Golden "Big" Wheeler

Golden "Big" Wheeler (December 15, 1929 – July 20, 1998) was an American Chicago blues and electric blues singer, harmonicist and songwriter. He released two albums in his lifetime, and is best known for his recordings of the songs "Damn Good Mojo" and "Bone Orchard". He worked with the Ice Cream Men and Jimmy Johnson, and was the brother of fellow blues musician, James Wheeler He was born Golden Wheeler in Baconton, Georgia. Wheeler left Georgia in 1941 and settled in Chicago, Illinois, in July 1954, where he befriended Little Walter. His enthusiasm for playing the harmonica began when he was working as a taxicab driver. One of his regular customers was the harmonica player Buster Brown, who later went on to have a hit record with "Fannie Mae" in 1960. Wheeler fronted his own band by 1956, although he was a part-time musician, having to work for years as a auto mechanic to help raise his family. In 1993, Wheeler released his first album, Bone Orchard, where he was backed by a local outfit, the Ice Cream Men. Released by Delmark Records (Delmark 661), it recreated a 1950s feel with a double guitar and drum backing, with no bass guitar. The Ice Cream Men comprised Johnny Burgin and Dave Waldman (guitars), plus Steve Cushing (drums). The album was produced by Robert G. Koester. His next issue was Jump In (1997), where his backing included a fuller sound incorporating his brother, James Wheeler, on guitar. As well as the Wheeler brothers, other musicians utilised on the album were Baldhead Pete (drums), Allen Batts (piano) and Bob Stroger (bass), with Koester again producing the overall set. Golden "Big" Wheeler died of heart failure in Chicago in July 1998, at the age of 68. 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 favorite band!

Tore My Heart - Barry Darnell and the Mobile Slim Band

Mobile Slim was born to a boogie-woogie ivory-tickling mother and a construction-working harmonica-playing father in the segregated Southern gulf coast: Mobile, Bay St. Louis, and New Orleans. He eventually moved to Georgia, where he played juke joints and honky tonks all over the Southeast, and sang for spare change on the streets of Underground Atlanta. Ever the rolling stone, he spent several years in Mississippi, where Jesus strummed a funky chord in his soul and inspired Mobile Slim to become a minister of the Lord. He preached in many churches throughout the area, and meanwhile wrote a newspaper column and became active in the Civil Rights movement. But Mobile Slim was still restless. He returned to the blues rhythm he had found in Georgia, this time to Macon, where he continued to make music and live out his groove. Things were pretty mellow, until Mobile Slim suddenly vanished after playing a gig downtown. Some people close to him reported that a few months before his disappearance he became very moody and secretive. He would be gone all night and return at ungodly hours in the morning. No one knew where he went during this time. He had been known to hang with some pretty cool cats at Wild Bean Recording Studio, and one day, a mysterious unlabeled tape was found there, and it was put on the stereo. First there was nothing, and then out came a blast of the funkiest rhythm and blues anyone could ever dream of, a six-course serving of soul food for the soul. They knew immediately what it was: the last known recording of Mobile Slim. 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 favorite band!

You May Be Fast But Mamma's Gonna Slow You Down - Lucille Hegamin

Lucille Nelson Hegamin (November 29, 1894 – March 1, 1970) was an American singer and entertainer, and a pioneer African American blues recording artist. Hegamin was born as Lucille Nelson in Macon, Georgia, United States. From an early age she sang in local church choirs. By the age of 15 she was touring the US South with the Leonard Harper Minstrel Stock Company. In 1914 she settled in Chicago, Illinois, where, often billed as "The Georgia Peach", she worked with Tony Jackson and Jelly Roll Morton before marrying pianist, Bill Hegamin. She later told a biographer: "I was a cabaret artist in those days, and never had to play theatres, and I sang everything from blues to popular songs, in a jazz style. I think I can say without bragging that I made the "St. Louis Blues" popular in Chicago; this was one of my feature numbers." Lucille Hegamin's stylistic influences included Annette Hanshaw and Ruth Etting. The Hegamins moved to Los Angeles, California in 1918, then to New York City the following year. Bill Hegamin led his wife's accompanying band, called the Blue Flame Syncopators; Jimmy Wade was a member of this ensemble. In November 1920, Hegamin became the second African American blues singer to record, after Mamie Smith. Hegamin made a series of recordings for the Arto record label through 1922, then a few sides for Black Swan, Lincoln, Paramount and Columbia. From 1922 through late 1926 she recorded for Cameo Records; from this association she was billed as 'The Cameo Girl'. Like Mamie Smith, Hegamin sang in a lighter, more pop-tune influenced style than the rougher rural-style blues singers such as Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith who became more popular a few years later. Two of her earliest recordings, "The Jazz Me Blues" and "Arkansas Blues" became classic tunes. On January 20, 1922, she competed in a blues singing contest against Daisy Martin, Alice Leslie Carter and Trixie Smith at the Fifteenth Infantry's First Band Concert and Dance in New York City. Hegamin placed second to Smith in the contest, which was held at the Manhattan Casino. In 1926, Hegamin performed in Clarence Williams' Review at the Lincoln Theater in New York, then in various reviews in New York and Atlantic City, New Jersey through 1934. In 1929 she appeared on the radio show "Negro Achievement Hour" on WABC, New York. In 1932 she recorded for Okeh Records. About 1934 she retired from music as a profession, and worked as a nurse. She came out of retirement to make more records in 1961 and 1962. Lucille Hegamin died in Harlem Hospital in New York on March 1, 1970, and was interred in the Cemetery of the Evergreens in Brooklyn, New York 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”

