Bman's Blues Report

Erin Harpe & the Delta Swingers’ unique brand of blues is rooted in vintage 1930’s Mississippi delta blues, featuring originals and classics that range from Memphis Minnie to early Bonnie Raitt, plus their take on other genres like soul, funk, and reggae. 2012’s Boston Music Award-winners for “Blues Artist of the Year,” this band evokes a southern juke joint where the whiskey and gin are flowing and everybody’s dancing. Erin is recognized along with Bonnie Raitt, Susan Tedeschi, Shemekia Copeland, Rory Block and Ana Popovic in 2013’s “30 Women Burning Up the Blues” in The Alternate Route Magazine! The Delta Swingers features Erin on electric and acoustic guitar and lead vocals, backed by Jim Countryman on bass, Bob Nisi on drums and vocal harmonies, and a revolving cast of Boston's best blues soloists, including the blistering electrified harmonica of Richard “Rosy” Rosenblatt, the slide guitar of “Sonny" Jim Clifford and other local stars. Erin Harpe & the Delta Sw...

This video for bluesman Bill Harris was produced shortly before his death in 1988 at the age of 63. Bill Harris was a classical guitar virtuoso and consumate blues musician based in Washington D.C. In the 1950s, he was a member of the legendary vocal group THE CLOVERS, who had a string of R&B hits throughout that decade. He also had a prolific solo career and released several albums. Harris owned and operated Pigfoot, a restaurant-nightclub-art gallery in Washington D.C., which is featured in the video. Narrated by Joe Pinkney   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!

Charlie Rouse (April 6, 1924 - November 30, 1988) was an American hard bop tenor saxophonist and flautist. His career is marked by the collaboration for more than ten years with Thelonious Monk. Rouse was born in Washington, DC in 1924. At first he worked with the clarinet, before turning to the saxophone. Rouse began his career with the Billy Eckstine Orchestra in 1944, followed by the Dizzy Gillespie Big Band in 1945, the Duke Ellington Orchestra from 1949 to 1950, the Count Basie Octet in 1950, Bull Moose Jackson And His Buffalo Bearcats in 1953, and the Oscar Pettiford Sextet in 1955. He made his recording debut with Tadd Dameron in 1947, and in 1957 made a notable album with Paul Quinichette. In the 1980s he was a founding member of the group Sphere, which began as a tribute to Monk. Charlie Rouse died from lung cancer at University Hospital in Seattle at the age of 64.   If you support live Blues acts, up and coming Blues talents and want to learn more about Blues new...

Roger "Buck" Hill (b. February 13, 1927, Washington, D.C.) is an American jazz tenor and soprano saxophonist. Hill began playing professionally in 1943 but held a day job as a mailman in his birthplace of Washington, D.C. for over thirty years. He played with Charlie Byrd in 1958-59, but was only occasionally active during the 1960s. In 1973, he recorded with Washington-area trumpeter Allan Houser. He has recorded copiously as a leader since the 1970s. Joining Buck on this song were Michael Grasso on harmonica, Steve Lesche on guitar, Steven Miller on bass, and Darrell Dunning on drums. 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”

Saffire - The Uppity Blues Women was a three-woman blues musical ensemble in the Washington, D.C. area. It was founded in 1987 by Ann Rabson, Gaye Adegbalola and Earlene Lewis. Lewis separated from the band in 1992 and was replaced by Andra Faye. The group then featured Rabson on piano, vocals and guitar, Adegbalola on vocals and guitar, and Faye on vocals, bass, mandolin, violin and guitar. Saffire's music was a combination of serious blues songs and comedic novelty songs. They played original songs (such as "Do Your Duty", "You Got to Know Him" and "Don't You Tell Me"), as well as the music of blueswomen who had inspired them, such as Big Mama Thornton, Ida Cox and Koko Taylor. Their music, both comedic and serious, tends to deal with feminist themes, which has made them popular outside of traditional blues circles. They were the first acoustic band to be signed by Alligator Records. Their song "Middle Aged Blues Boogie," written b...

