Shake For Me - Howlin' Wolf

Chester Arthur Burnett (June 10, 1910 – January 10, 1976), known as Howlin' Wolf, was an influential American blues singer, guitarist and harmonica player. He was born in West Point, Mississippi in an area now known as White Station. With a booming voice and looming physical presence, Burnett is commonly ranked among the leading performers in electric blues; musician and critic Cub Koda declared, "no one could match Howlin' Wolf for the singular ability to rock the house down to the foundation while simultaneously scaring its patrons out of its wits." A number of songs written or popularized by Burnett—such as "Smokestack Lightnin'", "Back Door Man", "Killing Floor" and "Spoonful"—have become blues and blues rock standards. At 6 feet, 3 inches and close to 300 pounds , he was an imposing presence with one of the loudest and most memorable voices of all the "classic" 1950s Chicago blues singers. This rough-edged, slightly fearsome musical style is often contrasted with the less crude but still powerful presentation of his contemporary and professional rival, Muddy Waters. Howlin' Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson (Rice Miller), Little Walter Jacobs, and Muddy Waters are usually regarded in retrospect as the greatest blues artists who recorded for Chess in Chicago. Sam Phillips once remarked, "When I heard Howlin' Wolf, I said, 'This is for me. This is where the soul of man never dies.'" In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked him #51 on their list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". Born in White Station, Mississippi, near West Point, he was named after Chester A. Arthur, the 21st President of the United States, and was nicknamed Big Foot Chester and Bull Cow in his early years because of his massive size. He explained the origin of the name Howlin' Wolf thus: "I got that from my grandfather [John Jones]." His Grandfather would often tell him stories about the wolves in that part of the country and warn him that if he misbehaved, the howling wolves would "get him". According to the documentary film The Howlin' Wolf Story, Howlin' Wolf's parents broke up when he was young. His very religious mother Gertrude threw him out of the house while he was still a child for refusing to work around the farm; he then moved in with his uncle, Will Young, who treated him badly. When he was 13, he ran away and claimed to have walked 85 miles barefoot to join his father, where he finally found a happy home within his father's large family. During the peak of his success, he returned from Chicago to his home town to see his mother again, but was driven to tears when she rebuffed him and refused to take any money he offered her, saying it was from his playing the "Devil's music". In 1930, Howlin' Wolf met Charley Patton, the most popular bluesman in the Delta at the time. Wolf would listen to Patton play nightly from outside a nearby juke joint. There he remembered Patton playing "Pony Blues," "High Water Everywhere," "A Spoonful Blues," and "Banty Rooster Blues." The two became acquainted and soon Patton was teaching him guitar. "The first piece I ever played in my life was ... a tune about hook up my pony and saddle up my black mare" (Patton's "Pony Blues"). Wolf also learned about showmanship from Patton: "When he played his guitar, he would turn it over backwards and forwards, and throw it around over his shoulders, between his legs, throw it up in the sky." "Chester [Wolf] could perform the guitar tricks he learned from Patton for the rest of his life." "Chester learned his lessons well and played with Patton often ." Howlin' Wolf was also inspired by other popular blues performers of the time, including the Mississippi Sheiks, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Ma Rainey, Lonnie Johnson, Tampa Red, Blind Blake, and Tommy Johnson (two of the earliest songs he mastered were Jefferson's "Match Box Blues" and Leroy Carr's "How Long, How Long Blues"). Country singer Jimmie Rodgers, who was Wolf's childhood idol, was also an influence. Wolf tried to emulate Rodgers' "blue yodel," but found that his efforts sounded more like a growl or a howl. "I couldn't do no yodelin'," Barry Gifford quoted him as saying in Rolling Stone, "so I turned to howlin'. And it's done me just fine."[citation needed] His harmonica playing was modeled after that of Rice Miller (also known as Sonny Boy Williamson II), who had taught him how to play when Howlin Wolf had moved to Parkin, Arkansas, in 1933. During the 1930s, Wolf performed in the South as a solo performer and with a number of blues musicians, including Floyd Jones, Johnny Shines, Honeyboy Edwards, Sonny Boy Williamson II, Robert Johnson, Robert Jr. Lockwood, Willie Brown, Son House, Willie Johnson. On April 9, 1941, at age thirty, he was inducted into the U.S. Army and was stationed at several army bases. Finding it difficult to adjust to military life, Wolf was discharged November 3, 1943, during the middle of World War II, without ever being sent overseas. Wolf returned to his family and helped with farming, while performing as he had done in the 1930s with Floyd Jones and others. In 1948 he formed a band which included guitarists Willie Johnson and Matt "Guitar" Murphy, harmonica player Junior Parker, a pianist remembered only as "Destruction" and drummer Willie Steele. He began broadcasting on KWEM in West Memphis, Arkansas, alternating between performing and pitching equipment on his father's farm after his family's move to this area in the same year. Eventually, Sam Phillips discovered him and ended up signing him for Memphis Recording Service in 1951. Matt "Guitar" Murphy played with Wolf teaching him to play on time. Matt says sometimes he played 13 bars and sometimes 14 and Murphy would cut through to show him how to stay in time, getting it down to 12 bars. Wolf regularly made up lyrics about the band on stage, sometimes in jest and sometimes hurtful. Murphy arranged for Junior Parker to join Wolf's band. Later Parker