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Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Red River New Mexico's "River & Brews Blues Fest"
Trouble, Trouble - Luke "Long Gone" Miles
Luke "Lone Gone" Miles (May 8, 1925 РNovember 23, 1987) was an American Texas blues and electric blues singer and songwriter. He was a prot̩g̩ of Lightnin' Hopkins, and variously recorded or performed with Hopkins, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee and Willie Chambers. Miles is best known for his 1964 album, Country Born, issued on World Pacific Records.
Luke Miles was born in Lachute, Louisiana, United States. Interspersed by a period serving in the United States Navy in 1943 and 1944, Miles worked on a cotton plantation until the early 1950s, and listened to blues music on the radio. Suitably inspired, Miles moved to Houston, Texas, in 1952, with the single aim of meeting Lightnin' Hopkins. Miles stated, "I went to Houston for one reason. I went to see Lightnin’ Hopkins. That's what I went for and that's what I did. Lightnin' Hopkins taught me just about everything about blues singing. The first time I ever sang in front of an audience was in 1952 with Lightnin'. The first day I met Lightnin' he named me "Long Gone" … and I've been Long Gone Miles ever since".
According to Ed Pearl, "Miles appeared on Lightnin's doorstep in Houston a long while back, and Lightnin' wanted to close the door. And Luke proceeded to just go to sleep on his doorstep.... he was a real country guy. So Lightnin' took a fancy to him and let him hang around and he was a good singer, and Lightnin' sometimes let him perform with him on stage".
Nervous at his first concert, Miles dropped the microphone. However, he persevered and played at local clubs, and subsequently appeared on several of Hopkins recordings, which included Hopkins' 'live album', Country Blues (1960). In 1961, Miles relocated to Los Angeles but, with Hopkins' career starting to be "rediscovered" and booming, the two parted ways.
In 1962, Miles recorded two singles for Smash Records, accompanied by Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry. The b-side to both singles was the anti-war song "War Time Blues", where Miles expoused, "Well, when I get my examination card, I want the doctor tell me I too doggone old". Also in 1962, Miles teamed up with the guitarist, Willie Chambers, and they performed together regularly for two years. In 1964, Miles released his Country Born album on World Pacific. In addition, Miles recorded singles for Two Kings Records in 1965, and four years later a further one, "Hello Josephine", for Kent. A live recording of Miles was made at the Ash Grove, Los Angeles in 1966, where Miles was accompanied on acoustic guitar by Bernie Pearl, the brother of the Ash Grove proprietor, Ed Pearl.
However, in 1970, Miles lived up to his stage name, and disappeared for a long time from performing and recording. He never spoke to, or heard from, Hopkins again. The later album releases were Country Boy (1984), which included mainly previously unreleased tracks recorded in 1962; and Riding Around in My V8 Ford (2008) composed of tracks recorded live in Venice, California, in 1985.
Miles died on November 23, 1987, in Los Angeles, aged 62
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Tribute to Robert Johnson
Robert Leroy Johnson (May 8, 1911 – August 16, 1938) was an American blues singer and musician. His landmark recordings from 1936–37 display a combination of singing, guitar skills, and songwriting talent that have influenced later generations of musicians. Johnson's shadowy, poorly documented life and death at age 27 have given rise to much legend, including a Faustian myth. As an itinerant performer who played mostly on street corners, in juke joints, and at Saturday night dances, Johnson enjoyed little commercial success or public recognition in his lifetime.
His records sold poorly during his lifetime, and it was only after the first reissue of his recordings on LP in 1961 that his work reached a wider audience. Johnson is now recognized as a master of the blues, particularly of the Mississippi Delta blues style. He is credited by many rock musicians as an important influence; Eric Clapton has called Johnson "the most important blues singer that ever lived."Johnson was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as an "Early Influence" in their first induction ceremony in 1986. In 2003, David Fricke ranked Johnson fifth in Rolling Stone 's list of 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.
Robert Johnson was born in Hazlehurst, Mississippi, possibly on May 8, 1911,to Julia Major Dodds (born October 1874) and Noah Johnson (born December 1884). Julia was married to Charles Dodds (born February 1865), a relatively prosperous landowner and furniture maker with whom she had 10 children. Charles Dodds had been forced by a mob to leave Hazlehurst following a dispute with white landowners. Julia left Hazlehurst with baby Robert but after some two years sent him to live in Memphis with her husband, who had changed his name to Charles Spencer.
Around 1919, Robert rejoined his mother in the area around Tunica and Robinsonville, Mississippi. Julia's new husband was known as Dusty Willis; he was 24 years her junior. Robert was remembered by some residents as "Little Robert Dusty," but he was registered at Tunica's Indian Creek School as Robert Spencer. In the 1920 census he is listed as Robert Spencer, living in Lucas, Arkansas with Will and Julia Willis. Robert was at school in 1924 and 1927 and the quality of his signature on his marriage certificate suggests that he was relatively well educated for a boy of his background. One school friend, Willie Coffee, has been discovered and filmed, recalling that Robert was already noted for playing the harmonica and jaw harp. He also remembers that Robert was absent for long periods, which suggests that he may have been living and studying in Memphis.
After school, Robert adopted the surname of his natural father, signing himself as Robert Johnson on the certificate of his marriage to sixteen-year-old Virginia Travis in February 1929. She died in childbirth shortly after. Surviving relatives of Virginia told the blues researcher Robert "Mack" McCormick that this was a divine punishment for Robert's decision to sing secular songs, known as 'selling your soul to the Devil'. McCormick believes that Johnson himself accepted the phrase as a description of his resolve to abandon the settled life of a husband and farmer to become a full-time blues musician.
Around this time, the noted blues musician Son House moved to Robinsonville where his musical partner, Willie Brown, lived. Late in life, House remembered Johnson as a 'little boy' who was a competent harmonica player but an embarrassingly bad guitarist. Soon after, Johnson left Robinsonville for the area around Martinsville, close to his birthplace Hazlehurst, possibly searching for his natural father. Here he perfected the guitar style of Son House and learned other styles from Isaiah "Ike" Zimmerman. Ike Zimmerman was rumoured to have learned supernaturally to play guitar by visiting graveyards at midnight. When Johnson next appeared in Robinsonville, he had seemed to have acquired a miraculous guitar technique. House was interviewed at a time when the legend of Johnson's pact with the Devil was well known among blues researchers. He was asked whether he attributed Johnson's technique to this pact, and his equivocal answers have been taken as confirmation.