Legendary jazz drummer, Jimmy Cobb, was born in Washington, D.C. on January 20, 1929. A superb, mostly self-taught musician, Jimmy is the elder statesman of all the incredible Miles Davis bands. Jimmy’s inspirational work with Miles, John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderly and Co. spanned 1957 until 1963, and included the masterpiece "Kind of Blue", the most popular jazz recording in history. He also played on "Sketches of Spain", Someday My Prince will Come", "Live at Carnegie Hall, "Live at the Blackhawk", "Porgy and Bess", and many, many other watermark Miles Davis recordings. Jimmy did his first recording with Earl Bostic and played extensively with Dinah Washington, Billie Holiday, Pearl Bailey, Clark Terry, Dizzy Gillespie, Cannonball Adderly, before joining Miles in 1957. By 1963 Tony Williams took over the Miles drum chair in 1963 and Jimmy left Miles to continue to work with Miles’ rhythm section, Winton Kelly and Paul Cha...

Mike Auldridge (December 30, 1938 – December 29, 2012) was widely acknowledged as a premier resophonic guitar (the instrument formerly referred to as a Dobro) player. He played with The Seldom Scene for many years, creating a fusion of bluegrass with jazz, folk and rock. Born in Washington, D.C., Auldridge started playing guitar at the age of 13. His main influence through his early years was Josh Graves who also sold him his first Dobro. A 1967 graduate of The University of Maryland, Auldridge worked as a graphic artist for a commercial art firm in Bethesda, Maryland and then for the now defunct Washington Star-News. He did not start playing music full-time until the Washington Star-News folded in 1976. Auldridge last played with Darren Beachley and The Legends of the Potomac bluegrass band[3] Past bands include Emerson and Waldron, Cliff Waldron and the New Shades of Grass, Seldom Scene (of which he was a founding member), Chesapeake, The Good Deale Bluegrass Band, and John Star...

Jeffrey Allen "Jeff Skunk" Baxter (born December 13, 1948 in Washington, D.C.) is an American guitarist, known for his stints in the rock bands Steely Dan and The Doobie Brothers during the 1970s. More recently, he has been working as a defense consultant and chairs a Congressional Advisory Board on missile defense. While working at Manny's Music Shop in Manhattan in 1966, Baxter met guitarist Jimi Hendrix, who was just beginning his career as a frontman. For a short period during that year, Baxter was a member of a Hendrix-led band called Jimmy James and the Blue Flames, along with fellow Manny's employee Randy California. Baxter also worked as a guitar tech and amplifier repairman at the long-defunct "Jack's" Drum shop on 252 Boylston Street in Boston across from the frog pond. Baxter graduated from the Taft School in Watertown, Connecticut and enrolled at the School of Public Communication (now College of Communication) at Boston University in Sep...

A guitarist who spent at least two decades on the road with rhythm & blues vocal group the Clovers, Bill "Willie" Harris had a thick background in bebop and swing guitar as well as gospel. The latter style was at his fingertips even before he discovered guitarists such as Oscar Moore on records and radio, since Harris' father was a preacher who was in the position to turn the church organist job over to his offspring. Meanwhile, Harris' mother was drumming in basic harmony and an uncle had chipped in with a guitar, apparently to be the beauty move. The Army supplied a bugle that temporarily halted progress with strings attached, so to speak. Harris was discharged in the mid-'40s and promptly began studying guitar in Washington, D.C., becoming fairly good with both jazz and classical pieces. Harris was encouraged particularly in the classics by high-up staff at the Columbia School of Music, yet seems to have picked the Clovers due to a perceived scent of eco...

Harmonica master, vocalist and founder of The Nighthawks; rebuilder of antique motorcycles. Born in D.C. and raised in Chevy Chase, Md. Grew up listening to Black radio in D.C. and, at age 12, started going to matinees at the Howard Theatre. Graduated from Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School in 1966. Went to Columbia University to study literature and writing. During freshman year, decided playing harmonica was more fun than being a poet. Finished undergraduate English degree in 1972 and headed immediately back to D.C. to launch The Nighthawks. The rest, as they say, is history. 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”

