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I started a quest to find terrific blues music and incredible musicianship when I was just a little kid. I also have a tremendous appreciation of fine musical instruments and equipment. One of my greatest joys all of my life was sharing my finds with my friends. I'm now publishing my journey. I hope that you come along!


Please email me at Info@Bmansbluesreport.com

Friday, February 10, 2012

Girl Dressed In Green - JOHN TINSLEY


John E. Tinsley born in Chestnutain, Va on February 10, 1920. Couldn't find much else.

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http://youtu.be/Rp6MfjbUp2Y

Wah Diddy Wah - Little David & The Harps with Leroy Kirkland Orchestra


A guitarist whose most illustrious training grounds were the Jimmie Lunceford and Cootie Williams big bands, Kirkland idolized jazz guitarist Tiny Grimes. Solos in the Grimes style were something he really never stopped tossing into songs as if adding a throw rug to a room. Kirkland developed into a force beyond the guitar fretboard, however, leading his own groups and serving as a combination director, conductor, and arranger. Before the man who walked into the bar had even ordered a drink, Kirkland would have decided on a configuration -- septet or larger or maybe just a quintet -- and would have been well on his way into staffing it with both people and music.

In charge of several different orchestras and big bands operating under his own name, Kirkland had no problem fattening up a horn section. His backing for Dean Barlow of the Crickets, for example, includes a five-horn aggregation including Taylor, Jordan on trumpet, and trombonist Jimmy Cleveland. The outrageous singer Screamin' Jay Hawkins made some of his best recordings with the Kirkland orchestra backing him. Also linked with the early career of the Supremes, Kirkland basically overwhelms with his list of accomplishments, connections, and creations -- all the more sad that author and R&B performer Ben Sidran chooses to bring Kirkland up as an example of a great artist who died in obscurity.
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Roll 'Em Pete - Big Joe Duskin and Martijn Schok


Big Joe Duskin (February 10, 1921 – May 6, 2007) was an American blues and boogie-woogie pianist. He is best known for his debut album, Cincinnati Stomp (1978), and the tracks "Well, Well Baby" and "I Met a Girl Named Martha
Born Joseph L. Duskin in Birmingham, Alabama, by the age of seven he had started playing piano. He played in church, accompanying his preacher father, the Rev. Perry Duskin. His family moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, and Duskin was raised near to the Union Terminal train station where his father worked. On his local radio station, WLW, Duskin heard his hero Fats Waller play. He was also inspired to play in a boogie-woogie style by Pete Johnson's, "627 Stomp".

In his younger days Duskin performed in clubs in Cincinnati and across the river in Newport, Kentucky. While serving in the US Army in World War II, he continued to play and, in entertaining the US forces, met his idols Johnson, Albert Ammons and Meade Lux Lewis.

After his military service ended, Duskin's father made him promise to stop playing while the elder Duskin was still alive. However, Rev. Duskin lived to the age of 105, and Joe found alternative employment as a police officer and a postal worker. Therefore Duskin, effectively in the middle of his career, never played a keyboard for sixteen years.

With the encouragement of a blues historian, Steven C. Tracy, by the early 1970s Duskin had began playing the piano at festivals in the US and across Europe. By 1978, and with the reputation for his concert playing now growing, his first recording, Cincinnati Stomp, was released on Arhoolie Records. The album contained Duskin's cover version of the track, "Down the Road a Piece".

He subsequently toured both Austria and Germany, and in 1987 made his inaugural visit to the UK. The same year his part in John Jeremy's film, Boogie Woogie Special, recorded for The South Bank Show, increased Duskin's profile. In 1988, accompanied by the guitar-playing Dave Peabody, Duskin recorded his second album, Don't Mess with the Boogie Man In the following decade, Duskin performed at both the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and the Chicago Blues Festival.

His touring in Europe continued before he recorded his final album at the Quai du Blues in Neuilly, France. Several Duskin albums were issued on European labels in the 1980s and 1990s. It was 2004 before Big Joe Jumps Again! (Yellow Dog Records) became his second US-based release, and his first studio recording for sixteen years. It featured Phillip Paul (drums), Ed Conley (bass), and Peter Frampton on guitar.

Duskin was presented with a key to the city in 2004 by the Mayor of Cincinnati. The following year he was awarded a National Heritage Fellowship by the Ohio Arts Council.