While living in Martinsville, Johnson fathered a child with Vergie Mae Smith. He also married Caletta Craft in May 1931. In 1932, the couple moved to Clarksdale in the Delta. Here Caletta fell ill and Johnson abandoned her for a career as a 'walking' (itinerant) musician.
Have you really heard the voice of Robert Johnson?
From 1932 until his death in 1938, Johnson moved frequently between large cities like Memphis, Tennessee and Helena, Arkansas and the smaller towns of the Mississippi Delta and neighboring regions of Mississippi and Arkansas. On occasion, he traveled much further. Fellow blues musician Johnny Shines accompanied him to Chicago, Texas, New York, Canada, Kentucky, and Indiana. Henry Townsend shared a musical engagement with him in St Louis. In many places he stayed with members of his large extended family, or with women friends. He did not marry again but formed some long term relationships with women to whom he would return periodically. One was Estella Coleman, the mother of the blues musician Robert Lockwood, Jr. In other places he stayed with a woman seduced at his first performance. In each location, Johnson's hosts were largely ignorant of his life elsewhere. He used different names in different places, employing at least eight distinct surnames.
Biographers have looked for consistency from musicians who knew Johnson in different contexts: Shines, who travelled extensively with him; Lockwood who knew him as his mother's partner; David "Honeyboy" Edwards whose cousin Willie Mae Powell had a relationship with Johnson. From a mass of partial, conflicting, and inconsistent eye-witness accounts, biographers have attempted to summarize Johnson's character. "He was well mannered, he was soft spoken, he was indecipherable". "As for his character, everyone seems to agree that, while he was pleasant and outgoing in public, in private he was reserved and liked to go his own way". "Musicians who knew Johnson testified that he was a nice guy and fairly average — except, of course, for his musical talent, his weakness for whiskey and women, and his commitment to the road."
When Johnson arrived in a new town, he would play for tips on street corners or in front of the local barbershop or a restaurant. Musical associates have said that in live performances Johnson often did not focus on his dark and complex original compositions, but instead pleased audiences by performing more well-known pop standards of the day – and not necessarily blues. With an ability to pick up tunes at first hearing, Johnson had no trouble giving his audiences what they wanted, and certain of his contemporaries later remarked on Johnson's interest in jazz and country music. Johnson also had an uncanny ability to establish a rapport with his audience; in every town in which he stopped, Johnson would establish ties to the local community that would serve him well when he passed through again a month or a year later.
Fellow musician Shines was 17 when he met Johnson in 1933. He estimated Johnson was maybe a year older than himself. In Samuel Charters' Robert Johnson, the author quotes Shines as saying:
"Robert was a very friendly person, even though he was sulky at times, you know. And I hung around Robert for quite a while. One evening he disappeared. He was kind of a peculiar fellow. Robert'd be standing up playing some place, playing like nobody's business. At about that time it was a hustle with him as well as a pleasure. And money'd be coming from all directions. But Robert'd just pick up and walk off and leave you standing there playing. And you wouldn't see Robert no more maybe in two or three weeks ... So Robert and I, we began journeying off. I was just, matter of fact, tagging along."
During this time Johnson established what would be a relatively long-term relationship with Estella Coleman, a woman about fifteen years his senior and the mother of musician Robert Lockwood, Jr. Johnson reportedly cultivated a woman to look after him in each town he played in. Johnson supposedly asked homely young women living in the country with their families whether he could go home with them, and in most cases the answer was 'yes'...until a boyfriend arrived or Johnson was ready to move on.
In 1941, Alan Lomax learned from Muddy Waters that Johnson had performed in the Clarksdale, Mississippi area. By 1959, historian Samuel Charters could only add that Will Shade of the Memphis Jug Band remembered Johnson had once briefly played with him in West Memphis, Arkansas. In the last year of his life, Johnson is believed to have traveled to St. Louis and possibly Illinois, and then to some states in the East.
In 1938, Columbia Records producer John H. Hammond, who owned some of Johnson's records, had record producer Don Law seek out Johnson out to book him for the first "From Spirituals to Swing" concert at Carnegie Hall in New York. On learning of Johnson's death, Hammond replaced him with Big Bill Broonzy, but still played two of Johnson's records from the stage
Here's some alleged footage of Robert of course it's bogus.
In Jackson, Mississippi, around 1936, Johnson sought out H. C. Speir, who ran a general store and doubled as a talent scout. Speir put Johnson in touch with Ernie Oertle, who offered to record the young musician in San Antonio, Texas. The recording session was held on November 23, 1936 in room 414 of the Gunter Hotel in San Antonio, which Brunswick Records had set up to be a temporary recording studio. In the ensuing three-day session, Johnson played sixteen selections, and recorded alternate takes for most of these. Johnson reportedly performed facing the wall, which has been cited as evidence he was a shy man and reserved performer. This conclusion was played up in the inaccurate liner notes of the 1961 album King of the Delta Blues Singers. Ry Cooder speculates that Johnson played facing a corner to enhance the sound of the guitar, a technique he calls "corner loading".
Among the songs Johnson recorded in San Antonio were "Come On In My Kitchen", "Kind Hearted Woman Blues", "I Believe I'll Dust My Broom" and "Cross Road Blues". The first songs to appear were "Terraplane Blues" and "Last Fair Deal Gone Down", probably the only recordings of his that he would live to hear. "Terraplane Blues" became a moderate regional hit, selling 5,000 copies.
His first recorded song, "Kind Hearted Woman Blues", was part of a cycle of spin-offs and response songs that began with Leroy Carr's "Mean Mistreater Mama" (1934). According to Wald, it was "the most musically complex in the cycle"and stood apart from most rural blues as a through-composed lyric, rather than an arbitrary collection of more-or-less unrelated verses. In contrast to most Delta players, Johnson had absorbed the idea of fitting a composed song into the three minutes of a 78 rpm side. Most of Johnson's "somber and introspective" songs and performances come from his second recording session.
