A Tribute To Little Johnny Taylor - Jimmy Wolf - New Release review

I just received the newest release, A Tribute To Little Johnny Taylor by Jimmy Wolf and it's a great showcase not only of Taylors music but Wolf's excellent guitar work. Opening with Walking The Floor, a standard 12 bar, Wolf plays some sweet riffs but never overplays giving the music the opportunity to breathe. One of my personal favorites, Somebody's Got To Pay, is up next and Wolf digs deep to find the right voice for such a deep track. Wolf has excellent backing on this release including Thomas "T.C." Carter on bass, Joe "Lawd Deez" Cummings on keys and Stephen "Rhythmcnasty" Bender on drums. Wolf rips a hole in this track with some voracious guitar riffs... out of control! Carter lays down some real funk for Hard Head and Bender is certainly up to the task. Wolf again lets it rip and he really plays fearlessly. Don't see that often and I like it! Everybody Knows About My Good Thing is another stellar song and Wolf's voice hits it's stride. The Wolf is on the loose and Katy bar the door! Really stiff hitting guitar riffs highlight this track. You'll Need Another Favor, a bottom driven blues track establishes a great groove and Cummings stretches out nicely on organ. Wolf keeps it simple on this track letting the groove speak for itself. Junkie For Your Love, a real funky number, gives Wolf the opportunity to show some searing riffs. Part Time Love, another of my personal favorites, has a real nice groove to it and Cummings brings the volume up and down to accentuate dynamics on this track. Wolf grabs his guitar by the throat on this one and doesn't let go. Real nice! Sometimey Woman has a R&B upbeat tempo and moves along quite nicely. Cummings takes another sail on the keys and creates a nice wake for Wolf to bust it loose. Using the patience of Albert King, Wolf lays down some pretty nice riffs and gets back to some of the better vocals on the track. On My Way Back Home closes the release setting a strong R&B driving rhythm. Wolf plays some real tasty riffs on this track and the tempo is spot on. This is a really enjoyable release with hot guitar and great rhythm. Check it out!

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The Boll Weevil - Jimmie Lee Robinson

Guitarist, bassist, and singer Jimmie Lee Robinson, active on the Chicago blues scene since the 1940s, died on Saturday, July 6th, 2002. Early this year Jimmie Lee was diagnosed with a large malignant tumor in his sinuses, which he had removed at the end of April. He began gigging again almost immediately, playing at a celebration of his 72nd birthday at the Deep Blue club in Schaumburg just four days after his surgery, but apparently the cancer had already spread to other parts of his body, and his health deteriorated rapidly over the following months. For those who aren't familiar with him or his music, Jimmie's blues resume was long and illustrious. Born in Chicago's Cook County hospital and raised in the nearby Maxwell Street neighborhood, he began playing guitar on the bustling Maxwell Street market scene when he was in his early teens in the mid 1940s. By the late '40s he was good enough to have played behind blues legends Memphis Minnie and Big Bill Broonzy among others. Around 1950 he formed his first band, The Every Hour Blues Boys, which consisted of Frank "Sonny" Scott (still one of his best friends) on drums, with Jimmie Lee and a young Freddie King sharing guitars and vocals. In the mid 1950s Jimmie was playing on local gigs with Elmore James when Little Walter recruited him into his band, where he spent the next few years. He recorded on a couple of sessions with Little Walter, appearing on "Confessing The Blues", "Temperature", "Ah'w Baby" and several other of Walter's well-known recordings. He also moonlighted on sessions with his long-time friend Eddie Taylor on the Vee Jay label. In the late '50s Jimmie left Walter's band and joined up with Magic Sam for a while, and around this time cut a few singles of his own for the local Bandera label (backed by Luther Tucker and Eddie Clearwater, among others.) It was for Bandera that Jimmie Lee recorded his single "Times Getting Harder" and "Twist it Baby", notable now because future Delmark label-mate Jimmy Burns was then a member of The Medallionaires vocal group that provided the backing vocals. In the '60s he played and / or recorded with Willie Mabon, Sunnyland Slim, Mighty Joe Young, Shakey Jake, Howlin' Wolf among many others, and made it over to Europe as part of the 1965 American Folk Blues Festival with John Lee Hooker, Buddy Guy, Big Walter Horton, Big Mama Thornton, Eddie Boyd, et al, but eventually retired from music as a full time pursuit and opened a candy store on Chicago's South Side. During the '70s he played part time, often with his friend Little Willie Anderson (a disciple of Jimmie Lee's former employer Little Walter), made it over to Europe for a few more tours, and recorded sporadically, but by the '80s had almost completely abandoned his music. When I met him in the late '80s, he was working as a cab driver; I encouraged him to get back into music, and invited him out to sit in on the regular gigs I was then doing at a club called Lilly's with The Ice Cream Men. This led to appearances on the Chicago Blues Festival in 1991 and '93, and eventually to Jimmie Lee's his first full-length album, Lonely Traveler released on Delmark in 1994 to widespread praise. He took off from there and started working again pretty regularly, but found it both financially and artistically advantageous to work as an acoustic solo artist rather than in a full band setting as he had for most of his professional career. Over the last decade he stayed busy doing festivals and short tours, including numerous trips overseas, and released four or five CDs of mostly acoustic material on various labels, including his own Amina Records. He retired from cab driving, but continued to drive his cab, emblazoned on the sides with "Delmark Recording Artist Jimmie Lee Robinson - The Lonely Traveler", around town as a rolling advertisement for his musical comeback. In addition to his own recordings, he also occasionally recorded as a sideman for several of his old friends and musical cronies on the Chicago blues scene. In the early 1990s he wholeheartedly threw his support behind the fight to preserve what little remained of the historic Maxwell Street neighborhood he grew up in during the '30s and '40s, and became one of the most active and vocal spokespersons for this cause in his final years. At some point fairly early in his musical career he converted to the Muslim faith and adopted the name Latif Aliomar. But to the end, his close friends and musical family knew him as Jimmie Lee, one of the kindest and gentlest souls on the Chicago blues scene. Jimmie Lee Robinson was 72 years old. Scott Dirks is the co-author, with Tony Glover and Ward Gaines, of the recent book Blues With A Feeling - The Little Walter Story, Routledge Press, 2002.

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Bud Freeman Quintet

Lawrence "Bud" Freeman (April 13, 1906 – March 15, 1991) was an American jazz musician, bandleader, and composer, known mainly for playing the tenor saxophone, but also able at the clarinet. He had a smooth and full tenor sax style with a heavy robust swing. He was one of the most influential and important jazz tenor saxophonists of the Big Band era. His major recordings were "The Eel", "Tillie's Downtown Now", "Crazeology", "The Buzzard", and "After Awhile", composed with Benny Goodman. One of the original members of the Austin High School Gang which began in 1922, Freeman played the C-melody saxophone alongside his other band members such as Jimmy McPartland and Frank Teschemacher before switching to tenor saxophone two years later. Influenced by artists like the New Orleans Rhythm Kings and Louis Armstrong from the South, they would begin to formulate their own style, becoming part of the emerging Chicago Style of jazz. In 1927, he moved to New York, where he worked as a session musician and band member with Red Nichols, Roger Wolfe Kahn, Ben Pollack, Joe Venuti, among others. One of his most notable performances was a solo on Eddie Condon's 1933 recording, The Eel, which then became Freeman's nickname (for his long snake-like improvisations). Freeman played with Tommy Dorsey's Orchestra (1936–1938) as well as for a short time Benny Goodman's band in 1938 before forming his own band, the Summa Cum Laude Orchestra (1939–1940). Freeman joined the US Army during World War II, and headed a US Army band in the Aleutian Islands. Following the war, Freeman returned to New York and led his own groups, yet still kept a close tie to the freewheeling bands of Eddie Condon as well as working in 'mainstream' groups with the likes of Buck Clayton, Ruby Braff, Vic Dickenson and Jo Jones. He wrote (along with Leon Pober) the ballad "Zen Is When", recorded by The Dave Brubeck Quartet on Jazz Impressions of Japan (1964). He was a member of the World's Greatest Jazz Band between 1969 and 1970, and occasionally thereafter. In 1974, he would move to England where he made numerous recordings and performances there and in Europe. Returning to Chicago in 1980, he continued to work into his eighties. He also released two memoirs You Don't Look Like a Musician (1974) and If You Know of a Better Life, Please Tell Me (1976), and wrote an autobiography with Robert Wolf, Crazeology (1989). In 1992, Bud Freeman was inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame.  