Suffering from the effects of diabetes, Duskin was on the eve of having legs amputated, when he died in May 2007, at the age of 86. The Ohio based Big Joe Duskin Music Education Foundation keeps his musical ideals alive by producing in-school music presentations for public school children.
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Thursday, February 9, 2012

You're No Good Woman - Boa and the Constrictors


“Boa is a flat-out killer guitarist, capable of about any blues lick you could ever want to hear. He bends those strings with both emotion and devotion (and can play an improv beer bottle slide in a pinch). When Boa cuts loose, he delivers pure, hard-nosed, ferocious guitar anguish. When he sings you hear a blues voice from a man that has lived the life he is singing about.”
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Will Not Play Your Game - Marcus Bonfanti


The 28-year-old was born and raised in London to an English mother and a 'dangerously Italian' father. Being a self-taught guitarist he has already packed in plenty having worked as a sideman for artists such as PP Arnold, Joe Lewis Walker, Jimmy Carl Black, Paddy Milner, Earl Thomas, and Findlay Brown.

Bonfanti and his 3 piece band featuring Scott Wiber (Bass) and Alex Reeves (Drums) have been playing shows up and down the country throughout 2010 to promote the release of “What Good Am I To You?” his follow up to the acclaimed 2008 debut “Hard Times”. With appearances at last years Glastonbury, Secret Garden, Hop Farm, Maryport, Downpatrick and Carlisle festivals, as well as playing the prestigious South By South West festival in March, Bonfanti is fast building a reputation as one of the most exciting acts on the UK live circuit with a fierce show either with band or solo earning him 2 nominations at last years British Blues Awards (Best Male Vocals & Best Album).
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Make Me a Pallet on Your Floor - Ursula George / Sugar Ray Norcia


Ursula is a blues singer from Providence, RI presenting very cool, sexy and contemporary interpretation of Vaudeville-era blues tunes, mostly penned by the female writers of the day.
Check out Marty Ballou's bass solo out of "Make Me a Pallet on Your Floor" (J.Hurt /J. Yancey arrg.) with Ursula George at Chan's, Woonsocket RI on November 12, 2011. Special guest Sugar Ray Norcia with Lori Urso, Marty Richards, Eric Barron, Anthony Geraci

People who remember Sugar Ray fronting Roomful of Blues can attest to the fact that he is as much at home with a swinging horn band as he is with his four piece Chicago style blues outfit. Besides his recordings with Roomful, some examples of Ray's big band music can be heard on Porky Cohen's CD RHYTHM & BONES "Sent For You Yesterday"
and a CD by Doug James entitled BLOW MR. LOW
"Dirty People" and "I Want A Little Girl."
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Highway 61 - Willie Foster


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.
From the movie (MG Video Productions): "Honeyboy" a Free Range Pictures production©
This video was uploaded for only ONE reason: to inspire artist Theo Reijders for making a painting of Willie Foster.
And Theo did a hell of a job!! Very special work in colours and atmosphere. A really outstanding result!!
His painting was sold during the auction at the Dutch Benefit for the Highway 61 Blues Project to a very, very proud new owner!
I planned to delete the video afterwards.... surprised by so many wonderful and heartwarming reactions..... it is still here!! And it will stay that way.
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Mississippi Marvel Passing Confirmed - tribute by Jeff Konkel


Owner/President of Broke and Hungry Records: It is with deep sadness that I report the passing of The Mississippi Marvel, an outstanding blues artist and a true gentleman. He was 81 years old. I was fortunate to work with him over the past several years. In 2008, Broke & Hungry Records released his debut CD, “The World Must Never Know.” Later that year he appeared in our film “M For Mississippi.” His dual (and conflicting) roles as a bluesman and a church deacon led us to use a pseudonym when discussing him in public. Out of respect for his family and his church, we will continue to honor this request. Farewell to a great artist and a gentle soul.
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Waterboy, Waterboy - The Mississippi Marvel

Mother in Law Blues - Johnny Heartsman


The blues world is full of shadowy figures,names only known from there discograpies and from there recollections of better known artist. JOHNNY HEARTSMAN is one of those shadowy figures.The veteran bay area blues men spoke about him with awe.They talked about a man that played on hundreds of 45's and was a master of guitar and keyboards
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Hello Stranger - Barbara Lewis


Barbara Lewis (born February 9, 1943) is an American singer and songwriter whose smooth style influenced rhythm and blues
Lewis was born in Salem, near Ann Arbor, Michigan. She was writing and recording by her teens with record producer Ollie McLaughlin (a black DJ at Ann Arbor radio station WHRV, now WAAM, who is also credited with discovering Del Shannon).