and Murphy both left to form "The Blue Flames", the name chosen by Murphy In 1950, Howlin' Wolf cut several tracks at Sun Studio in Memphis. He quickly became a local celebrity, and soon began working with a band that included Willie Johnson and guitarist Pat Hare. His first recordings came in 1951, when he recorded sessions for both the Bihari brothers at RPM Records and Leonard Chess's Chess Records. Chess issued Howlin' Wolf's "Moanin' At Midnight" b/w "How Many More Years" on August 15, 1951; Wolf also recorded sides for RPM, with Ike Turner, in late 1951 and early 1952. Chess eventually won the war over the singer, and Wolf settled in Chicago, Illinois c. 1953. arriving in Chicago, he assembled a new band, recruiting Chicagoan Jody Williams from Memphis Slim's band as his first guitarist. Within a year Wolf enticed guitarist Hubert Sumlin to leave Memphis and join him in Chicago; Sumlin's terse, curlicued solos perfectly complemented Burnett's huge voice and surprisingly subtle phrasing. Although the line-up of Wolf's band would change regularly over the years, employing many different guitarists both on recordings and in live performance including Willie Johnson, Jody Williams, Lee Cooper, L.D. McGhee, Otis "Big Smokey" Smothers, his brother Little Smokey Smothers, Jimmy Rogers, Freddie "Abu Talib" Robinson, and Buddy Guy, among others, with the exception of a couple of brief absences in the late '50s Sumlin remained a member of the band for the rest of Wolf's career, and is the guitarist most often associated with the Chicago Howlin' Wolf sound. In the 1950s Wolf had four songs that qualified as "hits" on the Billboard national R&B charts: "How Many More Years", his first and biggest hit, made it to #4 in 1951; its flip side, "Moanin' at Midnight", made it to #10 the same year; "Smokestack Lightning" charted for three weeks in 1956, peaking at #8; and "I Asked For Water (She Gave Me Gasoline)" appeared on the charts for one week in 1956, in the #8 position. In 1959, Wolf's first album, Moanin' in the Moonlight, a compilation of previously released singles, was released. His 1962 LP Howlin' Wolf, which featured contributions from Willie Dixon, Jimmy Rogers and Sam Lay among others, is a famous and influential blues album, often referred to as "The Rocking Chair album" because of its cover illustration depicting an acoustic guitar leaning against a rocking chair. This album contained "Wang Dang Doodle", "Goin' Down Slow", "Spoonful", and "Little Red Rooster" (titled "The Red Rooster" on this album), songs which found their way into the repertoires of British and American bands infatuated with Chicago blues. In 1964 he toured Europe as part of the American Folk Blues Festival tour produced by German promoters Horst Lippmann and Fritz Rau. In 1965 he appeared on the television show Shindig at the insistence of The Rolling Stones, who were scheduled to appear on the same program and who had covered "Little Red Rooster" on an early album. He was often backed on records by bassist and songwriter Willie Dixon who is credited with such Howlin' Wolf standards as "Spoonful", "I Ain't Superstitious", "Little Red Rooster", "Back Door Man", "Evil", "Wang Dang Doodle" (later recorded by Koko Taylor), and others. In September 1967, he joined forces with Bo Diddley and Muddy Waters for The Super Super Blues Band album of Chess blues standards, including "The Red Rooster" and "Spoonful". In May 1970, Howlin' Wolf, his long-time guitarist Hubert Sumlin, and the young Chicago blues harmonica player Jeff Carp traveled to London along with Chess Records producer Norman Dayron to record the Howlin' Wolf London Sessions LP, accompanied by British blues/rock musicians Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Ian Stewart, Bill Wyman, Charlie Watts and others. He recorded his last album for Chess, The Back Door Wolf, in 1973. Unlike many other blues musicians, after he left his impoverished childhood to begin a musical career, Howlin' Wolf was always financially successful. Having already achieved a measure of success in Memphis, he described himself as "the onliest one to drive himself up from the Delta" to Chicago, which he did, in his own car on the Blues Highway and with four thousand dollars in his pocket, a rare distinction for a black blues man of the time. In his early career, this was the result of his musical popularity and his ability to avoid the pitfalls of alcohol, gambling and the various dangers inherent in what are vaguely described as "loose women", to which so many of his peers fell prey. Though functionally illiterate into his 40s, Burnett eventually returned to school, first to earn a G.E.D., and later to study accounting and other business courses aimed to help his business career. Wolf met his future wife, Lillie, when she attended one of his performances in a Chicago club. She and her family were urban and educated, and not involved in what was generally seen as the unsavory world of blues musicians. Nonetheless, immediately attracted when he saw her in the audience as Wolf says he was, he pursued her and won her over. According to those who knew them, the couple remained deeply in love until his death. Together they raised Bettye and Barbara, Lillie's two daughters from an earlier relationship. After he married Lillie, who was able to manage his professional finances, Wolf was so financially successful that he was able to offer band members not only a decent salary, but benefits such as health insurance; this in turn enabled him to hire his pick of the available musicians, and keep his band one of the best around. According to his daughters, he was never financially extravagant, for instance driving a Pontiac station wagon rather than a more expensive and flashy car. Wolf's health declined in the late 1960s through 1970s. He suffered several heart attacks and in 1970 his kidneys were severely damaged in an automobile accident. He died in 1976 from complications of kidney disease. 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!