"He's So Wonderful"- Sallie Martin & Refreshing Springs COGIC

Sallie Martin (November 20, 1895 -June 18, 1988) was a gospel singer nicknamed "the mother of gospel music" for her efforts to popularize the songs of Thomas A. Dorsey and her influence on other artists. Raised as a Baptist in Pittfield, Georgia, she joined the Pentecostal movement as a young woman. She began her career singing in Holiness churches after coming to Chicago in 1927. Martin's rough-hewn singing style, combined with the enthusiastic physicality of the Holiness church, nearly kept her from working with Dorsey, who looked down on the shouting style of many Holiness singers and was reluctant to hire a singer who could not read music. Martin nonetheless persuaded Dorsey, after three auditions, to hire her as part of a trio he had formed to introduce his songs to churches. She proved to be an able organizer with a shrewd financial sense who marketed Dorsey's songs, organized his finances, developed new avenues for business and helped launch the National Convention of Gospel Choirs and Choruses, Inc. Martin was a successful artist in her own right, forming the Sallie Martin Singers, in which her daughter Cora Martin, Dinah Washington, then known as Ruth Jones, and Brother Joe May were featured, in 1940 after a dispute with Dorsey. She started her own publishing house, Martin and Morris Music, Inc., with Kenneth Morris (8/28/1917-1988), Gospel music publisher, arranger, composer, and innovator, was born in New York. Although he began making music in church as a youngster, he commenced his professional career as a jazz musician. In high school, and later while studying at the Manhattan Conservatory of Music, the ever changing Kenneth Morris Band was often billed at hotels, restaurants, and lounges. He and others of his band traveled to the "Chicago World's Fair" in 1934 to perform dance music for the day and evening concerts. Because of the heavy schedule, Morris became ill, and was forced to leave the band. However, he decided to stay in Chicago, and there met members of the Gospel music community. Among them were Lillian Bowles and Charles Pace. He spent six years with Lillian Bowles Music House. In 1940, Morris partnered with Sallie Martin to form Martin and Morris Music Company and together they were responsible for publishing a number of gospel standards, including "Just a Closer Walk With Thee" (1940). Martin retired from the Sallie Martin Singers in the mid-1950s as the strain of touring grew too great; the group continued on the road for several more decades. She remained an active force in the NDGCC even after she went out on her own and was a vocal supporter of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and of health programs in Nigeria. She remained a vigorous proponent of gospel music and defender of her role in bringing it to the churches, as her appearance in the 1980 movie "Say Amen Somebody" illustrates vividly. 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”

