Home In My Heart / Medley - PJ O'Brien

"O'Brien is a talent to watch" - Tom Hyslop, Blues Revue Magazine, USA
"A superlative guitarist" - Danny Murphy, Revolver Magazine, Australia
"His strat mastery is impressive...he has bags of talent" - Mark Doherty, Rhythms Magazine, Australia

PJ (Paul Jefferson) O'Brien is an award winning Blues guitarist, vocalist and songwriter based in Sydney, Australia. Known particularly for his fiery, skilful guitar playing and song writing, PJ is a player of great natural ability and feel. He displays passion and dexterity which belie his years and embodies the sounds of his influences, such as Buddy Guy, Albert King, Albert Collins and Freddie King.

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Coming From The Old School - Sam Myers

Sam Myers (February 19, 1936 – July 17, 2006) was an American blues musician and songwriter. He appeared as an accompanist on dozens of recordings for blues artists over five decades. He began his career as a drummer for Elmore James, but was most famous as a blues vocalist and blues harp player. For nearly two decades he was the featured vocalist for Anson Funderburgh & The Rockets.
Samuel Josepe Myers was born in Laurel, Mississippi. Myers acquired an interest in music while a schoolboy in Jackson, Mississippi and became skilled enough at playing the trumpet and drums that he received a non-degree scholarship from the American Conservatory School of Music in Chicago. Myers attended school by day and at night frequented the nightclubs of the South Side of Chicago, meeting and sitting in with Jimmy Rogers, Muddy Waters, Howling Wolf, Little Walter, Hound Dog Taylor, Robert Lockwood, Jr., and Elmore James. Myers played drums with Elmore James on a fairly steady basis from 1952 until James's death in 1963, and is credited on many of James's historic recordings for Chess Records. In 1956, Myers wrote and recorded what was to be his most famous single, "Sleeping In The Ground", a song that has been covered by Eric Clapton, Robert Cray, and many other blues artists, as well as being featured on Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour show on 'Sleep'.

From the early 1960s until 1986, Myers worked the clubs in and around Jackson, as well as across the South in the Chitlin' Circuit. He also toured the world with Sylvia Embry and the Mississippi All-Stars Blues Band.

In 1986, Myers met Anson Funderburgh, from Plano, Texas, and joined his band, The Rockets. Myers toured all over the U.S. and the world with The Rockets, enjoying a partnership that endured until the time of his death, from complications from throat cancer surgery on July 17, 2006, in Dallas, Texas.

Just before Myers died, he toured as a solo artist, in Sweden, Norway and Denmark, with the Swedish band, Bloosblasters.

That same year, the University Press of Mississippi published Myers' autobiography titled Sam Myers: The Blues is My Story. Writer Jeff Horton, whose work has appeared in Blues Revue and Southwest Blues, chronicled Myers' history and delved into his memories of life on the road.
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Who Do You Love - Dutch Mason

Dutch Mason, CM (19 February 1938 – 23 December 2006) was a Canadian musician from Halifax, Nova Scotia. He was inducted into the Canadian Jazz and Blues Hall of Fame, and was inducted into the Order of Canada in 2005
Dutch started performing as a musician in the mid-1950s, usually playing rock and roll or rockabilly standards as well as traditional music from the Canadian maritimes. Dutch regularly played the local twin city lounge scene, notably The Wyse Owl/Eastern Billiards, The Dartmouth Inn and The Monterey in Halifax. As he began to become known as a blues artist in the sixties, he started to tour various parts of Canada. Into the 1970s and onwards, he became a very popular act and toured the country regularly, performing at the legendary Albert Hall in Toronto and the Rising Sun in Montreal.

In 1998, during his 60th birthday celebration, the CBC recorded a live tribute cd that includes performances by the Nova Scotia Mass Choir, Sam Moon and Frank MacKay. In 2004, he was nominated for a Juno Award for Best Blues album and in 2005 and nominated in 2005 for Best Blues album at the East Coast Music Awards.