In 1937, Johnson traveled to Dallas, Texas, for another recording session in a makeshift studio at the Vitagraph (Warner Brothers) Building, 508 Park Avenue, where Brunswick Record Corporation was located on the third floor. Eleven records from this session would be released within the following year. Johnson did two takes of most of these songs and recordings of those takes survived. Because of this, there is more opportunity to compare different performances of a single song by Johnson than for any other blues performer of his time and place.
By the time he died, at least six of his records had been released in the South as race records.
Did Robert Really Sell His Soul?
The accuracy of the pitch and speed of the extant recordings has been questioned. In The Guardian's music blog from May 2010, Jon Wilde states that "the common consensus among musicologists is that we've been listening to Johnson at least 20% too fast;" i.e., that "the recordings were accidentally speeded up when first committed to 78 , or else were deliberately speeded up to make them sound more exciting." He does not give a source for this statement. Former Sony music executive Lawrence Cohn, who won a Grammy for the label's 1991 reissue of Johnson's works, "acknowledges there's a possibility Johnson's 1936–37 recordings were speeded up, since the OKeh/Vocalion family of labels, which originally issued the material, was 'notorious' for altering the speed of its releases. 'Sometimes it was 78 rpms, sometimes it was 81 rpms,' he says. It's impossible to check the original sources, since the metal stampers used to duplicate the original 78 discs disappeared years ago."
Johnson died on August 16, 1938, at the age of 27, near Greenwood, Mississippi. He had been playing for a few weeks at a country dance in a town about 15 miles (24 km) from Greenwood. Differing accounts and theories attempt to shed light on the events preceding his death. A story often told is that one evening Johnson began flirting with a woman at a dance, the wife of the juke joint owner, according to rumor, unaware that the bottle of whiskey she gave to Johnson had been poisoned by her husband. In another version, she was a married woman unrelated to the juke joint owner. Johnson was allegedly offered an open bottle of whiskey that was laced with strychnine. Fellow blues legend Sonny Boy Williamson allegedly advised him never to drink from an offered bottle that had already been opened. According to Williamson, Johnson replied, "Don't ever knock a bottle out of my hand." Soon after, he was offered another open bottle of whiskey, also laced with strychnine, and accepted it. Johnson is reported to have begun feeling ill the evening after drinking from the bottle and had to be helped back to his room in the early morning hours. Over the next three days, his condition steadily worsened and witnesses reported that he died in a convulsive state of severe pain—symptoms which are consistent with strychnine poisoning.
Musicologist Robert "Mack" McCormick claims to have tracked down the man who murdered Johnson, and to have obtained a confession from him in a personal interview. McCormick has declined to reveal the man's name, however.
In his book Crossroads: The Life and Afterlife of Blues Legend Robert Johnson, Tom Graves uses expert testimony from toxicologists to dispute the notion that Johnson died of strychnine poisoning. He states that strychnine has such a distinctive odor and taste that it cannot be disguised, even in strong liquor. He also claims that a significant amount of strychnine would have to be consumed in one sitting to be fatal, and that death from the poison would occur within hours, not days. This observation was also noted in a recent Guitar World comment from contemporary David "Honeyboy" Edwards, who said that it couldn't have been strychnine, since he would have died much sooner than the three days he suffered.
Oh and if you really want to play like Robert...here's the formula!
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Monday, May 7, 2012
HOW LONG BLUES - Bertha Chippie Hill
Bertha "Chippie" Hill (March 15, 1905 – May 7, 1950), was an American blues and vaudeville singer and dancer, best known for her recordings with Louis Armstrong.
Hill was born in Charleston, South Carolina, one of sixteen children, but in 1915 the family moved to New York. She began her career as a dancer in Harlem, and by 1919 was working with Ethel Waters. At age 14, during a stint at Leroy's, a noted New York nightclub, Hill was nicknamed "Chippie" because of her young age. She also performed with Ma Rainey as part of the Rabbit Foot Minstrels, before establishing her own song and dance act and touring on the TOBA circuit in the early 1920s.
She settled in Chicago in about 1925, and worked at various venues with King Oliver's Jazz Band. She first recorded in November 1925 for Okeh Records, backed by the cornet player Louis Armstrong and pianist Richard M. Jones, on songs such as "Pratt City Blues", "Low Land Blues" and "Kid Man Blues" that year, and on "Georgia Man" and "Trouble in Mind" with the same musicians in 1926. She also recorded in 1927, with Lonnie Johnson on the vocal duet, "Hard Times Blues", plus "Weary Money Blues", "Tell Me Why" and "Speedway Blues". In 1928, came the Tampa Red vocal duets, "Hard Times Blues" and "Christmas Man Blues", and in 1929 with "Scrapper" Blackwell & The Two Roys, with Leroy Carr on piano, the song "Non-skid Tread". Hill recorded 23 titles between 1925 to 1929.
In the 1930s she retired from singing to raise her seven children. Hill staged a comeback in 1946 with Lovie Austin's Blues Serenaders, and recorded for Rudi Blesh's Circle label. She began appearing on radio and in clubs and concerts in New York, including in 1948 the Carnegie Hall concert with Kid Ory, and she sang at the Paris Jazz Festival, and worked with Art Hodes in Chicago.
She was back again in 1950, when she was run over by a car and killed in New York at the age of 45. She is buried at the Lincoln Cemetery, Blue Island, Cook County, Illinois
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Three O'clock In The Morning - Connor Kennedy Band
Young musicians often find themselves enamored with the music of legendary artists but in some cases, they learn to play that music; on even rarer occasions they get to share a stage with those legends. Connor Kennedy, a guitarist and vocalist from upstate NY, is one of those young musicians who’s done all three.