Graveyard Dream Blues - Ida Cox, Lovie Austin

Ida Cox (February 25, 1896 – November 10, 1967) was an African American singer and vaudeville performer, best known for her blues performances and recordings. She was billed as "The Uncrowned Queen of the Blues" Cox was born in February, 1896 as Ida Prather in Toccoa, Habersham County, Georgia, United States (Toccoa was in Habersham County, not yet Stephens County at the time), the daughter of Lamax and Susie (Knight) Prather, and grew up in Cedartown, Georgia, singing in the local African Methodist Church choir. She left home to tour with traveling minstrel shows, often appearing in blackface into the 1910s; she married fellow minstrel performer Adler Cox. By 1920, she was appearing as a headline act at the 81 Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia; another headliner at that time was Jelly Roll Morton. After the success of Mamie Smith's pioneering 1920 recording of "Crazy Blues", record labels realized there was a demand for recordings of race music. The classic female blues era had begun, and would extend through the 1920s. From 1923 through to 1929, Cox made numerous recordings for Paramount Records, and headlined touring companies, sometimes billed as the "Sepia Mae West", continuing into the 1930s.During the 1920s, she also managed Ida Cox and Her Raisin' Cain Company, her own vaudeville troupe. At some point in her career, she played alongside Ibrahim Khalil, a Native American and one of the several jazz musicians of that era who belonged from the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. In the early 1930s "Baby Earl Palmer" entered show business as a tap dancer in Cox's Darktown Scandals Review. In 1939 she appeared at Café Society Downtown, in New York's Greenwich Village, and participated in the historic Carnegie Hall concert, From Spirituals to Swing. That year, she also resumed her recording career with a series of sessions for Vocalion Records and, in 1940, Okeh Records, with groups that at various times included guitarist Charlie Christian, trumpeters Hot Lips Page and Henry "Red" Allen, trombonist J. C. Higginbotham, and Lionel Hampton. She had spent several years in retirement by 1960, when record producer Chris Albertson persuaded her to make one final recording, an album for Riverside titled Blues For Rampart Street. Her accompanying group comprised Roy Eldridge, Coleman Hawkins, pianist Sammy Price, bassist Milt Hinton, and drummer Jo Jones. The album featured her revisiting songs from her old repertoire, including "Wild Women Don't Have the Blues", which found a new audience, including such singers as Nancy Harrow and Barbara Dane, who recorded their own versions. Cox referred to the album as her "final statement," and, indeed, it was. She returned to live with her daughter in Knoxville, Tennessee, where she died of cancer in 1967 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!

If Dreams Were Money - Michael Allman

Michael Allman - Biography Michael Allman is the eldest son of Southern Rock Legend Gregg Allman. That doesn't mean that his musical path has been paved with gold. Born in Daytona Beach, Florida, he led the “Michael Allman Band” throughout most of the 1990's before he traded it in for the serenity of domestic life. It was during this period that he faced his greatest obstacle, testicular cancer in 2002. After a full recovery, Michael decided to give music another attempt and in mid 2007 began singing and writing again. In 2008 he started recording his debut CD. During that year he kept busy while working on his CD, by making over 100 guest appearances with many different bands and musicians from coast to coast. In January 2009 he formed the “Allman-Tyler Band” w/ guitarist Tony Tyler. After the Spring 2009 ATB tour, he went back to work on his debut CD. In the Fall of 2009, he completed and released “Michael Allman’s Hard Labor Creek” on his own All-Skinn Music Group label. With an almost ghostly likeness to his father, his world-weary voice and sheer power of the music seeps into your soul and you realize this is the real thing. Allman is planning a Spring 2010 U.S. Tour to support the CD with songs like “Circus Full of Clowns”, “If Dreams Were Money” and the unique “ Mule Named Whiskey” that will make everyone, young and old want to dance. 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!

The Twelves - KOKOMO ARNOLD

Kokomo Arnold (February 15, 1901 – November 8, 1968) was an American blues musician. Born as James Arnold in Lovejoy's Station, Georgia, he got his nickname in 1934 after releasing "Old Original Kokomo Blues" for the Decca label; it was a cover of the Scrapper Blackwell blues song about the city of Kokomo, Indiana. A left-handed slide guitarist, his intense slide style of playing and rapid-fire vocal style set him apart from his contemporaries. Having learned the basics of the guitar from his cousin, John Wiggs, Arnold began playing in the early 1920s as a sideline while he worked as a farmhand in Buffalo, New York, and as a steelworker in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 1929 he moved to Chicago and set up a bootlegging business, an activity he continued throughout Prohibition. In 1930 Arnold moved south briefly, and made his first recordings, "Rainy Night Blues" and "Paddlin' Madeline Blues", under the name Gitfiddle Jim for the Victor label in Memphis. He soon moved back to Chicago, although he was forced to make a living as a musician after Prohibition ended in 1933. Kansas Joe McCoy heard him and introduced him to Mayo Williams who was producing records for Decca. From his first recording for Decca on September 10, 1934, until his last on May 12, 1938, Arnold made 88 sides, seven of which remain lost. Arnold, Peetie Wheatstraw and Bumble Bee Slim were dominant figures in Chicago blues circles of that time. Peetie Wheatstraw & Arnold in particular were also major influences upon musical contemporary seminal delta blues artist Robert Johnson and thus modern music as a whole. Johnson turned "Old Original Kokomo Blues" into "Sweet Home Chicago", "Milk Cow Blues" into "Milkcow's Calf Blues", while another Arnold song, "Sagefield Woman Blues", introduced the terminology "dust my broom", which Johnson used as a song title himself. Arnold's "Milk Cow Blues" was covered by Elvis Presley (as "Milk Cow Blues Boogie") at the Sun Studios produced by Sam Phillips and was issued as one of his early singles, it was later performed by Tyler Hilton who played Elvis in the 2005 film Walk the Line. Aerosmith covered "Milk Cow Blues" on their 1977 album Draw the Line, In the eighties, a version appeared in Spanish by Marco T y los Gatos Montañeros.Dead Moon covered it on their 1990 album Defiance, George Strait on his 1991 album Chill of an Early Fall and Willie Nelson on the 2000 album Milk Cow Blues. In 1938 Arnold left the music industry and began to work in a Chicago factory. Rediscovered by blues researchers in 1962, he showed no enthusiasm for returning to music to take advantage of the new explosion of interest in the blues among young white audiences. He died of a heart attack in Chicago, aged 67, in 1968, and was buried in the Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, Illinois 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!

