Bman's Blues Report

 I just had the opportunity to review the most recent release, Fine By Me, from Curtis Salgado and it's a great mix or rock, pop R&B and blues. Opening with country rocker, My Girl Is A Nut, with Salgado on vocal and harmonica, Alan Hager on guitar, Keith Brush on bass and Jimi Bott on drums. Chugging rhythm on Better Things To Lie About has a great feel, reinforced by Joe McCarthy on trumpet, Lars Campbell on trombone, and Tim Bryson on sax and features super vocal and harmonica by Salgado. One of my favorite tracks on the release is I'm Gonna Forget About You featuring vocal duet with Salgado and Robert Cray. Jim Pugh on piano and B3 gives the track depth and Jerry Jemmott on bass and Kid Andersen joining Cray on guitar really adds the spice. Hear The Lonely Hearts is a terrific soul track featuring Salgado on lead vocal backed by The Sons of Soul Revivers (James Morgan, Walter Morgan and Dwayne Morgan) on harmonizing vocals. With Rome Yamilov on guitar and Kid Andersen o...

I just had the opportunity to review the most recent release, Get Here Quick , by The Texas Horns and it's smokin'! Opening with Guitar Town , a real Texas style blues, cooked up with  Anson Funderburgh and Johnny Moeller on guitars and Gary Forsyth on lead vocals. Kaz Kazanoff on tenor, John Mills on bari and Al Gomez on trumpet and this track is hot. With a bit of New Orleans flavor, Instrumental, Feelin' No Pain is all horns to the floor with excellent piano work by Red Young, bass by Russell Jackson and Tommy Taylor on drums. Mills lays out and excellent sax solo and Moeller shows why he is regarded as one of the top bluesmen in Texas today. Title track, Better Get Here Quick is another instrumental with rich tandem sax lead and excellent guitar accents by Moeller. Gomez steps up with some crisp lead work of his own and Youngs takes a nice few bars of his own. Very cool. An excellent New Orleans style instrumental, 2018 , has a super march style snare lead by John ...

I just had the opportunity to review the most recent release, Something New , from Michael Kaeshammer, and recorded at historic Esplanade Studios in the heart of New Orleans' Treme district, it has a definite NO flair. Opening with Scenic Route , Kaeshammer blends a rockin pop melody with great New Orleans style and hot piano riffs for a super opener with twists and turns. Backed by George Porter Jr. on bass, and the hard work of Johnny Vidacovich on drums, this track is a super opener. Pushing the horn section (William Sperandei on trumpet, Chris Gale on sax, William Carn on trombone) forward on Do You Believe , featuring Curtis Salgado on vocal and Matt Perrine really belting out the sousaphone lines with authority over a really snappy drum rhythm. Very cool. I particularly like the vocal and piano exchange on She's Gone over Vidacovish's spot on drum work and guest Whurlitzer work by Chuck Leavell. A soulful track with great drums... very nice. Who Are You is anot...

Driving home from work the other day I heard a song called “I Want My Dog To Live Longer” on the Bluesville channel on Sirius XM. It was done by Curtis Salgado & Alan Hager . I know Curtis and have seen him play a number of times but I did not know Alan who is a guitarist from Portland, OR where Curtis lives also. These two have played together off and on for quite a number of years. So now that Alan is the guitarist for Curtis’ road band I guess they figured the time was right. So it’s here and it’s called Rough Cut . Based on that one track I had to check it out. Once I heard it I had to tell Bman how much I liked it and he asked me to review it. The album starts off with a very John Lee Hooker sounding track entitled “ I Will Not Surrender .” This is a very personal blues written by Salgado. You can almost feel him fighting death as he sings. He’s survived liver cancer, lung cancer (twice), addiction, and quadruple bypass surgery. So he knows about not surrend...

FIVE ALLIGATOR ARTISTS RECEIVE ELEVEN BLUES MUSIC AWARD NOMINATIONS Toronzo Cannon Leads With Four, Followed By Curtis Salgado With Three Lil' Ed Williams Receives Two Award Nominations Shemekia Copeland and Moreland & Arbuckle Receive One Nomination Each On Monday, January 9, 2017, The Blues Foundation announced the nominees for the 38th Annual Blues Music Awards, the blues world's highest honors. Five Alligator recording artists received a total of eleven nominations. Chicago bluesman Toronzo Cannon received four nominations, including Album Of The Year and Contemporary Blues Album Of The Year for his Alligator debut, The Chicago Way . He was also nominated for Song Of The Year (for Walk It Off ) and Contemporary Blues Male Artist Of The Year. Cannon has one previous nomination. Soul and R&B singer Curtis Salgado received three nominations including Soul Blues Album Of The Year (for The Beautiful Lowdown ) and Song Of The Year (for Walk A Mi...

  FIVE ALLIGATOR ARTISTS NOMINATED FOR EIGHT BLUES BLAST MUSIC AWARDS Blues Blast, the internet blues magazine, has announced the nominees for its 2016 Blues Blast Music Awards. Five Alligator Records artists received a total of eight nominations. Shemekia Copeland, Curtis Salgado and Toronzo Cannon each received two nominations. Lil' Ed & The Blues Imperials and Tommy Castro & The Painkillers each received one. Voting is free and open to the public at www.bluesblastmagazine.com beginning July 1 and running through August 15. Winners will be announced at the 2016 Blues Blast Music Awards ceremony, held at The Fluid Events Center in Champaign, Illinois on September 23rd, 2016. Alligator nominees are as follows: SHEMEKIA COPELAND : Contemporary Blues Album - for Outskirts Of Love Female Blues Artist CURTIS SALGADO: ...