Bman's Blues Report

Born in Syracuse NY at a relatively young age, T.A. James is a blues guitarist/bassist with a 20+ year career. In ’90, he joined premier Salt City blues outfit, The Kingsnakes as guitarist, which traveled the East Coast and as far west as Mississippi. In ’95, James got the call to do a weekend of Canadian dates on bass with the late great Chicago blues harp legend Carey Bell, which turned into an 8 year association. This version of Carey’s band toured much of the US, Europe and Japan. In addition, he was a successful freelance guitarist/bassist in the Syracuse blues scene and elsewhere between ’92 and ’04. Durham NC became James' home in ’05. Since ’07, he has been performing primarily as bassist with the red hot Zydeco-Cajun flavored blues quartet Mel Melton & The Wicked Mojos. When not performing with the ‘Mojos, James does freelance work with other NC blues standouts such as Tad Walters and Pat “Mother Blues” Cohen, as well as performing as a solo. As a solo, he recently com...

Uncle Grub handles the vocals with Max Drake and Rusty Barkley on Guitar. MAX DRAKE has been playing in and recording with blues/R&B bands such as Arhoolie, The Excellos and the Ministers of Sinister since the '60s. More recently, he has lent his fiery fretwork to the late Skeeter Brandon and Big Bill Morganfield before joining forces with The Wicked Mojos in 2005. Max also performs with a stripped-down nasty blues/roots band known as The Buzzkillz  Photo is used with permission of Doug Mokaren   If you like what I’m doing, Like Bman’s Blues Report Facebook Page! I’m looking for great talent and trying to grow the audience for your favorites band! -  ”LIKE”

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to Mel Melton & The Wicked Mojos, a smokin' Zydeco/Cajun flavored blues band out of North Carolina. For those not in the know, let's meet the guys up close and... MEL MELTON, on what was intended to be a brief visit to Lafayette LA in the early '70s turned out to be a life-changing experience. There he met, played with and forged lasting relationships with Sonny Landreth and Cheniers Clifton, Cleveland and CJ. After a long stint with Bayou Rhythm, Mel took time off from the music rat-race to concentrate on a chef career (another facet developed and sharpened from the early Lafayette days). 1990 found him back in NC and back at music, having formed the first edition of The Wicked Mojos. If you like what I’m doing, Like Bman’s Blues Report Facebook Page! I’m looking for great talent and trying to grow the audience for your favorites band! -  ”LIKE”

Blues musicians Larry Johnson (b. May 15, 1938 in Atlanta, Georgia) and Nat Riddles made a couple of records in the 80’s; Johnson (guitar, vocals) with Riddles (bluesharp, vocals). Nat Riddles (4 February 1952 — 11 August 1991) was a blues harmonica player who played an important role in the New York blues scene during the late 1970s to mid 1980s. Born in Bronxville, a Westchester County suburb of New York, he was educated at Brooklyn College and the Pratt Institute. In the early 1980s, he became known in New York blues circles for his street performances with guitarist Charlie Hilbert as part of a free-form duo that he labeled 'El Cafe Street.' Riddles performed with Larry Johnson and Odetta as well as Hilbert. He recorded several albums with Johnson (one produced by Len Kunstadt for Spivey Records, one produced by Horst Lippmann) and a solo album on Spivey entitled The Artistry of Nat Riddles. He also contributed several cuts to a Spivey series of LPs entitled New York Reall...

P.O Box 9737 Greensboro, NC 27429 www.piedmontblues.org Contact: John Amberg 336-580-8153 jamberg@mindspring.com FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE YES! WEEKLY PRESENTS THE 26TH ANNUAL CAROLINA BLUES FESTIVAL 26TH Year Brings Major National, Regional and Local Blues Artists to Greensboro The Piedmont Blues Preservation Society has secured an all-star line-up of three national, one regional and two local blues acts to perform at the 26th Annual Carolina Blues Festival, presented by YES! Weekly, under the big tent at Festival Park in Downtown Greensboro, May 19. Headlining the festival is Smokin’ Joe Kubek and Bnois King, two raucous, high–energy Texas roadhouse bluesmen that perform blistering solos, irresistible shuffles and subtle ballads. Also appearing is Eric Gales, a guitar phenom and dazzling soulful technician. Even though you might have seen him playing at the Hendrix Experience held recently at the War Memorial Auditorium in March this left-handed virtuoso with the upsidedown guitar is cer...

