Bman's Blues Report

I just received the newest release, Angels Sing The Blues featuring performances by Liz Mandeville, Mary Lane, Al Short, Shirley Johnson and Johnny Drummer and it's cool! Opening with Al "Guitar" Short on the Johnny Guitar Watson track, A Real Mother For Ya , backed by Johnny Drummer on keys, Walter Scott on rhythm guitar, Anthony Palmer on lead guitar, Kenny Hampton on bass, Tino Cortes on drums this release starts off with a kicking funk. Danny O'Connor takes the mic on Cold Women With Warm Hearts and a rolling James Brown rhythm driven by O'Connor's own bass lead. Very nice! Johnny Drummer is up next and a slick guitar intro by Palmer opens Gonna Sell My Cadillac, Buy Myself A Mule . This track has a great feel with extended guitar work by Palmer and Drummers vocals are tight, complimented by his own harp work. Slowing it down a bit, Drummer leads a low slung groove in easy style. Palmer steps up with some real nice riffs on this track giving it a rea...

Like so many African-American vocalists, Shirley Johnson started out singing in church and then went on to embrace secular music. The Chicago resident, whose influences range from Mahalia Jackson to Koko Taylor, Etta James, and Ruth Brown, is a gritty, big-voiced blues singer who can also handle soul and gospel. Although Johnson has spent much of her adult life in Chicago, the Windy City is not her hometown; she was born in Franklin, VA and raised in Norfolk, VA. Johnson came from a very religious family and she was only six when she started singing gospel in a church choir. Johnson's family didn't think much of either the blues or R&B, which are considered sinful in some of the stricter, more fundamentalist Christian churches. Nonetheless, she managed to hear the blues as a little girl and fell in love with secular black music; despite her parents' disdain for the blues and R&B, she developed a healthy appreciation of Brown, James, and Taylor, as ...

I opened the mail yesterday and found a real treat. I received a copy of the recording, It Ain't Over celebrating Delmark's 55 years in business live at Buddy Guy's Legends in Chicago. I have been in this club many many times and this would have had to be the blast of all blasts. The opening track finds powerhouse singer Zora Young doing some power funk with a backing band featuring Lurie Bell and Scott Cable on guitars, Roosevelt Purifoy on keys, Bob Stronger on bass and Kenny Smith on drums. Young's Till The Fat Lady Sings is a great opener for this show. Bell throws down some great blues riffs on the funk playing his 335 and as Purifoy starts to rap out the funk on the keys Young starts to channel the godfather of soul with some squeals that would make JB proud. The rhythm section on this band is remarkably tight and Cable gets in some hot riffs on his Strat. I notice three amps on stage throughout the night which appear to be a Brownface Vibroverb, a Pro Tweed ...