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Thursday, April 5, 2012
Mayne Stage/ Act One Pub Newsletter 4.4.12
Albert King classic album reissued by Stax Records
CONCORD MUSIC GROUP RELEASES
ALBERT KING’S I’LL PLAY THE BLUES FOR YOU
AS PART OF ITS STAX REMASTERS SERIES
2012 release date marks 40th anniversary of landmark blues recording.
LOS ANGELES, Calif. — Concord Music Group will release Albert King’s I’ll Play the Blues for You as part of its Stax Remasters series on May 22, 2012. Enhanced by 24-bit remastering by Joe Tarantino, four previously unreleased bonus tracks, and newly written liner notes by music journalist and roots music historian Bill Dahl, the reissue not only spotlights one of the most entertaining and influential blues recordings of the 1970s, but also underscores the album’s enduring nature four decades after its original release.
In addition to King’s brilliant guitar and vocal work, the album also features a rhythm section made up of members of the Bar-Kays and the Movement — the former a new lineup following the tragic Otis Redding plane crash that wiped out most of the original band, and the latter group Isaac Hayes’s funk-driven outfit, with guitarist Michael Toles, bassist and Bar-Kays co-founder James Alexander, and drummer Willie Hall members of both bands. Rounding out the backup unit is the Memphis Horns, featuring longtime Stax mainstays Wayne Jackson on trumpet and Andrew Love on tenor saxophone.
Recorded in Memphis in 1972 and released in the fall of that same year, I’ll Play the Blues for You “was a typically brilliant mixture of pile-driving blues and hot Memphis soul grooves that dented Billboard’s pop album survey at #140,” says Dahl in his liner notes. “Producers Allen Jones and Henry Bush kept King contemporary while simultaneously emphasizing his inherent strengths. The result was one of Albert’s best long-players.”
“This album was originally recorded and released in 1972, at the very end of an era when a variety of musical genres — blues, rock, pop, soul and funk, to name a few — could still coexist on a single radio station playlist or on a single tour bill,” says Chris Clough, Concord’s Manager of Catalog Development and producer of this reissue. “Albert King was versatile enough, and had a broad enough appeal in the early ’70s, to pull in audiences that were dialed into every one of these styles. He successfully walked a tightrope that connected so many different kinds of music and so many different audiences. This versatility is partly why he’s so influential four decades after this recording was originally issued.”
In addition to the LP’s eight tracks, I’ll Play the Blues for You includes four previously unreleased titles — two of which are alternate takes of songs in the main sequence. “A stripped-down ‘Don’t Burn Down the Bridge’ minus the horns crackles with excitement,” says Dahl, “while a freshly discovered alternate of ‘I’ll Play the Blues for You’ sports a contrasting horn arrangement and has no spoken interlude yet stands quite tall on its own, even with King playing right over an elegant sax solo (he really tears it up on the extended vamp out, spinning chorus after chorus of hair-raising licks”).
The other two of the four bonus tracks are “splendid additions to King’s Stax canon,” says Dahl. “It’s hard to understand why ‘I Need a Love’ laid unissued; the upbeat scorcher comes complete with full-blast horns, Albert’s smoky vocal bearing an ominous edge. ‘Albert’s Stomp’ is a funk-soaked instrumental that finds King working Lucy [his trademark flying V guitar] over fatback organ and Toles’s wah-wah.”
Dahl sums up this 1972 tour de force accurately and succinctly: “When Albert King gave us I’ll Play the Blues for You, he fulfilled his promise and then some.”
