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I started a quest to find terrific blues music and incredible musicianship when I was just a little kid. I also have a tremendous appreciation of fine musical instruments and equipment. One of my greatest joys all of my life was sharing my finds with my friends. I'm now publishing my journey. I hope that you come along!


Please email me at Info@Bmansbluesreport.com

Friday, August 15, 2014

Music Maker Blues Revue at Lincoln Center




Music Maker Blues Revue's packed show at Lincoln Center Out Of Doors last Sunday as part of Americana Fest NYC.



Beverly "Guitar" Watkins, Ironing Board Sam, Dom Flemons, Albert White, and company rocked the joint and earned a standing ovation!

Roller Records artist: Berdon Kirksaether - Latenighters Under A Full Moon - New Release review

I just received the newest release, Latenighters Under A Full Moon, from Berdon Kirksaether and it's really quite interesting. Opening with Go Cat Go, blues fusion track with a walking bass line and organ bottom setting the stage for cool guitar improvization by Kirksaether. Very Nice! The band is a mix of musicianship from Kirksaether joined by Stein Tumert, Per Eriksen, Olaf Olsen, Finn Tore Tokle and Leo Volskiy. Cool Cats On The Move has a very ethereal feel with a snappy drum rhythm and bass ride overlayed with guitar harmonics, bent arpeggio's and cool effects. Conrad's Bar Bounty is a straight up 12 bar with solid lead guitar soloing over B3, drums and bass. The B3 work on the track is actually quite cool and blends nicely with Kirksaether. Rendezvous has a Latin rhythm and a simple pop melody played on electric guitar. Smooth and cleanly articulated. Jumping The Night Away is another straight 12 bar number finding Kirksaether soloing over a simple rhythm guitar, bass and drum line. Midnight Haze has a little bit of the feel of WAR and it's ghetto beat but with more complex guitar feel. Kirksaether twists and bends notes creating an interesting weave of guitar sounds for an experimental pop jazz number that is quite successful. Another One Going Down has a real somber feel like Wes Montgomery. A quiet track with light handed guitar experimentation. Layered guitar lines and organ basics make this a smooth but tightly meshed jazz number with blues overtones. Pitstop By The River is pure guitar improv with an electronic rhythm pattern and layering of guitar solos and riffs. It's actually quite interesting with blending of Knopler like riffs, sonic guitar riffs and loose sax soloing. Walk And Your Feet Will Follow has a wallking bass line and keys creating a basis for melodic guitar lead. A nice piano solo on this track gives it a clean jazz feel. Title track, Latenighters Under A Full Moon has a juxtaposition of grinding blues fusion riffs over a quiet jazz bottom. A mind fetching and suitable conclusion to a cool experimental release.

  If you support live Blues acts, up and coming Blues talents and want to learn more about Blues news and Fathers of the Blues, Like ---Bman’s Blues Report--- Facebook Page! I’m looking for great talent and trying to grow the audience for your favorites band! ”LIKE”

Although not from this release, a taste of Kirksaether's music:



Thursday, August 14, 2014

Soars High Productions artist: JP Soars - Full Moon Night In Memphis - New Release review