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Cool Drink Of Water - Joe Willie Wilkins, Houston Stackhouse

Joe Willie Wilkins (January 7, 1923 – March 28, 1979 was an American Memphis blues guitarist, singer and songwriter. Whilst he influenced contemporaries such as Houston Stackhouse, Robert Nighthawk, David Honeyboy Edwards, and Jimmy Rogers, Wilkins' bigger impact was on up and coming guitarists, including Little Milton, B.B. King, and Albert King. Wilkins' songs included "Hard Headed Woman" and "It's Too Bad." Wilkins was born in Davenport, Coahoma County, Mississippi. He grew up on a plantation near Bobo. His father, Papa Frank Wilkins, was a local sharecropper and guitarist, whose friend was the country bluesman, Charley Patton. Young Wilkins learned to play guitar, harmonica and accordion. His early proficiency of the guitar, and slavish devotion to learning from records, earned him the nickname of "Walking Seeburg" (Seeburg Corporation being an early manufacturer of jukebox). Becoming a well-known musician in the Mississippi Delta, by the early 1940s Wilkins took over from Robert Lockwood, Jr. in Sonny Boy Williamson II's band. In 1941, Wilkins reloacted to Helena, Arkansas, and joined both Williamson and Lockwood on KFFA Radio's "King Biscuit Time". Through the 1940s Wilkins broadcast regularly playing alongside Williamson, Willie Love, Robert Nighthawk, Elmore James, Memphis Slim, Houston Stackhouse and Howlin' Wolf. His guitar playing appeared on several recordings by Williamson, Love and Big Joe Williams, for the latter of whom he played bass. For Muddy Waters, Wilkins was noted as the first guitarist from the Delta who played single string guitar riffs without a slide. Later on Waters stated “ "The man is great, the man is stone great. For blues, like I say, he's the best." ” Forming The Three Aces with Willie Nix and Love in 1950, he rejoined Williamson at KWEM Radio, which led on to Wilkin's becoming part of the studio band at Sun Records. He was also utilised by Trumpet Records, and as a prominent sideman, Wilkins recorded with Williamson, Love, Nix, Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup, Roosevelt Sykes, Big Walter Horton, Little Walter, Mose Vinson, Joe Hill Louis, Elmore James, and Floyd Jones. Charley Booker's final recording was as a guest with Wilkins at a 1973 blues festival at Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana. The same year, Mimosa Records released a single of Wilkin's debut vocal performance. Adamo Records later issued a live album of some of his concert dates. His working relationship and friendship with Houston Stackhouse endured over the years, with Stackhouse at one time living in the same premises as Wilkins and his wife. Wilkins and Stackhouse played at various blues music festivals, and were part of the traveling Memphis Blues Caravan. After undergoing a colostomy in the late 1970s, Wilkins still continued to perform until his final East Coast tour in 1981. Wilkins is buried near Memphis in the Galilee Memorial Gardens.

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Spann's Blues - Otis Spann

Otis Spann (March 21, 1930 – April 24, 1970) was an American blues musician whom many consider to be the leading postwar Chicago blues pianist Born in Jackson, Mississippi, United States, Spann became known for his distinct piano style. Born to Frank Houston Spann and Josephine Erby. One of five children - three boys and two girls. His father played piano, non professionally, while his mother had played guitar with Memphis Minnie. Spann began playing piano by age of eight, influenced by his local ivories stalwart, Friday Ford. At the age of 14, he was playing in bands around Jackson, finding more inspiration in the 78s of Big Maceo Merriweather, who took the young pianist under his wing once Spann migrated to Chicago in 1946. Other sources say that he moved to Chicago when his mother died in 1947 playing the Chicago club circuit and working as a plasterer. Spann gigged on his own, and with guitarist Morris Pejoe, working a regular spot at the Tic Toc Lounge before hooking up with Muddy Waters in 1952. Although he recorded periodically as a solo artist, Spann was a full-time member of the Muddy Waters band from 1952 to 1968. In that period he also did session work with other Chess artists like Howlin' Wolf and Bo Diddley. Spann's own Chess Records output was limited to a 1954 single, "It Must Have Been the Devil" / "Five Spot", which featured B.B. King and Jody Williams on guitars. He recorded a session with the guitarist Robert Lockwood, Jr. and vocalist St. Louis Jimmy in New York on August 23, 1960, which was issued on Otis Spann Is The Blues and Walking The Blues. A largely solo outing for Storyville Records in 1963 was recorded in Copenhagen. A set for UK Decca Records the following year found him in the company of Muddy Waters and Eric Clapton, and a 1964 album for Prestige followed where Spann shared vocal duties with bandmate James Cotton. The Blues is Where It's At, Spann's 1966 album for ABC-Bluesway, sounded like a live recording. It was a recording studio date, enlivened by enthusiastic onlookers that applauded every song (Muddy Waters, guitarist Sammy Lawhorn, and George "Harmonica" Smith were among the support crew). A Bluesway encore, The Bottom of the Blues followed in 1967 and featured Spann's wife, Lucille Jenkins Spann (June 23, 1938 – August 2, 1994), helping out on vocals. In the late 1960s, he appeared on albums with Buddy Guy, Big Mama Thornton, Peter Green and Fleetwood Mac. Several films of his playing are available on DVD, including the Newport Folk Festival (1960), while his singing is also featured on the American Folk Blues Festival (1963) and The Blues Masters (1966). Following his death from liver cancer in Chicago in 1970, at the age of 40, he was interred in the Burr Oak Cemetery, Alsip, Illinois. Spann's grave laid unmarked for almost thirty years, until Steve Salter (president of the Killer Blues Headstone Project) wrote a letter to Blues Revue magazine to say "This piano great is lying in an unmarked grave. Let's do something about this deplorable situation". This lit a spark in the blues community on a world wide level. Blues enthusiasts from Alaska to Venezuela, from Surrey to England, and Singapore sent donations to purchase Spann a headstone. On June 6, 1999 the marker was unveiled during a private ceremony. The stone reads "Otis played the deepest blues we ever heard - He'll play forever in our hearts". He was posthumously elected to the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980.

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Alabama Train - Louisiana Red with Bill Dicey

Born in Annapolis, Maryland, BILL DICEY began playing harmonica at age 8 when his father handed down his first Hohner Marine Band harp. Harmonicas were scarce at that time, so Bill learned to play his one harp in five different keys. Learning from the street musicians, young Bill used his talent to attract customers for his shoe shine business. Early influences on his technique included saxmen David “Fathead” Newman and Clifford Scott, and blues harp greats Jimmy Reed, Sonny Boy Williamson II, and later on Little Walter. Associations with Sonny Boy and Buddy Moss helped him in developing a style uniquely his own. Bill teamed up with Buddy Moss in the late 60’s for many sessions which included engagements at colleges and clubs throughout the South, when Buddy turned over the reins of command, Bill brought the “Atlanta Blues Band” to New York City. Widely know and respected in the Blues world, Bill has performed with, opened for or recorded with a breathtaking array of talent including Sonny Boy Williamson, T-Bone Walker, Maria Muldaur, Bonnie Raitt, John Hammond, Phoebe Snow, Otis Spann, Slim Harps, Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters, Louisiana Red, Roosevelt Sykes, Arthur Crudup, Big Mama Thornton, Charles Walker, Howling Wolf, Lightning Hopkins, the Coasters, Elvis Presley and Victoria Spivey. Bill died at his home in 1993 of cancer.  

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Cisco Kid - featuring Howard Scott

Howard E. Scott (born March 15, 1946 in San Pedro, Los Angeles, California) is an American funk/rock guitarist and founding member of the successful 1970s funk band War. Scott grew up in Compton, California. He began playing bass at a very young age under the guidance of his cousin, Jack Nelson, and in 1961 began playing guitar. A year later, he formed a group called the Creators with Harold Brown, and together they played at high school dances, car club parties and small night clubs in southern California. Scott was influenced by blues artists TJ Summerville, Howlin Wolf, Muddy Waters, Jimmy Reed and Wayne Bennett. He frequented the local blues clubs in South Los Angeles to study professionals such as Lowell Fulson, Johnny Guitar Watson, and T-Bone Walker. Howard graduated from Compton High School in 1964. He toured with The Drifters for a short time, until he was drafted into the United States Army in 1966. Upon his return, he formed his second group, The Night Shift, with Harold Brown. In 1969, the Night Shift was performing at the Rag Doll club in North Hollywood , when Eric Burdon and Lee Oskar stopped in to hear them play. Lee Oskar went to the stage to join in on a jam, and the next day Eric Burdon, Lee Oskar, Charles Miller, Papa Dee Allen, Lonnie Jordan and Peter Rosen joined Scott and Brown to form the band War. Scott contributed lyrics, music, and co-produced some of War’s greatest hits, such as Cisco Kid, Slipping into Darkness and Why Can’t We Be Friends?. He was also the frontman and leader of the group. Scott and other members eventually left the original band in the 1990s, losing the right to use the band's name. Scott now performs regularly with his nephew, B.B. Dickerson, Lee Oskar, and Harold Brown as the Lowrider Band  

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Maxwell Street Jimmy Davis

Maxwell Street Jimmy Davis (March 2, 1925 – December 28, 1995) was an American electric blues singer, guitarist and songwriter. He played with John Lee Hooker, recorded an album for Elektra Records in the mid 1960s, and remained a regular street musician on Maxwell Street, Chicago, for over 40 years.