Lewis' first single release in 1962, the uptempo "My Heart Went Do Dat Da," did not chart nationally, but was a local hit in the Detroit, Michigan area. She wrote all of the songs on her debut LP, including the hit "Hello Stranger" which reached #3 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart, and featured extensive use of the Hammond organ. Lewis had moderate follow-up hits with "Straighten Up Your Heart" (#43) and her original "Puppy Love" (#38) before Bert Berns produced her million-seller "Baby I'm Yours" (U.S. #11), written by Van McCoy. Berns also produced the followup "Make Me Your Baby" (U.S. #11) which had originally been recorded by the Pixies Three, and Lewis' final Top 40 hit "Make Me Belong to You" (#28 in 1966), written by Chip Taylor and Billy Vera.

At the end of the decade, she released a grittier-sounding album on Stax Records, and after its lack of commercial success, she began to withdraw from the music industry
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Not Fade Away - Joe Ely Band


Joe Ely (born February 9, 1947, Amarillo, Texas, United States) is an American singer, songwriter and guitarist whose music touches on honky-tonk, Texas Country, Tex-Mex and rock and roll.

He has had a genre-crossing career, performing with Bruce Springsteen, Uncle Tupelo, Los Super Seven, The Chieftains and James McMurtry in addition to his early work with The Clash and more recent acoustic tours with Lyle Lovett, John Hiatt, and Guy Clark.
Ely's own first, self titled album, was released in 1977.

The following year, his band played London, where he met punk rock group The Clash. Impressed with each other's performances, the two bands would later tour together, including appearances in Ely's hometown of Lubbock, as well as Laredo and Ciudad Juárez in Mexico, across the border from El Paso, Texas. Ely sang backing vocals on the Clash single "Should I Stay or Should I Go?" , and Joe Strummer performed as a guest with Ely's band.[citation needed] Another collaboration was with Dutch flamenco guitarist Teye, with whom he recorded Letter to Laredo (1995) and Twistin' in the Wind (1998).

Throughout his career, Ely has issued a steady stream of albums, most on the MCA label, and a live album roughly every ten years.
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Catfish Keith


Blues singer, songwriter and bottleneck slide guitarist Catfish Keith has established himself as one of the most exciting country blues performers of our time. Catfish's innovative style of foot-stomping, deep delta blues and American roots music has spellbound audiences the world over. He has reinvented the guitar with great power and artistry, and brings a rare beauty and vitality to his music. Handing down the tradition, Catfish continues his lifelong journey as one of the brightest lights in acoustic blues and roots music.

A two-time W. C. Handy Award nominee for BEST ACOUSTIC BLUES ALBUM, and an inductee into the BLUES HALL OF FAME, Catfish has fourteen NUMBER ONE independent radio chart-topping albums to his credit, and packs houses all over the world with his dynamic stage show.

The 30 year veteran has toured the USA, UK and Europe dozens of times to wide acclaim, headlining major music festivals, and appearing with legends John Lee Hooker, Ray Charles, Robert Cray, Koko Taylor, Taj Mahal , Leo Kottke, Jessie Mae Hemphill, Johnny Shines and many, many others.
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Misery Blues - Arbee Stidham


Arbee Stidham (February 9, 1917 – April 1988) was an American blues singer and mufti-instrumentalist, most successful in the late 1940s and 1950s.

He was born in De Valls Bluff, Arkansas, United States, to a musical family - his father played with Jimmie Lunceford and his uncle with the Memphis Jug Band - and learned to play harmonica, clarinet and saxophone as a child.Before his teens he had formed his own band, the Southern Syncopators, which backed Bessie Smith on tour in 1930-31, and played on radio and in clubs in Arkansas and Memphis, Tennessee.