Born long after the British fueled electric blues resurgence of the late 1960s, and not long after the days of blues and soul on MTV; Kennedy picked up the guitar at age eight and has yet to put it down. Citing influences spanning from classic electric blues guitarists of the 50s and 60s like Freddie King and Hubert Sumlin, deep-cut soul singers of the 70′s-Teddy Pendergrass and Donny Hathaway, and songwriters Lowell George, Jerry Garcia & Robert Hunter; Connor Kennedy has been enthusing audiences throughout the Northeast region with his hard hitting, heavy jamming, bone fide blend of soul-injected down-home roots music. He’s sharing stages with the likes of Larry Campbell (Levon Helm Band, Phil Lesh & Friends), Garth Hudson (of The Band), world-renowned jazz pianist Brad Mehldau, and most frequently, Bruce Katz, Scott Sharrard, and Jay Collins of the Gregg Allman Band. This year, at age 17, Kennedy was featured in the January 2012 issue of Hudson Valley Magazine as one of their “People to Watch,” praising his steady progress in becoming one of the area’s most respected musicians while he’s still in his teenage years.
Although Kennedy’s career has reached heights in just a few years that some musicians seek for entire lifetimes, he’s only just begun. He’s currently hard at work on his first recording, an EP featuring several original songs including one track co-written with Jay Collins (of the Gregg Allman Band) which will be released by June.
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Sena Ehrhardt at Blues Music Awards!
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| SENA EHRHARDT AT THE BLUES MUSIC AWARDS IN MEMPHIS! "Make way for a rising star" - Jazz & Blues Report
Living Blues added, "With Leave the Light On the Sena Ehrhardt Band should get the attention of blues lovers as well as a mainstream audience that appreciates good songwriting and music with a feeling." Sena offered, "I am deeply honored to be among the Blues Music Award nominees for Best New Artist Debut 2012. Thank you to the Blues Foundation for this incredible recognition. My band and I put a lot of love into our debut album on Blind Pig Records and feel so blessed to be in the company of the world's best Blues Musicians at the Blues Music Awards!" For more info, or to hear samples from the album, please click HERE. Publicity: Debra Regur pigpress@blindpigrecords.com 415-550-6484 Radio: Peter Robinson radio@blindpigrecords.com 773-772-0043 | ||
| For more information visit www.blindpigrecords.com. | ||
Winter Kill - The Eastern
The Eastern are string band that roars like a punk band, that swings like a gospel band, that drinks like a country band, that works like a bar band, that hopes like folk singers, and sings love songs like union songs, and writes union songs like love songs, and wants to slow dance and stand on tables, all at the same time. Whether roaring as their big six piece string band or swinging the lonesome ballads as a two piece and averaging over 200 shows a year, the eastern can hold it down in all settings for all comers.
Constantly on tour the eastern have played all over New Zealand and parts beyond from gore to Nashville, Shirley to Sydney they’ve held it down and treat any opportunity as a chance to plug in a play. They’ve toured with Steve Earle, the Old Crow Medicine Show and the Lil’ Band of Gold as well as opening for everyone from Fleetwood Mac to the Jayhawks to Jimmy Barnes to Justin Townes Earle as well as Jim White, Victoria Williams and Vic Chestnut.
Their self titled debut album was released in 2009 and debuted straight into the top ten of the new Zealand indie charts based only on a ferocious live reputation and a belief in the old fashioned concept of playing for people, having made album of the week status in the Sunday star times and the chch press its sold out of its first run and continues to gather friends for the band far and wide.
In 2010 they released ‘Arrows’ tight on the heel’s of a year which would see most bands wilt at the workload, The Eastern recorded the album in January started touring in February, released the record 1st of march and have been on tour ever since up and down New Zealand. It’s been a thrill to see the work pay off with the record selling faster than they can print it, bar rooms full of repeat listeners and new friends alike and a growing audience who seem to care as much about the band as the band cares about them. ‘Arrows’ has been a watershed for the band and the response to the record has kept them on tour most of 2010 and through the summer of 2011, in may it was released in Australia and the band have hoped in the van and started runnin’ round those Australian highways also.
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Old Pal Records artist: Gary Primich - Just A Little More...with Omar Dykes - New Release Review
I've been listening to a new album of music by Gary Primich that will be released on April 17, 2012. To celebrate the release of this new cd, a number of special events are planned in Austin including appearances by many of Gary's musical friends as well as a screening of the harmonica film Pocket Full Of Soul. This new double Cd package includes a 10 page booklet as a great package of blues music featuring over 20 songs some which have not previously released and others which were previously featured on recordings such as Travelin' Mood, Mr. Freeze, Doghouse Music, Riding The Darkhorse as well as Omar and the Howlers recordings, Muddy Springs Road, Swingland and World Wide Open. The cd features such musicians as Gary Clark, Jr., Derek O'Brein, Sarah Brown, Wes Starr, Mark Korpi, Dave Biller, Jay Moehler, Nick Connolly, George Rains, Mark Rubin, Billy Horton and of course Omar Kent Dykes. When you review a cd that has so many fine tracks it becomes exceedingly difficult to describe the high points as the recording is just great throughout. The cd opener , Satellite Rock is a real screamer absolutely showcasing Primich's energy on harp. Hot!! Sweet Fine Angel not only features Primich but some stellar guitar work. September Song, though really a jazz classic, has a really clean and soulful sound to it. Nice that it has been included. School Of Hard Knocks is again a jazzy T-Bone style blues and it gives the band a bit of time to stretch their chops. On Disc 2 I particularly like the harp tones that Primich blows on Mr. Freeze. One Room Country Shack, possibly my favorite track on the set, features Dykes on guitar and vocals. It's a cool slow blues and they are digging deep on this one. Down in Mississippi is a little blues jam featuring just Dykes and Primich together and it's a great simple blues track. The set wraps up with another jazz tune, Indiana showing Primich's versatility as a musician and interpreter. I think that this recording will be widely successful.
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The following track is not from the cd but a good representation of Primich's work.