I just received the newest release, Full Moon Night in Memphis, from JP Soars and it's a blast. Opening with title track, Full Moon Night in Memphis, Soars leads the way with his raspy voice and melodic slide work, accompanied by Chris Peet on drums and Todd Edmunds on drums. Brandon Santini adds significantly with some hot harp riffs as well. Back To Broke is a funky track with rap like vocals. Mark "Muggy Doo" Leach adds a nice B3 edge and Soars clean picks a pretty nice solo. Makes No Sense is a really smooth slower blues with sumptuous chords and clean bluesy riffs. A really nice T-Bone Walker like approach to this track makes it stand tall with any of Soars earlier work. Somethin' Ain't Right has a strong blues rock feel reminding me of Mountain. Raul Hernandez adds some cool percussion to this track giving it a different texture. Soars really attacks the electric guitar on this with some real sting. Where's the cowbell? Very nice! Mean Old World has a Latin beat and cool simple chords supporting Soars on vocal. Lower octave guitar soloing and a light Spanish touch makes this track really shine. Savin' All My Lovin' is a nice loping shuffle and features Steve Laudicina on 2nd guitar. Nice Texas style blues riffs smoke this track and leave you wanting more. Classic, Reefer Man is really hopping and fleet fingered guitar soloing is really hot. Chaim Rubinov (Trumpet) adds nice top and Scott Ankrom (sax) and Soars each step up with hot solos making this one of the best tracks on the release. Way Back Home has a real gritty feel with Soars on cigar box and slide. This is bound to be one of the release favorites with hot licks like this! The Back Room is a R&B style track Leach on B3 and Soars ripping rock solid blues style riffs. Thorn In My Side is a straight up blues rocker, Detroit style, with unusual slide riffs over a clean blues rock beat. Another classic, Viper, is really well done. Soars vocals are perfectly suited for this track and Ankrom with a super solo on clarinet and Chaim Rubinov's solo on trumpet along with the strong bass work from Peet give this track a real period feeling. Really cool Django like gypsy guitar work from Soars ices the cake. The Road Has Got Me Down crosses over to country. Joined by Teresa James on vocals and Santini on harp, Soars plays it up and also adds a nice tinge of pedal steel. Cool! My favorite track on the release, Spanish style Lil' Mamacita really crosses the border into Latin style with real salsa. Smoking hot guitar riffs and all of the percussion you could possibly want from Hernandez makes this a track that's hard not to love! Wrapping the release is swing style track, Missin' Your Kissin', a real driver. Soars plays as hot a guitar solo as you'd dream and Terry Hanck joining on tenor sax literally blows the top off! Excellent!  

If you support live Blues acts, up and coming Blues talents and want to learn more about Blues news and Fathers of the Blues, Like ---Bman’s Blues Report--- Facebook Page! I’m looking for great talent and trying to grow the audience for your favorites band! ”LIKE”

 

New Marcia Ball Album Set For September 23 Release

MARCIA BALL SET TO RELEASE THE TATTOOED LADY AND THE ALLIGATOR MAN ON SEPTEMBER 23

http://mailman.305spin.com/users/alligator/images/4964rgb.jpg
Award-winning pianist/vocalist/songwriter Marcia Ball will release her new Alligator Records CD, The Tattooed Lady And The Alligator Man, on September 23, 2014. The Texas-born, Louisiana-raised Ball has earned worldwide fame for her ability to ignite a full-scale roadhouse rhythm and blues party every time she strolls onto the stage. Her groove-laden New Orleans boogie, deeply soulful ballads and rollicking Gulf Coast blues have made her a one-of-a-kind favorite with music fans all over the world.

On The Tattooed Lady And The Alligator Man, Ball draws listeners deep into her music with instantly memorable melodies and imaginative imagery. Her songs paint vibrant musical pictures, richly detailed with characters, flavors and scenes straight out of Louisiana and Texas. With raucous horns punctuating Ball’s legendary piano pounding and emotional, melodic vocals, the new CD mixes Ball's New Orleans R&B, swampy Louisiana ballads, and jumping, Tex-Mex flavored zydeco into a one-of-a-kind musical gumbo, a sound she has been perfecting over the course of her four-decade career.
From the poignant Just Keep Holding On to the fresh start of Clean My House to the surprising and timely The Squeeze Is On to the southern warmth of Human Kindness, Ball has delivered a set of songs so well written and so well performed, she’ll astound and delight her longtime fans and give newcomers plenty of reasons to join the party. Featuring her stellar, road-tested touring band, with help from friends Delbert McClinton and Terrance Simien and production by Grammy-winner Tom Hambridge (Buddy Guy, Joe Louis Walker, James Cotton, Susan Tedeschi), The Tattooed Lady And The Alligator Man is happy, moving, joyful, stirring, thought-provoking, danceable and fun.

After a 1978 solo LP for Capitol and a successful series of releases on Rounder, Ball joined the Alligator Records family in 2001 with the release of the critically acclaimed Presumed Innocent. The CD took home the 2002 Blues Music Award for Blues Album Of The Year. 2004’s So Many Rivers, 2005’s Live! Down The Road, 2008’s Peace, Love & BBQ and 2010’s Roadside Attractions all received Grammy Award nominations as well as critical and popular acclaim. In 2010, Ball was inducted into the Gulf Coast Music Hall Of Fame and in 2012 into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame. She’s received a total of seven Living Blues Awards and nine Blues Music Awards (and has earned a whopping 42 nominations).
The New York Times says, “Marcia Ball plays two-fisted New Orleans barrelhouse piano and sings in a husky, knowing voice about all the trouble men and women can get into on the way to a good time.” Living Blues declares, “Her originals sound like timeless classics and southern soul masterpieces that no one else can imitate.” Of the new album, Ball says, “I don’t make a record until I have something to say, stories to tell, messages to impart. I try to make records that are true to me,” she continues, “and this one couldn’t be truer.”