In the mid-1940s he moved to Chicago and met Lester Melrose, who signed him to RCA Victor in 1947. His biggest hit, "My Heart Belongs to You", was recorded at his first session, and reached # 1 on the US Billboard R&B chart in June 1948.[2] He spent the rest of his career trying to emulate its success, recording for Checker, States, and other independent record labels as a jazz-influenced blues vocalist. After a car accident made it impossible to play the saxophone, he took up the guitar in the 1950s under the tutelage of Big Bill Broonzy, and played it on his early 1960s recordings for Folkways.

Stidham continued to record occasionally up to the early 1970s, and also made many music festival and club appearances nationwide and internationally. He lectured on the blues at Cleveland State University in the 1970s, and appeared in the film The Bluesman in 1973.

He died in April 1988 in Cook County, Illinois, aged 71.
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The Mississippi Marvel - Dead


We have an unconfirmed report that "The Mississippi Marvel" has passed away. I will provide more information as it becomes available.

My regrets to his family and friends.

Here's an unreleased gem from The Mississippi Marvel, an 80-something, blues-playing deacon from the Delta. He has asked us to keep his identity secret due to the objections that his church congregants have regarding blues music. His CD, The World Must Never Know, is available at www.brokeandhungryrecords.com.
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Fur Peace comes to Wanee 2012


Jorma Kaukonen Brings Fur Peace Ranch
to Wanee Music Festival
(Austin, Texas) - For the first time Wanee 2012 Music Festival will host one of the premier music workshops in the country, Jorma Kaukonen’s Fur Peace Ranch, featuring Jorma Kaukonen, Jack Casady, Mickey Hart, Oteil Burbridge, Warren Haynes, and more guests yet to be confirmed. There will be both intimate workshops and general session Q&A’s April 19 – 21. Complete details can be found at: http://www.furpeaceranch.com/wanee12.html
In 1989, Jorma and Vanessa Kaukonen conceived what Jorma calls "a ranch that grows guitar players." Not a fantasy camp, but a place where both budding and seasoned musicians could immerse themselves and emerge with renewed inspiration and tangible progress in their music. “Focus on the things you love, listen with an open heart, and the music will speak for itself!” says Jorma of their teaching method.

Now in its 15th year, the award winning Fur Peace Ranch takes their concept “on the road.” Some of the lessons and sessions include:

– Double Dose of Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady - If you want to learn the secrets of
this dynamic duo's 50+ career....this is your chance.
Warren Haynes and Jorma Kaukonen Tales of their musical journeys!
Planet Earth Drum with Mickey Hart - Discussion on Rhythm & Percussion in
history and across cultures
Bring a Drum! Join Mickey as he leads you on a world tour of percussion history and rhythms!
Wake up with Oteil Burbridge - Improvisation workshop/Clinic
Grab your guitar, bass, drum, and come join the music!

The Fur Peace Ranch is a center of musical activity. Workshops with Jorma, Jack and many talents occur through out the year. Read about the fun:

"Jefferson Airplane Bandmates Teach Guitar to Rock Star Wannabes”
– Jim Clash, Bloomberg-BusinessWeek

"Jefferson Airplane Alumns Run the Real School of Rock" – Sean Edgar, Paste


New I55 Productions artist: Fred Sanders - I Believe - Review


I have just had the opportunity to review Fred Saunders newest recording I Believe and it's definitely worth the listen. Fact is I've listened to it a number of times. This 10 track release is written or co written by Sanders and his years of playing with BB King, Albert King and Bobby Blue Bland were obviously not in idle. Saunders puts out a strong release of diverse styles blues. The opening track, Stop Foolin' Around has a strong Texas swing. Another track, I Think About You Baby has a little New Orleans flavor with some tasty guitar soloing. Time Out takes this to the next step with an all instrumental number and the band gets to stretch out a little. Very nice! Let's Dance has a creative style which moves between a soulful ballad and the jazz blues feel of Otis Rush' All Your Love . Don't Know What To Do is modeled out of the T-Bone Walker songbook and is a pretty strong Texas blues. The guitar soloing is creative but not overactive. Possibly my favorite track on the release. Blue Bolero is more of a funky jazz jam and an interesting exploration into the bands roots. Wake Up is a cool song... puts me in mind of Albert Collins. A really strong track. Hey Come On is a straight up boogie... Texas style but with less guitars that we would typically associate with contemporary Texas blues players. The release wraps it up with Red Eye Gravy, again with a funky new Orleans flavor. Another chance for the band to jam it out and stretch a bit on their instruments.