First-Ever Orange County Blues Society Event This Saturday, May 12
(DATELINE: ORANGE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA, USA) - Blues impresario/musician, Papa J, has formed the long-needed Orange County Blues Society (OCBS) and has announced the inaugural event slated for Saturday, May 12 at Malone's Bar & Grill, 604 E. Dyer, Santa Ana. (714) 979-6000 or www.malonesbarandgrill.com. 4-8 p.m. $5. Performing at the first-ever OCBS event are Rip Cat Records artist, Delta Blues guitarist extraordinaire, guitarist K.K Martin; Long Beach's New Blues Revolution; and the pride of San Pedro, soulful blues guitar ace, Dave Widow. There will also be a huge Blues Jam with members of the Orange County Blues Meetup Group so the event should be a blast! For more on the Orange County Blues Society, log onto www.orangecountybluessociety.com or on Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/OrangeCountyBluesSociety.
ALSO SAVE THE DATE: Sunday, August 26. Place? Malone's in Santa Ana. Event? Real Blues Festival of Orange County 3. On the Bill? Whiteboy James and the Blues Express; Papa J & Friends; Jumpin' Jack Benny; Tricia Freeman Band; and others TBA. More information to follow soon!
ALSO SAVE THE DATE: Sunday, August 26. Place? Malone's in Santa Ana. Event? Real Blues Festival of Orange County 3. On the Bill? Whiteboy James and the Blues Express; Papa J & Friends; Jumpin' Jack Benny; Tricia Freeman Band; and others TBA. More information to follow soon!
Steady Roll Boogie - Axel Zwingenberger
Axel Zwingenberger (born May 7, 1955, Hamburg, Germany) is a blues and boogie-woogie pianist, and songwriter. He is considered one of the finest boogie-woogie music masters in the world
Zwingenberger was born in Hamburg, Germany, and enjoyed eleven years of conventional piano training. In 1973 he listened to recordings of boogie-woogie pianists Albert Ammons, Meade "Lux" Lewis, and Pete Johnson. He soon joined piano playing partners Hans-Georg Moeller, Vince Weber and Martin Pyrker, and word about the four friends began to spread. In 1974, he played at the First International Blues-and-Boogie Woogie Festival of the West German Radio Station in Cologne which was followed by Hans Maitner's annual festival Stars of Boogie Woogie in Vienna.
By 1975, Zwingenberger received his first recording contract, issuing such solo recordings as Boogie Woogie Breakdown, Power House Boogie, and Boogie Woogie Live, as well as lending his talents to recordings by such artists as Lionel Hampton, Jay McShann, Big Joe Turner, Lloyd Glenn, Joe Newman, Sippie Wallace, Mama Yancey, Champion Jack Dupree, Sammy Price, Ray Bryant, Charlie Watts, Bill Wyman, Vince Weber, and the Mojo Blues Band, among others. In addition to issuing other solo recordings, Zwingenberger continues to tour all over the world. He has also authored several publications about blues/boogie-woogie music and musicians as well as Boogie Woogie: Piano Solo, a book of 12 of his compositions, exactly transcribed.
Being a railfan since early childhood, he is also known for his photographs of steam locomotives, including some taken from within the machinery itself. Zwingenberger established a non-profit foundation within the German Foundation for the Protection of Historical Monuments which donates for the preservation of monuments on rails, including the world's fastest operational steam locomotive, the German DR 18 201.
In spring 2009, coordinated by young pianist Ben Waters from the UK, Zwingenberger renewed his relationship with Charlie Watts, drummer of The Rolling Stones. Together with bassist Dave Green, they played joint concerts labeled as 'The ABC&D of Boogie Woogie'.
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Stranger Blues - Sparky and Rhonda Rucker
JAMES "SPARKY" RUCKER has been singing songs and telling stories from the American tradition for over forty years. Sparky accompanies himself on guitar, banjo, and spoons, and has released fourteen recordings.
RHONDA HICKS RUCKER practiced medicine for five years before becoming a full-time folk musician. She is a versatile performer, playing blues harmonica, piano, banjo, and adding vocal harmonies. Rhonda appears on eight recordings with her husband. Their 1991 release, Treasures and Tears, was nominated for the W.C. Handy Award for Best Traditional Recording.
SPARKY grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee and began playing guitar at age eleven. He also played trumpet in the Junior High marching band and sang in church, school, and community choirs throughout his childhood.
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I Keep On Drinkin' - Bumble Bee Slim
Amos Easton (May 7, 1905 – June 8, 1968), better known by the stage name Bumble Bee Slim, was an American Piedmont blues musician.
Easton was born in Brunswick, Georgia, United States. Around 1920 he left home to join the Ringling Brothers' circus before returning to Georgia, marrying briefly, and then heading north on a freight train to Indianapolis where he settled in 1928. There, he met and was influenced by pianist Leroy Carr and guitarist Scrapper Blackwell.
By 1931 he had moved to Chicago, where he first recorded as Bumble Bee Slim for Paramount Records. The following year his song, "B&O Blues", was a hit for Vocalion Records, inspiring a number of other railroad blues and eventually becoming a popular folk song. Over the next five years he recorded over 150 songs for the Decca, Bluebird and Vocalion labels, often accompanied by other musicians such as Big Bill Broonzy, Peetie Wheatstraw, Tampa Red, Memphis Minnie, and Washboard Sam.
In 1937, he returned to Georgia, then relocated to Los Angeles, California, in the early 1940s, apparently hoping to break into motion pictures as a songwriter and comedian. During the 1950s he recorded several albums, but these had little impact. He recorded his last album in 1962 for the Pacific Jazz label.
He continued to perform in clubs around Los Angeles until his death in 1968
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The Rusty Wright Band
The Rusty Wright Band brings to the stage an electrifying, blues-infused tour de force of rollicking musical interplay that is as much fun to watch as it is to listen to. In just a few short years this act has made the leap from regional favorite to performing at some of North America's top blues festivals and the Pacific region of Asia. They have shared billing with an eclectic array of blues, roots and rock acts including Lynyrd Skynyrd, Etta James, Charlie Musselwhite, Leslie West & Mountain, Janiva Magness, Zach Harmon, Ronnie Baker Brooks, Blessid Union of Souls, Billy Branch, Slaughter, Johnny Winter, Rory Block, Bettye LaVette and Mark Farner.
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Sunday, May 6, 2012
Michael Burks passed - Updated
I have just been informed that Michael Burks has passed suddenly. I will keep you informed as I get confirmation and details. My thoughts go out to his friends and family.
