says that’s how it has to be
I'll never forget that ride.
Sure was a beautiful day…I miss her.
Roses and Thorns
Hopefully…
Watching darkness overtake the day
Finally, I have found a way
To make the darkness go away
I now know what to say
To give her hope…to give me hope
Sure is a beautiful day…we are one
Roses and Roses
© 2010 Mike “Bear” Berichon
BLUES REVUE 31

The Texas Blues of
Blind Lemon Jefferson
by Michael Cala
I grew up in a four-generation, Sicilian-American
household in Brooklyn in the 1960s and listened to
AM radio. My great uncles, who had long moved away,
left behind dozens of 78 RPM records that wound up
in basement boxes. Italian tenors, big bands, and
“songbirds” appeared on well-known labels such as
Columbia, Bluebird, Paramount, Decca, and RCA.
Whenever I could, I’d forage quietly in the messy
basement, looking for treasures. One day, searching the
records, I found a label I’d never seen: Okeh Records
– and under the logo, in small letters, “a subsidiary of
Columbia Records.” This was Columbia’s “race” label.
The platter was mint, the singer/pianist Gladys
Bentley, and the songs were “Worried Blues” and
“Ground Hog Blues,” recorded in 1928. I ran upstairs
to the living room console and played “Worried Blues”
first. Before she finished playing the first eight bars of
barrelhouse piano – dressed as usual in manly attire
– she belted the lyrics in a shockingly froggy, powerful,
scat-laden style that blew me away.
I called Columbia Records in New York City, said that I
had a 78 blues record here, and was quickly connected to
the late Bob Altschuler, then the V.P. in charge of Columbia’s
massive blues remastering project. Ascertaining that
he didn’t have my two sides in his collection, Altschuler
invited me to his office. Next day, as soon as school let out,
I took the train to 52nd Street’s “Black Rock” corporate
headquarters, and to his office, a teak-paneled museum
loaded with framed records, reel-to-reel tape players,
videotape machines, fine art, and sculpture.
“Trade or buy?” he asked. I said I didn’t know, but I
really wasn’t a record collector. “Want to trade, then?”
“For what?”
Altschuler pointed behind him to a credenza loaded
with plastic-sealed LP remasters of Columbia’s race music library.
These were the first new iterations of old 78 masters on listenable
LPs, thanks to a new “pop and click” recording filter invented by
Columbia engineers. My new collection included Bessie Smith,
Leroy Carr, Charley Patton, Willie McTell, Petey Wheatstraw,
Leadbelly, Lucille Bogan, Memphis Minnie, various black jug and
novelty bands, multiple anthologies featuring all the great bluesmen,
and the only two LPs of Robert Johnson’s 24 recorded sides.
“Deal,” I said, about to pee myself with delight. It took three trips
to get the records home, and almost six months to listen to all 42 LPs.
When I got home that first night, I picked a gatefold, two-record
anthology. Of all the artists, it was Blind Lemon Jefferson, even more
than Johnson or Bentley, whose singing startled me. His voice was
32 BLUES REVUE
eerily high, and the primitive recording technology of his early sides
– lots of echo – suggested he was singing to me from the ether,
rather than from a recording. His subjects were love gone wrong,
the joys of sex, the difficulties of living, the inevitability of suffering
and death.
Jefferson was born blind in Couchman, Texas, in 1893. He was
one of seven children raised in a farming family. By 1912, he had
moved near Dallas, where he performed on city streets and clubs in
the Deep Ellum section. Around 1914, he began playing guitar regularly
at picnics and parties. He also listened closely to the singing of
field hands and local guitar players as well as the many Mexican
guitarists who often incorporated flamenco and other Latin styles
that Lemon adapted into his playing.
(BLIND LEMON JEFFERSON) ILLUSTRATION © TIM POWER

In 1925, a Texas talent agent sent a demo recording of
Jefferson to Mayo Williams at Paramount Records in Chicago.
Jefferson was sent for, and he recorded spirituals under the pseudonym
L.J. Bates. He was recorded using a primitive Edison-type horn
into which the artist had to sing. To modern ears, these sound very
poor, and filters help only so much. A couple of years later, however,
he was recorded with electrified equipment, and therefore the reproduced
sound is much better.
Unlike most other blues performers, Lemon was a prolific writer
of his own songs, performing with intensity at once hypnotic and
poignant. His most famous originals include the oft-recorded
“Matchbox Blues,” “Corinna,” “See That My Grave Is Kept Clean,”
and the lascivious “Black Snake Moan.” In all, he recorded 110
songs (including outtakes) within the few years before his tragic
death in 1929, when he was found dead on a Chicago street during
a snowstorm. He was 36 years old.
Lemon’s complex style of guitar finger picking influenced
fellow Texas bluesmen as well as B.B. King, who has often invoked
Jefferson as an influence. According to historian Robert Uzzel, in
his Blind Lemon Jefferson: His Life, His Death, and His Legacy
(Austin: Eakin Press, 2002), “[Lemon’s] significance has been
acknowledged by blues, jazz, and rock musicians, from Sam
“Lightnin’” Hopkins, Mance Lipscomb, and T-Bone Walker to Bessie
Smith, Bix Beiderbecke, Louis Armstrong, Carl Perkins, Jefferson
Airplane, and the Beatles.”
Jefferson’s habit of recruiting young musicians to help him get
around leaves us with some information. Although Leadbelly was
senior to Lemon, he considered the blind man a superior musician,
as does posterity. They toured together, and Leadbelly revered the
memory of Lemon all his life, even writing a memorable tune titled,
“Blind Lemon’s Blues.”
Lemon was rich by contemporary standards, driving in chauffeured
cars and eating well, all the while maintaining a strong hankering
for the ladies – many of whom he’d meet in Deep Ellum and
in Delta towns on his playing tours. His sex life was such that it
became legendary among Delta musicians. He did marry, however,
to a woman named Roberta Ranson, and is alleged to have had
children, including a son when he was around 30.
Stylistically, his songs often repeat the same melodies and guitar
riffs, although others are more eclectic. He played dances a lot, and
would call out the names of dances while singing. In his darker,
brooding pieces, he made extensive use of single-note runs, apparently
picked with his thumb. He played in various tunings and keys to
accommodate his vocals, which often featured low, plaintive moans,
underscored with minor chords, lending modal darkness to the tunes.
In 1994, Document Records issued 90 performances by Blind
Lemon Jefferson as The Complete Works, using Paramount and
small label masters, on four disks in chronological order. The producers
culled the best versions of existing masters, and the sound is
very good on a majority of the tracks.
BLUES REVUE 33

The Toronto Blues Society (TBS) has been nurturing the
national blues scene since it formed in 1985 – the last 16 of these
years recognized in the form of the Maple Blues Awards (MBAs).
From its mission statement, wherein the TBS is “dedicated to the
promotion and preservation of the blues,” to the fact that the potential
fan base for Canadian blues is spread over the second-largest
country in the world makes this a tall challenge. Needless to say, a
significant body of talent can get lost over such a massive area.
From the pockets of blues artists harbored in St. John’s, Newfoundland
to Victoria, British Columbia; from Waldron,
Saskatchewan to Whitehorse in the Yukon, the MBAs attempt to
remedy this situation by doing their best to seek out and recognize
the cream of Canadian blues talent with an eye to nurturing it along
the way.
From its industry and media-based nominating committee to
its online voting procedure – giving a voice to all Canadian fans,
the MBAs work hard to
draw attention to where STRONGMAN
it’s needed most: to the
musicians and their
work.
Every two years,
the TBS organizes a
Blues Summit (this was
their sixth) capped off
by the MBA gala on the
final evening. The Summit
is designed to further
the universal blues
cause by bringing
together artists, promoters,
fans, likeminded
blues societies,
media, and industry
representatives for the
purpose of educating, idea-sharing, elbow rubbing, and network
building. It packs a three-day schedule with artist showcases, targeted
conversation, and a little bit of showbiz. The net result is an
intensive soaking in some of the best blues Canada has to offer.
The Royal Conservatory’s stunning performance room,
Koerner Hall, has set the stage for the MBA event for the last few
years, dressing up the blues while elevating the image of this
auspicious annual occasion. Ably hosted by Toronto actor and
bandleader, Raoul Bhaneja, the evening moved ahead on
greased rails thanks to the Maple Blues Band, a Dream Team of
Toronto’s best bluesmen under the musical direction of big-bottomed-bassist
Gary Kendall (awarded Bassist of the Year on this
occasion).
The audience was treated to performances, backed by the
band, from Harrison Kennedy, Suzie Vinnick, Steve Strongman,
The Harpoonist and the Axe Murderer, Nanette Workman, Carlos
del Junco, and Matt Minglewood, a clear highlight of the evening.
Winners from both coasts blanketed the Ontario-based, multiple
award winners which, if nothing else, serves to push everyone
34 BLUES REVUE
16 TH ANNUAL
MAPLE BLUES AWARDS
Koerner Hall – Toronto
January 21, 2013
to play a little harder, regardless of where they’re from. You can
find this year’s lineup of award winners from an impressive field of
nominations at the link below.
The best news was the appearance of new blood in the mix
with some notable upsets by fresh, upcoming talent. Jon Wong, a
progressive sax player
VINNICK
key to the sound of the
24th Street Wailers,
earned his award
against a tough group
of players who often
swap the title each
year. Likewise, in the
keyboard category,
transplanted Birmingham
native, David Vest
(now living in British
Columbia), walked
away with the title
based on the strength
of his latest album
and blistering skills.
Ottawa’s Monkey-
Junk, Toronto’s Suzie
Vinnick, and Hamilton’s Steve Strongman each took home multiple
awards. The coveted lifetime achievement award was won by
much-loved Cape Bretoner, Matt Minglewood, while another
blues heart was recognized as longtime TBS organizer and selfconfessed
music hound John Valenteyn took home the Blues
Booster award for his years of dedicated service.
For a complete list of winners, go to torontobluessociety.com
– Eric Thom
SHAKURA S’AIDA WITH VALENTEYN
PHOTOGRAPHY (THIS PAGE) © ERIC THOM

The Allen Room is the smaller of two superb performance
spaces at Jazz at Lincoln Center, located at West 60th Street in
New York City. This night’s bill featured Alvin Youngblood Hart,
Phil Wiggins, and Corey Harris. Hart also announced a special
guest – Shemekia Copeland – an announcement that generates
enthusiastic audience applause.
The first part of the set began with Hart’s solo on “Mama Don’t
Allow,” featuring the slide work he does so well. Following this up
with Henry Townsend’s “All I Can Do,” Hart’s solo guitar and baritone
voice were showcased to great advantage.
After three tunes, harp player Wiggins, half of the Cephas-
Wiggins duo, laid down some Little Walter style riffs in a call-andresponse
with Hart on a Mississippi Sheiks’ tune, “Things About
Going My Way.” Harris, known for his Delta-style guitar and Taj
Mahal-like vocals, joined the duo for half a dozen tunes, the highlights
of which were “Black Woman’s Gate,” a riff on the hallowed
spiritual, “Another Man Done Gone,” and a Piedmont-style rendition
of “Mama, That’s Alright,” with Hart playing rhythm and Harris taking
lead. Some great close-harmony singing and Wiggins’s fine harp
playing brought the set together.
When Copeland joined the men
onstage, the audience went wild, and she
didn’t disappoint. With a voice that could
split diamonds, she introduced herself
with a tune she wrote for one of her idols,
the late Jesse Mae Hemphill, a superb
North Mississippi performer with a heartbreakingly
soulful voice. She followed that
up with the raunchy, “Bring Your Fine Self
Home,” and then joined the guys for an
ensemble performance of a Chicago-style
blues rendition of Robert Johnson’s
“Rambling On My Mind.”
The evening was good, but not great.
Hart demonstrated an almost academic
approach to the music, diffidently gliding
through each tune. The same could be
said for Harris. Despite their instrumental
prowess and knowing all the tunes, they
LURRIE BELL
Bar 55 – New York City
September 15, 2012
HART, WIGGINS, HARRIS, AND GUY DAVIS
Bar 55 is an intimate West Village club with original bar furnishings
dating to the 1890s. With smoky tin ceilings and a vintage
walnut back-bar, lonesome patches of linoleum tar dotting the old
wood floor like gopher holes, and tiny tables packed with patrons,
the place seems more like a rural juke joint than an urban pub.
ALVIN YOUNGBLOOD HART
The Allen Room
Lincoln Center – New York City
November 16, 2012
are 21st century interpreters of what was once a vital musical part of
African American life. It seems that it’s appreciated these days primarily
by white middle-aged people. Moreover, the music tonight
sounded canned, rote, without the inwardness that the originators
inscribed into their music behind a lifetime of living the blues. It was
Wiggins and Copeland whose enthusiasm brought an emotional
resonance to the night that Hart and Harris could not quite pull off.
Compare this concert to the “Robert Johnson at 100” gala at
the Apollo last year, and the contrast is clear: the varied performers
who performed praised Johnson by reaching deep inside to find
their emotional connection to the Master and it was palpable. Not so
at the Allen Room, and that’s a doggone shame.
– Michael Cala
It’s a perfect venue for blues guitarist Lurrie Bell and his hot band
of cranking bluesmen on their Devil Ain’t Got No Music Tour, a
national effort supporting Bell's eponymous 2012 CD (Aria B.G.
Records). Lurrie Bell has been headlining for nearly six years. Until
2007, he performed as half of a father-son blues team with his dad,
Chicago-style harp player Carey Bell.
Tonight, Bell performed songs from this excellent collection,
demonstrating another, more personal side to this performer.
Instead of Chicago blues, Bell played mostly R&B/blues-inflected
gospel, reflecting songs and tunes heard in his childhood or taught
to him by his father. In that sense, the album and tour made this a
BLUES REVUE 35
PHOTOGRAPHY © FRANK STEWART courtesy of JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER

personal and moving tribute to his roots. The band, led by producer
and harp virtuoso Matthew Skoller, with Bill Sims, Jr., on slide guitar,
vocals, and keyboard, performed as tightly as any band of seasoned
bluesmen this side of the Muddy Waters Band. The rest of the band
featured a tight, nearly symbiotic percussion section with Andy Hess
on bass and Barry Harrison on drums.
The set led off with “Swing Low (Sweet Chariot)” a gospel
standard, with Bell on acoustic guitar and only minimal backing from
Harrison and Sims. Audience members not familiar with Bell jumped
when they heard the first notes of his resonant voice, full of twists and
turns, as he drove the song deep into the city night.
Other highlights included a close rendering of Mississippi Fred
McDowell’s “It’s A Blessing,” the great gospel composer Thomas A.
WATERMELON SLIM
& LIGHTNIN’ MALCOLM
Coahoma to Sonoma County
Blues Festival
Lagunitas Brewing Company
Petaluma, California
August 20, 2012
The blues is two men telling it like it is. Or so it was on a
summer evening in Petaluma, under a sun receding behind thin
clouds and a few lone trees. Bill Bowker, the decades-long voice
of the blues in Sonoma County, via his radio shows and event
organizing, conceived of and produced this alliteratively-titled
festival to bring the Delta blues sounds of Coahoma County,
Mississippi, to a local stage, so different and so far away.
Coahoma, where musicians like John Lee Hooker, Sam Cooke,
and Ike Turner first saw the light of day, is commonly accepted
as the “birthplace of the blues.”
WILBURN, SLIM, AND MALCOLM
36 BLUES REVUE
Dorsey’s “Search Me, Lord,” Albert Collins’s “Cold Cold Feeling,”
James Peterson’s “Don’t Let the Devil Ride,” Bell's own “Devil Ain’t Got
No Music,” (with an anecdote about “all music is God’s music, therefore
it can’t be the devil’s music”), and a passionate and rousing “Trouble In
My Way.” At the end of the set, the audience stood and applauded
wildly. The shy and self-effacing Bell grinned widely and bowed from
the hip, as reverently as he had played just moments before.
The band played a second set, and rather than repeat the first
set list, Bell opened with a different tune from Devil Ain’t Got No
Music, demonstrating how seriously Lurrie Bell takes his music,
keeping it fresh in the way it was played and how it was presented to
a grateful audience.
– Michael Cala
Watermelon Slim,
SLIM
with two Blues Music
Awards from 17 nominations,
whose resume
includes gigs as a
watermelon farmer,
truckdriver, sawyer
(where he lost part of a
finger), collection
agent, funeral officiator,
and small-time criminal,
presented a set
somewhat akin to a
three-ring circus. Wearing
a maroon silk shirt,
derby hat, gray chinos,
and white shoes,
clothes he said he purchased
at the Super
Soul Shop in his current home, Clarksdale, Mississippi.
Slim, performing solo, has a story to tell about his life, and
he tells it loud, shouting over his lapsteel guitar,
gliding through his composition “The Last Blues,”
using the head of a socket wrench as a slide, and
then Sleepy John Estes’ “Goin’ to Brownsville,” on
which he used a drumstick as a capo. For “Truck
Holler,” one of several workingman’s blues, he
donned a baseball cap while seated and used a
microphone as a makeshift gearshift. “Seems like
that old road don’t never unwind,” he sang,
a cappella.
Joined by co-headliner Lightnin’ Malcolm,
with Jason Wilburn drumming, and Slim back on
lapsteel, the trio rocked their way through
Fred McDowell’s “You Ain’t Gonna Worry,” and
“Highway 61.”
Calling it an existential song, Slim performed
Laura Nyro’s “And When I Die” as a harmonica
solo, before diving into Sonny Boy Williamson’s “I
Don’t Care No More,” in which “the woman wanted
PHOTOGRAPHY © ROBERT FEUER
PHOTOGRAPHY © ROBERT FEUER