Cool Drink Of Water - Joe Willie Wilkins w/ Houston Stackhouse

Joe Willie Wilkins (January 7, 1921 – March 28, 1981) 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 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”

One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer - George Thorogood And Destroyers

2120 South Michigan Avenue, home of Chicago’s Chess Records, may be the most important address in the bloodline of the blues and rock ‘n’ roll. That address – immortalized in the Rolling Stones’ like-named instrumental, recorded at an epochal session at Chess in June 1964 and included on the band’s album 12 X 5 – serves as the title to George Thorogood’s electrifying Capitol/EMI salute to the Chess label and its immortal artists. Thorogood has been essaying the Chess repertoire since his 1977 debut album, which included songs by Elmore James and Bo Diddley that originated on the label. He has cut 18 Chess covers over the years; three appeared on his last studio release, 2009’s The Dirty Dozen. On 2120 South Michigan Avenue, he offers a full-length homage to the label that bred his style with interpretations of 10 Chess classics. The album also includes original tributes to the Windy City and Chess’ crucial songwriter-producer-bassist Willie Dixon, penned by Thorogood, producer Tom Hambridge, and Richard Fleming, plus a cranked-up version of the Stones’ titular instrumental. Chess Records had been making musical history for a decade before it moved into its offices on Michigan Avenue, in the heart of the Windy City’s record business district, in 1957. Leonard and Phil Chess, sons of a Polish immigrant family and South Side nightclub operators, bought into a new independent label called Aristocrat Records in 1947. The brothers bought out their partners in 1950 and gave the label the family name; by that time, they had racked up blues hits by Muddy Waters, Sunnyland Slim, Robert Nighthawk, and St. Louis Jimmy. Chess’ studio spawned timeless ‘50s and ‘60s recordings by Waters, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, and Howlin’ Wolf, which served as inspiration for the Stones and their blues-rocking brethren, and then lit a fire under their successors George Thorogood and the Destroyers. Thorogood recalls, “I remember as a teenager reading about Mick Jagger meeting Keith Richards on a train. Jagger had a Chuck Berry record, and he said he wrote to Chess Records and got a catalog sent to him. Just out of curiosity, I took out one of my Chess records, got the address, and I wrote to Chess Records. And they sent me a catalog of the complete Chess library, and I started buying up these Chess records. I bought every single one of them I could possibly get. “And I remember reading the backs of those Chess records and seeing the address, 2120 South Michigan Avenue, and I said, ‘That’s the same address as the Rolling Stones’ instrumental!’ And I started putting one and one together and coming up with a big two.” Over time, Chess’ catalog and artists became the sources of Thorogood’s higher education in music. “That was my school, the college that I had to learn my trade in,” he says. “I had to figure out how these people did these things.” The new album also celebrates the performers who shared stages with Thorogood and the Destroyers and encouraged them when they were just coming up on the East Coast blues scene. He says, “The people who helped me out were all the guys in Muddy Waters’ band, all the guys in Howlin’ Wolf’s band. They were wonderful to me, and they wanted to help me. They saw what I was trying to do.” 2120 South Michigan Avenue isn’t just Thorogood’s salute to a great record label – it also pays homage to the tough, larger-than-life men who made the music. “It was a lifestyle as well as an art form, as far as music goes,” Thorogood notes. “They were singing about what their life was like on a daily basis. Sonny Boy Williamson and Wolf and Muddy Waters – they didn’t think they were the baddest cats in the world, they knew they were the baddest cats in the world. They had to be, or they wouldn’t have survived. There’s nothing glamorous in it – that’s just the facts. They had to fight their way through on a daily basis just to keep their heads above water. That’s very clear in a lot of their songs.” Some of the songs from the Chess catalog heard on 2120 South Michigan Avenue were staples of the Destroyers’ live repertoire; Thorogood says, “A lot of the things I recorded I was doing 25 or 30 years ago, and I had stopped doing them.” He adds that since many Chess recordings have become linchpins of the rock and blues repertoire, both on record and in concert, some careful winnowing had to be done for the album: “We did a lot of research and said, ‘Wait a minute, the Rolling Stones did that song, John Hammond did that song.'" Producer Tom Hambridge is the ideal collaborator for 2120 South Michigan Avenue. A veteran of tours with Chuck Berry, Roy Buchanan, the Drifters, and other stars, Hambridge won a 2010 Grammy for his work on Buddy Guy’s Living Proof, and wrote the album’s Guy-B.B. King duet “Stay Around a Little Longer.” He received Grammy nominations for Guy’s Skin Deep (2008), Johnny Winter’s I’m a Bluesman (2004), and Susan Tedeschi’s Just Won’t Burn (1998). He also fronts his own band, Tom Hambridge & the Rattlesnakes. The special guests on 2120 South Michigan Avenue sport direct connections to Chess and Chicago’s blues scene. Guitarist Buddy Guy made his Chess label debut 51 years ago. Thorogood remembers, “I went to [the Austin blues club] Antone’s for the first time in 1977, and I saw Buddy Guy play. It was the first time I saw him, and I never forgot that he led off with [Chess artist Tommy Tucker’s] ‘High Heeled Sneakers.’ I thought that was just unbelievable. Buddy just tore it apart, like he does everything – that’s his style.” Harmonica master Charlie Musselwhite is heard on two of the album’s tracks, a cover of Little Walter’s hit “My Babe” and the Stones’ “2120.” “Memphis Charlie” haunted Chicago’s South Side clubs in the ‘60s, learning at the feet of Chess titans like Little Walter Jacobs and Sonny Boy Williamson and hanging out with such like-minded contemporaries as Paul Butterfield, Mike Bloomfield, and Elvin Bishop of the pathfinding Paul Butterfield Blues Band. Thorogood says, “I don’t play harmonica. Little Walter plays harp, and Sonny Boy Williamson plays harp, and Howlin’ Wolf plays harp. So I said, ‘Well, what am I gonna do about this?’ It’s an easy choice. I said, ‘There’s only one cat we can get to play ‘My Babe’ by Little Walter, and that’s Charlie.’ He’s the last cat!” Through the entire project, Thorogood and the Destroyers attempted to put their own distinctive spin on the Chess material while maintaining fidelity to the originals’ attack. “When you do Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, when you play Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf, there’s no experimenting,” Thorogood explains. “That’s a religion, and you’ve gotta do it right.” The historic music heard on 2120 South Michigan Avenue didn’t merely change George Thorogood’s life, as he himself notes. “It’s not a musical phenomenon, it’s a social phenomenon. The man who created rock ‘n’ roll was Chuck Berry, and he listened to Muddy Waters. Bo Diddley went to the same school and listened to the same people. Rock ‘n’ roll changed the whole world. That never would have happened if it hadn’t been for Chess Records. It’s the source of the whole thing.” 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!

Going Down Slow - St. Louis Jimmy Oden

James Burke "St. Louis Jimmy" Oden (June 26, 1903 – December 30, 1977) was an American blues vocalist and songwriter. Born in Nashville, Tennessee, United States, Oden sang and taught himself to play the piano in childhood. In his teens, he left home to go to St. Louis, Missouri (c. 1917 ) where piano-based blues was prominent. He was able to develop his vocal talents and began performing with the pianist, Roosevelt Sykes. After more than ten years playing in and around St. Louis, in 1933 he and Sykes decided to move on to Chicago. In Chicago he was dubbed St. Louis Jimmy and there he would enjoy a solid performing and recording career for the next four decades. While Chicago became his home base, Oden traveled with a group of blues players to various places throughout the United States. He recorded a large number of records, his best known coming in 1941 on the Bluebird Records label called "Goin' Down Slow." Oden wrote a number of songs, two of which, "Take the Bitter with the Sweet" and "Soon Forgotten," were recorded by his friend, Muddy Waters. In 1948 on Aristocrat Records Oden cut "Florida Hurricane", accompanied by the pianist Sunnyland Slim and the guitarist Muddy Waters. In 1949, Oden partnered with Joe Brown to form a small recording company called J.O.B. Records. Oden appears to have ended his involvement within a year, but with other partners the company remained in business till 1974. After a serious road accident in 1957 he devoted himself to writing and placed material with Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf ("What a Woman!") and John Lee Hooker. In 1960 he made an album with Bluesville Records, and sang on a Candid Records session with Robert Lockwood, Jr. and Otis Spann. Oden died of bronchopneumonia, at the age of 74, in 1977 and was interred in the Restvale Cemetery in Alsip, Illinois, near Chicago. 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!

