GARY CLARK,JR.
GARY CLARK,JR.
GARY CLARK,JR.
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ISSUE #137<br />
www. bluesrevue. com<br />
03><br />
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<strong>GARY</strong> <strong>CLARK</strong>,<strong>JR</strong>.<br />
2013 BREAKOUT STAR<br />
CURTIS SALGADO<br />
Singing With Grace<br />
LARRY MCCRAY<br />
An Under The Radar Hero<br />
Introducing Two Exciting Blues Voices<br />
TORONZO CANNON<br />
ALEXIS P. SUTER
COLUMNS<br />
4<br />
6<br />
28<br />
30<br />
From the Top ... CHIP EAGLE<br />
Editor’s Solo ... ART TIPALDI<br />
Down in the Delta ... ROGER STOLLE<br />
Steady Rollin’... BOB MARGOLIN<br />
DEPARTMENTS<br />
7<br />
32<br />
72<br />
REVIEWS<br />
34<br />
39<br />
65<br />
67<br />
68<br />
News From The Field<br />
Legends Of The Roots<br />
After Hours<br />
Club BR<br />
CD Reviews<br />
Blues Books<br />
BRavo!<br />
ISSUE #137<br />
Reissue Roundup<br />
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COVER PHOTOGRAPHY © FRANK MADDOCKS<br />
TO<br />
PHOTOGRAPHY © JOSEPH A. ROSEN<br />
FEATURES<br />
10<br />
14<br />
19<br />
22<br />
25<br />
<strong>GARY</strong> <strong>CLARK</strong>, <strong>JR</strong>.<br />
21st Century Blues Rising From Austin<br />
BY TOM HYSLOP<br />
CURTIS SALGADO<br />
Another Shot At Soul<br />
BY MICHAEL KINSMAN<br />
LARRY MCCRAY<br />
Playin’ From The Heart<br />
BY ART TIPALDI<br />
TORONZO CANNON<br />
Chicago’s Newest Guitar Slinger<br />
BY THOMAS J. CULLEN III<br />
ALEXIS P. SUTER<br />
The Big Voice Of The Blues<br />
BY KAY CORDTZ
It’s a jungle out there<br />
A lot of businesses are tough, but the blues is a jungle full of<br />
animals. And I don’t just mean the party animals at your local<br />
blues club!<br />
When I flip through my contact list, I often smile as I feel<br />
as if I am walking through a zoo. In the blues one can find an<br />
Alligator and even a Blind Pig, with their hilarious porcine logo.<br />
But that’s just the beginning. On the blues road you must keep<br />
an eye out for a Yellow Dog, a Fat Possum, a Blind Raccoon, a<br />
Blue Armadillo, an Iguana, a Blind Chihuahua, a Green Monkey,<br />
a Wolf, even a Bear Family! And don’t run over a Blue Skunk<br />
or a Smelly Cat! We all know that any of them can end up as<br />
Road Kill, but when you are in the South (of France) make sure<br />
you don’t step on a Dixie Frog or a Screaming Lizard or even<br />
a Tadfrog!<br />
But if you are sneaking through the Blue Corn to get to the<br />
Black Market for some Catfood, watch out for the Black Hen<br />
and the Rat Pak. If you hear a “Grr,” watch out, it could be Thirty<br />
Tigers, maybe you should head on back to the Red House. And<br />
if you are out on the Stony Plain, look up and you might see an<br />
Eagle, a Raven, or a Blackbird. You might even see Kool Kat or<br />
a rare Rip Cat.<br />
4 BLUES REVUE<br />
If you commit the Perfect Crime you might just end up with<br />
some Proper Records or even Criminal Records. Of course, one<br />
of my crimes would be forgetting to mention one of my friends,<br />
so I better stop there.<br />
It’s almost festival season and we’ve got the calendar out<br />
and are burning up the airwaves talking to our friends about<br />
where we are going when. Gonna try and make a couple of new<br />
ones this year. Friends and festivals!<br />
If you can, make to Memphis on May 9 for the Blues Music<br />
Awards, the biggest night of the blues. You won’t regret it!<br />
So, as winter winds down, it is time to get back into boogie<br />
mode. The time of T-shirts, shorts, sandals, and road trips is<br />
right around the corner and it couldn’t be soon enough for this<br />
blues traveler.<br />
So tip your wait staff, buy CDs from the band, take a kid to<br />
a festival, always put a dollar in the open guitar case on the<br />
street, and don’t forget to take care because it’s a jungle out<br />
there in Blues World!<br />
And as long as you do, we will continue to send…<br />
Good Blues To Ya!
6 BLUES REVUE<br />
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“It can bring people together, like nothing else...<br />
it can wake up a nation, and give such sweet relief.”<br />
I know this has happened to all of you reading this. You proudly wear a t-shirt with an<br />
eye-catching design from a great blues festival or blues event. You stand at a counter in<br />
a store, eat in a restaurant, stand with others watching your children playing a sport,<br />
and someone says, “Great shirt! Where’s it from?”<br />
You reply, “It was at a great blues festival.”<br />
To which he or she replies, “I love the blues.”<br />
At that moment, you proudly add, “Check out the line-up.”<br />
Your back is covered with names like Marcia Ball, Lonnie Brooks, Lil’ Ed, Bobby<br />
Rush, Shemekia Copeland, Charlie Musselwhite, Ruthie Foster, Irma Thomas, Tommy<br />
Castro, Elvin Bishop, Eric Bibb, Duke Robillard, Joe Louis Walker, and blues icons from<br />
the past like Ruth Brown, Koko Taylor, Little Milton, Pinetop Perkins, Honeyboy Edwards.<br />
You turn around and await the ohhs and ahhs. Instead you hear, “I don’t know any<br />
of those people.”<br />
My guess is the blues to them is B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Eric Clapton, Bonnie Raitt,<br />
Stevie Ray Vaughan, and maybe Taj Mahal or Robert Cray. This is the sad reality every blues<br />
fan faces as we search in vain for recognition of the genre outside its core tribe of fans.<br />
Being in Memphis during the Blues Foundation’s annual International Blues Challenge<br />
each winter is clearly the tonic to erase those disappointing experiences. At every<br />
turn, 225 blues bands from across the globe are fighting the notion that the blues is not<br />
relevant in today’s world. The professionalism of each band’s shows coupled with innovative<br />
musical directions and instrumentation beyond the simple I-IV-V format breathes life<br />
into the genre.<br />
Remember that each of these acts has won a local competition sponsored by one<br />
of over 180 affiliated societies around the world. So for every band or solo/duo act in<br />
Memphis, there could be as many as 15 others who competed for the honor. Does any<br />
other music genre have this kind of local and regional support of its music?<br />
And that’s the great blues paradox: local societies with grass roots memberships<br />
keep this music thriving, while the culture at large gives it one Grammy category and<br />
mostly ignores.<br />
It’s that time of year for the 2013 Blues Music Awards at www.blues.org. Janiva<br />
Magness and John Nemeth lead the slate of nominees with five nominations each.<br />
Other noteworthy nominees include Curtis Salgado, Michael Burks, Joe Louis Walker, and<br />
the team of Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi with four. There are also more then a dozen<br />
first time nominees plus the six Best New Artist nominees. This year’s Awards will be held<br />
on May 9, 2013 in Memphis. Once again, Blues Revue will be there to report on the event.<br />
Also noteworthy are the blues records that were named tops of 2012 by DownBeat<br />
magazine. Congratulations go out to the following four and five star records: Barbara<br />
Carr, Keep The Fire Going, Otis Taylor, Contraband, Billy Boy Arnold, Billy Boy Arnold<br />
Sings Big Bill Broonzy, Michael Burks, Show Of Strength, Mary Flower, Misery Loves<br />
Company, Paul Rishell, Talking Guitar, and Catherine Russell, Strictly Romancin’.<br />
The following historical albums were also named tops in 2012: Etta James Live at<br />
Montreux 1975-1993, Ray Charles, The Complete ABC Singles, Muddy Waters and<br />
The Rolling Stones, Checkerboard Lounge – Live Chicago 1981, Albert King, I’ll Play<br />
The Blues For You, Howlin’ Wolf, Smokestack Lightning / Complete Chess Masters<br />
(1951 to 1960).<br />
“Let the music keep our spirits high.”<br />
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POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Blues Revue, P.O. Box 8906, Longboat Key, FL 34228.
NEWS<br />
INTERNATIONAL<br />
BLUES CHALLENGE<br />
WINNERS<br />
REGI OLIVER, HUFF WRIGHT, CURTIS NUTAIL, AND SELWYN BIRCHWOOD<br />
NATIONAL BLUES MUSEUM<br />
On December 12, 2012, the National Blues<br />
Museum in downtown St. Louis is closer to<br />
beginning its work. Pinnacle Entertainment,<br />
Inc. and Lumière Place Casino and Hotels<br />
contributed $6 million to the museum’s soon<br />
to be announced capital campaign to raise<br />
the remainder of the funds. The 23,000square-foot<br />
museum will offer an interactive<br />
The HOME Project<br />
It may take a village to raise a child, but a village can also save an<br />
adult. Case in point: the Housing Opportunities For Musicians And<br />
Entertainers (HOME) fund started last summer in Austin, TX. with a<br />
goal to provide safe housing for Miss Lavelle White.<br />
“I was the one who sent up<br />
the red flag and said that we<br />
needed to figure out a way to take<br />
care of Lavelle,” said Nancy Fly.<br />
“She was living at my house at the<br />
time. She had no resources and no<br />
place to go. We’ve helped her on<br />
many fronts, like getting her SSI<br />
disability payments straightened<br />
out. We decided to start a nonprophet<br />
corporation whose goal is<br />
to see if we can make this work by<br />
taking care of Lavelle.”<br />
From that red flag, Carolyn<br />
Wonderland, Ruthie Foster, Nancy<br />
PHOTOGRAPHY © ART TIPALDI<br />
experience that includes a mix of artifacts<br />
and technology-driven exhibits. This emerging<br />
cultural attraction will showcase the<br />
blues as the foundation of modern<br />
American music and illustrate its rich history.<br />
Upon opening, projected for 2014, the<br />
museum will include a performance venue,<br />
highly interactive touch screen exhibits, and<br />
Selwyn Birchwood and his<br />
LITTLE G WEEVIL<br />
band took top honors at the<br />
29th IBC weekend in Memphis.<br />
Like so many other winners,<br />
Birchwood returned to the<br />
finals for a second time and<br />
took the Orpheum crowd by<br />
storm. He also won the Gibson<br />
Most Promising Guitarist<br />
Award. Germany’s Michael van<br />
Merwyk and Bluesoul took second<br />
place while Dan Treanor’s<br />
Afrosippi band featuring Erica<br />
Brown finished third. Guitarist<br />
and storyteller Little G Weevil<br />
won first place in the Solo/Duo competition while the harmonica<br />
guitar pair Suitcase Brothers from Barcelona finished second. With<br />
over 225 bands, solo, duo performing over four days, nightly jams at<br />
a variety of venues, afternoon showcases, and an afternoon of youth<br />
bands on showcase, the Blues Foundation has once again proved<br />
that Beale Street is the place to be every February.<br />
educational programming that will include<br />
onsite and in-classroom opportunities to<br />
explore the history of blues music and its<br />
influence on rock and roll, hip hop, jazz,<br />
gospel, and R&B. Public programs will feature<br />
intimate performances, lectures, screenings<br />
of documentaries and other films, and<br />
Q&A sessions with national artists and<br />
music industry professionals. You can check<br />
them out at www.nationalbluesmuseum.org.<br />
Coplin, Sarah Brown, Marcia Ball, Nancy Fly, Shelley King, Cindy<br />
Cashdollar, Sara Hickman, Denise Boudreaux, Susan Antone, Bev<br />
Shaw, and others came forward with a benefit concert to raise the<br />
necessary funds.<br />
“We’ve got enough money to take care of Lavelle for a little<br />
while. We plan on doing maybe two concerts a year as fundraisers<br />
with the sole purpose to sustain<br />
MISS LAVELLE WHITE<br />
Lavelle for another year. We’re also<br />
putting out a CD, a live recording of<br />
the fundraiser we did last summer<br />
where everybody sang a Lavelle<br />
White song. That CD will be released<br />
in 2013.<br />
“The mission is to keep musicians<br />
in homes that are safe. We<br />
think of it as a safety net for people<br />
who are in desperate need,” said Fly.<br />
Visit the Facebook site, Housing<br />
Opportunities for Musicians And<br />
Entertainers to purchase the CD or<br />
make donations.<br />
PHOTOGRAPHY © ART TIPALDI<br />
PHOTOGRAPHY © ART TIPALDI<br />
BLUES REVUE 7
NEWS FROM THE SHACK UP INN<br />
What began as an offbeat idea has now become<br />
a must-do on every blues lovers’ bucket list.<br />
A stay at the Shack Up Inn in Clarksdale, MS.<br />
offers blues fans more than just a night’s lodging.<br />
According to Guy Malvezzi the expanded<br />
Shacks accommodated almost 20,000 tourists in<br />
2012. “But we want to be more than just a hotel.”<br />
To that end, Malvezzi has grand Shack Up<br />
plans. “Part of the plan from the start of this Juke<br />
Joint Chapel building was to create a live recording<br />
studio. We’re buying some vintage ribbon<br />
mics and spending money on studio gear. We<br />
don’t want a studio where people come in, practice<br />
their songs and record. I want it to be like<br />
what Chess or Sun Studios did. It’ll have an audience<br />
there just like in a live show. That’s what we<br />
want to catch. We want to be an out of the box<br />
kind of label much like the<br />
Shack Up Inn is out of the box.<br />
“We’ve already recorded<br />
Charlie Musselwhite in the<br />
Chapel. Charlie was doing a<br />
fundraiser for the Blues<br />
Museum in Clarksdale. We<br />
recorded him that day. The<br />
next morning, I was playing<br />
with the mix on it when Charlie<br />
and his wife Henri walked in.<br />
They loved it and said, that’s<br />
gonna be our next album.<br />
People like Lightnin’ Malcolm<br />
and Kenny Brown both want me to put out their next CD.<br />
“We are gonna pick the musicians we want to record here.<br />
I want to record more then just blues. There’s some pretty cool roots<br />
music out there I’d love to capture. I want to be able to create a CD<br />
for an artist where he can buy it at a cheap price and make good<br />
money from it. I don’t want to put an artist into debt to me at all.”<br />
And there are other grand plans. Jon Gindeck, the author of<br />
Harmonica for Dummies runs a harmonica camp here. “He started<br />
doing camps here four or five years ago. Today he does camps in<br />
March, May, and September. He’s talking with Charlie about teaming<br />
up together and doing a camp for advanced players tentatively<br />
scheduled for January 2014.<br />
“I’ve got a blues guitar and bass camp run by Ralph Carter<br />
scheduled for May 28 - June 1, 2013 and singer songwriter camps<br />
in the works. And there is a Kenny Brown Birthday Bash scheduled<br />
for July 4- 6 featuring Brown, Alvin Youngblood Hart, and Lightnin’<br />
Malcolm.”<br />
The Inn is also the venue for the Pinetop Perkins Foundation’s<br />
fourth annual Master Class Workshops, where blues musicians<br />
can continue the legacy of the late Pinetop Perkins on the year of<br />
his centennial birthday. Open to both adults and youth over 12, this<br />
year’s workshop will be held from June 12-14. The workshop features<br />
features nightly jams and a final performance at the world<br />
8 BLUES REVUE<br />
famous Ground Zero Blues Club in<br />
Clarksdale.<br />
“I also want to create an affordable,<br />
inland blues cruise experience here at the<br />
Shacks. Maybe do four days of constant<br />
music and food for the people who would<br />
book to stay here. If you have two people<br />
per bed, our capacity is about 100 people.<br />
We could have major festivals here and fill<br />
the grounds, but that’s not what we are<br />
going for. We want something like this cruise<br />
to be an intimate deal where the performer<br />
can mingle with the crowd like they do on the cruise.”<br />
You can check out all the happenings at the Shacks at<br />
www.shackupinn.com.<br />
PHOTOGRAPHY © ART TIPALDI<br />
TROMBONE<br />
SHORTY<br />
and<br />
TAB BENOIT<br />
perform at<br />
Woldenberg Park<br />
in New Orleans<br />
as part of<br />
Super Bowl XLVII<br />
week<br />
PHOTOGRAPHY ©<br />
AL PEREIRA
BLUES FOUNDATION<br />
HALL OF FAME CAMPAIGN<br />
Since 1980, the Blues Foundation has<br />
inducted individuals, recordings, and<br />
literature into the Blues Music Hall of Fame.<br />
Once it found a permanent home, the<br />
Foundation’s mission was to<br />
build a physical Hall of<br />
Fame. Early in 2012, The<br />
Blues Foundation began<br />
conducting the Campaign<br />
for the Blues Hall of Fame,<br />
a $3.5 million capital campaign<br />
to add Hall of Fame<br />
exhibits to the Foundation<br />
offices at 421 South Main,<br />
Memphis. Throughout the<br />
year, donations have come<br />
from fans, festivals, an Arts<br />
Memphis grant, and many<br />
other entities.<br />
To date, over $1.2 million of the donations<br />
has come from blues fans from around<br />
the world. Two rock musicians with deep<br />
blues roots, George Thorogood and Steve<br />
Miller, have been most generous with their<br />
early donation to this cause.<br />
Most recently, the Legendary Rhythm<br />
and Blues Cruise #19 sailed the Caribbean<br />
October 27-November 2 and through the<br />
good graces of Roger Naber and his team,<br />
the Blues Foundation was offered a major<br />
presence which proved very, very successful.<br />
Cruisers pledged, donated, or contributed<br />
through silent and live auctions<br />
$185,000, including a winning $37,000 bid<br />
on an autographed guitar by the four<br />
Rolling Stones, signed during a 1999 visit to<br />
Memphis. Also Denise Duffy at the Music-<br />
Maker Relief Foundation and Shirley Mae<br />
Owens and Robert Jr. Whitall at Big City<br />
Rhythm and Blues helped raise contributions<br />
to the Blues Hall of Fame via the very<br />
successful high seas silent<br />
auction, the proceeds of<br />
which are included in the<br />
$185,000 total. That same<br />
week, another $90,000 was<br />
donated on land for a oneweek<br />
total of $275,000.<br />
Earlier in the campaign,<br />
LRBC directly contributed<br />
$35,000 and Paul Benjamin<br />
raised $55,000 from his<br />
friends on LRBC #18. (Note:<br />
Benjamin himself is responsible<br />
for collecting over<br />
$100,000 in donations.) The<br />
January 2013 LRBC raised over $100,000,<br />
while the 2013 IBC in Memphis raised<br />
nearly $70,000 from societies and individual<br />
donations.<br />
This brings the fund to $1.5 million in<br />
just over 15 months. According to Executive<br />
Director Jay Sieleman, “Another million<br />
dollars will get the fund to $2.5 million and<br />
that will be enough to get to where we can<br />
complete the physical construction of the<br />
Hall of Fame.”<br />
To do your part to help Raise the Roof<br />
on the Blues Hall of Fame, simply go the<br />
Blues Foundation site, www.blues.org.<br />
BLIND PIG RECORDS<br />
NEWS<br />
Blind Pig Records has announced a live<br />
recording date for a special tribute to Little<br />
Walter Jacobs featuring some of the finest<br />
harmonica players on the current blues scene,<br />
Charlie Musselwhite, Billy Boy Arnold, Mark<br />
Hummel, James Harman, and Sugar Ray<br />
Norcia. The show took place on Thursday,<br />
December 6th at Anthology in San Diego,<br />
California. The band will include Little Charlie<br />
Baty and Nathan James on guitars, June Core<br />
on drums, and RW Grigsby on upright bass.<br />
Blind Pig has also signed Southern<br />
Hospitality, a band featuring J.P. Soars, Damon<br />
Fowler, and Victor Wainwright, and Jimmy<br />
Vivino. The Vivino project features Vivino<br />
reunited with his R&B influenced band, The<br />
Black Italians, for two shows in front of live audiences<br />
at Levon Helm’s Studios in Woodstock,<br />
New York. The shows took place on Friday,<br />
November 30 and Saturday, December 1.<br />
JACK<br />
WHITE’S<br />
THIRD<br />
MAN<br />
RECORDS<br />
Jack White’s new label, Third Man Records,<br />
has struck a deal with Document Records<br />
to reissue the complete volumes from the<br />
Document catalog. By the end of January,<br />
White’s label will release the complete works<br />
of Charley Patton, the Mississippi Sheiks, and<br />
Blind Willie McTell. New volumes from the<br />
Document catalog will be released when the<br />
first series is complete. The albums will be available<br />
on vinyl with new liner notes and artwork.<br />
More information can be found on White’s<br />
record label’s site, www.thirdmanrecords.com.<br />
Congratulations Gaye<br />
Congratulations to Gaye Adegbalola and her<br />
educational blues CD, Blues In All Flavors.<br />
We’ve just been informed that the CD has<br />
won the Gold Parents’ Choice Award For<br />
Music. It also received a starred review in the<br />
School Library Journal.<br />
BLUES REVUE 9
PHOTOGRAPHY © JOSEPH A. ROSEN<br />
10 BLUES REVUE<br />
<strong>GARY</strong> <strong>CLARK</strong>, <strong>JR</strong>.<br />
21st Century Blues<br />
RISING FROM AUSTIN<br />
The<br />
last two years<br />
have yielded a dizzying<br />
parade of triumphs for Gary<br />
Clark, Jr., the 28-year-old artist<br />
from Austin, Texas. With the<br />
by Tom Hyslop<br />
force of Warner Brothers<br />
Records behind him, Clark has<br />
received a promotional push that<br />
rivals that of any mainstream artist,<br />
one that certainly exceeds anything<br />
witnessed in the blues realm at least<br />
since the 1980s, with the mainstream<br />
breakouts of Stevie Ray Vaughan and<br />
Robert Cray, and possibly since the<br />
highly-publicized signing of Johnny<br />
Winter by Columbia Records in 1969.<br />
In the course of the blitz, Clark has<br />
performed at every major festival, including<br />
Coachella, SXSW, Made In America,<br />
Bonnaroo, Summerfest, Lollapalooza, Dave<br />
Mathews Band Caravan, Newport Folk Fest,<br />
Electric Forest, Sasquatch! Festival, Mountain<br />
Jam, and others, along with dates in the most<br />
coveted clubs; received ink in a dizzying variety<br />
of publications, from MOJO and SPIN to such<br />
unexpected settings as Esquire, Vanity Fair, and<br />
even the mainstream Entertainment Weekly, with<br />
recurring coverage in Rolling Stone, including a fivestar<br />
rating for his debut EP on Warners, in a write-up<br />
that led off the review section; and made appearances<br />
on the major late-night shows: Conan, The Late Show<br />
with David Letterman, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon,<br />
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.<br />
He has taped an episode of Austin City Limits as<br />
headliner. A fragment of “Bright Lights” provided the<br />
soundtrack to a major mobile phone provider’s ubiquitous<br />
TV advertisement, and the video for “Ain’t Messin’ ‘Round”<br />
received regular rotation on VH1, America’s almost universally<br />
available cable music television channel.<br />
And the list goes on. Clark participated in the all-star<br />
tribute to Hubert Sumlin at the Apollo Theater [February 2012]<br />
alongside legends like Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, James<br />
Cotton, Jimmie Vaughan, Henry Gray, and Billy Gibbons; and took<br />
a prominent part in the Red, White, & Blues celebration at the White<br />
House [February 2012] that featured B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Mick<br />
Jagger, Jeff Beck, Shemekia Copeland, Derek Trucks, Susan<br />
Tedeschi, Warren Haynes, and Keb’ Mo’. Clark opened eyes nationally<br />
when he performed “Beat Up Old Guitar” with Copeland, and then tore<br />
it up with “Catfish Blues” and a stripped down “In The Evening.”<br />
He guest-starred in the Rolling Stones’ 50th Anniversary Tour in<br />
December 2012, and then joined Jimmie Vaughan, as well as the full
ensemble of musicians onstage, during Buddy Guy’s December<br />
2012 induction into the latest group of Kennedy Center Honors<br />
recipients. Along the way, he charted a Top Ten album.<br />
To the jaded, the sudden celebrity surrounding Clark may<br />
look like hype designed to propel a neophyte into prime time.<br />
Less cynical, but casual, observers may be forgiven for assuming<br />
that Clark has emerged overnight, fully formed, into the<br />
spotlight.<br />
The reality is quite different. In fact, Clark’s success, if<br />
often predicted, has been a long time in the making. He<br />
began playing guitar at age 12, and, probably emboldened<br />
by the example of his (much) older cousin W.C. Clark –<br />
Austin’s Godfather of the Blues – first performed in public<br />
two years later. The youth’s obvious talent and charisma<br />
soon attracted the attention of important patrons, people<br />
like Clifford Antone and Jimmie Vaughan.<br />
Clark recalls some of his early supporters. “My friend<br />
Eve Monsees, she kind of got me into the whole blues<br />
scene. A lot of people came through. Walter Higgs and<br />
Appa Perry. Derek O’Brien and Clifford Antone. James<br />
Cotton, Pinetop Perkins, Hubert Sumlin, Doyle Bramhall,<br />
and Willie “Big Eyes” Smith” were just some of the<br />
noted musicians who encouraged him.<br />
In the decade before he signed with Warner<br />
Brothers, Clark recorded and released four independent<br />
CDs. Although he is perceived as a blues artist,<br />
and clearly comes out of that tradition, such a label<br />
does Clark some disservice in describing only a<br />
narrow range of his musical interests. His first album,<br />
2001’s entirely self-penned Worry No More, included<br />
not only solo acoustic blues in the title track, but<br />
greasy shuffles, detours into Curtis Mayfield territory,<br />
slow blues with a vaguely Jimi Hendrix feel,<br />
blues inspired by Albert Collins (the funky “Shotgun<br />
Man”) and Jimmy Reed (“Insecure”), steamy<br />
jazz à la Howard Roberts, and the dreamy, wahwah-tinged<br />
dreamscape, “Drifting.”<br />
110, which arrived in 2004, marked Clark’s<br />
arrival as both one-man-band (he graduated<br />
from playing guitar and keys on his debut to<br />
covering all the instruments, including harmonica,<br />
bass, drums, and programming) and<br />
visionary auteur. Opening with a spot-on<br />
homage to B.B. King’s mid-‘60s playing, the<br />
again all-original disc moves through<br />
Dylanesque retro folk stylings, Texas shuffles,<br />
sultry Hi Records-inflected ballads and<br />
neo-soul along the lines of D’Angelo,<br />
spacey meditations from a Shuggie Otis<br />
bag (“Nighttime” and “Sad Song”), rumbling<br />
roots rock (“Travis County”), acoustic<br />
Delta blues (“Numb” and “Temptation<br />
Starin’ Me In The Face”), and the ethereal<br />
instrumental “On The Battlefield.”<br />
Clark says, “I kind of played all of it<br />
on my early albums. I was experimenting<br />
on drums, bass, guitar, and keys,<br />
doing vocal things, and just kind of<br />
playing around, you know: not too<br />
BLUES REVUE 11<br />
PHOTOGRAPHY © JOSEPH A. ROSEN
much traditional stuff, more original material than traditional bluesy<br />
type stuff. And what I would do when I was recording is just go in<br />
different directions, and put it all on one album.”<br />
He made an bold return to his roots on Tribute (2005), today a<br />
much sought-after album cut live in the studio with bassist James<br />
Bullard and the superb drummer Jason Moeller, uncannily recreating<br />
the styles and spirits of Lightnin’ Hopkins, Jimmy Reed, Albert and<br />
B.B. King, Hound Dog Taylor, and Albert Collins, and touching on<br />
modern Delta boogie in a “Catfish Blues” that owes a solid debt to<br />
the Clarksdale juke joint sound of the Jelly Roll Kings.<br />
Around this time, Clark told Blues Revue in our first feature on<br />
him that he was content to stay in Austin, performing and making<br />
records at his own pace. But he was beginning to attract wider attention.<br />
The noted independent filmmaker John Sayles (Return Of The<br />
Secaucus Seven, Matewan, Eight Men Out) cast Clark in a key role in<br />
Honeydripper (2007). As the itinerant bluesman Sonny, like Elmore<br />
James an ex-military man with a flair for electrical work, Clark appears<br />
by chance just in time to save a local juke joint from foreclosure by<br />
appearing as Guitar Sam, a notoriously unreliable star modeled after<br />
Eddie “Guitar Slim” Jones. In 2009, Clark played and sang on the<br />
Omar Kent Dykes-Jimmie Vaughan tribute to Jimmy Reed, Big Town<br />
Playboy, and appeared in the Austin City Limits episode promoting<br />
the project.<br />
In 2010, Clark and his band played onscreen in an episode of<br />
the acclaimed television series Friday Night Lights, and saw the<br />
release of his fourth CD, the self-titled Gary Clark, Jr. This album,<br />
which marked his first recorded work with current drummer J.J. John-<br />
12 BLUES REVUE<br />
son and touring guitarist Erik Zapata, covered hard blues boogie<br />
(“Don’t Owe You A Thing,” destined to reappear on his five-star<br />
Warner EP), doo-wop, hip-hop-inflected R&B, and a Prince-like<br />
pop/rock/soul mashup in “Breakdown.”<br />
It also delivered Clark’s first reworking of the creamy, Al Greenstyle<br />
ballad from 110, “Things Are Changing,” included a reprise of<br />
“Drifting” (as “Outro”), and introduced his breakout number “Bright<br />
Lights,” which he subsequently played to a huge Chicagoland audience<br />
at Eric Clapton’s Crossroads festival, in what would prove to be<br />
a star-making performance. The song, a boastful yet brooding, slowpaced<br />
number, was built on an unforgettable instrumental hook that<br />
would be heard countless times in the Verizon commercial mentioned<br />
above, yet never grow tiresome.<br />
Although buzz had been building for years, it was the Crossroads<br />
appearance that made it virtually impossible for Clark to remain<br />
Austin’s best-kept secret. The major-label deal followed, and with it,<br />
the whirlwind of new fame, beginning with Rolling Stone’s unprecedented<br />
review of The Bright Lights EP in 2011.<br />
We spoke with Gary Clark Jr. during the period leading up to the<br />
October 2012 release of Blak And Blu. That CD draws songs from<br />
earlier releases (“Things Are Changin’,” again; “Travis County”; the<br />
doo-wop number “Please Come Home”; the hip-hop-styled “The<br />
Life”; the already-classic “Bright Lights”) and indulges Clark’s interests<br />
in contemporary soul (the title track is deft neo-soul; “You Saved<br />
Me” draws on Prince), hard-charging, horn-driven Stax soul (“Ain’t<br />
Messin’ ‘Round”), and heavy, fuzz-toned blues-rock. The latter, heard<br />
in the slightly psychedelic “Glitter Ain’t Gold,” the cool, yet deranged,<br />
PHOTOGRAPHY © FRANK MADDOCKS
“ I think blues is fine<br />
just the way it is. ”<br />
medley of “Third Stone From The Sun/If You Love Me Like You<br />
Say,” a new recording of “When My Train Pulls In,” and the radical<br />
reimagining of “Numb,” invites comparisons not only to Hendrix but<br />
to current scuzz-blues/alternative rock stars The Black Keys.<br />
In extending the confident eclecticism of Clark’s earlier work,<br />
Blak And Blu offers a tonic to the rock-flavored Bright Lights EP,<br />
possibly to the consternation of some who had hoped for a new<br />
Jimi Hendrix. While Clark shares Hendrix’s uninhibited experimentation<br />
in sonics and song craft, and sometimes the same heavy<br />
approach to slow blues, his guitar playing, rooted in feel, tone, and<br />
groove, is unlikely to dominate his songs in the way many bluesrock<br />
fans may desire.<br />
But there is much to appreciate for anyone who cares for<br />
blues, rock, hip-hop, or R&B. Asked about his wide-open style,<br />
Clark laughs. “This may be open to interpretation, but when people<br />
ask me, I just kind of describe it as blues, soul, and rock ‘n’ roll – a<br />
mixture of all kinds of things. I listen to all kinds of artists and different<br />
genres. And when I write something or am coming up with a<br />
song, I don’t say, ‘I’m gonna write this in this genre, and take it in<br />
one certain direction.’ An idea comes and I just kind of put it out,<br />
whatever the idea happens to be. It might be a little bit different, not<br />
straight up, I-IV-V blues, sometimes.<br />
“I’ve been listening to Skip James lately. Freddie King had a<br />
great influence on me. Elmore James. A lot of the Texas guys: T-<br />
Bone, Albert Collins, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Johnny “Guitar” Watson. I<br />
could go on and on and on. And a lot of the local guys right here in<br />
Austin: Alan Haynes and Derek O’Brien, and W.C., all those guys.<br />
Just being a kid when I first heard the music, I was completely<br />
drawn in and wanted everything right away, so I would just soak<br />
things up wherever I could. Lately, I’ve been listening to this band,<br />
Black Owl Society, from Austin. Pretty heavy, three-piece blues,<br />
kind of sloppy Delta stuff, but it’s cool. What else? Let’s see. Buddy<br />
Guy’s ‘Worried Mind.’ Otis Redding. Some hip-hop stuff.”<br />
Perhaps the most surprising part of the Gary Clark Jr. story is<br />
the way he has connected with a wide, relatively youthful audience<br />
– one that conventional wisdom says is out of reach for artists playing<br />
in predominantly blues-rooted styles. Asked if it is due to his<br />
charisma, the music itself, or to some secret sauce, Clark comes<br />
down on the side of the music’s inherent appeal.<br />
“That’s a good question! I think the major factor is just exposure.<br />
I get out on the festival circuit and catch people walking up,<br />
and a lot of them don’t know what to expect. We’ll go into, ‘Three<br />
O’clock In The Morning Blues,’ and these folks will get into it, having<br />
never heard us. Blues is the foundation of a lot of things, so<br />
whether it’s the riffs or the vibe, society’s familiar with it. The instrumentation<br />
may change, but, still, it resonates across time.”<br />