convenience but I want love.” Slim exited the stage, with a foolish
grin, pulling himself up by the seat of his pants. This dusty, craggy
old-timer is truly in the mold of America’s long line of folk heroes.
Malcolm, several decades and many miles behind Watermelon
Slim, has personally connected with R.L. Burnside and Junior
Kimbrough, and has their North Mississippi hill country style in his
pocket.
After announcing, “I’m bringing you the Mississippi juke joint
blues,” he and Wilburn ripped into an impressive serving of original
songs with a sound so full you’d swear there were other musicians
joining from backstage. Malcolm’s raw, hypnotic blues excited the
audience on the opener “Treat That Woman Right,” followed by the
dreamy “Last Night I Held An Angel,” then the Hooker-styled “Crawlin’
“Midnight In Harlem”at midnight. “Angel From Montgomery”
under a full moon. Those were some of my thoughts as the
Tedeschi Trucks band bulldozed through three two-hour shows
on the October 2012 Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise stages.
The party began on the first night with a furious, all out cover of
George Harrison’s “Wah-Wah” in the confines of the ship’s
Celebrity Theater and ended four nights later at one a.m. on the
pool deck with cruisers dancing to Sly Stone’s “I Want To Take You
Higher.” And I can attest that this 11-piece band did exactly that
with every song.
Three nights of shows in four days to
the same audience can be a daunting
task, but the Tedeschi Trucks band was
clearly up to the challenge. When the
ensemble opened with the blasting horns
and double drummers on “Wah-Wah,” I
thought I was hearing Ringo and Jim Keltner
opening the Concert For Bangladesh.
It was a magical moment. From there,
Susan Tedeschi lead the band on “Don’t
Let Me Slide,” augmented by a gorgeous
horn and background ending, and “Rollin’
and Tumblin’,” with Tedeschi’s emotional
guitar at the forefront, before settling into
“Midnight In Harlem,” Derek Trucks’ and
the band’s signature journey into what this
band is capable of.
After Mike Mattison came center
stage for his “I Know” and a duet with
Tedeschi on “Shelter,” the band satisfied
the blues lovers in the Theater with “The
Sky Is Crying.” The rest of the night
included Saunders Sermons’ elegant gospel reading of Old Time
Lovin’,” Kofi Burbridge’s swirling keyboard work behind Tedeschi on
“Bound For Glory,” Maurice Brown’s blaring trumpet solo on
Uptight,” and the encore, Tedeschi’s stripped down “Angel From
Montgomery” and the full tilt joyous “Sweet Inspiration” duet
between Mark Rivers and Tedeschi.
At the end, the fan behind me exclaimed, “I’ve never seen
energy like that. I just found my new, favorite band!”
Baby” where he’s “crawlin’ away from home.” “Young Woman
Old-Fashioned Ways,” with the line “She greets me at the door with
an apron on,” depicted this blues man’s preference in women.
Joined by Sonoma County harmonica hero Charlie Musselwhite,
the band peaked on two numbers, including a tight version of “So
Many Women,” with Malcolm tormenting the guitar’s high register.
As the sky darkened, Malcolm and Wilburn seemingly cut
loose even more, creating droning, penetrating distortion, while
never losing touch with their sweet melodies on “Guilty Man” and
“Renegade.”
It was a night for two men from Mississippi, telling their stories,
baring their souls, and defining the legacies they’ll leave behind them.
– Robert Feuer
TEDESCHI TRUCKS BAND
Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise
Caribbean
October 27- November 3, 2012
What that person didn’t know was that was the first show
that sax player Bryan Lopes and bassist Dave Monsey played with
this band.
TRUCKS AND TEDESCHI
“This was probably our most high stress gig because we didn’t
get a chance to rehearse on this one with a new bass player and sax
player,” said Trucks. “That first night, there were 16 songs that we
had never played together and some pretty complex tunes. Sound
check was in the room with an acoustic bass and guitar and people
clappin’ their hands and singin’ through the nuances of an 11-piece
band and two and a half hour show. With as much improvisation and
ESP that this band has developed, there were certainly times where
BLUES REVUE 37
PHOTOGRAPHY © ART TIPALDI

things during the first show that were touch and go for a moment.
But I don’t think many people out front can tell the difference.”
Trucks continued. “When we have three shows like this, I want
it be a long arc. We really wanted to hit it hard that first show. The
first show opened with “Wah-Wah.” That’s such a great song with a
band this big. Right outta the gate, the band’s making a point. It
shows what a band like this can sound like. Once the first show was
done, and we felt pretty good about it, I wanted the second one to
be more settled in. That’s when we can stretch out and go hard left
or right and play whatever we feel.
“The second show was the most adventurous of the three. I
never thought about it to the point where I had to keep reminding
myself that I should probably cue the new guys, but it felt so good
and natural that I’d forget that there was anything different on-stage.
The second show of the three felt effortless. And that’s a good place
to be. When you are fully immersed in it. The third set was outside
and we knew the sound was gonna be crazy, so we just aired it out.”
The second night lived up top Trucks’ expectations. After opening
with “Everybody’s Talkin’” and “Don’t Let Me Slide,” the band tread
familiar ground until hitting its stride on “Isn’t It A Pity, which featured
Trucks’ feathery slide in concert with Burbridge’s keyboard. Then, the
horn section funk on “Love Has Something To Say” morphed into
“Why Don’t We Do It In The Road” lead by Brown’s trumpet. Burbridge
then picked up his flute and took the led on a Middle Eastern inspired
instrumental “Afro Blue.” Lopes’ tenor was center stage on “Already
Free” before Tedeschi dedicated her hard-edged blues guitar on “That
38 BLUES REVUE
Did It” to Little Milton. Second night encores included “Wade In The
Water” and Mattison’s rockin’ “You Get What You Deserve.”
What is obvious early in your first encounter with this all-star
band is that among the 11 musicians on stage, there are six separate
and distinctive voices. There is the obvious lead voice of Tedeschi,
but behind her one hears Trucks’ eloquent slide guitar as an answering
voice to hers. Other distinctive voices are the horn section blasting
answers to either Tedeschi or Trucks, Burbridge’s keyboards, the
background singers, Mattison and River, and the hypnotic percussion
of the double drummers, Falcon (Tyler Greenwell) and J.J.
(Jarrod Johnson). Listening with open ears, one can hear the complexity
of this band’s musical vision as they pass and weave solos
like a Harlem Globetrotter basketball drill.
Trucks was right, the third show on the pool deck was the
midnight party every one, band and cruisers, anticipated. New tunes
added to the set included “Darling Be Home Soon” and the night’s
funky closer, Sly Stone’s “Higher.” With the horn players and
Mattison and River dancin’ in the background and Falcon and J.J.
pounding their drum kits with eyes locked and arms in total unison,
the band gave these cruisers an exhausting dance-a-thon finale that
vigorously wrapped up three uniquely different shows.
And when the Tedeschi Trucks band finished, all that was left
for these pool deck partiers was to continue the LRBC party with the
one a.m. pro jam. The boat’s banner reads, “Our boat kicks ass.”
So does this band. (So too did the other 30+ musical bands!)
– Art Tipaldi

Reviews
On this record, the candle light aura of pre-war
blues mixes perfectly with the electric lightnin’
of today’s musical directions.
BEN HARPER & CHARLIE MUSSELWHITE
Get Up
Stax
They’ve toured together off and on for years. When Ben Harper has
needed a harmonica player to augment his vision, he usually summons
one of the best, Charlie Musselwhite. From their first days in
the studio backing John Lee Hooker in 1998 on Best Of Friends,
these two visionaries have explored the possibilities of their music.
Now with this recording and subsequent touring, fans of each can
hear that magic as these soulful brothers from vastly different generations
connect. We all know Musselwhite’s roots, but for those
unfamiliar with Harper’s background should know that he grew up
in his grandparents’ music store playing everything with strings and
meeting the likes of Taj Mahal and David Lindley. His early heroes
were the Delta pre-war guitarists like Hurt and Johnson. His first
tour was opening for Taj.
The ten songs were written or co-written by Harper and offer a
diverse mixture of styles with the ghosts of traditional blues floating
throughout the outing. The opener, “Don’t Look Twice,” starts off
acoustically with musical hints of a dusty 1930’s 78 by Skip James.
By mid-song, the full band explodes on the chorus around Musselwhite’s
seasoned reed work. Harper’s falsetto, James-like vocals,
and Musselwhite’s Chicago harmonica instantly connect all things
blues – Delta to Chicago. Harper and Musselwhite close the CD in
similar blues tradition fashion. “All That Matters Now” features
acoustic harmonica, piano, and Harper’s late night vocals in this
new millennium answer to Leroy Carr’s “How Long Blues.” In
Carr’s song, and Johnson’s musical mirror “Love In Vain,” the tone
was longing; here, Harper offers a refreshing meditation on life,
satisfied to live in the moment of companionship.
BUDDY GUY
Live At Legends
Silvertone
Buddy Guy’s first live album, 1968’s This Is
Buddy Guy! (Vanguard), broadened his
reputation among blues fans as well as
rock fans at the time (e.g., I attended a concert
at the Spectrum in Philadelphia in July,
1969 in which Buddy Guy was on the bill
with the Al Kooper Big Band, Led Zeppelin,
Jethro Tull, and Johnny Winter). These
electrifying last recordings from his January
2010 residency at the old Legends had the
same effect on me as his aforementioned
Vanguard album with its intensity, energy,
and swagger.
Guitarist Rick Hall, bassist Orlando
Wright, keyboardist Marty Sammon, and
drummer Tim Austin provide sharp, muscular
support for Guy’s soul-on-fire vocals
In between, these
musical visionaries set the
artistic bar high. There are
high-energy tunes. “I’m In
I’m Out I’m Gone” stomps
‘50’s classic Chicago blues
with a musical undertone of
“Mannish Boy.” Here, Musselwhite’s
retro harp recalls
the greats of that era.
“Blood Side Out” features
Harper’s primal lungpower
blasting his modern message, and “I Don’t Believe A Word You Say”
bulldozes its heavy metal message in a way that would make Page,
Plant, Jones, and Bonham smile.
At the same time, Harper and Musselwhite understand musical
dynamics. With only a stripped down acoustic guitar and harmonica,
“You Found Another Lover (I Lost Another Friend)” floats delicately like
a hummingbird. Their decades of work with the Blind Boys of Alabama
comes through on the handclappin’, gospel-like “We Can’t End This
Way,” where Harper’s expressive slide mimics his vocal enthusiasm.
Harper’s “I Ride At Dawn” is a haunting tale of every soldier’s
wartime experiences. Harper’s written the compelling letter every
soldier sends whether preparing for a Civil War charge or Iraqi village
search. Taken as a whole, it’s a haunting and devastating
humanization of war’s individual toll.
These ten songs are the culmination of musical experiences
these soul mates have explored, and they forecast new directions of
the blues. There is also a deluxe edition available which includes a
DVD of in-studio performances of four songs and 25 minutes of
Harper and Musselwhite discussing their history.
– Art Tipaldi
and incendiary solos. Listeners are immediately
in Guy’s grip after the first flurry of
slicing, side-piercing notes on the self-deprecating
catharsis “Best Damn Fool.” A
dual homage to Muddy Waters follows with
a searing “Mannish Boy” and then a furiously
funky “I Just Want to Make Love to
You,” the album’s longest track at 9:22 slyly
segues into Bobby Rush’s signature chunkof-funk
“Chickenheads.” The heartfelt ballad
of tolerance “Skin Deep” slows things
BLUES REVUE 39

down before one of Guy’s most popular
originals of the last 20 years, the declamatory
“Damn Right I Got The Blues” further
rouses the boisterous crowd.
Blues-rock aficionados get theirs with
the last two tracks: the unlikely mash-up of
John Lee Hooker’s “Boom, Boom” and
Cream’s “Strange Brew,” followed by the
less surprising medley of Jimi Hendrix’s
“Voodoo Chile” and Cream’s “Sunshine of
Your Love.” (Was Eric Clapton in the audience?)
Also included are three studio
tracks from the Living Proof sessions (2010)
that had me wondering why they didn’t
make the cut: “Polka Dot Love,” a scorching
celebration of his beloved polka dot
Stratocaster as well as a testament to his
staying power as an elite guitarist, the hornpropelled
(courtesy of the Memphis Horns)
funk-stroller “Coming For You,” and a simmering
take on Muddy’s “Country Boy.”
This is a no brainer purchase for old
and new Buddy Guy fans alike. My test for
recommending a live album is whether or
not it made me wish that I was there that
night. Damn right I wish I was there.
– Thomas J. Cullen III
BETTYE LAVETTE
Thankful n’ Thoughtful
40 BLUES REVUE
Anti-
Thankful n’ Thoughtful, Bettye LaVette’s
latest, is emotional n’ personal, soulful n’
tasteful. With its release, LaVette continues
her arc of passionate and interpretive
music. A seemingly very personal song
selection, nearly each cut could be an
anecdote from her life that she has
recently revealed to the world in her new
book, A Woman Like Me. Thankful n’
Thoughtful is definitely one of those late
night, dimmed lights, just listen and savor
experiences.
She owns these songs as if she
penned each one. As with her previous
work, here she relies on more songwriting
heavyweights like Bob Dylan, Neil Young,
Tom Waits, Patty Griffin, Sly Stone, Ewan
McColl (The Pogues), among others, and
even an old nugget from ‘60s British blues
band Savoy Brown. Tastefully produced by
Craig Street, who helped Norah Jones’s
Come Away With Me win a Grammy in 2002
and supported by a band of seasoned studio
and touring musicians which includes
members of Ollabelle, The Pariah Dogs
(Ray Lamontagne), John Mayer’s band,
and Sheryl Crowe’s band, the playing has
exactly the right amount of sonic atmosphere
and open space to allow LaVette’s
emotional interpretations to shine.
In LaVette’s hands, the leadoff track,
Dylan’s “Everything Is Broken,” is a song of
dark despair. When she sings, “Look
around you, everything is broken,” she
means it. With the Black Keys’ “I’m Not The
One,” she draws a line in the dirt singing,
“You wanted it all, I ain’t gonna give you
none.” “Dirty Old Town” could be her
hometown, a latter day Detroit, described
with the line “They try to knock it down like
an old dead tree, but they can’t.” “The More
I Search (The More I Die)” has LaVette challenging
with, “Here I am. You can take me
or leave me.” That theme continues with
the line “I’m tired of living up to what people
expect me to be” in Savoy Brown’s “I’m
Tired.” The title track is a powerful and
emotional interpretation of the Sly Stone
song that LaVette seems to invest with her
own life experience, “Taken many chances
and I coulda been dead.”
Others like “Dirty Old Town,” Patty
Griffin’s “Time Will Do The Talking,” and
Beth Neilsen Chapman’s “Fair Enough” get
soulful arrangements from LaVette. The
Tom Waits penned “Yesterday Is Here” features
upright piano and bass and horns giving
LaVette a different palette to work with;
yet one she handles with subtlety. The
Gnarls Barkley mega-hit “Crazy” is covered,
but is not as strong as the aforementioned
songs, as is Young’s “Everybody Knows
This Is Nowhere,” whose rigid song structure
doesn’t quite allow LaVette the freedom
to do what she does best.
LaVette continues her creative exploration
of music to interpret as only she can.
If her book A Woman Like Me were ever to
become a movie, this album could likely
make for one great soundtrack.
– Mark Caron
LIL’ ED &
THE BLUES IMPERIALS
Jump Start
Alligator
Lil’ Ed and the Blues Imperials serve as
both a direct link back to the legacy of the
old blues master J.B. Hutto and also the
living template for Alligator Records’ houserocking
style of electrified roots music.
The late Hutto was Williams’ uncle and
musical mentor, drawing an unbroken line
back to Chicago’s deepest blues. So, Jump
Start includes a cover of Hutto’s “If You
Change Your Mind,” but elsewhere, this
album’s 13 Williams-penned tunes shiver
and shake like a hard-bucking classic car –
muscular, old school, and brawny.
But Lil’ Ed and his long time backing
band, including guitarist Michael Garrett,
bassist Pookie Young (Williams’ younger
half-brother), and drummer Kelly Littleton,
aren’t inclined to make any historical pit
stops, heck, they rarely even downshift.
From the incendiary soul of “If You Were
Mine,” to the winking sexual come-ons of
“Musical Mechanical Electrical Man,” to the
rough and randy “Kick Me To The Curb,”
the Blues Imperials burst out with the
strength and suddenness of a thunderclap.
Three songs in, and I’m already out of
breath. The organ-fueled ballad “You Burnt
Me,” the first of five songs to feature Marty
Sammon on keys, gives Williams a chance
to welp and howl but, even then, his
unleashing a series of scalding guitar fills.
Hang on, tight. Williams floors it through
“House Of Cards,” telling off a particularly
reprehensible scofflaw, then hilariously
negotiates his way through a new relationship
on the jazz-inflected, double entendrefilled
“Jump Right In,” and then summons a
raw vulnerability on the autobiographical