LIVE THE LIFE - Billy Wright

Billy Wright (May 21, 1932 – October 28, 1991) was an American jump blues singer. Billy Wright was born in Atlanta, Georgia. Throughout his career, he was known as the "Prince of the Blues." He was a key figure in Atlanta blues after World War II and had a major influence on rock and roll pioneer Little Richard, whom he helped get his first recording contract. He recorded his last recordings in 1959. He continued to do shows around Atlanta until he suffered a stroke, and then died of a pulmonary embolism, just before his 1991 Halloween Show at the Royal Peacock in Atlanta. 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!

Black Eye Blues - Gertrude 'Ma' Rainey

Styled as the "Mother of the Blues," Gertrude Pridgett Rainey, better known as "Ma" Rainey, was one of the most important of the early blues singers. In her thirty-five years of touring and recordings she made with Paramount, the Georgia native did much to establish the "classic" blues in American musical life. She played a central role in connecting the less polished, male-dominated country blues and the smoother,female-centered urban blues of the 1920s. Walking on stage, she made an incredible impression before she even began singing, with her thick straightened hair sticking out all over, her huge teeth capped in gold, an ostrich plume in her hand, and a long triple necklace of shining gold coins sparkling against her sequined dress. The gravelly timbre of her contralto voice, with its range of only about an octave, enraptured audiences wherever she went. She generally sang without melodic embellishment, in a raspy, deep voice that had an emotional appeal for listeners. Rainey was born on April 26, 1886. She grew up in a poor family in Columbus, an important river port and a stop on the minstrel circuit. Her grandmother and both her parents were singers. She showed musical talent early on, beginning her career at age fourteen in a local talent show, "Bunch of Blackberries," at the Springer Opera House in Columbus. She soon began traveling in vaudeville and minstrel shows, where in 1904 she met and married her husband, William "Pa" Rainey, who was a minstrel show manager. She toured with him in F. S. Wolcott's Rabbit Foot Minstrels and later with Tolliver's Circus and Musical Extravaganza and other tent-show groups. For more than three decades the Raineys toured the South, the Midwest, and Mexico. Ma Rainey was one of the first women to incorporate blues into minstrel and vaudeville stage shows, blending styles from country blues, early jazz, and her own personal musical idiom. By the time she began recording with Paramount Records in 1923 she had toured extensively as "Madame," earning an enduring reputation as a key figure among the early female blues singers. In 1912 the young Bessie Smith joined her troupe in Chattanooga, Tennessee. While Rainey's influence on Smith's style has been exaggerated, her uniquely penetrating voice did help shape the young singer's development, something clearly audible in Smith's early recordings. Though they sang together for only a short time, they were two of the most important figures in the development of what later came to be called classical blues, a musical style widely popularized by Bessie Smith, who came to be known as the "Empress of the Blues." In December 1923 Rainey began a five-year association with Paramount, becoming one of the first women to record the blues professionally, eventually producing more than 100 recordings of her own compositions with some of the finest musicians of the day. Her early discs— Bo-weavil Blues (1923) and Moonshine Blues (1923)—soon spread her reputation outside the South. Louis Armstrong accompanied her in Jelly Bean Blues (1924), and later her Georgia Jazz Band included at different times Tommy Ladnier, Joe Smith, and Coleman Hawkins. One of the few times her flair for comedy comes through is in her widely popular Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (1927). Although these recordings scarcely do her vocal style justice, they do give a sense of her raw, "moaning" style and her exquisite phrasing. Her songs and vocal style reveal her deep connection with the pain of jealousy, poverty, sexual abuse, and loneliness of sharecroppers and southern blacks. Changing urban musical tastes began diminishing her appeal, and in 1928 Paramount dropped her, claiming that her "down-home material has gone out of fashion." The Great Depression further eroded her audiences, and she retired in 1933 to Columbus and Rome, where she managed two theaters she had bought with her earnings. She died of heart disease in 1939, at age fifty-three, and was buried in Porterdale Cemetery in Columbus. Ma Rainey's death came just as her work began gaining serious attention among collectors and critics. She was inducted into the Blues Foundation's Blues Hall of Fame in 1983, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990, the Georgia Music Hall of Fame in 1992, and Georgia Women of Achievement in 1993. In 1994 the U.S. Postal Service issued a stamp in her honor. 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”