This is confirmed
From Bruce Iglauer: Michael "Iron Man" Burks, the great blues guitarist and singer, has died suddenly. He was returning from a successful tour of Europe and collapsed in customs at the Atlanta airport. He was rushed to the hospital but they were unable to revive him. Michael was a sweet man, hugely talented and deeply soulful. I was proud to have him call me his friend.
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If You Don't Slow Down - Eddie C Campbell
Eddie C. Campbell (born May 6, 1939, Duncan, Mississippi, is an American blues guitarist and singer, active in the Chicago blues scene.
Campbell moved to Chicago, Illinois, when he was ten years old, and by age 12 had already jammed with Muddy Waters, and learned first hand from Waters, Magic Sam and Otis Rush. In his early years as a professional musician, Campbell played as a sideman with Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter, Little Johnny Taylor, and Jimmy Reed. In 1976, Willie Dixon hired him to play in the Chicago Blues All-Stars.Campbell's debut album, King of the Jungle was released the following year, with accompaniment from Carey Bell (harmonica) and Lafayette Leake (piano). His later recordings were enhanced by a discipline not always evident in his life.
In 1984, Campbell left Chicago for Europe, settling initially in the Netherlands. He worked there for a decade before returning to Chicago in the 1990s.
Campbell's latest album is Spider Eating Preacher (Delmark, 2012).
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Saturday, May 5, 2012
STONE HEARTED WOMAN - ANDREW TIBBS
Andrew Tibbs (February 2, 1929 – May 5, 1991) was an American electric and urban blues singer and songwriter. He is best known for his controversial 1947 recording, "Bilbo Is Dead", a song relating to the demise of Theodore G. Bilbo
Tibbs was born Melvin Andrew Grayson, in Columbus, Ohio, United States. As a boy he sang in Baptist choirs in Chicago, directed by Mahalia Jackson and Dinah Washington. He was influenced by Ivory Joe Hunter and Arnold "Gatemouth" Moore.
From 1947 to 1949, Tibbs originally recorded for Aristocrat Records. His debut single was "Bilbo Is Dead" b/w "Union Man Blues", recorded whilst Tibbs was eighteen years old. The tracks were both co-written by Tibbs and Tom Archia,and caused controversy. The A-side criticized Theodore Bilbo's policies, whilst the B-side caused displeasure from the Chicago based teamster trade unions. Six further singles were released by Aristocrat. Following its eventual acquisition by Leonard and Phil Chess, the newly formed Chess label signed Tibbs in 1950, but he released only one record, "You Can't Win", before being dismissed.
Tibbs recorded the "Rock Savoy Rock" single for Peacock Records in 1951, followed by some unissued sessions for Savoy. With his brother, Kenneth, Tibbs recorded one session for Atco in 1956, which featured King Curtis. His final recordings in 1962 for M-Pac Records included his last single release, "Stone Hearted Woman".
He worked for West Electric thereafter, but made sporadic live appearances in Chicago clubs.
Tibbs died in Chicago in May 1991, aged 62
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Ellie Lee and the Blues Fury
Winner of numerous awards, Ellie Lee is an exciting rockin’ blues band with a powerful on stage performance. Ellie is a blues guitarist/singer/songwriter that fronts the band with her unique voice, ripping guitar solos and her obvious joy in performing. Ellie's guitar virtuosity has been compared to Stevie Ray Vaughan, Gary Moore, Jimi Hendrix just to name a few.
People enjoy the fact that Ellie plays and sings like there's no tomorrow. She gives it her all every time.
Ellie Lee grew up playing in rock, blues, funk and show bands. She traveled extensively in the southern states honing her skills as a blues musician.
After a 25 year hiatus to raise a family, Ellie is now back with a deep and ernest desire to play the music she loves... the blues... the musical soul of our nation.
Ellie “ I want to present an eclectic collection of old, new, and original tunes with a focus on variety, energy and dynamics”.
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Mary Had a Little Lamb - Anni Piper
Australian performer Anni Piper’s sultry vocals have attracted significant overseas interest and saw her sign with USA label Blues Leaf Records in 2008. The ‘Blues Leaf’ catalogue includes releases by many successful American performers including the award-winning Janiva Magness. Anni’s USA debut, titled ‘Two’s Company’ was released in January 2009 and hit #1 on the Australian Roots music charts and # 21 on the USA ‘Living Blues’ chart.
Anni’s latest CD ‘Chasin’ Tail’ was launched in February 2010 at the Australian Blues Music Festival, NSW. ‘Chasin’ Tail’ has recently been released by Blues Leaf Records throughout the rest of the world to rave reviews. For this album, Anni has a new line-up and a tougher sound, influenced by the blues / rock idols she enjoyed in her youth.
Anni Piper began playing electric guitar at 12 years old, but became a devoted musician when she was given her first bass at age 14. She quickly discovered an affinity with the instrument, preferring to lay down a groove rather than scream out a solo. Anni’s musical ability and strong focus led her to complete a Bachelor of Arts (Contemporary Music) at Southern Cross University, Lismore NSW, at only 19 years of age.
Anni remembers with clarity the first time she heard the blues back in her school days. “It was Paul Butterfield Blues Band playing ‘Born in Chicago’ - I knew straight away this was the direction I was heading.” she says.
In early 2004 Anni made the decision to record ‘Jailbait’ (BMM287.2), her debut CD. The album was an immediate success, winning the category of ‘Best New Talent’ at the 2005 Australian Blues Music Awards, plus a nomination for ‘Best Female Vocal’. Anni also achieved first place in the 2004 ABC Radio ‘Fresh Air’ competition.
These weren’t the only accolades for ‘Jailbait’ and Anni went on to become a top 5 finalist in the blues category of the 2004 MusicOz competition, and achieved 2nd place in the blues category of the 2005 Australian National Songwriting Contest.
Anni’s second album ‘Texas Hold ‘Em’ (BMM324.2) was recorded in early 2007. It was a much ‘rawer’ recording, and represented Anni’s live sound at the time more effectively than her first album. Already acknowledged as being an accomplished bass player and singer, this album showed that Anni had blossomed into a songwriter of distinction; her songs having a blues sensibility whilst still addressing the issues of today.