I just received the newest release, The Road To Mississippi , by J.P. Reali . This is a primarily solo acoustic recording with Reali on vocal and resonator guitar, but with backup now and again by Mark Wenner (Nighthawks) on harp, Peter Ragusa on drums and John Prevetti bass. This is a solid resonator sonata with creative lyrics and vocals by Reali. Reali wrote (or co wrote) all 12 compositions. The release captures the feel of old Delta blues but with more contemporary vocals and attack. Bloozin' In NYC , a track strongly influenced by the likes of Elmore James is the hottest track on the release but numerous Piedmont style tracks will entertain you quite nicely. 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 NIGHTHAWKS JOIN FORCES WITH THE FORTY FOURS ON A SERIES OF SPECIAL EAST COAST TOUR DATES TO CELEBRATE THE BAND’S NEW CD, DAMN GOOD TIME, THEIR DEBUT RELEASE FOR SEVERN RECORDS WASHINGTON, DC – Severn Records artists The Nighthawks, whose label debut CD, Damn Good Time , is generating rave reviews and extensive radio airplay, are joining forces with their good friends and musical compadres, the Forty Fours, for a series of special East Coast shows in September. Damn Good Time is the follow-up to The Nighthawks’ Last Train to Bluesville , which garnered the band its first-ever Blues Music Award from the Blues Foundation as Acoustic Blues Album of the Year in May 2011. The Nighthawks and the Forty Fours were born on opposite coasts 35 years apart but both bands ultimately share the same goals: to breathe new life into the deep roots of American music and perform it with an exciting vitality in today’s world. Both bands take the essential quartet format, h...

While attending this ivy-covered bastion of the Establishment, Root Boy hooked up with Bob Greenlee, captain of the Yale football team and a fraternity brother. (Bob, incidentally, was drafted by the Miami Dolphins, certainly a unique accomplishment among bass players, many of whom look like they could be blown over by a spring breeze.) Root Boy and Greenlee formed a band, Prince La La, Percy Uptight and the Midnight Creepers. Style-wise, the Creepers were a "seminal" part of the post-British invasion New England music scene, where there greatest achievement was in never playing the same venue twice. Time passes–ten years in fact–a period which sees Root Boy garner the wide range of experiences which he will later sing about. He attends architecture school, studies city planning, he bums around, heís arrested in Jamaica, and again in Jacksonville. Somehow, because Fate always works in mysterious ways, he and Greenlee (now known as Rattlesnake Rattles) are reunited and beg...

The mighty, mighty Bunker Hill was born David Walker on May 5, 1941, and was raised in the Washington, DC, area. Walker was a successful gospel singer, first with the Sensational Wonders and then with the Mighty Clouds of Joy, on whose Peacock Records sides he can be heard. Walker was also a successful boxer, boasting a creditable record of 18-7 as a Heavyweight and putting in time as sparring partner of the legendary Light Heavyweight champ Archie Moore. In the early sixties, Walker was christened Bunker Hill and under the guidance of Vernon Wray, recorded three frantic secular singles, all backed by Vernon's brother Link Wray along with the Raymen. The debut disc, "Hide and Go Seek", was Bunker Hill's biggest hit, cracking the top 40 in 1962 and becoming a regional smash in the DC area. Two highly charged singles followed, "Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf" and the unruly "The Girl Can't Dance", and while neither did much business in their...

I had a big build up of this recording, Live As It Gets , from my pal Stilladog and I couldn't wait for it to come. Well, here you go. To say they captured Thackery at his best and live is the understatement of the year. This thing rips! This is a 2 cd package opening with a 7 plus minute version of Eddie "Guitar Slim" Jones's Letter To My Girlfriend , a cool swing tune with Thackery playing great riffs and a full horn compliment thanks to the Hydraulic Horns. Blind Man In The Night is a slower blues with shimmering chords beneath the vocals and clean riffs at the turnaround. Thackery and crew do a massive job on Johnny Guitar Watson's Gangster Of Love including a blistering solo by JP Soars mixed in with Thackery's own wizardry.Muddy Waters' Gypsy Woman gets a total rework by Thackery to the point that it is barely recognizable. He has transformed this classic into a long slow blues again with beautiful lush chords. Joe McGlohon plays a great tenor sax ...

