Bman's Blues Report

  I almost can't believe that I am writing this but I guess each of us ends up there at some point. I have likely seen Jeff Beck more times in concert than any other band, local or international.  Beck, who has been considered likely the greatest "rock" guitar player of all time died in his home yesterday from Bacterial meningitis. I'm totally dumbfounded. He just came through town a month or so ago. The average rock listener would think that Jeff has a good ear and picked up a lot of things like the talk box from Peter Frampton (the opposite) or tapping from Eddie Van Halen (again opposite) because Beck never wanted to be a star. He liked to tinker. He had abstract thoughts that he would try out. Others would say that's cool and make a career of his little ideas. This is a guy who never wanted fame or fortune. Just wanted enough money to toy with his hotrods and play a few riffs...and to have fun.  Goodbye Mr Beck

 DR John, the flamboyant New Orleans singer-pianist whose hoodoo-drenched music made him the summarizing figure of the grand Crescent City R&B/rock ‘n’ roll tradition, died Thursday of a heart attack at age 77. “Towards the break of day June 6, iconic music legend Malcolm John Rebennack, Jr., known as Dr. John , passed away of a heart attack,” a statement on his social media pages said. “The family thanks all whom shared his unique musical journey & requests privacy at this time. Memorial arrangements will be announced in due course.” Rebennack had already tallied more than a decade of experience as a session musician in his hometown and Los Angeles when he rose to solo fame in the late ‘60s after concocting his voodoo-influenced, patois-laced persona of “the Night Tripper.” In their history of postwar New Orleans music “Up From the Cradle of Jazz,” Jason Berry, Jonathan Foose and Tad Jones wrote richly of the artist they called “a true original The writers de...

  JODY WILLIAMS: FEBRUARY 3, 1935 - DECEMBER 1, 2018 photo by Dan Machnik Famed Chicago blues guitarist/vocalist and Blues Hall Of Fame member Jody Williams, who recorded with legends including Howlin’ Wolf, Otis Spann and his childhood friend Bo Diddley, as well as under his own name, died of cancer at the Munster Med Inn in Munster, Indiana on December 1, 2018. He lived in nearby St. John, Indiana. He was 83. One of the last and most accomplished practitioners of the golden 1950s era of Chicago blues, Williams was well-known for his instantly recognizable stinging guitar tone, a keen vibrato and a sensibility that straddled the turf between gutbucket blues, sophisticated jazzy West Coast stylings and even vintage rockabilly, along with solid vocals and thoughtful songwriting. His often-replicated guitar parts were crucial to some of the most iconic songs of the genre, including on Bo Diddley’s Who Do You Love and I’m Bad , Howlin’ Wolf’s E...

BLUES LEGEND EDDY CLEARWATER: JANUARY 10, 1935 - JUNE 1, 2018 Grammy-nominated Chicago blues legend Eddy “The Chief” Clearwater died of heart failure on Friday, June 1, in his hometown of Skokie, Illinois. He was 83. Born Edward Harrington on January 10, 1935 in Macon, Mississippi, Clearwater (as he came to be known) was internationally lauded for his blues-rocking guitar playing, his original songs and his flamboyant showmanship. He was inducted into the Blues Hall Of Fame in 2016, and also won two Blues Music Awards including Contemporary Male Blues Artist Of The Year in 2001. Clearwater was equally comfortable playing the deepest, most intense blues or his own brand of rocking, good-time party music – a style he called “rock-a-blues,” mixing blues, rock, rockabilly, country and gospel. Between his slashing guitar work and his room-filling vocals, Clearwater was among the very finest practitioners of the West Side style of Chicago blues. DownBeat...

Tom Petty, the American rocker who fronted one of the country’s longest-running, most successful bands, is dead at 66, according to his longtime manager. Petty had suffered cardiac arrest at his Malibu home early Monday morning “and was taken to UCLA Medical center but could not be revived,” Tony Dimitriades, longtime manager of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, said in a statement on behalf of the musician’s family. “He died peacefully at 8:40pm PT surrounded by family, his bandmates and friends.” The news came hours after TMZ first reported that Petty was found unconscious in full cardiac arrest at his Malibu home. CBS News later reported his death, but the outlet walked back that report as the Los Angeles Police Department issued a statement that it had no information on Petty’s passing. “Initial information was inadvertantly [sic] provided to some media sources,” the police department posted on Twitter. “However, the LAPD has no investigative role in this matter. We apologiz...

Walter Becker, the guitarist and bassist for the popular rock band Steely Dan, died Sunday. He was 67. News of Becker's death was confirmed by a tribute post on his official website, though no cause of death was given. Becker was forced to bow out of two Steely Dan performances earlier this month after undergoing an unidentified "procedure," according to bandmate Donald Fagen. Fagen released a heartfelt statement on the passing of his longtime collaborator, praising Becker's skills as a musician and his killer sense of humor. "Walter Becker was my friend, my writing partner and my bandmate since we met as students at Bard College in 1967," Fagen wrote. "Walter had a very rough childhood — I'll spare you the details. Luckily, he was smart as a whip, an excellent guitarist and a great songwriter. He was cynical about human nature, including his own, and hysterically funny. Like a lot of kids from...