He was also known as Jewtown Jimmy, and is best remembered for his songs "Cold Hands" and "4th And Broad"
He was born Charles W. Thompson, in Tippo, Mississippi. In his teens, Davis learned to play guitar from John Lee Hooker, and the two of them played concerts together in Detroit in the 1940s, following Davis' relocation there in 1946. Prior to his move to Detroit, Davis had worked in traveling minstrel shows. This included a spell with the Rabbit Foot Minstrels. Davis later spent nearly a year living in Cincinatti, Ohio, before he moved to Chicago in 1953. He started performing regularly in the marketplace area of Maxwell Street, playing a traditional and electrified style of Mississippi blues.

In 1952, he recorded two songs under his real name for Sun Records. They were "Cold Hands" and "4th and Broad", and despite being offered to both Chess and Bullet, they were not released. The exact timing of Davis' adoption of his new name is uncertain, but in 1964, under his new pseudonym, he waxed a couple of tracks for Testament. They appeared on the 1965 Testament compilation album, Modern Chicago Blues. His songs were "Crying Won't Make Me Stay" and "Hanging Around My Door".The album also included a track from another Chicago street performer, John Lee Granderson, as well as more established artists such as Robert Nighthawk, Big Walter Horton, and Johnny "Man" Young. Music journalist, Tony Russell, wrote it was "music of great charm and honesty".

In 1966, Davis recorded a self-titled album for Elektra Records, which Allmusic's Jason Ankeny called "a fine showcase for his powerful guitar skills and provocative vocals". Davis recorded several tracks for various labels over the years without commercial success.

He owned a small restaurant on Maxwell Street called the Knotty Pine Grill, and performed outside the premises during the summer months.[4] Davis continued to play alfresco in Chicago's West Side for decades, up to his latter years. In July 1994, Wolf Records released the album, Chicago Blues Session, Vol. 11, the tracks of which Davis had recorded in 1988 and 1989. The collection included Lester Davenport on harmonica, and Kansas City Red playing the drums.

Davis died of a heart attack in December 1995, in his adopted hometown of Chicago. He was 70 years old
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Willie Kent featuring Guy King

Listen to the music: when he sings, Willie Kent’s voice blazes out from the heart of the blues. Below the singing, you hear his bass guitar, flawless and rich. Between these two runs the music, a deep, honest blues that flowed from rural Mississippi to urban Chicago and remembers everything it learned along the way. Willie Kent was born in 1936 in the small town of Inverness, Mississippi, just a hundred miles south of the border with Tennessee, and the blues ran all through his childhood. His first experience singing came in church, where he went "all the time" with his mother and brother. "Blues and gospel come from the same place," he would say later in life. "They're both from the heart." But the blues always called to him. Dewitt Munson, a neighbor wending homeward late nights with a guitar in his hand and a bottle in his pocket, would stop a while at the Kent porch to rest, letting the young Willie hold his guitar while he told stories. Through radio station KFFA’s famous "King Biscuit Time", Willie basked in the sounds of Arthur Crudup, Sonny Boy Williamson, and especially Robert Nighthawk. By the time he was eleven, he was regularly slipping out to the Harlem Inn on Highway 61 to hear it all live: Raymond Hill, Jackie Brenston, Howlin’ Wolf, Clayton Love, Ike Turner, Little Milton. He left home at the age of thirteen. In 1952 he arrived in Chicago, where he soon was working all day and listening to music all night. One of his co-workers was cousin to Elmore James - and Willie Kent (still underage) took to following that famous bluesman from club to club, absorbing his music. Each weekend he’d go out looking for blues, and he found it: Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, J.B. Lenoir, Johnnie Jones, Eddie "Playboy" Taylor, A.C. Reed, J.B. Hutto, and Earring George Mayweather. His love for the music led him further and further into it. He bought himself a guitar, and in 1959 through guitarist friend Willie Hudson, linked up with the band Ralph and the Red Tops, acting as driver and manager and sometimes joining them onstage to sing. He made a deal with Hudson, letting him use the new guitar in trade for lessons on how to play it. One night’s show was decisive: the band’s bass player arrived too drunk to play, and because the band had already spent the club’s deposit, they couldn’t back out of the gig; so Willie Kent made his debut as a bass player, on the spot. He never looked back. From that point on, his credits as a musician read like a "Who’s Who" of Chicago blues. After the Red Tops, he played bass with several bands around the city and stopped in often for Kansas City Red’s reknowned "Blue Monday" parties. He was increasingly serious about his music and formed a group with guitarists Joe Harper and Joe Spells and singer Little Wolf. By 1961, he was playing bass behind Little Walter, and by the mid-60’s was sitting in with Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, and Junior Parker. Toward the end of the 60’s, he joined Arthur Stallworth and the Chicago Playboys as their bass player, worked briefly with Hip Linkchain, then played bass behind Jimmy Dawkins. He joined Jimmy Dawkins on his 1971 European tour, but when they returned to the States, their paths diverged: Dawkins wanted to keep touring and turned over his regular gig at Ma Bea’s Lounge to Willie Kent, who wanted to stay in Chicago. For the next six years, the Ma Bea’s house band was known as Sugar Bear and the Beehives, headed by Willie Kent (the Sugar Bear himself) with guitarist Willie James Lyons and drummer Robert Plunkett. In that setting, he set the tone of the club and backed up a stellar guest list including Fenton Robinson, Hubert Sumlin, Eddie Clearwater, Jimmy Johnson, Carey Bell, Buster Benton, Johnny Littlejohn, Casey Jones, Bob Fender, Mighty Joe Young, B.B. Jones, and Jerry Wells. (For a taste of the music, check out the superb 1975 recording Ghetto – Willie Kent and Willie James Lyons live at Ma Bea’s.) Willie Kent had played occasionally with Eddie Taylor’s blues band during the late 70’s, and in 1982 became a regular member of the band, which then included Eddie Taylor on guitar, Willie Kent on bass, Johnny B. Moore on guitar, and Larry and Tim Taylor on drums. His relationship with Eddie Taylor was both a solid friendship and a warm musical partnership (evidenced in Eddie Taylor’s fine recording Bad Boy on Wolf Records). After the death of Eddie Taylor, Willie Kent devoted his energies to his own band, Willie Kent and the Gents, with Kent on bass and vocals, Tim Taylor on drums, and Jesse Williams and Johnny B. Moore on guitar. And the Gents endured. Over the years, the composition of the group shifted as musicians joined or moved on, but the music remained as clear, powerful and steady as the bass line that held it true: a pure Chicago West Side blues. By the end of his life, Willie Kent was well-known and respected in the blues world, but getting there wasn’t easy. In 1989, a series of heart problems led to life-changing triple bypass surgery. As he healed, he spent time reflecting on blues music, his career, and the future. He gave up his day job and turned his full attention to music. His discography bears witness: before 1989, there were just two recordings to his credit; in the years since, he had ten releases under his own name, recorded behind many other blues artists, and appeared in countless blues compilations. He always thought his singing should get more recognition than it did; but his bass playing earned him many honors.

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Ora Nelle Blues - LITTLE WALTER