This observation underpins Clark’s belief that real blues will<br />
survive. “I think blues is fine just the way it is. Some people will stick<br />
with traditional blues and some folks will try and do other things,<br />
but the basic foundation stays the same. What you get out of it, and<br />
what you want to bring to it, or whether you just want to leave it<br />
alone for what it is, I think blues is just fine in any form.”<br />
Of course, this opens the door to innovation,<br />
and while Clark’s interest in continuing the<br />
tradition is unshakable, he refuses to confine<br />
his own music within any boundaries. “Growing<br />
up in Austin and being around those guys<br />
who brought me up, took me under their<br />
wing, gave me an education in what the<br />
music was all about, they taught me that to<br />
put it out there was very important. But if I<br />
didn’t do all the other things as well, I would<br />
drive myself crazy if I was just putting it out<br />
there and letting it be what it is.”<br />
His high-profile appearances have<br />
made a deep impression on Clark. Asked<br />
about playing at the White House, Clark<br />
said, “Red White & Blues was a tribute to<br />
the blues, performed for the President.<br />
I just wanted to be up there for the<br />
event. The whole experience was pretty<br />
special; it was great for me on a personal<br />
level to be alongside a lot of the<br />
people I’d been listening to for a long<br />
time, like B.B. King. At Crossroads, in<br />
Chicago, we played the finale. But we<br />
rehearsed that one [“Sweet Home,<br />
Chicago”] at the White House. That<br />
was the first time we [B.B. King]<br />
actually performed a song<br />
together!”<br />
At this point, it appears Gary<br />
Clark, Jr. will have the chance to<br />
play with just about anyone he<br />
chooses. Asked to compare his<br />
life today with the comfortable,<br />
self-paced lifestyle he enjoyed in<br />
Austin when we first spoke with<br />
him, he reflects for a moment.<br />
“That was a long time ago!<br />
I must have been 20 or 21.<br />
Things were simpler then, for<br />
sure. The last couple of years<br />
have been very busy: Lots of<br />
travel, lots of obligations,<br />
and lots of complications.<br />
I don’t have as much freedom<br />
as I should. Or, I don’t<br />
have as much freedom as<br />
maybe I’d like. But it’s<br />
good. It’s good. Right<br />
now, I’m just enjoying the<br />
moment, enjoying the<br />
journey.”<br />
BLUES REVUE 13
Singer Curtis Salgado is all about<br />
the show. He knows that every<br />
time he steps onto a stage, he has<br />
a chance to make an impression,<br />
convert an unknown face into a fan and<br />
cement his reputation.<br />
Yet to hear Salgado tell it, it took a<br />
while for this realization to sink in on him.<br />
He knows today – better than most – that<br />
you just might not get another shot at it,<br />
so you’d better be on top of your game<br />
every night, every performance, every<br />
opportunity.<br />
The 58-year-old soul singer and harmonica<br />
player will tell you today that it is<br />
only because of life lessons does he now<br />
understand that. Salgado remembers a<br />
gig in the 1970s when his band was hired<br />
to back up singer Buddy Ace at a mountain<br />
lodge in Oregon. Ace was based in<br />
Oakland at the time. He’d recorded for<br />
Duke Records and played the chitlin’ circuit<br />
for years, leaning on his baritone<br />
voice that sounded a lot like Bobby<br />
“Blue” Bland.<br />
“We drive to the gig in this RV and<br />
find out the show is a private party in an<br />
old mining camp,” he recalls. “The mining<br />
shacks had been converted into cabins<br />
and there was this lodge with a<br />
sunken living room and a fireplace.”<br />
And, then Ace came out, wearing an all-<br />
14 BLUES REVUE<br />
Curtis<br />
Salgado<br />
ANOTHER SHOT AT<br />
by Michael Kinsman<br />
white three-piece suit in stark contrast to<br />
his t-shirts and shorts attired younger<br />
band mates.<br />
“He sang his ass off,” Salgado<br />
recalls. “It was like he was at the Apollo<br />
Theater as he moved around singing to<br />
the crowd.” Ace made three costume<br />
changes during the show, hiding behind<br />
a door in the kitchen each time to don a<br />
new suit.<br />
“It was class; it was soul. He took<br />
his business seriously,” Salgado says.<br />
Today, the soul singer is a survivor<br />
of three cancer surgeries, and he knows<br />
that his performances matter ever time.<br />
Last summer, Salgado was surprised to<br />
learn that his cancer, in remission for<br />
nearly five years, had reappeared.<br />
“You would think someone like that<br />
might just feel sorry for himself,” says<br />
Bruce Iglauer, the owner of Alligator<br />
Records which had just released<br />
Salgado’s first CD on the label when his<br />
touring was interrupted for the surgery.<br />
“Curtis worked up until moments before<br />
the surgery and was back performing as<br />
soon as he could,” Iglauer says. “He<br />
was whatever the opposite is of sitting<br />
around feeling sorry for yourself.”<br />
The past few years have been<br />
sobering times for Salgado. His career<br />
has been interrupted and plagued by<br />
SOUL<br />
cancer since 2006, yet his performances<br />
belie his misfortune.<br />
His new Alligator CD, Soul Shot, has<br />
been a constant on the charts and in<br />
May he was honored at the Blues Music<br />
Awards in Memphis as Soul Blues Male<br />
Artist of the Year. Humbly, Salgado told<br />
those in attendance that the award<br />
should have gone to Otis Clay.<br />
“Curtis has never stopped being a<br />
fan of the music,” Iglauer says. “When<br />
he starts talking about the music and<br />
musicians he loves, he’s like a kid.<br />
That’s one of the really charming things<br />
about him.”<br />
Salgado has a long and bright history<br />
on his musician’s resume. He was<br />
once the lead singer for a young Robert<br />
Cray Band, spent stints with Steve Miller<br />
and Roomful of Blues, and off and on<br />
had his own bands.<br />
He’s celebrated for being an inspiration<br />
for John Belushi to create The Blues<br />
Brothers. Belushi had caught Salgado’s<br />
act in 1977 while he was filming National<br />
Lampoon’s Animal House in Eugene, OR.<br />
They started hanging out, talking about<br />
blues and soul records. Salgado<br />
became a blues Svengali to Belushi and<br />
was repaid when the Blues Brothers<br />
named their reform school janitor and<br />
blues inspiration Curtis.<br />
PHOTOGRAPHY © MARILYN STRINGER
He has had a fruitful career, yet was<br />
bewildered that day in March 2006 when<br />
he learned he had a cancerous tumor on<br />
his liver. He was suffering one of his periodic<br />
incidents of gallstone attacks that<br />
spring and attempted to ride out the pain<br />
as he had done many times before. But<br />
this time the pain wouldn’t subside and<br />
he was convinced to go the emergency<br />
room of a Portland hospital. Tests were<br />
done, then more the next day, and more<br />
the next day.<br />
“ All I was thinking about what how<br />
was I gonna pay the bills,” he says.<br />
Like many musicians, Salgado has<br />
found medical insurance an unachievable<br />
luxury in his world. He knew he had<br />
Hepatitis C, which he had contracted at<br />
the age of 32 by sharing a dirty needle<br />
with another individual. What he didn’t<br />
know is that he had a lemon-sized<br />
growth on his liver that would require a<br />
cancer operation he clearly couldn’t<br />
afford.<br />
His friends rallied to his cause. Bonnie<br />
Raitt sent him a check to pay his rent<br />
so he wouldn’t have to worry about that<br />
expense for a long-time. A Portland concert<br />
was organized with Robert Cray,<br />
Little Charlie & the Nightcats, Charlie<br />
Musselwhite, Taj Mahal, the Portland band<br />
Everclear, and others helped him raise<br />
hundreds of thousands of dollars.<br />
Smaller concerts were staged<br />
around the West Coast and Midwest and<br />
soon $1 million had been raised. And,<br />
after evaluating where he might get the<br />
operation, he settled on the Nebraska<br />
Medical Center in Omaha.<br />
BLUES REVUE 15
Then, only days before the cancer<br />
surgery, he learned he was $100,000<br />
short. “Two people put up their life’s savings,<br />
$60,000 and $35,000, so I could<br />
have the surgery,” he says. “Now, that’s a<br />
lot of love.”<br />
To this day, he wonders how to pay<br />
these individuals back.<br />
“The best thing you can<br />
do is be nice to everyone<br />
and take responsibility,”<br />
he says. “Treat yourself<br />
good and treat others<br />
that way.”<br />
Salgado had a second<br />
surgery in 2008 to<br />
remove cancer on his<br />
lung. Mortality reared its<br />
head again this summer<br />
when Salgado learned of<br />
his latest cancer. “I said,<br />
‘What? It’s back? This is<br />
it. I’ll be dead by 59.’ I<br />
thought about Alligator<br />
– I’d just got on the very<br />
best label I could ever be<br />
on and now this.”<br />
The third cancer<br />
was disheartening since<br />
Salgado learned of it<br />
when he went to the<br />
doctor for a five-year<br />
checkup, supposedly<br />
the mark that would<br />
mean he had defeated<br />
cancer. His third surgery<br />
occurred July 18 when<br />
more of his left lung was<br />
removed after cancer<br />
was found. The latest<br />
bout of cancer came<br />
only a couple of months<br />
after the release of<br />
Soul Shot.<br />
“The virtual demise<br />
of retail record stores, touring becomes an<br />
essential part of how well an artist’s CD will<br />
sell,” Iglauer says. “Curtis had a group of<br />
firm dates and then gets hit with this diagnosis<br />
and has to take time off. He made a<br />
remarkable rebound – kind of like he willed<br />
himself back to health – and to his credit<br />
he is returning to those cities where dates<br />
were canceled and is a big hit.”<br />
Only days after his July 2012<br />
surgery, Salgado sat in with guitarist<br />
Nathan James at Duff’s Garage in Portland<br />
to test his lung power. “I passed the<br />
test with flying colors,” he said. He soon<br />
jumped back on the road to make up for<br />
lost time and sales.<br />
The bigger story behind this is the<br />
lack of health insurance for working musicians,<br />
Iglauer says. “Most full-time musicians<br />
don’t have it unless they get it<br />
through their spouse,” he says. “It’s not<br />
just that musicians get sick like everyone<br />
else, but most of them don’t have the<br />
resources to pay for the treatment they<br />
need.”<br />
Generations of musicians have<br />
wrestled with getting proper medical care.<br />
Salgado says he was counseled by several<br />
other musicians with Hepatitis C to<br />
get treatment. He said he didn’t have the<br />
economic means to take time off from the<br />
road and pay for treatment. So he proceeded<br />
without treatment,<br />
knowing in the back of his<br />
mind that he could be setting<br />
off a time bomb.<br />
Iglauer knows that even<br />
the simple demands of the<br />
business can damage<br />
health. “How often do musicians<br />
play a gig, drive hundreds<br />
of miles, get three<br />
hours of sleep, and then play<br />
another gig?” he asks. “That<br />
takes a toll on you, especially<br />
if you are doing this<br />
night after night.”<br />
Salgado understands<br />
that his role now is to manage<br />
his cancer. He doesn’t<br />
want to allow it to define his<br />
life, but he is cognizant of it.<br />
“When people get the kind of<br />
cancer I have, they are usually<br />
only given a year to live,”<br />
he says. “I’ve been lucky. I’m<br />
way past that.”<br />
He disputes – as many<br />
have contended – that his<br />
music and performances<br />
have changed because of<br />
his illness. Longtime<br />
observers have noted an<br />
intensity and drive that are<br />
more evident than ever. And,<br />
there is little dispute that<br />
2009’s Clean Getaway and<br />
2012’s Soul Shot are among<br />
his best CDs.<br />
After his first cancer<br />
surgery, Salgado made a triumphant<br />
return in 2007. On the Legendary Rhythm<br />
& Blues Cruise that fall, he stood on the<br />
main stage of the ship and addressed the<br />
audience.<br />
“I literally owe my life to the blues,”<br />
he said. “If it wasn’t for the support of the<br />
people in the blues and the fans, I<br />
wouldn’t be here.”<br />
“ 16 BLUES REVUE<br />
I literally owe my life to the blues. ”<br />
PHOTOGRAPHY © DUSTY SCOTT
Larry McCray is a bear of a man. His massive arms make him look<br />
more ready to bear hug his guitars than to coax biting emotional tones<br />
from it. McCray was born in 1960, so it’s no surprise that his blues<br />
incorporates elements of all genres of music – rock, soul, funk, and<br />
jazz. His guitar style suggests he was influenced by everyone from<br />
B.B. King to George Benson, Guitar Slim, Slim Harpo, and back to<br />
Freddie King.<br />
“I term my sound as rhythm rock,” says McCray. “I’m trying to take<br />
the blues stigma off the music. When you have that [blues] on your<br />
resume, sometimes it can hold you back from a lot of opportunities that<br />
are out there for other people. When you put blues on it, people take a<br />
different opinion toward what I do. If a white man plays the blues we call<br />
that rock and roll. If I play the same thing it’s blues. That’s just how<br />
people regard the situation.<br />
“Rhythm rock is just a different name for the same old shit. It’s all<br />
about marketing out here now. I have never claimed to be a blues<br />
purist, so my sound leans to a lot of different things other than blues.<br />
I have a lot to offer in other aspects of music. I believe that music is<br />
music and the more genres you can tie together, that’s more<br />
PHOTOGRAPHY © DUSTY SCOTT<br />
Larry<br />
McCray<br />
MY<br />
GUITAR<br />
SPEAKS<br />
MY<br />
HEART<br />
by Art Tipaldi<br />
BLUES REVUE 19
expression you can have and the more colorful you can be with your<br />
expression.”<br />
Born in 1960 in Arkansas, McCray listened to all music. “The<br />
three Kings, B.B., Freddie, and Albert, were like meat and potatoes to<br />
me, but everything from Junior Walker to Wilson Picket, Aretha,<br />
Gladys Knight, Guitar Slim, and Slim Harpo.” It was through his sister,<br />
Clara, that the 12-year old McCray first came to the guitar. McCray<br />
said that when she found out he was serious and had respect for her<br />
guitar, she encouraged him to get it out and play for her. She even<br />
started him out with her Gibson SG.<br />
“I went straight to the electric. When I moved in with her, I started to<br />
tinker with the guitars she’d left around. She wanted me to play the other<br />
guitars, but I wanted to play her guitar because the action was better.<br />
When she found out that I was serious and had respect for her guitar,<br />
she didn’t mind me play. She even encouraged me to get it out and play<br />
for her. She was my main mentor. I wanted to be like my big sister.”<br />
“Musically, B.B. was the first to<br />
inspire me and touch me in a way that<br />
no other music did. He’s a great musician<br />
who sits there and makes you<br />
feel what he’s feeling. He’s almost<br />
spiritual in the way he plays,” says<br />
McCray. “When I was in 10th grade, I<br />
messed around with a blues segment.<br />
I sang and played some B.B. and they<br />
called me B.B. King until the day I left<br />
school. It was a joke to them, but it<br />
was embarrassing to me.”<br />
Though McCray cites many<br />
modern musical influences, it is the<br />
boundless respect he has for Ray<br />
Charles that most touches his heart.<br />
“When I was a kid in the 1960s in<br />
Arkansas, I went through school integration.<br />
Ray Charles was one of the<br />
first people who made it cool to be<br />
black. You were happy to be associated<br />
with Ray because he had so<br />
much soul in his voice and his instrument.<br />
His tone thing was electrifying<br />
in my opinion.<br />
“Because the soul and rhythm of his music, whether big band or<br />
jazz combo, was so funky, he taught us all how to express soul,<br />
gospel and blues. He was the man,” says McCray.<br />
After the family moved from Arkansas to Saginaw, MI., McCray<br />
really began to learn his chops. He would sit in on the weekend jams<br />
at his sister’s house, absorbing the styles and techniques of other guitarists.<br />
When he was 13, his mother sacrificed enough to buy him a<br />
Gibson 335. With his brothers Carl on bass and Steve on drums, there<br />
was little peace and quiet in the McCray home after that.<br />
By the time he was 16, McCray and his brothers had a band<br />
called the McCray Brothers. Once out of high school, the brothers<br />
worked at the General Motors plant in Saginaw by day and punched<br />
the music time clock at night. “I was on the second shift the whole<br />
time I worked there honing power steering housings,” says McCray.<br />
“My brother would start the gigs off at 10, do the first set, and I would<br />
come in and join the band for the latter part of the night.<br />
“We played together for the next 12 years. That was how I met<br />
the people at Point Blank Records and got our first release. In 1987,<br />
20 BLUES REVUE<br />
we cut a demo and were promised studio time, but that never<br />
happened.” McCray’s first record, Ambition, was released in 1991.<br />
That was also when McCray became the singer/frontman. “I<br />
never wanted to be the frontman. McCray Brothers were a funk band<br />
playing 1970’s funk music. As a change of pace, I’d play two or three<br />
blues numbers, then back to the dance thing.<br />
“These guys who came to see us about our first recording told<br />
me that I needed to be the frontman. I didn’t sing that much then, but<br />
I’ve become more comfortable with singing. But as a baritone, I have<br />
a limited range. I wish I had a better voice to express myself vocally.<br />
But I try to make my voice and the guitar a complimentary package.”<br />
Calling his guitar his true second voice, McCray connects with<br />
audiences around the world directly through the emotional guitar<br />
tones he finds. “My guitar has a range that my voice doesn’t. I’m a<br />
baritone, but my guitar can go up high where I can’t sing. Because I<br />
can reach ranges on the guitar outside of my vocal range, I try and<br />
use my guitar as an extension of my voice. I don’t go for mechanics,<br />
I want my guitar to sing.”<br />
His second album, Delta Hurricane, was released on Virgin<br />
Pointblank in 1993. It’s a hard-edged recording that encompasses<br />
McCray’s contemporary approach: stinging notes, blaring uptown<br />
brass and a liquid-smooth baritone. McCray’s intensity comes through<br />
loud and clear on the sweeping story he sings on the title cut and his<br />
soulful treatment of the classic “Soul Shine.” Still, it’s hard to get a real<br />
fix on the man’s style from his recordings.<br />
McCray’s late 1990’s releases included 1998’s Believe It on HOB<br />
Records and Meet Me At The Lake on the Atomic Theory label, which<br />
took a more relaxed approach to the blues and R&B landscapes he<br />
explores. In 2000, he released Believe It, followed by a live recording<br />
in 2006, and his self-titled record in 2007.<br />
With artists recording an album every two years and touring nonstop<br />
in support, McCray is an unusual exception. He’s gone five years<br />
without a record, but continues to tour as an in-demand blues act.<br />
One night he’s perform in a packed blues club for hours, the next day,<br />
PHOTOGRAPHY © MARILYN STRINGER
he might be on a festival stage in front of thousands, and the next day<br />
he might be on a plane to share his fiery brand of blues with overseas<br />
audiences.<br />
“The people give me the energy. If I see people responding to<br />
my music or having enough interest in my music that they come out<br />
to support me, that’s what gives me energy to give them everything<br />
we have.<br />
“The goal is to be as professional and rewarding as I possible<br />
can. It would be great to headline some of these festivals, but the<br />
people demand who gets where. It’s all about the presentation when I<br />
entertain. I try and always show emotion when I play to connect with<br />
each person in the audience. It’s a matter of reaching the people and<br />
getting their approval.”<br />
McCray is a member of a generation of blues guitarists who<br />
were raised on the innovations and creativity of post war electric blues<br />
guitarists like B.B., Albert, and Freddie King, Luther Allison, Otis Rush,<br />
Buddy Guy, Magic Sam, and others. Today he feels his generation<br />
has taken what they were given by the guitar masters and contributed<br />
much to the evolution of the blues.<br />
“You can see the changing face of it in every new generation.<br />
We bring a different rhythm to the blues. Those guys were all part of a<br />
style that was the face of the blues at one time. That’s who we learned<br />
our blues chops from. The chops Albert and Freddie laid down are<br />
what’s deep in our hearts. It’s the core of what we do. We’ve taken<br />
those chops and added in other classic rock and funk elements from<br />
what we grew up with – Sly Stone, Otis Redding, Joe Tex, James<br />
Brown, Wilson Pickett, and others were our big brothers who we<br />
learned from.<br />
“Now you’ve got another generation like Joe Bonamassa,<br />
Jonny Lang, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Derek Trucks who’ve come<br />
along after us. I’m sure that our music influenced them somewhat.”<br />
As talented as today’s blues artists are, McCray feels that this<br />
music must be presented with more respect to the general public.<br />
Selling the blues as the soundtrack to solving male ED is not what<br />
Muddy, Wolf, and others intended when they created this sound. “I<br />
think the whole problem with blues music in this world is that it’s never<br />
viewed as an equal. They use it in every form of media – movies,<br />
advertising, sports – but it’s all about the presentation. It’s always taken<br />
lightly, like it’s not a serious music. It you don’t present it like it’s a first<br />
class operation, people aren’t gonna regard it as first class.<br />
“No one gives the music any credit for having evolved. Rock and<br />
roll is not the same as it was 50 years ago. What makes people think<br />
that the blues hasn’t grown. There are some very progressive blues<br />
players who play their instruments as well as musicians in any other<br />
form of music.”<br />
Today, McCray understands the touring and performing climate<br />
has changed drastically from a decade ago. But McCray is a musical<br />
artist who has a vision. “My standard is to not sound like anybody<br />
else. It’s to be the best that I can within the limitations of my own playing.<br />
I’ll never be more than a blues player. Even if I can’t convey the<br />
technique, I’ll always convey the emotion within the music.<br />
“That’s the difference between a player like me and a player who<br />
comes from the school of technique. Their technique and knowledge<br />
of the instrument is gonna take them through all the passages. But I<br />
don’t know where I’m going. I have to feel my way through. I know I<br />
gonna get there one way or another, but sometimes I don’t know how<br />
I’m gonna get there. So when I get there, I get there as Larry McCray,<br />
not Larry McCray imitating B.B. King. However you play, the main<br />
goal as a blues player is to not lose your heart and soul.”<br />
BLUES REVUE 21
An<br />
Interview<br />
with<br />
Southside Chicago native Toronzo Cannon<br />
is a genuine triple threat artist (guitarist/<br />
singer/songwriter) as he amply demonstrated<br />
on Leaving Mood, his dazzling<br />
Delmark debut from late 2011. The southpaw<br />
guitar slinger was born in 1968, but<br />
didn’t start playing until his early twenties.<br />
22 BLUES REVUE<br />
“ There’s a lot of blues to be given<br />
and I’m here to do my part. ”<br />
TORONZO CANNON<br />
by Thomas J. Cullen lll<br />
PHOTOGRAPHY © AIGARS LAPSA<br />
By the mid-nineties he was active on the<br />
Windy City scene playing with a variety of<br />
artists like Tommy McCracken (who gave<br />
him his start), Wayne Baker Brooks, Joanna<br />
Connor, and L.V. Banks, all the while maintaining<br />
his job as a bus driver for the<br />
Chicago Transit Authority, which he still<br />
does to this day. Although the influence of<br />
Jimi Hendrix is pervasive in his music, the<br />
deep Chicago blues he first heard in his<br />
grandfather’s house as a small child is paramount.<br />
Major talents like Toronzo Cannon<br />
give blues fans hope for the future of<br />
the music.<br />
BLUES REVUE: Your uncles used to hang<br />
around the legendary Theresa’s Lounge.<br />
What are some of your earliest memories of<br />
the club?<br />
TORONZO CANNON: My uncles never took<br />
me there, but I would sneak down the block<br />
with my sister and my brother to the ice<br />
cream shop right before they closed. When I<br />
was a kid, I only knew that’s where my<br />
uncles used to hang out. My Uncle Rickey<br />
used to help Theresa with whatever she<br />
needed and with the band. If the drummer<br />
was late, he would play until the drummer<br />
came. My Uncle Pee-Wee was a ladies man;<br />
I’ll just keep it at that. He would help Theresa<br />
buy the liquor she needed when times got<br />
tough. The only memory I really have is looking<br />
over the banister trying to see what the<br />
PHOTOGRAPHY © CONNIE TAYLOR
grown folks were doing. I would hear the<br />
inside stuff at the kitchen table and at<br />
family gatherings.<br />
BR: Did you hear much blues around the<br />
house growing up on the South Side?<br />
TC: Oh yeah, blues and soul music.<br />
Whenever family came over, aunts,<br />
uncles, older cousins and me would peek<br />
through the “blues beads” leading to the<br />
living room. My grandfather loved Little<br />
Walter, especially “My Babe,” and Al<br />
Green. Many nights I would wake up to<br />
the same song that was playing the night<br />
before. As far as radio in that era, it was<br />
early funk and R&B like Chaka Kahn, Sly<br />
Stone, Funkadelic, etc. So, I would hear<br />
that too.<br />
BR: When did you start playing guitar?<br />
What was it about Hendrix that most influenced<br />
you and why does he continue to<br />
be a major influence on guitarists? Any<br />
favorite Hendrix tunes?<br />
TC: I was 22-23 when I first started to play.<br />
My sister bought me an acoustic guitar – a<br />
Harmony that I still have. At that time I was<br />
listening to a lot of reggae. That’s where I<br />
learned my first chords. Then I saw my<br />
first video of Jimi Hendrix, man; it was<br />
visually and audibly beautiful. The lyrics<br />
were right there for you to see. Dig the<br />
lyrics to “Voodoo Child,” “Are You Experienced?,”<br />
Hear My Train A-Comin’,” “Bold<br />
As Love” without getting caught up in the<br />
music part of it, you can see his lyrics.<br />
What Hendrix put down in three and half<br />
years is huge. I don’t care who you are, if<br />
you play electric guitar, there is no way<br />
you can avoid what Hendrix did for guitarists,<br />
and for sellers of electric guitars.<br />
Some try to deny his influence and talk<br />
about their heroes, which is cool, but<br />
chances are their hero was touched by<br />
Hendrix, so they are getting touched by<br />
proxy. Favorite songs would be “Hear My<br />
Train A-Comin’,” “Message To Love,”<br />
“Machine Gun,” “Spanish Castle Magic,”<br />
the list could go on and on.<br />
BR: Who are some of your favorite blues<br />
guitarists?<br />
TC: Right now it’s Gary Clark, Jr. But in the<br />
beginning it was, of course, the three<br />
Kings, B.B., Albert, and Freddie, Buddy<br />
Guy, Otis Rush, Chris Cain, Elmore James.<br />
Hound Dog Taylor, Joe Bonamassa,<br />
Lonnie Brooks, Magic Sam, Ronnie Earl,<br />
Shuggie Otis, TuTu Jones, and Son House.<br />
There’s more but it would take too much<br />
time.<br />
BR: Your Delmark debut is not just a showcase<br />
for your musical and vocal talents but<br />
also for your songwriting. You said that<br />
working as a bus driver for the Chicago<br />
Transit Authority provides inspiration for<br />
your songs. Does your job continue to<br />
influence your new songs? Any favorite<br />
songwriters?<br />
TC: I owe a big thanks to my writing partner<br />
Lawrence Gladney. He has helped me<br />
get my words and thoughts out. He helps<br />
with the music also. I would have lyrics<br />
and situations that I would write down at<br />
work. When I couldn’t go any further in the<br />
songs he would go into this Zen state and<br />
come up with some amazing hooks or<br />
connecting lyrics to my words. Everyday<br />
my job is an inspiration for songs. I work<br />
in a very rough side of town. I see so<br />
much bad and good in the bad (if that<br />
makes sense) to come up with different<br />
situations. But I’ve lived some life too, so<br />
some of my lyrics come from personal<br />
experiences. I find it easier to sing about<br />
things I’ve been through or had some first<br />
hand knowledge of. Some of my favorite<br />
songwriters are Keb’ Mo’, Chris Cain,<br />
Bobby Womack, Robert Cray, Bob Marley,<br />
and Lawrence Gladney.<br />
BR: Your CD is dedicated to the memories<br />
of Chico Banks, Little Jimmy King, L’il Dave<br />
Thompson, L.C. Walker, and L.V. Banks.<br />
What are your feelings about each?<br />
TC: I’ve played with all of those guys<br />
except Little Jimmy King. Chico Banks<br />
was a beautiful dude, funny, fun to be<br />
around, and he could rip your face off with<br />
the guitar! I actually used him as a gauge<br />
about my playing ability. When I first came<br />
on the Chicago blues scene there was a<br />
jam at B.L.U.E.S. that he was part of.<br />
Whenever new cats were in a situation to<br />
play with him, he would come down off<br />
the stage. So, I told myself I’m going to<br />
play with him. I took it as a challenge. I’m<br />
sure he didn’t think two thoughts about<br />
getting up with the jammers, but it motivated<br />
me. Before his death we played San<br />
Jose, Lima, Ohio, and were supposed to<br />
do a show in Michigan before he got sick.<br />
BLUES REVUE 23
Little Jimmy King’s Live From Monterey<br />
album made me start playing and buying<br />
Flying V’s. His tone, his licks, and his voice<br />
made me a fan. I met him one time in Memphis<br />
before I knew he had a twin. I had mistaken<br />
his brother (Daniel Gales) for him.<br />
That was funny. Been a fan of L’il Dave<br />
Thompson when he was playing his guitar<br />
with a quarter and spraying his fretboard<br />
with 10-40 oil. I would run from my gig to<br />
play his last set when he was in Chicago.<br />
L.C. Walker, another good dude gone.<br />
He’s the reason I carry around business<br />
cards today. He wanted me to play with him<br />
on a gig, so I go to write my number down<br />
on a napkin. He says, “Would you trust a<br />
dentist writing his number on a napkin?” He<br />
took the napkin and the next time I saw him<br />
he had four sheets of business cards that I<br />
had to cut out myself. He said, “This should<br />
get you started.”<br />
L.V. Banks was an elder statesman of<br />
Southside blues. He was my first experience<br />
playing on the South Side. So you<br />
know I had to learn something! I would<br />
have one pedal on the floor and he would<br />
look down and look at me, then look down<br />
24 BLUES REVUE<br />
again and look at me and say, “This ain’t no<br />
rock-n-roll show. This is my sound right<br />
here” and wiggle his fingers. Very good<br />
memories of these dudes no matter how<br />
small or great.<br />
BR: What’s the current Chicago blues scene<br />
like? What are some of your favorite clubs?<br />
TC: The current state of Chicago blues is<br />
like everywhere else: bands want to work<br />
and show their stuff and keep the genre<br />
alive. There might be added pressure on<br />
Chicago musicians because of the history<br />
of Chicago, as we know it. I have to thank<br />
Delmark Records for giving new Chicago<br />
blues guys and ladies a chance in getting<br />
our music out. People like Mike Wheeler,<br />
Demetria Taylor, Linsey Alexander, and<br />
Quintus McCormick. My favorite clubs in<br />
Chicago are B.L.U.E.S., Buddy Guy’s Legends,<br />
House of Blues, and Rosa’s.<br />
BR: You recently came east for the first time<br />
in July to play the Bucks County Blues Society<br />
30th Annual R&B Picnic. Any plans to<br />
tour the West Coast or Europe?<br />
TC: I just played the San Jose Jazz Festival<br />
and I do have tentative plans to return to<br />
France and Latvia.<br />
BR: Are you working on a follow-up to<br />
Leaving Mood? If so, can you give us a brief<br />
preview?<br />
TC: Oh yes. It’ll be more songs from my<br />
experiences in life. I try to write songs that<br />
you can see, songs that someone has felt in<br />
life. But the whole CD won’t be downer<br />
songs. I have fun too, BIG FUN. All of that<br />
will come out on the next CD.<br />
BR: What do you envision for the future of<br />
the blues?<br />
TC: In some ways Chicago artists are under<br />
represented at some festivals. If they want<br />
Chicago blues, we’re here, ready to give it to<br />
you. But the future relies on everybody doing<br />
his or her part to keep the genre alive.<br />
Attention: promoters, booking agents, record<br />
labels, club owners, fans of the music, radio,<br />
and musicians – there’s a lot of blues to be<br />
given, and I’m here to do my part!