Provogue Records artist: Walter Trout - Blues For The Modern Daze
I have been listening to the soon to be released cd, Blues For The Modern Daze by Walter Trout for a few weeks now. Why have I been holding out on you you ask? The cd isn't going to be released until April 24th but I gotta tell you...it's burning a hole in my pocket. I think that it may be his best effort...ever! The recording opens with Saw My Mama Cryin, which reminds me a lot of a tune from Jeff Beck's BBA album from the early '70's. The format and melody are totally different but the groove is there and Trout really digs in and grinds out a great blues rock track. Lonely is along the lines of an Albert King track. No, Trout doesn't play King licks. He plays Trout licks. It is really great to hear him take these solid tracks and play spontaneous guitar riffs over them in a manner that has such warm feel.The Sky Is Falling Down takes a Robert Johnson like riff and again follows a different path. Feeling something new to play has never been a problem for Trout and his versatility on this recording continues to satisfy. You Can't Go Home Again takes on an Elmore James and Trout muscles it around with the greatest finesse. Many have tried and failed but this is a winner. This may be my favorite track on the recording. Trout resists the chance to play every note that he knows and hold a 2000 lb tiger back for a great slow blues. Turn Off Your TV is straight Trout. It follows the formula that he's used on a number of his titles before and it's a straight forward butt kicker with an extended guitar solo. Lifestyle Of The Rich and Famous comes right out of Muddy's house and it's a great blues cooker. It even comes equipped with full on Muddy style slide and hammer on's... it's great! Never Knew You Well pulls out some guitar riffs that I haven't heard in Trouts repertoire before.I particularly like the harmonics bends that he uses near the end of the track. Money Rules The World is a great track with wah with hints to Jimi but updated... very cool! You want guitar...we got guitar! Brother's Keeper is on of those tracks...you know the ones... where Walter just takes a hold of the guitar and makes it cry for it's mama.... well..this is it!!! My only complaint... not even 7 minutes long! Blues For The Modern Daze is a blues rocker again with roots in the Band of Gypsies. This is a great song and you gotta want more! Pray For Rain is a short little acoustic number that Walter uses to close out the cd. Very effective finish.
In case you couldn't tell.. I think this cd is great! I may say that from time to time... but I never say it when I don't mean it. Get your copy the day it hits the stand... you'll love it!!
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Music Maker artists at Jazzfest!
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We're thrilled that four MMRF artists as well as MMRF board members the 
Recently I had the honor of witnessing Jimmy Williams present 
We hope you can make it for the
Music Maker artist 
Living Blues features 
Jim Marshall has passed
The guitar amp pioneer and founder of Marshall Amplification passes away
Jim Marshall, 1923 - 2012 © Frank Maechler/dpa/Corbis
Dr Jim Marshall OBE, founder of Marshall Amplification, has died aged 88.
Since the company was founded 50 years ago, Marshall has become one of the most recognizable and iconic names in rock guitar, with the company's unmistakable livery gracing stages across the globe.
Jim Marshall started out as a drum kit retailer but began building amplifiers in the early 1960s, setting out to create a new valve guitar amplifier, using the Fender Bassman circuit as a model. 
With the sixth prototype, he hit upon 'the Marshall sound'. The rest is history.
By the late '60s, rock artists such as Jimi Hendrix could be seen playing against a backdrop of Marshall stacks. The mid-'70s saw the launch of the first master volume Marshalls and in 1982, the company introduced its now-classic JCM800 model.
Marshall was awarded The Queen's Award For Export in 1984, while 2012 sees the company celebrating 50 years in the business.
Jim Marshall will be remembered alongside the likes of Leo Fender and Les Paul as one of the founding fathers of the modern electric guitar sound and indeed the sound of rock music itself.
In an obituary posted on the company's website, Marshall Amps note: "in addition to the creation of the amps chosen by countless guitar heroes and game changing bands, Jim was also an incredibly humble and generous man who, over the past several decades, has quietly donated many millions of pounds to worthy causes."
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Sonny Landreth's first-ever all-instrumental album features Eric Johnson, Joe Satriani
SONNY LANDRETH’S 11th ALBUM ELEMENTAL JOURNEY
IS FIRST ALL-INSTRUMENTAL OUTING
May 22 release features Eric Johnson, Joe Satriani, Robert Greenidge
and Steve Conn.
BREAUX BRIDGE, La. — Sonny Landreth’s 11th album, bearing the fittingly evocative title Elemental Journey, is something very different from the Louisiana slide wizard. Released on his own Landfall label on May 22, 2012, the new CD is Landreth’s first all-instrumental effort and his most adventurous work to date.
“From day one on the guitar, many genres of music have had an impact on me” says Landreth. “For these recordings, I drew from some of those influences that I hadn’t gone to on previous albums with my vocals. Trading off the lyrics this time, I focused solely on the instrumental side and all this music poured out. Then I asked some extraordinary musicians to help me layer the tracks in hopes of inspiring a lot of imagery for the listeners.”
Like its predecessor, From the Reach (2008), Elemental Journey features guest stars, in this case handpicked by Landreth for what each could bring to a particular aural canvas. Joe Satriani delivers an astonishing, ferocious solo on the audacious opener “Gaia Tribe,” the returning virtuoso Eric Johnson casts his seductive spell on the dusky dreamscape “Passionola” and steel drum master Robert Greenidge brings his magical overtones to the balmy, swaying “Forgotten Story.”
Drummers Brian Brignac, Doug Belote and Mike Burch, each of whom Landreth has worked with in the past, lend their particular feels to various tracks, working with Sonny’s longtime band members, bass player Dave Ranson and keyboardist Steve Conn. Tony Daigle, another key member of Sonny’s team, engineered and mixed the album, while Landreth produced.