Little Walter, born Marion Walter Jacobs (May 1, 1930 – February 15, 1968), was an American blues harmonica player, whose revolutionary approach to his instrument has earned him comparisons to Charlie Parker and Jimi Hendrix, for innovation and impact on succeeding generations. His virtuosity and musical innovations fundamentally altered many listeners' expectations of what was possible on blues harmonica. Little Walter was inducted to the The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008 in the "sideman" category making him the first and only artist ever to be inducted specifically for his work as a harmonica player. Jacobs was born in Marksville, Louisiana and raised in Rapides Parish, Louisiana, where he first learned to play the harmonica. After quitting school by the age of 12, Jacobs left rural Louisiana and traveled around working odd jobs and busking on the streets of New Orleans, Memphis, Helena, Arkansas and St. Louis. He honed his musical skills on harmonica and guitar performing with much older bluesmen such as Sonny Boy Williamson II, Sunnyland Slim, Honeyboy Edwards and others. Arriving in Chicago in 1945, he occasionally found work as a guitarist but garnered more attention for his already highly developed harmonica work. According to fellow Chicago bluesman Floyd Jones, Little Walter's first recording was an unreleased demo recorded soon after he arrived in Chicago on which Walter played guitar backing Jones. Jacobs reportedly grew frustrated with having his harmonica drowned out by electric guitarists, and adopted a simple, but previously little-used method: He cupped a small microphone in his hands along with his harmonica, and plugged the microphone into a public address system or guitar amplifier. He could thus compete with any guitarist's volume. However, unlike other contemporary blues harp players such as Sonny Boy Williamson I and Snooky Pryor, who like many other harmonica players had also begun using the newly available amplifier technology around the same time solely for added volume, Little Walter purposely pushed his amplifiers beyond their intended technical limitations, using the amplification to explore and develop radical new timbres and sonic effects previously unheard from a harmonica, or any other instrument. Madison Deniro wrote a small biographical piece on Little Walter stating that "He was the first musician of any kind to purposely use electronic distortion. Jacobs made his first released recordings in 1947 for Bernard Abrams' tiny Ora-Nelle label, which operated out of the back room of Abrams' Maxwell Radio and Records store in the heart of the Maxwell Street market area in Chicago. These and several other early Little Walter recordings, like many blues harp recordings of the era, owed a strong stylistic debt to pioneering blues harmonica player Sonny Boy Williamson I (John Lee Williamson). Little Walter joined Muddy Waters' band in 1948, and by 1950, he was playing acoustic (unamplified) harmonica on Muddy's recordings for Chess Records. The first appearance on record of amplified harmonica was Little Walter's performance on Muddy's "Country Boy" (Chess 1452), recorded on July 11, 1951. For years after his departure from Muddy's band in 1952, Little Walter continued to be brought in to play on his recording sessions, and as a result his harmonica is featured on most of Muddy's classic recordings from the 1950s. As a guitarist, Little Walter recorded three songs for the small Parkway label with Muddy Waters and Baby Face Leroy Foster (reissued on CD as "The Blues World of Little Walter" from Delmark Records in 1993), as well as on a session for Chess backing pianist Eddie Ware; his guitar work was also featured occasionally on early Chess sessions with Muddy Waters and Jimmy Rogers. Jacobs had put his career as a bandleader on hold when he joined Muddy's band, but stepped back out front once and for all when he recorded as a bandleader for Chess's subsidiary label Checker Records on 12 May 1952. The first completed take of the first song attempted at his debut session became his first hit, spending eight weeks in the number-one position on the Billboard R&B chart – the song was "Juke", and it is still the only harmonica instrumental ever to become a number-one hit on the Billboard R&B. (Three other harmonica instrumentals by Little Walter also reached the Billboard R&B top 10: "Off the Wall" reached number eight, "Roller Coaster" achieved number six, and "Sad Hours" reached the number-two position while Juke was still on the charts.) "Juke" was the biggest hit to date for Chess and its affiliated labels, and one of the biggest national R&B hits of 1952, securing Walter's position on the Chess artist roster for the next decade. Little Walter scored fourteen top-ten hits on the Billboard R&B charts between 1952 and 1958, including two number-one hits (the second being "My Babe" in 1955), a level of commercial success never achieved by his former boss Waters, nor by his fellow Chess blues artists Howlin' Wolf and Sonny Boy Williamson II. Following the pattern of "Juke", most of Little Walter's single releases in the 1950s featured a vocal performance on one side, and a harmonica instrumental on the other. Many of Walter's vocal numbers were originals which he or Chess A&R man Willie Dixon wrote or adapted and updated from earlier blues themes. In general, his sound was more modern and uptempo than the popular Chicago blues of the day, with a jazzier conception and less rhythmically rigid approach than other contemporary blues harmonica players. Upon his departure from Muddy Waters' band in 1952, he recruited a young band that was already working steadily in Chicago backing Junior Wells, The Aces, as his new backing band. The Aces consisted of brothers David Myers and Louis Myers on guitars, and drummer Fred Below, and were re-christened "The Jukes" on most of the Little Walter records on which they appeared. By 1955 the members of The Aces / Jukes had each left Little Walter to pursue other opportunities, initially replaced by guitarists Robert "Junior" Lockwood and Luther Tucker, and drummer Odie Payne. Jr. Others who worked in Little Walter's recording and touring bands in the '50s included guitarists Jimmie Lee Robinson and Freddie Robinson. Little Walter also occasionally included saxophone players in his touring bands during this period, among them a young Albert Ayler, and even Ray Charles on one early tour. By the late 1950s, Little Walter no longer employed a regular full-time band, instead hiring various players as needed from the large pool of local blues musicians in Chicago. Jacobs was frequently utilized on records as a harmonica accompanist behind others in the Chess stable of artists, including Jimmy Rogers, John Brim, Rocky Fuller, Memphis Minnie, The Coronets, Johnny Shines, Floyd Jones, Bo Diddley, and Shel Silverstein, and on other record labels backing Otis Rush, Johnny Young, and Robert Nighthawk.[ Jacobs suffered from alcoholism and had a notoriously short temper, which in late 1950s led to a series of violent altercations, minor scrapes with the law, and increasingly irresponsible behavior. This led to a decline in his fame and fortunes beginning in the late 1950s, although he did tour Europe twice, in 1964 and 1967. (The long-circulated story that he toured the United Kingdom with The Rolling Stones in 1964 has since been refuted by Keith Richards). The 1967 European tour, as part of the American Folk Blues Festival, resulted in the only film/video footage of Little Walter performing that is known to exist. Footage of Little Walter backing Hound Dog Taylor and Koko Taylor on a television program in Copenhagen, Denmark on 11 October 1967 was released on DVD in 2004. Further video of another recently discovered TV appearance in Germany during this same tour, showing Little Walter performing his songs "My Babe", "Mean Old World", and others were released on DVD in Europe in January 2009, and is the only known footage of Little Walter singing. Other TV appearances in the UK (in 1964) and the Netherlands (in 1967) have been documented, but no footage of these has been uncovered. Jacobs recorded and toured only infrequently in the 1960s, playing mainly in and around Chicago. In 1967 Chess released a studio album featuring Little Walter with Bo Diddley and Muddy Waters titled Super Blues. A few months after returning from his second European tour, he was involved in a fight while taking a break from a performance at a nightclub on the South Side of Chicago. The relatively minor injuries sustained in this altercation aggravated and compounded damage he had suffered in previous violent encounters, and he died in his sleep at the apartment of a girlfriend at 209 E. 54th St. in Chicago early the following morning. The official cause of death indicated on his death certificate was "coronary thrombosis" (a blood clot in the heart); evidence of external injuries was so insignificant that police reported that his death was of "unknown or natural causes", and there were no external injuries noted on the death certificate. His body was buried at St. Mary's Cemetery in Evergreen Park, IL on February 22, 1968. His grave remained unmarked until 1991, when fans Scott Dirks and Eomot Rasun had a marker designed and installed. If you support live Blues acts, up and coming Blues talents and want to learn more about Blues news and Fathers of the Blues, -  ”LIKE” ---Bman’s Blues Report--- Facebook Page! I’m looking for great talent and trying to grow the audience for your favorite band!

Hoochie Coochie Man - Vinir Dóra And Chicago Beau

CHICAGO BEAU Bandleader, Vocal, Harmonica, Percussion, Author

Chicago Beau (L Beauchamp), was born on the south-side of Chicago on 13 February 1949, into a house of music. The recordings of Dinah Washington, Coleman Hawkins, Miles Davis, Billy Holiday, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald and others inundated his senses from the beginning. From the age of 10 until 15, Beau studied tap-dancing with the great Afro-Cuban dancer and choreographer, Jimmy Payne. He participated in many Cabaret-type shows that were popular during that era. A show could consist of performances by Afro-Cuban dancers, magicians, tap dancers, Jazz and Blues performers, and drill teams. These shows gave young people the opportunity to participate with professionals in a community setting. There was little distinction in the taste of the audience, people of all ages appreciated the same talent. Beau was becoming quite a tap-dancer (sometimes still used in his shows), but it was the Blues and Jazz elements of these shows that really held his interest. He became so interested in Blues that he began sneaking around to Blues clubs after school to listen to Blues bands rehearse. On famous 47th street, he would slip into the 708 Club which sizzled at night with artists like Muddy Waters, Howling Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson, Big Mama Thornton, Little Walter, and Billy Boy Arnold. Up the street from there was the Sutherland Lounge which featured Jazz and Blues acts as Ella Fitzgerald, Joe Williams, Esther Philips, Von Freeman, E Parker McDougal, Louis Armstrong, Dexter Gordon, Dizzy Gillispie, Chico Hamilton, Philly Joe Jones, and nearly everyone that had a name. Little did Beau know at the time that some of these performers he watched and listened would have a permanent impact on his life: Billy Boy Arnold gave him harmonica lessons (they later recorded together), and Muddy Waters gave him his name, ‘Chicago Beau.’ After spending three years from the age of 17 playing harmonica and singing in small clubs, mining and logging camps, and on street corners from Chicago, to Boston, to Nova Scotia, to Amsterdam, he moved to Paris where he met, performed and recorded with Archie Shepp in August, 1969, at age 20. Beau considers the first recording with Shepp to be the beginning of his professional career. For over 30 years Chicago Beau has recorded and performed with some of the most respected names in music including Memphis Slim, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Cal Massey, Anthony Braxton, Sunny Maurry, Pinetop Perkins, Anthony Braxton, Jimmy Dawkins, Johnny Shines, Billy Boy Arnold, Fontella Bass, Habib Koite, James Carter, Lester Bowie, Philly Joe Jones, Famoudou Don Moye, Jeanne Lee, Willie Kent, E. Parker McDougal, Amina Claudine Meyers, Zulu Chorus of Soweto, Frank Zappa, Sunnyland Slim, and others. Chicago Beau has received the CLIO award, the American advertising industry’s highest honor, for his music which was used in the 1991-92 National Basketball Association Champions, Chicago Bulls, cable television campaign. Chicago Beau is committed to the literary side culture. In 1988 he founded Literati Internazionale, a publishing company dedicated to multi-culturalism. To date his company has published over ten journals, books, and magazines. As a writer, Chicago Beau has written numerous articles and two books, Great Black Music-The Art Ensemble of Chicago, and Blues Stories. He was working with trumpeter Lester Bowie on his Autobiography at the time of his death. Excerpts from this work will be published soon. Chicago Beau also lectures in Universities, Schools, and music festivals on the topics: The Evolution of Blues as Language and Literature,’ and ‘History of Music Along the Mississippi River.’ Beau is currently touring with his BLUZ-MULTI-GROOVE BAND: CHICAGO BEAU AND HIS WONDERFUL TIME BAND If you support live Blues acts, up and coming Blues talents and want to learn more about Blues news and Fathers of the Blues, Like ---Bman’s Blues Report--- Facebook Page! I’m looking for great talent and trying to grow the audience for your favorites band! -  ”LIKE”