Alexis P. Suter<br />
THE BIG VOICE OF THE BLUES<br />
Aby Kay Cordtz<br />
Alexis P. Suter commands your attention the instant she walks<br />
onstage. The plus-sized singer moves slowly and deliberately, like a<br />
cherubic African queen in her flowing tunic, pants, and black top<br />
hat. She is all business as she approaches the microphone, plants<br />
her feet, throws back her head, and attacks the song in a startling,<br />
bass-baritone voice as formidable as her stage presence.<br />
Nominated in last year’s Blues Music Awards as Best Soul<br />
Blues Female Artist, her talent has been publicly recognized by<br />
music icons like B.B. King and Levon Helm, as well as by no less<br />
an authority than Blues Brother Dan Aykroyd, who once called her<br />
“America’s number one contender for Queen of the Blues.” But<br />
Suter discovered her affinity for the genre just seven or eight years<br />
ago after a lifetime of singing gospel music and a whirlwind few<br />
years as a house music phenomenon in New York City and Japan.<br />
The daughter of well-known gospel singer Carrie Suter, she<br />
started singing in church as a young child and played drums, tuba,<br />
and sousaphone in her Brooklyn elementary and middle school<br />
bands. She quit playing those instruments in high school, but<br />
continued to sing, notably in the All-City High School Chorus, where<br />
she was the only female bass-baritone in the 250-voice choir.<br />
“Any chance I had to sing, I would take it,” she said. “Watching<br />
my mother sing with gospel choirs, I knew what I wanted to do.<br />
The difference is that my mother also taught music in the school<br />
system and for me, singing is what I do for a living.”<br />
PHOTOGRAPHY (ABOVE) © JOSEPH A. ROSEN<br />
PHOTOGRAPHY (RIGHT) © MARILYN STRINGER<br />
BLUES REVUE 25
Suter became a parent at a young age, but continued on her<br />
path. (Daughter Carrie is studying to be an opera singer and son<br />
Albert is a Seattle-area hip-hop musician.) She had her first measure<br />
of success when a young man with an independent record label fell in<br />
love with her voice and introduced her to the dance music scene. She<br />
wrote some lyrics to an electronica beat track and in 1989, a group<br />
called 4 To The Bar featuring a roaring Alexis P. Suter put out a 12-inch<br />
disc titled “Slam Me, Baby.” It became an overnight underground hit.<br />
Another house music hit, “Stop! (We Need Each Other),”<br />
attracted attention overseas and in the early ‘90s, Suter became the<br />
first African-American woman signed to Sony Japan; she toured that<br />
country and elsewhere on the strength of the recordings she did for<br />
them. Suter attributes the termination of that relationship to poor management,<br />
and she left the music business for several years as a result.<br />
But her luck changed when she met Vicki Bell. “A young man<br />
who I grew up with had a group called Jack and Jill,” Suter said. “He<br />
knew I had been really down, so he asked me to come and sing with<br />
his band. Vicki was one of his background singers.”<br />
Bell not only sang in blues and rock bands, she had worked for<br />
years on Broadway as a singer and dancer. Not easily impressed,<br />
she was amazed by Suter’s vocal power. “I had the same reaction as<br />
everyone does who hears her sing,” Bell said. “I thought ‘wow, I’ve<br />
never heard a voice like hers, ever!’ She was also very respectful to<br />
me and the other singer and we hit it off immediately.”<br />
Not long after, Bell married drummer and fellow Broadway veteran<br />
Ray Grappone, and they formed Hipbone Records with the intention of<br />
showcasing dance music’s soulful side by incorporating live music in<br />
26 BLUES REVUE<br />
every mix. But they needed a marquis performer. “We needed a singer<br />
who could really knock them out, and Alexis came to mind right away,<br />
“ Bell said. “It was the perfect way for us to get back together.”<br />
It proved to be a perfect fit, and Suter became the first Hipbone<br />
artist. Starting with 1998’s “All Night Long,” together they put out several<br />
dozen 12-inch vinyl dance records. “Vicki and Ray, they saw<br />
something in me and never quit,” Suter said. “But we knew that we<br />
were much more than house music.”<br />
Grappone also played in a Brooklyn blues and rock band with his<br />
college friend Jimmy Bennett and his bass player brother Peter. Bell<br />
also sang with the band but was expanding her role in the business.<br />
“We were all kind of growing and maturing as artists and producers<br />
and writers, and we thought the dance music genre just wasn’t<br />
good enough for Alexis,” Bell said. “We had to do something that was<br />
not like a DJ genre for her and that’s how Shuga Fix, Hipbone’s first<br />
full length CD, on which we all played, came about in 2005.”<br />
The record includes Robert Johnson’s “Rollin’ And Tumblin’” as<br />
well as a version of Suter’s dance hit “All Night Long” and two original<br />
songs, “Teacher Man” and “Ride Ride,” that would soon become fan<br />
favorites and staples of the band’s growing repertoire.<br />
At about the same time, Suter impressed another musician who<br />
would become crucial to her career. Levon Helm had been sitting in<br />
on drums occasionally with the Bennett Brother Band while recovering<br />
from vocal chord cancer. At the same time, Bell had become friendly<br />
with Helm’s daughter Amy, who recorded her own 12-inch dance<br />
record for Hipbone. At a benefit concert in a Brooklyn church, Suter<br />
finally met the man who would be an important mentor.
“Amy, Vicki, and I needed a place to rehearse and there were no<br />
dressing rooms,” Suter said, “so Amy said we should get in the limousine<br />
where her father was waiting to be called in to play. After a<br />
while, Vicki and Amy went to the ladies room and left Levon and me<br />
by ourselves. It was a bit awkward at first but we started a conversation<br />
about movies he had appeared in, then we started talking about<br />
his career and I told him about what I wanted to do with mine. After<br />
the show that night, he invited me to come sing at the Ramble.”<br />
The Midnight Rambles, which he hosted at his barn/studio in<br />
Woodstock from 2004 until his death earlier this year, were exclusive<br />
house concerts for Helm’s fans from around the world. Soon Suter<br />
and her band became the regular opening act. At first, they were<br />
billed as the Bennett Brothers Band featuring Alexis P. Suter, but when<br />
Jimmy Bennett had to temporarily relocate to Florida with his family,<br />
they became the Alexis P. Suter Band. Between 2005 and 2008, they<br />
opened at the Ramble 96 times.<br />
“People really embraced us there,” Suter said. “I owe so much<br />
to Levon and his legacy. He really saw something in us, saw something<br />
in me. He taught us a lot about this business and a lot about<br />
people.”<br />
Suter’s second record, the CD/DVD Live At The Midnight Ramble<br />
was recorded in 2006. It includes her versions of “Precious Lord,<br />
Take My Hand” and “Louisiana 1927,” which fans still request at her<br />
shows, having first heard her sing them at the Ramble.<br />
As word of her vocal prowess spread, doors opened for Suter<br />
and her band. In 2006, they opened for B.B. King at his New York City<br />
club and he praised her performance at the beginning of his set.<br />
(They have opened for him twice since.) After other bands began<br />
playing the opening set at the Ramble several years ago, Suter<br />
quickly became a familiar name on the roster at blues festivals on the<br />
east coast, the Midwest, and in Canada.<br />
She released her second studio album, Just Another Fool, in<br />
2008. The band did a two-week tour of Italian festivals in 2010 and<br />
opened for Etta James at B.B. King’s. In 2011, they released their latest<br />
record, Two Sides. Along the way, they added well-known Brooklyn<br />
keyboard player Benny Harrison to the lineup.<br />
“I have much respect and love for all of the members of my<br />
band,” Suter said. “Like any family, we have our ups and downs, but<br />
we work it out. That’s why I love this band so much. These are people<br />
who have longstanding relationships with each other and I think<br />
that’s what really has sustained us for so long.”<br />
During the summer of 2012, the Alexis P. Suter Band made<br />
appearances at festivals including Tampa Bay, Jacksonville, Memphis/<br />
Beale St., the Crawfish Festival in New Jersey, and Briggs Farm in<br />
Pennsylvania. They also performed at the Blues Music Awards in<br />
Memphis, where Suter was nominated for Female Soul Blues Artist.<br />
Although Denise LaSalle won, Suter said, “I still feel like a winner<br />
because I got beat by royalty. Being at the awards was overwhelming<br />
in such a good way. Those beautiful people paved the way for me.”<br />
Through the years, the Alexis P. Suter Band made occasional<br />
appearances at Helm’s Midnight Ramble and was scheduled to play<br />
there the week he died. “He always kept track of what we were<br />
doing,” Suter said. “He would even call my mother from time to time.<br />
It was very hard for all of us when he passed away.”<br />
Suter and her band are at work on a new studio album and<br />
live DVD for 2013. In the meantime, her fans can see her at the<br />
Falcon Arts Center in Marlboro, NY, where the band has been playing<br />
once a month. “We’re happy right now,” she said, “and working<br />
on being content.”<br />
BLUES REVUE 27
The Hook Up<br />
One bluesman had never flown overseas. Another doesn’t<br />
like European food. And the third…well…he’d rather drink than<br />
eat. Armed with this knowledge, my buddy Jeff Konkel of Broke &<br />
Hungry Records and I crossed our fingers, said a prayer, and proceeded<br />
to book a We Juke Up In Here Mississippi-to-Switzerland<br />
blues caravan in August 2012.<br />
To be fair, we had a fine conspiratorial team in the Rootsway<br />
Roots & Blues Association of Parma, Italy. They helped us get the<br />
hook up with the Geneva Arts Festival. And what a hook up it was.<br />
Each August, the festival builds a huge, semi-permanent<br />
amphitheater for one month of major concert and film events. It<br />
was an enormous stage, complete with a drive-in size screen<br />
behind it. The seating was stadium style, and the backstage green<br />
rooms consisted of a series of attached trailers. Built for rock<br />
stars, we filled the venue with three of the most real-deal Delta<br />
bluesmen we know: Terry “Harmonica” Bean, Jimmy “Duck”<br />
Holmes, and Louis “Gearshifter” Youngblood.<br />
The night before our We Juke Up In Here: Mississippi’s Juke<br />
Joint Culture At The Crossroads screening and concert debut,<br />
reggae-rap star Shaggy packed the house. When our two nights<br />
28 BLUES REVUE<br />
YOUNGBLOOD<br />
HOLMES, BEAN, AND YOUNGBLOOD<br />
were done, Kool & the Gang took to the stage. (The Gang<br />
checked out our second night, incidentally, though they seemed<br />
more bewildered by it than anything.)<br />
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s back up.<br />
THERE ARE ABSOLUTELY NO GUARANTEES<br />
While the plane tickets may have been purchased, when you are<br />
dealing with Delta-crazy blues characters in Mississippi, I’m here<br />
HOLMES<br />
HOLMES<br />
to tell you that there are absolutely no guarantees of anyone with<br />
a guitar or harmonica gettin’ on no airplane.<br />
For one thing, Holmes had only ever flown once before (to<br />
NYC – and not a good flight!) and had turned down many previous<br />
offers to fly across the big pond. And then there’s the fact that of the<br />
seven of us going (Jeff, me, three musicians and our two cameramen<br />
– Damien Blaylock and Lou Bopp), none of us even live in the<br />
same town. You may think you know “iffy”? Well, we know iffy.<br />
Somewhat surprisingly – though not without many phone calls<br />
and a seriously sleepless night – everyone made it to the Memphis<br />
airport. Everyone even remembered passports. The flight over was<br />
actually pretty good. Harmonica hit on the stewardesses, Duck<br />
slept, and Gearshifter drank. However, upon our arrival we learned<br />
that some of our luggage had gone left when we went right.<br />
PHOTOGRAPHY © LOU BOPP
An experienced world-traveler, Mr. Bopp was just short of tracking<br />
down the president of the airlines in search of his missing camera<br />
bag while Gearshifter took on a generally depressed demeanor as<br />
he stared at the empty baggage carrousel going round and round.<br />
All of his luggage was missing. (Ok, all one piece of it.)<br />
IT’S NOT JUST FOR BREAKFAST ANY MORE<br />
The next morning, I came downstairs at the hotel in search of coffee<br />
and breakfast. I was greeted by a slightly scruffier Gearshifter – still<br />
in his travel outfit – eating a bowl of potato chips and drinking a<br />
beer. He was pondering the fate of his luggage.<br />
This pondering lasted for another bowl of potato chips and two<br />
more beers as the rest of us woke up to caffeine and muesli. (Later,<br />
he had the “worst beer I’ve ever tasted” from his room’s mini-bar.<br />
Upon closer examination, we informed him that it was actually a very<br />
expensive – if mini – bottle of brut champagne.)<br />
On our first night of shows, we arrived early at the concert/film<br />
venue and took all the guitars back to the green room trailers. They<br />
were outfitted comfortably with chairs, tables and – wait for it<br />
– beverages. Yes, the first night, mixed in with the bottled waters<br />
and soda cans, there was a surprisingly tasty selection of beers in<br />
all of the trailers.<br />
To be fair, our musician-friend Gearshifter was nervous. Back in<br />
Mississippi, he rarely plays outside of his hometown, and he’s only<br />
been overseas one other time – about five years ago. Fortunately, he<br />
is a man who can handle his booze.<br />
You may have noticed above that I said there were beers back<br />
stage the first night? Well, let’s just say that after…uh…“someone”<br />
finished all of them off, they didn’t restock for the second night.<br />
Still, and this is the honest truth, Gearshifter played amazing<br />
the first night and second. The first night he attacked the blues, diving<br />
in headfirst from the get-go. The second night was a slow, slow<br />
burn but every bit as effective.<br />
THE BALANCE OF THE “WE JUKE” TRIO<br />
Aside from an aversion to non-soul food, Harmonica Bean is turn-key.<br />
You wind him up, point him towards the stage, and he takes over. He<br />
is an energizing performer who loves his people. Holmes, on the<br />
other hand, wins over his audience with his mesmerizing, deep blues<br />
groove. He brings Bentonia, Mississippi, to wherever he plays. And<br />
you believe it. We concluded each night with the trio of Gearshifter,<br />
Holmes, and Harmonica jamming out a song or two together.<br />
Initially, there was some trepidation (and a lot of trash talk) about<br />
this encore jam since only Holmes and Harmonica had played<br />
together previously, and Gearshifter’s style might be considered relatively<br />
more modern. But, the excitement (or was it tension?) that<br />
resulted really pushed it over the top, making the encores truly<br />
memorable highpoints. Once the encore applause died down, we<br />
screened the film featuring these fine bluesmen and others, and the<br />
rest is history.<br />
For more on the “We Juke Up in Here” film and caravan tours,<br />
visit www.wejukeupinhere.com.<br />
BLUES REVUE 29
Blues Project 2012<br />
“This is the best crowd I ever<br />
played for that wasn’t drunk!” Blues Mandolin<br />
Maestro Rich DelGrosso quipped<br />
last August 17. Bittersweet – a rowdy blues<br />
audience can gratify a player, but ours was<br />
mostly cancer patients grabbing joy and<br />
escape as they fight for their very lives.<br />
The Project Blues shows at LifeCare<br />
Alliance in Columbus, Ohio, were redeeming<br />
for both the players<br />
and our audience. The<br />
next day, we did a second<br />
concert for donors<br />
and sponsors who help<br />
support this mission.<br />
BluesWax.com<br />
reported on 2011’s<br />
Project Blues concerts,<br />
2012 was the third<br />
series, but my first time.<br />
Before I left Columbus<br />
I knew I wanted to tell<br />
you about it.<br />
When I was five in<br />
1954 I sat on my front<br />
stairs, enjoying my<br />
safe, sunny, sheltered<br />
world in Brookline,<br />
Massachusetts. An old<br />
man, probably younger<br />
than I am now, limped by on crutches with<br />
dignified determination. Childishly candid,<br />
I asked, “What happened to you?” He<br />
winced even as his mouth almost smiled<br />
at my innocence. He looked into my eyes<br />
and explained in a hoarse, tremulous<br />
voice I can still hear with perfect sound<br />
memory, “I had Polio.” It was hard for him<br />
to speak.<br />
Only one year later, Medical Science<br />
produced the first Polio vaccine, and I got<br />
mine at my excellent public school. In<br />
1955 public health care was not an “entitlement”<br />
to be weighed socially or politically.<br />
Little Bobby didn’t think about that,<br />
but I remembered the crippled old man<br />
steady dragging the legs he once walked<br />
with, with his arms and wooden crutches. I<br />
even craved the sting of my Polio needle<br />
and wiggled my toes in my U.S. Keds in<br />
30 BLUES REVUE<br />
hope that I might always be able to. I<br />
expected fulfillment of the other human<br />
aspirations of 1955: We would “go to the<br />
moon,” and “cure cancer.”<br />
I am still brokenhearted that not only<br />
did we fail on the cancer part, but our<br />
world is more toxic than ever. The clients<br />
of LifeCare Alliance and the Columbus<br />
Cancer Center, as well as Project Blues’<br />
DIUNNA GREENLEAF, KENNY “BEEDY EYES” SMITH, MARTY ROMIE,<br />
JOHN DEL TORO RICHARDSON, BOB MARGOLIN, AND TOM HOLLAND<br />
musicians friends, families, and they themselves<br />
still face this cruel disease. Cancer<br />
is so ubiquitous that we all are touched<br />
and have a personal story. One of mine,<br />
briefly, is that my mother passed from<br />
Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma in 1997. I rode<br />
it down with the woman who brought me<br />
into the world, sheltered me, and taught<br />
me how to love and live. I watched her<br />
lose a little bit of herself each day until she<br />
was gone.<br />
I have musician friends today, you all<br />
know them too, who battle both cancer in<br />
their bodies and the health care industry.<br />
While I don’t have the money to be a philanthropist,<br />
or even be secure myself as<br />
the cost of living rises, I take opportunities<br />
to donate my time and music.<br />
I was thrilled and honored to perform<br />
at Project Blues with old and new friends:<br />
Diunna Greenleaf, Kenny “Beedy Eyes”<br />
Smith, Bob Stroger, Dave Specter,<br />
Omar Coleman, Columbus' own Marty<br />
Romie and Brian Duress, Dave West,<br />
Rich DelGrosso, John Popovich, Sean<br />
Carney, Anson Funderburgh, and Christian<br />
Dozzler. Jonn Del Toro Richardson and<br />
Tom Holland hosted and turned our gang<br />
into an entertaining revue. Onstage, we<br />
had magic moments where the blues<br />
transported us all to a place where<br />
nothing hurts.<br />
All the musicians had to do was<br />
close our eyes and look inside to our personal<br />
losses for motivation to push back<br />
against cancer. And when our eyes<br />
opened, we were inspired and moved by<br />
Columbus’ cancer crusaders right in front<br />
of us.<br />
When I arrived for sound check<br />
before the first show, I had a very powerful<br />
experience taking the tour of LifeCare<br />
Alliance provided by President and CEO<br />
Chuck Gehring. Today, treatment and<br />
patient life services are less affordable<br />
than ever to cancer victims who suddenly<br />
have less earning power when they need<br />
it most. Cancer centers in the U.S. are<br />
underfunded and closing. LifeCare<br />
Alliance is a model of “find a way” in a<br />
world of “don’t get sick but if you do,<br />
die quick.”<br />
PHOTOGRAPHY © DUSTY SCOTT
The Columbus Cancer Clinic is the<br />
oldest free cancer clinic in the United<br />
States. It was founded in 1921 by Catherine<br />
Nelson Black, to assist those dealing with<br />
cancer. It merged into LifeCare Alliance in<br />
2005 in to save administrative costs and<br />
create a more efficient and effective delivery<br />
model. They provide education about<br />
prevention and early detection, head-to-toe<br />
screenings, examinations, and mammograms,<br />
regardless of ability to pay.<br />
Last year, they served 3,469 clients,<br />
providing 1,593 mammograms, 1,163<br />
screenings, and 713 families<br />
with home care support<br />
services. Generally, these<br />
clients would not have<br />
access to these services<br />
due to lack of ability to pay.<br />
Home Care Support provides<br />
low income, underinsured<br />
or uninsured<br />
individuals living with cancer<br />
with medical supplies<br />
and equipment, medication<br />
assistance, transportation<br />
to and from cancer related<br />
medical appointments,<br />
pantry items, nutritional<br />
supplements, and emergency<br />
financial assistance,<br />
including rent and utility<br />
payments.<br />
They prevent homelessness.<br />
They provide<br />
skilled nursing care, home<br />
health aides, social work,<br />
therapy, and dietary assistance<br />
needed to maintain<br />
the client and their family in<br />
their home. All Home Care<br />
Support services are provided<br />
free of charge.<br />
Columbus Cancer Center also provides<br />
wigs and breast prostheses. Almost 60% of<br />
their clients have incomes below $20,000<br />
annually, and 80% of their clients are<br />
female, and 42% are minorities.<br />
Due to the merger, Columbus Cancer<br />
Clinic clients also have access to LifeCare<br />
Alliance help such as Meals-on-Wheels, pet<br />
food, wellness and homemaking services.<br />
Chuck Gehring told us that 70% of their<br />
clients have pets. That doesn’t surprise me,<br />
I understand how animal companions help<br />
and soothe the spirit.<br />
These services do not just rely on<br />
government assistance or the charity of<br />
kindhearted donors. LifeCare Alliance<br />
operates Social Entrepreneurship enterprises<br />
to assist in accepting all clients in<br />
need. The Project Blues concert was held<br />
in their Catering Event Center. LifeCare<br />
Alliance Catering is a full service catering<br />
company operated by LifeCare Alliance.<br />
The profits from it help to pay for clients<br />
when funding does not exist. In 2012,<br />
catering will pay for over 400 clients. For<br />
the past decade, LifeCare Alliance has<br />
accepted all qualified clients in need.<br />
Most similar programs in the United States<br />
have large waiting lists.<br />
Jonn Del Toro Richardson told me,<br />
“My family was impacted by this when my<br />
dad was diagnosed with lymphoma cancer<br />
and my mom had to quit work to tend<br />
to him. I thank God my mom taught us<br />
about family and my sisters and I pulled<br />
together to get through those tough days<br />
ahead. We had each other, but there are<br />
many out there that have no one to turn to<br />
and rely on the help of others. When Mike<br />
Berichon approached me about Project<br />
Blues I was in right away. We put a show<br />
together for the patients and it all just went<br />
from there.<br />
“I personally enjoy performing for the<br />
patients and clients, to see them light up<br />
PHOTOGRAPHY © DUSTY SCOTT<br />
and enjoy themselves is an amazing sight.<br />
I'll never forget one lady thanking us for<br />
coming, she said to me ‘I haven't been out<br />
of my house for a year other then hospital<br />
and doctors visits and haven't had any visitors<br />
except for the food bank this made my<br />
year.’ I can't begin to tell you how much that<br />
statement affected me.”<br />
Mike Berichon is a Columbus music<br />
lover who was instrumental in conceiving<br />
Project Blues. He took on much of the organizational<br />
work, and it is no surprise that he<br />
too is driven by what cancer has taken from<br />
him. Mike wrote his feelings for his sister in<br />
this poem, and works so that others might<br />
not have to experience his loss:<br />
Roses And Thorns<br />
by Mike “Bear” Berichon<br />
Helplessly…<br />
Watching darkness overtake the day<br />
I’d give anything to find a way<br />
To keep the darkness at bay<br />
I don’t know what to say<br />
To give her hope…to give me hope<br />
I love you….this hurts<br />
Roses and Thorns<br />
I want The Power to change<br />
Snap His fingers and re-arrange<br />
I am her, she is me<br />
If I pray it, can He make it be?<br />
Out from the gloom, show her light<br />
You’re beautiful…I am empty<br />
Roses and Thorns<br />
Runnin’ down the road at 90 plus<br />
Blues a blarin’ and comforting us<br />
I am me, and she is she<br />
He says that’s how it has to be<br />
I'll never forget that ride.<br />
Sure was a beautiful day…I miss her.<br />
Roses and Thorns<br />
Hopefully…<br />
Watching darkness overtake the day<br />
Finally, I have found a way<br />
To make the darkness go away<br />
I now know what to say<br />
To give her hope…to give me hope<br />
Sure is a beautiful day…we are one<br />
Roses and Roses<br />
© 2010 Mike “Bear” Berichon<br />
BLUES REVUE 31
The Texas Blues of<br />
Blind Lemon Jefferson<br />
by Michael Cala<br />
I grew up in a four-generation, Sicilian-American<br />
household in Brooklyn in the 1960s and listened to<br />
AM radio. My great uncles, who had long moved away,<br />
left behind dozens of 78 RPM records that wound up<br />
in basement boxes. Italian tenors, big bands, and<br />
“songbirds” appeared on well-known labels such as<br />
Columbia, Bluebird, Paramount, Decca, and RCA.<br />
Whenever I could, I’d forage quietly in the messy<br />
basement, looking for treasures. One day, searching the<br />
records, I found a label I’d never seen: Okeh Records<br />
– and under the logo, in small letters, “a subsidiary of<br />
Columbia Records.” This was Columbia’s “race” label.<br />
The platter was mint, the singer/pianist Gladys<br />
Bentley, and the songs were “Worried Blues” and<br />
“Ground Hog Blues,” recorded in 1928. I ran upstairs<br />
to the living room console and played “Worried Blues”<br />
first. Before she finished playing the first eight bars of<br />
barrelhouse piano – dressed as usual in manly attire<br />
– she belted the lyrics in a shockingly froggy, powerful,<br />
scat-laden style that blew me away.<br />
I called Columbia Records in New York City, said that I<br />
had a 78 blues record here, and was quickly connected to<br />
the late Bob Altschuler, then the V.P. in charge of Columbia’s<br />
massive blues remastering project. Ascertaining that<br />
he didn’t have my two sides in his collection, Altschuler<br />
invited me to his office. Next day, as soon as school let out,<br />
I took the train to 52nd Street’s “Black Rock” corporate<br />
headquarters, and to his office, a teak-paneled museum<br />
loaded with framed records, reel-to-reel tape players,<br />
videotape machines, fine art, and sculpture.<br />
“Trade or buy?” he asked. I said I didn’t know, but I<br />
really wasn’t a record collector. “Want to trade, then?”<br />
“For what?”<br />
Altschuler pointed behind him to a credenza loaded<br />
with plastic-sealed LP remasters of Columbia’s race music library.<br />
These were the first new iterations of old 78 masters on listenable<br />
LPs, thanks to a new “pop and click” recording filter invented by<br />
Columbia engineers. My new collection included Bessie Smith,<br />
Leroy Carr, Charley Patton, Willie McTell, Petey Wheatstraw,<br />
Leadbelly, Lucille Bogan, Memphis Minnie, various black jug and<br />
novelty bands, multiple anthologies featuring all the great bluesmen,<br />
and the only two LPs of Robert Johnson’s 24 recorded sides.<br />
“Deal,” I said, about to pee myself with delight. It took three trips<br />
to get the records home, and almost six months to listen to all 42 LPs.<br />
When I got home that first night, I picked a gatefold, two-record<br />
anthology. Of all the artists, it was Blind Lemon Jefferson, even more<br />
than Johnson or Bentley, whose singing startled me. His voice was<br />
32 BLUES REVUE<br />
eerily high, and the primitive recording technology of his early sides<br />
– lots of echo – suggested he was singing to me from the ether,<br />
rather than from a recording. His subjects were love gone wrong,<br />
the joys of sex, the difficulties of living, the inevitability of suffering<br />
and death.<br />
Jefferson was born blind in Couchman, Texas, in 1893. He was<br />
one of seven children raised in a farming family. By 1912, he had<br />
moved near Dallas, where he performed on city streets and clubs in<br />
the Deep Ellum section. Around 1914, he began playing guitar regularly<br />
at picnics and parties. He also listened closely to the singing of<br />
field hands and local guitar players as well as the many Mexican<br />
guitarists who often incorporated flamenco and other Latin styles<br />
that Lemon adapted into his playing.<br />
(BLIND LEMON JEFFERSON) ILLUSTRATION © TIM POWER
In 1925, a Texas talent agent sent a demo recording of<br />
Jefferson to Mayo Williams at Paramount Records in Chicago.<br />
Jefferson was sent for, and he recorded spirituals under the pseudonym<br />
L.J. Bates. He was recorded using a primitive Edison-type horn<br />
into which the artist had to sing. To modern ears, these sound very<br />
poor, and filters help only so much. A couple of years later, however,<br />
he was recorded with electrified equipment, and therefore the reproduced<br />
sound is much better.<br />
Unlike most other blues performers, Lemon was a prolific writer<br />
of his own songs, performing with intensity at once hypnotic and<br />
poignant. His most famous originals include the oft-recorded<br />
“Matchbox Blues,” “Corinna,” “See That My Grave Is Kept Clean,”<br />
and the lascivious “Black Snake Moan.” In all, he recorded 110<br />
songs (including outtakes) within the few years before his tragic<br />
death in 1929, when he was found dead on a Chicago street during<br />
a snowstorm. He was 36 years old.<br />
Lemon’s complex style of guitar finger picking influenced<br />
fellow Texas bluesmen as well as B.B. King, who has often invoked<br />
Jefferson as an influence. According to historian Robert Uzzel, in<br />
his Blind Lemon Jefferson: His Life, His Death, and His Legacy<br />
(Austin: Eakin Press, 2002), “[Lemon’s] significance has been<br />
acknowledged by blues, jazz, and rock musicians, from Sam<br />
“Lightnin’” Hopkins, Mance Lipscomb, and T-Bone Walker to Bessie<br />
Smith, Bix Beiderbecke, Louis Armstrong, Carl Perkins, Jefferson<br />
Airplane, and the Beatles.”<br />
Jefferson’s habit of recruiting young musicians to help him get<br />
around leaves us with some information. Although Leadbelly was<br />
senior to Lemon, he considered the blind man a superior musician,<br />
as does posterity. They toured together, and Leadbelly revered the<br />
memory of Lemon all his life, even writing a memorable tune titled,<br />
“Blind Lemon’s Blues.”<br />
Lemon was rich by contemporary standards, driving in chauffeured<br />
cars and eating well, all the while maintaining a strong hankering<br />