Dutch is survived by his sons Charlie Mason and Garrett Mason, who won the 2005 Juno Award for Best Blues album.
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The Blues I'm Living - Carl Wyatt

Carls's live performances are a powerful blend of Texas, Chicago and Delta Blues. He has played and toured with artists such as "Archie Lee Hooker", "Big Bo McGee", "Little Whitt Wells", "T.W. Henderson", "Sharon Lewis", "Tino Gonzales"..., recorded with all of the above mentioned artists, lived and jammed with the Godfather of the Boogie "John Lee Hooker" and has been profiled on radio and TV stations on both sides of the Atlantic.

Although his main influences are artists such as Lightning Slim, Johnny Winter, Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker, Carl developed his own style over the years. His love for delta blues made him study slide guitar, for which he his best known.

His many Concert and Festival performances led him through countries such as England, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, Germany, Ireland, France, Northern-Ireland, Denmark, Spain, Italy and the USA.
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She's Got Good Dry Goods - Little Buddy Doyle

Little Buddy Doyle (March 20, 1911 – unknown) was an American Memphis and country blues guitarist, singer and songwriter. He was a working associate of Big Walter Horton and Hammie Nixon.

Charlie Doyle was probably born in Forrest City, Arkansas, United States. During the 1930s, the diminutive Doyle performed regularly on Beale Street, Memphis, Tennessee.

It is generally accepted that Big Walter Horton made his first recording backing Doyle, on Doyle's Memphis based eight song recordings made for the Okeh and Vocalion labels in 1939. Doyle also recorded with the harmonica player, Hammie Nixon, around the same time, although some of their recorded work remains unissued.

Little is known of Doyle's life outside of his recorded work, and his death appears to be unrecorded.
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Royal Earl Shuffle - Royal Earl and the Swingin' Cools

Earl Bell aka "Texas Slim" was a blues/R&B singer and guitarist from San Antonio, TX. Known to be a powerhouse club performer, he sadly only cut two records. He followed up this one with a single for Del-Segno c. 1962.
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Cadillac Baby - Will Batts

Fiddler Will Batts was the primary instrumentalist in Jack Kelly's South Memphis Jug Band, a popular string band whose music owed a heavy debt to the blues as well as minstrel songs, vaudeville numbers, reels and rags. Born January 24, 1904 in Michigan, Mississippi, B
atts was working as a farm hand when he decided to pursue a career in music full-time; he sooned joined Kelly's band, a fixture of the Beale Street area, and in 1933 they made their first recordings, followed in 1939 by a second and final session. Batts also backed a variety of other Memphis performers, including minstrel singer Frank Stokes; a 1952 session with harpist Big Walter Horton was his last known recording date -- he died on April 16, 1954.
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Too Close - Bishop Perry Tillis

Perry Tillis was born July 29, 1919, in Elba , Alabama , and began playing his brand of rambling blues at a very early age. He continued playing the blues and singing gospel, despite going blind, up until his death on November 3, 2004. In the '40s Tillis played the Chicago blues circuit alongside all-time greats likes Muddy Waters and Furry Lewis. However, when a revelation convinced him it was the devil's music, he moved back home and began preaching the gospel.

In 1972 Swedish music archivist Begnt Olsson tracked down Tillis at his church in Samson , Alabama, and recorded these tracks over three sessions. He was frail and old when Olsson found him, but he played the guitar, both electric and acoustic, with a mosquito-like fragility that is truly transcendent.

In an age when major pre-war blues players were being rediscovered, unknown geniuses like Tillis were still playing a style of blues (gospel) that touched upon greatness and kept alive the traditions that were inspiring the likes of The Rolling Stones and Eric Clapton. This CD has a hallucinatory, Velvet Underground-like groove that meanders through each hymn. The slide guitar playing is beautiful and Tillis' voice speaks of a knowledge all but lost in the 21st Century. A wonderful debut release from an unknown blues virtuoso who is missed.
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Bitter Tears - Jimi Hocking

Jimi Hocking is a songwriter, singer and guitarist of the highest caliber, the electric love child of T-Bone Walker, BB King and Jimi Hendrix. He struts the stage with his band, playing his ‘showy’ guitar style while pulling all the classic stunts ... behind the head ... the duck walk ... even the splits!