Time For A Change - Jody Williams

photo credit: Dan Machnik

Joseph Leon Williams (born February 3, 1935), better known as Jody Williams, is an American blues guitarist and singer. His singular guitar playing, marked by flamboyant string-bending, imaginative chord changes and a distinctive tone, was influential in the Chicago blues scene of the 1950s. In the mid 1950s, Williams was one of the most sought-after session guitarists in Chicago, yet he was little known outside the music industry since his name rarely appeared on discs. His acclaimed comeback in 2000 led to a resurgence of interest in Williams’ early work, and his reappraisal as one of the great blues guitarists Born in Mobile, Alabama, United States, Williams moved to Chicago at the age of five. His first instrument was the harmonica, which he swapped for the guitar after hearing Bo Diddley play at a talent show where they were both performing. Diddley, seven years his senior, took Williams under his wing and taught him the rudiments of guitar. By 1951 Williams and Diddley were playing on the street together, with Williams providing backing to Diddley's vocals, accompanied by Roosevelt Jackson on washtub bass. Williams cut his teeth gigging with a string of blues musicians, notably Memphis Minnie, Elmore James and Otis Spann. After touring with West Coast piano player Charles Brown, Williams established himself as a session player with Chess Records. At Chess, Williams met Howlin’ Wolf, recently arrived in Chicago from Memphis, Tennessee, and was hired by Wolf as the first guitarist in his new Chicago-based band. A year later Hubert Sumlin moved to Chicago to join Wolf's band, and the dual guitars of Williams and Sumlin are featured on Howlin’ Wolf’s 1954 singles, "Evil Is Going On", and "Forty Four", and on the 1955 releases, "Who Will Be Next" and "Come To Me Baby." Williams also provided backing on Otis Spann’s 1954 release, "It Must Have Been The Devil", that features lead guitar work from B. B. King, one of Williams’ early heroes and a big influence on his playing. Williams’ solo career began in December 1955 with the upbeat saxophone-driven "Lookin' For My Baby", released under the name Little Papa Joe on the Blue Lake label. The label closed a few months later, leaving his slide guitar performance on "Groaning My Blues Away" unreleased. By this time, Williams was highly sought after as a session guitarist, and his virtuosity in this capacity is well illustrated by his blistering lead guitar work on Bo Diddley's "Who Do You Love?", a hit for Checker Records in 1956. (Rock musician Marshall Crenshaw listed Williams' guitar solo on "Who Do You Love" as one of the greatest guitar solos ever recorded.) Other notable session work from the 1950s include lead guitar parts on Billy Boy Arnold's "I Ain't Got You" and "I Wish You Would", Jimmy Rogers’ "One Kiss", Jimmy Witherspoon’s "Ain't Nobody's Business" and Otis Rush’s "Three Times A Fool". In 1957, Williams released "You May" on Argo Records, with the inventive b-side instrumental "Lucky Lou", the extraordinary opening riff of which Otis Rush copied on his 1958 Cobra Records side "All Your Love (I Miss Loving)". Further evidence of Williams’ influence on Rush (they played on a number of sessions together) is Rush’s solo on Buddy Guy’s 1958 debut, "Sit And Cry (The Blues)", copied almost exactly from Williams’ "You May" Only after his retirement did he consider picking up his guitar again, which had laid untouched under his bed all the while. "One day my wife said if I started playing again I might feel better about life in general," he told Hoekstra of the Chicago Sun-Times. In March 2000, he went to see his old friend Robert Lockwood, Jr. play, and grew nostalgic for his music days. Back at home, an old tape of himself playing moved him to tears and inspired him to pick up his guitar again. He returned to playing in public in June 2000, when he was featured at a club gig during the 2000 Chicago Blues Festival. He gained much encouragement in this period from Dick Shurman, who eventually produced his comeback album, Return of a Legend (2002), on which his bold playing belies his thirty-year break from music. "He plays with a verve and vigor that sound as good today as it did on the classic records," wrote Vintage Guitar magazine. Williams continues to perform around the world, mainly at large blues festivals, and can often be seen sitting in with blues guitarist Billy Flynn at Chicago club appearances. If you support live Blues acts, up and coming Blues talents and want to learn more about Blues news and Fathers of the Blues, -  ”LIKE” ---Bman’s Blues Report--- Facebook Page! I’m looking for great talent and trying to grow the audience for your favorite band!

Stripper - Mr Nick & the Dirty Tricks

BLUES KINGPINS MR. NICK & the DIRTY TRICKS ARE READY TO BUST OUT BAD AND NATIONWIDE by Ted Drozdowski Nick David's harmonica playing has a swagger - developed over thousands of one-nighters from Massachusetts to Memphis and from Portland, Maine, to Portland, Oregon, and even across the pond to Europe. Or maybe it's a swing, or a little extra hip-shake, just like the grooves generated by the powerhouse band he's formed with four other kingpins of the New England blues scene: Mr. Nick & the Dirty Tricks. Mr. Nick & the Dirty Tricks unites veteran musicians Nick David (a.k.a. Mr. Nick), "Lonely" Gus Carlson, Teddy B. (Bukowski) and Rick Rousseau for one of the region's most formidable live outfits in any genre. But their hearts belong to blues. Real blues. They play elegant, stomping and swinging classics like Little Walter's "Mellow Down Easy," Howlin' Wolf's "300 Pounds of Joy" and Wynonie Harris' "Good Morning Judge." Their bag of originals is a mix of rhumbas, jump blues, and boogies they're developing for a debut album and currently taking to legions of fans in New England on their way to stages throughout the US and abroad. "This band is a killer outfit," says David. And that's the truth. Everything comes together when they play: their deep mutual understanding and knowledge of blues, their originality and depth as players, and the band's ability to put on a great show that brings people to their feet. It's a blend that wins new converts wherever they perform. "We all really dig being on stage making music together," David affirms. The audiences loves it, but we love it just as much." Mr. Nick & the Dirty Tricks came together just as David's previous band, the popular and critically acclaimed Mr. Nick's Blues Mafia, was busting up. That group, which was fueled by David's graceful tradition-shaded singing and unique harmonica style, had a great run. They recorded two full-length CDs and an EP. And the band had the lead track - "Look At That Cadillac" - on the well-received 2005 blues compilation Fins, Chrome and the Open Road: A Tribute to the Cadillac. That disc found the group alongside Kim Wilson, Little Milton, Charlie Musselwhite, Maria Muldaur and other blues legends. Over the course of their seven year history the Blues Mafia won the Boston Blues Challenge and was awarded the title of Boston's Best Blues Band. The group was also voted Blues Act of the Year by Jam Music Magazine and went on to compete in the prestigious International Blues Challenge in Memphis, where they were finalists in 2006. During that period Rousseau, David, Carlson, and B. became friends. They shared bills at festivals and sat in at each other's gigs, and along the way developed a mutual admiration based on their superb musicianship. "One of the amazing things about the Dirty Tricks is that Rick and Gus are also experienced frontmen," says David. "While I do most of the singing, make no mistake, either of those guys can handle the whole night on their own. Having two other great singers in the band opens up a lot more room for harmonies as well." Guitarslinger Carlson also led roadhouse heroes Lonely Gus and the One Night Stand. In the Dirty Tricks, his main job is blazing licks - like the gritty low-end picking that propels their percolating version of Jimmy McCracklin's "Georgia Slop" and the slicing arcs of bent notes and scalding bursts of melody that ripple through Lowell Fulson's "Tramp." Teddy B. primarily wields his 1950s upright Kay bass in the band, but also comes to gigs equipped with an assortment of vintage Fender electrics. He's played with soul greats Mighty Sam McClain and Toni Lynn Washington, as well as a host of New England blues artists including Cheryl Arena and K.D. Bell. As well as being a crack drummer, Rousseau also sings and writes. For more than a half-decade he fronted popular blues, rock, and roots band Rhumboogie. Together B. and Rousseau are a living history of blues rhythm, able to leap from gritty shuffles to up-tempo jump blues to swampy backwoods grooves from tune to tune. "Playing with these guys is one of the most rewarding musical experiences of my life," says David. The feeling's assuredly mutual. It's easy to buy a harmonica and work up a couple tunes, but it's hard to play one like a real instrument. And David is a self-taught virtuoso who - while digging on the sounds of James Cotton, Little Walter, Junior Wells, Paul Delay and many other blues harmonica masters - picked up the harp and developed a wildly percussive original style that dazzles audiences and makes his recordings instantly recognizable. Mr. Nick & the Dirty Tricks brings David's singing front and center. Unlike the Blues Mafia, which was an unabashed harmonica band, Nick scales back a bit on his honking and focuses more on his vocals. So David's vocal performances are more arcing and melismatic - perfect to handle the dramatic vocal range of Little Willie John's demanding "Shakin'." And his melodies are full of long-held relaxed notes punctuated by blunt phrases that underscore the lyrics of crowd-pleasing tunes like "Buzz Buzz Buzz." None of that gets in the way of his patented nasty harp blowing. In fact David expands his harmonica abilities. On several songs he expands and extends his harp talents to recreate horn lines. And David's increased use of chromatic harp along with Carlson's flexible guitar chops allow them to share the horn parts of beloved chestnuts like "300 Pounds of Joy" and "Good Morning Judge." "We're not a just-add-water blues band," says David. "Much of the music we do has complex arrangements and requires more forethought and preparation. We enjoy challenging ourselves. And that's another one of the many reasons why we love playing this music." If you support live Blues acts, up and coming Blues talents and want to learn more about Blues news and Fathers of the Blues, -  ”LIKE” ---Bman’s Blues Report--- Facebook Page! I’m looking for great talent and trying to grow the audience for your favorite band!