for the ladies – many of whom he’d meet in Deep Ellum and<br />
in Delta towns on his playing tours. His sex life was such that it<br />
became legendary among Delta musicians. He did marry, however,<br />
to a woman named Roberta Ranson, and is alleged to have had<br />
children, including a son when he was around 30.<br />
Stylistically, his songs often repeat the same melodies and guitar<br />
riffs, although others are more eclectic. He played dances a lot, and<br />
would call out the names of dances while singing. In his darker,<br />
brooding pieces, he made extensive use of single-note runs, apparently<br />
picked with his thumb. He played in various tunings and keys to<br />
accommodate his vocals, which often featured low, plaintive moans,<br />
underscored with minor chords, lending modal darkness to the tunes.<br />
In 1994, Document Records issued 90 performances by Blind<br />
Lemon Jefferson as The Complete Works, using Paramount and<br />
small label masters, on four disks in chronological order. The producers<br />
culled the best versions of existing masters, and the sound is<br />
very good on a majority of the tracks.<br />
BLUES REVUE 33
The Toronto Blues Society (TBS) has been nurturing the<br />
national blues scene since it formed in 1985 – the last 16 of these<br />
years recognized in the form of the Maple Blues Awards (MBAs).<br />
From its mission statement, wherein the TBS is “dedicated to the<br />
promotion and preservation of the blues,” to the fact that the potential<br />
fan base for Canadian blues is spread over the second-largest<br />
country in the world makes this a tall challenge. Needless to say, a<br />
significant body of talent can get lost over such a massive area.<br />
From the pockets of blues artists harbored in St. John’s, Newfoundland<br />
to Victoria, British Columbia; from Waldron,<br />
Saskatchewan to Whitehorse in the Yukon, the MBAs attempt to<br />
remedy this situation by doing their best to seek out and recognize<br />
the cream of Canadian blues talent with an eye to nurturing it along<br />
the way.<br />
From its industry and media-based nominating committee to<br />
its online voting procedure – giving a voice to all Canadian fans,<br />
the MBAs work hard to<br />
draw attention to where STRONGMAN<br />
it’s needed most: to the<br />
musicians and their<br />
work.<br />
Every two years,<br />
the TBS organizes a<br />
Blues Summit (this was<br />
their sixth) capped off<br />
by the MBA gala on the<br />
final evening. The Summit<br />
is designed to further<br />
the universal blues<br />
cause by bringing<br />
together artists, promoters,<br />
fans, likeminded<br />
blues societies,<br />
media, and industry<br />
representatives for the<br />
purpose of educating, idea-sharing, elbow rubbing, and network<br />
building. It packs a three-day schedule with artist showcases, targeted<br />
conversation, and a little bit of showbiz. The net result is an<br />
intensive soaking in some of the best blues Canada has to offer.<br />
The Royal Conservatory’s stunning performance room,<br />
Koerner Hall, has set the stage for the MBA event for the last few<br />
years, dressing up the blues while elevating the image of this<br />
auspicious annual occasion. Ably hosted by Toronto actor and<br />
bandleader, Raoul Bhaneja, the evening moved ahead on<br />
greased rails thanks to the Maple Blues Band, a Dream Team of<br />
Toronto’s best bluesmen under the musical direction of big-bottomed-bassist<br />
Gary Kendall (awarded Bassist of the Year on this<br />
occasion).<br />
The audience was treated to performances, backed by the<br />
band, from Harrison Kennedy, Suzie Vinnick, Steve Strongman,<br />
The Harpoonist and the Axe Murderer, Nanette Workman, Carlos<br />
del Junco, and Matt Minglewood, a clear highlight of the evening.<br />
Winners from both coasts blanketed the Ontario-based, multiple<br />
award winners which, if nothing else, serves to push everyone<br />
34 BLUES REVUE<br />
16 TH ANNUAL<br />
MAPLE BLUES AWARDS<br />
Koerner Hall – Toronto<br />
January 21, 2013<br />
to play a little harder, regardless of where they’re from. You can<br />
find this year’s lineup of award winners from an impressive field of<br />
nominations at the link below.<br />
The best news was the appearance of new blood in the mix<br />
with some notable upsets by fresh, upcoming talent. Jon Wong, a<br />
progressive sax player<br />
VINNICK<br />
key to the sound of the<br />
24th Street Wailers,<br />
earned his award<br />
against a tough group<br />
of players who often<br />
swap the title each<br />
year. Likewise, in the<br />
keyboard category,<br />
transplanted Birmingham<br />
native, David Vest<br />
(now living in British<br />
Columbia), walked<br />
away with the title<br />
based on the strength<br />
of his latest album<br />
and blistering skills.<br />
Ottawa’s Monkey-<br />
Junk, Toronto’s Suzie<br />
Vinnick, and Hamilton’s Steve Strongman each took home multiple<br />
awards. The coveted lifetime achievement award was won by<br />
much-loved Cape Bretoner, Matt Minglewood, while another<br />
blues heart was recognized as longtime TBS organizer and selfconfessed<br />
music hound John Valenteyn took home the Blues<br />
Booster award for his years of dedicated service.<br />
For a complete list of winners, go to torontobluessociety.com<br />
– Eric Thom<br />
SHAKURA S’AIDA WITH VALENTEYN<br />
PHOTOGRAPHY (THIS PAGE) © ERIC THOM
The Allen Room is the smaller of two superb performance<br />
spaces at Jazz at Lincoln Center, located at West 60th Street in<br />
New York City. This night’s bill featured Alvin Youngblood Hart,<br />
Phil Wiggins, and Corey Harris. Hart also announced a special<br />
guest – Shemekia Copeland – an announcement that generates<br />
enthusiastic audience applause.<br />
The first part of the set began with Hart’s solo on “Mama Don’t<br />
Allow,” featuring the slide work he does so well. Following this up<br />
with Henry Townsend’s “All I Can Do,” Hart’s solo guitar and baritone<br />
voice were showcased to great advantage.<br />
After three tunes, harp player Wiggins, half of the Cephas-<br />
Wiggins duo, laid down some Little Walter style riffs in a call-andresponse<br />
with Hart on a Mississippi Sheiks’ tune, “Things About<br />
Going My Way.” Harris, known for his Delta-style guitar and Taj<br />
Mahal-like vocals, joined the duo for half a dozen tunes, the highlights<br />
of which were “Black Woman’s Gate,” a riff on the hallowed<br />
spiritual, “Another Man Done Gone,” and a Piedmont-style rendition<br />
of “Mama, That’s Alright,” with Hart playing rhythm and Harris taking<br />
lead. Some great close-harmony singing and Wiggins’s fine harp<br />
playing brought the set together.<br />
When Copeland joined the men<br />
onstage, the audience went wild, and she<br />
didn’t disappoint. With a voice that could<br />
split diamonds, she introduced herself<br />
with a tune she wrote for one of her idols,<br />
the late Jesse Mae Hemphill, a superb<br />
North Mississippi performer with a heartbreakingly<br />
soulful voice. She followed that<br />
up with the raunchy, “Bring Your Fine Self<br />
Home,” and then joined the guys for an<br />
ensemble performance of a Chicago-style<br />
blues rendition of Robert Johnson’s<br />
“Rambling On My Mind.”<br />
The evening was good, but not great.<br />
Hart demonstrated an almost academic<br />
approach to the music, diffidently gliding<br />
through each tune. The same could be<br />
said for Harris. Despite their instrumental<br />
prowess and knowing all the tunes, they<br />
LURRIE BELL<br />
Bar 55 – New York City<br />
September 15, 2012<br />
HART, WIGGINS, HARRIS, AND GUY DAVIS<br />
Bar 55 is an intimate West Village club with original bar furnishings<br />
dating to the 1890s. With smoky tin ceilings and a vintage<br />
walnut back-bar, lonesome patches of linoleum tar dotting the old<br />
wood floor like gopher holes, and tiny tables packed with patrons,<br />
the place seems more like a rural juke joint than an urban pub.<br />
ALVIN YOUNGBLOOD HART<br />
The Allen Room<br />
Lincoln Center – New York City<br />
November 16, 2012<br />
are 21st century interpreters of what was once a vital musical part of<br />
African American life. It seems that it’s appreciated these days primarily<br />
by white middle-aged people. Moreover, the music tonight<br />
sounded canned, rote, without the inwardness that the originators<br />
inscribed into their music behind a lifetime of living the blues. It was<br />
Wiggins and Copeland whose enthusiasm brought an emotional<br />
resonance to the night that Hart and Harris could not quite pull off.<br />
Compare this concert to the “Robert Johnson at 100” gala at<br />
the Apollo last year, and the contrast is clear: the varied performers<br />
who performed praised Johnson by reaching deep inside to find<br />
their emotional connection to the Master and it was palpable. Not so<br />
at the Allen Room, and that’s a doggone shame.<br />
– Michael Cala<br />
It’s a perfect venue for blues guitarist Lurrie Bell and his hot band<br />
of cranking bluesmen on their Devil Ain’t Got No Music Tour, a<br />
national effort supporting Bell's eponymous 2012 CD (Aria B.G.<br />
Records). Lurrie Bell has been headlining for nearly six years. Until<br />
2007, he performed as half of a father-son blues team with his dad,<br />
Chicago-style harp player Carey Bell.<br />
Tonight, Bell performed songs from this excellent collection,<br />
demonstrating another, more personal side to this performer.<br />
Instead of Chicago blues, Bell played mostly R&B/blues-inflected<br />
gospel, reflecting songs and tunes heard in his childhood or taught<br />
to him by his father. In that sense, the album and tour made this a<br />
BLUES REVUE 35<br />
PHOTOGRAPHY © FRANK STEWART courtesy of JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER
personal and moving tribute to his roots. The band, led by producer<br />
and harp virtuoso Matthew Skoller, with Bill Sims, Jr., on slide guitar,<br />
vocals, and keyboard, performed as tightly as any band of seasoned<br />
bluesmen this side of the Muddy Waters Band. The rest of the band<br />
featured a tight, nearly symbiotic percussion section with Andy Hess<br />
on bass and Barry Harrison on drums.<br />
The set led off with “Swing Low (Sweet Chariot)” a gospel<br />
standard, with Bell on acoustic guitar and only minimal backing from<br />
Harrison and Sims. Audience members not familiar with Bell jumped<br />
when they heard the first notes of his resonant voice, full of twists and<br />
turns, as he drove the song deep into the city night.<br />
Other highlights included a close rendering of Mississippi Fred<br />
McDowell’s “It’s A Blessing,” the great gospel composer Thomas A.<br />
WATERMELON SLIM<br />
& LIGHTNIN’ MALCOLM<br />
Coahoma to Sonoma County<br />
Blues Festival<br />
Lagunitas Brewing Company<br />
Petaluma, California<br />
August 20, 2012<br />
The blues is two men telling it like it is. Or so it was on a<br />
summer evening in Petaluma, under a sun receding behind thin<br />
clouds and a few lone trees. Bill Bowker, the decades-long voice<br />
of the blues in Sonoma County, via his radio shows and event<br />
organizing, conceived of and produced this alliteratively-titled<br />
festival to bring the Delta blues sounds of Coahoma County,<br />
Mississippi, to a local stage, so different and so far away.<br />
Coahoma, where musicians like John Lee Hooker, Sam Cooke,<br />
and Ike Turner first saw the light of day, is commonly accepted<br />
as the “birthplace of the blues.”<br />
WILBURN, SLIM, AND MALCOLM<br />
36 BLUES REVUE<br />
Dorsey’s “Search Me, Lord,” Albert Collins’s “Cold Cold Feeling,”<br />
James Peterson’s “Don’t Let the Devil Ride,” Bell's own “Devil Ain’t Got<br />
No Music,” (with an anecdote about “all music is God’s music, therefore<br />
it can’t be the devil’s music”), and a passionate and rousing “Trouble In<br />
My Way.” At the end of the set, the audience stood and applauded<br />
wildly. The shy and self-effacing Bell grinned widely and bowed from<br />
the hip, as reverently as he had played just moments before.<br />
The band played a second set, and rather than repeat the first<br />
set list, Bell opened with a different tune from Devil Ain’t Got No<br />
Music, demonstrating how seriously Lurrie Bell takes his music,<br />
keeping it fresh in the way it was played and how it was presented to<br />
a grateful audience.<br />
– Michael Cala<br />
Watermelon Slim,<br />
SLIM<br />
with two Blues Music<br />
Awards from 17 nominations,<br />
whose resume<br />
includes gigs as a<br />
watermelon farmer,<br />
truckdriver, sawyer<br />
(where he lost part of a<br />
finger), collection<br />
agent, funeral officiator,<br />
and small-time criminal,<br />
presented a set<br />
somewhat akin to a<br />
three-ring circus. Wearing<br />
a maroon silk shirt,<br />
derby hat, gray chinos,<br />
and white shoes,<br />
clothes he said he purchased<br />
at the Super<br />
Soul Shop in his current home, Clarksdale, Mississippi.<br />
Slim, performing solo, has a story to tell about his life, and<br />
he tells it loud, shouting over his lapsteel guitar,<br />
gliding through his composition “The Last Blues,”<br />
using the head of a socket wrench as a slide, and<br />
then Sleepy John Estes’ “Goin’ to Brownsville,” on<br />
which he used a drumstick as a capo. For “Truck<br />
Holler,” one of several workingman’s blues, he<br />
donned a baseball cap while seated and used a<br />
microphone as a makeshift gearshift. “Seems like<br />
that old road don’t never unwind,” he sang,<br />
a cappella.<br />
Joined by co-headliner Lightnin’ Malcolm,<br />
with Jason Wilburn drumming, and Slim back on<br />
lapsteel, the trio rocked their way through<br />
Fred McDowell’s “You Ain’t Gonna Worry,” and<br />
“Highway 61.”<br />
Calling it an existential song, Slim performed<br />
Laura Nyro’s “And When I Die” as a harmonica<br />
solo, before diving into Sonny Boy Williamson’s “I<br />
Don’t Care No More,” in which “the woman wanted<br />
PHOTOGRAPHY © ROBERT FEUER<br />
PHOTOGRAPHY © ROBERT FEUER
convenience but I want love.” Slim exited the stage, with a foolish<br />
grin, pulling himself up by the seat of his pants. This dusty, craggy<br />
old-timer is truly in the mold of America’s long line of folk heroes.<br />
Malcolm, several decades and many miles behind Watermelon<br />
Slim, has personally connected with R.L. Burnside and Junior<br />
Kimbrough, and has their North Mississippi hill country style in his<br />
pocket.<br />
After announcing, “I’m bringing you the Mississippi juke joint<br />
blues,” he and Wilburn ripped into an impressive serving of original<br />
songs with a sound so full you’d swear there were other musicians<br />
joining from backstage. Malcolm’s raw, hypnotic blues excited the<br />
audience on the opener “Treat That Woman Right,” followed by the<br />
dreamy “Last Night I Held An Angel,” then the Hooker-styled “Crawlin’<br />
“Midnight In Harlem”at midnight. “Angel From Montgomery”<br />
under a full moon. Those were some of my thoughts as the<br />
Tedeschi Trucks band bulldozed through three two-hour shows<br />
on the October 2012 Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise stages.<br />
The party began on the first night with a furious, all out cover of<br />
George Harrison’s “Wah-Wah” in the confines of the ship’s<br />
Celebrity Theater and ended four nights later at one a.m. on the<br />
pool deck with cruisers dancing to Sly Stone’s “I Want To Take You<br />
Higher.” And I can attest that this 11-piece band did exactly that<br />
with every song.<br />
Three nights of shows in four days to<br />
the same audience can be a daunting<br />
task, but the Tedeschi Trucks band was<br />
clearly up to the challenge. When the<br />
ensemble opened with the blasting horns<br />
and double drummers on “Wah-Wah,” I<br />
thought I was hearing Ringo and Jim Keltner<br />
opening the Concert For Bangladesh.<br />
It was a magical moment. From there,<br />
Susan Tedeschi lead the band on “Don’t<br />
Let Me Slide,” augmented by a gorgeous<br />
horn and background ending, and “Rollin’<br />
and Tumblin’,” with Tedeschi’s emotional<br />
guitar at the forefront, before settling into<br />
“Midnight In Harlem,” Derek Trucks’ and<br />
the band’s signature journey into what this<br />
band is capable of.<br />
After Mike Mattison came center<br />
stage for his “I Know” and a duet with<br />
Tedeschi on “Shelter,” the band satisfied<br />
the blues lovers in the Theater with “The<br />
Sky Is Crying.” The rest of the night<br />
included Saunders Sermons’ elegant gospel reading of Old Time<br />
Lovin’,” Kofi Burbridge’s swirling keyboard work behind Tedeschi on<br />
“Bound For Glory,” Maurice Brown’s blaring trumpet solo on<br />
Uptight,” and the encore, Tedeschi’s stripped down “Angel From<br />
Montgomery” and the full tilt joyous “Sweet Inspiration” duet<br />
between Mark Rivers and Tedeschi.<br />
At the end, the fan behind me exclaimed, “I’ve never seen<br />
energy like that. I just found my new, favorite band!”<br />
Baby” where he’s “crawlin’ away from home.” “Young Woman<br />
Old-Fashioned Ways,” with the line “She greets me at the door with<br />
an apron on,” depicted this blues man’s preference in women.<br />
Joined by Sonoma County harmonica hero Charlie Musselwhite,<br />
the band peaked on two numbers, including a tight version of “So<br />
Many Women,” with Malcolm tormenting the guitar’s high register.<br />
As the sky darkened, Malcolm and Wilburn seemingly cut<br />
loose even more, creating droning, penetrating distortion, while<br />
never losing touch with their sweet melodies on “Guilty Man” and<br />
“Renegade.”<br />
It was a night for two men from Mississippi, telling their stories,<br />
baring their souls, and defining the legacies they’ll leave behind them.<br />
– Robert Feuer<br />
TEDESCHI TRUCKS BAND<br />
Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise<br />
Caribbean<br />
October 27- November 3, 2012<br />
What that person didn’t know was that was the first show<br />
that sax player Bryan Lopes and bassist Dave Monsey played with<br />
this band.<br />
TRUCKS AND TEDESCHI<br />
“This was probably our most high stress gig because we didn’t<br />
get a chance to rehearse on this one with a new bass player and sax<br />
player,” said Trucks. “That first night, there were 16 songs that we<br />
had never played together and some pretty complex tunes. Sound<br />
check was in the room with an acoustic bass and guitar and people<br />
clappin’ their hands and singin’ through the nuances of an 11-piece<br />
band and two and a half hour show. With as much improvisation and<br />
ESP that this band has developed, there were certainly times where<br />
BLUES REVUE 37<br />
PHOTOGRAPHY © ART TIPALDI
things during the first show that were touch and go for a moment.<br />
But I don’t think many people out front can tell the difference.”<br />
Trucks continued. “When we have three shows like this, I want<br />
it be a long arc. We really wanted to hit it hard that first show. The<br />
first show opened with “Wah-Wah.” That’s such a great song with a<br />
band this big. Right outta the gate, the band’s making a point. It<br />
shows what a band like this can sound like. Once the first show was<br />
done, and we felt pretty good about it, I wanted the second one to<br />
be more settled in. That’s when we can stretch out and go hard left<br />
or right and play whatever we feel.<br />
“The second show was the most adventurous of the three. I<br />
never thought about it to the point where I had to keep reminding<br />
myself that I should probably cue the new guys, but it felt so good<br />
and natural that I’d forget that there was anything different on-stage.<br />
The second show of the three felt effortless. And that’s a good place<br />
to be. When you are fully immersed in it. The third set was outside<br />
and we knew the sound was gonna be crazy, so we just aired it out.”<br />
The second night lived up top Trucks’ expectations. After opening<br />
with “Everybody’s Talkin’” and “Don’t Let Me Slide,” the band tread<br />
familiar ground until hitting its stride on “Isn’t It A Pity, which featured<br />
Trucks’ feathery slide in concert with Burbridge’s keyboard. Then, the<br />
horn section funk on “Love Has Something To Say” morphed into<br />
“Why Don’t We Do It In The Road” lead by Brown’s trumpet. Burbridge<br />
then picked up his flute and took the led on a Middle Eastern inspired<br />
instrumental “Afro Blue.” Lopes’ tenor was center stage on “Already<br />
Free” before Tedeschi dedicated her hard-edged blues guitar on “That<br />
38 BLUES REVUE<br />
Did It” to Little Milton. Second night encores included “Wade In The<br />
Water” and Mattison’s rockin’ “You Get What You Deserve.”<br />
What is obvious early in your first encounter with this all-star<br />
band is that among the 11 musicians on stage, there are six separate<br />
and distinctive voices. There is the obvious lead voice of Tedeschi,<br />
but behind her one hears Trucks’ eloquent slide guitar as an answering<br />
voice to hers. Other distinctive voices are the horn section blasting<br />
answers to either Tedeschi or Trucks, Burbridge’s keyboards, the<br />
background singers, Mattison and River, and the hypnotic percussion<br />
of the double drummers, Falcon (Tyler Greenwell) and J.J.<br />
(Jarrod Johnson). Listening with open ears, one can hear the complexity<br />
of this band’s musical vision as they pass and weave solos<br />
like a Harlem Globetrotter basketball drill.<br />
Trucks was right, the third show on the pool deck was the<br />
midnight party every one, band and cruisers, anticipated. New tunes<br />
added to the set included “Darling Be Home Soon” and the night’s<br />
funky closer, Sly Stone’s “Higher.” With the horn players and<br />
Mattison and River dancin’ in the background and Falcon and J.J.<br />
pounding their drum kits with eyes locked and arms in total unison,<br />
the band gave these cruisers an exhausting dance-a-thon finale that<br />
vigorously wrapped up three uniquely different shows.<br />
And when the Tedeschi Trucks band finished, all that was left<br />
for these pool deck partiers was to continue the LRBC party with the<br />
one a.m. pro jam. The boat’s banner reads, “Our boat kicks ass.”<br />
So does this band. (So too did the other 30+ musical bands!)<br />
– Art Tipaldi
Reviews<br />
On this record, the candle light aura of pre-war<br />
blues mixes perfectly with the electric lightnin’<br />
of today’s musical directions.<br />
BEN HARPER & CHARLIE MUSSELWHITE<br />
Get Up<br />
Stax<br />
They’ve toured together off and on for years. When Ben Harper has<br />
needed a harmonica player to augment his vision, he usually summons<br />
one of the best, Charlie Musselwhite. From their first days in<br />
the studio backing John Lee Hooker in 1998 on Best Of Friends,<br />
these two visionaries have explored the possibilities of their music.<br />
Now with this recording and subsequent touring, fans of each can<br />
hear that magic as these soulful brothers from vastly different generations<br />
connect. We all know Musselwhite’s roots, but for those<br />
unfamiliar with Harper’s background should know that he grew up<br />
in his grandparents’ music store playing everything with strings and<br />
meeting the likes of Taj Mahal and David Lindley. His early heroes<br />
were the Delta pre-war guitarists like Hurt and Johnson. His first<br />
tour was opening for Taj.<br />
The ten songs were written or co-written by Harper and offer a<br />
diverse mixture of styles with the ghosts of traditional blues floating<br />
throughout the outing. The opener, “Don’t Look Twice,” starts off<br />
acoustically with musical hints of a dusty 1930’s 78 by Skip James.<br />
By mid-song, the full band explodes on the chorus around Musselwhite’s<br />
seasoned reed work. Harper’s falsetto, James-like vocals,<br />
and Musselwhite’s Chicago harmonica instantly connect all things<br />
blues – Delta to Chicago. Harper and Musselwhite close the CD in<br />
similar blues tradition fashion. “All That Matters Now” features<br />
acoustic harmonica, piano, and Harper’s late night vocals in this<br />
new millennium answer to Leroy Carr’s “How Long Blues.” In<br />
Carr’s song, and Johnson’s musical mirror “Love In Vain,” the tone<br />
was longing; here, Harper offers a refreshing meditation on life,<br />
satisfied to live in the moment of companionship.<br />
BUDDY GUY<br />
Live At Legends<br />
Silvertone<br />
Buddy Guy’s first live album, 1968’s This Is<br />
Buddy Guy! (Vanguard), broadened his<br />
reputation among blues fans as well as<br />
rock fans at the time (e.g., I attended a concert<br />
at the Spectrum in Philadelphia in July,<br />
1969 in which Buddy Guy was on the bill<br />
with the Al Kooper Big Band, Led Zeppelin,<br />
Jethro Tull, and Johnny Winter). These<br />
electrifying last recordings from his January<br />
2010 residency at the old Legends had the<br />
same effect on me as his aforementioned<br />
Vanguard album with its intensity, energy,<br />
and swagger.<br />
Guitarist Rick Hall, bassist Orlando<br />
Wright, keyboardist Marty Sammon, and<br />
drummer Tim Austin provide sharp, muscular<br />
support for Guy’s soul-on-fire vocals<br />
In between, these<br />
musical visionaries set the<br />
artistic bar high. There are<br />
high-energy tunes. “I’m In<br />
I’m Out I’m Gone” stomps<br />
‘50’s classic Chicago blues<br />
with a musical undertone of<br />
“Mannish Boy.” Here, Musselwhite’s<br />
retro harp recalls<br />
the greats of that era.<br />
“Blood Side Out” features<br />
Harper’s primal lungpower<br />
blasting his modern message, and “I Don’t Believe A Word You Say”<br />
bulldozes its heavy metal message in a way that would make Page,<br />
Plant, Jones, and Bonham smile.<br />
At the same time, Harper and Musselwhite understand musical<br />
dynamics. With only a stripped down acoustic guitar and harmonica,<br />
“You Found Another Lover (I Lost Another Friend)” floats delicately like<br />
a hummingbird. Their decades of work with the Blind Boys of Alabama<br />
comes through on the handclappin’, gospel-like “We Can’t End This<br />
Way,” where Harper’s expressive slide mimics his vocal enthusiasm.<br />
Harper’s “I Ride At Dawn” is a haunting tale of every soldier’s<br />
wartime experiences. Harper’s written the compelling letter every<br />
soldier sends whether preparing for a Civil War charge or Iraqi village<br />
search. Taken as a whole, it’s a haunting and devastating<br />
humanization of war’s individual toll.<br />
These ten songs are the culmination of musical experiences<br />
these soul mates have explored, and they forecast new directions of<br />
the blues. There is also a deluxe edition available which includes a<br />
DVD of in-studio performances of four songs and 25 minutes of<br />
Harper and Musselwhite discussing their history.<br />
– Art Tipaldi<br />
and incendiary solos. Listeners are immediately<br />
in Guy’s grip after the first flurry of<br />
slicing, side-piercing notes on the self-deprecating<br />
catharsis “Best Damn Fool.” A<br />
dual homage to Muddy Waters follows with<br />
a searing “Mannish Boy” and then a furiously<br />
funky “I Just Want to Make Love to<br />
You,” the album’s longest track at 9:22 slyly<br />
segues into Bobby Rush’s signature chunkof-funk<br />
“Chickenheads.” The heartfelt ballad<br />
of tolerance “Skin Deep” slows things<br />
BLUES REVUE 39
down before one of Guy’s most popular<br />
originals of the last 20 years, the declamatory<br />
“Damn Right I Got The Blues” further<br />
rouses the boisterous crowd.<br />
Blues-rock aficionados get theirs with<br />
the last two tracks: the unlikely mash-up of<br />
John Lee Hooker’s “Boom, Boom” and<br />
Cream’s “Strange Brew,” followed by the<br />
less surprising medley of Jimi Hendrix’s<br />
“Voodoo Chile” and Cream’s “Sunshine of<br />
Your Love.” (Was Eric Clapton in the audience?)<br />
Also included are three studio<br />
tracks from the Living Proof sessions (2010)<br />
that had me wondering why they didn’t<br />
make the cut: “Polka Dot Love,” a scorching<br />
celebration of his beloved polka dot<br />
Stratocaster as well as a testament to his<br />
staying power as an elite guitarist, the hornpropelled<br />
(courtesy of the Memphis Horns)<br />
funk-stroller “Coming For You,” and a simmering<br />
take on Muddy’s “Country Boy.”<br />
This is a no brainer purchase for old<br />
and new Buddy Guy fans alike. My test for<br />
recommending a live album is whether or<br />
not it made me wish that I was there that<br />
night. Damn right I wish I was there.<br />
– Thomas J. Cullen III<br />
BETTYE LAVETTE<br />
Thankful n’ Thoughtful<br />
40 BLUES REVUE<br />
Anti-<br />
Thankful n’ Thoughtful, Bettye LaVette’s<br />
latest, is emotional n’ personal, soulful n’<br />
tasteful. With its release, LaVette continues<br />
her arc of passionate and interpretive<br />
music. A seemingly very personal song<br />
selection, nearly each cut could be an<br />
anecdote from her life that she has<br />
recently revealed to the world in her new<br />
book, A Woman Like Me. Thankful n’<br />
Thoughtful is definitely one of those late<br />
night, dimmed lights, just listen and savor<br />
experiences.<br />
She owns these songs as if she<br />
penned each one. As with her previous<br />
work, here she relies on more songwriting<br />
heavyweights like Bob Dylan, Neil Young,<br />
Tom Waits, Patty Griffin, Sly Stone, Ewan<br />
McColl (The Pogues), among others, and<br />
even an old nugget from ‘60s British blues<br />
band Savoy Brown. Tastefully produced by<br />
Craig Street, who helped Norah Jones’s<br />
Come Away With Me win a Grammy in 2002<br />
and supported by a band of seasoned studio<br />
and touring musicians which includes<br />
members of Ollabelle, The Pariah Dogs<br />
(Ray Lamontagne), John Mayer’s band,<br />
and Sheryl Crowe’s band, the playing has<br />
exactly the right amount of sonic atmosphere<br />
and open space to allow LaVette’s<br />
emotional interpretations to shine.<br />
In LaVette’s hands, the leadoff track,<br />
Dylan’s “Everything Is Broken,” is a song of<br />
dark despair. When she sings, “Look<br />
around you, everything is broken,” she<br />
means it. With the Black Keys’ “I’m Not The<br />
One,” she draws a line in the dirt singing,<br />
“You wanted it all, I ain’t gonna give you<br />
none.” “Dirty Old Town” could be her<br />
hometown, a latter day Detroit, described<br />
with the line “They try to knock it down like<br />
an old dead tree, but they can’t.” “The More<br />
I Search (The More I Die)” has LaVette challenging<br />
with, “Here I am. You can take me<br />
or leave me.” That theme continues with<br />
the line “I’m tired of living up to what people<br />
expect me to be” in Savoy Brown’s “I’m<br />
Tired.” The title track is a powerful and<br />
emotional interpretation of the Sly Stone<br />
song that LaVette seems to invest with her<br />
own life experience, “Taken many chances<br />
and I coulda been dead.”<br />
Others like “Dirty Old Town,” Patty<br />
Griffin’s “Time Will Do The Talking,” and<br />
Beth Neilsen Chapman’s “Fair Enough” get<br />
soulful arrangements from LaVette. The<br />
Tom Waits penned “Yesterday Is Here” features<br />
upright piano and bass and horns giving<br />
LaVette a different palette to work with;<br />
yet one she handles with subtlety. The<br />
Gnarls Barkley mega-hit “Crazy” is covered,<br />
but is not as strong as the aforementioned<br />
songs, as is Young’s “Everybody Knows<br />