“Life Is A Journey.” The Hutto track, a devastating
plea for redemption, might have
been the album’s second-half peak – if not
for the explosive “No Fast Food.” That song
doesn’t just rock the house; it threatens to
blow the whole thing down.
Jump Start is a tour de force, as raucously
felt and blisteringly articulated as
anything Lil’ Ed and the Blues Imperials
have ever done. These guys have always
made raw-boned, incendiary records that
blend the deep emotions of old with the
fiery intensity of the new. This one, though,
might be their best yet.
– Nick DeRiso
42 BLUES REVUE
MILTON HOPKINS
& JEWEL BROWN
Milton Hopkins & Jewel Brown
Dialtone
Accurately capturing the 1950s Texas electric
blues vibe is no easy feat at this late date.
Of course, it helps if the artists actually are
products of the era. That’s a large part of the
reason this disc is such a delightful triumph:
guitarist Milton Hopkins and vocalist Jewel
Brown were part of the Houston scene during
its glory years. Hopkins played behind
Little Richard early on, toured with Johnny
Ace and Big Mama Thornton during their
heyday, and was an integral member of the
Upsetters, saxist Grady Gaines’ hell-raising
combo, before spending just about all of the
‘70s as B.B. King’s rhythm guitarist. Brown
cut a 1955 single for Don Robey’s Duke
label, then barnstormed the globe throughout
the ‘60s as featured chanteuse with no
less than Louis Armstrong. Together, they’re
a match made in Houston blues heaven.
Nine of this disc’s dozen tracks spotlight
Brown’s beguiling pipes. You don’t
hear Latin-tinged grooves nearly enough
in the blues milieu anymore, but the
slightly risqué leadoff track “Jerry” and a
savory revival of Ruth Brown’s “Daddy
Daddy” make the most of their effervescent
rhythms (Johnny Bradley is on bass,
with Corey Keller and Jason Moeller splitting
drum duties), Jewel granting both
saucy readings. Little Willie John’s slinky
minor-key “I’m Shakin’” receives a welcome
dusting off, while an improbably
titled “Cry Me A River” (actually a series of
timeless blues stanzas strung together Big

Joe Turner-style, opening with “In The
Evening”) swings like crazy, pianist Nick
Connolly comping solidly.
Hopkins steps up for typically sublime
solos on several of Brown’s numbers, wasting
nary a note. He’s front and center on
three original instrumentals: the elegant,
jazzy ballad “Evening Breeze,” a New
Orleans-tinged “Back To The Shimmy”
fueled by Kaz Kazanoff’s recurring sax riffs,
and Hopkins’ stinging licks, and a harddriving
“Tater Tots” that’s pure ‘50s Houston
blues. Not everything fits so neatly into that
milieu. The too-brief “There’s A Light” and
an uplifting “How Can I Lose” sport sanctified
lyrics; J.B. Lenoir’s shambling “The
Whale Has Swallowed Me” and a downbeat
“I’m Leavin’ You Now” find Milton switching
to acoustic axe and the rhythm section
stripping down to its core, shifting the
atmosphere dramatically.
Easily one of 2012’s best blues CDs,
and an encouraging reminder that there are
still criminally underrecorded blues veterans
out there capable of making exceptional
albums if given the opportunity.
– Bill Dahl
MARIA MULDAUR & FRIENDS
First Came Memphis Minnie
Stony Plain
Title aside, Minnie Douglas-Lawlers, one of
the first inductees in the new Memphis
Music Hall of Fame, wasn’t the first woman
to sing the blues or even the first woman to
back herself on guitar. But she was such a
powerful, prolific singer-musician-recording
artist that she stands alone, an inspiration
to all who followed, an archetype on the
level of a Charley Patton.
Maria Muldaur, who has been singing
Minnie’s music for almost 50 years, headed
this fine, varied tribute album, giving it more
emotional heft than the usual blues
homage. She sings eight of the 13 songs,
and her warm, womanly voice, deeper than
the soprano of her girlish days with the
Kweskin Jug Band, finds that fine balance
of blues and country that makes her the
best contemporary interpreter of Minnie’s
musical legacy.
Famed for playing guitar “like a man”
it was Minnie’s songwriting that kept her
recording far longer than most of her country-blues
brothers and sisters. Her songs
were covered by everyone from Bob Wills
(“Frankie Jean”) to Led Zeppelin (“When
the Levee Breaks”). Muldaur opens the set
with “Me And My Chauffeur Blues,” a bit
of auto-eroticism that melodically recalls
“Good Morning Little Schoolgirl” and
features Roy Rogers on acoustic guitar.
Minnie’s two most distinctively autobiographical
songs, “Ain’t Nothing In Ramblin’”
and “In My Girlish Days” are by two
of Muldaur’s old friends, Bonnie Raitt and
the late Phoebe Snow, respectively. Snow’s
1976 recording features David Bromberg,
one of the all-star accompanists with
Rogers, Alvin ‘Youngblood’ Hart, Steve
James and Steve Freund. Fittingly, along
with Raitt, the disc features some of
today’s finest female country blues guitarists,
Mudaur’s accompanist Del Rey,
Rory Block on the solo “When You Love
Me,” and Ruthie Foster (on a burning
“Keep Your Big Mouth Closed”).
The styles range from solo pieces to
Muldaur’s classic acoustic ensembles to
full-tilt Chicago blues on the finale, the late
Koko Taylor’s take on “Black Rat
Swing.”First Came Memphis Minnie isn’t
just a tribute, it’s a revival, reminding us just
how timeless her music remains 40 years
after her death. Born at the end of the 19th
century, she’s one of the greatest of that
first generation of bluesmen and women.
As we settle into the 21st, Memphis Minnie
remains Queen of Country Blues.
– Larry Nager
OMAR & THE HOWLERS
Too Much Is Not Enough
Big Guitar Music
With anybody else, releasing three albums
in a year would be overkill. In addition, cutting
more tracks on an artist he’s already
covered in a previous tribute album, ‘07’s
On The Jimmy Reed Highway, would also
be too much exposure for many musicians.
But with Omar Dykes, it just makes you
want more.
This is a first rate offering, with the late
Gary Primich playing masterful harp. On
the ‘07 release, Omar had covered some of
Reed’s more familiar work, but here he
delves into some of Reed’s lesser-known
works. That doesn’t mean it’s any less
impressive. The cuts are all short, with no
drawn-out improvisations; a just-the-facts
approach, get it said and move on.
“Gotta Let You Go” shares the same
melody line with “Tee Ni Nee Ni Nu” and
“Scratch My Back,” featuring great wahwah
harp by Primich backed by Gary
Clark, Jr.’s slinky slide and Omar’s vocals
sounding like he’s been gargling with
grave dirt. Omar rises up out of the gravel
pit several octaves higher than his usual
vocal characterizations for “Honest I Do,“
and once again Primich’s plaintive harp
work raises goose bumps with his fine
interpretation. “Take Out Some Insurance”
has a little stiffer backbeat than the original.
Omar’s back down in the quarry spitting
out stone-dusted vocals, sounding so
wracked with pain that you know he’s not
kidding about croaking if his beloved takes
a powder.
By the time you get to “You Don’t
Have To Go,” you really don’t want this
recording to end. Everybody shines on this
one; Clark turning in a slide demonstration
that’ll have you baying at the moon, Primich’s
harp floating wraith-like above the mix,
and Omar sliding up and down octaves
interrogating his soon to be ex-squeeze
about her disrespectin’ ways. You won’t
want to skip around. Every cut reaches out
and grabs you by the throat. It’s a pleasure
to listen to Omar interpreting this music.
You can tell he’s not just a fan but a student
who’s learned his lesson well.
– Grant Britt
BLUES REVUE 43

44 BLUES REVUE
GARY CLARK, JR.
Blak And Blu
Warner Brothers
Guitarist Gary Clark, Jr. is the most exciting
thing to happen to the contemporary blues
scene since fellow Texas gunslinger Stevie Ray
Vaughan first strolled out on a stage back in
the early 1980s. A major talent bubbling under
the mainstream, Clark released three independent
albums for the Hotwire label and
appeared in filmmaker John Sayles’ 2007 movie Honeydripper before
he was “discovered” by Eric Clapton.
The elder statesman invited Clark to perform at the 2010 Crossroads
Guitar Festival, a fortunate turn of events that subsequently
led to a major label deal and the critically-acclaimed The Bright
Lights EP, which spent the better part of the last year hanging
around the upper-reaches of the Billboard blues chart. Widespread
critical acclaim, including a particularly purple rave review in the
pages of Rolling Stone magazine, introduced mainstream music
fans to the six-string talent. For Clark’s legion of newfound fans –
who have waited better than a year for his full-length debut album to
see the light of day – it’s unlikely that they’ll be disappointed by the
guitarist’s magnificent Blak And Blu.
HANS THEESSINK
& TERRY EVANS
Delta Time
Blue Groove
Few things are as pure as human voices
augmented with acoustic instrumentation.
Hans Theessink, one of Europe’s most
respected keepers of the blues, and Terry
Evans continue to celebrate the divine
approach of their partnership. Delta Time is
perfect follow-up to their first pairing,
Visions, released in 2008. The record is a
mixture of Theessink originals (six) with
time honored blues fare. Musically,
Theessink plays guitars, banjo, mandolin,
and harmonica while Evans adds his own
guitar and guest Ry Cooder joins the duo
on three songs.
The title track opens the record with a
Theessink strumming a soft John Lee
Hooker boogie as Evans, Arnold Culler,
In the past year alone, Gary Clark, Jr. has
played at the White House, the Apollo Theater,
the Kennedy Center honoring Buddy Guy, and
many music festivals. Blues lovers can now
hear what the buzz is all about.
and Willie Greene, Jr. answer in three part
harmony about leavin’ the city and headin’
to “delta time.” Theessink and Evans’ vocal
blend follows on the Delmore Brothers’
“Blues Stay Away From Me.” Their clear
and straightforward interpretation, with
Cooder’s added slide guitar, is a reminder
of the organic nature of early music like
this. Another blues classic, Tampa Red’s “It
Hurts Me Too,” offers an acoustic reading
that focuses on the emotional power of
vocal duo. Musically, the guitar and mandolin
pairing recalls the days of rural string
bands like Sleepy John Estes and Yank
Rachell. They also step lightly with Evans
taking the lead vocals on the ‘65 pop hit,
“The Birds And The Bees.”
For almost nine minutes, Evans’ testifies
his life experiences of living in a world
ruled by Jim Crow segregation on “Down In
Mississippi.” Evans has recorded this
before, but here it takes on new meaning
with his spoken introduction and
As good as The Bright Lights EP may have
been, nothing could have prepared listeners for a
song like “Ain’t Messin’ ‘Round,” which seamlessly
blends old-school R&B with a Memphis soul groove
and a rock ‘n’ roll heartbeat to one-up the Black
Keys at their own game. Clark enjoys his Jimi Hendrix
moment with the bold blues-rock dirge “When
My Train Pulls In,” the song mixing a Delta blues
spirit with an undeniable SRV vibe. Clark is no twotrick
pony, however, venturing onto avant-garde turf
with the chilling title track, which displays a jazzy
edge in its sampling of Gil Scott-Heron, the song
firmly rooted in the blues as it also picks from Albert King’s classic “As
The Years Go Passing By.”
Clark’s mash-up of Hendrix’s “Third Stone From The Sun” with
Little Johnny Taylor’s “If You Love Me Like You Say” (best known
from Albert Collins’ Frostbite LP) provides plenty of cheap thrills.
The swirling psychedelic blues-rock instrumentation quite suddenly
evolves into a soulful, slightly funky reading of Taylor’s underrated
tune. Overall, music lovers are going to rejoice over Clark’s debut
even as blues purists are gonna hate, but the truth is that Blak And Blu
marks the emergence of a major talent who is bringing his love of
blues and soul to mainstream audiences. Regardless of whether or not
we’ve heard it all before, we’ve never heard it quite like Gary Clark, Jr.
– Rev. Keith A. Gordon
Theessink’s dark assertive guitar. On
Theessink’s “Shelter From The Storm,”
Cooder’s effortless slide and the sacred
male chorus back Theessink’s brooding
vocals. Evans shows off his soul side on
“Pouring Water On A Drowning Man.”
Behind Evans’ tender voice, Theessink’s
delicate finger picking creates the friendly,
back porch vibe. Jimmy Reed’s “Honest I
Do” is delivered as Brownie and Sonny
might have performed it in a ‘60s college

coffee house. The CD closes with “Mississippi,”
Theessink’s ten-minute travelogue
through the blues cathedrals of the Magnolia
state. By featuring acoustic slide, harmonica,
handclaps, and gospel chorus
responses to Theessink’s name calling, it
runs like a blues train headin’ to where “the
Southern crosses the Yellow Dog.” You
won’t find a better acoustic blues album.
– Art Tipaldi
MIGHTY SAM MCCLAIN
Too Much Jesus
(Not Enough Whiskey)
Mighty Musik
Mighty Sam McClain continues to evolve
and rarely stays still, for additional evidence
checkout his other current release (his second
with the Iranian singer Mahsa Vahdat) A
Deeper Tone Of Longing. On this album,
McClain co-authored 13 of the 14 tunes with
his guitarist Pat Herlehy, plus a co-written
tune with McClain and Allen Toussaint cover.
The album opens with the reggae-like
“I Wish You Well” where it’s (as per usual)
evident that McClain’s employed another
top-notch band featuring Concetta’s sassy
background vocals. The tempo hastens on
“Can You Feel It?” that’s a call out for world
peace it’s a horn driven funk romp with
Sam’s gospel tinged vocal plea’s. “Tears” is
a soul-drenched ballad that McClain and his
band magically recreate the sixties-seventies
renowned soul sounds of Philadelphia.
The Toussaint/McClain “Real Thing” is
a fine soulful tune that moves along at
pedestrian pace with tidy horn arrangements.
“Use Me” is not the Bill Withers’
song, but it’s a well-crafted gem that also
harkens the sounds of Philadelphia. It’s
extremely well produced, nicely written,
beautifully arranged, and solidly performed.
“Rock My Soul” pumps out the funk with
the horns adding depth as McClain’s vocals
border on rap, but never outrageously over
the top. “So Into You” is not the Atlanta
Rhythm Section song, but it’s a gorgeous
ballad that also resembles (what seems like
a bit of a theme here) the Philly Soul sound
with a very tasty guitar solo by Herlehy over
the hypnotic horn charts. The title track is
haunting with its gospel-like theme and
very heady arrangements with another tasty
guitar support from Herlehy. The album
concludes with “Dance,” where superb
horns and guitar introduce this funky
delight. The heat gets turned on when
McClain joins in with Rick Page’s popping
drum playing.
McClain continues to age like a fine
bottle of Bordeaux wine, his vocals are sharp
throughout, and his songwriting never-ever
grows old. McClain continues what’s now a
lifelong progression as being one of the soul
greats who is undeniably at the top of his
game. But it’s a crime that he’s never garnered
the kudos he’s worked so hard for.
– Bob Putignano
SMOKIN’ JOE KUBEK
& BNOIS KING
Close To The Bone
Delta Groove
Although they unplugged for this one,
there’s still plenty of Texas guitar power.
Reminiscent of the work of Cephas and
Wiggins and Brownie and Sonny, Smokin’
Joe Kubek and Bnois King serve up a platter
of superb acoustic fare different than
anything they’ve done to date. King’s vocals
are like aged whiskey, smooth and mellow,
with a warm glow that spreads throughout
your body when you partake. His folky, jazz
tinged guitar is perfect counterpoint for
Kubek’s harder edged Texas flavored licks
and twangy slide.
But this record is much more than two
guys with guitars. There’s a huge crew
involved, including a bevy of top notch harp
players: Bob Corritore, Linwood Slim, Delta
Groove president Randy Chortkoff, and
Pieter van der Pluijm, AKA Big Pete. Paul
Size, Kirk Fletcher, and Shawn Pittman help
out on guitar and Hollywood Blue Flames’
pianist Fred Kaplan, along with rhythm section
of Willie J. Campbell and Jimi Bott are
also onboard.
The only cover is “Mama’s Bad Luck
Child,” by Texas bluesman Alger Alexander.
Backed by Lynwood Slim’s lonesome harp
and Kubek’s intricate finger picking, it’s a
tutorial on acoustic blues presentation, simple
and understated, but powerful and moving
without seeming overwrought, probably
the most mellow hard luck story you’ve ever
heard. “I ain’t got no wife, got no triflin’
kid/got nobody, mama, to be bothered with,”
King croons cavalierly before admitting that
because he ain’t got nobody to worry his
mind, he “laid down laughin’, woke up hollerin’
and cryin’.” But King’s smooth as
honey delivery takes all the sting out of the
hardships he’s suffering. You get the best of
both on “Yankin’ My Chain” and “My Hat’s
Off To You,” as both Kubek and King take a
turn at some nimble fingered pickin’ as
pretty and as clean as Jorma Kaukonen.
This is real back porch material, too
delicate to be really appreciated in a juke
joint, But no matter where you hear it, it’ll
make you feel like you’re part of a small
gathering camped out on a starry night,
sitting around a cracking fire with a jug
making the rounds. Take a sip, let it wash
over you, and pass it on. This stuff was
made for sharing.
– Grant Britt
SUGAR BLUE
Raw Sugar Live
Beeble Music
From the time he takes the stage after Rico
McFarland’s opening introduction, Sugar
Blue never lets up. As he’s done throughout
his career, Blue’s notes fly rapid-fire through
his reeds, augmenting lightning sharp runs
through the harp’s high end with clusters of
notes jammed into musical phrases followed
by dizzying spirals that flies off cuff.
Backed by his longtime touring
band, which includes McFarland (guitar),
BLUES REVUE 45