I'm King Bee - Johnny B. Moore

Johnny B. Moore (born Johnny Belle Moore, January 24, 1950, Clarksdale, Mississippi) is an American Chicago blues and electric blues guitarist, singer and songwriter. He was a member of Koko Taylor's backing band in the mid 1970s, but has recorded nine solo albums since 1987. Moore's music retains a link to the earlier Chicago blues of Jimmy Reed and Muddy Waters, who also travelled to the Windy City from the Mississippi delta. "If Johnny B. Moore isn't a star in the making," stated Allmusic's Bill Dahl, "there's no justice in the world."The European blues historian Gérard Herzhaft commented that "[Moore's] albums reflect a strong Delta flavor that is refreshing in the present blues scene, dominated by rock or funk overtones."However, the blues historian, Tony Russell, noted in 1997 that Moore "was still one of Chicago's interesting secrets" Moore's Baptist minister father, Floyd Moore, taught his son to play the guitar from the age of seven. John Lee Hooker's "Boogie Chillen'," was the first piece Moore mastered, but he was influenced by the style of Magic Sam. In his early days Moore performed gospel music in his hometown of Clarksdale, and later in Chicago with the Gospel Keys group. In 1964, the teenage Moore relocated to Chicago with his father. In high school Moore learned to read music, and his education was enhanced listening to blues records with Letha Jones, Little Johnny Jones' widow.By the late 1960s Moore was working in a lamp factory, but after work continued to play. He was further tutored by Jimmy Reed, whom he first met in his childhood, and then with the Charles Spiers band. By 1975, Moore found a further musical outlet by joining Koko Taylor's backing band, the Blues Machine, as lead guitarist. His lead guitar work appeared on Taylor's album The Earthshaker (1978). He toured separately with Taylor and Willie Dixon, undertaking European jaunts with both, and worked in Dixon's band until the latter's death in 1992. He also augmented his income by appearing more often under his own name Moore appeared on the bill on June 10, 1984, at the inaugural Chicago Blues Festival. His debut album, Hard Times, was released in 1987 on the B.L.U.E.S. label. In the 1990s Moore recorded six more efforts of his own, and started the new millennium with Born in Clarksdale, Mississippi (2001) for the Austrian based Wolf record label. His Live at Blue Chicago (1996), was recorded in that club's basement, and featured Ken Saydak on keyboards. The 1999 live album, Acoustic Blue Chicago featured Willie Kent, Lester Davenport and Bonnie Lee. Moore more often used a bottleneck on his guitar solos. Moore appeared again at the Chicago Blues Festival in 2002. In addition, he has made several guest appearances on other blues musicians albums. These included Willie Kent's Too Hurt to Cry (1994). His most recent album, Rockin' in the Same Old Boat (2003), was described by Allmusic's journalist, Matt Collar, as "Moore's hard-driving lead guitar lines are well intact as is his off-hand, sometimes slurred vocal delivery" If you support live Blues acts, up and coming Blues talents and want to learn more about Blues news and Fathers of the Blues, Like ---Bman’s Blues Report--- Facebook Page! I’m looking for great talent and trying to grow the audience for your favorites band! -  ”LIKE”

Blackbird Music artist: Lucky Peterson Band featuring Tamara Peterson - Live At The 55 Arts Club Berlin - New Release Review II (CD/DVD)

Following up on last nights report on the super deluxe 5 disc set that Lucky peterson has just completed, set two begins with Giving Me The Blues designed to get the crowd hopping and it sure does. Shawn Kellerman plays a blistering solo and the band is really in the groove. Up next Peterson plays a tribute to one of my favorite (funk/soul) blues artists, Johnny Guitar Watson, with Ta' Ta' You. This is a great track and Peterson not only pushes the band with his Hammond, he does a great job on vocals. Kellerman plays a hot solo on this track as well but you all know this music is about the soul... and Peterson has it! He keeps the volume down and the band even takes a reggae twist on the track but the groove is solid as a rock. On It Ain;t

Safe Peterson calls on the funk and even conjures up a little Billy Preston. Kellerman takes another nice guitar interlude on this track but again Peterson is at the wheel driving with his organ and his dynamic voice. On Dixon's I'm Ready, the band plays with a lot more swing, giving it a bit more of a jazz styling. A walking bass line from Waites and B3 work by Peterson really make the difference on this track which has been covered by just about every band who's ever played the blues. Howlin' Wolf's Who's been Talking is done over a Latin beat (Otis Rush style) beginning very subdued early. Peterson takes a really nice organ solo on this track and again Valdes plays masterfully on this track. Peterson hops up and straps on an old red Supro Belmont for an Elmore James romp. Sounds like the guitar is tuned in open D and equipped with a glass slide Peterson rips it up on Dust My Broom, a Robert Johnson track. He then slows it down and does a really nice version of the Jimmy Reed's World's In A Tangle.
Bringing the band and the crowd back to a frenzy, Peterson welcomes Tamara back on stage for a bluesy version of Prince's Kiss. Although I'm not a big fan of any version of this song, Tamara does a particularly nice job on the vocals on this track. Last Night You Left, a R&B style track written by Tamara, moves Lucky back to keys. This is a cool number and Peterson once again brings an entire different dimension to the band. Lots of bands have organ but not often do you hear a band that id lead by an organ player as tasteful as this. Next up is Ain't Nobody like You in neo soul style. This is a cool track and likely one that would well fall into an airplay list. Waits finally gets a chance to solo and play my man does. Waites plays like a fine jazz player with no fancy tricks ... just nice chords and soulful lead melody lines. Finishing up the set is another T. Peterson track, Real Music. A built up funk track Waites carries this track with his hot bass riffs. Kellerman and Lucky bring up the heat and Waites is invited to bring on another solo. Finally Valdes rips it loose with a solo that is really hot but likely with its out of sequence and extremely difficulty patterns is lost on many observers. This band is extremely tight and the audience really got a show! If you support live Blues acts, up and coming Blues talents and want to learn more about Blues news and Fathers of the Blues, -  ”LIKE” ---Bman’s Blues Report--- Facebook Page! I’m looking for great talent and trying to grow the audience for your favorite band!

Fever - Zora Young

Zora Young (born January 21, 1948, West Point, Mississippi, United States) is an American blues singer. She is a distant relative of Howlin' Wolf. Young's family moved to Chicago at age seven and sang gospel at the Greater Harvest Baptist Church. As an adult she began singing blues and R&B music, and over the course of her career played with Junior Wells, Jimmy Dawkins, Bobby Rush, Buddy Guy, Albert King, Professor Eddie Lusk, and B. B. King. Among those she has collaborated with on record are Willie Dixon, Sunnyland Slim, Mississippi Heat, Paul DeLay, and Maurice John Vaughan. In 1982, she toured Europe on the bill with Bonnie Lee and Big Time Sarah in 'Blues with the Girls', and then recorded an album in Paris, France. She was later cast in the role of Bessie Smith in the stage show, The Heart of the Blues. By 1991 she had recorded the album, Travelin' Light, with the Canadian guitar player, Colin Linden. Young has toured Europe more than thirty times, in addition to appearances in Turkey and Taiwan. She was the featured performer at the Chicago Blues Festival six times Zora Young (born January 21, 1948, West Point, Mississippi, United States) is an American blues singer. She is a distant relative of Howlin' Wolf. Young's family moved to Chicago at age seven and sang gospel at the Greater Harvest Baptist Church. As an adult she began singing blues and R&B music, and over the course of her career played with Junior Wells, Jimmy Dawkins, Bobby Rush, Buddy Guy, Albert King, Professor Eddie Lusk, and B. B. King. Among those she has collaborated with on record are Willie Dixon, Sunnyland Slim, Mississippi Heat, Paul DeLay, and Maurice John Vaughan. In 1982, she toured Europe on the bill with Bonnie Lee and Big Time Sarah in 'Blues with the Girls', and then recorded an album in Paris, France. She was later cast in the role of Bessie Smith in the stage show, The Heart of the Blues. By 1991 she had recorded the album, Travelin' Light, with the Canadian guitar player, Colin Linden. Young has toured Europe more than thirty times, in addition to appearances in Turkey and Taiwan. She was the featured performer at the Chicago Blues Festival six times If you support live Blues acts, up and coming Blues talents and want to learn more about Blues news and Fathers of the Blues, -  ”LIKE” ---Bman’s Blues Report--- Facebook Page! I’m looking for great talent and trying to grow the audience for your favorite band!