If You Leave Me - Robert Ward

Robert Ward (October 15, 1938 – December 25, 2008) was an American blues and soul guitarist. He was known for founding the Ohio Untouchables, the band that later would become the Ohio Players. He played the guitar with a unique tone soaked in vibrato coming from the Magnatone amplifier. Born Robert Jeryl Ward in Luthersville, Georgia, he moved to Dayton, Ohio in 1960 and formed the Ohio Untouchables. The group released series of singles from LuPine label including "Your Love Is Amazing" which would become one of Ward's signature songs. Ward left the group in 1965. Then he moved to the Detroit area, actually residing in Toledo, Ohio and released some single under his name in the late 60's. He disappeared from the music scene sometime in the 70's after working as a session player for Motown. It was in the early 1990s that he came back into the spotlight. He was "rediscovered" by Black Top Records and released his first full-length album Fear No Evil in 1991. He released two more albums in the next four years for the label. In the mid-1990s he did limited touring, including a date in Minneapolis with Curtis Obeta and "The Butanes", and several dates in Michigan including Kalamazoo, Three Rivers and Grand Rapids. After the label folded in the late 1990s, WRKR Kalamazoo blues DJ Marty Spaulding, who Robert had appointed his manager, arranged a recording contract with Delmark Records to release New Role Soul in 2000. In his last years he faced a series of health problems, including two strokes, which prevented him from performing or recording. He died at his home in Dry Branch, Georgia, about six miles from Macon, on December 25, 2008 “To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson 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”

BOOGIE - Henry Gray & Guitar Gabriel

Robert Lewis Jones (October 12, 1925 – April 2, 1996), known as both Guitar Gabriel and Nyles Jones, was an American blues Musician. Gabriel's unique style of guitar playing, which he referred to as "Toot Blues", combined Piedmont, Chicago, and Texas blues, as well as gospel, and was influenced by artists such as Blind Boy Fuller and Reverend Gary Davis. After hearing of Guitar Gabriel from the late Greensboro, North Carolina blues guitarist and pianist, James "Guitar Slim" Stephens, musician and folklorist Tim Duffy located and befriended Gabriel, who was the inspiration for the creation of the Music Maker Relief Foundation. Gabriel wore a trademark white sheepskin hat, which he acquired while traveling and performing with medicine shows during his late 20s. Gabriel was born in Decatur, Georgia, moving to Winston-Salem, North Carolina at age five. His father, Sonny Jones (also known as Jack Jones, James Johnson, and as Razorblade for an act in which he ate razor blades, mason jars, and light bulbs) recorded for Vocalion Records in 1939 in Memphis, accompanied by Sonny Terry and Oh Red (George Washington). Sonny Jones also recorded a single for the Orchid label in Baltimore in 1950 (as Sunny Jones). His family, who grew up sharecropping, shared a talent for music. His great-grandmother, an ex-slave, called set dances and played the banjo; his grandfather played banjo and his grandmother the pump organ; his father and uncle were blues guitarists and singers and his sisters sang blues and gospel. In 1935, Gabriel's family moved to Durham, North Carolina, where he began playing guitar on the streets. Between the ages of 15 and 25, Gabriel traveled the country playing the guitar in medicine shows. During his travels, he performed with artists such as Bo Diddley, Lightnin' Hopkins, Louis Jordan, Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters, B. B. King, T-Bone Walker and Jimmy Reed. In 1970, Gabriel went to Pittsburgh and recorded a single, "Welfare Blues," as well as an album, My South, My Blues, with the Gemini label under the name "Nyles" Jones. The 45 became a hit in Pittsburgh and Cleveland and though the album sold well, Gabriel never saw any royalties. Disillusioned and embittered by the music business, Gabriel returned home to Winston-Salem where he continued playing music, but expressly for his community, at churches, homes, clubs, "drink houses," and even at bus stops when children were returning home from school. The album, My South, My Blues was reissued in 1988, on the French label, Jambalaya, as Nyles Jones, the Welfare Blues. Tim Duffy and Guitar Gabriel in Utrecht, 1991 In March 1990, musician and folklorist Tim Duffy began searching for Guitar Gabriel. After being directed to a drink house in Winston-Salem, Duffy met Gabriel's nephew, Hawkeye, who took him to meet Gabriel. Duffy and Gabriel forged a friendship, and began performing under the name Guitar Gabriel & Brothers in the Kitchen, later recording the album, which was released on cassette, "Do You Know What it Means to Have a Friend?" on their own Karibu label. During this time, Duffy would assist the impoverished Gabriel by providing transportation, paying bills, and providing food for him and his wife, but realized that there were many more musicians like Gabriel who were in need of the same assistance, and who were still capable and willing to record and perform. In 1994, Tim and his wife, Denise Duffy founded the Music Maker Relief Foundation. Through this foundation, Gabriel was able to perform in professional venues, including the Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall, and made several trips to Europe. Gabriel died April 2, 1996, and is buried with his guitar (per his request to Duffy) at the Evergreen Cemetery in Winston-Salem, North Carolina “To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson 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”