Recent achievements include nominations as a top five finalist in the 2010 Musicoz Awards in the Blues / Roots category, and a finalist in the 2009 APRA Professional Development Awards.
Anni was a finalist for ‘Best Female Vocal’ at the 2008 Australian Blues Music (Chain) Awards and received a nomination for the ‘Rudy Brandsma’ award at the 2007 Australian National Songwriting Contest.
To promote her music Anni tours Australia extensively, visiting NSW, VIC, SA, WA, TAS and QLD. Festival appearances include the Woodford Folk Festival (QLD), Optus National Music Muster (Gympie, QLD), Wangaratta Jazz & Blues Festival, Bruthen Blues and Arts Festival (VIC), Queenscliff Music Festival (VIC), and the Australian Blues Music Festival (Goulburn, NSW).
Anni's music video for "Dreamcatcher" has appeared on popular Australian television programs “Rage” (ABC TV) & “Landed Music” (SC10) and she has performed on “The Susie Show” (WIN TV) to promote her music. Her recordings have received extensive airplay in Australia, Europe, the USA and the rest of the world.
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Meat and Bread Blues - Blind Teddy Darby
Theodore Roosevelt Darby, better known as Blind Teddy Darby (March 2, 1906 – December 1975), was an American blues singer and guitarist.
Darby was born in Henderson, Kentucky. He moved to St. Louis with his family when he was a child. His mother taught him to play guitar. He served some time for selling moonshine, and in 1926 he lost his eyesight because of glaucoma.
He recorded from 1929 until 1937 under the names of "Blind Teddy Darby", "Blind Darby", "Blind Blues Darby" and "Blind Squire Turner" for the Paramount, Victor, Bluebird, Vocalion and Decca labels. In 1960 he was "rediscovered" and recorded by Pete Welding of Testament Records, yet the recordings from this session were never released.
In the late 1930s he gave up the blues and became an ordained deacon.
His song "Built Right On The Ground" has been covered (under the title of "I Never Cried"), from the 1970s onwards, by John Miller (who first changed the title), Roy Book Binder, Howard Bursen, and Phil Heywood.
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The Chicken - Alligator Band
ALLIGATOR is a type of crocodile from the Amazon River and spread to the Mainland of Florida, this crocodile type including the ferocious and aggressive but is closest to the human settlement as compared to other species, the concept of the music that we offer in accordance with the philosophy of life of the species ALLIGATOR that garang and rocks but still blends with the tastes of the public. ALLIGATOR wanted to try presenting the concept of the new music with a touch of the BLUES, ROCK N ' ROLL and POP with vocals that have distinctive vowel character. With personnel who have the basic blues combined with other musical references to developments, we are presenting different musical games ....Have A Wonderful ...Keep on Rockin' the BLUES ...
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Smokin' Banana Records Artist: Monkey Paw Finger - Smokin' Banana - New Release Review
Been listening to Smokin' Banana, the new release from Monkey Paw Finger. This is a pretty cool cd with a little taste of everything and a lot of fun. The band is primarily Michael J Hartman (guitars, bass, keys, drum machine, percussion and vocals) and David L Vacek (Vocals, Harmonica and percussion. First up is Bad Little Girl, a stripped down rocker that I really like. It's got everything that a song needs, cool lyrics, slide guitar, a rockin' beat and distorted harp. Chicken Shack Shakin' has another stripped track but this time more of a funky Latin beat. As stripped down as this is you find some real tasty harp and guitar riffs popping out. Sunshine and Rain is a full out rocker ... a lot of sound for two guys. My Next Sin actually crosses over to more of a country sound but these guys can pull it off ... chicken pickin' and all. I Ain't No Saint takes more of a direct blues attack but with some heavy overdrive on the amp. The riffs are tasty over structured chords. Rusty Traveler actually has a bit of a Todd Rundgren sound to it with the Philly sound creeping in. Overall a cool track. The recording end up with a full out bttw rocker, Wanted Man. Rippin slide, hammerin' drums, and talk of running from the law. These guys had a bunch of fun making this cd and I'm sure a lot of you will enjoy it!
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Severn Records artist: The Nighthawks - Damn Good Time - New Release Review
I just got the new Nighthawks release called Damn Good Time and that's exactly what it is. This recording will be released on May 15 by Severn Records fresh off of their first ever Blues Music Award from the Blues Foundation as Acoustic Blues Album of the Year in 2011. The recording opens with Too Much, a classic loping blues tune which demonstrates why the Nighthawks have been around for such a long time with their tight band, vocal harmonies and cool harp work. Who You're Working For is a rockin' tune with straight crankin' solos from Paul Bell on Guitar and Mark Wenner on Harp. Bring Your Sister is a real rocker with great harp tones and and the vocal harmonies that you have come to expect from the band. Minimum Wage, a thought provoking song, turns into a pretty cool swing jam with laid back soloing from Bell and Wenner. Georgia Slop is sure to get everyone bopping around. Night Work, another loping blues slinger has a cool feel to it and the ever present punch from Wenner on harp as well as a few cool riffs from Bell. Let's Work Together, covered by a lot of bands in the past gets the solid vocal harmony treatment here with a pretty cool slide solo to punch up the track. Smack Dab In The Middle is particularly harmonic vocally but also has a bursting harp solo. The recording finishes up with Heartbreak Shake, a rocker with The Nighthawks giving it everything that they have. It's got the strong lead vocals, it's got the tight rhythm, it's got the slide ... it's a good wrap up to this set.
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Big Railroad Blues - Cannons Jug Stompers
Gus Cannon (12 September 1883 — 15 October 1979) was an American blues musician who helped to popularize jug bands (such as his own Cannon’s Jug Stompers) in the 1920s and 1930s.
There’s doubt about his birth year; his tombstone gives the date as 1874.
Although their last recordings were made in 1930, Cannon’s Jug Stompers were one of Beale Street’s most popular jug bands through the 1930s. A few songs Cannon recorded with Cannon’s Jug Stompers are “Minglewood Blues”, “Pig Ankle Strut”, “Wolf River Blues”, “Viola Lee Blues”, “White House Station” and “Walk Right In”, later made into a pop hit by The Rooftop Singers. By the end of the 1930s, Cannon had effectively retired, although he occasionally performed as a solo musician.