James Knowles (drums), and Blue’s wife,
Ilaria Lantieri (bass), Blue adds the keyboards
of Italy’s Damiano Della Torre for
the night’s set. The double disc clocks in
at a healthy two hours of Blue’s trademark
funk, blues, jazz-inspired excursions, and
even a seven-minute, deep chromatic
treatment of the classic field holler
“Another Man Done Gone.”
Every Sugar Blue show includes his
history of the blues harmonica and this
recording offers a similar thesis. After the
accelerated opener, “Red Hot Mama,” Blue
gives a nine-minute discourse on Muddy
Waters’ “One More Mile,” which has traces
of Junior Wells’ classic funky approach to
Chicago blues in his band’s punctuating
accents. Blue barrels through lick after lick
like a frenzied Charlie Parker, and McFarland
answers the call with his own brand of
seasoned guitar. Then, Blue leads his band
through Willie Dixon’s stop timed “Hoochie
Coochie Man.” Here, the somewhat slower
tempo allows listeners to appreciate Blue’s
high-end tenor vocals and his agile note
placement. Again, it’s McFarland’s hardedged
guitar that keeps the music steeped
in the traditions. (Remember McFarland
has spent his life backing blues masters
like James Cotton, Little Milton, Lucky
Peterson, Otis Clay, and so many others.)
The perfect guitar foil, McFarland plays
every gig with Blue and others combining
his own creativity with the stability nightly
shows on the road demand. On McFarland’s
“Swing Chicken,” Blues sits out while
McFarland and Della Torre swing with
unbridled enthusiasm.
Blue honors Cotton with “Cotton
Tree,” a 10-minute biographical tribute to
one of Blue’s most important mentors. After
three hard-hitting harp assaults, the light,
jazzy approach to Blue’s vocals and harmonica
offers a comforting break. His
encore, “Messin’ With The Kid,” pays tribute
to Junior Wells, another Blue mentor,
and features McFarland’s explosive and
46 BLUES REVUE
imaginative fret work. It would not be a
Sugar Blue show without the ten-minute
performance of “Miss You,” the Rolling
Stones 1978 Number One song that was
beefed up by his signature harp riff. Blue’s
“Bad Boy’s Heaven,” offers him the
extended opportunity to reassemble his
phrases into cutting edge expressions.
Contemporary themes surface on
“Bluesman,” where Blue addresses the cultural
effects of the oppressive years from
Jamestown slavery to today and asserts the
blues blood that runs through him. “Krystalline”
is Blue’s funky ode to the mysterious
white lady who is as dangerous as she
is alluring.
If you have seen Sugar Blue and his
band in recent years, this live CD perfectly
captures the musical charms of his show.
– Art Tipaldi
RICK HOLMSTROM
Cruel Sunrise
M.C. Records
There’s a reason Rick Holmstrom’s trio was
tapped to back Mavis Staples on the road
and in the studio over the past several
years. First, it’s no secret that Holmstrom
has been able to channel Pops Staples’ jangly
guitar in a way that’s all-at-once blues,
rock, and gospel. Equally important, the trio
is extremely tight and well oiled, with Jeff
Turmes holding down the low end and
Stephen Hodges keeping time. On Cruel
Sunrise, the band is perfectly in tune with
each other, leading and following as
needed. All of this has been evident while
playing with Staples as well as on Holmstrom’s
earlier releases. But this time there’s
more: this time out, Holmstrom really shows
his chops as a writer. With twelve tunes full
of vivid imagery and clever hooks, the disc
will flat out make you feel something, even if
you can’t put a finger on it.
Holmstrom doesn’t fit neatly into a category,
but he leans hard on blues and rock,
with a West Coast twist that materializes as
part California rock & roll and part psychedelic
rock. The Beach Boys meet The Doors
meet Dick Dale: Surfedelia. The disc kicks
off in high gear and settles into a groove that
includes Mavis Staples guesting on two
tracks. There’s ample energy, even on the
restrained tracks, with rich layers and depth.
The real genius is in the subtleties, like the
low sax that washes across the chorus of the
title track, the backing vocals on “It’s Time I
Lose,” or Hodges’ careful choices of shakers,
brushes, and blocks throughout the
disc. Holmstrom stacks these loose pieces
together like a shaky Jenga tower and it
stays upright.
The highlights include “Creepin’ In,” a
tune that will stick in your head all day. In the
middle of a set of blended genres, Holmstrom
offers up his take on classic lyrics,
“The sun’s gonna shine on my front door
some day, ” a subtle reminder that he’s a
bluesman at heart. The gentle love song “By
My Side” is beautiful for its stark simplicity.
On the mesmerizing lullaby instrumental,
“Luellie,” Holmstrom pushes his guitar to the
limit with harmonics and reverb. “Luellie” is a
bit of an oddity for the disc, but rumor has it
there’s a deluxe edition with instrumental
takes on classic blues and Americana tunes.
While the writing is impressive, the
performance is nothing short of impeccable.
Cruel Sunrise is quite simply one of the
best albums I’ve heard in very long time.
– Eric Wrisley
ZAC HARMON
Music Is Medicine
Urban Eagle
All music fans will agree with the album’s
title as well as the lyrics of Harmon’s reassuring
“The Healer,” a mid-tempo blues
bounce that extols the virtues of our universal
palliation. On this self-produced followup
to 2009’s From The Root (Northern
Blues), the multi-talented Mississippi native
co-wrote the 11 originals, a collection of
blues and pop-slanted soul with the bubbly
Buffet-like reggae floater “I’d Rather Be
With You” as the lone curve ball.
I most enjoyed the bluesier tunes
like the Hookerish grinder with spiritual

concerns, “Running From The Devil” [by]
“...trying to keep up with the Lord,” the loping
tribute to pharmaceutical erection
enhancers, “Blue Pill Thrill,” the slinky sardonic
jeremiad, “Drowning In Hollywood,”
the Robert Cray-Johnny “Guitar” Watson
(his 1970s disco-blues phase) blues-rock
amalgam, “Miss American Girl,” the aforementioned
“The Healer,” and the smoldering
“Country Boy,” a slow blues affirmation
of his roots with blistering guitar reminiscent
of the late Michael Burks (who is namechecked
in Harmon’s liner notes). The soul
tunes seem more influenced by the popsoul
of groups like the Commodores and
48 BLUES REVUE
Kool & the Gang than by the classic Southern
soul sounds of Stax or Hi. For fans of a
harder, grittier type of soul-blues, the
pristinely produced, pop-oriented soul
tunes may not hold much appeal, and even
less so for traditional blues fans.
Overall, this is one of the most “modern”
sounding soul-blues recordings sans
drum machines I’ve ever heard. (I prefer
crispness and clarity with a bit more coarseness.)
Harmon is a confident, commanding
vocalist; his seamless blend of silk and
sandpaper suggestive of Z.Z. Hill and
McKinley Mitchell (former employers). In
addition to guitar, Harmon contributes some
bass, keyboards, and drums. The basic
band of Cedric Goodman (drums), Corey
Lacey (keyboards), and Buthel (bass) are
tight and versatile, major requirements for
the variegated music herein. Music Is Medicine
is a good album with a couple song-ofthe-year
candidates (“Drowning In
Hollywood” and “Blue Pill Thrill”) and some
stirring performances; however, a few more
blues tunes and a few less coats of production
varnish would make it even better.
– Thomas J. Cullen III
MARION JAMES
Northside Soul
EllerSoul
Although “Nashville’s Queen of the Blues”
has been on the Music City scene for over
50 years, this is only the third album by a
singer/songwriter deserving of a much
larger discography. Back in the mid-Sixties
a pre-fame Jimi Hendrix and his bass-playing
buddy Billy Cox were in her band. Soul
music aficionados have made her lone
Excello single “That’s My Man”(a Top Ten
R&B hit in 1966) a collector’s item as they
have with her even more obscure single on
the K&J imprint “Find Out What You Got”
(which was penned by Billy Cox). The core
band here is tight and versatile and consists
of bassist/producer Tod Ellsworth,
drummer Brad Ellsworth, guitarist Ivan
Appelrouth, and keyboardist Steve Bassett;
a three-piece horn section augments seven
tracks. Like Etta James, this Ms. James is
no one trick pony.

There is something for everybody on
this set of six originals and seven covers as
she performs blues, soul, R&B, funk, and
jazz with an understated knowing aplomb.
The most interesting covers happen to be
overdone standards, but ones that are so
thoroughly rearranged that they barely
evoke the originals (or their countless covers).
Junior Parker’s “Next Time You See
Me,” performed as a cadent, horn-propelled
Nawlins strutter, is a thing of joy while Willie
Dixon’s “I Just Want to Make Love to You”
segues into furious funk after a more traditional
one minute spin featuring Li’l Ronnie
Owens’ wailing harp. Her friend, the late
Nashville songwriter Ted Jarrett (of “It’s Love
Baby (24 Hours A Day)” fame), is covered
with the brassy mid-tempo shuffle “I’m Just
What You’re Looking For.” Her best original,
“Blues Recipe,” a potential song-of-the year
candidate, is a sly, smoldering slow blues
that offers an admonition to blues-singing
“wannabees” to look for another line of
work. Soul-blues fans will enjoy her salacious
shuffle bumps “I Know A Good Thing”
and “I Fell” as well as Denise LaSalle’s “Man
Size Job.” Marion James is a genuine soul
music survivor and Northside Soul is her
finest record. Kudos to the EllerSoul crew.
– Thomas J. Cullen III
ERIC BURDON
‘Til Your River Runs Dry
ABKCO
Mellowing with age? Trying bellowing. Still
kicking complete ass at 70, Eric Burdon
unleashes a furious string of tough accusations
and burning questions. He makes his
intentions on ‘Til Your River Runs Dry clear
early on, with the raucous, witheringly honest
“Old Habits Die Hard.” Later, Burdon
imagines a presidential visit during “Invitation
To The White House” in which he
makes a heartfelt demand that the commander
in chief spend more time focused on
problems at home, rather than fighting foreign
wars with unclear objectives. He even
makes a scalding pass at that love-gonewrong
classic “Before You Accuse Me.”
All along, Burdon’s backing band, featuring
members of the blues-rocking Teresa
James Band (Terry Wilson, bass, and Billy
Watts, guitar) for half of the album and the
Phantom Blues Band’s Tony Braunagel
(drums), Mike Finnigan (keyboards), and
Johnny Lee Schell (guitars), accelerates the
music like a muscle car roaring to life after
too long parked out back. Burdon does his
part, too, squalling like a quartet of mile-wide
radials. He’s never sounded more visceral,
or angrier, and it’s a wonder to behold.
Not that ‘Til Your River Runs Dry isn’t
filled with a sweep of other textures and
emotions. In fact, this project amounts to a
command performance across a stirring
BLUES REVUE 49

variety of styles. Burdon, for instance, finds
the fragile, searching top end of his vocal
range for “Devil And Jesus,” a lean rock
song with a deep blues theme. “Wait”
explores that sense of raw vulnerability even
more deeply, as Burdon’s pleading vocal is
surrounded by this dusty acoustic lonesomeness.
Later, Jon Cleary sits in for a
New Orleans-infused tune called “River Is
Rising,” and a generous, open-hearted take
on Marc Cohn’s “Medicine Man.” “In The
Ground” plays out like a gospel rave up. In
“Bo Diddley Special” he bids a fond farewell
to key influence Bo Diddley, complete with a
perfectly attenuated Diddley-shuffle beat
courtesy of co-producing drummer Braunagel.
While “27 Forever” is Burdon’s pondering
about all of those doomed rock stars
who passed at age 27. All of that feels like a
preamble, though, to those times when Burdon
is in a full-throated roar.
In the end, five decades on from his
breakout moment in “We’ve
Gotta Get Out Of This Place,” Burdon is still
surrounded by damnable fools who just
don’t get it, liars who must be exposed, and
politicians headed for their comeuppance.
It’s clear that Burdon still feels a fiery reading
of the wrongs is a good place to start.
– Nick DeRiso
BARBARA CARR
Keep The Fire Burning
Catfood
After decades of obscurity (including a short
period on Chess) Barbara Carr started to
make a name for herself in the nineties. The
seventy-one year old Carr was born in St.
Louis and received an early break when she
caught the attention (of the too often overlooked)
bandleader and sax player Oliver
Sain. The details of her discography are
vague, but Keep The Fire Burning seems to
be Carr’s twelfth digital release. She also
appears on a long list of soul compilation
collections, including two of her own Best
Of anthologies. Here Carr employs Catfood
label-mate Johnny Rawls and label owner
Bob Trenchard to co-produced. In addition,
Trenchard plays bass throughout, while
Rawls makes one appearance on a duet
with Carr. All of the eleven tunes are originals
mostly authored by Trenchard and/or
Rawls, though they only collaborate once.
The opening “Hanging On By A
Thread” is easily the grittiest of this bunch.
With churning chords coming from Johnny
McGhee’s guitar and tasteful keyboard fills
from Dan Ferguson, Carr sounds youthful
and vibrant making this tune an earcatching
start to this retro-soul CD. One
of two of Carr’s blues additions is Rawls’
“I Got The Blues” that cites Little Milton and
Carr’s self-proclaimed understanding of the
blues. About halfway through the album’s
formula horn arrangements become a bit
repetitive and predictable and are somewhat
reminiscent of what Malaco Records
did on many of their soulful albums. Rawls
duets with Carr on his ballad “Hold On To
What You Got” that is expectedly generational
and nothing exceptional, their chemistry
is also lacking. The second blues nod
also comes from Rawls’ pen “You Give Me
The Blues” and it’s really not a blues tune
that makes claims to blues in lyrics only.
Trenchard’s “What You Gonna Do” is pretty
funky and the horns add good color,
McGhee again tosses in catchy riffs and
short solos, and the band percolates nicely
all the way through. Trenchard’s “Sweet
Talking Snake” closes the album in a soulful
way with horn charts from saxophone
player Andy Roman and trumpeter Mike
Middleton, the lyrics are mildly risqué,
which were once part of Carr’s style.
Carr (once again) is back on the
scene, though I doubt this recording will do
much to reignite her career.
– Bob Putignano
MICHAEL HILL’S BLUES MOB
Goddesses And Gold Redux
JSP
For those who may have overlooked the
original 2005 release of guitar/vocalist
Michael Hill’s offbeat musical montage,
Goddesses And Gold, despair not. Goddesses
And Gold Redux is a fresh opportunity
to experience another farrago of Hill’s
hard-edged blues/rock, impromptu street
conversation, and left-leaning sociopolitical
musings. Possibly the most erratic disc that
blues fans are likely to find among the bargain
racks, this one deserves stars for
sheer quirkiness.
Showbiz calls it an “act” for a reason,
and Hill plays the role of unctuous Master
of Ceremonies to the preening hilt. The
man doesn’t so much sing into a microphone
as he does behave in front of one,
interjecting himself into the mix with glib
verbal asides and intermittent stage patter
directed at both band members and listening
audience alike. Hill’s dialogue recalls
Frank Zappa’s use of Sprechstimme (spoken
voice), in which Zappa mimics sleazy
lounge lizards and golden-throated TV
pitchmen in wacky niche tunes like
“Dancing Fool,” “Cosmic Debris,” and
scores of others.
That’s not to say Redux contains anything
remotely as entertaining as Zappa’s
sardonic wit or deft musical turns. But Hill
does utter some very peculiar things. The
following duologue introduces the stuttering
funk jam, “Specialization:”
“And she said, ‘Sweet Mikey, looks like
you been slimming down, down to your
fighting weight.’ I said, ‘No, baby girl, I’m
getting down to my loving weight!’”
Hill uses similar jabber to usher in the
album’s only straight-up blues number,
“Mr. Hubert Sumlin,” a track that features
the real Hubert Sumlin taking a star turn
on the guitar solo.
“And not only are we celebrating, people,
but this is our lucky day! ‘Cause we
have Mister Hubert Sumlin in the house.
That’s right, baby, the man is in the house!”
About the only tunes that Hill’s showman
routine doesn’t reduce to novelty song
status are the full-tilt rockers, “Let The
Ladies Have The Floor,” and “New York
Doll.” On these tracks, Hill dials down the
vocal extemporizing to deliver some mighty
BLUES REVUE 51