“One of the things I’ve always loved about a good instrumental song is that it can be more impressionistic and abstract,” Landreth notes. “Though melody is always important, it’s even more significant with an instrumental. So what I wanted to achieve was something more thematic with lots of melodies and with a chordal chemistry that was harmonically rich. That’s when I got the idea to treat the arrangements with more layering and to have the melodies interweave like conversations. I also wanted it to be more diverse, to not adhere to any categories. I wanted to leave it wide open to possibility.”
The album blossoms forth with unexpected yet seamless juxtapositions. For example, Spanish moss atmospherics enwrap visceral bursts of rock and jazz on “Gaia Tribe,” and Sonny’s slide swoops and soars over a Jamaican-inspired groove with Greenidge’s Trinidadian pans on “Forgotten Story,” while “Wonderide” finds zydeco romancing classical.
“On ‘Wonderide,’ you can hear some of Clifton Chenier’s Creole influences and then it morphs into a classical motif with the strings playing more complex changes,” Sonny points out. “When I started experimenting with it, I realized that the tempo for a good zydeco groove could easily transition into the fingerpicking style of phrasing found in classical guitar music. Then it was a matter of adding the strings to give it more depth with tension and release, expanding the overall sound.”
Strings play a featured role on five of the pieces. The string arrangements by Sam Broussard — moonlighting from his gig as guitarist in Steve Riley & the Mamou Playboys — are played by members of Lafayette’s own Acadiana Symphony Orchestra, conducted by its music director, Mariusz Smolij, a world-renowned maestro. The strings are employed in a particularly inventive way wherever they appear on Elemental Journey, frequently embellishing the tunings that Landreth uses for slide guitar — “sometimes in unison like a horn section, sometimes as a legitimate quartet or full blown orchestra,” Sonny explains.
The concept occurred to him after Smolij invited him to perform with the Acadiana Symphony Orchestra for a 2005 Christmas show for which he played Bach’s Cantata 140. “It was something I’d always wanted to do,” says Sonny. “I’d played the trumpet in school band and orchestra from grade school through college, so I was exposed to classical music and jazz, but I’d never played anything like that on slide guitar! So that really fired me up, and it became the backdrop for some of the classical influences on this album.”
There’s a particularly thrilling moment in the first track, “Gaia Tribe”, that occurs when two seemingly antithetical elements lock in an embrace. “When I first heard Joe’s solo,” Sonny recalls, “I went, ‘This is incredible! I love it but it just comes up out of nowhere — how am I gonna make it fit?’ After talking to Joe, I realized this was a great opportunity to raise the bar creatively. That’s when I got the idea to double the surprise factor and have the strings make their first appearance for the album in the middle of his solo. The next thing I know, a song that had started out as kind of a simple surf thing had become this wild ride of an epic piece and one of my favorite productions.”
Landreth’s music has always been evocative, a vibrant mixture of indigenous sounds and images informed by Delta blues and Faulkner alike. But here, by eschewing lyrics and vocals, he’s located something especially pure and unfettered. “What I’d hoped to end up creating was sonic stories without words,” he says. “And because there are no lyrics, it’s really important to connect on an emotional level. All of the titles for these songs have meaning for me — some of them are impressions from post-Katrina, Rita, the Gulf Spill, friends of mine and their experiences — so that’s part of it too. Still, I want listeners to feel something that resonates with them personally. I’ve always tried to make music that engages you on a deeper level that way.”
Prepare to be engaged . . . and transported.
Tin Pan Alley - Big Al Calhoun with H. Townsend and V. Townsend
This session, featuring Big Al Calhoun on amplified harmonica and vocals, with Henry Townsend (electric guitar, vocals) and Vernell Townsend on vocals, was recorded in August, 1979, in St. Louis. Big Al had worked for years with Henry and Vernell.
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”
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”
Johnny & the Devil - Hans Theessink
We've already had an American in Paris, but a Dutchman in Vienna? And one who has dedicated himself, body and soul, to American blues and roots music? Okay, Hans Theessink (pronounced Tay-sink) did not pick the easiest way to do this, but he has done so with a certain degree of single-mindedness.
Like others of his generation, in the early 1960‘s a love of the Blues took hold of the man whom Bo Diddley described as "one helluva guitar player", and it has not let go since. Above all, the country blues with its earthy and heartfelt sound impressed Hans Theessink and played a major role in his development as a musician. His roots are unmistakeably in the blues, but has also been influenced by countless other aspects of roots music. This musical variety has become a trademark of Hans Theessink, who as a songwriter has succeeded in building bridges to the present in addressing issues which reflect the reality of the here and now.