This Is Nowhere,” whose rigid song structure<br />
doesn’t quite allow LaVette the freedom<br />
to do what she does best.<br />
LaVette continues her creative exploration<br />
of music to interpret as only she can.<br />
If her book A Woman Like Me were ever to<br />
become a movie, this album could likely<br />
make for one great soundtrack.<br />
– Mark Caron<br />
LIL’ ED &<br />
THE BLUES IMPERIALS<br />
Jump Start<br />
Alligator<br />
Lil’ Ed and the Blues Imperials serve as<br />
both a direct link back to the legacy of the<br />
old blues master J.B. Hutto and also the<br />
living template for Alligator Records’ houserocking<br />
style of electrified roots music.<br />
The late Hutto was Williams’ uncle and<br />
musical mentor, drawing an unbroken line<br />
back to Chicago’s deepest blues. So, Jump<br />
Start includes a cover of Hutto’s “If You<br />
Change Your Mind,” but elsewhere, this<br />
album’s 13 Williams-penned tunes shiver<br />
and shake like a hard-bucking classic car –<br />
muscular, old school, and brawny.<br />
But Lil’ Ed and his long time backing<br />
band, including guitarist Michael Garrett,<br />
bassist Pookie Young (Williams’ younger<br />
half-brother), and drummer Kelly Littleton,<br />
aren’t inclined to make any historical pit<br />
stops, heck, they rarely even downshift.<br />
From the incendiary soul of “If You Were<br />
Mine,” to the winking sexual come-ons of<br />
“Musical Mechanical Electrical Man,” to the<br />
rough and randy “Kick Me To The Curb,”<br />
the Blues Imperials burst out with the<br />
strength and suddenness of a thunderclap.<br />
Three songs in, and I’m already out of<br />
breath. The organ-fueled ballad “You Burnt<br />
Me,” the first of five songs to feature Marty<br />
Sammon on keys, gives Williams a chance<br />
to welp and howl but, even then, his<br />
unleashing a series of scalding guitar fills.<br />
Hang on, tight. Williams floors it through<br />
“House Of Cards,” telling off a particularly<br />
reprehensible scofflaw, then hilariously<br />
negotiates his way through a new relationship<br />
on the jazz-inflected, double entendrefilled<br />
“Jump Right In,” and then summons a<br />
raw vulnerability on the autobiographical
“Life Is A Journey.” The Hutto track, a devastating<br />
plea for redemption, might have<br />
been the album’s second-half peak – if not<br />
for the explosive “No Fast Food.” That song<br />
doesn’t just rock the house; it threatens to<br />
blow the whole thing down.<br />
Jump Start is a tour de force, as raucously<br />
felt and blisteringly articulated as<br />
anything Lil’ Ed and the Blues Imperials<br />
have ever done. These guys have always<br />
made raw-boned, incendiary records that<br />
blend the deep emotions of old with the<br />
fiery intensity of the new. This one, though,<br />
might be their best yet.<br />
– Nick DeRiso<br />
42 BLUES REVUE<br />
MILTON HOPKINS<br />
& JEWEL BROWN<br />
Milton Hopkins & Jewel Brown<br />
Dialtone<br />
Accurately capturing the 1950s Texas electric<br />
blues vibe is no easy feat at this late date.<br />
Of course, it helps if the artists actually are<br />
products of the era. That’s a large part of the<br />
reason this disc is such a delightful triumph:<br />
guitarist Milton Hopkins and vocalist Jewel<br />
Brown were part of the Houston scene during<br />
its glory years. Hopkins played behind<br />
Little Richard early on, toured with Johnny<br />
Ace and Big Mama Thornton during their<br />
heyday, and was an integral member of the<br />
Upsetters, saxist Grady Gaines’ hell-raising<br />
combo, before spending just about all of the<br />
‘70s as B.B. King’s rhythm guitarist. Brown<br />
cut a 1955 single for Don Robey’s Duke<br />
label, then barnstormed the globe throughout<br />
the ‘60s as featured chanteuse with no<br />
less than Louis Armstrong. Together, they’re<br />
a match made in Houston blues heaven.<br />
Nine of this disc’s dozen tracks spotlight<br />
Brown’s beguiling pipes. You don’t<br />
hear Latin-tinged grooves nearly enough<br />
in the blues milieu anymore, but the<br />
slightly risqué leadoff track “Jerry” and a<br />
savory revival of Ruth Brown’s “Daddy<br />
Daddy” make the most of their effervescent<br />
rhythms (Johnny Bradley is on bass,<br />
with Corey Keller and Jason Moeller splitting<br />
drum duties), Jewel granting both<br />
saucy readings. Little Willie John’s slinky<br />
minor-key “I’m Shakin’” receives a welcome<br />
dusting off, while an improbably<br />
titled “Cry Me A River” (actually a series of<br />
timeless blues stanzas strung together Big
Joe Turner-style, opening with “In The<br />
Evening”) swings like crazy, pianist Nick<br />
Connolly comping solidly.<br />
Hopkins steps up for typically sublime<br />
solos on several of Brown’s numbers, wasting<br />
nary a note. He’s front and center on<br />
three original instrumentals: the elegant,<br />
jazzy ballad “Evening Breeze,” a New<br />
Orleans-tinged “Back To The Shimmy”<br />
fueled by Kaz Kazanoff’s recurring sax riffs,<br />
and Hopkins’ stinging licks, and a harddriving<br />
“Tater Tots” that’s pure ‘50s Houston<br />
blues. Not everything fits so neatly into that<br />
milieu. The too-brief “There’s A Light” and<br />
an uplifting “How Can I Lose” sport sanctified<br />
lyrics; J.B. Lenoir’s shambling “The<br />
Whale Has Swallowed Me” and a downbeat<br />
“I’m Leavin’ You Now” find Milton switching<br />
to acoustic axe and the rhythm section<br />
stripping down to its core, shifting the<br />
atmosphere dramatically.<br />
Easily one of 2012’s best blues CDs,<br />
and an encouraging reminder that there are<br />
still criminally underrecorded blues veterans<br />
out there capable of making exceptional<br />
albums if given the opportunity.<br />
– Bill Dahl<br />
MARIA MULDAUR & FRIENDS<br />
First Came Memphis Minnie<br />
Stony Plain<br />
Title aside, Minnie Douglas-Lawlers, one of<br />
the first inductees in the new Memphis<br />
Music Hall of Fame, wasn’t the first woman<br />
to sing the blues or even the first woman to<br />
back herself on guitar. But she was such a<br />
powerful, prolific singer-musician-recording<br />
artist that she stands alone, an inspiration<br />
to all who followed, an archetype on the<br />
level of a Charley Patton.<br />
Maria Muldaur, who has been singing<br />
Minnie’s music for almost 50 years, headed<br />
this fine, varied tribute album, giving it more<br />
emotional heft than the usual blues<br />
homage. She sings eight of the 13 songs,<br />
and her warm, womanly voice, deeper than<br />
the soprano of her girlish days with the<br />
Kweskin Jug Band, finds that fine balance<br />
of blues and country that makes her the<br />
best contemporary interpreter of Minnie’s<br />
musical legacy.<br />
Famed for playing guitar “like a man”<br />
it was Minnie’s songwriting that kept her<br />
recording far longer than most of her country-blues<br />
brothers and sisters. Her songs<br />
were covered by everyone from Bob Wills<br />
(“Frankie Jean”) to Led Zeppelin (“When<br />
the Levee Breaks”). Muldaur opens the set<br />
with “Me And My Chauffeur Blues,” a bit<br />
of auto-eroticism that melodically recalls<br />
“Good Morning Little Schoolgirl” and<br />
features Roy Rogers on acoustic guitar.<br />
Minnie’s two most distinctively autobiographical<br />
songs, “Ain’t Nothing In Ramblin’”<br />
and “In My Girlish Days” are by two<br />
of Muldaur’s old friends, Bonnie Raitt and<br />
the late Phoebe Snow, respectively. Snow’s<br />
1976 recording features David Bromberg,<br />
one of the all-star accompanists with<br />
Rogers, Alvin ‘Youngblood’ Hart, Steve<br />
James and Steve Freund. Fittingly, along<br />
with Raitt, the disc features some of<br />
today’s finest female country blues guitarists,<br />
Mudaur’s accompanist Del Rey,<br />
Rory Block on the solo “When You Love<br />
Me,” and Ruthie Foster (on a burning<br />
“Keep Your Big Mouth Closed”).<br />
The styles range from solo pieces to<br />
Muldaur’s classic acoustic ensembles to<br />
full-tilt Chicago blues on the finale, the late<br />
Koko Taylor’s take on “Black Rat<br />
Swing.”First Came Memphis Minnie isn’t<br />
just a tribute, it’s a revival, reminding us just<br />
how timeless her music remains 40 years<br />
after her death. Born at the end of the 19th<br />
century, she’s one of the greatest of that<br />
first generation of bluesmen and women.<br />
As we settle into the 21st, Memphis Minnie<br />
remains Queen of Country Blues.<br />
– Larry Nager<br />
OMAR & THE HOWLERS<br />
Too Much Is Not Enough<br />
Big Guitar Music<br />
With anybody else, releasing three albums<br />
in a year would be overkill. In addition, cutting<br />
more tracks on an artist he’s already<br />
covered in a previous tribute album, ‘07’s<br />
On The Jimmy Reed Highway, would also<br />
be too much exposure for many musicians.<br />
But with Omar Dykes, it just makes you<br />
want more.<br />
This is a first rate offering, with the late<br />
Gary Primich playing masterful harp. On<br />
the ‘07 release, Omar had covered some of<br />
Reed’s more familiar work, but here he<br />
delves into some of Reed’s lesser-known<br />
works. That doesn’t mean it’s any less<br />
impressive. The cuts are all short, with no<br />
drawn-out improvisations; a just-the-facts<br />
approach, get it said and move on.<br />
“Gotta Let You Go” shares the same<br />
melody line with “Tee Ni Nee Ni Nu” and<br />
“Scratch My Back,” featuring great wahwah<br />
harp by Primich backed by Gary<br />
Clark, Jr.’s slinky slide and Omar’s vocals<br />
sounding like he’s been gargling with<br />
grave dirt. Omar rises up out of the gravel<br />
pit several octaves higher than his usual<br />
vocal characterizations for “Honest I Do,“<br />
and once again Primich’s plaintive harp<br />
work raises goose bumps with his fine<br />
interpretation. “Take Out Some Insurance”<br />
has a little stiffer backbeat than the original.<br />
Omar’s back down in the quarry spitting<br />
out stone-dusted vocals, sounding so<br />
wracked with pain that you know he’s not<br />
kidding about croaking if his beloved takes<br />
a powder.<br />
By the time you get to “You Don’t<br />
Have To Go,” you really don’t want this<br />
recording to end. Everybody shines on this<br />
one; Clark turning in a slide demonstration<br />
that’ll have you baying at the moon, Primich’s<br />
harp floating wraith-like above the mix,<br />
and Omar sliding up and down octaves<br />
interrogating his soon to be ex-squeeze<br />
about her disrespectin’ ways. You won’t<br />
want to skip around. Every cut reaches out<br />
and grabs you by the throat. It’s a pleasure<br />
to listen to Omar interpreting this music.<br />
You can tell he’s not just a fan but a student<br />
who’s learned his lesson well.<br />
– Grant Britt<br />
BLUES REVUE 43
44 BLUES REVUE<br />
<strong>GARY</strong> <strong>CLARK</strong>, <strong>JR</strong>.<br />
Blak And Blu<br />
Warner Brothers<br />
Guitarist Gary Clark, Jr. is the most exciting<br />
thing to happen to the contemporary blues<br />
scene since fellow Texas gunslinger Stevie Ray<br />
Vaughan first strolled out on a stage back in<br />
the early 1980s. A major talent bubbling under<br />
the mainstream, Clark released three independent<br />
albums for the Hotwire label and<br />
appeared in filmmaker John Sayles’ 2007 movie Honeydripper before<br />
he was “discovered” by Eric Clapton.<br />
The elder statesman invited Clark to perform at the 2010 Crossroads<br />
Guitar Festival, a fortunate turn of events that subsequently<br />
led to a major label deal and the critically-acclaimed The Bright<br />
Lights EP, which spent the better part of the last year hanging<br />
around the upper-reaches of the Billboard blues chart. Widespread<br />
critical acclaim, including a particularly purple rave review in the<br />
pages of Rolling Stone magazine, introduced mainstream music<br />
fans to the six-string talent. For Clark’s legion of newfound fans –<br />
who have waited better than a year for his full-length debut album to<br />
see the light of day – it’s unlikely that they’ll be disappointed by the<br />
guitarist’s magnificent Blak And Blu.<br />
HANS THEESSINK<br />
& TERRY EVANS<br />
Delta Time<br />
Blue Groove<br />
Few things are as pure as human voices<br />
augmented with acoustic instrumentation.<br />
Hans Theessink, one of Europe’s most<br />
respected keepers of the blues, and Terry<br />
Evans continue to celebrate the divine<br />
approach of their partnership. Delta Time is<br />
perfect follow-up to their first pairing,<br />
Visions, released in 2008. The record is a<br />
mixture of Theessink originals (six) with<br />
time honored blues fare. Musically,<br />
Theessink plays guitars, banjo, mandolin,<br />
and harmonica while Evans adds his own<br />
guitar and guest Ry Cooder joins the duo<br />
on three songs.<br />
The title track opens the record with a<br />
Theessink strumming a soft John Lee<br />
Hooker boogie as Evans, Arnold Culler,<br />
In the past year alone, Gary Clark, Jr. has<br />
played at the White House, the Apollo Theater,<br />
the Kennedy Center honoring Buddy Guy, and<br />
many music festivals. Blues lovers can now<br />
hear what the buzz is all about.<br />
and Willie Greene, Jr. answer in three part<br />
harmony about leavin’ the city and headin’<br />
to “delta time.” Theessink and Evans’ vocal<br />
blend follows on the Delmore Brothers’<br />
“Blues Stay Away From Me.” Their clear<br />
and straightforward interpretation, with<br />
Cooder’s added slide guitar, is a reminder<br />
of the organic nature of early music like<br />
this. Another blues classic, Tampa Red’s “It<br />
Hurts Me Too,” offers an acoustic reading<br />
that focuses on the emotional power of<br />
vocal duo. Musically, the guitar and mandolin<br />
pairing recalls the days of rural string<br />
bands like Sleepy John Estes and Yank<br />
Rachell. They also step lightly with Evans<br />
taking the lead vocals on the ‘65 pop hit,<br />
“The Birds And The Bees.”<br />
For almost nine minutes, Evans’ testifies<br />
his life experiences of living in a world<br />
ruled by Jim Crow segregation on “Down In<br />
Mississippi.” Evans has recorded this<br />
before, but here it takes on new meaning<br />
with his spoken introduction and<br />
As good as The Bright Lights EP may have<br />
been, nothing could have prepared listeners for a<br />
song like “Ain’t Messin’ ‘Round,” which seamlessly<br />
blends old-school R&B with a Memphis soul groove<br />
and a rock ‘n’ roll heartbeat to one-up the Black<br />
Keys at their own game. Clark enjoys his Jimi Hendrix<br />
moment with the bold blues-rock dirge “When<br />
My Train Pulls In,” the song mixing a Delta blues<br />
spirit with an undeniable SRV vibe. Clark is no twotrick<br />
pony, however, venturing onto avant-garde turf<br />
with the chilling title track, which displays a jazzy<br />
edge in its sampling of Gil Scott-Heron, the song<br />
firmly rooted in the blues as it also picks from Albert King’s classic “As<br />
The Years Go Passing By.”<br />
Clark’s mash-up of Hendrix’s “Third Stone From The Sun” with<br />
Little Johnny Taylor’s “If You Love Me Like You Say” (best known<br />
from Albert Collins’ Frostbite LP) provides plenty of cheap thrills.<br />
The swirling psychedelic blues-rock instrumentation quite suddenly<br />
evolves into a soulful, slightly funky reading of Taylor’s underrated<br />
tune. Overall, music lovers are going to rejoice over Clark’s debut<br />
even as blues purists are gonna hate, but the truth is that Blak And Blu<br />
marks the emergence of a major talent who is bringing his love of<br />
blues and soul to mainstream audiences. Regardless of whether or not<br />
we’ve heard it all before, we’ve never heard it quite like Gary Clark, Jr.<br />
– Rev. Keith A. Gordon<br />
Theessink’s dark assertive guitar. On<br />
Theessink’s “Shelter From The Storm,”<br />
Cooder’s effortless slide and the sacred<br />
male chorus back Theessink’s brooding<br />
vocals. Evans shows off his soul side on<br />
“Pouring Water On A Drowning Man.”<br />
Behind Evans’ tender voice, Theessink’s<br />
delicate finger picking creates the friendly,<br />
back porch vibe. Jimmy Reed’s “Honest I<br />
Do” is delivered as Brownie and Sonny<br />
might have performed it in a ‘60s college
coffee house. The CD closes with “Mississippi,”<br />
Theessink’s ten-minute travelogue<br />
through the blues cathedrals of the Magnolia<br />
state. By featuring acoustic slide, harmonica,<br />
handclaps, and gospel chorus<br />
responses to Theessink’s name calling, it<br />
runs like a blues train headin’ to where “the<br />
Southern crosses the Yellow Dog.” You<br />
won’t find a better acoustic blues album.<br />
– Art Tipaldi<br />
MIGHTY SAM MCCLAIN<br />
Too Much Jesus<br />
(Not Enough Whiskey)<br />
Mighty Musik<br />
Mighty Sam McClain continues to evolve<br />
and rarely stays still, for additional evidence<br />
checkout his other current release (his second<br />
with the Iranian singer Mahsa Vahdat) A<br />
Deeper Tone Of Longing. On this album,<br />
McClain co-authored 13 of the 14 tunes with<br />
his guitarist Pat Herlehy, plus a co-written<br />
tune with McClain and Allen Toussaint cover.<br />
The album opens with the reggae-like<br />
“I Wish You Well” where it’s (as per usual)<br />
evident that McClain’s employed another<br />
top-notch band featuring Concetta’s sassy<br />
background vocals. The tempo hastens on<br />
“Can You Feel It?” that’s a call out for world<br />
peace it’s a horn driven funk romp with<br />
Sam’s gospel tinged vocal plea’s. “Tears” is<br />
a soul-drenched ballad that McClain and his<br />
band magically recreate the sixties-seventies<br />
renowned soul sounds of Philadelphia.<br />
The Toussaint/McClain “Real Thing” is<br />
a fine soulful tune that moves along at<br />
pedestrian pace with tidy horn arrangements.<br />
“Use Me” is not the Bill Withers’<br />
song, but it’s a well-crafted gem that also<br />
harkens the sounds of Philadelphia. It’s<br />
extremely well produced, nicely written,<br />
beautifully arranged, and solidly performed.<br />
“Rock My Soul” pumps out the funk with<br />
the horns adding depth as McClain’s vocals<br />
border on rap, but never outrageously over<br />
the top. “So Into You” is not the Atlanta<br />
Rhythm Section song, but it’s a gorgeous<br />
ballad that also resembles (what seems like<br />
a bit of a theme here) the Philly Soul sound<br />
with a very tasty guitar solo by Herlehy over<br />
the hypnotic horn charts. The title track is<br />
haunting with its gospel-like theme and<br />
very heady arrangements with another tasty<br />
guitar support from Herlehy. The album<br />
concludes with “Dance,” where superb<br />
horns and guitar introduce this funky<br />
delight. The heat gets turned on when<br />
McClain joins in with Rick Page’s popping<br />
drum playing.<br />
McClain continues to age like a fine<br />
bottle of Bordeaux wine, his vocals are sharp<br />
throughout, and his songwriting never-ever<br />
grows old. McClain continues what’s now a<br />
lifelong progression as being one of the soul<br />
greats who is undeniably at the top of his<br />
game. But it’s a crime that he’s never garnered<br />
the kudos he’s worked so hard for.<br />
– Bob Putignano<br />
SMOKIN’ JOE KUBEK<br />
& BNOIS KING<br />
Close To The Bone<br />
Delta Groove<br />
Although they unplugged for this one,<br />
there’s still plenty of Texas guitar power.<br />
Reminiscent of the work of Cephas and<br />
Wiggins and Brownie and Sonny, Smokin’<br />
Joe Kubek and Bnois King serve up a platter<br />
of superb acoustic fare different than<br />
anything they’ve done to date. King’s vocals<br />
are like aged whiskey, smooth and mellow,<br />
with a warm glow that spreads throughout<br />
your body when you partake. His folky, jazz<br />
tinged guitar is perfect counterpoint for<br />
Kubek’s harder edged Texas flavored licks<br />
and twangy slide.<br />
But this record is much more than two<br />
guys with guitars. There’s a huge crew<br />
involved, including a bevy of top notch harp<br />
players: Bob Corritore, Linwood Slim, Delta<br />
Groove president Randy Chortkoff, and<br />
Pieter van der Pluijm, AKA Big Pete. Paul<br />
Size, Kirk Fletcher, and Shawn Pittman help<br />
out on guitar and Hollywood Blue Flames’<br />
pianist Fred Kaplan, along with rhythm section<br />
of Willie J. Campbell and Jimi Bott are<br />
also onboard.<br />
The only cover is “Mama’s Bad Luck<br />
Child,” by Texas bluesman Alger Alexander.<br />
Backed by Lynwood Slim’s lonesome harp<br />
and Kubek’s intricate finger picking, it’s a<br />
tutorial on acoustic blues presentation, simple<br />
and understated, but powerful and moving<br />
without seeming overwrought, probably<br />
the most mellow hard luck story you’ve ever<br />
heard. “I ain’t got no wife, got no triflin’<br />
kid/got nobody, mama, to be bothered with,”<br />
King croons cavalierly before admitting that<br />
because he ain’t got nobody to worry his<br />
mind, he “laid down laughin’, woke up hollerin’<br />
and cryin’.” But King’s smooth as<br />
honey delivery takes all the sting out of the<br />
hardships he’s suffering. You get the best of<br />
both on “Yankin’ My Chain” and “My Hat’s<br />
Off To You,” as both Kubek and King take a<br />
turn at some nimble fingered pickin’ as<br />
pretty and as clean as Jorma Kaukonen.<br />
This is real back porch material, too<br />
delicate to be really appreciated in a juke<br />
joint, But no matter where you hear it, it’ll<br />
make you feel like you’re part of a small<br />
gathering camped out on a starry night,<br />
sitting around a cracking fire with a jug<br />
making the rounds. Take a sip, let it wash<br />
over you, and pass it on. This stuff was<br />
made for sharing.<br />
– Grant Britt<br />
SUGAR BLUE<br />
Raw Sugar Live<br />
Beeble Music<br />
From the time he takes the stage after Rico<br />
McFarland’s opening introduction, Sugar<br />
Blue never lets up. As he’s done throughout<br />
his career, Blue’s notes fly rapid-fire through<br />
his reeds, augmenting lightning sharp runs<br />
through the harp’s high end with clusters of<br />
notes jammed into musical phrases followed<br />
by dizzying spirals that flies off cuff.<br />
Backed by his longtime touring<br />
band, which includes McFarland (guitar),<br />
BLUES REVUE 45
James Knowles (drums), and Blue’s wife,<br />
Ilaria Lantieri (bass), Blue adds the keyboards<br />
of Italy’s Damiano Della Torre for<br />
the night’s set. The double disc clocks in<br />
at a healthy two hours of Blue’s trademark<br />
funk, blues, jazz-inspired excursions, and<br />
even a seven-minute, deep chromatic<br />
treatment of the classic field holler<br />
“Another Man Done Gone.”<br />
Every Sugar Blue show includes his<br />
history of the blues harmonica and this<br />
recording offers a similar thesis. After the<br />
accelerated opener, “Red Hot Mama,” Blue<br />
gives a nine-minute discourse on Muddy<br />
Waters’ “One More Mile,” which has traces<br />
of Junior Wells’ classic funky approach to<br />
Chicago blues in his band’s punctuating<br />
accents. Blue barrels through lick after lick<br />
like a frenzied Charlie Parker, and McFarland<br />
answers the call with his own brand of<br />
seasoned guitar. Then, Blue leads his band<br />
through Willie Dixon’s stop timed “Hoochie<br />
Coochie Man.” Here, the somewhat slower<br />
tempo allows listeners to appreciate Blue’s<br />
high-end tenor vocals and his agile note<br />
placement. Again, it’s McFarland’s hardedged<br />
guitar that keeps the music steeped<br />
in the traditions. (Remember McFarland<br />
has spent his life backing blues masters<br />
like James Cotton, Little Milton, Lucky<br />
Peterson, Otis Clay, and so many others.)<br />
The perfect guitar foil, McFarland plays<br />
every gig with Blue and others combining<br />
his own creativity with the stability nightly<br />
shows on the road demand. On McFarland’s<br />
“Swing Chicken,” Blues sits out while<br />
McFarland and Della Torre swing with<br />
unbridled enthusiasm.<br />
Blue honors Cotton with “Cotton<br />
Tree,” a 10-minute biographical tribute to<br />
one of Blue’s most important mentors. After<br />
three hard-hitting harp assaults, the light,<br />
jazzy approach to Blue’s vocals and harmonica<br />
offers a comforting break. His<br />
encore, “Messin’ With The Kid,” pays tribute<br />
to Junior Wells, another Blue mentor,<br />
and features McFarland’s explosive and<br />
46 BLUES REVUE<br />
imaginative fret work. It would not be a<br />
Sugar Blue show without the ten-minute<br />
performance of “Miss You,” the Rolling<br />
Stones 1978 Number One song that was<br />
beefed up by his signature harp riff. Blue’s<br />
“Bad Boy’s Heaven,” offers him the<br />
extended opportunity to reassemble his<br />
phrases into cutting edge expressions.<br />
Contemporary themes surface on<br />
“Bluesman,” where Blue addresses the cultural<br />
effects of the oppressive years from<br />
Jamestown slavery to today and asserts the<br />
blues blood that runs through him. “Krystalline”<br />
is Blue’s funky ode to the mysterious<br />
white lady who is as dangerous as she<br />
is alluring.<br />
If you have seen Sugar Blue and his<br />
band in recent years, this live CD perfectly<br />
captures the musical charms of his show.<br />
– Art Tipaldi<br />
RICK HOLMSTROM<br />
Cruel Sunrise<br />
M.C. Records<br />
There’s a reason Rick Holmstrom’s trio was<br />
tapped to back Mavis Staples on the road<br />
and in the studio over the past several<br />
years. First, it’s no secret that Holmstrom<br />
has been able to channel Pops Staples’ jangly<br />
guitar in a way that’s all-at-once blues,<br />
rock, and gospel. Equally important, the trio<br />
is extremely tight and well oiled, with Jeff<br />
Turmes holding down the low end and<br />
Stephen Hodges keeping time. On Cruel<br />
Sunrise, the band is perfectly in tune with<br />
each other, leading and following as<br />
needed. All of this has been evident while<br />
playing with Staples as well as on Holmstrom’s<br />
earlier releases. But this time there’s<br />
more: this time out, Holmstrom really shows<br />
his chops as a writer. With twelve tunes full<br />
of vivid imagery and clever hooks, the disc<br />
will flat out make you feel something, even if<br />
you can’t put a finger on it.<br />
Holmstrom doesn’t fit neatly into a category,<br />
but he leans hard on blues and rock,<br />
with a West Coast twist that materializes as<br />
part California rock & roll and part psychedelic<br />
rock. The Beach Boys meet The Doors<br />
meet Dick Dale: Surfedelia. The disc kicks<br />
off in high gear and settles into a groove that<br />
includes Mavis Staples guesting on two<br />
tracks. There’s ample energy, even on the<br />
restrained tracks, with rich layers and depth.<br />
The real genius is in the subtleties, like the<br />
low sax that washes across the chorus of the<br />
title track, the backing vocals on “It’s Time I<br />
Lose,” or Hodges’ careful choices of shakers,<br />
brushes, and blocks throughout the<br />
disc. Holmstrom stacks these loose pieces<br />
together like a shaky Jenga tower and it<br />
stays upright.<br />
The highlights include “Creepin’ In,” a<br />
tune that will stick in your head all day. In the<br />
middle of a set of blended genres, Holmstrom<br />
offers up his take on classic lyrics,<br />
“The sun’s gonna shine on my front door<br />
some day, ” a subtle reminder that he’s a<br />
bluesman at heart. The gentle love song “By<br />
My Side” is beautiful for its stark simplicity.<br />
On the mesmerizing lullaby instrumental,<br />
“Luellie,” Holmstrom pushes his guitar to the<br />
limit with harmonics and reverb. “Luellie” is a<br />
bit of an oddity for the disc, but rumor has it<br />
there’s a deluxe edition with instrumental<br />
takes on classic blues and Americana tunes.<br />
While the writing is impressive, the<br />
performance is nothing short of impeccable.<br />
Cruel Sunrise is quite simply one of the<br />
best albums I’ve heard in very long time.<br />
– Eric Wrisley<br />
ZAC HARMON<br />
Music Is Medicine<br />
Urban Eagle<br />
All music fans will agree with the album’s<br />
title as well as the lyrics of Harmon’s reassuring<br />
“The Healer,” a mid-tempo blues<br />
bounce that extols the virtues of our universal<br />
palliation. On this self-produced followup<br />
to 2009’s From The Root (Northern<br />
Blues), the multi-talented Mississippi native<br />
co-wrote the 11 originals, a collection of<br />
blues and pop-slanted soul with the bubbly<br />
Buffet-like reggae floater “I’d Rather Be<br />
With You” as the lone curve ball.<br />
I most enjoyed the bluesier tunes<br />
like the Hookerish grinder with spiritual
concerns, “Running From The Devil” [by]<br />
“...trying to keep up with the Lord,” the loping<br />
tribute to pharmaceutical erection<br />
enhancers, “Blue Pill Thrill,” the slinky sardonic<br />
jeremiad, “Drowning In Hollywood,”<br />
the Robert Cray-Johnny “Guitar” Watson<br />
(his 1970s disco-blues phase) blues-rock<br />
amalgam, “Miss American Girl,” the aforementioned<br />
“The Healer,” and the smoldering<br />
“Country Boy,” a slow blues affirmation<br />
of his roots with blistering guitar reminiscent<br />
of the late Michael Burks (who is namechecked<br />
in Harmon’s liner notes). The soul<br />
tunes seem more influenced by the popsoul<br />
of groups like the Commodores and<br />
48 BLUES REVUE<br />
Kool & the Gang than by the classic Southern<br />
soul sounds of Stax or Hi. For fans of a<br />
harder, grittier type of soul-blues, the<br />
pristinely produced, pop-oriented soul<br />
tunes may not hold much appeal, and even<br />
less so for traditional blues fans.<br />
Overall, this is one of the most “modern”<br />
sounding soul-blues recordings sans<br />
drum machines I’ve ever heard. (I prefer<br />
crispness and clarity with a bit more coarseness.)<br />
Harmon is a confident, commanding<br />
vocalist; his seamless blend of silk and<br />
sandpaper suggestive of Z.Z. Hill and<br />
McKinley Mitchell (former employers). In<br />
addition to guitar, Harmon contributes some<br />
bass, keyboards, and drums. The basic<br />
band of Cedric Goodman (drums), Corey<br />
Lacey (keyboards), and Buthel (bass) are<br />
tight and versatile, major requirements for<br />
the variegated music herein. Music Is Medicine<br />
is a good album with a couple song-ofthe-year<br />
candidates (“Drowning In<br />
Hollywood” and “Blue Pill Thrill”) and some<br />
stirring performances; however, a few more<br />
blues tunes and a few less coats of production<br />
varnish would make it even better.<br />
– Thomas J. Cullen III<br />
MARION JAMES<br />
Northside Soul<br />
EllerSoul<br />
Although “Nashville’s Queen of the Blues”<br />
has been on the Music City scene for over<br />
50 years, this is only the third album by a<br />
singer/songwriter deserving of a much<br />
larger discography. Back in the mid-Sixties<br />
a pre-fame Jimi Hendrix and his bass-playing<br />
buddy Billy Cox were in her band. Soul<br />
music aficionados have made her lone<br />
Excello single “That’s My Man”(a Top Ten<br />
R&B hit in 1966) a collector’s item as they<br />
have with her even more obscure single on<br />
the K&J imprint “Find Out What You Got”<br />
(which was penned by Billy Cox). The core<br />
band here is tight and versatile and consists<br />
of bassist/producer Tod Ellsworth,<br />
drummer Brad Ellsworth, guitarist Ivan<br />
Appelrouth, and keyboardist Steve Bassett;<br />
a three-piece horn section augments seven<br />
tracks. Like Etta James, this Ms. James is<br />
no one trick pony.