This is a fine blues album and one that I feel most of you would enjoy.
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Two Fisted Mama - Katie Webster


Katie Webster (January 11, 1936 – September 5, 1999), born Kathryn Jewel Thorne, was an American boogie-woogie pianist.
Webster was initially best known as a session musician behind Louisiana musicians on the Excello and Goldband record labels, such as Lightnin' Slim and Lonesome Sundown.
She also played piano with Otis Redding in the 1960s, but after his death went into semi-retirement.

In the 1980s she was repeatedly booked for European tours and recorded albums for the German record label, Ornament Records. She cut You Know That's Right with the band Hot Links, and the album that established her in the United States; The Swamp Boogie Queen with guest spots by Bonnie Raitt and Robert Cray.
She performed at both the San Francisco Blues Festival and Long Beach Blues Festival.

Webster suffered a stroke in 1993 while touring Greece and returned to performing the following year. She died from heart failure in League City, Texas, in September 1999.
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Bone Me Like You Own Me - Barbara Carr


Barbara Carr (born 9 January 1941, St. Louis, Missouri) is an American blues musician.
Carr started singing in the First Baptist Church in Elmwood Park, Missouri. She sang with her sisters, and this group became known as The Crosby Singers, and they performed in various locations throughout Missouri.

Carr's first recording contract was with Chess Records, where she recorded "I Can't Stop Now" and "Think About It Baby", and these two recordings launched her solo career. Carr and husband, Charles Carr, soon started their own record label, Bar-Car. Their first recordings included Good Woman Go Bad and Street Woman.

In 1996, Carr signed with Ecko Records, which produced such songs as "Footprints On The Ceiling", "The Bo Hawg Grind", "If You Can't Cut The Mustard", "The Right Kind Of Love", and "Bone Me Like You Own Me". While still with Ecko Records, Carr recorded "What A Woman Wants", "Let A Real Woman Try", "Rainbow", "The Best Woman", and "Stroke It". Carr recorded eight albums with Ecko, including a best of compilation album, Best of Barbara Carr.

Carr has been honored twice with the Living Blues Readers Award as 'Female Blues Artist of the Year'.
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Woman Woman Blues - ISHMAN BRACEY


Ishman Bracey (January 9, 1901 – February 12, 1970) was an American blues singer and guitarist from Mississippi, considered one of the most important early delta blues performers. With Tommy Johnson, he was the center of a small Jackson, Mississippi group of blues musicians in the 1920s. His name is incorrectly spelled "Ishmon" in some sources and on some records.
Bracey was born in Byram, Mississippi, and started playing at local dances and parties around 1917. He also worked as a waterboy on the Illinois Central Railroad. He first recorded in Memphis in 1928 for the Victor label, with Charlie McCoy on second guitar, recording two sessions in February and August that year.

At that time his style had not fully formed and his performances varied considerably, probably in his attempts to become more commercially successful. Bracey's blues "Saturday Blues" and "Left Alone Blues", used interesting variations in the usual three line verse form. Bracey was one of the few Mississippi bluesmen who sang with a nasal tone without embellishment. In "Saturday Blues" he used one of the conventional infidelity themes, but he changed the form of the verses to fit a newer melodic concept. His lyrics loosen up enough to sing about skin creams and powder advertised as being able to lighten dark skin.

When he recorded in 1930 his voice had darkened and he tried to use a falsetto voice in "Woman Woman Blues" with an octave leap in the second line, but the effect was clumsy and unsteady.

He recorded again in 1931 for Paramount Records with a group called the New Orleans Nehi Boys, which included guitarist Charles Taylor. Bracey's total recorded output is only 16 songs, and original copies of his 78-rpm records are among the most valued items sought by blues collectors. "Trouble Hearted Blues" and "Left Alone Blues" are his best known songs.