Hans is probably Europe's bluesexport Nr.1 - one of the top blues and roots musicians worldwide who has entertained audiences around the globe during a musical career that spans over more than 35 years. The world's leading bluespaper - US magazine Blues Revue wrote: "Hans Theessink is an international blues treasure. He is one of the world's pre-eminent country pickers and his warm baritone expresses blues".
Theessink's first recording was an EP in 1970. Since then his music has continually developed and so far Hans has released 20 albums, a songbook, a blues-guitar instruction video and a DVD. His CDs are guaranteed award winners. "Banjoman", the tribute project to Derroll Adams, that Hans produced with Arlo Guthrie, was recently nominated for a Grammy.
In 2004 Hans got the Austrian Amadeus award for "Songs from the Southland", a tribute to the music of the American South - a constant source of inspiration and companion on his musical journey. A Danish Music Award for best bluesalbum followed in 2005. His most recent CD "Bridges" - a recording with the new Hans Theessink Band, is again nominated for the Amadeus in the category best Blues-, Jazz-, Roots-, Folk-album. Hans' latest work is a DVD "Live in Concert" - "A Blues & Roots Revue" - it shows the Hans Theessink Band in action + lots of other special features. Hans' productions are known for their excellent sound quality and are also in big demand in HiFi circles.
Through his unmistakable guitarwork, sonorous baritone voice and stage presence, Hans has attained a status which is unique for a European. He has performed at many of the most prominent North American music festivals such as the "New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival", the "Chicago Blues Festival", the "Kerville Folk Festival", the "Toronto Soul & Blues Festival", the "Kansas City Blues & Jazz Festival", the "Edmonton Folk Festival", the "St.Louis Blues & Heritage Festival", the "King Biscuit Blues Festival", the "Woody Guthrie Festival" and the "Ultimate Rhythm and Blues Cruise" to name a few.
Hans Theessink has become one of the most sought-after artists of the international blues scene. He is more or less constantly "on tour" and plays an average of 200 concerts a year - a modern day troubadour and entertainer who keeps on spellbinding audiences all over the world with his rich and emotional sounds.
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”
First Line - Bob Stewart Quartet
Jerome Harris has won international recognition as one of the more versatile and penetrating stylists of his generation on both guitar and bass guitar.
Jerome's first major professional performances were as bass guitarist with Sonny Rollins in 1978; from 1988 to 1994 he was Rollins' guitarist, and appears on five of his recordings. Over the past two decades, Jerome has also recorded and/or performed live on six continents with such jazz notables as Jack DeJohnette, Bill Frisell, Ray Anderson, Don Byron, Bobby Previte, Oliver Lake, Amina Claudine Myers, Bob Stewart, George Russell, Julius Hemphill, and Bob Moses.
His extensive international work has included several stints in Japan with Sonny Rollins, as well as tours sponsored by the U.S. State Department: to six southeastern African countries with saxophonist Sam Newsome and guitarist Marvin Sewell, to India and southeast Asia with flutist Jamie Baum and guitarist Kenny Wessel, to India and several Middle Eastern countries with vibraphonist Jay Hoggard's group, and to five African nations with saxophonist Oliver Lake's reggae/jazz/funk band "Jump Up."
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”
Highway 61- Willie Foster
Birthdate - September 19, 1921
Birthplace - Outside Leland, Mississippi
Death - May 20, 2001
Last Residence - Greenville, Mississipi
Willie James Foster, known around his home of Greenville, Mississippi as the "Godfather of The Blues", says, I am the blues from the bottom of my foot to the hair on my head. I was born in the blues, raised in the blues and lived the blues.
Willie Foster was born Sept. 19, 1921 on a cotton sack four miles east of Leland while his mother was picking cotton. After that experience she was never able to have any more children. His family share cropped and made about $100 a year. He bought juice harps at age 5 or 6 and made a diddley bow on the side of the house. Bought his first harmonica for 25 cents he saved from carrying water to the fields for two weeks at age seven. With no sisters or brothers he helped his family farm and shared cropped from age 7 to 17 often with sacks tied on his feet for shoes. He only got to attend school until fourth grade and later years only when it rained and he couldn’t go to the field.
At age 17 Willie migrated north to Detroit where he worked in the auto industry. During WWII, he joined the army and was sent to Europe. There he played his harmonica for Joe Louis and Betty Grable at a show in London for the soldiers.