There is something for everybody on<br />
this set of six originals and seven covers as<br />
she performs blues, soul, R&B, funk, and<br />
jazz with an understated knowing aplomb.<br />
The most interesting covers happen to be<br />
overdone standards, but ones that are so<br />
thoroughly rearranged that they barely<br />
evoke the originals (or their countless covers).<br />
Junior Parker’s “Next Time You See<br />
Me,” performed as a cadent, horn-propelled<br />
Nawlins strutter, is a thing of joy while Willie<br />
Dixon’s “I Just Want to Make Love to You”<br />
segues into furious funk after a more traditional<br />
one minute spin featuring Li’l Ronnie<br />
Owens’ wailing harp. Her friend, the late<br />
Nashville songwriter Ted Jarrett (of “It’s Love<br />
Baby (24 Hours A Day)” fame), is covered<br />
with the brassy mid-tempo shuffle “I’m Just<br />
What You’re Looking For.” Her best original,<br />
“Blues Recipe,” a potential song-of-the year<br />
candidate, is a sly, smoldering slow blues<br />
that offers an admonition to blues-singing<br />
“wannabees” to look for another line of<br />
work. Soul-blues fans will enjoy her salacious<br />
shuffle bumps “I Know A Good Thing”<br />
and “I Fell” as well as Denise LaSalle’s “Man<br />
Size Job.” Marion James is a genuine soul<br />
music survivor and Northside Soul is her<br />
finest record. Kudos to the EllerSoul crew.<br />
– Thomas J. Cullen III<br />
ERIC BURDON<br />
‘Til Your River Runs Dry<br />
ABKCO<br />
Mellowing with age? Trying bellowing. Still<br />
kicking complete ass at 70, Eric Burdon<br />
unleashes a furious string of tough accusations<br />
and burning questions. He makes his<br />
intentions on ‘Til Your River Runs Dry clear<br />
early on, with the raucous, witheringly honest<br />
“Old Habits Die Hard.” Later, Burdon<br />
imagines a presidential visit during “Invitation<br />
To The White House” in which he<br />
makes a heartfelt demand that the commander<br />
in chief spend more time focused on<br />
problems at home, rather than fighting foreign<br />
wars with unclear objectives. He even<br />
makes a scalding pass at that love-gonewrong<br />
classic “Before You Accuse Me.”<br />
All along, Burdon’s backing band, featuring<br />
members of the blues-rocking Teresa<br />
James Band (Terry Wilson, bass, and Billy<br />
Watts, guitar) for half of the album and the<br />
Phantom Blues Band’s Tony Braunagel<br />
(drums), Mike Finnigan (keyboards), and<br />
Johnny Lee Schell (guitars), accelerates the<br />
music like a muscle car roaring to life after<br />
too long parked out back. Burdon does his<br />
part, too, squalling like a quartet of mile-wide<br />
radials. He’s never sounded more visceral,<br />
or angrier, and it’s a wonder to behold.<br />
Not that ‘Til Your River Runs Dry isn’t<br />
filled with a sweep of other textures and<br />
emotions. In fact, this project amounts to a<br />
command performance across a stirring<br />
BLUES REVUE 49
variety of styles. Burdon, for instance, finds<br />
the fragile, searching top end of his vocal<br />
range for “Devil And Jesus,” a lean rock<br />
song with a deep blues theme. “Wait”<br />
explores that sense of raw vulnerability even<br />
more deeply, as Burdon’s pleading vocal is<br />
surrounded by this dusty acoustic lonesomeness.<br />
Later, Jon Cleary sits in for a<br />
New Orleans-infused tune called “River Is<br />
Rising,” and a generous, open-hearted take<br />
on Marc Cohn’s “Medicine Man.” “In The<br />
Ground” plays out like a gospel rave up. In<br />
“Bo Diddley Special” he bids a fond farewell<br />
to key influence Bo Diddley, complete with a<br />
perfectly attenuated Diddley-shuffle beat<br />
courtesy of co-producing drummer Braunagel.<br />
While “27 Forever” is Burdon’s pondering<br />
about all of those doomed rock stars<br />
who passed at age 27. All of that feels like a<br />
preamble, though, to those times when Burdon<br />
is in a full-throated roar.<br />
In the end, five decades on from his<br />
breakout moment in “We’ve<br />
Gotta Get Out Of This Place,” Burdon is still<br />
surrounded by damnable fools who just<br />
don’t get it, liars who must be exposed, and<br />
politicians headed for their comeuppance.<br />
It’s clear that Burdon still feels a fiery reading<br />
of the wrongs is a good place to start.<br />
– Nick DeRiso<br />
BARBARA CARR<br />
Keep The Fire Burning<br />
Catfood<br />
After decades of obscurity (including a short<br />
period on Chess) Barbara Carr started to<br />
make a name for herself in the nineties. The<br />
seventy-one year old Carr was born in St.<br />
Louis and received an early break when she<br />
caught the attention (of the too often overlooked)<br />
bandleader and sax player Oliver<br />
Sain. The details of her discography are<br />
vague, but Keep The Fire Burning seems to<br />
be Carr’s twelfth digital release. She also<br />
appears on a long list of soul compilation<br />
collections, including two of her own Best<br />
Of anthologies. Here Carr employs Catfood<br />
label-mate Johnny Rawls and label owner<br />
Bob Trenchard to co-produced. In addition,<br />
Trenchard plays bass throughout, while<br />
Rawls makes one appearance on a duet<br />
with Carr. All of the eleven tunes are originals<br />
mostly authored by Trenchard and/or<br />
Rawls, though they only collaborate once.<br />
The opening “Hanging On By A<br />
Thread” is easily the grittiest of this bunch.<br />
With churning chords coming from Johnny<br />
McGhee’s guitar and tasteful keyboard fills<br />
from Dan Ferguson, Carr sounds youthful<br />
and vibrant making this tune an earcatching<br />
start to this retro-soul CD. One<br />
of two of Carr’s blues additions is Rawls’<br />
“I Got The Blues” that cites Little Milton and<br />
Carr’s self-proclaimed understanding of the<br />
blues. About halfway through the album’s<br />
formula horn arrangements become a bit<br />
repetitive and predictable and are somewhat<br />
reminiscent of what Malaco Records<br />
did on many of their soulful albums. Rawls<br />
duets with Carr on his ballad “Hold On To<br />
What You Got” that is expectedly generational<br />
and nothing exceptional, their chemistry<br />
is also lacking. The second blues nod<br />
also comes from Rawls’ pen “You Give Me<br />
The Blues” and it’s really not a blues tune<br />
that makes claims to blues in lyrics only.<br />
Trenchard’s “What You Gonna Do” is pretty<br />
funky and the horns add good color,<br />
McGhee again tosses in catchy riffs and<br />
short solos, and the band percolates nicely<br />
all the way through. Trenchard’s “Sweet<br />
Talking Snake” closes the album in a soulful<br />
way with horn charts from saxophone<br />
player Andy Roman and trumpeter Mike<br />
Middleton, the lyrics are mildly risqué,<br />
which were once part of Carr’s style.<br />
Carr (once again) is back on the<br />
scene, though I doubt this recording will do<br />
much to reignite her career.<br />
– Bob Putignano<br />
MICHAEL HILL’S BLUES MOB<br />
Goddesses And Gold Redux<br />
JSP<br />
For those who may have overlooked the<br />
original 2005 release of guitar/vocalist<br />
Michael Hill’s offbeat musical montage,<br />
Goddesses And Gold, despair not. Goddesses<br />
And Gold Redux is a fresh opportunity<br />
to experience another farrago of Hill’s<br />
hard-edged blues/rock, impromptu street<br />
conversation, and left-leaning sociopolitical<br />
musings. Possibly the most erratic disc that<br />
blues fans are likely to find among the bargain<br />
racks, this one deserves stars for<br />
sheer quirkiness.<br />
Showbiz calls it an “act” for a reason,<br />
and Hill plays the role of unctuous Master<br />
of Ceremonies to the preening hilt. The<br />
man doesn’t so much sing into a microphone<br />
as he does behave in front of one,<br />
interjecting himself into the mix with glib<br />
verbal asides and intermittent stage patter<br />
directed at both band members and listening<br />
audience alike. Hill’s dialogue recalls<br />
Frank Zappa’s use of Sprechstimme (spoken<br />
voice), in which Zappa mimics sleazy<br />
lounge lizards and golden-throated TV<br />
pitchmen in wacky niche tunes like<br />
“Dancing Fool,” “Cosmic Debris,” and<br />
scores of others.<br />
That’s not to say Redux contains anything<br />
remotely as entertaining as Zappa’s<br />
sardonic wit or deft musical turns. But Hill<br />
does utter some very peculiar things. The<br />
following duologue introduces the stuttering<br />
funk jam, “Specialization:”<br />
“And she said, ‘Sweet Mikey, looks like<br />
you been slimming down, down to your<br />
fighting weight.’ I said, ‘No, baby girl, I’m<br />
getting down to my loving weight!’”<br />
Hill uses similar jabber to usher in the<br />
album’s only straight-up blues number,<br />
“Mr. Hubert Sumlin,” a track that features<br />
the real Hubert Sumlin taking a star turn<br />
on the guitar solo.<br />
“And not only are we celebrating, people,<br />
but this is our lucky day! ‘Cause we<br />
have Mister Hubert Sumlin in the house.<br />
That’s right, baby, the man is in the house!”<br />
About the only tunes that Hill’s showman<br />
routine doesn’t reduce to novelty song<br />
status are the full-tilt rockers, “Let The<br />
Ladies Have The Floor,” and “New York<br />
Doll.” On these tracks, Hill dials down the<br />
vocal extemporizing to deliver some mighty<br />
BLUES REVUE 51
fine rock ‘n’ roll over distortion-drenched<br />
guitars, albeit with plenty of randy camp<br />
lyrics for his listeners’ delectation.<br />
Then there’s the political stuff that<br />
rounds out Redux. Whether by design or<br />
coincidence, the last five songs of the<br />
album key on issues of social/political<br />
inequality (“Fear Itself,” and “Home I<br />
Love”), corporate greed (“Black Gold”),<br />
and America’s déclassé status (“By<br />
George,” and “U.S. Blues Again”) in their<br />
lyrics. Predictably, the agitprop nature of<br />
the material flattens the mood considerably.<br />
Then again, I warned you it was quirky.<br />
– Tony Del Rey<br />
52 BLUES REVUE<br />
JW-JONES<br />
Seventh Hour<br />
Factor<br />
The cover shot on Seventh Hour, the latest<br />
release from Canadian bluesman JW-Jones,<br />
could come straight from the pages of an up<br />
market fashion magazine. Jones is pictured<br />
in a slim fit suit, guitar in hand, looking indestructible<br />
as a beautiful girl crumples the<br />
bonnet of her car on an immovable force.<br />
Sophisticated artwork for a stylish album.<br />
For his 2010 release, Midnight In<br />
Memphis, Jones recorded at Sun Studios.<br />
This follow up was recorded in a slightly<br />
less historic location; Jones's living room.<br />
Here Jones and his band, keyboardist<br />
Jesse Whitely, drummer Jeff Asselin, and<br />
bassist Marc Decho, have produced ten<br />
tracks of mostly original material that is<br />
clearly based in blues, that isn't afraid to<br />
wander into country or rockabilly territory,<br />
and, despite the retro feel throughout, certainly<br />
doesn't feel the need to conform to<br />
any identikit blues formulas.<br />
In fact the stand out track, “In A<br />
Song,” is barely a blues and could just be<br />
the kind of song to get Jones airplay on<br />
channels that normally go nowhere near<br />
the music; all heartfelt vocals, echoed riff<br />
and heavy drumbeats. And the song's strap<br />
line, “I guess you'll end up in a song,” gives<br />
a big clue to the lyrical theme of most of the<br />
rest of the album. “Ain't Gonna Beg” is a<br />
soulful look at love that hasn't happened;<br />
“Let It Go” is about being in love against<br />
your better judgment; “All Over Again” is a<br />
Memphis groove which has Jones singing<br />
about re-discovered love; and “Heartbreaker”<br />
is a slice of steel guitar driven<br />
rockabilly about slightly more transient relationships.<br />
Even Little Milton’s “I’m Tryin’” is<br />
about a love that can’t be forgotten. “You<br />
Got Caught” is the antidote to all of this<br />
though; the kind of love gone bad tale that<br />
Robert Cray specializes in.<br />
All in all this is an excellent listen.<br />
There is plenty enough to keep Jones's<br />
long time fans happy, and plenty enough to<br />
lure in new listeners including, with luck,<br />
those that would not normally start at the<br />
blues. Give it a listen.<br />
– Chris Kerslake<br />
LINSEY ALEXANDER<br />
Been There Done That<br />
Delmark<br />
When Chicago bluesman Linsey Alexander<br />
says he’s “been there, done that,” as the<br />
title of his debut Delmark album would suggest,<br />
you know he means business.<br />
Alexander cut his teeth on the gritty South<br />
side of Chicago for decades, but for the last<br />
fifteen years, he’s been wowing crowds on<br />
the North side of the Windy City at upper<br />
scale hangouts like Buddy Guy’s Legends,<br />
Kingston Mines, Blue Chicago, and<br />
B.L.U.E.S.<br />
The first thing you notice when you<br />
listen to Alexander’s new CD is his commanding<br />
vocal prowess. This guy can<br />
really sing the blues. He’s got that same<br />
gritty, soulful growl that another blues guy<br />
by the name of B.B. King exhibits when<br />
he’s strutting his stuff.<br />
The second thing you notice after<br />
spinning Alexander’s new disc is that he<br />
has a real knack for putting pen to paper.<br />
His songs are culled from personal experience<br />
while remaining broad enough for<br />
everyone to relate to. He’s not inventing<br />
lyrics; he’s lived them. Great songwriting<br />
doesn’t get better than that.<br />
The third thing you realize after listening<br />
to Been There Done That is that Alexander<br />
knows how to play his beautiful, flame<br />
top Gibson ES-335. His electrifying rhythm<br />
work and stinging guitar solos drive the<br />
songs like a new Rolls Royce and will satisfy<br />
all fans of electric blues guitar.<br />
Accompanied by a host of top shelf<br />
Chicago blues players like up-and-coming<br />
guitarist Mike Wheeler, harmonica master<br />
Billy Branch, keyboard ace Roosevelt Purifoy,<br />
and horn players Ryan Nyther on trumpet<br />
and Bryan Fritz on saxophone, Linsey<br />
Alexander and his band were red hot for<br />
these sessions.<br />
Tracks of note include the funky<br />
groove of “Bad Man,” featuring guitar<br />
slinger “Breezy” Rodio on six strings<br />
(whose guitar solo is reminiscent of the<br />
late, Albert Collins), the R&B swagger of<br />
the album’s title track “Been There Done<br />
That,” the bluesy lament “I Had A Dream”<br />
highlighted by some slick guitar picking by<br />
Alexander, Willie Kent’s well-penned<br />
“Looks Like It’s Going To Rain,” the infectious<br />
riffs of “Going Back To My Old Time<br />
Used To Be,” the testimonial humor of “Big<br />
Woman,” and a reverent tip of the hat to<br />
blues master Robert Johnson in “Saving<br />
Robert Johnson.”<br />
Linsey Alexander may be one of<br />
Chicago’s favorite sons, but when the rest<br />
of the world hears Been There Done That,<br />
they’re going to want a piece of him too.<br />
– Brian M. Owens
Travel with Mitch Woods as he and his<br />
band carry Woods’ unique brand of<br />
jump blues and the piano/sax magic of<br />
New Orleans to Turkey for five weeks.<br />
MITCH WOODS<br />
Blues Beyond Borders<br />
Club 88<br />
In 2010, boogie-woogie pianist<br />
Mitch Woods took his troupe<br />
to Turkey for a series of concerts.<br />
The result, a CD/DVD of<br />
live shows from the five-week<br />
long, 20-city tour, shows the<br />
band having so much fun on<br />
and off the stage that it makes<br />
you want to apply for a slot in<br />
the band.<br />
But measuring up to the<br />
level of talent assembled in this<br />
group would be a daunting task. Drummer Larry Vann, a vet of the<br />
Whispers and the Elvin Bishop Band, adds a funky soul backbeat to the<br />
proceedings as well as a quirky sense of humor, claiming on camera<br />
that he thought Woods was taking him just down the road to Truckee,<br />
near his hometown in the Bay Area, not Turkey.<br />
With a resume boasting stints with Irma Thomas, Allen Toussaint,<br />
and Fats Domino, Amadee Castenell on sax carries on the tradition of<br />
great New Orleans sax players like Red Allen and Harold Battiste.<br />
Bassist Cornell Williams, a former member of Jon Cleary’s Absolute<br />
Monster Gentlemen, brings gospel-tinged soul vocals as well as funky<br />
underpinnings to the mix. Guitarist Adam Gabriel, who was Hank<br />
Ballard and the Midnighters’ bandleader for 17 years, provides a gritty,<br />
old school rock and roll feel. The Brooklyn-born Woods is an avuncular<br />
ambassador, a fun loving boogie man proficient in jump blues,<br />
jazz, and New Orleans second line rhythms as well.<br />
Wood gets the crowd going early on with his rollicking left hand<br />
on the jump blues “Solid Gold Cadillac.” Although “Mojo Mambo” is<br />
his own composition, the style owes a big debt to Professor Longhair’s<br />
“Big Chief,” down to the whistled intro, with Woods perfectly<br />
capturing Fess’s calypso/funk/second line mix. He brings up Fess<br />
again on Longhair’s “In The Night,” segueing into a popular ‘70s-era<br />
Turkish song from Turkish rocker Boris Manco before slipping back<br />
into Fess’s slippers to finish out the “Night.” But this is not a one-man<br />
show. Castenell is given plenty of room to splatter New Orleans joy<br />
juice all over the place. Bassist Williams delivers a soulful vocal for<br />
“Third Degree,” as Castenell’s sax moans and wails in sympathy and<br />
Gabriel’s guitar slashes and tears at the melody. With his engaging,<br />
easygoing style and infectious boogie-woogie, Woods proves that no<br />
matter where on earth you take it, music truly is a universal language.<br />
– Grant Britt<br />
BLUES REVUE 53
TERESA JAMES<br />
Come On Home<br />
54 BLUES REVUE<br />
Jasi-Lu<br />
Teresa James and her husband Terry Wilson<br />
continually prove that a marriage in the music<br />
business can work quite nicely. What makes<br />
this paring work so effective is the skillful partnership<br />
between Wilson’s songs and James’<br />
delivery. With Wilson crafting ten of the twelve<br />
songs (James co-writes with him on two),<br />
James articulates a theme that is often time<br />
emotionally close to her outlook.<br />
James, a Texas girl who plays piano, is<br />
one polished vocalist you need to hear. With a<br />
voice that knocks most singers out of the<br />
water, James sings with a vibrant sensuality so<br />
that her vocal interpretations turn each song<br />
into a hypnotic story. Her Rhythm Tramps band<br />
(often found touring as the Animals behind Eric<br />
Burdon), featuring Wilson (bass), Billy Watts<br />
(guitar), Herman Mathews (drums), and a tight<br />
horn arrangement offer solid support. Add in<br />
her musical friends like Mike Finnigan<br />
(keyboards and vocals), Tony Braunagel<br />
(drums), and Jon Cleary (piano), and James<br />
has recorded a musical highlight reel.<br />
Perhaps the finest highlight on the<br />
record is James on the money delivery of<br />
“Forgetting You,” a stunning Wilson ballad.<br />
Here, James’ aching voice paints lonely pictures<br />
of her darkness that universally touches<br />
each listener. Lee Thromberg’s horn patterns<br />
accurately augment James’ poignant cries.<br />
Check out James’ raspy delivery on the title<br />
cut, as she tells the wayward man to take care<br />
of business and “bring your sorry ass home<br />
to me.” Another highlight, the high-powered<br />
duet as James and Finnigan offer a nostalgic<br />
give and take on Etta James’ soulful “If I Can’t<br />
Have You.” Other highlights include “She’s<br />
Got A Way With Men,” Wilson and James’<br />
nod to the dance music that Martha and the<br />
Vandellas were recording on their early sixties<br />
45s. Honking baritone sax, background call<br />
and responses, and the punctuating horn<br />
arrangements of Thromberg turn the middle<br />
chorus into a fun quoting of Smoky Robinson’s<br />
“Going To A Go Go.”<br />
James’ feel good love ballad, “That’s<br />
Just Love” comes wrapped in more gorgeous<br />
horn from Thromberg and Jerry Peterson.<br />
Ditto her up beat “Carry That Burden,” which<br />
offers a positive message about the cross we<br />
each must bear. It’s not what we tote, but how<br />
we accept it. And her Lone Star roots show in<br />
the winsome, “Long Way From Texas,” where<br />
amid her honky tonk piano, James longs for<br />
getting home for some “Lone Star lovin’.”<br />
The world of pop culture boasts of a<br />
vocal flavor of the month, which expires<br />
quickly in favor of the next talent. Then there<br />
are vocalists like Teresa James who come to<br />
the art with a voice that has aged through her<br />
life experiences. I’ll take James every time.<br />
– Art Tipaldi
LARRY GARNER<br />
Blues For Sale<br />
DixieFrog<br />
Baton Rouge bluesman, Larry Garner, is a<br />
national treasure. His uncanny ability to capture<br />
spot-on, everyday occurrences and put<br />
them to song makes him one of the blues<br />
world’s leading innovators while maintaining<br />
a traditional essence and reverence that is<br />
the blues. His seasoned vocals boast a lifetime’s<br />
worth of experience and feature lyrics<br />
that are both clever and affable while his<br />
soulful guitar work is equally emotional and<br />
rewarding. No matter how you slice it, Larry<br />
Garner’s music is universal and will appeal<br />
to listeners young and old, far and wide.<br />
On his latest album, Blues For Sale,<br />
Garner and his top notch band, singer Debbie<br />
Landry, guitarist Jared Daigle, keyboardist<br />
Nelson Blanchard, bassist Shedrick<br />
Nellon, drummer Joe Monk, and saxophonist<br />
Mr. Mystery Man, serve up 11 ingeniously<br />
penned Garner originals that touch down on<br />
everything from the comical talking dirty to<br />
your lady while having sex (“Talkin’<br />
Naughty”), remembering our fighting men<br />
and women and the mental and emotional<br />
struggles they face long after the battle (“Broken<br />
Soldier”), knowing exactly who’s wearing<br />
the pants in the family and acting accordingly<br />
(“Miss Boss”), leaving a bold, last will and<br />
testament through song (“Last Request<br />
(When I Die)”), telling travelers what to<br />
expect, both good and bad, when trekking<br />
down to the Gulf coast (“If You Come To<br />
Louisiana”), collecting yourself and getting<br />
back on your feet after bad love (“Rebound; I<br />
Know You, Don’t Love Me”), setting a big<br />
mouth blues-wannabe straight (“Car Seat<br />
Baby”), and zeroing in on what can really<br />
give you the blues (“A Whole Lotta Nothin’”).<br />
With unemployment being the highest<br />
it’s been in decades, people all over the<br />
world battling for freedom, and a general<br />
malaise in spirit, Larry Garner is a bright spot<br />
in the equation that shouldn’t be missed.<br />
– Brian M. Owens<br />
THE BLUES BROADS<br />
The Blues Broads<br />
Delta Groove<br />
The Blues Broads feature four singers<br />
with blues based origins. Singers Dorothy<br />
Morrison, Tracy Nelson, Annie Sampson,<br />
and Angela Strehli bring along almost two<br />
centuries of experience on this ten-song collection<br />
of blues and gospel. Nelson was the<br />
voice of ‘60s era blues-rock band Mother<br />
Earth and a solo artist of varied notoriety.<br />
Sampson sang with the overlooked 1970s<br />
blues-rock outfit Stoneground. Morrison<br />
BLUES REVUE 55
comes from the gospel world and was the<br />
lead vocalist in the Edwin Hawkins Singers in<br />
the 1960s. Texas based Strehli is a wellknown<br />
blues singer who has backed up<br />
greats like Stevie Ray Vaughan, Marcia Ball,<br />
Matt Murphy, Elvin Bishop, and others. The<br />
ladies are captured live on this two-disc<br />
(CD/DVD) package, with the video disc containing<br />
one bonus track, Dylan’s “It’s All Over<br />
Now/Baby Blue.” Rounding out the band are<br />
bassist Steve Ehrmann, drummer Paul Revelli,<br />
guitarist Gary Vogensen, keyboardist<br />
Mike Emerson, and “honorary broad” Deanna<br />
Bogart who adds vocals, sax, and keyboards.<br />
Good vocal vibes flow from the stage on<br />
Gary Nicholson and Nelson’s “Livin’ The<br />
Blues,” but for a concert opener I found the<br />
backing band to be just plodding along for the<br />
ride. Simpson’s soulful “Bring Me Your Love”<br />
brings along a bit more vigor, but I wasn’t<br />
enthralled by Simpson’s voice. Strehli’s “Two<br />
Bit Texas Town” finds her surly, gruff, and thoroughly<br />
in control as a professional bandleader<br />
who simmers and smokes. I thought the<br />
cover of Elle Greenwich and Phil Spector’s<br />
“River Deep/Mountain High” was poorly<br />
arranged and not uplifted by Morrison’s flat<br />
vocals. All four ladies chime in on J. Leslie<br />
McFarland’s “It Won’t Be Long,” which finds<br />
the band (especially Bogart) more punchy<br />
and creative, plus the ladies give their all here.<br />
Nelson covers the Oliver Sain’s “Walk Away,”<br />
but she too also seems not to be having her<br />
best night vocally, and the backing band fails<br />
to inspire nor do they invigorate the performance.<br />
“Jesus, I’ll Never Forget” is performed<br />
a cappella and is a pretty hip gospel cover.<br />
The night concludes with Edwin Hawkins’<br />
smash hit “Oh Happy Day” where everyone,<br />
including its original vocalist Morrison, contributes<br />
on this gospel classic that has the<br />
crowd soul-clapping and sent home happy.<br />
The Blues Broads is an interesting concept<br />
band. If there’s a follow-up recording,<br />
bringing these blues ladies into a studio environment<br />
might spur more uplifting results. In<br />
the meantime, enjoy the CD and DVD.<br />
– Bob Putignano<br />
56 BLUES REVUE<br />
Yazoo Records has once again delved into its<br />
collections of 78s giving record collectors a<br />
plethora of blues, hillbilly, and other early music.<br />
VARIOUS ARTISTS<br />
The Return Of The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of<br />
Yazoo<br />
A sequel to Yazoo’s 2006 collection The Stuff That<br />
Dreams Are Made Of, this marvelous two-CD set<br />
follows the same basic format as its acclaimed predecessor:<br />
46 carefully chosen and uniformly splendid<br />
tracks dating from the hallowed pre-war 78 era.<br />
The music is accompanied by a 52-page booklet<br />
concentrating on the savvy acquisition techniques<br />
and often obsessive tendencies (as amusingly parodied<br />