What'cha Tryin' To Do To Me -Margie Alexander

Margie Alexander (born Marjorie Lucille Alexander, 11 October 1948) is an American gospel and soul singer. She was born in Carrollton, Georgia, and began singing in her church. By the mid-1960s she was a member of the Gospel Crusaders of Los Angeles. In 1968, she moved to Atlanta, worked at the Club 400, and joined Clarence Carter's band as a back-up singer. By 1971 she had a recording contract with Atlantic Records, where Clarence Carter produced the single "Can I Be Your Main Thing", written by Hubert Carter and featuring electronic piano by Clayton Ivey. Although the record was not a hit, it has subsequently been widely anthologised as a classic example of Southern soul music. After Clarence Carter founded his own label, Future Stars, Alexander continued to record with him, her biggest success coming with "Keep On Searching", which Carter wrote and produced, and which reached # 50 on the Billboard R&B chart in 1974. In 1976 she signed with Chi-Sound, a record label started by Carl Davis (producer of Gene Chandler's "Duke of Earl") which was distributed by United Artists Records. She had two minor hits on Chi-Sound in 1977, "It's Worth a Whippin'", produced by Major Lance and Otis Leavill (# 92 R&B), and "Gotta Get A Hold On Me" (# 68 R&B). In 1992 she released a gospel album, God Is In Control, on the Soul Potion label.In 2009 she was reported as singing at a church in Carrollton. 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”

Blood Run Cold - Robert Ward & Ry Cooder

Robert Ward (October 15, 1938 – December 25, 2008) was an American blues and soul guitarist. He was known for founding the Ohio Untouchables, the band that later would become the Ohio Players. He played the guitar with a unique tone soaked in vibrato coming from the Magnatone amplifier. Born Robert Jeryl Ward in Luthersville, Georgia, he moved to Dayton, Ohio in 1960 and formed the Ohio Untouchables. The group released series of singles from LuPine label including "Your Love Is Amazing" which would become one of Ward's signature songs. Ward left the group in 1965. Then he moved to the Detroit area, actually residing in Toledo, Ohio and released some single under his name in the late 60's. He disappeared from the music scene sometime in the 70's after working as a session player for Motown. It was in the early 1990s that he came back into the spotlight. He was "rediscovered" by Black Top Records and released his first full-length album Fear No Evil in 1991. He released two more albums in the next four years for the label. In the mid-1990s he did limited touring, including a date in Minneapolis with Curtis Obeta and "The Butanes", and several dates in Michigan including Kalamazoo, Three Rivers and Grand Rapids. After the label folded in the late 1990s, WRKR Kalamazoo blues DJ Marty Spaulding, who Robert had appointed his manager, arranged a recording contract with Delmark Records to release New Role Soul in 2000. In his last years he faced a series of health problems, including two strokes, which prevented him from performing or recording. He died at his home in Dry Branch, Georgia, about six miles from Macon, on December 25, 2008 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”