We remember and celebrate the life of the recently deceased Louisiana Red with a beautiful photo page. Red was a gloriously talented down-home blues artist and his musical contributions will live through eternity. Thanks to all the folks who sent in photos of Red upon the news of his passing. Some of those are included on this page, which you can see by clicking here . If you like what I’m doing, Like Bman’s Blues Report Facebook Page! I’m looking for great talent and trying to grow the audience for your favorites band! -  ”LIKE”

Tail Dragger & Bob Corritore collaborated on the powerful album Longtime Friends In The Blues which was just released last week on the Delta Groove label. With promotion just started 2 weeks ago this CD has been met with an initial wave of positive reaction. To see the first 15 glowing reviews of this CD click here . To see the Roots Radio Report for this week which debuts this CD at #17 click here . The CD has been listed in the the "Top 50 Breakthrough Recordings" in the Antiquarian Librarian which lists all musical genres! To see this listing click here . Tail Dragger and Bob will headline the Stompin' At The Savoy festival in Helsinki, Finland on April 14th . To see the beautiful poster for the festival click here . There will be an official CD release party on Thursday, June 7 at B.L.U.E.S. on Halsted in Chicago which BTW is the day before the Chicago Blues Festival . Features on Tail Dragger will appear in upcoming issues of Living Bl...

On March 20 Severn Records released the first national release by Mud Morganfield , the eldest son of Muddy Waters . This release is called Son Of The Seventh Son and it has already received about 20 rave reviews which you can read by clicking here . A CD release party is planned for Saturday night, March 31st at Buddy Guy's Legends with an opening set by Eddie Taylor, Jr. before Mud and band take the stage! Mud Morganfield 's band that night will consist of Rick Kreher , Barrelhouse Chuck , Kenny "Beedy Eyes" Smith , E.G. McDaniel , Harmonica Hinds and Bob Corritore plus guest appearances by Katherine Davis and Deitra plus a few surprises! Copies of Son Of The Seventh Son will be available that night. Buddy Guy's Legends is located at 700 S. Wabash, Chicago, IL 60605 . Also Mud and the band will make a live televised appearance Friday morning, March 30 on Chicago's WGN and this broadcast is available throughout the USA. If you like wha...

Grammy Award-winning harmonica virtuoso Sugar Blue is not your typical bluesman... Born James Whiting - he was raised in Harlem, New York, where his mother was a singer and dancer at the fabled Apollo Theatre. He spent his childhood among the musicians and show people who knew his mother, including the great Billie Holiday, and decided that he wanted to be a performer. Blue received his first harmonica from his aunt, and proceeded to hone his chops by wailing along with Bob Dylan and Stevie Wonder songs on the radio, he was soon to be influenced by the jazz greats such as Dexter Gordon and Lester Young. Sugar Blue has used this background to his advantage, though, creating an ultra-modern blues style and sound that is instantly recognizable as his own. Blue began his career as a street musician and made his first recordings in 1975 with legendary blues figures Brownie McGhee and Roosevelt Sykes . The following year, he contributed to recordings by Victoria Spivey and Johnny Shines be...

Cortelia Clark (c. 1907, Chicago, Illinois, United States – December 24, 1969, Nashville, Tennessee) was an African American blues singer and guitarist, known for his performances on the streets of Nashville. He won a Grammy for Best Folk Recording in 1967, for the album Blues In The Street, his only recording Clark lost his sight after an operation in the mid-1950s, and began playing and singing blues songs on street corners in Nashville. He also sold shopping bags, on 5th Avenue between Church and Union Streets, among other locations. Around 1964, Mike Weesner, a student at Peabody College, made a demo tape of Clark at Globe Studio. This came to the attention of Bob Ferguson and Chet Atkins of RCA Nashville. Felton Jarvis, Elvis Presley's producer, was enlisted to produce the album. In December 1965, Weesner and Jarvis persuaded RCA to record Clark on the sidewalk, complete with prominently featured (but overdubbed) street noises and interactions with city dwellers. Clark perform...