in Drew Friedman’s cover artwork) of serious<br />
record collectors specializing in 78s. Particularly<br />
fascinating is a lengthy transcription of a conversation<br />
between prolific collectors Richard<br />
Spottswood, Pete Whelan, and Richard Nevins (he produced both volumes of Dreams).<br />
There are notable differences between the two compilations. Instead of collating<br />
obscenely rare performances that would never be available to any but the most wellheeled<br />
of shellac fanatics, Return promises selections that no musically discerning<br />
household should ever be without (they’re still quite rare, mind you, just not as insanely<br />
so). Contents are once again primarily split between blues, hillbilly, and other indigenous<br />
offshoots, but this time a few ethnic 78s from other countries are sprinkled in: the Polish<br />
mountain music of Karola Stocha & S. Bachelda, a zesty polka from Orkiestra Majkuta,<br />
Irish folk by Packie Dolan & His Boys. Somehow it all fits together into one seamless<br />
whole. The sound quality from one end of the collection to the other is uniformly fine (no<br />
beat-to-hell 78s have been pressed into service for the making of this package).<br />
The blues selections are undisputed classics by icons of the pre-war idiom:<br />
Hambone Willie Newbern’s “Roll And Tumble Blues,” Bukka White’s “The Panama Limited,”<br />
Charley Patton’s “High Water Everywhere” and “Some These Days I’ll Be Gone,”<br />
Blind Blake’s “Sun To Sun Blues.” There’s seminal Blind Willie Johnson (“Jesus Make<br />
Up My Dying Bed”), Robert Wilkins (“That’s No Way To Get Along”), Tommy Johnson<br />
(“Lonesome Home Blues”), and Furry Lewis (“Billy Lyons And Stack O’Lee”) alternating<br />
with rousing backwoods country by Uncle Dave Macon & His Fruit Jar Drinkers, Charlie<br />
Poole & the North Carolina Ramblers, and Fiddling Sam Long and a bayou waltz from<br />
Leo Soileau & Mayuse Lafleur. Unlike the tight-knit early collector fraternity that specialized<br />
in one genre at the expense of all others (leaving a lot of priceless platters behind<br />
in the process), these Dreams engulf an amazing and enlightening range of contrasting<br />
musical styles and idioms.<br />
The lack of biographical information about the artists themselves in the liner notes is<br />
somewhat annoying; granted, there’s plenty of scholarly discussion readily available on<br />
Patton and the Johnsons, but not so much on the Mississippi Possum Hunters or Ashley’s<br />
Melody Men, and simply pointing readers in the direction of Google’s search engine<br />
as Nevins does in the booklet seems a trifle condescending. But it must be admitted that<br />
the colorful tales of the 78 collectors who discovered a great many undocumented<br />
recordings in their travels and became legends themselves in the process are almost as<br />
intriguing as the music itself.<br />
– Bill Dahl
58 BLUES REVUE<br />
FABRIZIO POGGI<br />
Harpway 61<br />
Self-released<br />
Fabrizio Poggi has been making his way<br />
not only as a fan of the blues and a player<br />
of the blues, but as a student of the blues.<br />
There’s something compelling about an<br />
Italian who is so taken with the form that is<br />
so uniquely American. He’s an accomplished<br />
player, whether on his own or with<br />
his band Chicken Mambo, and maybe<br />
because of his cosmopolitan pedigree, he’s<br />
been able to absorb traditional blues and<br />
incorporate Old World stylings to produce<br />
something rather unexpected. The Old and<br />
New World mash-up is easily seen in the<br />
Tejano music that fuels Chicken Mambo’s<br />
last release, Live In Texas, and much of<br />
what Poggi has done with the band is in<br />
that vein.<br />
Harpway 61 is a departure to say the<br />
least. It’s a high concept album that pays<br />
homage to the bluesmen that have inspired<br />
and influenced Poggi. The disc is a figurative<br />
road trip with each track named after a<br />
Delta town (except Chicago), and dedicated<br />
to a particular harp player. The tunes<br />
include numbers dedicated to Slim Harpo,<br />
Sonny Terry, Paul Butterfield, both Sonny<br />
Boy Williamsons, and a trio of Muddy<br />
Waters alums (Little Walter, James Cotton,<br />
and Junior Wells), among others. For an allharmonica<br />
instrumental, Poggi covers a lot<br />
of ground and keeps it interesting. Accompanied<br />
by a sparse band, Poggi also chips<br />
in himself with accordion, mandolin, banjo,<br />
and, yes, banjolele.<br />
He doesn’t exactly capture the style of<br />
each of these players, so the dedications<br />
are not always on target. Poggi can’t help<br />
that he’s a product of his time, so there’s a<br />
lot of modern influence that comes through<br />
even when mimicking the roots. “Baton<br />
Rouge, LA,” dedicated to Slim Harpo,<br />
echoes “I’m A King Bee,” but Poggi’s style<br />
is clean and much more refined than<br />
Harpo’s. And while Poggi has the vibrato<br />
down, I would have expected more energy<br />
and overblows from “Tunica, MS,” dedicated<br />
to James Cotton.<br />
When he does hit it, he scores big.<br />
The country blues of Sonny Terry with a little<br />
more modern bounce, still rings true to<br />
Terry’s style. On “Moorhead, MS,” Poggi<br />
reaches all the way back to DeFord Bailey,<br />
a country blues player who made his name<br />
on the Grand Ole Opry stage. While I can’t<br />
find a solid connection between Bailey and<br />
Moorhead, Poggi nails it on harp, imitating<br />
a freight train in the same way Bailey did on<br />
“Pan American Blues” in 1927. That he<br />
understands the catalog of Americana this<br />
way says a lot about the depth of Poggi’s<br />
study. An all-instrumental harmonica record<br />
is a feat to pull off. Even though he misses<br />
on some of the dedications, the effort here<br />
is amazing.<br />
– Eric Wrisley<br />
KELLY JOE PHELPS<br />
Brother Sinner & The Whale<br />
Black Hen<br />
Kelly Joe Phelps is back with an album that<br />
alludes to earlier work like Roll Away The<br />
Stone, released in 1997. Like that album,<br />
the beautiful slide guitar work is here, measured,<br />
textured, with not one superfluous<br />
note played.<br />
Phelps’s voice on Brother Sinner &<br />
The Whale continues to recall a dram of topshelf<br />
whiskey enjoyed on a dusky Sunday<br />
afternoon. Thematically, we are once again<br />
in Biblical territory – this time, it’s a meditation<br />
on the Old Testament’s Book of Jonah,<br />
and the artist has written an even dozen<br />
songs in the key of praise and meditation.<br />
Don’t look for 12-bar blues here, or a heavily<br />
band-backed opus. This quiet, religious<br />
album references the power of worship and<br />
of movement to a spiritual plane. On his<br />
Web site, where lyrics are listed, Bible<br />
verses appear directly underneath. Therefore,<br />
on a meditative track like “I’ve Been<br />
Converted,” it’s clear that Phelps is “born<br />
again.” It’s unclear if he means “rebirth” in<br />
the conservative Christian tradition, but<br />
there is no doubt the man has found the<br />
Lord.<br />
In “I’ve Been Converted,” he sings,<br />
“God knows I’ve made a change/I’m not<br />
afraid to call my Jesus’ name/I know I’ve<br />
been converted to you.” There is no doubt<br />
this is an important album for Phelps’s fans,<br />
and for fans of masterful slide guitar work.<br />
However, while even nonbelievers find<br />
comfort in gospel tunes, or in old Pentecostal<br />
hymns, an album full of one man’s<br />
meditation on his relationship with his god<br />
takes some work on the part of the listener.<br />
The playing is beautiful, and the reverential<br />
singing drives deep into the bone in<br />
this quiet room, but there is a certain monochromatic<br />
feeling – great for a concept<br />
album, not so great if the listener seeks a<br />
few turnarounds in tempo and theme.<br />
Still, the string work is mesmerizing, at<br />
times recalling the finger style of players like<br />
Mississippi John Hurt, the jazz guitar work of<br />
somebody like Joe Pass, and at other times<br />
suggesting intricate Delta blues playing.<br />
Despite the unifying theme, and the dozen<br />
songs in its service, there are some standout<br />
pieces including the reimagined, “Guide Me<br />
O Great Jehova” [sic], the aforementioned<br />
“I’ve Been Converted,” and the opening<br />
track, “Talkin’ To Jehova.”<br />
– Michael Cala<br />
OLI BROWN<br />
Here I Am<br />
Ruf<br />
I had the great pleasure of seeing the<br />
young and up-and-coming British blues<br />
whiz kid Oli Brown a couple of years ago at<br />
the International Blues Challenge in Memphis.<br />
With each new recording this kid puts<br />
out, he keeps showing us why he’s going<br />
to be a major force in the world of contemporary<br />
blues and blues-rock for years to<br />
come. He’s an ultra-talented guitarist, a<br />
very adept vocalist, and a terrific songwriter
filled with original observations. In a sense,<br />
he’s Great Britain’s answer to Jonny Lang<br />
or Kenny Wayne Shepherd, and to be sure,<br />
he’s got every bit of their talent.<br />
Brown keeps breaking new thematic<br />
ground as a songwriter. His band’s sound is<br />
straight out of the mid-‘60s early ‘70s British<br />
blues-rock boom, which via the Rolling<br />
Stones, John Mayall, Rory Gallagher, Cream,<br />
and others, got American rock fans to pay<br />
more attention to their own native born blues<br />
musicians. Guitarist Brown is expertly<br />
accompanied throughout this album by fellow<br />
Brits, bassist Scott Barnes, drummer<br />
Wayne Proctor, and organist Joel White.<br />
Stand out tracks here include the<br />
groove-heavy “Thinking About Her,” a tale<br />
of teenage and young adult lust, “You Can<br />
Only Blame Yourself,” and the album’s closing<br />
track “Solid Ground.” He throws in a<br />
nod to influential keyboardist/guitarist Al<br />
Kooper with his cover of “I Love You More<br />
Than You’ll Ever Know.”<br />
Here I Am is another fine effort from<br />
Brown and company. Now all he needs is<br />
some good booking agents to get his<br />
band’s music out to prominent blues festivals<br />
in the U.S. and Canada.<br />
– Richard J. Skelly<br />
CHRIS O’LEARY<br />
Waiting For The Phone To Ring<br />
VizzTone<br />
The anticipated follow-up to Mr. Used To Be,<br />
O’Leary’s stellar debut from 2011, is a rollicking<br />
collection of 13 well-crafted originals<br />
with a decidedly Nawlins R&B/swamp blues<br />
feel with four tasty forays into West Coast<br />
jump (which shares more than a subterranean<br />
link with its New Orleans counterpart).<br />
Much credit goes to the sax section of<br />
Andy Stahl and Chris DiFrancesco for the<br />
album’s overall sound; their tight knit velvety<br />
saxes propel as well as cushion the tunes in<br />
a manner that evokes the glory days of Fats<br />
Domino, Professor Longhair, and Earl King,<br />
and legendary saxophonists like Herb Hardesty,<br />
Lee Allen, and Alvin “Red” Tyler.<br />
O’Leary is a skilled master blaster himself<br />
and his brawny harmonica perfectly<br />
complements his sturdy, no-nonsense<br />
vocals that are reminiscent of James Harman<br />
and Kim Wilson. For the most part, the<br />
originals address a gamut of bleak and/or<br />
questionable romantic situations that range<br />
from desperation with the pulse-pounding,<br />
harp-infused thumper “Give It,” to selfdeprecation<br />
with the strutting “(I Need You<br />
Like A) Hole In The Head,” to uncertainty<br />
with the stop-time shuffle “Without You,” to<br />
fear with the languid grinder “Louisiana<br />
Woman,” a tale of a minacious Cajun<br />
Jezebel involved with voodoo, and to selfdoubt<br />
on “Questions,” which summons the<br />
spirit of Professor Longhair.<br />
BLUES REVUE 59
O’Leary’s use of vivid imagery is<br />
impressive; he is a master storyteller in the<br />
manner of Rick Estrin and James Harman.<br />
He even name-checks notorious femme<br />
fatales of history like Eve, Cleopatra, Helen<br />
of Troy, and Marie Antoinette on the brassy<br />
mid-tempo roller “History,” a mix of Dr. John<br />
and Mose Allison. Having seen them live in<br />
the last year, I can attest that O’Leary leads<br />
one of the most interesting and exciting<br />
bands on the current scene (guitarist Chris<br />
Vitarello, bassist Frank Ingram, drummer<br />
Sean McCarthy, keyboardist Jeremy Baum,<br />
vocalist Willa McCarthy, and the aforementioned<br />
Stahl and DiFrancesco). A tight ver-<br />
60 BLUES REVUE<br />
satile band with a distinctive sound and distinctive<br />
batch of tunes makes Waiting For<br />
The Phone To Ring a winner on every level.<br />
Highly recommended. (Disclosure: Waiting<br />
For The Phone To Ring is issued by the VizzTone<br />
Label Group, co-owned by Blues<br />
Revue’s parent company, Visionation.)<br />
– Thomas J. Cullen III<br />
DAVID HIDALGO<br />
MATO NANJI<br />
LUTHER DICKINSON<br />
3 Skulls And The Truth<br />
Shrapnel<br />
Two generations, three cultures, three guitar<br />
stylists, three voices, one drummer, and<br />
one bassist cooked the stew they call 3<br />
Skulls And The Truth. David Hidalgo, Mato<br />
Nanji, and Luther Dickinson inspired one<br />
another as featured players in an Experience<br />
Hendrix troupe. The gnashing, bloodpumping,<br />
gets-under-your-skin results of<br />
their first collaboration here sound like a<br />
band together ten years, not just a one-off<br />
with their Jimi and ZZ jones’s on. The<br />
twelve songs, all written for the project,<br />
focus on heavy-duty dueling guitars and the<br />
weaving of distinctive voices (in both ideal<br />
and tone). Detailed liners pinpoint precisely<br />
who does what.<br />
Hidalgo the elder rightfully sets the<br />
tone much of the time, although he surprisingly<br />
didn’t write any of the songs. The<br />
churning rocker “I’m A Fool” could be Los<br />
Lobos all over Hendrix, and “Woke Up<br />
Alone” chops and swaggers like Hildalgo’s<br />
Latin Playboys sideline might. Producer<br />
Mike Varney brought “Make It Right” to the
table, which the band lights up and bounces<br />
like “Stone Free” at a Hill country picnic. Varney<br />
also kicked in “Coming Home,” which<br />
rattles along at a good ZZ Top “La Grange”like<br />
clip, Indigenous chief Nanji even slurring<br />
in voice like Billy Gibbons. “I’m A Fool”<br />
sounds like a dragon-sized gator, tail-draggin’<br />
through the thick muck of a swamp, and<br />
“All I Know” aims for the mainstream on a<br />
hook and a groove to kill for. These guys<br />
have all been busy beavers, Dickinson especially,<br />
who’s been a part of five albums in the<br />
last year or so. This raunchy boogie fest will<br />
appeal most to the fans of his blues-rockin’<br />
North Mississippi Allstars.<br />
– Tom Clarke<br />
B.B. & THE BLUES SHACKS<br />
Come Along<br />
CrossCut<br />
For those arriving late to the party: There is<br />
no one named B.B. in this five-piece outfit.<br />
Hailing from the city of Hildesheim in northern<br />
Germany, the Blues Shacks formed<br />
around brothers Michael (harp and vocals)<br />
and Andreas Arlt (guitar) in 1989 and rose<br />
quickly to the top of that country’s blues<br />
scene. Bassist Henning Hauerken has been<br />
around since the mid-1990s, the third pillar<br />
in a line-up that currently includes keyboard<br />
standout Dennis Koeckstadt and Bernhard<br />
Egger on drums. Mining a variety of traditional<br />
electric blues styles without the slightest<br />
nod to rock music, the Blues Shacks<br />
routinely top German readers’ polls and<br />
have made waves in far flung places like<br />
Australia’s Byron Bay Bluesfest and the<br />
Doheny Blues Festival in California with their<br />
spirited live performances. They have reportedly<br />
close to 3000 shows under their belt.<br />
The brand new, beautifully packaged<br />
Come Along is the band’s tenth studio<br />
album overall. For a group so firmly rooted<br />
in history, it’s natural to wonder if they can<br />
continue to keep things fresh. Well, Come<br />
Along answers the bell. In fact, it has to be<br />
ranked among the Shacks’ finest achievements<br />
to date. While it may upset a few<br />
doggedly purist fans, the album sees the<br />
Arlt brothers swing boldly into the area of<br />
classic R&B while maintaining their mastery<br />
of post-war blues sounds. The set is<br />
lavishly produced without ever sounding<br />
overloaded. Instead, the three-piece “No<br />
Blow No Show Horns” add zest to all but<br />
two of the sixteen tracks. (The album’s<br />
overall length is perhaps its only weakness;<br />
a bit of extra fat could have been<br />
trimmed.) While Michael Arlt will never be<br />
confused with Bobby “Blue” Bland, he<br />
sings with conviction, shining even on<br />
challenging material like “If I Should Ever<br />
Lose Your Love,” an enchanting soul ballad<br />
that suggests the late-1960s Las Vegas<br />
incarnation of Elvis Presley.<br />
Instrumentally, the boys are at the top<br />
of their game. Singer Michael Arlt’s harp<br />
playing is often overlooked. It is expressive<br />
and well-placed, adding subtle flavors to the<br />
music, much like Koeckstadt’s contributions<br />
on piano and organ. Meanwhile, Andreas<br />
Arlt upholds his reputation for tasteful, pinpoint<br />
six-string magic in the Jimmie Vaughan<br />
mold. But credit these gents for going new<br />
places on Come Along. Song after song, the<br />
Blues Shacks demonstrate their musical IQ.<br />
Instead of growing stale, they’ve delivered<br />
an album of astonishing vitality.<br />
– Vincent Abbate<br />
JOHN LEE HOOKER, <strong>JR</strong>.<br />
All Hooked Up<br />
Stepping Stone<br />
If you’re looking for a junior version of John<br />
Lee Hooker, you’re looking in the wrong<br />
place. Although he tosses in a few of his<br />
daddy’s trademark “how how hows” on the<br />
second line-enhanced, Meters’ flavored<br />
“Listen To The Music,” this junior sounds<br />
more like George Benson than John Lee.<br />
The album has a jazzy feel, like the Yellowjackets<br />
backing Benson’s vocals.<br />
Part of that is due to producer Larry<br />
Batiste, who has written for artists including<br />
Al Jarreau and the Chi-Lites. His hand is<br />
most evident on “I Surrender, “which he composed<br />
and shares lyric credits with Hooker,<br />
Jr. The cut features “Clean Up Woman”<br />
Betty Wright sounding more like Prince than<br />
her own bad soulful self of old on a spirited<br />
duet with Hooker, Jr. But even though his<br />
approach to blues is smoother than his dad,<br />
Hooker, Jr.’s stuff is still rootsy and raw in<br />
spirit. He’s the author of all the cuts but four<br />
he shares lyrical credit with Batiste.<br />
“Tell It Like It Is” is not the Aaron Neville<br />
tune, but a swamp-flavored cautionary tale<br />
about the perils of drinking and carousing. If<br />
you don’t pay attention to his admonitions,<br />
Hooker sings, “back to dirt you shall return.”<br />
“Pay The Rent” sounds more like Al Jarreau<br />
in a cocktail lounge-y setting with a Bensonsounding<br />
guitar backing him as he reads a<br />
roommate the list of rules for co-habitation.<br />
“I Know That’s Right” is slinky, funky, and<br />
soulful, in the style and sound of Joe Simon.<br />
With what sounds like the Average White<br />
Band backing him on the title cut, Hooker<br />
sums up his early life in two words: “creature<br />
feature.” He recounts crawling in the muck<br />
and the mire, falling hard, and finally being<br />
saved by the grace of God to become the<br />
eclectic performer he is today.<br />
From the product on display here,<br />
you’d never guess that this is the endless<br />
boogie master’s son, or that the two were<br />
even related. Even though the approaches<br />
they took are radically different, Hooker, Jr.’s<br />
journey may yet prove to be as interesting<br />
as his daddy’s. Stay tuned.<br />
– Grant Britt<br />
JOANNE SHAW TAYLOR<br />
Almost Always Never<br />
Ruf<br />
She looks like a sweet little angel, blonde<br />
and baby-faced. But when she opens her<br />
mouth and picks up her guitar, Joanne<br />
Shaw Taylor lights up like a fiery demon.<br />
Her husky voice, Dusty Springfield mixed in<br />
with Janis Joplin, sounds like it’s trying to<br />
BLUES REVUE 61
slide into country, but stops just short of<br />
down home plate.<br />
On “A Hand In Love,” from her latest<br />
release, Almost Always Never, her guitar<br />
chimes like an Allman Brothers’ solo laid<br />
over a driving beat that could have been<br />
lifted from an old Eurythmics rhythm track.<br />
That’s not too much of a stretch, since<br />
Eurythmics guitarist Dave Stewart discovered<br />
Taylor and hired her as a member of<br />
his group D.U.P. when she was 16. Ten<br />
years and three solo albums later, the Birmingham,<br />
England native is a strong presence<br />
on the global blues scene.<br />
Her playing and singing show such<br />
maturity that when she sings about “looking<br />
back on 17” on the title cut, you wonder<br />
how she could remember back that far until<br />
you realize she’s only 26. But along the way<br />
she’s apparently garnered enough pain and<br />
heartache from romantic entanglements<br />
gone sour to fill an album with, and put in<br />
enough gig time on the blues highway to<br />
play guitar like a seasoned road dawg.<br />
“Beautifully Broken” has a Joan Armatrading<br />
feel, the ragged edges of Taylor’s<br />
anguished soulful vocal shredded by her<br />
jagged guitar solo as she reveals her lover<br />
left her “hanging onto words unspoken, all<br />
burned out and beautifully broken.” Lyrics<br />
aide, Taylor sounds neither burned out nor<br />
broken. For “Soul Station,” she drags up a<br />
trunk full of guitar gods of the Page and<br />
Clapton persuasion, tossing them in a cauldron<br />
and bringing them to a rolling boil,<br />
blistering licks splashing down the sides.<br />
Then, she shows off some frenetic Joe<br />
Satriani licks on “Tied And Bound,” her Gibson<br />
hurling flaming brimstone balls around<br />
the studio.<br />
Although this release isn’t as bombastic<br />
as her two previous releases, it’s a nice<br />
change up that shows off a sultrier, more<br />
introspective side. But given Taylor’s talent,<br />
drive and intensity, it’s a good bet there’s<br />
plenty of fire left for future projects.<br />
– Grant Britt<br />
62 BLUES REVUE<br />
SCRAPOMATIC<br />
I’m A Stranger And<br />
I Love The Night<br />
Landslide<br />
When bits of inspiration from the likes of<br />
Taj Mahal, Nina Simone, Dr. John, Tom<br />
Waits, Sly Stone, Howlin’ Wolf, and<br />
Charley Patton slide into the mixer, the<br />
name Scrapomatic makes perfect sense.<br />
Of course, it’s what comes out that makes<br />
all the difference. This New York Citybased,<br />
Midwestern-embedded roots<br />
group injected a rare distinctiveness into<br />
the genre on their 2003 self-titled debut.<br />
Although they never lost sight of that<br />
unique soul-blues-folk-country amalgam<br />
on two subsequent albums, this is the one<br />
that should do it for them.<br />
Singer Mike Mattison makes a huge<br />
impact. The breathy soul in his voice is<br />
unmistakable, rising to an unusual falsetto<br />
even, in the sexy, low-slung “Crime<br />
Fighter.” Mattison spent ten years pulling<br />
double duty as the lead singer for the<br />
Derek Trucks Band, and continues today<br />
as a backing vocalist in the universallyacclaimed<br />
Tedeschi Trucks Band. He’s<br />
never sounded more natural than he does<br />
here. Plus, his songwriting skills have really<br />
taken off. He wrote every one of these<br />
dozen gems with guitarist Paul Olsen, and<br />
several contain that “Jeez, I swear I’ve<br />
heard this before” quality.<br />
The title song ranks among the sunniest<br />
pieces of soul in a long while,<br />
despite its almost esoteric tone. Youthful<br />
innocence suffuses the dainty melody<br />
and sentimentality of “Don’t Fall Apart On<br />
Me, Baby,” and the flowing ballad “The<br />
Party’s Over” celebrates shutting it down<br />
in grand style. All are absolutely irresistible.<br />
On the other hand, “Alligator<br />
Love Cry” takes a jumpy stance in the<br />
realm of rough-hewn roadhouse blues,<br />
and “Gentrification Blues” adds a sociohippy<br />
vibe to the age-old style. Guitarist<br />
Dave Yoke, ex of Susan Tedeschi’s band<br />
and now a full-fledged Scrap, adds significantly<br />
to the proceedings, his assertive<br />
yet concise solos at times recalling<br />
Trucks’ in tone. Bassist Ted Pecchio and<br />
drummer Tyler Greenwell (of Tedeschi<br />
Trucks Band) supply the incredibly wideranging<br />
rhythms. Mattison’s a Harvard<br />
American Literature grad and Olsen won<br />
an ASCAP songwriting award twice. Triumphs,<br />
street cred, and capriciousness<br />
among talented musicians all add to the<br />
draw. It seems the sky’s the limit for<br />
Scrapomatic.<br />
– Tom Clarke<br />
SHAKURA S’AIDA<br />
Time<br />
Electro-Fi<br />
Her vocals are the creamy filling in a blues<br />
sandwich, spread between slices of Shemekia<br />
Copeland and Susan Tedeschi with<br />
a dash of Tina Turner sprinkled on top for<br />
extra seasoning. Brooklyn-born, Switzerland-raised<br />
Shakura S’Aida has called<br />
Toronto home for nearly three decades.<br />
Her unique voice spans jazz, soul, rock,<br />
and R&B. Add in her partnership with guitarist<br />
Donna Grantis and the musical landscape<br />
they cover is ever expanding.<br />
Canadian blues men Harrison Kennedy<br />
and Kenny “Blues Boss” Wayne are also<br />
aboard.<br />
This two-disc set is split into a rock<br />
and a blues set. It’s a strange mix at times,<br />
like a cabaret singer trying to rock out. Perhaps<br />
that’s why the blues side seems more<br />
comfortable to listen to. You get the feeling<br />
that S’Aida is used to filling big rooms with<br />
her voice, or maybe just trying to let her<br />
voice be heard as when she was singing<br />
backup, going up against the heavy<br />
artillery of Patti Labelle. But when she<br />
relaxes, you really begin to appreciate the<br />
nuances of her voice.<br />
The rock stuff is just ok. “Long John<br />
Baldry’s Don’t Try To Lay No Boogie-Woogie<br />
On The Queen Of Rock And Roll” is<br />
energetic and funky. The title cut sounds<br />
like Shemekia in a higher register with<br />
S’Aida’s bombastic vocal loud enough to<br />
peel the paint off the walls.