Shoot My Baby - Tracy Nelson w/ Marcia Ball

“Tracy Nelson isn’t so much a singer as she is a force field — a blues practitioner of tremendous vocal power and emotional range.” - Alanna Nash, Entertainment Weekly “ . . . a bad white girl . . .” —Etta James, from her autobiography, Rage To Live She has one of the signature voices of her generation. That natural gift has always guided Tracy Nelson’s soul; indeed allowed her to both write and seek out the deeper songs regardless of niche or genre. A fierce singer of truth, a fountain of the deepest heartache, she is an ultimate communicator and has regularly destroyed audiences across decades of performing. She is one of the few female singers who has had hit records in both blues and country genres, performing with everyone from Muddy Waters to Willie Nelson to Marcia Ball and Irma Thomas, with Grammy® nominations for both her country and blues efforts. John Swenson, writing in Rolling Stone, asserted, “Tracy Nelson proves that the human voice is the most expressive instrument in creation.” With Victim of the Blues (Delta Groove), her 26th album in just over five decades, she has circled fully, back to the original music from South Side Chicago that mesmerized her teenaged mind in the mid-1960s. “Several years ago,” Nelson reveals now, “I was driving with a friend across Montana, tooling down I-90 hauling a 1962 Bambi II Airstream trailer, the one that looks like a toaster. We were making a trip to Hebron, North Dakota where my grandfather homesteaded and built up a 2000+ acre ranch which he sold in the early ’60s.” The current owners were about to tear down the old claim shack and she wanted to go back there one last time. The car windows were down and national blues DJ Bill Wax was on their XM Satellite Radio — the great Otis Spann’s “One More Mile,” from his 1964 Prestige album, rolled out of the truck speakers. “It had always been a song I wanted to do” Nelson recalls, “and that started me thinking about all the great Chicago blues songs and artists I had heard in my formative years, especially Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf. This was around the time I made my first record, Deep Are the Roots.” She thought too of just a few years ago when she was touring nationally as part of a well-known Chicago blues revue, playing a lot of blues festivals. “The music I heard back in the day in Chicago and what I was hearing from the current crop of blues acts bore little relation to each other.” From that memorable day in the Badlands hearing “One More Mile,” she decided it was time to make a record she says, with “some of those fine old songs and be as true and authentic to the style as a Norwegian white girl (is that redundant?) from Wisconsin could manage it.” This new album, Victim of the Blues, is a hand-picked collection of songs, most written by Nelson’s early heroes: Muddy Waters, Jimmy Reed, Percy Mayfield, Lightning Hopkins, Joe Tex and Howlin’ Wolf. She has chosen 11 songs of the day, ones that were spilling out of AM radios from second-story apartments, rolled-down car windows, and live from darkened clubs with exotic names like El Macambo. The album kicks off with a rollicking Wolf tune, “You Be Mine,” propelled by piano man Jimmy Pugh (Robert Cray, John Lee Hooker, Etta James) and tough guitarist Mike Henderson (The Bluebloods), with slapping doghouse bass from Byron House (Robert Plant’s Band of Joy) consummately conjuring Willie Dixon, as Tracy Nelson’s voice soars. One contemporary song, “Lead a Horse to Water,” Nelson notes, “is by a wonderful singer/songwriter named Earl Thomas, who should have been born in that era.” The snaky, shimmery Pops Staples sound from guitarist Henderson along with the gospel background vocals (Vicki Carrico, Reba Russell, John Cowan, Terry Tucker and Nick Nixon) would make Mavis grin. A pair of Jimmy Reed (“the great Chicago blues communicator” —Robert Santelli) classics follows: “Shoot Him” pops like a wry firecracker, complete with rimshot/gunshot from drummer John Gardner (Earl Scruggs, The Dixie Chicks, James Taylor) and Henderson’s unexpected (and dismayed) shout. Nelson’s pal and guest singer/piano woman Marcia Ball jumps in on the action too. And on “It’s a Sin” Nelson delivers perfect slow-drag vocals. (Lyrics on both are by Mary Reed, Jimmy’s longtime collaborator and wife.) Women howling never sounded so damn classy in Wolf’s “Howlin’ for My Baby.” Here Nelson is joined by Texan and her fellow Blues Broad, Angela Strehli. “One More Mile,” the Otis Spann song that inspired the whole album, is a true tribute to the Delta/Chicago bluesmen who brought their soul and musical skill to future generations, and could be considered a bookend to Nelson’s 1968 version of her Memphis Slim namesake song, “Mother Earth.” Again, Nelson just tears it up, deeply, cathartically, achingly. Percy Mayfield’s minor-key masterpiece “Stranger in My Own Hometown” is seductively propulsive thanks to Gardner’s brushes and Pugh’s touch on the Hammond B-3. The dramatic and tender caution Nelson offers in “The Love You Save,” a 1966 Joe Tex gem, pleads for intimate understanding in a timely, worldly way. A New Orleans second-line beat infuses Nelson’s take on the dark Lightning Hopkin’s “Feel So Bad” with the notion to dance away the pain. And when Nelson intones “feel like a ball game on a rainy day,” you can taste the humidity, and the clouds overhead. “Without Love,” written by Danny Small, made famous by Tom Jones, Irma Thomas and Elvis Presley, closes, magnificent in presentation, humble and redemptive — ”I had conquered the world, but what did I have? Without love, I had nothing at all.” Singer John Cowen matches Nelson’s explosive power as he takes the high part and goes to church. The only piece on this album from the first generation blues era — replete with banjo, steppin’ bass from House and Pugh’s whorehouse piano — is by Ma Rainey, whom Nelson defines as “my first musical influence when I started to sing seriously. It’s the title tune, ‘Victim of the Blues’ — and the story of my life . . .” Nelson’s listening education began in the early 1960s when, while growing up in Madison, Wisconsin, she immersed herself in the R&B she heard beamed into her bedroom from Nashville’s WLAC-AM. “It was like hearing music from Mars,” she recalls of the alien sounds that stirred her so. As an undergrad at the University of Wisconsin, she combined her musical passions singing blues and folk at coffeehouses and R&B at frat parties as one of three singers fronting a band (including keyboardist Ben Sidran) called the Fabulous Imitations. She was all of 18. In 1964 she went to Chicago to record her first album, Deep Are the Roots, produced by Sam Charters and released on Prestige Records. “We hired Charlie Musselwhite to play harp on that record and he and I connected and hung together for a while. I’d go visit him in Chicago and he’d take me to the clubs on the South Side. That’s where I first met Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf.” A short time later, Tracy moved to San Francisco and, in the midst of that era’s psychedelic explosion, formed Mother Earth, a group that was named after the fatalistic Memphis Slim song (which she sang at his 1988 funeral). Mother Earth the group, true to its origin more grounded than freaky, was nonetheless a major attraction at the Fillmore, where they shared stages with Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Eric Burdon. In 1968 Mother Earth recorded its first album, which included Nelson’s own composition “Down So Low.” It became her signature song, and is considered by all a staggering achievement in the canon of rock music. Esquire magazine called it “one of the five saddest songs ever written.” It has been regularly covered by great women singers through the years, including Etta James, Linda Ronstadt, Maria Muldaur and, in 2010, Cyndi Lauper, who chose it for her own Grammy-nominated blues album. In 1969, the second Mother Earth album, Make a Joyful Noise, was recorded in Nashville, leading Tracy to rent a house and later buy a small farm in the area where she still lives today. As a side project, she soon recorded Mother Earth Presents Tracy Nelson Country for which she coaxed Elvis Presley’s original Sun-era guitarist Scotty Moore to co-produce (with Pete Drake) and play on her rendition of Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup’s “That’s All Right Mama.” In a way, the phenomenon that is Tracy Nelson is encapsulated in that circumstance: it’s a blues song, made famous by a rock ’n’ roller, recorded on a country album by a folkie turned Fillmore goddess, produced by a rockabilly legend and the preeminent pedal steel player of the day. After six Mother Earth albums for Mercury Records and Reprise Records, Nelson continued to record throughout the ’70s as a solo artist on various labels. In 1974, she garnered her first Grammy nomination for “After the Fire Is Gone,” a track from her Atlantic Records album, a hit duet with Willie Nelson that Tracy reprised on her 2003 album, Live From Cell Block D. Willie (who, despite the rumors, is not related to Tracy although he contends they just might be “the illegitimate children of Ozzie and Harriet”) said of Tracy’s remarkable pipes, “that tremendous voice has only gotten better over the years.” The highlight of Nelson’s tenure with Rounder Records throughout the 1990s was surely Sing It!, the brilliant, big-selling 1998 album starring Nelson, swamp blues/rocker Marcia Ball and soul queen Irma Thomas. “She has a magnificent voice. She can truly sell a song,” said Thomas, and music critics enthusiastically agreed —”Nelson repeatedly stops the show with her enormous, wraparound voice, transforming tunes like ‘In Tears’ from simple country-flavored ballads into cathartic emotional experiences,” wrote Michael Point (Austin American-Statesman). And drawing from the recent albums she did with Memphis International, Nelson gave fans worldwide the chance to hear her live (in the great jailhouse album tradition of Johnny Cash and B.B. King) when she released Live From Cell Block D, recorded at the West Tennessee Detention Center in Mason, Tennessee. It was a profound experience for her and reinforced “the value of sharing music in every venue imaginable.” In late July, 2010, Nelson was featured on NPR’s “Weekend Edition,” a little more than a month after the tragic fire that took the 100+ year old farmhouse she shared with longtime partner Mike Dysinger. She was just beginning to deal with the aftermath of losing her home and many of her personal belongings. “The firemen told us they could save one room — we had to decide —we said ‘the studio.’” This album, Victim of the Blues, is the album that miraculously survived the fire. And that is the reason that the first people Nelson thanks in this album’s notes are the Burns, Tennessee Volunteer Fire Department. To date, there have been several benefits across the country to assist the two in rebuilding their farmhouse on the land they love. Seeing as how her first Grammy nomination was for “After the Fire Is Gone,” with Willie Nelson, she would say drolly, “It seemed like the perfect thing to call these events.” Nelson had titled this album before the fire, so the irony is not missed on her. Victim of the Blues is as deeply felt as anything she has recorded in her exceptional career; she is a soul survivor. - Mindy Giles 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!