Alabama barrelhouse blues pianist Robert McCoy (born Aliceville 1908) had two rare LPs in the early Õ60s on the Vulcan label. Delmark has acquired the masters and is now re-issuing the material on CD for the first time with many previously unissued tracks. accompanying Guitar Slim, "Jaybird" Coleman and Peanut The Kidnapper. "Stomping piano solos and blues vocals played with ... vitality and authority. McCoy sets a happy and boozey pre-depression mood that is fun to share with him." - San Francisco Examiner. Bye Bye Baby contains more than an hour of pure blues piano delight! If you like what I’m doing, Like Bman’s Blues Report Facebook Page! I’m looking for great talent and trying to grow the audience for your favorites band! -  ”LIKE”

Lowell Fulson (March 31, 1921 – March 7, 1999) was a big-voiced blues guitarist and songwriter, in the West Coast blues tradition. Fulson was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He also recorded for business reasons as Lowell Fullsom and Lowell Fulsom. After T-Bone Walker, Fulson was the most important figure in West Coast blues in the 1940s and 1950s According to some sources, Fulson was born on a Choctaw reservation in Oklahoma. Fulson stated that he was of Cherokee ancestry through his father, but he also claimed Choctaw ancestry. At the age of eighteen, he moved to Ada, Oklahoma, and joined Alger "Texas" Alexander for a few months in 1940, but later moved to California, forming a band which soon included a young Ray Charles and tenor saxophone player, Stanley Turrentine. He recorded for Swing Time Records in the 1940s, Chess Records (on the Checker label) in the 1950s, Kent Records in the 1960s, and Rounder Records (Bullseye) in the 1970s. Fulson was drafted in 1943, but left the Un...

Big Maceo Merriweather (March 31, 1905 – February 23, 1953) was an American Chicago blues pianist and singer, active in Chicago in the 1940s. Born Major Merriweather (or Merewether) in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, he was a self-taught pianist. In the 1920s he moved to Detroit, Michigan and began playing parties and clubs. In 1941, a desire to record led him to Chicago where he met and befriended Tampa Red. Red introduced him to Lester Melrose of Bluebird Records, who signed him to a recording contract. His first record was "Worried Life Blues" (1941), which promptly became a blues hit and remained his signature piece. Other classic piano blues recordings such as "Chicago Breakdown", "Texas Stomp", and "Detroit Jump" followed. His piano style developed from players like Leroy Carr and Roosevelt Sykes, as well as from the Boogie-woogie style of Meade Lux Lewis and Albert Ammons. He in turn influenced other musicians like Henry Gray, who credits...

Etta Baker (March 31, 1913 – September 23, 2006) was an American Piedmont blues guitarist and singer from North Carolina. She was born Etta Lucille Reid in Caldwell County, North Carolina, of African American, Native American, and European American heritage. She played both the 6-string and 12-string forms of the acoustic guitar, as well as the five-string banjo. Baker played the Piedmont Blues for ninety years, starting at the age of three when she could not even hold the guitar properly. She was taught by her father, Boone Reid, who was also a long time player of the Piedmont Blues on several instruments. Etta Baker was first recorded in the summer of 1956 when she and her father happened across folk singer Paul Clayton while visiting Cone Mansion in Blowing Rock, North Carolina, near their home in Morganton, NC. Baker's father asked Clayton to listen to his daughter playing her signature "One Dime Blues". Clayton was impressed and arrived at the Baker house with his ta...

Richard "Rip Lee" Pryor currently resides in Carbondale Illinois. Since 1994 he has been playing Harmonica, fronting a variety of bands and now plays in the region for countless fans. If you like what I’m doing, Like Bman’s Blues Report Facebook Page! I’m looking for great talent and trying to grow the audience for your favorites band! -  ”LIKE”

John Lyons is a passionate, soulful American Blues / R&B musician curently living in Zürich, Switzerland. The John Lyons Band is guaranteed to get you moving. Sometimes rocking out, sometimes soulful and soft, always dynamic with a killer groove that leaves nobody standing still! Born in Kalamazoo, Michigan USA 1969. Raised as a farm boy on a fruit farm near Glenn Michigan, John picked up the electric guitar at age 12 and never put it down since! All self taught, a natural musician's ear, early influences were 60's and 70's rock like Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendirx, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Pink Floyd, and Aerosmith but also a big heap of Detroit soul & funk, Motown& Chicago Blues. As John explored music as a teenager, his tastes changed to harder rock and early electro/rap styles, by artists from ZZ Top to Motley Crüe, to Iron Maiden to Afrika Bambatta or Sugar Hill Gang. In the early 90's when most of the young people were listening to Nirvana, John had already...

"Dave Widow and the Lineup do an amazing job channeling the authenticity of blues, covering influential legends like Taj Mahal and T-Bone Walker without compromising their own style...Widow's guitar playing oozes with emotion and his raspy vocals hit notes with a bonafide bluesy tone. Dave Widow and the Lineup deserve a spot on the "1000 Bands To See Before You Die" list." MUSIC CONNECTION House Of Blues Foundation Room - Wednesday, April 4th> (WEST HOLLYWOOD) - No stranger to SoCal music enthusiasts, Dave Widow is getting his long-overdue recognition in the notoriously-competitive music business. To wit: A recent sparkling review in highly-respected Music Connection Magazine - "If you are looking for a good time and great music, search no further than Widow and his band," writes MC reviewer Allegra Azzopardi. "Their masterful musicianship and deep understanding of the blues is a major ...