John Warren Geils Jr., the founding guitarist behind the ’70s and ’80s rock powerhouse J. Geils Band, died at his longtime home in Massachusetts on Tuesday. He was 71. Donald Palma Jr., the chief of police in Groton, Mass., confirmed Geils’ death on Tuesday night, saying in a press release that an early investigation suggested Geils died of “natural causes” and that “foul play is not suspected at this time.” Geils founded his eponymous band in 1967, when he attended the Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts. The band -- with singer Peter Wolf -- was known for its deft, bluesy guitar work. After touring with the Byrds and the Allman Brothers, the band achieved its breakout success in the ’70s and early ’80s with the release of hit singles like “Must of Got Lost,” “Give It to Me” and “Love Stinks.” “We were a rock, blues, R&B, rootsy band until we developed our own sound," Wolf told The Times in 1994. "[I]t's always cool to rediscover the masters li...

Grammy-nominated Chicago blues icon Lonnie Brooks, whose music Rolling Stone called, "witty, soulful and ferociously energetic...simply astonishing guitar work," died on Saturday, April 1, 2017 in Chicago, according to his son, Ronnie Baker Brooks. He was 83. Guitar Player described him as “...like a fire-and-brimstone preacher, testifying the blues from the bottom of his soul.” With his "booming, gritty vocals and fierce six-string firepower” ( Chicago Tribune ), Brooks created an instantly recognizable signature sound. It combined Chicago blues, rock ‘n’ roll, Memphis soul, swampy Louisiana grooves and country twang into a style that his fellow musicians called "voodoo blues." He was inducted into the Port Arthur Historical Society Hall Of Fame in 2001 and the Blues Hall Of Fame in 2010. On June 12, 2012 Mayor Rahm Emanuel declared Lonnie Brooks Day in Chicago. Lonnie Brooks was born Lee Baker, Jr. on December 18, 1933. Over the course ...

Rock 'n' roll icon and musical master Chuck Berry died Saturday at his home west of St. Louis, Missouri, authorities confirmed. He was 90. The guitarist and musican defined the art form's joy and rebellion in such classics as "Johnny B. Goode," ''Sweet Little Sixteen" and "Roll Over Beethoven" in a career that spanned 7 decades and earned him countless accolades. Emergency personnel summoned to Berry's residence by his caretaker about 12:40 p.m. found him unresponsive, police in Missouri's St. Charles County said in a statement. Attempts to revive Berry failed, and he was pronounced shortly before 1:30 p.m., police said. A police spokeswoman, Val Joyner, said she had no additional details about the death of Berry, calling him  "really a legend." Berry's core repertoire was some three dozen songs, his influence incalculable, from the Beatles and the Rolling Stones to virtually any group from garage band to arena ...

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — James Cotton, a Grammy Award-winning blues harmonica master whose full-throated sound backed such blues legends as Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy Williamson II and Howlin' Wolf, has died at age 81. A statement from Alligator Records, Cotton's label, says he died Thursday of pneumonia at St. David's Medical Center in Austin. The Mississippi Delta native performed professionally since age 9. Cotton backed Muddy Waters in his landmark album "At Newport" on Chess Records. After going solo in the 1960s, Cotton released almost 30 albums, including his 1996 Grammy Award-winning Verve album, "Deep In The Blues." His most recent album, "Cotton Mouth Man" for Alligator Records in 2013, was nominated for a Grammy. James Henry Cotton (July 1, 1935 – March 16, 2017) was an American blues harmonica player, singer and songwriter, who performed and recorded with many of the great blues artists of his time and with his own band. ...

NEW YORK – Legendary guitarist Larry Coryell died on Sunday, February 19 in New York City. Coryell, 73, passed away in his sleep at his hotel from natural causes. He’d performed his last two shows on Friday and Saturday, February 17 and 18, at the Iridium in New York City. As one of the pioneers of jazz-rock -- perhaps the pioneer in the ears of some (he’s known to many as the Godfather of Fusion) -- Larry Coryell deserves a special place in the history books. He brought what amounted to a nearly alien sensibility to jazz electric guitar playing in the 1960s, a hard-edged, cutting tone, phrasing and note-bending that owed as much to blues, rock and even country as it did to earlier, smoother bop influences. Yet as a true eclectic, armed with a brilliant technique, he was comfortable in almost every style, covering almost every base from the most decibel-heavy, distortion-laden electric work to the most delicate, soothing, intricate lines on acoustic guitar. Born in Galveston, Te...

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Allman Brothers drummer Butch Trucks killed himself in front of his wife, police reports released Wednesday show. The 69-year-old Trucks shot himself in the head Jan. 27 at his home, the West Palm Beach police reports show. 'My husband just shot himself! My husband just shot himself!,' the wife of Allman Brothers Band drummer Butch Trucks screams into the phone seconds after what sounds like a gunshot. DailyMail.com has obtained from police the audio of the 911 call that Melinda Trucks, the legendary drummer's wife of more than 25 years, placed January. 24 when the rocker took his own life in his waterfront condo in West Palm Beach, Fla. The heavily edited recording -- police stripped all identifying words from the original -- starts with a loud noise believed to be the moment Trucks pulled the trigger on the pistol he held to his head as Melinda lets out blood-curdling screams. 'Allo, allo, my husband just shot himself,' M...