Blueberry Hill - Henry Gray

Louisiana-based pianist and singer Henry Gray has a career in American roots music that goes back more than 60 years. Gray was born January 19, 1925, in Kenner, LA, now a suburb of New Orleans. He grew up in Alsen, LA, a few miles north of Baton Rouge. Henry began playing piano as an eight-year-old, and he learned from the radio, recordings, and Mrs. White, an elderly woman in his neighborhood. As a youngster, he began playing piano and organ in the local church, and his family eventually got a piano for the house. While blues playing was not allowed in his parents' home, Henry was encouraged to play blues at Mrs. White's house, and by the time he was 16 he was asked to play at a club near the family home in Alsen. After he told his father, his father insisted on going with him, and once he saw that little Henry made decent money playing blues, he had no ethical or moral problems with his son playing blues piano. After a stint in the Army in the South Pacific in World War II, Henry relocated to Chicago where he had relatives. After arriving in Chicago in 1946, Gray began hanging out in the bustling postwar club scene there, checking out the Windy City's best piano players. One day while he was sitting in at a club, he caught the attention of Big Maceo Merriweather, then a big fish in a small pond of Chicago piano players. Merriweather kindly took Gray under his wing and showed him around the city's blues clubs, and he got to know stars of the scene, including Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf. In 1956 Wolf asked Henry to join his band. Gray quickly accepted the offer and stayed on as Wolf's primary piano player until 1968. Gray also became a session player for other recordings made by Chess Records, and over the years he has recorded with many icons of the blues. In addition to Wolf, Gray has recorded or performed with Robert Lockwood Jr., Billy Boy Arnold, Muddy Waters, Johnny Shines, Hubert Sumlin, Lazy Lester, Little Walter Jacobs, Otis Rush, Buddy Guy, James Cotton, Little Milton Campbell, Jimmy Rogers, Jimmy Reed, and Koko Taylor, among others. Although Howlin' Wolf did not pass away until 1976, Gray left Wolf's band in 1968, following the death of his father, and returned to Alsen to assist his mother with the family fish market business. Gray worked with the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board as a roofer for the next 15 years. A Tribute to Howlin' Wolf In the past 30 years, since he's been back in Louisiana, Gray has performed at nearly every New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival as well as other prestigious gatherings, including the Montreal Jazz Festival, the Chicago Blues Festival, and the San Francisco Blues Festival. In 1999 he was nominated for a Grammy for his playing on the Tribute to Howlin' Wolf album released by the Cleveland-based Telarc label, and in 1998 he was handpicked by Mick Jagger himself to play Jagger's 55th birthday soiree in Paris, along with a few other noted blues musicians. Having spent so much of his life as a sideman, Gray's recordings under his own name were few and far between, but that all began to change in the 1990s. Gray's recordings include Lucky Man for Blind Pig in 1988; Louisiana Swamp Blues, Vol. 2 for Wolf Records in 1990; Watch Yourself in 2001 for Lucky Cat; Henry Gray Plays Chicago Blues for Hightone Records in 2001; and the Henry Gray and the Cats CD and DVD sets for the Lucky Cat label in 2004. If you support live Blues acts, up and coming Blues talents and want to learn more about Blues news and Fathers of the Blues, -  ”LIKE” ---Bman’s Blues Report--- Facebook Page! I’m looking for great talent and trying to grow the audience for your favorite band!