Stockyard Blues - Floyd Jones

Floyd Jones (July 21, 1917 – December 19, 1989) was an American blues singer, guitarist and songwriter, who is significant as one of the first of the new generation of electric blues artists to record in Chicago after World War II. A number of Jones' recordings are regarded as classics of the Chicago blues idiom, and his song "On The Road Again" was a top ten hit for Canned Heat in 1968. Notably for a blues artist of his era, several of his songs have economic or social themes, such as "Stockyard Blues" (which refers to a strike at the Union Stockyards), "Hard Times" or "Schooldays" Jones was born in Marianna, Arkansas. He started playing guitar seriously after being given a guitar by Howlin' Wolf, and worked as an itinerant musician in the Arkansas and Mississippi area in the 1930s and early 1940s, before settling in Chicago in 1945. In Chicago, Jones took up the electric guitar, and was one of a number of musicians playing on Maxwell Street and in non-union venues in the late 1940s who played an important role in the development of the post-war Chicago Blues sound. This group included Little Walter and Jimmy Rogers, both of who went on to become mainstays of the Muddy Waters band, and also Snooky Pryor, Floyd's cousin Moody Jones and mandolin player Johnny Young. His first recording session in 1947, with Snooky on harmonica and Moody on guitar, produced the sides "Stockyard Blues" and "Keep What You Got", which formed one of the two records released by the Marvel Label, and was one of the first examples of the new style on record. A second session in 1949 resulted in a release on the similarly short-lived Tempo-Tone label. During the 1950s Jones also had records released on JOB, Chess and Vee-Jay, and in 1966 he recorded for the Testament label's Masters of Modern Blues series. Jones continued performing in Chicago for the rest of his life, although he had few further recording opportunities. Later in his career the electric bass became his main instrument. He died in Chicago in December 1989. 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!