Just Got Paid - Matt Joiner Band

Find a nurse that worked the graveyard shift in the maternity ward at St. Mary's Hospital on June 18, 1982 and she probably won't have a bad to the bone story to tell about young Matt Joiner. How were they to know the crying baby would become the second most famous guitarist to call Madison County his first home? The pride of Colbert, Georgia, in fact. Joiner's music blends slick licks and gritty narratives informed by the hot dogs at Billy Meadows Station on Highway 72 and the solemn Sunday sermons of Brother Pike, in a place his teenage hands helped build called Little Bethlehem. Seriously. That was back when...way back when. Before his hair grew past the eyes to hide his face and before his Chuck T's needed duct tape to survive. His Dad and Brother taught him a few chords. A music teacher at school(Doyle Lightfoot), a thumb-picking guitarist in the style of Chet Atkins, taught him a few more. Sneaked listens of Rick Dees Top 40 introduced him to secular music. Then he spent a few years listening to some Stevie Ray Vaughan, repairing broken cars from Japan, playing guitar, and little else. Fast forward to 2012: With a rock solid rhythm section (drummer Mark Turiano and bassist Clay Hinson) The Matt Joiner Band is a cocksure power trio touring the southeast relentlessly, in support of their impressive indepently released solo debut album Back When, a critically acclaimed blues-rock scorcher produced by John Keane (REM, Cowboy Junkies, Widespread Panic). He's also an in-demand special guest having shared the stage with the likes of Rollin' Home, Clay Leverett & Friends, The Rattlers, Drivin' n' Cryin' and the legendary Geoff Achison. The Athens, Georgia-based band has one foot in the garage with their sights set on arenas coast to coast. In the meantime, they'll play at your club and remind everyone to drink up, and tip the bartenders. 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”

HE MAY BE YOUR MAN - Trixie Smith

Trixie Smith (1895 – September 21, 1943) was an African American blues singer, recording artist, vaudeville entertainer, and actress. She made four dozen recordings. Born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, she came from a middle class-background. She attended Selma University in Alabama before moving to New York around 1915. Smith worked in minstrel shows and on the TOBA vaudeville circuit, before making her first recordings for the Black Swan label in 1922. Amongst these were "My Man Rocks Me (With One Steady Roll)" (1922), written by J. Berni Barbour, of historic interest as the first secular recording to reference the phrase "rock and roll". Her record inspired various lyrical elaborations, such as "Rock That Thing" by Lil Johnson and "Rock Me Mama" by Ikey Robinson. Also in 1922, Trixie Smith won first place and a silver cup in a blues singing contest at the Inter-Manhattan Casino in New York, sponsored by dancer Irene Castle, with her song "Trixie's Blues," singing against Alice Carter, Daisy Martin and Lucille Hegamin. She is most remembered for "Railroad Blues," (1925) a song that featured one of Smith's most inspired vocal performances on record, and "The World Is Jazz Crazy and So Am I" (1925). Both songs feature Louis Armstrong on cornet. A highly polished performer, her records include several outstanding examples of the blues on which she is accompanied by artists such as James P. Johnson, and Freddie Keppard. She recorded with Fletcher Henderson's Orchestra for Paramount Records in 1924–1925. As her career as a blues singer waned, mostly she sustained herself by performing in cabaret revues, and starring in musical revues such as New York Revue (1928) and Next Door Neighbors (1928) at the Lincoln Theatre in Harlem. Smith also appeared in Mae West's short-lived 1931 Broadway effort, The Constant Sinner. Two years later, she was elevated to the stage of the Theatre Guild for its production of Louisiana. She appeared in four movies: God's Step Children (1938), Swing! (1938), Drums o' Voodoo (1934), and The Black King (1932). Two of these films were directed by Oscar Micheaux. She appeared at John H. Hammond's "From Spirituals to Swing" concert in 1938, and recorded seven titles during 1938–1939. Most of her later recordings were with Sidney Bechet for Decca in 1938. In 1939 she cut "No Good Man" with a band including Red Allen and Barney Bigard. Trixie Smith died in New York in 1943, after a brief illness, aged 48. 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”