fine rock ‘n’ roll over distortion-drenched
guitars, albeit with plenty of randy camp
lyrics for his listeners’ delectation.
Then there’s the political stuff that
rounds out Redux. Whether by design or
coincidence, the last five songs of the
album key on issues of social/political
inequality (“Fear Itself,” and “Home I
Love”), corporate greed (“Black Gold”),
and America’s déclassé status (“By
George,” and “U.S. Blues Again”) in their
lyrics. Predictably, the agitprop nature of
the material flattens the mood considerably.
Then again, I warned you it was quirky.
– Tony Del Rey
52 BLUES REVUE
JW-JONES
Seventh Hour
Factor
The cover shot on Seventh Hour, the latest
release from Canadian bluesman JW-Jones,
could come straight from the pages of an up
market fashion magazine. Jones is pictured
in a slim fit suit, guitar in hand, looking indestructible
as a beautiful girl crumples the
bonnet of her car on an immovable force.
Sophisticated artwork for a stylish album.
For his 2010 release, Midnight In
Memphis, Jones recorded at Sun Studios.
This follow up was recorded in a slightly
less historic location; Jones's living room.
Here Jones and his band, keyboardist
Jesse Whitely, drummer Jeff Asselin, and
bassist Marc Decho, have produced ten
tracks of mostly original material that is
clearly based in blues, that isn't afraid to
wander into country or rockabilly territory,
and, despite the retro feel throughout, certainly
doesn't feel the need to conform to
any identikit blues formulas.
In fact the stand out track, “In A
Song,” is barely a blues and could just be
the kind of song to get Jones airplay on
channels that normally go nowhere near
the music; all heartfelt vocals, echoed riff
and heavy drumbeats. And the song's strap
line, “I guess you'll end up in a song,” gives
a big clue to the lyrical theme of most of the
rest of the album. “Ain't Gonna Beg” is a
soulful look at love that hasn't happened;
“Let It Go” is about being in love against
your better judgment; “All Over Again” is a
Memphis groove which has Jones singing
about re-discovered love; and “Heartbreaker”
is a slice of steel guitar driven
rockabilly about slightly more transient relationships.
Even Little Milton’s “I’m Tryin’” is
about a love that can’t be forgotten. “You
Got Caught” is the antidote to all of this
though; the kind of love gone bad tale that
Robert Cray specializes in.
All in all this is an excellent listen.
There is plenty enough to keep Jones's
long time fans happy, and plenty enough to
lure in new listeners including, with luck,
those that would not normally start at the
blues. Give it a listen.
– Chris Kerslake
LINSEY ALEXANDER
Been There Done That
Delmark
When Chicago bluesman Linsey Alexander
says he’s “been there, done that,” as the
title of his debut Delmark album would suggest,
you know he means business.
Alexander cut his teeth on the gritty South
side of Chicago for decades, but for the last
fifteen years, he’s been wowing crowds on
the North side of the Windy City at upper
scale hangouts like Buddy Guy’s Legends,
Kingston Mines, Blue Chicago, and
B.L.U.E.S.
The first thing you notice when you
listen to Alexander’s new CD is his commanding
vocal prowess. This guy can
really sing the blues. He’s got that same
gritty, soulful growl that another blues guy
by the name of B.B. King exhibits when
he’s strutting his stuff.
The second thing you notice after
spinning Alexander’s new disc is that he
has a real knack for putting pen to paper.
His songs are culled from personal experience
while remaining broad enough for
everyone to relate to. He’s not inventing
lyrics; he’s lived them. Great songwriting
doesn’t get better than that.
The third thing you realize after listening
to Been There Done That is that Alexander
knows how to play his beautiful, flame
top Gibson ES-335. His electrifying rhythm
work and stinging guitar solos drive the
songs like a new Rolls Royce and will satisfy
all fans of electric blues guitar.
Accompanied by a host of top shelf
Chicago blues players like up-and-coming
guitarist Mike Wheeler, harmonica master
Billy Branch, keyboard ace Roosevelt Purifoy,
and horn players Ryan Nyther on trumpet
and Bryan Fritz on saxophone, Linsey
Alexander and his band were red hot for
these sessions.
Tracks of note include the funky
groove of “Bad Man,” featuring guitar
slinger “Breezy” Rodio on six strings
(whose guitar solo is reminiscent of the
late, Albert Collins), the R&B swagger of
the album’s title track “Been There Done
That,” the bluesy lament “I Had A Dream”
highlighted by some slick guitar picking by
Alexander, Willie Kent’s well-penned
“Looks Like It’s Going To Rain,” the infectious
riffs of “Going Back To My Old Time
Used To Be,” the testimonial humor of “Big
Woman,” and a reverent tip of the hat to
blues master Robert Johnson in “Saving
Robert Johnson.”
Linsey Alexander may be one of
Chicago’s favorite sons, but when the rest
of the world hears Been There Done That,
they’re going to want a piece of him too.
– Brian M. Owens

Travel with Mitch Woods as he and his
band carry Woods’ unique brand of
jump blues and the piano/sax magic of
New Orleans to Turkey for five weeks.
MITCH WOODS
Blues Beyond Borders
Club 88
In 2010, boogie-woogie pianist
Mitch Woods took his troupe
to Turkey for a series of concerts.
The result, a CD/DVD of
live shows from the five-week
long, 20-city tour, shows the
band having so much fun on
and off the stage that it makes
you want to apply for a slot in
the band.
But measuring up to the
level of talent assembled in this
group would be a daunting task. Drummer Larry Vann, a vet of the
Whispers and the Elvin Bishop Band, adds a funky soul backbeat to the
proceedings as well as a quirky sense of humor, claiming on camera
that he thought Woods was taking him just down the road to Truckee,
near his hometown in the Bay Area, not Turkey.
With a resume boasting stints with Irma Thomas, Allen Toussaint,
and Fats Domino, Amadee Castenell on sax carries on the tradition of
great New Orleans sax players like Red Allen and Harold Battiste.
Bassist Cornell Williams, a former member of Jon Cleary’s Absolute
Monster Gentlemen, brings gospel-tinged soul vocals as well as funky
underpinnings to the mix. Guitarist Adam Gabriel, who was Hank
Ballard and the Midnighters’ bandleader for 17 years, provides a gritty,
old school rock and roll feel. The Brooklyn-born Woods is an avuncular
ambassador, a fun loving boogie man proficient in jump blues,
jazz, and New Orleans second line rhythms as well.
Wood gets the crowd going early on with his rollicking left hand
on the jump blues “Solid Gold Cadillac.” Although “Mojo Mambo” is
his own composition, the style owes a big debt to Professor Longhair’s
“Big Chief,” down to the whistled intro, with Woods perfectly
capturing Fess’s calypso/funk/second line mix. He brings up Fess
again on Longhair’s “In The Night,” segueing into a popular ‘70s-era
Turkish song from Turkish rocker Boris Manco before slipping back
into Fess’s slippers to finish out the “Night.” But this is not a one-man
show. Castenell is given plenty of room to splatter New Orleans joy
juice all over the place. Bassist Williams delivers a soulful vocal for
“Third Degree,” as Castenell’s sax moans and wails in sympathy and
Gabriel’s guitar slashes and tears at the melody. With his engaging,
easygoing style and infectious boogie-woogie, Woods proves that no
matter where on earth you take it, music truly is a universal language.
– Grant Britt
BLUES REVUE 53

TERESA JAMES
Come On Home
54 BLUES REVUE
Jasi-Lu
Teresa James and her husband Terry Wilson
continually prove that a marriage in the music
business can work quite nicely. What makes
this paring work so effective is the skillful partnership
between Wilson’s songs and James’
delivery. With Wilson crafting ten of the twelve
songs (James co-writes with him on two),
James articulates a theme that is often time
emotionally close to her outlook.
James, a Texas girl who plays piano, is
one polished vocalist you need to hear. With a
voice that knocks most singers out of the
water, James sings with a vibrant sensuality so
that her vocal interpretations turn each song
into a hypnotic story. Her Rhythm Tramps band
(often found touring as the Animals behind Eric
Burdon), featuring Wilson (bass), Billy Watts
(guitar), Herman Mathews (drums), and a tight
horn arrangement offer solid support. Add in
her musical friends like Mike Finnigan
(keyboards and vocals), Tony Braunagel
(drums), and Jon Cleary (piano), and James
has recorded a musical highlight reel.
Perhaps the finest highlight on the
record is James on the money delivery of
“Forgetting You,” a stunning Wilson ballad.
Here, James’ aching voice paints lonely pictures
of her darkness that universally touches
each listener. Lee Thromberg’s horn patterns
accurately augment James’ poignant cries.
Check out James’ raspy delivery on the title
cut, as she tells the wayward man to take care
of business and “bring your sorry ass home
to me.” Another highlight, the high-powered
duet as James and Finnigan offer a nostalgic
give and take on Etta James’ soulful “If I Can’t
Have You.” Other highlights include “She’s
Got A Way With Men,” Wilson and James’
nod to the dance music that Martha and the
Vandellas were recording on their early sixties
45s. Honking baritone sax, background call
and responses, and the punctuating horn
arrangements of Thromberg turn the middle
chorus into a fun quoting of Smoky Robinson’s
“Going To A Go Go.”
James’ feel good love ballad, “That’s
Just Love” comes wrapped in more gorgeous
horn from Thromberg and Jerry Peterson.
Ditto her up beat “Carry That Burden,” which
offers a positive message about the cross we
each must bear. It’s not what we tote, but how
we accept it. And her Lone Star roots show in
the winsome, “Long Way From Texas,” where
amid her honky tonk piano, James longs for
getting home for some “Lone Star lovin’.”
The world of pop culture boasts of a
vocal flavor of the month, which expires
quickly in favor of the next talent. Then there
are vocalists like Teresa James who come to
the art with a voice that has aged through her
life experiences. I’ll take James every time.
– Art Tipaldi

LARRY GARNER
Blues For Sale
DixieFrog
Baton Rouge bluesman, Larry Garner, is a
national treasure. His uncanny ability to capture
spot-on, everyday occurrences and put
them to song makes him one of the blues
world’s leading innovators while maintaining
a traditional essence and reverence that is
the blues. His seasoned vocals boast a lifetime’s
worth of experience and feature lyrics
that are both clever and affable while his
soulful guitar work is equally emotional and
rewarding. No matter how you slice it, Larry
Garner’s music is universal and will appeal
to listeners young and old, far and wide.
On his latest album, Blues For Sale,
Garner and his top notch band, singer Debbie
Landry, guitarist Jared Daigle, keyboardist
Nelson Blanchard, bassist Shedrick
Nellon, drummer Joe Monk, and saxophonist
Mr. Mystery Man, serve up 11 ingeniously
penned Garner originals that touch down on
everything from the comical talking dirty to
your lady while having sex (“Talkin’
Naughty”), remembering our fighting men
and women and the mental and emotional
struggles they face long after the battle (“Broken
Soldier”), knowing exactly who’s wearing
the pants in the family and acting accordingly
(“Miss Boss”), leaving a bold, last will and
testament through song (“Last Request
(When I Die)”), telling travelers what to
expect, both good and bad, when trekking
down to the Gulf coast (“If You Come To
Louisiana”), collecting yourself and getting
back on your feet after bad love (“Rebound; I
Know You, Don’t Love Me”), setting a big
mouth blues-wannabe straight (“Car Seat
Baby”), and zeroing in on what can really
give you the blues (“A Whole Lotta Nothin’”).
With unemployment being the highest
it’s been in decades, people all over the
world battling for freedom, and a general
malaise in spirit, Larry Garner is a bright spot
in the equation that shouldn’t be missed.
– Brian M. Owens
THE BLUES BROADS
The Blues Broads
Delta Groove
The Blues Broads feature four singers
with blues based origins. Singers Dorothy
Morrison, Tracy Nelson, Annie Sampson,
and Angela Strehli bring along almost two
centuries of experience on this ten-song collection
of blues and gospel. Nelson was the
voice of ‘60s era blues-rock band Mother
Earth and a solo artist of varied notoriety.
Sampson sang with the overlooked 1970s
blues-rock outfit Stoneground. Morrison
BLUES REVUE 55

comes from the gospel world and was the
lead vocalist in the Edwin Hawkins Singers in
the 1960s. Texas based Strehli is a wellknown
blues singer who has backed up
greats like Stevie Ray Vaughan, Marcia Ball,
Matt Murphy, Elvin Bishop, and others. The
ladies are captured live on this two-disc
(CD/DVD) package, with the video disc containing
one bonus track, Dylan’s “It’s All Over
Now/Baby Blue.” Rounding out the band are
bassist Steve Ehrmann, drummer Paul Revelli,
guitarist Gary Vogensen, keyboardist
Mike Emerson, and “honorary broad” Deanna
Bogart who adds vocals, sax, and keyboards.
Good vocal vibes flow from the stage on
Gary Nicholson and Nelson’s “Livin’ The
Blues,” but for a concert opener I found the
backing band to be just plodding along for the
ride. Simpson’s soulful “Bring Me Your Love”
brings along a bit more vigor, but I wasn’t
enthralled by Simpson’s voice. Strehli’s “Two
Bit Texas Town” finds her surly, gruff, and thoroughly
in control as a professional bandleader
who simmers and smokes. I thought the
cover of Elle Greenwich and Phil Spector’s
“River Deep/Mountain High” was poorly
arranged and not uplifted by Morrison’s flat
vocals. All four ladies chime in on J. Leslie
McFarland’s “It Won’t Be Long,” which finds
the band (especially Bogart) more punchy
and creative, plus the ladies give their all here.
Nelson covers the Oliver Sain’s “Walk Away,”
but she too also seems not to be having her
best night vocally, and the backing band fails
to inspire nor do they invigorate the performance.
“Jesus, I’ll Never Forget” is performed
a cappella and is a pretty hip gospel cover.
The night concludes with Edwin Hawkins’
smash hit “Oh Happy Day” where everyone,
including its original vocalist Morrison, contributes
on this gospel classic that has the
crowd soul-clapping and sent home happy.
The Blues Broads is an interesting concept
band. If there’s a follow-up recording,
bringing these blues ladies into a studio environment
might spur more uplifting results. In
the meantime, enjoy the CD and DVD.
– Bob Putignano
56 BLUES REVUE
Yazoo Records has once again delved into its
collections of 78s giving record collectors a
plethora of blues, hillbilly, and other early music.
VARIOUS ARTISTS
The Return Of The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of
Yazoo
A sequel to Yazoo’s 2006 collection The Stuff That
Dreams Are Made Of, this marvelous two-CD set
follows the same basic format as its acclaimed predecessor:
46 carefully chosen and uniformly splendid
tracks dating from the hallowed pre-war 78 era.
The music is accompanied by a 52-page booklet
concentrating on the savvy acquisition techniques
and often obsessive tendencies (as amusingly parodied
in Drew Friedman’s cover artwork) of serious
record collectors specializing in 78s. Particularly
fascinating is a lengthy transcription of a conversation
between prolific collectors Richard
Spottswood, Pete Whelan, and Richard Nevins (he produced both volumes of Dreams).
There are notable differences between the two compilations. Instead of collating
obscenely rare performances that would never be available to any but the most wellheeled
of shellac fanatics, Return promises selections that no musically discerning
household should ever be without (they’re still quite rare, mind you, just not as insanely
so). Contents are once again primarily split between blues, hillbilly, and other indigenous
offshoots, but this time a few ethnic 78s from other countries are sprinkled in: the Polish
mountain music of Karola Stocha & S. Bachelda, a zesty polka from Orkiestra Majkuta,
Irish folk by Packie Dolan & His Boys. Somehow it all fits together into one seamless
whole. The sound quality from one end of the collection to the other is uniformly fine (no
beat-to-hell 78s have been pressed into service for the making of this package).
The blues selections are undisputed classics by icons of the pre-war idiom:
Hambone Willie Newbern’s “Roll And Tumble Blues,” Bukka White’s “The Panama Limited,”
Charley Patton’s “High Water Everywhere” and “Some These Days I’ll Be Gone,”
Blind Blake’s “Sun To Sun Blues.” There’s seminal Blind Willie Johnson (“Jesus Make
Up My Dying Bed”), Robert Wilkins (“That’s No Way To Get Along”), Tommy Johnson
(“Lonesome Home Blues”), and Furry Lewis (“Billy Lyons And Stack O’Lee”) alternating
with rousing backwoods country by Uncle Dave Macon & His Fruit Jar Drinkers, Charlie
Poole & the North Carolina Ramblers, and Fiddling Sam Long and a bayou waltz from
Leo Soileau & Mayuse Lafleur. Unlike the tight-knit early collector fraternity that specialized
in one genre at the expense of all others (leaving a lot of priceless platters behind
in the process), these Dreams engulf an amazing and enlightening range of contrasting
musical styles and idioms.
The lack of biographical information about the artists themselves in the liner notes is
somewhat annoying; granted, there’s plenty of scholarly discussion readily available on
Patton and the Johnsons, but not so much on the Mississippi Possum Hunters or Ashley’s
Melody Men, and simply pointing readers in the direction of Google’s search engine
as Nevins does in the booklet seems a trifle condescending. But it must be admitted that
the colorful tales of the 78 collectors who discovered a great many undocumented
recordings in their travels and became legends themselves in the process are almost as
intriguing as the music itself.
– Bill Dahl