Jimi is in his element live on stage, whether it be a small cafe or a massive festival. His combination of banter and story-telling, wailing guitar and mandolin with superb songwriting and performance makes Jimi one of the 'must-see' acts in blues today.

Jimi’s affinity with the guitar started as a boy when his father, Kevin Hocking (a well known pianist and composer) realized that Jimi was more interested in Chuck Berry than his piano lessons, and so presented him with a primitive acoustic guitar for Christmas. These humble beginnings led to an ongoing career in music, with Jimi playing electric guitar, acoustic guitar and mandolin.
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Before You Accuse Me - Dusty Roads Band

"THE DUSTY ROADS BAND ROCKS AUDIENCES AND SHATTERS THE DANCE FLOOR!!!
The passion and intensity that Dustin Harder pulls through his guitar is immediately apparent, and backed by an unrelenting rhythm section They Are the complete "something for everyone" Band.
Led by singer\guitarist\composer Dustin Harder and an unstoppable rhythm section of members Noel Linsey-Bass. Chris Cameron-Guitar, Josh Ayers-Drums, they Kick.


The Dusty Roads Band is a splendid blend of great musicianship and great music in which Blues, Folk, Funk, Rock, Jazz and Reggae all fuse into a unique blend of Rocking Prairie Soul Roots Music
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You Can Have My Husband But (Don't Mess With My Man) - Irma Thomas

Irma Thomas (born February 18, 1941, Ponchatoula, Louisiana, United States) is an American Grammy Award-winning soul and rhythm and blues singer from New Orleans. She is known as the "Soul Queen of New Orleans".

Thomas is a contemporary of Aretha Franklin and Etta James, but never experienced their level of commercial success; still, she has a large cult following among soul aficionados. In 2007, she won the Grammy for Best Contemporary Blues Album for After the Rain, her first Grammy in a career spanning over 50 years.
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BLUE GUITARS - Steve Phillips

Steve Phillips (born 18 February 1948) is an English blues and country musician. He is mainly renowned for being part of supergroup Notting Hillbillies along with Dire Straits frontman Mark Knopfler and Brendan Croker.

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GOODBYE BABY - LITTLE CAESAR

Harry 'Little' Caesar was born into a family of steelworkers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on February 28, 1928. He grew up in Youngstown, Ohio, and formed a gospel group during his hitch in the Army between 1948 and 1950. Harry migrated from gospel to R&B and from Youngstown to Oakland, California, where he began working with the Peter Rabbit Trio and Que Martyn. His career out of music, which started in the late 1950s, was, if anything, more interesting than his career in music. He was a truck driver and actor in B-movies and TV series, including 'Baretta, Hill Street Blues,' 'Mannix,' and 'Hart To Hart.' He died on June 14, 1994.
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DOC SPAN BAND-TIM GAZE

Born in Hoboken, New Jersey, the young Doc entertained Dutch sailors at his Grandmothers saloon on the New York waterfront, playing the accordion.

In the sixties he made Chicago his home and learned the harmonica at Blues Clubs like the Checkerboard Lounge and Ma Beas on the Westside, while working as a paramedic at the notorious Cook County Jail.

After a stint in the Navy, in 1972 Doc hitchhiked through 12 Latin American countries jamming with the locals. His move back to Chicago found him playing with Willie Kent and the Beehives. The band featured blues figureheads Fenton Robinson, Johnnie Littlejohn and many others.

Forming his own band, Two Fisted Blues, he made Santa Fe (New Mexico) his base for touring the Rockies to Alaska, playing hundreds of gigs at Rocky Mountain ski resorts. He also led a National Park trail crew, in the summers on the continental divide and played with the Summertime Blues Band at the Dew Drop Inn in Hungary Horse.

Doc arrived in Australia in 1987 via a route filled with adventures. Here he has played with Oz blues luminaries like Andy Cowan, James T, Fiona Boyes, Ross Williams, Jan Preston, Lil' Fi, and Kevin Borich. He’s played most major music festivals across Australia, thousands of live performances and dozens of recording sessions.