Cannon began recording, as “Banjo Joe”, for Paramount Records in 1927. At that session he was backed up by Blind Blake. After the success of the Memphis Jug Band’s first records, he quickly assembled a jug band featuring Noah Lewis and Ashley Thompson (later replaced by Elijah Avery). Cannon’s Jug Stompers first recorded at the Memphis Auditorium for the Victor label in January 1928. Hosea Woods joined the Jug Stompers in the late 1920s, playing guitar, banjo and kazoo, and also providing some vocals.
Born on a plantation at Red Banks, Cannon moved to Clarksdale, Mississippi, then the home of W.C. Handy, at the age of 12. Cannon’s musical skills came without training; he taught himself to play using a banjo that he made from a frying pan and raccoon skin. He ran away from home at the age of fifteen and began his career entertaining at sawmills and levee and railroad camps in the Mississippi Delta around the turn of the century.
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Statesboro Blues - Blind Willie McTell
Blind Willie McTell (born William Samuel McTier May 5, 1898 – August 19, 1959), was an influential Piedmont and ragtime blues singer and guitarist. He played with a fluid, syncopated fingerstyle guitar technique, common among many exponents of Piedmont blues, although, unlike his contemporaries, he came to exclusively use twelve-string guitars. McTell was also an adept slide guitarist, unusual among ragtime bluesmen. His vocal style, a smooth and often laid-back tenor, differed greatly from many of the harsher voice types employed by Delta bluesmen, such as Charlie Patton. McTell embodied a variety of musical styles, including blues, ragtime, religious music, and hokum.
Born blind in the town of Thomson, Georgia, McTell learned how to play guitar in his early teens. He soon became a street performer around several Georgia cities, such as Atlanta and Augusta, and first recorded in 1927 for Victor Records. Although he never produced a major hit record, McTell's recording career was prolific, recording for different labels under different names throughout the 1920s and 30s. In 1940, he was recorded by John Lomax for the Library of Congress's folk song archive. He would remain active throughout the 1940s and 50s, playing on the streets of Atlanta, often with his longtime associate, Curley Weaver. Twice more he recorded professionally. McTell's last recordings originated during an impromptu session recorded by an Atlanta record store owner in 1956. McTell would die three years later after suffering for years from diabetes and alcoholism. Despite his mainly failed releases, McTell was one of the few archaic blues musicians that would actively play and record during the 1940s and 50s. However, McTell never lived to be "rediscovered" during the imminent American folk music revival, as many other bluesmen would.
McTell's influence extended over a wide variety of artists, including The Allman Brothers Band, who famously covered McTell's "Statesboro Blues", and Bob Dylan, who paid tribute to McTell in his 1983 song "Blind Willie McTell"; the refrain of which is, "And I know no one can sing the blues, like Blind Willie McTell". Other artists include Taj Mahal, Alvin Youngblood Hart, The White Stripes, Ralph McTell and Chris Smither.
Born William Samuel McTier in Thomson, Georgia, blind in one eye, McTell had lost his remaining vision by late childhood and attended schools for the blind in the states of Georgia, New York and Michigan. He showed proficiency in music from an early age, first playing harmonica and accordion, learning to read and write music in Braille, and turning to the six-string guitar in his early teens.[2][3] Born into a musical family, both of his parents and an uncle played guitar; he is also a relation of bluesman and gospel pioneer, Thomas A. Dorsey. His father left the family when McTell was still young, and when his mother died in the 1920s, he left his hometown and became a wandering musician, or "songster". He began his recording career in 1927 for Victor Records in Atlanta.
McTell married Ruth Kate Williams, now better known as Kate McTell, in 1934. She accompanied him on stage and on several recordings before becoming a nurse in 1939. Most of their marriage from 1942 until his death was spent apart, with her living in Fort Gordon near Augusta and him working around Atlanta.
In the years before World War II, McTell traveled and performed widely, recording for a number of labels under many different names, including Blind Willie McTell (Victor and Decca), Blind Sammie (Columbia), Georgia Bill (Okeh), Hot Shot Willie (Victor), Blind Willie (Vocalion and Bluebird), Barrelhouse Sammie (Atlantic), and Pig & Whistle Red (Regal). The "Pig 'n Whistle" appellation was a reference to a chain of Atlanta barbeque restaurants, one of which was located on the south side of East Ponce de Leon between Boulevard and Moreland Avenue, which later became a Krispy Kreme. McTell would frequently played for tips in the parking lot of this location. He was also known to play behind the nearby building that later became Ray Lee's Blue Lantern Lounge. McTell's style was singular: A form of country blues bridging the gap between the raw blues of the early part of the 20th century and the more refined east coast Piedmont sound[citation needed]. He took on the less common and more unwieldy 12-string guitar because of its volume. The style is well documented on John Lomax's 1940 recordings of McTell for the Library of Congress. McTell earned $10 from these sessions, the equivalent of $154.56 in 2011.[4]
Postwar, he recorded for Atlantic Records and Regal Records in 1949, but these recordings met with less commercial success than his previous works. He continued to perform around Atlanta, but his career was cut short by ill health, predominantly diabetes and alcoholism. In 1956, an Atlanta record store manager, Edward Rhodes, discovered McTell playing in the street for quarters and enticed him with a bottle of corn liquor into his store, where he captured a few final performances on a tape recorder. These were released posthumously on Prestige/Bluesville Records as Last Session. Beginning in 1957, McTell occupied himself as a preacher at Atlanta's Mt. Zion Baptist Church.
McTell died in Milledgeville, Georgia, of a stroke in 1959. He was buried at Jones Grove Church, near Thomson, Georgia, his birthplace. A fan paid to have a gravestone erected on his resting place. The name given on his gravestone is Eddie McTier. He was inducted into the Blues Foundation's Hall of Fame in 1981, and into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame in 1990
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The Girl Can´t Dance - Bunker Hill
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 day, both enjoy serious dance floor racket time today.
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