Wine Cooler - T.J. Fowler

Born September 18, 1910, in Columbus, GA, near the Alabama state line, T.J. Fowler had three brothers who, like him, were anointed at birth with initialized first names: E.J., F.C., and K.C. At the age of six, little T.J. moved with his family to the industrial boomtown of River Rouge, MI. After studying piano at home and at the Detroit Conservatory of Music, Fowler began providing musical entertainment for patrons at his father's pool hall. His earliest professional engagements were with bands led by saxophonist Guy Walters and trumpeter Clarence Dorsey. Fowler assembled his own hot little group in 1947 and accompanied saxophonist Paul "Hucklebuck" Williams on that artist's first recordings for the Savoy label.
T.J. Fowler began making records as a leader in 1948, beginning with small labels like Paradise and Sensation and landing his own contract with Savoy in 1952, sometimes featuring singers Freddie Johnson, Alberta Adams, and Floyd "Bubbles" McVay. Fowler's ensemble was also used to back vocalist Varetta Dillard and guitarist Calvin Frazier. Near the end of 1953 Fowler took his act to Chicago to wax what are believed to have been the only recordings he ever made outside of Detroit. Issued on the States label, these sides were presented as by "T.J. Fowler and the Band That Rocks the Blues." Back in Detroit, Fowler and his men served as the backing band for T-Bone Walker and spent the next few years gigging around the Motor City and southeastern Michigan.
By the end of the 1950s, Fowler was living in the industrial city of Ecorse (just south of River Rouge), where he ran his tiny independent Bow record label and led a jazz organ combo. Hired in 1959 by the relatively inexperienced Berry Gordy, Fowler applied his music industry know-how and managerial expertise to help Gordy create and establish the Motown record label. Fowler continued gigging with his jazz band but eventually ceased performing altogether, operating a landscaping service and settling into semi-retirement as a businessman in Detroit, where he passed away on May 22, 1982.
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”

Daniel in the Lion's Den - Bessie Jones

Bessie Jones (February 8, 1902 - July 17, 1984), gospel singer from Smithville, GA. She learned her songs from her grandfather, a former slave born in Africa. She was a founding member of the Georgia Sea Island Singers. Alan Lomax first encountered Bessie Jones on a southern trip in 1959. Jones made her way up to New York City two years later and asked Lomax to record both her music and biography.

Jones told an interviewer in Alachua, Florida in the early 1980s, that she was born in Lacrosse, Florida, (Alachua County), when that area was a tung oil production area. Jones also said she hadn't been to a doctor since 1925 and that she wore many copper bracelets which protected her from disease.

Jones' 1960 song "Sometimes" was heavily sampled in American electronica musician Moby's 1998 single "Honey".
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”

Black Betty - Mile Train

Mile Train has been mesmerizing and captivating audiences all over the southeast for years now. The Mile Train family has grown to an unexpected size that spans the world. Their special home brew of Blues Rock and Jazz has allowed them to reach a wide demographic of listeners. From college crowds to the die hard blues fans that frequent the smoky, rustic music halls, Mile Train has had some wonderful success. They have just finished their second album "Lifted" which is the follow up to their celebrated first album "I'd Rather Feel Bad". Their first album has had great success all over the world selling out at shows. Mile Train's relationship with their audience has strengthened giving them a home-away-from-home wherever they go. Here is a list of the clubs were Mile Train is on a regular booking schedule. If you have any questions about the performance or professionalism of the band, please feel free to contact any of the following clubs. • Pub 280 – Americus, GA • Bomba’s – Jacksonville, FL • Calendar’s – MacClenny, FL • Rivalry’s – Macon, GA • Jekyll and Hydes-Newnan, GA • Plates – Carrollton, GA • Darwin’s – Atlanta, GA • Soho’s – Columbus, GA • Stix Bar and Grill-Villa Rica, GA
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”

Southern Hospitality

Formed in 2010 from Columbus Georgia.
Nickie Thompson - Vocals/Guitar
Tyler McDaniel - Bass/Vocals
Chris Wyatt - Drums/Vocals
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”

Somebody Loan Me a Dime - Luther 'Snake boy' Johnson

Luther 'Snake Boy ' Johnson (aka Luther 'Georgia Boy' Johnson) was born in Davisborough/ Georgia, in 1934. He began to play guitar behind Gospel groups in churchs on Sundays, and blues in clubs on Fridays & Saturdays nights.
After moving to Chicago, and at the recommandation of Otis Spann, he joined in 1967 the Muddy Waters Blues Band for two years. After that, he moved to Boston where he formed in own band.
He died of cancer at the early age of 42, laying behind him some really good studio or live performances as Get down to the Nitty Gritty, Lonesome in my bedroom or this special album: They call me the Snake (sessions from 1970 to 72)
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”