58 BLUES REVUE
FABRIZIO POGGI
Harpway 61
Self-released
Fabrizio Poggi has been making his way
not only as a fan of the blues and a player
of the blues, but as a student of the blues.
There’s something compelling about an
Italian who is so taken with the form that is
so uniquely American. He’s an accomplished
player, whether on his own or with
his band Chicken Mambo, and maybe
because of his cosmopolitan pedigree, he’s
been able to absorb traditional blues and
incorporate Old World stylings to produce
something rather unexpected. The Old and
New World mash-up is easily seen in the
Tejano music that fuels Chicken Mambo’s
last release, Live In Texas, and much of
what Poggi has done with the band is in
that vein.
Harpway 61 is a departure to say the
least. It’s a high concept album that pays
homage to the bluesmen that have inspired
and influenced Poggi. The disc is a figurative
road trip with each track named after a
Delta town (except Chicago), and dedicated
to a particular harp player. The tunes
include numbers dedicated to Slim Harpo,
Sonny Terry, Paul Butterfield, both Sonny
Boy Williamsons, and a trio of Muddy
Waters alums (Little Walter, James Cotton,
and Junior Wells), among others. For an allharmonica
instrumental, Poggi covers a lot
of ground and keeps it interesting. Accompanied
by a sparse band, Poggi also chips
in himself with accordion, mandolin, banjo,
and, yes, banjolele.
He doesn’t exactly capture the style of
each of these players, so the dedications
are not always on target. Poggi can’t help
that he’s a product of his time, so there’s a
lot of modern influence that comes through
even when mimicking the roots. “Baton
Rouge, LA,” dedicated to Slim Harpo,
echoes “I’m A King Bee,” but Poggi’s style
is clean and much more refined than
Harpo’s. And while Poggi has the vibrato
down, I would have expected more energy
and overblows from “Tunica, MS,” dedicated
to James Cotton.
When he does hit it, he scores big.
The country blues of Sonny Terry with a little
more modern bounce, still rings true to
Terry’s style. On “Moorhead, MS,” Poggi
reaches all the way back to DeFord Bailey,
a country blues player who made his name
on the Grand Ole Opry stage. While I can’t
find a solid connection between Bailey and
Moorhead, Poggi nails it on harp, imitating
a freight train in the same way Bailey did on
“Pan American Blues” in 1927. That he
understands the catalog of Americana this
way says a lot about the depth of Poggi’s
study. An all-instrumental harmonica record
is a feat to pull off. Even though he misses
on some of the dedications, the effort here
is amazing.
– Eric Wrisley
KELLY JOE PHELPS
Brother Sinner & The Whale
Black Hen
Kelly Joe Phelps is back with an album that
alludes to earlier work like Roll Away The
Stone, released in 1997. Like that album,
the beautiful slide guitar work is here, measured,
textured, with not one superfluous
note played.
Phelps’s voice on Brother Sinner &
The Whale continues to recall a dram of topshelf
whiskey enjoyed on a dusky Sunday
afternoon. Thematically, we are once again
in Biblical territory – this time, it’s a meditation
on the Old Testament’s Book of Jonah,
and the artist has written an even dozen
songs in the key of praise and meditation.
Don’t look for 12-bar blues here, or a heavily
band-backed opus. This quiet, religious
album references the power of worship and
of movement to a spiritual plane. On his
Web site, where lyrics are listed, Bible
verses appear directly underneath. Therefore,
on a meditative track like “I’ve Been
Converted,” it’s clear that Phelps is “born
again.” It’s unclear if he means “rebirth” in
the conservative Christian tradition, but
there is no doubt the man has found the
Lord.
In “I’ve Been Converted,” he sings,
“God knows I’ve made a change/I’m not
afraid to call my Jesus’ name/I know I’ve
been converted to you.” There is no doubt
this is an important album for Phelps’s fans,
and for fans of masterful slide guitar work.
However, while even nonbelievers find
comfort in gospel tunes, or in old Pentecostal
hymns, an album full of one man’s
meditation on his relationship with his god
takes some work on the part of the listener.
The playing is beautiful, and the reverential
singing drives deep into the bone in
this quiet room, but there is a certain monochromatic
feeling – great for a concept
album, not so great if the listener seeks a
few turnarounds in tempo and theme.
Still, the string work is mesmerizing, at
times recalling the finger style of players like
Mississippi John Hurt, the jazz guitar work of
somebody like Joe Pass, and at other times
suggesting intricate Delta blues playing.
Despite the unifying theme, and the dozen
songs in its service, there are some standout
pieces including the reimagined, “Guide Me
O Great Jehova” [sic], the aforementioned
“I’ve Been Converted,” and the opening
track, “Talkin’ To Jehova.”
– Michael Cala
OLI BROWN
Here I Am
Ruf
I had the great pleasure of seeing the
young and up-and-coming British blues
whiz kid Oli Brown a couple of years ago at
the International Blues Challenge in Memphis.
With each new recording this kid puts
out, he keeps showing us why he’s going
to be a major force in the world of contemporary
blues and blues-rock for years to
come. He’s an ultra-talented guitarist, a
very adept vocalist, and a terrific songwriter

filled with original observations. In a sense,
he’s Great Britain’s answer to Jonny Lang
or Kenny Wayne Shepherd, and to be sure,
he’s got every bit of their talent.
Brown keeps breaking new thematic
ground as a songwriter. His band’s sound is
straight out of the mid-‘60s early ‘70s British
blues-rock boom, which via the Rolling
Stones, John Mayall, Rory Gallagher, Cream,
and others, got American rock fans to pay
more attention to their own native born blues
musicians. Guitarist Brown is expertly
accompanied throughout this album by fellow
Brits, bassist Scott Barnes, drummer
Wayne Proctor, and organist Joel White.
Stand out tracks here include the
groove-heavy “Thinking About Her,” a tale
of teenage and young adult lust, “You Can
Only Blame Yourself,” and the album’s closing
track “Solid Ground.” He throws in a
nod to influential keyboardist/guitarist Al
Kooper with his cover of “I Love You More
Than You’ll Ever Know.”
Here I Am is another fine effort from
Brown and company. Now all he needs is
some good booking agents to get his
band’s music out to prominent blues festivals
in the U.S. and Canada.
– Richard J. Skelly
CHRIS O’LEARY
Waiting For The Phone To Ring
VizzTone
The anticipated follow-up to Mr. Used To Be,
O’Leary’s stellar debut from 2011, is a rollicking
collection of 13 well-crafted originals
with a decidedly Nawlins R&B/swamp blues
feel with four tasty forays into West Coast
jump (which shares more than a subterranean
link with its New Orleans counterpart).
Much credit goes to the sax section of
Andy Stahl and Chris DiFrancesco for the
album’s overall sound; their tight knit velvety
saxes propel as well as cushion the tunes in
a manner that evokes the glory days of Fats
Domino, Professor Longhair, and Earl King,
and legendary saxophonists like Herb Hardesty,
Lee Allen, and Alvin “Red” Tyler.
O’Leary is a skilled master blaster himself
and his brawny harmonica perfectly
complements his sturdy, no-nonsense
vocals that are reminiscent of James Harman
and Kim Wilson. For the most part, the
originals address a gamut of bleak and/or
questionable romantic situations that range
from desperation with the pulse-pounding,
harp-infused thumper “Give It,” to selfdeprecation
with the strutting “(I Need You
Like A) Hole In The Head,” to uncertainty
with the stop-time shuffle “Without You,” to
fear with the languid grinder “Louisiana
Woman,” a tale of a minacious Cajun
Jezebel involved with voodoo, and to selfdoubt
on “Questions,” which summons the
spirit of Professor Longhair.
BLUES REVUE 59

O’Leary’s use of vivid imagery is
impressive; he is a master storyteller in the
manner of Rick Estrin and James Harman.
He even name-checks notorious femme
fatales of history like Eve, Cleopatra, Helen
of Troy, and Marie Antoinette on the brassy
mid-tempo roller “History,” a mix of Dr. John
and Mose Allison. Having seen them live in
the last year, I can attest that O’Leary leads
one of the most interesting and exciting
bands on the current scene (guitarist Chris
Vitarello, bassist Frank Ingram, drummer
Sean McCarthy, keyboardist Jeremy Baum,
vocalist Willa McCarthy, and the aforementioned
Stahl and DiFrancesco). A tight ver-
60 BLUES REVUE
satile band with a distinctive sound and distinctive
batch of tunes makes Waiting For
The Phone To Ring a winner on every level.
Highly recommended. (Disclosure: Waiting
For The Phone To Ring is issued by the VizzTone
Label Group, co-owned by Blues
Revue’s parent company, Visionation.)
– Thomas J. Cullen III
DAVID HIDALGO
MATO NANJI
LUTHER DICKINSON
3 Skulls And The Truth
Shrapnel
Two generations, three cultures, three guitar
stylists, three voices, one drummer, and
one bassist cooked the stew they call 3
Skulls And The Truth. David Hidalgo, Mato
Nanji, and Luther Dickinson inspired one
another as featured players in an Experience
Hendrix troupe. The gnashing, bloodpumping,
gets-under-your-skin results of
their first collaboration here sound like a
band together ten years, not just a one-off
with their Jimi and ZZ jones’s on. The
twelve songs, all written for the project,
focus on heavy-duty dueling guitars and the
weaving of distinctive voices (in both ideal
and tone). Detailed liners pinpoint precisely
who does what.
Hidalgo the elder rightfully sets the
tone much of the time, although he surprisingly
didn’t write any of the songs. The
churning rocker “I’m A Fool” could be Los
Lobos all over Hendrix, and “Woke Up
Alone” chops and swaggers like Hildalgo’s
Latin Playboys sideline might. Producer
Mike Varney brought “Make It Right” to the

table, which the band lights up and bounces
like “Stone Free” at a Hill country picnic. Varney
also kicked in “Coming Home,” which
rattles along at a good ZZ Top “La Grange”like
clip, Indigenous chief Nanji even slurring
in voice like Billy Gibbons. “I’m A Fool”
sounds like a dragon-sized gator, tail-draggin’
through the thick muck of a swamp, and
“All I Know” aims for the mainstream on a
hook and a groove to kill for. These guys
have all been busy beavers, Dickinson especially,
who’s been a part of five albums in the
last year or so. This raunchy boogie fest will
appeal most to the fans of his blues-rockin’
North Mississippi Allstars.
– Tom Clarke
B.B. & THE BLUES SHACKS
Come Along
CrossCut
For those arriving late to the party: There is
no one named B.B. in this five-piece outfit.
Hailing from the city of Hildesheim in northern
Germany, the Blues Shacks formed
around brothers Michael (harp and vocals)
and Andreas Arlt (guitar) in 1989 and rose
quickly to the top of that country’s blues
scene. Bassist Henning Hauerken has been
around since the mid-1990s, the third pillar
in a line-up that currently includes keyboard
standout Dennis Koeckstadt and Bernhard
Egger on drums. Mining a variety of traditional
electric blues styles without the slightest
nod to rock music, the Blues Shacks
routinely top German readers’ polls and
have made waves in far flung places like
Australia’s Byron Bay Bluesfest and the
Doheny Blues Festival in California with their
spirited live performances. They have reportedly
close to 3000 shows under their belt.
The brand new, beautifully packaged
Come Along is the band’s tenth studio
album overall. For a group so firmly rooted
in history, it’s natural to wonder if they can
continue to keep things fresh. Well, Come
Along answers the bell. In fact, it has to be
ranked among the Shacks’ finest achievements
to date. While it may upset a few
doggedly purist fans, the album sees the
Arlt brothers swing boldly into the area of
classic R&B while maintaining their mastery
of post-war blues sounds. The set is
lavishly produced without ever sounding
overloaded. Instead, the three-piece “No
Blow No Show Horns” add zest to all but
two of the sixteen tracks. (The album’s
overall length is perhaps its only weakness;
a bit of extra fat could have been
trimmed.) While Michael Arlt will never be
confused with Bobby “Blue” Bland, he
sings with conviction, shining even on
challenging material like “If I Should Ever
Lose Your Love,” an enchanting soul ballad
that suggests the late-1960s Las Vegas
incarnation of Elvis Presley.
Instrumentally, the boys are at the top
of their game. Singer Michael Arlt’s harp
playing is often overlooked. It is expressive
and well-placed, adding subtle flavors to the
music, much like Koeckstadt’s contributions
on piano and organ. Meanwhile, Andreas
Arlt upholds his reputation for tasteful, pinpoint
six-string magic in the Jimmie Vaughan
mold. But credit these gents for going new
places on Come Along. Song after song, the
Blues Shacks demonstrate their musical IQ.
Instead of growing stale, they’ve delivered
an album of astonishing vitality.
– Vincent Abbate
JOHN LEE HOOKER, JR.
All Hooked Up
Stepping Stone
If you’re looking for a junior version of John
Lee Hooker, you’re looking in the wrong
place. Although he tosses in a few of his
daddy’s trademark “how how hows” on the
second line-enhanced, Meters’ flavored
“Listen To The Music,” this junior sounds
more like George Benson than John Lee.
The album has a jazzy feel, like the Yellowjackets
backing Benson’s vocals.
Part of that is due to producer Larry
Batiste, who has written for artists including
Al Jarreau and the Chi-Lites. His hand is
most evident on “I Surrender, “which he composed
and shares lyric credits with Hooker,
Jr. The cut features “Clean Up Woman”
Betty Wright sounding more like Prince than
her own bad soulful self of old on a spirited
duet with Hooker, Jr. But even though his
approach to blues is smoother than his dad,
Hooker, Jr.’s stuff is still rootsy and raw in
spirit. He’s the author of all the cuts but four
he shares lyrical credit with Batiste.
“Tell It Like It Is” is not the Aaron Neville
tune, but a swamp-flavored cautionary tale
about the perils of drinking and carousing. If
you don’t pay attention to his admonitions,
Hooker sings, “back to dirt you shall return.”
“Pay The Rent” sounds more like Al Jarreau
in a cocktail lounge-y setting with a Bensonsounding
guitar backing him as he reads a
roommate the list of rules for co-habitation.
“I Know That’s Right” is slinky, funky, and
soulful, in the style and sound of Joe Simon.
With what sounds like the Average White
Band backing him on the title cut, Hooker
sums up his early life in two words: “creature
feature.” He recounts crawling in the muck
and the mire, falling hard, and finally being
saved by the grace of God to become the
eclectic performer he is today.
From the product on display here,
you’d never guess that this is the endless
boogie master’s son, or that the two were
even related. Even though the approaches
they took are radically different, Hooker, Jr.’s
journey may yet prove to be as interesting
as his daddy’s. Stay tuned.
– Grant Britt
JOANNE SHAW TAYLOR
Almost Always Never
Ruf
She looks like a sweet little angel, blonde
and baby-faced. But when she opens her
mouth and picks up her guitar, Joanne
Shaw Taylor lights up like a fiery demon.
Her husky voice, Dusty Springfield mixed in
with Janis Joplin, sounds like it’s trying to
BLUES REVUE 61