Welcome to the world of kettles | eno: The Jake Leg Chronicles out on October 21



 




Welcome to the world of kettles | eno: The Jake Leg Chronicles

CD Out on October 21

Songs, tunes, odes and anthems are abound on debut release



Atlanta, GA - Welcome to The Jake Leg Chronicles: a mixed-up world of chaos, filled with love, misery, justice and sometimes bad luck; all set to music. The songwriting duo of Steed Kettles and Jeff Eno combine their talents to create a collection of songs that are potent with lyrical imagery and strong in musical hooks. The Jake Leg Chronicles will be released on October 21st on Indian Proud Entertainment with national distribution through Burnside Distribution.

The CD was recorded and mastered at Meaner Studios located in Smyrna, GA with Rick Willaford producing, engineering and mastering, Rick even managed to cut a drum track here and a vocal track there. His hands are all over this CD.

The Jake Leg Chronicles took 8 months to compile due to competing schedules. But, despite the time lapse, the songs maintained a continuity that served as the perfect bed for the primarily southern gothic, wild-eyed tales.

Songs like, “Blood Brothers” to the haunting “I’m Coming Home”, shows the depth and range of the characters that kettles | eno deliver. The labyrinths of tawdry characters find redemption in the end with the song “We Believe.” This uplifting song ends the CD because you always have to say a prayer for the next day.

Take a listen to the song:

Steed and Jeff were lucky enough to get, some of Atlanta’s finest musicians. Atlanta guitar legend, Jim Lavender, who was a founding member of the seminal roots band, The Cigar Store Indians and childhood friend of Steed’s, gives the music an undeniable edge with his guitar work. Liberty Jones’ guitar man, Mike Duckworth offers up some nifty finger style work on “Blood Brothers”, while vocalist Karin Johnson, plays the part of Emmylou Harris on the cd’s only cover, “Song For You”, a Gram Parson’s classic. She changes it up a bit to sound more Stax than country. Dave James, of Boy Howdy fame, who is equally adept on piano and B-3 organ, always seemed to know which instrument fit in the right hole.
David Smith, who is a jack of all trades, rose to the occasion of spreading his musical abilities to more than anyone could ask for on drums, bass and guitar.

Steed and Jeff met in a band called, Skin n Bones (mid 90’s) that would become the first call for various venues around the Atlanta club scene to open up for the classic rock bands during the early 1990s. After the band broke up, Jeff formed Warped Groove, a jam band. Conversely, Steed formed Liberty Jones which received national attention. Soon after Liberty Jones was formed, they received a spec deal to track the record as band management sought a Nashville major label.

Shortly into those sessions, it was apparent that the songs chosen required a strong, resonant voice like Jeff’s. So, Steed asked Jeff to come aboard which Jeff quickly accepted. With Jeff now on board, the band decided their sound lent themselves for the Americana genre.

In 2007, Liberty released their final record, title, Atlanta, Georgia. This record got worldwide press and radio airplay.

After a couple of years relaxing, Steed (deep rooted in folk or country filled with imagery or emotion,) Jeff (a deep understanding of pop and roots rock,) Decided to step back in the studio one more time. This time it was going to songs primarily from Steed’s catalogue and recorded the way they’ve always heard the material.

The result, The Jake Leg Chronicles, is an 11-song disc that approaches Americana with a pop influence.

From the Cabbagetown bio-op,Poor White Trash” to the “Hey!” in “I’m Coming Home” to the bitterness of a break up on “Sticks and Stones” to a Sunday morning prayer of “We Believe”; the songs come from years of southern living, not pies and sweet tea, but social and cultural discomfort. Always being thought of backwards, racist, and poor which is the opposite of what most of us are. “We are a unique group”, says Steed, “always wanting everyone to be what the Bible says, love one another like Jesus does, in the daytime, anyhow. When the sun goes down it’s pretty much a free-for-all. That’s why a lot of great art comes from down here. The eternal struggle with good and evil inside the soul makes for a good muse.”