Charles LoBue was one of the fathers of the custom electric guitar business. Charles came to the industry after taking classes from Michael Gurian, first working in and around the guitar repair business in NYC in the mid 60's. Charles' interest in the business began by doing basic repairs on factory made guitars. These were primarily made by Gibson and Fender, the "Gold Standard" for electric guitars, as well as any guitar including acoustics which came through the door. As a professional player in the U.S. in the 60's, Gibson and Fender were the most likely choices if you wanted an electric guitar. It is well known that the Brits used European made guitars as well, primarily due to their accessibility. By the mid late 60's both companies had been sold to larger corporations which were not primarily in the guitar business. The basic perception even today is that the guitars made by these companies during this period were inferior in quality and also l...

A contemporary redesign of the traditional Martin OM that is heavily influenced by the elegance and beauty of the classical guitar. I build with a strong emphasis on clarity, note separation, and balance but not at the expense of tonal complexity and warmth. The response is lively and vibrant with excellent volume and projection. This design is versatile and can accommodate a wide variety of playing styles from melodic fingerstyle to heavy strumming. If you like what I’m doing, Like ---Bman’s Blues Report--- Facebook Page! I’m looking for great talent and trying to grow the audience for your favorites band! -  ”LIKE”

JC Brooks and the Uptown Sound are releasing the second single from their 2011 album Want More. “Sister Ray Charles” is a bouncy organ-led singalong that will its own music video in the next couple weeks. The band is currently touring across the US. Here's a free "Download" If you like what I’m doing, Like ---Bman’s Blues Report--- Facebook Page! I’m looking for great talent and trying to grow the audience for your favorites band! -  ”LIKE”

The tune combines the Waco Brothers’ Chicago blue-collar country via punk rock stomps, with Paul Burch’s Nashville stylized approach to traditional country. The collaborative group release Great Chicago Fire on Bloodshot Records on 4/24. Stay tuned for further coverage! Here's the free "Download" If you like what I’m doing, Like ---Bman’s Blues Report--- Facebook Page! I’m looking for great talent and trying to grow the audience for your favorites band! - ”LIKE”

I just received the newest release. Family and Friends from Michael John and the Bottom Line . This cd doesn't even give you a chance to get a breath before it's holding your head under water. The first track, Mo Shuffle , is really smoldering. This is a cooker with Mikey Mo Basowski kickin' in on some serious guitar work and having Eddie Z (Zelaznik) honkin' in behind him with a great tenor solo. This song doesn't slow down from end to end and is just a terrific track. My Baby's Smokin' starts off with a great sax intro and leads into a cool R&B style song with Michael J on vocals and harp, more cool guitar riffs from Mikey Mo. I don't mean to not mention the balance of this tight band: Chuck Lee Basowski (bass),Tom T-Bone Broderick (Drums and percussion), and special guests David B Kelly on Keys, Alan Mirikitani (guitar) and Jordan Clover on Organ. Lovin' You Is A Sin has a Latin beat and gives each player a chance to show his stuff. Strong M...

IT’S ALL JAMS ON DECK FOR BLUES FANS WITH FREE COPIES AVAILABLE OF ACCLAIMED FILMMAKER ROBERT MUGGE’S NEW DVD SHOT ONBOARD THE LEGENDARY RHYTHM & BLUES CRUISE ATLANTA , GA - All Jams on Deck , the new 96-minute documentary by famed music filmmaker Robert Mugge ( http://www.robertmugge.com ) is now available on DVD for the enjoyment of blues fans everywhere. Produced by Mugge and his partner Diana Zelman, executive produced by CEO Roger Naber of Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise, LLC ( http://bluescruise.com/ ), and shot/recorded entirely on Naber's October 2010 Blues Cruise to the Mexican Riviera, this Mug-Shot Production is the first film ever to focus on the art form of blues jamming. It also happens to be nominated for Best DVD in the Blues Foundation's 2012 Blues Music Awards competition, with the winner to be announced at the 33rd Blues Music Awards ceremony in Memphis on May 10th. All Jams on Deck was premiered on the October 2010 and Jan...