slide into country, but stops just short of
down home plate.
On “A Hand In Love,” from her latest
release, Almost Always Never, her guitar
chimes like an Allman Brothers’ solo laid
over a driving beat that could have been
lifted from an old Eurythmics rhythm track.
That’s not too much of a stretch, since
Eurythmics guitarist Dave Stewart discovered
Taylor and hired her as a member of
his group D.U.P. when she was 16. Ten
years and three solo albums later, the Birmingham,
England native is a strong presence
on the global blues scene.
Her playing and singing show such
maturity that when she sings about “looking
back on 17” on the title cut, you wonder
how she could remember back that far until
you realize she’s only 26. But along the way
she’s apparently garnered enough pain and
heartache from romantic entanglements
gone sour to fill an album with, and put in
enough gig time on the blues highway to
play guitar like a seasoned road dawg.
“Beautifully Broken” has a Joan Armatrading
feel, the ragged edges of Taylor’s
anguished soulful vocal shredded by her
jagged guitar solo as she reveals her lover
left her “hanging onto words unspoken, all
burned out and beautifully broken.” Lyrics
aide, Taylor sounds neither burned out nor
broken. For “Soul Station,” she drags up a
trunk full of guitar gods of the Page and
Clapton persuasion, tossing them in a cauldron
and bringing them to a rolling boil,
blistering licks splashing down the sides.
Then, she shows off some frenetic Joe
Satriani licks on “Tied And Bound,” her Gibson
hurling flaming brimstone balls around
the studio.
Although this release isn’t as bombastic
as her two previous releases, it’s a nice
change up that shows off a sultrier, more
introspective side. But given Taylor’s talent,
drive and intensity, it’s a good bet there’s
plenty of fire left for future projects.
– Grant Britt
62 BLUES REVUE
SCRAPOMATIC
I’m A Stranger And
I Love The Night
Landslide
When bits of inspiration from the likes of
Taj Mahal, Nina Simone, Dr. John, Tom
Waits, Sly Stone, Howlin’ Wolf, and
Charley Patton slide into the mixer, the
name Scrapomatic makes perfect sense.
Of course, it’s what comes out that makes
all the difference. This New York Citybased,
Midwestern-embedded roots
group injected a rare distinctiveness into
the genre on their 2003 self-titled debut.
Although they never lost sight of that
unique soul-blues-folk-country amalgam
on two subsequent albums, this is the one
that should do it for them.
Singer Mike Mattison makes a huge
impact. The breathy soul in his voice is
unmistakable, rising to an unusual falsetto
even, in the sexy, low-slung “Crime
Fighter.” Mattison spent ten years pulling
double duty as the lead singer for the
Derek Trucks Band, and continues today
as a backing vocalist in the universallyacclaimed
Tedeschi Trucks Band. He’s
never sounded more natural than he does
here. Plus, his songwriting skills have really
taken off. He wrote every one of these
dozen gems with guitarist Paul Olsen, and
several contain that “Jeez, I swear I’ve
heard this before” quality.
The title song ranks among the sunniest
pieces of soul in a long while,
despite its almost esoteric tone. Youthful
innocence suffuses the dainty melody
and sentimentality of “Don’t Fall Apart On
Me, Baby,” and the flowing ballad “The
Party’s Over” celebrates shutting it down
in grand style. All are absolutely irresistible.
On the other hand, “Alligator
Love Cry” takes a jumpy stance in the
realm of rough-hewn roadhouse blues,
and “Gentrification Blues” adds a sociohippy
vibe to the age-old style. Guitarist
Dave Yoke, ex of Susan Tedeschi’s band
and now a full-fledged Scrap, adds significantly
to the proceedings, his assertive
yet concise solos at times recalling
Trucks’ in tone. Bassist Ted Pecchio and
drummer Tyler Greenwell (of Tedeschi
Trucks Band) supply the incredibly wideranging
rhythms. Mattison’s a Harvard
American Literature grad and Olsen won
an ASCAP songwriting award twice. Triumphs,
street cred, and capriciousness
among talented musicians all add to the
draw. It seems the sky’s the limit for
Scrapomatic.
– Tom Clarke
SHAKURA S’AIDA
Time
Electro-Fi
Her vocals are the creamy filling in a blues
sandwich, spread between slices of Shemekia
Copeland and Susan Tedeschi with
a dash of Tina Turner sprinkled on top for
extra seasoning. Brooklyn-born, Switzerland-raised
Shakura S’Aida has called
Toronto home for nearly three decades.
Her unique voice spans jazz, soul, rock,
and R&B. Add in her partnership with guitarist
Donna Grantis and the musical landscape
they cover is ever expanding.
Canadian blues men Harrison Kennedy
and Kenny “Blues Boss” Wayne are also
aboard.
This two-disc set is split into a rock
and a blues set. It’s a strange mix at times,
like a cabaret singer trying to rock out. Perhaps
that’s why the blues side seems more
comfortable to listen to. You get the feeling
that S’Aida is used to filling big rooms with
her voice, or maybe just trying to let her
voice be heard as when she was singing
backup, going up against the heavy
artillery of Patti Labelle. But when she
relaxes, you really begin to appreciate the
nuances of her voice.
The rock stuff is just ok. “Long John
Baldry’s Don’t Try To Lay No Boogie-Woogie
On The Queen Of Rock And Roll” is
energetic and funky. The title cut sounds
like Shemekia in a higher register with
S’Aida’s bombastic vocal loud enough to
peel the paint off the walls.

The second disc, Time For The Blues,
is outstanding. S’Aida’s “Geechee
Woman,” which adds Kennedy’s harmonica,
is a loose-limbed strut, more funk than
swamp. Sounding like Shemekia on a New
Orleans sabbatical, “Bad Girl” steps out
with a second line framework tailor made
for a hanky waving street parade. Despite
its title, “Blues Dancin’,” featuring Wayne’s
piano, is a slow grind, more for laying back
and wallowing in the groove. When S’Aida
finally comes in after a long instrumental
intro, her sultry vocal makes it obvious that
the dancing she’s referring to is of the horizontal
variety.
It’d be great to see S’Aida belting out
this stuff in a smoky, ramshackle joint back
in the woods. It’d be even better for her to
record her next release in a joint like that, or
at least not try to swing for the fence every
time with her vocals and just let the bluesy
funk she hints at here have its way with her
and us.
– Grant Britt
SPOONFUL OF BLUES
Sinners
Bluestown
Have a listen to Sinners, the new release
from Norway’s Spoonful Of Blues, and there
is a good chance that your first thought may
well be “I wish I could have been at that
recording session.” The album rocks from
start to finish and if the musicians didn’t
have the best time making this record then
they must be very difficult to please.
Sinners doesn’t ease its way gently in.
Opener “Down By The River” kicks off with
a dirty metal riff and gives a great idea of
what would have happened had Billy Gibbons
been lead guitarist in British R&B stalwarts
Dr. Feelgood. The band then get
funky on the single chorder “The Death Of
Robert Johnson” before “Make You
Happy,” a mournful country song that
would not be out of place on a John
Lennon or Rolling Stones album, briefly
slows the pace.
Earlier Spoonful Of Blues releases
were heavily influenced by the North Mississippi
blues of the likes of R.L. Burnside
and Junior Kimbrough and guest appearances
here by Kenny Brown and Sharde
Thomas and Bill Turner from The Rising
Star Fife & Drum Band show that this is still
the band’s natural territory. “Throw Me A
Line” and “I Heard My Baby” have their
roots firmly in the Hill Country as does “The
Land Where The Blues Began,” the album’s
standout track. A “Goin’ Down South” influenced
riff sets the scene before Jostein
Forsberg’s menacing vocals pay homage
to the myths of Mississippi bluesmen, while
Rita Engedalen builds the intensity with her
wailing and moaning. Superb stuff.
Elsewhere on the album “We Were
Rocking” and “Delta Porch” are straightforward
house rockers, Eden Brent adding
piano to the latter. “Think It Over” is classic
AOR, and “Can’t Get You Off My Mind”
sees the band moving to Africa rather than
Mississippi for its influence.
Forsberg, guitarist Morten Omlid,
drummer Eskil Aasland, and ex-Eddie Martin
Band bassist Tony Caddle have recorded
their best album to date. A single lyric from
this album says all you need to know about
this hugely enjoyable release: “There’s a
rocking party on the Delta Porch.” This is a
party you don’t want to miss.
– Chris Kerslake
BLUES REVUE 63

When I Left Home: My Story
By Buddy Guy with David Ritz – Da Capo Press
This isn’t the first time Buddy Guy
has hunkered down to commit
his spectacular career to the
printed page. In 1993, he collaborated
with Donald E. Wilcock on
a 1993 memoir, Damn Right, I’ve
Got The Blues, which took an oral
history approach that surrounded
Guy’s own quotes with pertinent
substantiation from various musical
collaborators and personal
friends. While not the ultimate
Guy bio, Damn Right did a reasonable
job of presenting the
highlights of his career at the
flashpoint of what turned out to
be a truly mammoth comeback.
Since then, Guy has been anointed as the contemporary king of
electric Chicago blues. As such a regal status requires, he collaborated
with one of the top biographers in the music field, David Ritz, on When I
Left Home: My Story. Ritz co-authored the autobiographies of Ray
Charles, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson, Jerry Wexler,
the Neville Brothers, the compositional duo of Jerry Leiber and Mike
Stoller, and quite a few more, so he brings major cachet to the project.
Guy and Ritz follow a traditional biographical narrative this time,
tracing Buddy’s life from his rural Louisiana upbringing, where he was
exposed up close and personal to the lowdown blues of Lightnin’ Slim,
through his early musical exploits in Baton Rouge with harpist Raful
Neal and then his September 25, 1957 migration to Chicago. Shy by
nature, the young axeman scuffled at first. Once the mighty Muddy
Waters graciously took Guy under his wing, feeding the starving musician
a salami sandwich outside the 708 Club and offering more nourishment
in the form of much-needed encouragement, Guy’s fortunes
improved in a hurry.
Locating his confidence and bringing an electrifying high-energy
attack to his playing in the manner of his back-home hero Guitar Slim,
Guy made his 1958 recording debut for Cobra Records’ Artistic
imprint. In 1960, he graduated to the Chess label, where Waters,
Howlin’ Wolf, Bo Diddley, and Chuck Berry ruled the roost. Over the
next seven years, Guy earned a vaunted reputation as one of the
most explosive electric fretsmen in his field with a series of blistering
Chess singles (his harrowing vocals were just as exciting). Eric Clapton
and a gaggle of blues-rock icons on both sides of the Atlantic
adopted him as a primary influence.
As he always seems to do in interviews, Guy decries those
seminal Chess waxings here, claiming Leonard Chess prevented him
from recording the way he really wanted to: like an ear-shattering blues
version of Jimi Hendrix. Since Jimi didn’t really emerge on a national
scale until 1967—near the end of Guy’s zChess tenure—that criticism
has limited validity at best. Buddy’s magnificent Chess recordings still
stand as a primary part of his recorded legacy, along with his exquisite
’68 Vanguard LP A Man And The Blues.
There are some convenient omissions in the text. Guy fails
to cite his longtime partner at the Checkerboard Lounge, L.C.
Thurman, or the two managers that guided his comeback campaign,
Marty Salzman and his successor Scott Cameron. Precious
few sidemen rate a mention either. There’s little insight into many of
Guy’s commercially potent recent CDs, which his legion of fans
have purchased in sizable quantities and would seemingly enjoy
reading about.
A disconcerting number of names are misspelled, notably that of
guitarist Pat Hare, whose surname somehow becomes “Hair” (an
account of Hare’s violent deeds is fraught with inaccuracy). A total
lack of vintage photos from Guy’s early performing days is another
disappointment; apart from a striking early picture of his dad, the
entire photo section consists of comparatively recent shots of Buddy-
-either alone, standing next to one celebrity or another (did we really
need a shot of him and Jonny Lang?), or solo shots of Muddy and
John Lee Hooker that seem like padding. Damn Right boasted plenty
of great ‘50s and ‘60s promo pictures of Guy; one wonders why
they’re nowhere to be found this time.
When I Left Home is a snappy read, as one would expect from
anything with Ritz’s name on the cover. It certainly offers a more intimate
and enlightening portrait of Guy’s life and times than its predecessor.
Still, the expectation was for more in-depth testimony from
Chicago’s highest-profile contemporary bluesman. Since it seems
unlikely a third Guy memoir will be forthcoming, we’ll have to content
ourselves with what’s here and let his music say the rest.
– Bill Dahl
Big Road Blues: 12 Bars on I-80
By Mark Hummel
Hop in the van. ‘Cause Mark
Hummel’s going out on tour and
you are invited. But it might not
be quite what you expect. The
perspective of a musician new to
the business changes after a few
tours. That’s according Hummel,
a bandleader who has been on
the road since the late 1970s.
“It’s like breaking the fantasy
of what people think life is
like on the road,” he said. “A
year later, they have a different
take on it.” The unpredictable,
tumultuous, and sometimes
hilarious travails of a professional
musician is detailed in
Hummel’s e-book, Big Road Blues: 12 Bars On I-80,” released in
August. In order to not embarrass some artists, Hummel said he
changed some names in the book. But the stories are true.
Hummel didn’t reveal the identity of a musician who asked to sit
in with the band a few years ago during a show in Oregon. The guitarist,
Hummel surmised in the chapter “Sitting In and Falling Down,”
expected to be turned down. After the bandleader acquiesced, the
nervous guitarist proceeded to get smashed. When he finally got his
chance to play, he was so drunk he fell off the stage. By the time
Hummel’s regular guitar player retrieved his instrument, which was
BLUES REVUE 65

amazingly undamaged, the embarrassed guest player had
disappeared. And Hummel didn’t see him again for years.
Since 1991 Hummel has presented an all-star revue called
“Harmonica Blowouts” all across the globe. In his book, he documents
stories about famous blues stars, including fellow harp players
Charlie Musselwhite, Carey Bell, Lazy Lester, Kim Wilson, Kenny
Neal, Curtis Salgado, Jumpin’ Johnny Sansone, and Rick Estrin
and playing with blues legends like Brownie McGee, Jimmy
Rogers, Lowell Fulson, Sonny Rhodes, Cool Papa, Charles Houff,
Jimmy McCracklin, and Charles Brown.
“Things have changed so dramatically from the ‘70s until
now,” Hummel said. “The number of pioneers of that era you can
practically count them on one hand. It’s literally 10 to 15 guys. Used
to be a couple hundred, at least.”
Hummel is a good storyteller. Here’s how he recalled a trip
down South. “One must be aware the many dangers in traveling the
mean roads of Florida. You’ve got to worry about hurricanes, highway
bandits who rob European tourists, alligators sleeping in
ditches and, for touring harmonica players, the outdoor biker bars.”
He later gets into his interaction with a volatile crankster club
manager who seems more like a cartoon character than a person.
In fact, after leaving some towns, Hummel thinks back and wonders
if what he have gone through was real.
He recalled a strange experience at a club one evening, and
the next day in another town he wasn’t sure if he’d imagined the
whole thing. Another time he stepped out of a movie theater and he
didn’t know what city he was in or what month it was.
66 BLUES REVUE
“That did a number on me,” Hummel said. “That was after being
about 10 months straight on the road. It was a real wake up call. I
learned the importance of keeping your sanity over making a living.”
Hummel describes Sisyphean life on the road transporting
equipment, surviving late-night drives on icy highways, and getting
club owners to live up to verbal contracts. While he doesn’t seek
confrontations, Hummel has a penchant for being in them. When
traveling with amiable harp man James Harman, Hummel will
assume the role of the angry artist and Harman the friendly one
who can charm his way to band getting paid.
“The ones that stay in business are usually the ones that are
the cheapest and most spendthrift,” Hummel said. “It’s just survival.
‘If I’ve got to screw the band over, so be it’. And they also probably
figure, ‘I am never going to have to deal with you again.’ But the
thing I think a lot of them don’t realize is if you start down that road
it’s going to be the end of the road for you pretty quickly. Musicians
talk like mad. We’re all little gossips and that word’s going to get out
on the club owner who does that.”
– Tim Parsons
Ernie K-Doe: The R&B Emperor Of New Orleans
By Ben Sandmel – The Historic New Orleans Collection, 2012
Amid talk of book publishing’s premature demise comes a
handsome, impeccably researched, and visually rich series of
outsized hardcover biographies of Louisiana’s treasured musical