He has featured on many albums and released a few of his own, including the Sunnie Award winning acoustic blues CD, The Last Train, with Ross Williams. They are also published by Mel Bay USA with Blues Grooves.
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Blue Monk - THELONIOUS MONK

Thelonious Sphere Monk (October 10, 1917 – February 17, 1982) was an American jazz pianist and composer considered one of the giants of American music. Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "Epistrophy", "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser" and "Well, You Needn't". Monk is the second most recorded jazz composer after Duke Ellington, which is particularly remarkable as Ellington composed over 1,000 songs while Monk wrote about 70.

His compositions and improvisations are full of dissonant harmonies and angular melodic twists, and are consistent with Monk's unorthodox approach to the piano, which combined a highly percussive attack with abrupt, dramatic use of silences and hesitations. This was not a style universally appreciated; poet and jazz critic Philip Larkin dismissed Monk as 'the elephant on the keyboard'.

Monk's manner was idiosyncratic. Visually, he was renowned for his distinctive style in suits, hats and sunglasses. He was also noted for the fact that at times, while the other musicians in the band continued playing, he would stop, stand up from the keyboard and dance for a few moments before returning to the piano.

He is one of five jazz musicians to have been featured on the cover of Time (the other four being Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Wynton Marsalis, and Dave Brubeck) as of 2010.
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Worked Hard All My Life - Andrew "Blueblood" McMahon

Chicago bassist who worked extensively with Howlin' Wolf's band before stepping out front as a vocalist with an album for the local Dharma label, Blueblood.
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Boogie Man in the Motor City - The John Lee Hooker Story - Part 1

John Lee Hooker (August 22, 1917 – June 21, 2001) was a highly influential American blues singer-songwriter and guitarist.

Hooker began his life as the son of a sharecropper, William Hooker, and rose to prominence performing his own unique style of what was originally a unique brand of country blues. He developed a 'talking blues' style that was his trademark. Though similar to the early Delta blues, his music was metrically free. John Lee Hooker could be said to embody his own unique genre of the blues, often incorporating the boogie-woogie piano style and a driving rhythm into his blues guitar playing and singing. His best known songs include "Boogie Chillen'" (1948), "I'm in the Mood" (1951) and "Boom Boom" (1962), the first two reaching R&B #1 in the Billboard charts.
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Rocker - Dennis Gruenling & Doug Deming

Ever since his self-titled debut with his band Jump Time hit the streets in 1999, Dennis has been pulling in countless fans and numerous accolades from critics & musicians around the globe for his swinging, highly original harmonica sound, and top-notch band. Within the context of Jump Time, he pulls from mostly horn influences to get a new sound for the instrument, blending the vocal abilities of the trumpet and trombone with the swinging, fat-bodied sound of the tenor and baritone sax players of the 1940's & 50's era.

In 2000, "Up All Night" was released. A non-Jump Time project, which owed much to his roots in stripped down Chicago-style blues, proving he could also play "traditional" blues harmonica with the best of them. This gained more recognition for his talents not only as a harp player, but also as a bandleader and songwriter. The year 2001 saw the second Jump Time release, which includes special guests and the new addition to the band - vocalist Gina Fox. Once again Dennis has pushed the boundaries further for blues harmonica.

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Screwed Live - Slidin' Slim

I grew up listening to Jerry Lee, Chuck Berry and Fats Domino and that might have put the mean R&B in my blood when I was just a small kid. In the late 70..s and early 80..s I discovered Ramones, The Clash, Dead Kennedys and whole Swedish punk scene. I guess I always been something of a misfit so I just fell in love with the whole thing and started my first band as a 12 year old. During the late 80..s I lost it for a while but somewhere around 90/91 I discovered delta blues and Son House, Charlie Patton and Robert Johnson. That was it. Since 1994 my whole focus has been the blues and I've released a number of CD's and toured in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Poland, The Netherlands and USA. During the last couple of years I've been writing fiction (nothing published yet) and working on a spoken word idea.
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