I promised you a review on the new Jimmy Thackery cd as I hear it is a barn burner but I received his most recent studio release, Feel The Heat , so I'll give it a spin while we're waiting. Ain't Gonna Do It is a jump blues giving Thackery the opportunity to demonstrate his fleet fingers and enviable style. Blind Man In The Night begins with a very clean Strat playing solo with echo as an intro but slowly turns into a full blast gritty anthem. Thackery has great control and never overplays. Hang Up And Drive is a great blues rocker that gives Thackery a great opportunity to show what he's got in his bag of riffs. This is a great tune and one likely to be on most blues rocker play lists. Bluphoria is a cool track that reminds me of another regional guitar player, the great Danny Gatton. Thackery coaxes all kind of obtuse jazzy tones out of his guitar on this definitely blues track. Everyone knows that Thackery is a great player and this is a nice change up for t...

BLUES SINGER-SONGWRITER GUY DAVIS TO APPEAR ON NPR’S “TALK OF THE NATION” SHOW, TOMORROW, APRIL 19 WASHINGTON, DC – Blues singer-songwriter Guy Davis, whose new “audio play” 2-CD set, The Adventures of Fishy Waters: In Bed with the Blues , continues to generate critical acclaim and major radio airplay, will be a special LIVE guest tomorrow, April 19, on National Public Radio’s “Talk of the Nation” program. Davis will perform two songs and will be interviewed by “Talk of the Nation” guest host and ABC-TV News reporter, John Donvan. “Talk of the Nation” is NPR’s live call-in talk show broadcast on over 330 member stations to over 3 million listeners each week Monday through Thursday from 2:00-4:00 PM Eastern Time. The Guy Davis live segment is scheduled for the 3:40-4:00 PM time slot. For more information on the show and to find out the time and station in your market, go to www.npr.org/talkofthenation . Davis, who’s been dubbed “The Ambassador of the Blues,” recentl...

THE NIGHTHAWKS LEADER, MARK WENNER, UNDERGOES SUCCESSFUL HEART BYPASS SURGERY & EXPECTED TO MAKE A COMPLETE RECOVERY BAND POSTPONES A SERIES OF DATES FOR NEXT SIX WEEKS, BUT NIGHTHAWKS EXPECTED BACK OUT ON THE ROAD END OF MAY WASHINGTON, DC – Seminal American roots music band The Nighthawks have announced that their founding leader, Mark Wenner, has undergone successful heart bypass surgery and is expected to make a complete recovery. Because of the operation, Mark will stay off the road for approximately six weeks while he recovers, and the band has postponed the affected dates. The Nighthawks are expected to resume touring the end of May or early June. Mark Wenner’s condition was diagnosed on Monday, April 9 when he went in for an angiogram/angioplasty and doctors discovered he needed the bypass operation, which was done the following day. Because they caught it early, the doctors feel very confident that his prognosis for a full recovery is excellent. ...

John Fahey (February 28, 1939 – February 22, 2001) was an American fingerstyle guitarist and composer who pioneered the steel-string acoustic guitar as a solo instrument. His style has been greatly influential and has been described as the foundation of American Primitivism, a term borrowed from painting and referring mainly to the self-taught nature of the music and its minimalist style. Fahey borrowed from the folk and blues traditions in American roots music, having compiled many forgotten early recordings in these genres. He would later incorporate classical, Portuguese, Brazilian, and Indian music into his œuvre. Fahey wrote a largely apocryphal autobiography and was known for his coarseness, aloof demeanor, and dry humour. He spent many of his latter years in poverty and poor health, but also enjoyed a minor career resurgence with a turn towards the more explicitly avant-garde. He died in 2001 due to complications from heart surgery. In 2003, he was ranked 35th in the Rolling Sto...

Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr. (April 2, 1939 – April 1, 1984), better known by his stage name Marvin Gaye (he added the 'e' as a young man), was an American singer-songwriter and musician with a three-octave vocal range. Starting his career as a member of the doo-wop group The Moonglows in the late 1950s, he ventured into a solo career after the group disbanded in 1960, signing with Motown Records subsidiary, Tamla. He started off as a session drummer, but later ranked as the label's top-selling solo artist during the 1960s. He was crowned "The Prince of Motown" and "The Prince of Soul". because of solo hits such as "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)", "Ain't That Peculiar", "I Heard It Through the Grapevine," and his duet singles with singers such as Mary Wells and Tammi Terrell. His work in the early and mid-1970s included the albums, What's Going On, Let's Get It On, and I Want You, which helped influence the quiet...