Chicken House Shorty - Shorty Gilbert

Shorty moved to Chicago in 1969 at the age of 18. He started gigging on bass with Homesick James, Eddie Clearwater and Kansas City Red. He's also backed up Little Johnny Taylor and Jimmy Reed. But by far the biggest feather in his cap is when Shorty was asked to join Howlin Wolf's band by the Wolf himself in 1974. He held that position until 1976 when the Wolf passed away. After that he joined Eddie Shaw's Wolfgang who he's played with for over 35 years, touring all over the world. 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”

I Wanna Boogie - Jimmy Anderson

The son of sharecroppers, Jimmy Anderson was born in 1934 and began playing harmonica at the age of 8. He mastered the instrument with ease, entertaining customers at a friends snowball wagon. “That’s how I started off. There was blues in Natchez at the Cross Key Club, that’s about it,” he said. “No big names travelled through but they did have a band by the name of Earl Lee. They had horns, and played mostly jazz and blues together. “Then I was inspired by Jimmy Reed. I tried to sound like him. I learned the low parts of the harmonica and the ‘squeal’ as they call it. “ Back then we didn’t have TV and the local radio didn’t play the blues. At night I would listen to WDIA out of Memphis and they would play all the old blues by Smokey Hogg, Muddy Waters, Lightnin’Slim, Howlin’Wolf, all sorts of music like that. “We’d get around the radio just like the kids do around the TV today. There was no electricity and the radio was battery operated” Jimmy Anderson moved to Baton Rouge at the age of 25 to find employment. He found work with soft drink companies. He later put together a band, Jimmy Anderson and the Joy Jumpers, with two guitar players, a drummer and Jimmy would sing and play the harmonica. Associating with blues legend such as Lightnin’Slim, Silas Hogan and Slim Harpo, the band recorded their first record, I wanna boogie, in early 1962 with their second, Naggin’, coming at the end of the year on the Crowley music label of Baton Rouge. Naggin’ made it to Europe where it gained fame and allow Jimmy Anderson to participate in blues tours in Austria, Holland and London. Jimmy recorded a total of 15 records between 1962 and 1964 before disputes with his label over royalties left a bitter taste on his appetite for the music business. He still performed with other blues acts of the area for the next seven years or so returning to Natchez. Here he became a policeman and later a disc jockey. “I wanted a man for myself so I played the song Soul Man as my intro and I called myself Soul Man Lee. “ Jimmy left WANT in the early 1980s due to disputes with the stations program directors. Working in radio for the next 10 years , he found his way to Vidalia’s KVLA which he left in 1991 following the death of his mother. Later in that year he returned to Europe with the Mojo Blues Band to perform in Austria and England. In 1997 Jimmy suffered a stroke that paralyzed the right side of his body, but this has ceased stop him. He’s still performing around Natchez. 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!

Tough Times - John Brim

John Brim (April 10, 1922 – October 1, 2003) was an American Chicago blues guitarist, songwriter and singer. He wrote and recorded the original "Ice Cream Man" that Van Halen covered on their first album and David Lee Roth also covered on Diamond Dave. "Ice Cream Man" was also covered by Martin Sexton on his 2001 double album, Live Wide Open. Brim picked up his early guitar licks from the gramophone records of Tampa Red and Big Bill Broonzy, before venturing first to Indianapolis in 1941 and Chicago four years later. He met his wife Grace in 1947; fortuitously, she was a capable drummer and harmonica player who played on several of Brim's records. She was also the vocalist on a 1950 single for the Detroit-based Fortune Records, that signaled the beginning of Brim's discography. Brim recorded for Random Records, J.O.B. Records, Parrot Records (the socially aware "Tough Times"), and Checker Records ("Rattlesnake," his answer to Big Mama Thornton's "Hound Dog" was pulled from the shelves by Chess for fear of a plagiarism lawsuit). All of his 1950s recordings for the Chess brothers were later included on the compilation LP/CD "Whose Muddy Shoes" (which also included the few recordings Elmore James made for Chess and Checker; because they share this LP/CD, it has sometimes been assumed that they performed or recorded together, but this is not the case.) On some tracks Little Walter played the harmonica, whilst Jimmy Reed, Snooky Pryor, or James Dalton were also featured blowing the harp. Cut in 1953, the suggestive "Ice Cream Man" had to wait until 1969 to enjoy a very belated release. Brim's last Chess single, "I Would Hate to See You Go," was waxed in 1956 with a combo consisting of Little Walter, guitarist Robert Lockwood, Jr., bassist Willie Dixon, and drummer Fred Below. In between touring, Brim operated dry-cleaning businesses and a record store. When the royalties from Van Halen’s recording of "Ice Cream Man" came through, they enabled him to open John Brim’s House of the Blues Broadway Nite Club in Chicago. Brim continued to perform occasionally around Chicago, and was a regularly featured performer on the Chicago Blues Festival beginning in 1991, when he was backed by the local Chicago blues band The Ice Cream Men (drummer Steve Cushing, guitarists Dave Waldman and "Rockin'" Johnny Burgin, and harmonica player Scott Dirks; the band name was coincidental - they were not Brim's regular band, but had been using that name because the members had previously worked with Chicago bluesman Otis "Big Smokey" Smothers, who worked as an ice cream man on Chicago's south side.) He was tempted back into the recording studio again in 1989 to record four songs for the German Wolf label, and renewed interest in him finally led to his recording his first solo CD, Ice Cream Man, for Tone Cool Records in 1994. It received a W. C. Handy nomination as the best Traditional Blues Album of the Year. Brim also appeared at the 1997 San Francisco Blues Festival. He recorded again in 2000, 50 years after his recording debut, and continued to tour, playing in Belgium in 2001. One of his final appearances was at the 2002 Chicago Blues Festival. Brim, who lived in Gary, Indiana remained active on the Chicago blues scene until his death, on 1 October 2003 at the age of 81. He is survived by seven daughters and two sons. One son predeceased him 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!