He was an associate of Tommy Johnson, and the pair performed together in medicine shows in the 1930s. By the time he was "rediscovered" in the late 1950s, he had become a preacher and a performer of religious songs, and was uninterested in recording or discussing his time as a blues performer. However, he did help in the rediscovery of his contemporary Skip James
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Don´t Slam That Door - Birmingham Jones

Muddy Waters has been associated with the brightest names in his particular hard-hitting brand of Chicago blues interpretation. In the harmonica department he boasted the talents of the late Sonny Boy Williamson and his contemporary, Little Walter, - also Junior Wells, and in recent years James Cotten has had a long stay. In mid-1966 when Cotten branched out for him self, Little George Smith came from the West Coast to fill the position. On the departure of Smith toward the end of 1966, Mojo Buford joined and traveled the route through 1967. Both Smith and Buford’s artistry were captured for recorded posterity by such firms as Bluesway and Spivey.
When Muddy played the Vanguard nightery in NYC on Feb 23-24-25 he was minus a regular ‘harp’ player. He told me that Shakey Horton nearly made the roster for the trip to New York City (which would have really been quite a historic addition) but a last minute cancellation occurred. A month later Muddy and band consisting of Otis Spann, Sam Lawhorn, Luther Johnson, Little Sonny and S. P. Leary were again back in NYC to play engagements at New York University (March 22) and Washington Square Methodist Church (March 25 - this date just featured Otis Spann trio with Luther Johnson, vocal and guitar and S. P. Leary, drums with Otis’ wife,. Lucille Spann, and Muddy Waters doing guest vocals). This time Muddy brought a fascinating new name in the person of BIRMINGHAM JONES to fill the vacant harp spot.
Birmingham is a 6 foot, 180 pound gay blade who projects a big, broad, almost sly smile
-with an infectious laugh when he wholeheartedly greets you. He likes to wear dark eye glasses and is an avid pipe smoker When your reporter was chatting with the band who were visiting the Cafe Au Go Go musicians quarter- on their night off, Muddy called my attention to Birmingham who was warming up his harp with Luther supplying a guitar background. “Lenny, that’s my new harp - just listen to him. Muddy was quite impressed as he was chiming in with snippets of his own biting vocals. Muddy’s drummer, S. P. Leary calls Birmingham a major talent and he is not far from the truth. Birmingham Jones is a powerful addition. What about Birmingham? Where does he come from? What’s his story?
In an interview Birmingham provided some salient facts about himself. He was born WRIGHT BIRMINGHAM in Saginaw, Michigan, January 9, 1937. He was the only child in a family of 7 to play music. At age 14 he was already in Chicago in school. Hs father, James, wanted him to be a musician - and a guitarist but Wright chose the tenor sax with Lester Young as his earliest inspiration. He played with J. B. Lenoir among others while still in his teens. In order to satisfy his father’s wishes he switched over to guitar - and soon was giggling with Elmore James and J. B. & His Hawks. All during this period he also sang. He recalls his switch to harmonica. “I just slipped off and started my harp after I heard Howling Wolf who really inspired me with his great “Morning At Midnight”. His move to the harp also gave him the idea of forming his own band and “Birmingham Jones and his Lover Boys” came into being. The “Jones” appellation was
given to him by the well known DJ, Big Bill Hill. The original Lover Boys were Fred Robinson, guitar, Charles Jones, bass guitar; Billy Davenport, drummer with BJ on harp and vocal. They played all over Chicago. In the vaudeville tradition he was also billed as “Birmingham Jones with His Red Underwear On” for obvious reasons. About 1956 he cut his first coupling with the same personnel for Mayo Williams’ EB0NY label. Titles were “Late Hours/Walking Down Madison Street” as by Birmingham Jr. and His Lover Boys. About 1963 he cut 4 sides including “I’m A Lonely Man/You Too Bad For Me”/ and 2 more for A&R, Al Smith and the VEE JAY label as Birmingham Jones and His Lover Boys - but his group consisted of members of Howling Wolf’s combo including Hubert Sumlin ~ guitar - with added trumpet and sax.
In the early days of March 1968 BJ joined Muddy Waters and is now on the laborious travel route. His sentiment toward his new adventure is strong and he describes it thusly, “Joining Muddy is quite a change for me. I’m married and have 2 little girls in Chicago and presently I’m homesick for them. All this traveling that I have to do would be further enjoyable for me if I had them along. Muddy, Otis and the other fellows are great and it is a pleasure to be with them. This is a band that when I blow my harp I can feel that real soul arid I can stand up on my feet, raise my right hand - n and be the most independent fellow in the world.”

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