Willie had heard Muddy Waters in jukes in Mississippi but met him in Chicago. Willie and his three piece band from St.Louis often toured with Muddy's band.
He came back to Mississippi in 1963 to take care of his dad who was involved in a severe car accident. He worked around the Delta and started playing jukes around Holly Ridge, Indianola, and Greenville.
Midge Marsden , a New Zealander, heard Willie in 1991 while visiting the Mississippi Delta and invited him to play there for three months. Willie's career started to take off after his return home. Since then he has played over seas several times and all over the United States with his band "The Rhytmn and Blues Upsetters."
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Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Bottleneck Blues - Sylvester Weaver & Walter Beasley
Sylvester Weaver (July 25, 1897 – April 4, 1960) was an American blues guitar player and pioneer of country blues.
On October 23, 1923, he recorded in New York City with the blues singer Sara Martin "Longing for Daddy Blues" / "I've Got to Go and Leave My Daddy Behind" and two weeks later as a soloist "Guitar Blues" / "Guitar Rag". Both recordings were released on Okeh Records. These recordings are the very first country-blues recordings and the first known recorded songs using the slide guitar style. "Guitar Rag" (played on a Guitjo) became a blues classic and was covered in the 1930s by Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys as "Steel Guitar Rag" and became a country music standard too.
Weaver recorded until 1927, sometimes accompanied by Sara Martin, about 50 additional songs. On some recordings from 1927 he was accompanied by Walter Beasley and the singer Helen Humes. Weaver often used the bottleneck-style method, playing his guitar with a knife. His recordings were quite successful but in 1927 he retired and went back to Louisville until his death in 1960. Though many country blues artists had a revival from the 1950s on, Weaver died almost forgotten.
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Billy Bizor with his cousin Lightnin Hopkins
Born in Centerville, Texas in 1917, Bizor (also, variously, Bizer and Biser) dwelled in almost total obscurity prior to the 1960s, developing a spare, haunted sound largely unaffected by the passage of time, making him a prime candidate for rediscovery by purists. Among his first recordings were a series of unheralded early-1960s dates backing Hopkins; between 1968 and 1969, Bizor cut his only solo session in Houston with producer Roy Ames, revealing him to be an intense, emotionally charged singer. Eventually issued as Blowing My Blues Away, the end result went unreleased for several years; tragically, Bizor himself never saw the recordings come to light -- he died April 4, 1969.
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Fleetwood Covington
I try to create art that people can relate to on a very basic level. Using raw materials and a raw documentary approach, I try to project a reverence, not only for the cultural/ historical aspects of my subjects, but for the integrity of the individuals as well. Having been raised in the South, I feel a deep connection to the landscape and its people, and I’m always trying to capture its unique beauty, energy, and humor.
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”
Blues Medley - Poppa Dawg & Friends
Poppa Dawg is one of those ‘one-man-army’ crusaders that Blues (and all indie music) depends on so dearly. The concept of devoting one’s life to music with the Joy Factor being the no. 1 goal is something that the ‘greed-driven’ just can’t grasp. There’s always hope for music and mankind when there are crusaders like Rick in abundance and in some places (outside of North America) people who devote their lives to making and promoting blues are revered and respected. Besides leading his own band and making his own Blues, Poppa Dawg is ‘The Man’ when it comes to Interior, British Columbia. He keeps everything going, connecting clubs with artists, helping touring bands get gigs in Kelowna or Nelson, encourages venues to at least try live music and runs a website/e-mail newsletter that keeps us all informed. So, even outside of a recording context he is invaluable and irreplaceable.
Dawg has an easy-on-the-ears, natural blues voice and his guitar work betrays decades of influences from Johnny Watson to Elvin Bishop. Tasty and tasteful. But, it’s his song writing that really surprises. Great lyrics and humorous poetry abound set to catchy riffs designed for the sacroiliac. Several tracks are very memorable and worthy of ‘borrowing’, so let’s hope Dawg gets these to some ‘stars’ for exposure and royalties.
Andy 'Blues Boy' Grigg
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Bluguala de la Salina Grande - Claudio Gabis
Claudio Gabis (Buenos Aires, March 18, 1949), guitarist, composer, is one of the founders of the rock movement of Argentina and pioneering of the blues there. Between his contributions are the trio Manal, considered along with Almond and The Cats, a foundation group of the Rock Argentino. Later was a member of The Bore of the Rock and Roll, with which he recorded several discs, between them Life, the first one of the duo Sui Generis. Gabis has collaborated, also, with Argentine, artists Brazilian and Spanish and developed teaching activities in the field of the modern music.
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”
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