Fourteen Stories - Red Lotus Revue - New Release Review

I just received the new (11/6/12) release, Fourteen Stories by Red Lotus Review. Red Lotus is named for it's debut at the Red Lotus Society in San Diego by founding members Karl Cabbage (vocal and harp), Jimmy Zollo (guitar) and Pete Fazinni (guitar). Drums are handled by Kurt Kalker. This recording includes 7 original tracks and 7 older classics. First up is Suzanne which actually reminds me of a Frank Black track (Nadine) and I really like it. This has just the right amount of overdrive on the harp with great riffs and Cabbage with a super dark blues voice. The drums are kept to a solid rhythm and guitar adds texture. For the second time in not so long a time I have to apologize for myself knowing a blues track first by a rock band. I Ain't Got You, made popular by Jimmy Reed was first exposed to me by the Yardbirds. RLR does a great job on this track with very tasty harp work, underlying guitar work and Cabbage's vocals are strong. Smokey Smothers' Drinkin' Muddy Water is up next and classic guitar styling throughout supporting clean vocals by Cabbage makes for a very enjoyable track. Johnny Shines' Please Don't has a crisp rockin' blues tempo with a nice understated guitar lead and strong harp riffs. Cabbage's vocals suit the tune to a tee. SB Williamson's Key To Your Door is done at a moderately slow pace giving both guitar and harp nice openings for short tidy riffs. Both take a nice extended bridge solo making this one of the coolest tracks on the recording. Original track, Homebody, is done with an understated light pace early on and then breaks down to a deeper rhythm track. I also want to mention that the guitar tone on this track is particularly cool. Another original track, Barkin', has that Chicago lope and is another contender for coolest track on the recording. With plenty of guitar, harp and swingin' vocals this track just has it! Another Johnny Shines track, Fish Tail, has a bit more of a primitive sound with resonator slide work and drum brush work. Kept light, it allows focus on the interesting vocal style of Cabbage to dominate an equally interesting instrumental track. Jimmy Reed's Honest I Do sets up really nicely for this band playing into the strong suit of the vocal, guitar and harp styling of this band. Sounds like it was written for them. Original track, River, opens with some nice acoustic slide work but quickly becomes a rockin' blues frenzy along the lines of Rollin' And Tumblin'. Another original, Smoker, nods to the 50's R&B but with an interesting modern chord change giving it a fresh sound. Howlin' Wolf track You Can't Be Beat, follows and has some really sweet "under the cuff" lead guitar riffs that compliment the track nicely. The final track, Santee, is cut out of the "Red Hot" cloth and done in a retro styling with mono sounding recording techniques. More hot licks and riffs from the guitars and harp make this a cool track to wrap it all up.

  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”

 