standard-bearers that may
well be the envy of larger,
commercial presses. “The
Louisiana Musicians Biography
Series," published
by the Historic New
Orleans Collection, is a
series of book-length
biographies of key musical
personalities from the
Pelican State. The first two
volumes are copiously
illustrated hardcover publications
resembling coffee
table books – but with
much more substance.
In 2010, the first Musicians Biography publication was
released, titled, Unfinished Blues: Memories Of A New Orleans
Music Man, by Harold Battiste Jr. with Karen Celstan. Battiste,
born in 1931, was chosen because of his work as founder of All
For One Records, nominally the first black musician-owned-andoperated
record label in the country. Multiple Grammy-winner
Battiste produced jazz, blues, and pop artists including Sam
Cooke, Dr. John, Barbara George, the Marsalis Family, and many
others.
The second and most recent publication examines the surreal
life and times of pop singer, club owner, and resident New Orleans
eccentric Ernie K-Doe (born Ernest Kador in 1936). The performer
worked with New Orleans musical genius Alan Toussaint on Doe’s
one stellar hit, “Mother In Law,” written and arranged by Toussaint.
Ernie managed to breach both pop and R&B charts for only one
time in 1961. In 1994, K-Doe and his second wife, Antoinette,
opened The Mother-In-Law Lounge in New Orleans, so he would
always have a place to perform. Tourists and locals flocked there
regularly.
Ernie K-Doe: The R&B Emperor Of New Orleans, by Ben
Sandmel is a heavily researched and illustrated tribute to this
quirky musician, who went from chitlin circuit club performer to
brief pop stardom to briefly homeless and beloved eccentric,
to self-anointed "emperor," whose musings and irrational behavior
have become encoded into the social and musical DNA of
New Orleans.
This biography takes us into the underbelly of New Orleans
music, where Doe, who ran his famous lounge like a kingdom, officiated
as ruler, jester, tourist attraction, and highly quotable pop
savant. Along with his second wife, the dedicated Antoinette, Doe
created a world at once surreal and comforting to those who knew
the couple, loved the music, and dug Ernie’s grandiose pronouncements
concerning Ernie K. Doe. Antoinette’s eccentricities
seemed to blossom in Ernie’s presence.
The self-aggrandizing Doe was nevertheless a booster of New
Orleans music. His personality and drive led him to cross paths
with local legends including the Neville Brothers, Dr. John, Slim
Harpo, Guitar Slim, and Professor Longhair, as well as music
industry titans including Jerry Wexler, Smoky Robinson, Paul
McCartney and a slew of reporters from the national press. At a
Blues Foundation induction ceremony, he advised the audience of
entertainers, “There have only been five [sic] great singers of
rhythm and blues, Ernie K-Doe, James Brown, and Ernie K-Doe!”
Doe died in 2001 from esophageal cancer. After his death,
Antoinette commissioned creation of a lifelike mannequin of Doe
– wig and all – with which she turned up at various New Orleans
venues. She and “Ernie” routinely appeared in the local press as
beloved oddities. The club – and “mannequin Ernie” lived on until
Antoinette’s death in 2010.
Sandmel interviewed nearly 100 musicians, pundits, and
friends for this book. He is to be commended for the seamless way
in which he incorporates anecdote, local and national R&B history,
and pop culture and Ernie K. Doe’s life and recordings into one
highly readable package. The color illustrations are fascinating.
They include pictures from 20 photographers of Ernie as pop icon
and in his king’s robes and crown.
Also included are photographs of the couple, the mannequin,
fellow musicians, reproductions of 45-RPM records,
concert posters and other ephemera that merit a reading apart
from the text, which they complement perfectly, documenting lost
times in pre-Katrina New Orleans. Doe may not have maintained
a national reputation much beyond 1961, but his life in New
Orleans as a pop oracle was always a joy to the ambitious,
self-referential Ernie K.
A small bonus accompanying the book is a CD containing
high-resolution digital images from the book, a press release, and
a reproduction of a famous Ernie K. Doe postcard. Unfortunately,
the CD contains none of Doe’s music, which would have been a
perfect addition to this excellent book.
– Michael Cala
BRavo!
The following are the most listened-to
recordings in Blues Revue’s offices
during the making of this issue:
BRavo! BRavo!
BEN HARPER &
CHARLIE MUSSELWHITE
Get Up
Stax
JOSH SMITH
Don’t Give Up On Me
CrossCut
GARY CLARK, JR.
Blak And Blu
Warner
CHRIS O’LEARY
Waiting For The Phone To Ring
VizzTone
MIKE WHEELER
Self Made Man
Delmark
IGOR PRADO BAND
Blues & Soul Sessions
Chico Blues Records
JOHN NEMETH
Blues Live
Self-released
MILTON HOPKINS
& JEWEL BROWN
Dialtone Records
BEX MARSHALL
The House Of Mercy
House of Mercy Records
MITCH WOODS
Blues Beyond Borders
Live In Istanbul
Club 88 Records
BLUES REVUE 67

Reissue Roundup –
Compilations, Re-Releases, and Best-Ofs
If Magic Sam ever gave less than 100 percent
on a bandstand, the results weren’t
captured on tape. The king of West Side
Chicago blues guitar was typically ablaze
at a July 11, 1969 club gig in Berkeley,
assisted by only bass and drums; over the
course of the 17 songs on RockBeat’s
Live 1969 Raw Blues!, the sky-high
energy level never lags. Sam alternates
between his own songs and well-chosen
covers, slipping in five dazzling instrumentals
(his showstopper “Looking Good” is
devastating). Sam’s soulful vocals shine
on three B.B. King covers, his own “All
Your Love,” and a piledriving revival of
J.B. Lenoir’s “Mama Talk To Your Daughter.”
The stereo sound quality isn’t pristine,
especially on the closer “Sweet Home
Chicago,” but when it comes to newly
unearthed live Magic Sam, that’s easily
forgivable.
The Montreux Jazz Festival welcomed
Etta James to its stage four times, and,
judging from Eagle’s Live at Montreux
1975-1993, she always lit it up. She was
funky and bluesy at her Montreux debut,
exploring the Staple Singers’ “Respect
Yourself” and Elmore James’ “Dust My
Broom,” while in 1977 she offered a medley
of her torch ballad hits, including “At Last.”
In ‘89, she served up a lascivious “Sugar
On The Floor,” and in ‘93 (a set that’s the
source of half the CD), she belted “I Just
Want To Make Love To You” and her own
hit “I’d Rather Go Blind.”
Once he left Huey “Piano” Smith &
the Clowns in New Orleans (he was their
lead singer), Bobby Marchan found his
way to Memphis, Nashville, and Muscle
Shoals to wax splendid southern soul.
Kent’s Get Down With It: The Soul Sides
1963-67 is a 28-track feast of churning
grooves and wildly impassioned ballads.
At Stax/Volt, Booker T. & the MG’s backed
Marchan on “You Won’t Do Right” and a
two-part remake of Donnie Elbert’s “What
Can I Do.” Marchan cut the original raveup
“Get Down With It” and several more
for Buddy Killen’s Dial label, then proceeded
to Cameo Records, where his
Shoals-cut “Shake Your Tambourine,”
“Meet Me In Church,” and “Help Yourself”
were utterly spectacular.
68 BLUES REVUE
Stax/Volt Records was blessed to
have Booker T. & the MG’s as its 1960s
house band; the immaculate groove makers
seemed to breathe as one. When they
weren’t backing the label’s early roster of
stars, organist Booker T. Jones, guitarist
Steve Cropper, drummer Al Jackson, Jr.,
and bassist Lewis Steinberg (Duck Dunn
would join later) made skin-tight Memphisstyle
instrumentals. Their remarkably tight
1962 debut album for Stax, Green Onions,
featured the rocking minor-key smash title
track along with the spine-chilling downbeat
blues “Behave Yourself,” the slashing
follow-up “Mo’ Onions,” and nine cool
covers. Concord’s new reissue of the set
closes with two live bonus cuts culled from
a ‘65 show at the 5/4 Ballroom in L.A.
The huge gospel-soaked pipes of
soul stunner Spencer Wiggins ended up
on Goldwax Records instead of Memphis
rival Stax. Kent already assembled a
superlative CD comp of Wiggins’ Goldwax
sides; now they’ve done the same with his
later catalog on Feed The Flame – The
Fame And XL Recordings. All but six of its
22 tracks, dating from 1969-1973, were
shelved at the time, yet they’re anything
but makeweight. Wiggins tears into “Holding
On To A Dying Love,” a George Jackson
composition, in a rendition that
predates Otis Clay’s Hi label reading; his
percolating “I’m At The Breaking Point” is
irresistible. A cover of Etta James’ “I’d
Rather Go Blind” slices deep, and the joyous
Muscle Shoals-cut sing-along “Double
Lovin’” (later covered by the Osmonds!)
charted for Wiggins in 1970.
When George Jackson cut demos at
Rick Hall’s FAME Studios in Muscle
Shoals, they were always good enough to
Bill Dahl
release but only heard by the likes of
Clarence Carter, Wilson Pickett, or Candi
Staton. That’s abundantly clear from the
first track on Kent’s Don’t Count Me Out:
The Fame Recordings Volume 1, containing
24 of the Mississippian’s full-band
demos dating from 1968 into the early
‘70s. An expressive singer, Jackson does
his “The Feeling Is Right” and “Getting The
Bills (But No Merchandise)” proud (they
were later done by Carter); ditto “Search
Your Heart” (the only track that’s ever seen
light of day before, and that only last year)
and “Back In Your Arms,” both latched
onto by Pickett. Jackson knew his way
around the 12-bar form too – witness the
loping “3-F Blues” and a grinding “Greasy
Two By Four.”
Based early in his career out of
Miami, soul vocalist Paul Kelly’s earliest
sides displayed an intriguing array of influences,
including Motown. Producer Buddy
Killen helped Kelly, always a standout
songwriter, create a Southern soul sound
of his own (he did most of his later recording
in Nashville and Muscle Shoals). It’s
an enormously pleasing one on Kent’s
24-song Hot Runnin’ Soul – The Singles
1965-71, which boasts all of Kelly’s early
45s on Lloyd, Dial, Philips (“Glad To Be
Sad” really cooks), and Happy Tiger,
where he finally broke through in 1970 with
the somewhat controversial “Stealin’ In
The Name Of The Lord.”
Deep-voiced Benny Spellman is perhaps
best-known for his rumbling retorts on
Ernie K-Doe’s 1961 smash “Mother-In-Law,”
but he enjoyed his own prolific recording
career in New Orleans for the Minit, Ace,
Alon, and Sansu labels. Fortune Teller
– A Singles Collection 1960-67 from the
British Shout! Imprint is a splendid 30-song
overview of Benny’s own R&B output, spotlighting
the input of producer/composer/
pianist Allen Toussaint as well as Benny’s
own rich pipes. The title track and its flip
“Lipstick Traces (On A Cigarette)” are Spellman’s
best-known Minit sides, but he really
didn’t make any bad ones during the ‘60s.
Georgia-born singer Willie Hobbs
waxed some satisfying deep soul for the
Silver Fox and Seventy 7 logos that are
gathered on Soulscape’s 22-song

A Penny For Your Thoughts. Hobbs’ four
Silver Fox sides are scintillating in their
Southern soul sparkle, while the bulk of
the CD showcases Hobbs’ output for John
Richbourg’s Seventy 7, including some
forays into country-rooted material (Kris
Kristofferson’s “Why Me” and Johnny
Paycheck’s “Mr. Lovemaker”) that contrast
with covers of Isaac Hayes’ “Do Your
Thing” and William Bell’s title track. Hobbs
deserved a higher profile than what fate
had in store.
LP fans are sure to rejoice over Alligator’s
repressing of two of its most popular
early titles on heavy 180-gram vinyl.
Not only was legendary New Orleans
pianist Professor Longhair’s Crawfish
Fiesta by far the best album he made
during his celebrated comeback era
(sadly, it hit the shelves right about the
same time he unexpectedly died in 1980),
the set’s been augmented by a newly
released rehearsal take of Percy Mayfield’s
“River’s Invitation” rendered with
Fess’ usual syncopated flair. Alligator
picked up U.S. rights to Buddy Guy’s
Stone Crazy from the French Isabel label;
cut in 1979 with his rhythm section, it was
one of the first times Guy was allowed to
cut loose on wax with the manic, balls-out
energy that’s become his byword.
Bear Family’s pressing up fresh vinyl
too, repressing bluesman Frank Frost’s
classic ‘62 Phillips International album Hey
Boss Man! on LP with a bonus instrumental,
“Crawlback,” previously out as a single.
Back then, his stalwart Mississippi
compatriots Big Jack Johnson (on lead
guitar) and drummer Sam Carr were billed
as the Night Hawks. This was the last
essential blues release from Sam Phillips’
operation, permeated with juke joint-tested
rhythms and rough-hewn vocals the way
Sun had done it nearly a decade earlier
during its formative years.
The thundering rock and roll piano
of Jerry Lee Lewis has always been an
amalgam of blues and country. Hip-O
Select gathers Jerry Lee’s first four concert
LPs onto a three-CD The Killer Live!
1964-1970, adding a treasure trove of
outtakes to sweeten the deal. “Live” At
The Star Club, Hamburg has been cited
as the wildest live rock and roll album
ever made, Jerry Lee blasting through a
non-stop set with the Nashville Teens
somehow keeping up. Just as exciting
was The Greatest Live Show On Earth,
another ‘64 album done with Lewis’ own
band in Birmingham, Alabama (its ‘66
sequel was no slouch either). 1970’s
Live At The International, Las Vegas
reflected his transition to C&W stardom,
so its repertoire leaned in that direction
yet there was room for “Flip, Flop, And
Fly” and an unreleased “Stagger Lee.”
Before the advent of Texas bluesand-boogie
stalwarts ZZ Top, guitarist
Billy Gibbons fronted a tough band that
got less notice but kicked out some
mean blues-influenced rock. Rock Beat’s
Moving Sidewalks – The Complete
Collection is a neat two-CD box containing
their only album released at the time,
a psychedelic 1968 affair, on one disc and
a slammin’ collection of singles, several of
them mean Lone Star garage rock, on
the other, including their Wand singles
“99th Floor” and “Need Me” and five 1966
rarities by Gibbons’ previous group, the
Coachmen.
BLUES REVUE 69

DON ODELL’S LEGENDS
Check out your favorite bands at my Legends channel on YouTube at
www.youtube.com/user/dodell590. Filmed and Recorded sets by Joe
Louis Walker, Ana Popovic, Nick Moss, Jimmy Thackery, Moreland
& Arbuckle, Albert Cummings, Royal Southern Brotherhood, and
others. Professional bands touring through Western Massachusetts
should contact me via e-mail at dono590@comcast.net.
FESTIVAL
CONSULTANT
YOU want to start a festival?
YOU need help with your
existing festival?
CONTACT:
Paul E. Benjamin
70 Lake Ave
Rockland, Me 04841
phone: (207) 596-6055
email: bluesman@midcoast.com
~ 20 YEARS EXPERIENCE ~
Voted the promoter of the year 2002
by the Blues Foundation
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Revue, ISSN 1091-7543. USPS 1091-7543. Blues Revue is published six
times a year with a $35.00 annual subscription price.
The known office of publication and general business offices
are located at 1001 11th Avenue West, Bradenton, FL 34205. Publisher,
Charles Eagle, managing editor, Art Tipaldi, P.O. Box 8906, Longboat
Key, FL 34228.
Blues Revue is owned by Visionation, Ltd. and licensed for
publication by MojoWax Media, Inc. whose president and chief
executive officer is John Sullivan, P.O. Box 8906, Longboat Key, FL
34228. Known bondholders, mortgagees, and other security
holders: NONE.
The average number of copies of each issue during the preceding
12 months are: (A) Total Number of Copies Printed: 20,000; (B1)
Mailed Outside-County Paid Subscriptions Stated on PS Form 3541:
11,500; (B2) Mailed In-County Paid Subscriptions Stated on PS Form
3541: 0; (B3) Paid Distribution Outside the Mails Including Sales
Through Dealers and Carriers, Street Vendors, Counter Sales, and
Other Paid Distribution Outside USPS: 7500; (B4) Paid Distribution by
Other Classes Mailed Through the USPS: 0 (C) Total Paid Circulation:
19,500; (D1) Free or Nominal Rate Outside-County Copies Included on
PS Form 3541: 0; (D2) Free or Nominal Rate In-County Copies Included
on PS Form 3541: 0; (D3) Free or Nominal Rate Copies Mailed at Other
Classes Through the USPS: 0; (D4) Free or Nominal Rate Distribution
Outside the Mail (Carriers or Other Means): 500; (E) Total Free or
Nominal Rate Distribution: 500; (F) Total Distribution: 20,000;(G) Copies
not Distributed: 0; (H) Total: 20,000; Percent Paid: 98%.
The actual number of copies of single issue nearest to filing date
(Oct/Nov Issue) are: Total Number of Copies Printed: 20,000; (B1)
Mailed Outside-County Paid Subscriptions Stated on PS Form 3541:
11,515; (B2) Mailed In-County Paid Subscriptions Stated on PS Form
3541: 0;(B3) Paid Distribution Outside the Mails Including Sales
Through Dealers and Carriers, Street Vendors, Counter Sales, and
Other Paid Distribution Outside USPS: 7245; (B4) Paid Distribution by
Other Classes Mailed Through the USPS: 790 (C) Total Paid Circulation:
19550; (D1) Free or Nominal Rate Outside-County Copies Included on
PS Form 3541: 0; (D2) Free or Nominal Rate In-County Copies Included
on PS Form 3541: 0; (D3) Free or Nominal Rate Copies Mailed at Other
Classes Through the USPS: 0; (D4) Free or Nominal Rate Distribution
Outside the Mail (Carriers or Other Means): 450; (E) Total Free or
Nominal Rate Distribution: 450; (F) Total Distribution: 20,000; (G) Copies
not Distributed: 0; (H) Total: 20,000; (I) Percent Paid: 98%.
I certify that the statements above are correct and complete.
Signed: John Sullivan, Licensee: MojoWax Media, Inc.
60 Reverend Freakchild
64 Ribfest
57 Roger “Hurricane” Wilson
18, 59 Ruf Records
70 Sean Costello Research Fund
24 Shining Stone
COVER Sin City Soul And Blues Revival
27 Springing The Blues Festival
71 Tampa Bay Blues Festival
63 Tinsley Ellis
48 Tweed Funk
17 VizzTone
18 Western Maryland Blues Festival
70 Zeroglide

BIG JOE TURNER – NEW YORK CITY – 1983 © JOSEPH A. ROSEN
JIMMIE VAUGHAN & RONNIE EARL – CONNECTICUT – 1983 © JOSEPH A. ROSEN
VINTAGE
Blues Revue has asked our veteran photographers to share some of their
favorite vintage photos of blues legends. We know that our readers will
appreciate these images as they are genuine moments in music history.
Look for more in upcoming issues.