As the title of the CD was arising, a theme began to develop with varied characters and imagery that led up to the chosen moniker, The Jake Leg Chronicles. So what is Jake Leg? The title came from the prohibition-era south, when a couple of bootleggers named Harry Gross and Max Reisman searched for an alternative adulterant to sell as alcohol. They asked an MIT professor (who did not realize they intended internal consumption) for advice.  They settled on a ginger extract (TOCP), nicknamed, “Jake.” Originally thought to be harmless, TOCP, turns out, is a neurotoxin. Thereby, drinking TOCP affected the nervous system, leaving them with a funny walk. The old, southern slang reflects the mood of many of the lyrics in The Jake Leg Chronicles.

First impressions are everything but making them last is hard work, kettles| eno is not trying to reinvent the wheel only trying to enhance the ride. From the artwork to the musicians, to the voices this one that is sure to turn heads and twist some ankles.



kettles | eno – The Jake Leg Chronicles October 21, 2014

T-Bone Walker Blues Fest September 12-13 Longview, Texas Announces Line-Up


9th Annual T-Bone Walker Blues Fest
September 12-13, 2014 * Longview, Texas

Legendary guitarist Jimmie Vaughan, along with blues vocalist Lou Ann Barton, will head
a power-packed musical lineup for the 9th annual T-Bone Walker Blues Fest. The two day
event features the Wells Fargo Advisors indoor stage with reserved seating, plus the
Patterson Nissan outdoor general admission stage. Performances begin at 4:00pm on Friday
and 12 Noon on Saturday. Tickets are available on the festival website.
Jimmie Vaughan
& the Tilt-a-Whirl Band
with Lou Ann Barton
Saturday 10:45pm - 12:00am
Wells Fargo Advisors Stage
Rick Derringer 
Friday 11:00pm - 12:00am
Wells Fargo Advisors Stage
Saturday 9:15pm - 10:30pm
Wells Fargo Advisors Stage
Eric Gales Trio
Friday 9:45pm - 10:45pm
Wells Fargo Advisors Stage
Saturday 11:00pm - 12:00am
Patterson Nissan Stage
Tony Joe White 
Saturday 7:45pm - 9:00pm
Wells Fargo Advisors Stage
Lurrie Bell
Chicago Blues Band
Friday 8:00pm - 9:15pm
Wells Fargo Advisors Stage
Saturday 6:00pm - 7:00pm
Patterson Nissan Stage
Eddie "The Chief" Clearwater
Saturday 7:15pm - 8:15pm
Patterson Nissan Stage
Texas Flood 
Friday 10:45pm - 12:00am
Patterson Nissan Stage
Anson Funderburgh
& The Rockets
Saturday 4:00pm - 5:00pm
Wells Fargo Advisors Stage
Saturday 9:45pm - 10:45pm
Patterson Nissan Stage
Cool John Ferguson 
Friday 5:30pm - 6:30pm
Wells Fargo Advisors Stage
Saturday 2:45pm - 3:45pm
Wells Fargo Advisors Stage
Trudy Lynn with Steve Krase 
Saturday 12:15pm - 1:30pm
Wells Fargo Advisors Stage
Chris Cain Band 
Friday 9:15pm - 10:30pm
Patterson Nissan Stage
Saturday 8:30pm - 9:30pm
Patterson Nissan Stage
Kenny "Blues Boss" Wayne
Friday 6:45pm - 7:45pm
Wells Fargo Advisors Stage
Saturday 5:15pm - 6:15pm
Wells Fargo Advisors Stage
The Peterson Brothers Band 
Saturday 4:45pm - 5:45pm
Patterson Nissan Stage
The Alan Fox Band
Saturday 3:30pm - 4:30pm
Patterson Nissan Stage
Jimmy Wallace
& the Stratoblasters
Saturday 6:30 pm - 7:30 pm
Wells Fargo Advisors Stage
John McVey & The Stumble
Friday 6:45pm - 7:45pm
Patterson Nissan Stage
Sponsored in part by:


Tickets to the Wells Fargo Advisors Indoor Reserved Seating are available for purchase online.
Click the link below to be see the various ticket packages available.

Tickets for the Patterson Nissan Outdoor Stage General Admission will be sold at the gate only,
the day of the event only.

 

tbonewalkerbluesfest.com





Copyright 2014 by T-Bone Walker Blues Fest, Inc. a 5013c Non-profi t corporation.