Nora Jean Bruso

If I had to describe Nora Jean Wallace in one word, that would be an easy task: Nora Jean is all about love. When asked why she sings the blues, she used the word love three times … in two sentences! “I love to share the love God put in me … I love to express my story in [the] songs of my life.” And when asked why she recorded Good Blues, her new CD, there was that word again: “I put in my songs what is inside of me: love.” And while Nora Jean made it easy for me to sum her up in one word, I’m grateful that I get to use a few more of them here to share her fascinating life story with you. Once you walk the path she’s traveled in this world, you’ll know exactly where her blues come from, not to mention all that love. You could say that Nora Jean Wallace was born to sing the blues. The seventh child of a Mississippi sharecropper, she grew up in the Delta with her 15 brothers and sisters on the 11,000-acre Equen Plantation, located halfway between Clarksdale and Greenwood, the town where she was born. Working the merciless cotton fields during the week with her family, Nora Jean looked forward to Friday and Saturday nights, when a different kind of picking prevailed. Her grandmother owned the local juke joint, and her father, Bobby Lee Wallace, and her uncle, Henry “Son” Wallace, both accomplished blues performers, would gather their families there for some much needed, soul-stirring music therapy every weekend. Once the kids were put to bed for the night, how the good times would roll! And while the adults in the family were thus enjoying their well-earned down time, Nora and her siblings were secretly doing the same, sneaking out of bed to peek through the keyhole and eavesdrop on the grownups and the night’s entertainment. “Down to Miss Mae’s Juke Joint,” written and recorded for her second CD, Going Back to Mississippi, is Nora’s loving tribute to that special place and time in her life. In addition to the blues classics of Howlin’ Wolf that she overheard through that keyhole, Nora Jean was also exposed to the best of gospel music as her mother, Ida Lee Wallace, serenaded the family with the songs of Mahalia Jackson, The Staples Singers, The Dixie Hummingbirds, Albertina Walker, Shirley Caesar, and The Mighty Clouds of Joy. With so much music in her life, it was almost inevitable that Nora Jean would find her own voice in the family. She says that the first song she ever sang was “Howlin’ for My Darling”; she was four or five years old at the time. A fast learner, she turned professional at the age of six! It seems that one of her eleven brothers bragged to two of his friends that his sister could really sing. To prove his point, he brought them into her room for an impromptu jam. Nora tore it up with some Howlin’ Wolf she had heard during her father’s performances down at Miss Mae’s, and each of the boys gave her a nickel. Voila! Her first paying gig! Despite that early success, it wasn’t until Nora Jean won a local high school talent competition that she really began to believe in the possibility of a professional singing career. By this time, her early education in the classic blues of Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, Big Mama Thornton, John Lee Hooker, and Robert Johnson was being supplemented by the soul artists she was hearing on the radio: James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Gladys Knight, and Ray Charles all contributed new flavors to Nora Jean’s simmering musical gumbo. But like so many other blues musicians before her, Nora did not actually get her professional start in music until she left the deep South and headed to the West Side of Chicago, the blues capital of the world. There, one fateful night in 1976, after her Aunt Rose had heard her singing at home and brought her along to several clubs she was promoting at the time, Nora Jean sat in with Scottie and the Oasis at the Majestic. And just like that, her dream of a professional singing career became reality. She was invited to join the band and spent several years with them until Scottie’s unfortunate passing. During this time many local Chicago musicians, most notably Mary Lane and Joe Barr, encouraged Nora and taught her the fine points of her craft. Photo Credit: Purely DigitalNora's big break came in 1985, when Jimmy Dawkins saw her performing at a local Chicago club and hired her on the spot. For the next seven years, she toured the world and recorded with Jimmy and his band. During this period she appeared on two of Jimmy's CDs, Feel the Blues and Can't Shake These Blues, released her own self-penned single, "Untrue Lover," and worked on developing her budding songwriting skills. While touring Europe, Canada, and the United States, Nora also refined her performing skills and acquired an international fan base. She appeared at many major festivals, including the King Biscuit Blues Festival in Helena, Arkansas, and was featured on the front page of the Chicago Tribune following her 1989 performance at the Chicago Blues Festival. In addition to her appearances with Jimmy Dawkins, Nora also sang occasionally with other major blues acts and remembers with special fondness her shows with Willie Kent and his band. By 1991 Nora felt that the demands of life on the road were taking a toll on her family life, and she courageously walked away from her promising professional career to devote herself to raising her two sons. No longer singing the blues, Nora found musical release in her other early musical passion: a devout Christian, she sang gospel in church every week, praising God for the love He had put in her heart and thanking Him for the friendships that continued to bless her life. Among those friendships were many of those she had made in the blues community. By the late 90s, through the support of these loyal friends, Nora was persuaded to make a limited return to performing, taking on local gigs to fulfill her undeniable love of the blues. She sang occasionally with Johnny Drummer at Lee’s Unleaded Blues and then formed her own band, Nora Jean and the Fellas. For the next few years they performed in local Chicago clubs, but Nora remained conflicted about returning full time to life in the fast lane of the blues highway. More than once she retreated from the music scene in frustration at having to begin her career again. In 2001 a phone call from close friend Billy Flynn precipitated a series of events that would put an end to all doubts and bring Nora back to the blues for good. Billy asked Nora to sing lead and background vocals on four tracks for his new CD, Blues and Love. So moving was the experience of being in the studio and recording again that Nora realized once and for all that this was her gift, her passion, her destiny. And she committed to embracing that destiny: come fame or obscurity, wealth or poverty, she was born to be a blues singer, and sing the blues she would. In 2002, reflecting her determination to start anew, Nora moved to La Porte, Indiana, where she found that the town’s most famous resident was none other than legendary blues piano player Pinetop Perkins, a member of the great Muddy Waters Band. (In 2008, recording under her married name at the time, Nora Jean Bruso, she would join Eric Clapton, B.B. King, and a host of other luminaries in the blues world for the recording of Pinetop’s penultimate recording, Pinetop Perkins and Friends. And a proud friend she was, indeed. Pinetop regularly joined Nora for her local shows at Buck’s Workingman’s Pub. La Porte will never see the likes of those shows again! RIP, Pinetop.) Having relocated and recommitted to her career, Nora called on friend and mentor Jimmy Dawkins for advice. Jimmy’s response was to invite her to perform with him at the 2002 Chicago Blues Festival. Although she sang only two songs during that appearance, the Chicago Sun-Times called the songs “show-stopping” and proclaimed Nora “up-and-coming” in the blues world. That same year, the Black History Association in Chicago presented her a “Keeping the Blues Alive” citation for her comeback. After eleven years out of the spotlight, Nora Jean was once again taking her rightful place center stage. In October of 2002, Nora entered the recording studio of her old friend Jerry Soto with the same band that had backed her just four months earlier at the Chicago Blues Festival. Only three lineup changes were made: Nora added an old friend, the legendary Willie Kent, on bass; a regular member of her own band, Brian Lupo, on guitar; and (in the absence of Jimmy Dawkins, who had undergone emergency arm surgery) James Wheeler, also on guitar. Released in 2003, the resulting CD, Nora Jean Bruso Sings the Blues, was awarded a rare and coveted five-star rating from Big City Blues and received critical acclaim from radio programmers throughout North America, appearing on the Living Blues charts and XM Radio play lists for many months. 2003 proved to be a breakthrough year for Nora. On the strength of her debut CD, she made a triumphal return to the stage at the Chicago Blues Festival and did a summer tour of Europe. By the end of the year, she had the pleasure of seeing her CD on everyone’s list of top blues CDs of the year. In 2004 her industry peers endorsed her success by nominating Nora for two W. C. Handy Awards: one for Best New Artist and one for Best Traditional Blues Female Artist of the Year. And the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry named her one of the ten great women in Chicago blues, saying, “There is talk of Nora Jean as the next Queen of the Blues.” Photo Credit: Purely DigitalThe accolades and warm reception of her first CD were particularly gratifying to Nora Jean, who had poured her heart and soul into the recording, intending it as a loving tribute to her musical influences. The four Howlin’ Wolf songs on it were the first songs she ever heard her father sing and were recorded as a gesture of love and respect for him and for her mother. “Can’t Shake These Blues” was a nod to Jimmy Dawkins, and the Magic Sam numbers represented the raw West Side of Chicago sound that was as integral to her music as were her Mississippi roots. “Doin’ the Shout” acknowledged the influence of the one and only Boogie Man, Mr. John Lee Hooker; and the Etta James classic “I’d Rather Go Blind,” so powerfully covered by the magnificent Koko Taylor, afforded Nora the perfect opportunity to express her respect and gratitude to the great ladies of the blues who had paved the path she walks to this day. Nora rounded out the offering with several numbers she knew were fan favorites from her earlier performing days, as well as a reworked version of “Untrue Lover,” the first song she had ever written herself. Nora had previously recorded “Untrue Lover” during her time in the 80s with Jimmy Dawkins. Revealing just how much her songwriting skills had progressed since those days, she was already sitting on fourteen new tunes for an anticipated follow-up to her brilliant debut CD. But the rigors of maintaining a hectic performance schedule while trying to produce and distribute a record proved overwhelming, so it came as great news that Maryland-based roots label Severn Records wanted to sign her to a multi-record deal. Nora spent several months of 2004 in the Severn studios, recording Going Back to Mississippi, a gritty chronicle of her life growing up on the Equen Plantation; every lyric on the CD came straight from her heart. The “baby” she longed to return to in the title cut was the blues, and “What I Been Through” told you everything you needed to know and more about the woman’s spirit and determination. Nora debuted several cuts from the album with her band on the main stage at the Chicago Blues Festival in June and at the Pocono Blues Festival in July. Upon its release in September, Going Back to Mississippi came out strong, debuting at number five on the Living Blues radio charts, and went all the way to number one on XM Radio. In support of her sophomore effort, Nora spent most of 2005 on the festival circuit, relentlessly touring the U.S. and Canada; highlights included the Cape May Jazz and Pocono Blues festivals. By 2006 circumstances in Nora Jean’s personal life once again threatened to derail her phenomenal comeback, but the blues would not be denied. Armed with unshakeable faith, she defiantly stared down the devil, never blinking once. Working two jobs while raising a grandchild and performing whenever and wherever she could, there were definitely times when she was not just singing the blues … she was living them. Yet every year between 2005 and 2009 Nora Jean was nominated for a Blues Music Award in the Traditional Blues Female Artist of the Year category. Praised by the likes of Koko Taylor, Steady Rollin’ Bob Margolin and Debbie Davies and heralded as the next “Queen of the Blues” by Pocono Blues Director Michael Cloeren and Blues in Britain magazine, Nora Jean Wallace has earned her place in the blues world. Speaking of her first love, she says: The blues is alive and well, and I am proud to be a part of it. I feel privileged to sing the music that is my heritage. The artistic achievements of my ancestors are not only one of their greatest contributions to America, but also one of America’s greatest contributions to the world. The blues is great American music and, God willing, I will be singing it for you for many, many years to come. On any given night you may hear me throw some Tina Turner or Tracy Chapman into my show, depending on the audience. I have even been known to perform a rap song called “Superstar” that my oldest son wrote for me when I have an audience of mainly young people. But I always begin and end with the blues. It is my passion and my calling to try to keep this great music alive. Call it traditional blues, hard blues, old school blues, whatever you like, it is my blues and I love it. There’s that word again … in the world of Nora Jean Wallace, love and the blues go hand in hand. Get yourself out to see her soon, and you’ll see – and hear and feel – exactly what I’m talking about. Donna Johnston If you support live Blues acts, up and coming Blues talents and want to learn more about Blues news and Fathers of the Blues, -  ”LIKE” ---Bman’s Blues Report--- Facebook Page! I’m looking for great talent and trying to grow the audience for your favorite band!

Listen Girl - Bill Magee Blues Band

Born in Collins, the back woods of Mississippi in 1943, Willie (Bill) Magee grew up loving music, listening to Muddy Waters, Elmore James, and B.B. King on his Father's small radio. Life was difficult and Willie experienced many hard knocks. His mother died when he was four years old and his father followed when he was just thirteen. Taken from his parentless home, his older brother Deloy moved him to his tiny one room flat in Ithaca, New York. Determined to finish high school, Willie concentrated on his studies while Deloy worked hard to support him. At the Community Center Willie met guitarist Butch Rosenberg and his focus turned to music. As the friendship grew, they spent many hours listening to R&B and Rock and Roll, especially the blues guitars of B.B. King and Muddy Waters. With a part time job at a Department store Willie managed to save for his first guitar...a $29.99 Montgomery Ward special, much to the chagrin of his brother. Willie promised Deloy that some day he would play the Apollo Theater. A year of solid practice brought Willie to join his first local band and at age fourteen music became his life. Working with various local bands he soon was earning money, and also managed to graduate from High School...the first in his family to do so. His ambition is to become the best guitarist in the country!!! In 1967 Jimmy James(Hendrix) left for England and Willie toured Russia, Japan, Europe and England with his band. Professional play kept him touring on the Chittlin' Circuit and on the New York scene when he was home. It was during this time Bill Magee played with B.B. King, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Jimmy Reed, Otis Redding, John Lee Hooker, Bobby 'Blue' Bland, Wilson Pickett, and Bo Diddley among others in venues like The Regal and McCormick Place in Chicago, The Royal in D.C., Madison Square Garden, The Filmore East, The Baby Grand as well as Yankee and Shea Stadium in New York City. With the birth of his fourth child, Willie finally gave up the relentless touring and the music business for a 9 to 5 and fatherhood. Relocating to San Diego in 1987, he continued his hiatus from music until 1993. With music in his blood, Bill had to return and is now burning up the San Diego Music scene with his guitar virtuosos and those New York/Chicago Blues. Bill Magee is THE REAL DEAL. If you support live Blues acts, up and coming Blues talents and want to learn more about Blues news and Fathers of the Blues, -  ”LIKE” ---Bman’s Blues Report--- Facebook Page! I’m looking for great talent and trying to grow the audience for your favorite band!