The second disc, Time For The Blues,<br />
is outstanding. S’Aida’s “Geechee<br />
Woman,” which adds Kennedy’s harmonica,<br />
is a loose-limbed strut, more funk than<br />
swamp. Sounding like Shemekia on a New<br />
Orleans sabbatical, “Bad Girl” steps out<br />
with a second line framework tailor made<br />
for a hanky waving street parade. Despite<br />
its title, “Blues Dancin’,” featuring Wayne’s<br />
piano, is a slow grind, more for laying back<br />
and wallowing in the groove. When S’Aida<br />
finally comes in after a long instrumental<br />
intro, her sultry vocal makes it obvious that<br />
the dancing she’s referring to is of the horizontal<br />
variety.<br />
It’d be great to see S’Aida belting out<br />
this stuff in a smoky, ramshackle joint back<br />
in the woods. It’d be even better for her to<br />
record her next release in a joint like that, or<br />
at least not try to swing for the fence every<br />
time with her vocals and just let the bluesy<br />
funk she hints at here have its way with her<br />
and us.<br />
– Grant Britt<br />
SPOONFUL OF BLUES<br />
Sinners<br />
Bluestown<br />
Have a listen to Sinners, the new release<br />
from Norway’s Spoonful Of Blues, and there<br />
is a good chance that your first thought may<br />
well be “I wish I could have been at that<br />
recording session.” The album rocks from<br />
start to finish and if the musicians didn’t<br />
have the best time making this record then<br />
they must be very difficult to please.<br />
Sinners doesn’t ease its way gently in.<br />
Opener “Down By The River” kicks off with<br />
a dirty metal riff and gives a great idea of<br />
what would have happened had Billy Gibbons<br />
been lead guitarist in British R&B stalwarts<br />
Dr. Feelgood. The band then get<br />
funky on the single chorder “The Death Of<br />
Robert Johnson” before “Make You<br />
Happy,” a mournful country song that<br />
would not be out of place on a John<br />
Lennon or Rolling Stones album, briefly<br />
slows the pace.<br />
Earlier Spoonful Of Blues releases<br />
were heavily influenced by the North Mississippi<br />
blues of the likes of R.L. Burnside<br />
and Junior Kimbrough and guest appearances<br />
here by Kenny Brown and Sharde<br />
Thomas and Bill Turner from The Rising<br />
Star Fife & Drum Band show that this is still<br />
the band’s natural territory. “Throw Me A<br />
Line” and “I Heard My Baby” have their<br />
roots firmly in the Hill Country as does “The<br />
Land Where The Blues Began,” the album’s<br />
standout track. A “Goin’ Down South” influenced<br />
riff sets the scene before Jostein<br />
Forsberg’s menacing vocals pay homage<br />
to the myths of Mississippi bluesmen, while<br />
Rita Engedalen builds the intensity with her<br />
wailing and moaning. Superb stuff.<br />
Elsewhere on the album “We Were<br />
Rocking” and “Delta Porch” are straightforward<br />
house rockers, Eden Brent adding<br />
piano to the latter. “Think It Over” is classic<br />
AOR, and “Can’t Get You Off My Mind”<br />
sees the band moving to Africa rather than<br />
Mississippi for its influence.<br />
Forsberg, guitarist Morten Omlid,<br />
drummer Eskil Aasland, and ex-Eddie Martin<br />
Band bassist Tony Caddle have recorded<br />
their best album to date. A single lyric from<br />
this album says all you need to know about<br />
this hugely enjoyable release: “There’s a<br />
rocking party on the Delta Porch.” This is a<br />
party you don’t want to miss.<br />
– Chris Kerslake<br />
BLUES REVUE 63
When I Left Home: My Story<br />
By Buddy Guy with David Ritz – Da Capo Press<br />
This isn’t the first time Buddy Guy<br />
has hunkered down to commit<br />
his spectacular career to the<br />
printed page. In 1993, he collaborated<br />
with Donald E. Wilcock on<br />
a 1993 memoir, Damn Right, I’ve<br />
Got The Blues, which took an oral<br />
history approach that surrounded<br />
Guy’s own quotes with pertinent<br />
substantiation from various musical<br />
collaborators and personal<br />
friends. While not the ultimate<br />
Guy bio, Damn Right did a reasonable<br />
job of presenting the<br />
highlights of his career at the<br />
flashpoint of what turned out to<br />
be a truly mammoth comeback.<br />
Since then, Guy has been anointed as the contemporary king of<br />
electric Chicago blues. As such a regal status requires, he collaborated<br />
with one of the top biographers in the music field, David Ritz, on When I<br />
Left Home: My Story. Ritz co-authored the autobiographies of Ray<br />
Charles, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson, Jerry Wexler,<br />
the Neville Brothers, the compositional duo of Jerry Leiber and Mike<br />
Stoller, and quite a few more, so he brings major cachet to the project.<br />
Guy and Ritz follow a traditional biographical narrative this time,<br />
tracing Buddy’s life from his rural Louisiana upbringing, where he was<br />
exposed up close and personal to the lowdown blues of Lightnin’ Slim,<br />
through his early musical exploits in Baton Rouge with harpist Raful<br />
Neal and then his September 25, 1957 migration to Chicago. Shy by<br />
nature, the young axeman scuffled at first. Once the mighty Muddy<br />
Waters graciously took Guy under his wing, feeding the starving musician<br />
a salami sandwich outside the 708 Club and offering more nourishment<br />
in the form of much-needed encouragement, Guy’s fortunes<br />
improved in a hurry.<br />
Locating his confidence and bringing an electrifying high-energy<br />
attack to his playing in the manner of his back-home hero Guitar Slim,<br />
Guy made his 1958 recording debut for Cobra Records’ Artistic<br />
imprint. In 1960, he graduated to the Chess label, where Waters,<br />
Howlin’ Wolf, Bo Diddley, and Chuck Berry ruled the roost. Over the<br />
next seven years, Guy earned a vaunted reputation as one of the<br />
most explosive electric fretsmen in his field with a series of blistering<br />
Chess singles (his harrowing vocals were just as exciting). Eric Clapton<br />
and a gaggle of blues-rock icons on both sides of the Atlantic<br />
adopted him as a primary influence.<br />
As he always seems to do in interviews, Guy decries those<br />
seminal Chess waxings here, claiming Leonard Chess prevented him<br />
from recording the way he really wanted to: like an ear-shattering blues<br />
version of Jimi Hendrix. Since Jimi didn’t really emerge on a national<br />
scale until 1967—near the end of Guy’s zChess tenure—that criticism<br />
has limited validity at best. Buddy’s magnificent Chess recordings still<br />
stand as a primary part of his recorded legacy, along with his exquisite<br />
’68 Vanguard LP A Man And The Blues.<br />
There are some convenient omissions in the text. Guy fails<br />
to cite his longtime partner at the Checkerboard Lounge, L.C.<br />
Thurman, or the two managers that guided his comeback campaign,<br />
Marty Salzman and his successor Scott Cameron. Precious<br />
few sidemen rate a mention either. There’s little insight into many of<br />
Guy’s commercially potent recent CDs, which his legion of fans<br />
have purchased in sizable quantities and would seemingly enjoy<br />
reading about.<br />
A disconcerting number of names are misspelled, notably that of<br />
guitarist Pat Hare, whose surname somehow becomes “Hair” (an<br />
account of Hare’s violent deeds is fraught with inaccuracy). A total<br />
lack of vintage photos from Guy’s early performing days is another<br />
disappointment; apart from a striking early picture of his dad, the<br />
entire photo section consists of comparatively recent shots of Buddy-<br />
-either alone, standing next to one celebrity or another (did we really<br />
need a shot of him and Jonny Lang?), or solo shots of Muddy and<br />
John Lee Hooker that seem like padding. Damn Right boasted plenty<br />
of great ‘50s and ‘60s promo pictures of Guy; one wonders why<br />
they’re nowhere to be found this time.<br />
When I Left Home is a snappy read, as one would expect from<br />
anything with Ritz’s name on the cover. It certainly offers a more intimate<br />
and enlightening portrait of Guy’s life and times than its predecessor.<br />
Still, the expectation was for more in-depth testimony from<br />
Chicago’s highest-profile contemporary bluesman. Since it seems<br />
unlikely a third Guy memoir will be forthcoming, we’ll have to content<br />
ourselves with what’s here and let his music say the rest.<br />
– Bill Dahl<br />
Big Road Blues: 12 Bars on I-80<br />
By Mark Hummel<br />
Hop in the van. ‘Cause Mark<br />
Hummel’s going out on tour and<br />
you are invited. But it might not<br />
be quite what you expect. The<br />
perspective of a musician new to<br />
the business changes after a few<br />
tours. That’s according Hummel,<br />
a bandleader who has been on<br />
the road since the late 1970s.<br />
“It’s like breaking the fantasy<br />
of what people think life is<br />
like on the road,” he said. “A<br />
year later, they have a different<br />
take on it.” The unpredictable,<br />
tumultuous, and sometimes<br />
hilarious travails of a professional<br />
musician is detailed in<br />
Hummel’s e-book, Big Road Blues: 12 Bars On I-80,” released in<br />
August. In order to not embarrass some artists, Hummel said he<br />
changed some names in the book. But the stories are true.<br />
Hummel didn’t reveal the identity of a musician who asked to sit<br />
in with the band a few years ago during a show in Oregon. The guitarist,<br />
Hummel surmised in the chapter “Sitting In and Falling Down,”<br />
expected to be turned down. After the bandleader acquiesced, the<br />
nervous guitarist proceeded to get smashed. When he finally got his<br />
chance to play, he was so drunk he fell off the stage. By the time<br />
Hummel’s regular guitar player retrieved his instrument, which was<br />
BLUES REVUE 65
amazingly undamaged, the embarrassed guest player had<br />
disappeared. And Hummel didn’t see him again for years.<br />
Since 1991 Hummel has presented an all-star revue called<br />
“Harmonica Blowouts” all across the globe. In his book, he documents<br />
stories about famous blues stars, including fellow harp players<br />
Charlie Musselwhite, Carey Bell, Lazy Lester, Kim Wilson, Kenny<br />
Neal, Curtis Salgado, Jumpin’ Johnny Sansone, and Rick Estrin<br />
and playing with blues legends like Brownie McGee, Jimmy<br />
Rogers, Lowell Fulson, Sonny Rhodes, Cool Papa, Charles Houff,<br />
Jimmy McCracklin, and Charles Brown.<br />
“Things have changed so dramatically from the ‘70s until<br />
now,” Hummel said. “The number of pioneers of that era you can<br />
practically count them on one hand. It’s literally 10 to 15 guys. Used<br />
to be a couple hundred, at least.”<br />
Hummel is a good storyteller. Here’s how he recalled a trip<br />
down South. “One must be aware the many dangers in traveling the<br />
mean roads of Florida. You’ve got to worry about hurricanes, highway<br />
bandits who rob European tourists, alligators sleeping in<br />
ditches and, for touring harmonica players, the outdoor biker bars.”<br />
He later gets into his interaction with a volatile crankster club<br />
manager who seems more like a cartoon character than a person.<br />
In fact, after leaving some towns, Hummel thinks back and wonders<br />
if what he have gone through was real.<br />
He recalled a strange experience at a club one evening, and<br />
the next day in another town he wasn’t sure if he’d imagined the<br />
whole thing. Another time he stepped out of a movie theater and he<br />
didn’t know what city he was in or what month it was.<br />
66 BLUES REVUE<br />
“That did a number on me,” Hummel said. “That was after being<br />
about 10 months straight on the road. It was a real wake up call. I<br />
learned the importance of keeping your sanity over making a living.”<br />
Hummel describes Sisyphean life on the road transporting<br />
equipment, surviving late-night drives on icy highways, and getting<br />
club owners to live up to verbal contracts. While he doesn’t seek<br />
confrontations, Hummel has a penchant for being in them. When<br />
traveling with amiable harp man James Harman, Hummel will<br />
assume the role of the angry artist and Harman the friendly one<br />
who can charm his way to band getting paid.<br />
“The ones that stay in business are usually the ones that are<br />
the cheapest and most spendthrift,” Hummel said. “It’s just survival.<br />
‘If I’ve got to screw the band over, so be it’. And they also probably<br />
figure, ‘I am never going to have to deal with you again.’ But the<br />
thing I think a lot of them don’t realize is if you start down that road<br />
it’s going to be the end of the road for you pretty quickly. Musicians<br />
talk like mad. We’re all little gossips and that word’s going to get out<br />
on the club owner who does that.”<br />
– Tim Parsons<br />
Ernie K-Doe: The R&B Emperor Of New Orleans<br />
By Ben Sandmel – The Historic New Orleans Collection, 2012<br />
Amid talk of book publishing’s premature demise comes a<br />
handsome, impeccably researched, and visually rich series of<br />
outsized hardcover biographies of Louisiana’s treasured musical
standard-bearers that may<br />
well be the envy of larger,<br />
commercial presses. “The<br />
Louisiana Musicians Biography<br />
Series," published<br />
by the Historic New<br />
Orleans Collection, is a<br />
series of book-length<br />
biographies of key musical<br />
personalities from the<br />
Pelican State. The first two<br />
volumes are copiously<br />
illustrated hardcover publications<br />
resembling coffee<br />
table books – but with<br />
much more substance.<br />
In 2010, the first Musicians Biography publication was<br />
released, titled, Unfinished Blues: Memories Of A New Orleans<br />
Music Man, by Harold Battiste Jr. with Karen Celstan. Battiste,<br />
born in 1931, was chosen because of his work as founder of All<br />
For One Records, nominally the first black musician-owned-andoperated<br />
record label in the country. Multiple Grammy-winner<br />
Battiste produced jazz, blues, and pop artists including Sam<br />
Cooke, Dr. John, Barbara George, the Marsalis Family, and many<br />
others.<br />
The second and most recent publication examines the surreal<br />
life and times of pop singer, club owner, and resident New Orleans<br />
eccentric Ernie K-Doe (born Ernest Kador in 1936). The performer<br />
worked with New Orleans musical genius Alan Toussaint on Doe’s<br />
one stellar hit, “Mother In Law,” written and arranged by Toussaint.<br />
Ernie managed to breach both pop and R&B charts for only one<br />
time in 1961. In 1994, K-Doe and his second wife, Antoinette,<br />
opened The Mother-In-Law Lounge in New Orleans, so he would<br />
always have a place to perform. Tourists and locals flocked there<br />
regularly.<br />
Ernie K-Doe: The R&B Emperor Of New Orleans, by Ben<br />
Sandmel is a heavily researched and illustrated tribute to this<br />
quirky musician, who went from chitlin circuit club performer to<br />
brief pop stardom to briefly homeless and beloved eccentric,<br />
to self-anointed "emperor," whose musings and irrational behavior<br />
have become encoded into the social and musical DNA of<br />
New Orleans.<br />
This biography takes us into the underbelly of New Orleans<br />
music, where Doe, who ran his famous lounge like a kingdom, officiated<br />
as ruler, jester, tourist attraction, and highly quotable pop<br />
savant. Along with his second wife, the dedicated Antoinette, Doe<br />
created a world at once surreal and comforting to those who knew<br />
the couple, loved the music, and dug Ernie’s grandiose pronouncements<br />
concerning Ernie K. Doe. Antoinette’s eccentricities<br />
seemed to blossom in Ernie’s presence.<br />
The self-aggrandizing Doe was nevertheless a booster of New<br />
Orleans music. His personality and drive led him to cross paths<br />
with local legends including the Neville Brothers, Dr. John, Slim<br />
Harpo, Guitar Slim, and Professor Longhair, as well as music<br />
industry titans including Jerry Wexler, Smoky Robinson, Paul<br />
McCartney and a slew of reporters from the national press. At a<br />
Blues Foundation induction ceremony, he advised the audience of<br />
entertainers, “There have only been five [sic] great singers of<br />
rhythm and blues, Ernie K-Doe, James Brown, and Ernie K-Doe!”<br />
Doe died in 2001 from esophageal cancer. After his death,<br />
Antoinette commissioned creation of a lifelike mannequin of Doe<br />
– wig and all – with which she turned up at various New Orleans<br />
venues. She and “Ernie” routinely appeared in the local press as<br />
beloved oddities. The club – and “mannequin Ernie” lived on until<br />
Antoinette’s death in 2010.<br />
Sandmel interviewed nearly 100 musicians, pundits, and<br />
friends for this book. He is to be commended for the seamless way<br />
in which he incorporates anecdote, local and national R&B history,<br />
and pop culture and Ernie K. Doe’s life and recordings into one<br />
highly readable package. The color illustrations are fascinating.<br />
They include pictures from 20 photographers of Ernie as pop icon<br />
and in his king’s robes and crown.<br />
Also included are photographs of the couple, the mannequin,<br />
fellow musicians, reproductions of 45-RPM records,<br />
concert posters and other ephemera that merit a reading apart<br />
from the text, which they complement perfectly, documenting lost<br />
times in pre-Katrina New Orleans. Doe may not have maintained<br />
a national reputation much beyond 1961, but his life in New<br />
Orleans as a pop oracle was always a joy to the ambitious,<br />
self-referential Ernie K.<br />
A small bonus accompanying the book is a CD containing<br />
high-resolution digital images from the book, a press release, and<br />
a reproduction of a famous Ernie K. Doe postcard. Unfortunately,<br />
the CD contains none of Doe’s music, which would have been a<br />
perfect addition to this excellent book.<br />
– Michael Cala<br />
BRavo!<br />
The following are the most listened-to<br />
recordings in Blues Revue’s offices<br />
during the making of this issue:<br />
BRavo! BRavo!<br />
BEN HARPER &<br />
CHARLIE MUSSELWHITE<br />
Get Up<br />
Stax<br />
JOSH SMITH<br />
Don’t Give Up On Me<br />
CrossCut<br />
<strong>GARY</strong> <strong>CLARK</strong>, <strong>JR</strong>.<br />
Blak And Blu<br />
Warner<br />
CHRIS O’LEARY<br />
Waiting For The Phone To Ring<br />
VizzTone<br />
MIKE WHEELER<br />
Self Made Man<br />
Delmark<br />
IGOR PRADO BAND<br />
Blues & Soul Sessions<br />
Chico Blues Records<br />
JOHN NEMETH<br />
Blues Live<br />
Self-released<br />
MILTON HOPKINS<br />
& JEWEL BROWN<br />
Dialtone Records<br />
BEX MARSHALL<br />
The House Of Mercy<br />
House of Mercy Records<br />
MITCH WOODS<br />
Blues Beyond Borders<br />
Live In Istanbul<br />
Club 88 Records<br />
BLUES REVUE 67
Reissue Roundup –<br />
Compilations, Re-Releases, and Best-Ofs<br />
If Magic Sam ever gave less than 100 percent<br />
on a bandstand, the results weren’t<br />
captured on tape. The king of West Side<br />
Chicago blues guitar was typically ablaze<br />
at a July 11, 1969 club gig in Berkeley,<br />
assisted by only bass and drums; over the<br />
course of the 17 songs on RockBeat’s<br />
Live 1969 Raw Blues!, the sky-high<br />
energy level never lags. Sam alternates<br />
between his own songs and well-chosen<br />
covers, slipping in five dazzling instrumentals<br />
(his showstopper “Looking Good” is<br />
devastating). Sam’s soulful vocals shine<br />
on three B.B. King covers, his own “All<br />
Your Love,” and a piledriving revival of<br />
J.B. Lenoir’s “Mama Talk To Your Daughter.”<br />
The stereo sound quality isn’t pristine,<br />
especially on the closer “Sweet Home<br />
Chicago,” but when it comes to newly<br />
unearthed live Magic Sam, that’s easily<br />
forgivable.<br />
The Montreux Jazz Festival welcomed<br />
Etta James to its stage four times, and,<br />
judging from Eagle’s Live at Montreux<br />
1975-1993, she always lit it up. She was<br />
funky and bluesy at her Montreux debut,<br />
exploring the Staple Singers’ “Respect<br />
Yourself” and Elmore James’ “Dust My<br />
Broom,” while in 1977 she offered a medley<br />
of her torch ballad hits, including “At Last.”<br />
In ‘89, she served up a lascivious “Sugar<br />
On The Floor,” and in ‘93 (a set that’s the<br />
source of half the CD), she belted “I Just<br />
Want To Make Love To You” and her own<br />
hit “I’d Rather Go Blind.”<br />
Once he left Huey “Piano” Smith &<br />
the Clowns in New Orleans (he was their<br />
lead singer), Bobby Marchan found his<br />
way to Memphis, Nashville, and Muscle<br />
Shoals to wax splendid southern soul.<br />
Kent’s Get Down With It: The Soul Sides<br />
1963-67 is a 28-track feast of churning<br />
grooves and wildly impassioned ballads.<br />
At Stax/Volt, Booker T. & the MG’s backed<br />
Marchan on “You Won’t Do Right” and a<br />
two-part remake of Donnie Elbert’s “What<br />
Can I Do.” Marchan cut the original raveup<br />
“Get Down With It” and several more<br />
for Buddy Killen’s Dial label, then proceeded<br />
to Cameo Records, where his<br />
Shoals-cut “Shake Your Tambourine,”<br />
“Meet Me In Church,” and “Help Yourself”<br />
were utterly spectacular.<br />
68 BLUES REVUE<br />
Stax/Volt Records was blessed to<br />
have Booker T. & the MG’s as its 1960s<br />
house band; the immaculate groove makers<br />
seemed to breathe as one. When they<br />
weren’t backing the label’s early roster of<br />
stars, organist Booker T. Jones, guitarist<br />
Steve Cropper, drummer Al Jackson, Jr.,<br />
and bassist Lewis Steinberg (Duck Dunn<br />
would join later) made skin-tight Memphisstyle<br />
instrumentals. Their remarkably tight<br />
1962 debut album for Stax, Green Onions,<br />
featured the rocking minor-key smash title<br />
track along with the spine-chilling downbeat<br />
blues “Behave Yourself,” the slashing<br />
follow-up “Mo’ Onions,” and nine cool<br />
covers. Concord’s new reissue of the set<br />
closes with two live bonus cuts culled from<br />
a ‘65 show at the 5/4 Ballroom in L.A.<br />
The huge gospel-soaked pipes of<br />
soul stunner Spencer Wiggins ended up<br />
on Goldwax Records instead of Memphis<br />
rival Stax. Kent already assembled a<br />
superlative CD comp of Wiggins’ Goldwax<br />
sides; now they’ve done the same with his<br />
later catalog on Feed The Flame – The<br />
Fame And XL Recordings. All but six of its<br />
22 tracks, dating from 1969-1973, were<br />
shelved at the time, yet they’re anything<br />
but makeweight. Wiggins tears into “Holding<br />
On To A Dying Love,” a George Jackson<br />
composition, in a rendition that<br />
predates Otis Clay’s Hi label reading; his<br />
percolating “I’m At The Breaking Point” is<br />
irresistible. A cover of Etta James’ “I’d<br />
Rather Go Blind” slices deep, and the joyous<br />
Muscle Shoals-cut sing-along “Double<br />
Lovin’” (later covered by the Osmonds!)<br />
charted for Wiggins in 1970.<br />
When George Jackson cut demos at<br />
Rick Hall’s FAME Studios in Muscle<br />
Shoals, they were always good enough to<br />
Bill Dahl<br />
release but only heard by the likes of<br />
Clarence Carter, Wilson Pickett, or Candi<br />
Staton. That’s abundantly clear from the<br />
first track on Kent’s Don’t Count Me Out:<br />
The Fame Recordings Volume 1, containing<br />
24 of the Mississippian’s full-band<br />
demos dating from 1968 into the early<br />
‘70s. An expressive singer, Jackson does<br />
his “The Feeling Is Right” and “Getting The<br />
Bills (But No Merchandise)” proud (they<br />
were later done by Carter); ditto “Search<br />
Your Heart” (the only track that’s ever seen<br />
light of day before, and that only last year)<br />
and “Back In Your Arms,” both latched<br />
onto by Pickett. Jackson knew his way<br />
around the 12-bar form too – witness the<br />
loping “3-F Blues” and a grinding “Greasy<br />
Two By Four.”<br />
Based early in his career out of<br />
Miami, soul vocalist Paul Kelly’s earliest<br />
sides displayed an intriguing array of influences,<br />
including Motown. Producer Buddy<br />
Killen helped Kelly, always a standout<br />
songwriter, create a Southern soul sound<br />
of his own (he did most of his later recording<br />
in Nashville and Muscle Shoals). It’s<br />
an enormously pleasing one on Kent’s<br />
24-song Hot Runnin’ Soul – The Singles<br />
1965-71, which boasts all of Kelly’s early<br />
45s on Lloyd, Dial, Philips (“Glad To Be<br />
Sad” really cooks), and Happy Tiger,<br />
where he finally broke through in 1970 with<br />
the somewhat controversial “Stealin’ In<br />
The Name Of The Lord.”<br />
Deep-voiced Benny Spellman is perhaps<br />
best-known for his rumbling retorts on<br />
Ernie K-Doe’s 1961 smash “Mother-In-Law,”<br />
but he enjoyed his own prolific recording<br />
career in New Orleans for the Minit, Ace,<br />
Alon, and Sansu labels. Fortune Teller<br />
– A Singles Collection 1960-67 from the<br />
British Shout! Imprint is a splendid 30-song<br />
overview of Benny’s own R&B output, spotlighting<br />
the input of producer/composer/<br />
pianist Allen Toussaint as well as Benny’s<br />
own rich pipes. The title track and its flip<br />
“Lipstick Traces (On A Cigarette)” are Spellman’s<br />
best-known Minit sides, but he really<br />
didn’t make any bad ones during the ‘60s.<br />
Georgia-born singer Willie Hobbs<br />
waxed some satisfying deep soul for the<br />
Silver Fox and Seventy 7 logos that are<br />
gathered on Soulscape’s 22-song
A Penny For Your Thoughts. Hobbs’ four<br />
Silver Fox sides are scintillating in their<br />
Southern soul sparkle, while the bulk of<br />
the CD showcases Hobbs’ output for John<br />
Richbourg’s Seventy 7, including some<br />
forays into country-rooted material (Kris<br />
Kristofferson’s “Why Me” and Johnny<br />
Paycheck’s “Mr. Lovemaker”) that contrast<br />
with covers of Isaac Hayes’ “Do Your<br />
Thing” and William Bell’s title track. Hobbs<br />
deserved a higher profile than what fate<br />
had in store.<br />
LP fans are sure to rejoice over Alligator’s<br />
repressing of two of its most popular<br />
early titles on heavy 180-gram vinyl.<br />
Not only was legendary New Orleans<br />
pianist Professor Longhair’s Crawfish<br />
Fiesta by far the best album he made<br />
during his celebrated comeback era<br />
(sadly, it hit the shelves right about the<br />
same time he unexpectedly died in 1980),<br />
the set’s been augmented by a newly<br />
released rehearsal take of Percy Mayfield’s<br />
“River’s Invitation” rendered with<br />
Fess’ usual syncopated flair. Alligator<br />
picked up U.S. rights to Buddy Guy’s<br />
Stone Crazy from the French Isabel label;<br />
cut in 1979 with his rhythm section, it was<br />
one of the first times Guy was allowed to<br />
cut loose on wax with the manic, balls-out<br />
energy that’s become his byword.<br />
Bear Family’s pressing up fresh vinyl<br />
too, repressing bluesman Frank Frost’s<br />
classic ‘62 Phillips International album Hey<br />
Boss Man! on LP with a bonus instrumental,<br />
“Crawlback,” previously out as a single.<br />
Back then, his stalwart Mississippi<br />
compatriots Big Jack Johnson (on lead<br />
guitar) and drummer Sam Carr were billed<br />
as the Night Hawks. This was the last<br />
essential blues release from Sam Phillips’<br />
operation, permeated with juke joint-tested<br />
rhythms and rough-hewn vocals the way<br />
Sun had done it nearly a decade earlier<br />
during its formative years.<br />
The thundering rock and roll piano<br />
of Jerry Lee Lewis has always been an<br />
amalgam of blues and country. Hip-O<br />
Select gathers Jerry Lee’s first four concert<br />
LPs onto a three-CD The Killer Live!<br />
1964-1970, adding a treasure trove of<br />
outtakes to sweeten the deal. “Live” At<br />
The Star Club, Hamburg has been cited<br />
as the wildest live rock and roll album<br />
ever made, Jerry Lee blasting through a<br />
non-stop set with the Nashville Teens<br />
somehow keeping up. Just as exciting<br />
was The Greatest Live Show On Earth,<br />
another ‘64 album done with Lewis’ own<br />
band in Birmingham, Alabama (its ‘66<br />
sequel was no slouch either). 1970’s<br />
Live At The International, Las Vegas<br />
reflected his transition to C&W stardom,<br />
so its repertoire leaned in that direction<br />
yet there was room for “Flip, Flop, And<br />
Fly” and an unreleased “Stagger Lee.”<br />
Before the advent of Texas bluesand-boogie<br />
stalwarts ZZ Top, guitarist<br />
Billy Gibbons fronted a tough band that<br />
got less notice but kicked out some<br />
mean blues-influenced rock. Rock Beat’s<br />
Moving Sidewalks – The Complete<br />
Collection is a neat two-CD box containing<br />
their only album released at the time,<br />
a psychedelic 1968 affair, on one disc and<br />
a slammin’ collection of singles, several of<br />
them mean Lone Star garage rock, on<br />
the other, including their Wand singles<br />
“99th Floor” and “Need Me” and five 1966<br />
rarities by Gibbons’ previous group, the<br />
Coachmen.<br />
BLUES REVUE 69
DON ODELL’S LEGENDS<br />
Check out your favorite bands at my Legends channel on YouTube at<br />
www.youtube.com/user/dodell590. Filmed and Recorded sets by Joe<br />
Louis Walker, Ana Popovic, Nick Moss, Jimmy Thackery, Moreland<br />
& Arbuckle, Albert Cummings, Royal Southern Brotherhood, and<br />
others. Professional bands touring through Western Massachusetts<br />
should contact me via e-mail at dono590@comcast.net.<br />
FESTIVAL<br />
CONSULTANT<br />
YOU want to start a festival?<br />
YOU need help with your<br />
existing festival?<br />
CONTACT:<br />
Paul E. Benjamin<br />
70 Lake Ave<br />
Rockland, Me 04841<br />
phone: (207) 596-6055<br />
email: bluesman@midcoast.com<br />
~ 20 YEARS EXPERIENCE ~<br />
Voted the promoter of the year 2002<br />
by the Blues Foundation<br />
55 Al Basile<br />
4 Alligator Records<br />
33 Ben Prestage<br />
29 Blue Bell Records<br />
53 Blues Foundation<br />
70 Bluezzee Tees<br />
69 Bob Margolin<br />
70 Brad Vickers<br />
26 Cadillac Pete<br />
57 Catfood Records<br />
23 Cathead Delta<br />
2 Chris O’Leary<br />
21, 41 Concord Music<br />
47 Delta Groove Records<br />
70 BLUES REVUE<br />
E-mail your classified text to advertise@bluesrevue.com<br />
A D V E R T I S E R<br />
I N D E X<br />
TO ADVERTISE, CALL TOLL FREE 888-565-0554<br />
54 Dennis Gruenling<br />
48 Diane Russell<br />
70 Don Odell<br />
66 Doug Deming<br />
26 Douglas Watson<br />
49 Ellersoul Records<br />
COVER Hamilton Loomis<br />
38 Jack de Keyzer<br />
COVER Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise<br />
60 Mark Robinson<br />
69 Mary 4 Music<br />
42 Mississippi Heat<br />
5 Mitch Woods<br />
70 Paul Benjamin<br />
50 Ray Fuller Band<br />
SEAN COSTELLO FUND<br />
FOR BIPOLAR RESEARCH<br />
Tax deductible donations can be made to the fund at the website<br />
www.seancostellofund.org or through the Fund’s Facebook page.<br />
The Fund’s mission is to increase research for treatment of Bipolar<br />
Disorder, to develop and support education for early diagnosis and<br />
intervention, and to provide resources for affected families.<br />
Statement of Ownership<br />
As required by the United States Postal Standards, below is the<br />
Statement of Ownership, Management, and Circulation of Blues<br />
Revue, ISSN 1091-7543. USPS 1091-7543. Blues Revue is published six<br />
times a year with a $35.00 annual subscription price.<br />
The known office of publication and general business offices<br />
are located at 1001 11th Avenue West, Bradenton, FL 34205. Publisher,<br />
Charles Eagle, managing editor, Art Tipaldi, P.O. Box 8906, Longboat<br />
Key, FL 34228.<br />
Blues Revue is owned by Visionation, Ltd. and licensed for<br />
publication by MojoWax Media, Inc. whose president and chief<br />
executive officer is John Sullivan, P.O. Box 8906, Longboat Key, FL<br />
34228. Known bondholders, mortgagees, and other security<br />
holders: NONE.<br />
The average number of copies of each issue during the preceding<br />
12 months are: (A) Total Number of Copies Printed: 20,000; (B1)<br />
Mailed Outside-County Paid Subscriptions Stated on PS Form 3541:<br />
11,500; (B2) Mailed In-County Paid Subscriptions Stated on PS Form<br />
3541: 0; (B3) Paid Distribution Outside the Mails Including Sales<br />
Through Dealers and Carriers, Street Vendors, Counter Sales, and<br />
Other Paid Distribution Outside USPS: 7500; (B4) Paid Distribution by<br />
Other Classes Mailed Through the USPS: 0 (C) Total Paid Circulation:<br />
19,500; (D1) Free or Nominal Rate Outside-County Copies Included on<br />
PS Form 3541: 0; (D2) Free or Nominal Rate In-County Copies Included<br />
on PS Form 3541: 0; (D3) Free or Nominal Rate Copies Mailed at Other<br />
Classes Through the USPS: 0; (D4) Free or Nominal Rate Distribution<br />
Outside the Mail (Carriers or Other Means): 500; (E) Total Free or<br />
Nominal Rate Distribution: 500; (F) Total Distribution: 20,000;(G) Copies<br />
not Distributed: 0; (H) Total: 20,000; Percent Paid: 98%.<br />
The actual number of copies of single issue nearest to filing date<br />
(Oct/Nov Issue) are: Total Number of Copies Printed: 20,000; (B1)<br />
Mailed Outside-County Paid Subscriptions Stated on PS Form 3541:<br />
11,515; (B2) Mailed In-County Paid Subscriptions Stated on PS Form<br />
3541: 0;(B3) Paid Distribution Outside the Mails Including Sales<br />
Through Dealers and Carriers, Street Vendors, Counter Sales, and<br />
Other Paid Distribution Outside USPS: 7245; (B4) Paid Distribution by<br />
Other Classes Mailed Through the USPS: 790 (C) Total Paid Circulation:<br />
19550; (D1) Free or Nominal Rate Outside-County Copies Included on<br />
PS Form 3541: 0; (D2) Free or Nominal Rate In-County Copies Included<br />
on PS Form 3541: 0; (D3) Free or Nominal Rate Copies Mailed at Other<br />
Classes Through the USPS: 0; (D4) Free or Nominal Rate Distribution<br />
Outside the Mail (Carriers or Other Means): 450; (E) Total Free or<br />
Nominal Rate Distribution: 450; (F) Total Distribution: 20,000; (G) Copies<br />
not Distributed: 0; (H) Total: 20,000; (I) Percent Paid: 98%.<br />
I certify that the statements above are correct and complete.<br />
Signed: John Sullivan, Licensee: MojoWax Media, Inc.<br />
60 Reverend Freakchild<br />
64 Ribfest<br />
57 Roger “Hurricane” Wilson<br />
18, 59 Ruf Records<br />
70 Sean Costello Research Fund<br />
24 Shining Stone<br />
COVER Sin City Soul And Blues Revival<br />
27 Springing The Blues Festival<br />
71 Tampa Bay Blues Festival<br />
63 Tinsley Ellis<br />
48 Tweed Funk<br />
17 VizzTone<br />
18 Western Maryland Blues Festival<br />
70 Zeroglide
BIG JOE TURNER – NEW YORK CITY – 1983 © JOSEPH A. ROSEN<br />
JIMMIE VAUGHAN & RONNIE EARL – CONNECTICUT – 1983 © JOSEPH A. ROSEN<br />
VINTAGE<br />
Blues Revue has asked our veteran photographers to share some of their<br />
favorite vintage photos of blues legends. We know that our readers will<br />
appreciate these images as they are genuine moments in music history.<br />
Look for more in upcoming issues.