Charlie Brown/ So Fine/ Splish Splash - Ike Turner & his Kings of Rhythm

Ike Wister Turner (November 5, 1931 – December 12, 2007) was an American musician, bandleader, songwriter, arranger, talent scout, and record producer. In a career that lasted more than half a century, his repertoire included blues, soul, rock, and funk. He is most popularly known for his 1960s work with his then wife Tina Turner in the Ike & Tina Turner revue. Growing up in Clarksdale, Mississippi, he began playing piano and guitar when he was eight, forming his group, the Kings of Rhythm as a teenager at high school. He employed the group as his backing band for the rest of his life. His first recording, "Rocket 88" with the Kings of Rhythm credited as "Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats", in 1951, is considered a possible contender for "first rock and roll song". Relocating to St. Louis, Missouri in 1954, he built the Kings into one of the most renowned acts on the local club circuit. It was there he met singer Anna Mae Bullock, whom he married and renamed Tina Turner, forming the Ike & Tina Turner Revue, which over the course of the sixties became a soul/rock crossover success. In the 1950s, Turner was employed by Sun Studios and Modern Records as an arranger and talent scout for blues artists. Turner recorded for many of the key R&B record labels of the 1950s and 1960s, including Chess, Modern, Trumpet, Flair and Sue.With the Ike & Tina Revue he graduated to larger labels Blue Thumb and United Artists. Throughout his career Turner won two Grammy Awards and was nominated for three others. Alongside his former wife, Turner was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991 and in 2001 was inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame. Allegations by Tina Turner in her autobiography of her abusive relationship with Turner and the film adaptation of this coupled with his cocaine addiction damaged Turner's career in the 1980s and 1990s. His name became a synonym for wife beater, which overshadowed his contributions to music. Addicted to cocaine and crack for at least 15 years, Turner was convicted of drugs offenses, serving seventeen months in prison between July 1989 and 1991. He spent the rest of the 1990s free of his addiction, but relapsed in 2004. Near the end of his life, he returned to live performance as a front man and produced two albums returning to his blues roots, which were critically well received and award-winning. Turner has frequently been referred to as a 'great innovator' of Rock and Roll by contemporaries such as Little Richard and Johnny Otis. Phil Alexander (then editor-in-chief of Mojo magazine) described Turner as 'the cornerstone of modern day rock 'n' roll' Turner was born in Clarksdale, Mississippi, on 5 November 1931, to Beatrice Cushenberry (1909–195?), a seamstress, and Isaiah (or Izear) Luster Turner, a Baptist minister. The younger of two siblings, Turner had an elder sister, named Ethel May. Turner believed for many years that he was named Izear Luster Turner, Jr. after his father, until he discovered his name was registered as Ike Wister Turner while applying for his first passport. He never got to discover the origin of his name, as by the time he discovered it, his parents were both dead. Turner said when he was very young, he witnessed his father beaten and left for dead by a white mob. His father lived for 3 years as an invalid in a tent in the family's yard before succumbing to his injuries. Writer and blues historian Ted Drozdowski has told a different version of the story, stating that Turner's father died in an industrial accident. His mother remarried to a man called Philip Reeves. Turner said his stepfather was a violent alcoholic and they often argued and fought, after one fight Turner knocked out his stepfather with a piece of wood. He then ran away to Memphis where he lived rough for a few days before returning to his mother. He reconciled with his stepfather years later, buying a house for him in the 1950s around the time Turner's mother died. Turner recounted how he was introduced to sex at the age of six by a middle-aged lady called Miss Boozie. Walking past her house to school, she would invite him to help feed her chickens, and then take him to bed. This continued for some years. Turner claimed to not be traumatized by this, commenting that "in those days they didn't call it abuse, they called it fun". He was also sexually molested by two other women before he was twelve. Around his eighth year Turner also began frequenting the local Clarksdale radio station, WROX, located in the Alcazar Hotel in downtown Clarksdale. WROX was notable as one of the first radio stations to employ a black DJ, Early Wright, to play blues records. DJ John Frisella put Turner to work as he watched the record turntables. Soon he was left to play records while the DJ went across the street for coffee. Turner described this as "the beginning of my thing with music."This led to Turner being offered a job by the station manager as the DJ on the late-afternoon shift. The job meant he had access to all the new releases. On his show he played a diverse range of music, playing Louis Jordan alongside early rockabilly records. Turner was inspired to learn the piano on a visit to his friend Ernest Lane's house, where he heard Pinetop Perkins playing Lane's fathers' piano. Turner convinced his mother to pay for him to have piano lessons with a teacher; however he did not take to the formal style of playing, instead spending the money in a pool hall, then learning boogie-woogie from Perkins. . He taught himself to play guitar by playing along to old blues records. At some point in the 1940s, Turner moved into Clarksdale’s Riverside Hotel, run by Mrs. Z.L. Ratliff. The Riverside played host to a great number of touring musicians, including Sonny Boy Williamson II and Duke Ellington. Turner associated and played music with many of these guests. In high school, a teenage Turner joined a huge local rhythm ensemble called The Tophatters, who played dances around Clarksdale, Mississippi. Members of the band were taken from Clarksdale musicians, and included Turner's school friends Raymond Hill, Eugene Fox and Clayton Love. The Tophatters played big-band arrangements from sheet music. Turner, who was trained by ear and could not sight read music, would learn the pieces by listening to a version on record at home, pretending to be reading the music during rehearsals. At one point, the Tophatters had over 30 members, and eventually split into two, with one act who wanted to carry on playing dance-band jazz calling themselves The Dukes of Swing and the other, led by Turner becoming the Kings of Rhythm. Said Turner: "We wanted to play blues, boogie-woogie and Roy Brown, Jimmy Liggins, Roy Milton." Turner would keep the name of the band throughout his career, although it went through considerable lineup changes over time. Their early stage performances consisted largely of covers of popular jukebox hits. They were helped by B. B. King, who helped them to get a steady weekend gig and recommended them to Sam Phillips at Sun Studio. In the 50s, Turner's group got regular airplay from live sessions on WROX-Am, and KFFA radio in Helena, Arkansas. Sun Studio at 706 Union Avenue in Memphis, Tennessee, where in 1951 Turner and the Kings of Rhythm recorded Rocket 88, one of the first Rock and roll records. Turner would later work at the studio as in-house producer for Sam Phillips. Around the time he was starting out with The Kings of Rhythm, Turner and Ernest Lane became unofficial roadies for blues singer Robert Nighthawk, who often played live on WROX. The pair sat in playing drums and piano on radio sessions and supported Nighthawk at blues dates around Clarksdale. Playing with Nighthawk allowed Turner to gig regularly and build up playing experience. He would also provide backup for Sonny Boy Williamson II (Alex "Rice" Miller), playing gigs alongside other local blues artists such as Howlin' Wolf, Charley Booker, Elmore James, Muddy Waters and Little Walter. Performances typically lasted for about twelve hours, from early evening to dawn the next day. Turner described the scenario to an interviewer: “ We played juke joints; we'd start playing at 8.00pm and wouldn't get off till 8.00am. No intermissions, no breaks. If you had to go to the restroom, well that's how I learned to play drums and guitar! When one had to go, someone had to take his place. ” It was around this time that Turner and his band came up with the song, "Rocket 88". The song was written as the group drove down to Memphis to record at Sam Phillips' Sun Studios. Turner came up with the introduction and first verse, the band collaborated on the rest with Brenston, the band's saxophonist, on vocals. Phillips sold the recording to Chess in Chicago, who released it under the name "Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats". The record sold approximately half a million copies. In Turner's account book he recorded that he was paid $20. The success of Rocket 88 caused tensions and ego clashes in the band, causing Jackie Brenston to leave to pursue a solo career, taking some of the original members with him. Turner, without a band and disappointed his hit record had not created more opportunities for him, disbanded the Kings of Rhythm for a few years. In the weeks leading up to his death, Turner became reclusive, in contrast to his normal gregarious personality. On 10 December 2007, He told his personal assistant Falina Rasool that he believed he was dying, and would not make it to Christmas. Turner died on 12 December 2007, at 76 years of age, at his home in San Marcos, California, near San Diego. He was found dying by his ex-wife Ann Thomas. Rasool was also in the house and administered CPR. Turner was pronounced dead at 11:38am. The funeral was held on 22 December 2007 at the City of Refuge Church in Gardena, California. Among those who spoke at the funeral were Little Richard, Solomon Burke and Phil Spector. Hundreds of friends, family members and fans attended the service. The Kings of Rhythm played versions of "Rocket 88" and "Proud Mary". On 16 January 2008, it was reported by the San Diego County Medical Examiner's Office that Turner had died from a cocaine overdose. "The cause of death for Ike Turner is cocaine toxicity with other significant conditions, such as hypertensive cardiovascular disease and pulmonary emphysema," Supervising Medical Examiner Investigator Paul Parker told CNN. His daughter Mia Turner was said to be surprised at the coroner's assessment, believing his advanced stage emphysema would have been a bigger factor in his death. On 5 August 2010, Ike Turner was posthumously recognized by his Mississippi hometown. Clarksdale officials and music fans gathered to unveil two markers on the Mississippi Blues Trail in downtown Clarksdale honoring Turner and his musical legacy. The unveilings coincided with the 23rd annual Sunflower River Blues and Gospel Festival, dedicated that year to "Rocket 88". 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”

Nothing In This World - James Peterson

Alabama-born and Florida-based guitarist, singer, and songwriter James Peterson played a gritty style of Southern-fried blues at times reminiscent of Howlin' Wolf and other times more along the lines of Freddie King. He formed his first band while he was living in Buffalo, New York and running the Governor's Inn House of Blues in the 1960s. He and his band would back up the traveling musicians who came through, including blues legends like Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Big Joe Turner, Freddie King, Lowell Fulson, and Koko Taylor. Peterson was born November 4, 1937 in Russell County, Alabama. Peterson was strongly influenced by gospel music in the rural area he grew up in, and he began singing in church as a child. Thanks to his father's juke joint, he was exposed to blues at an early age, and later followed in his footsteps in upstate New York. After leaving home at age 14, he headed to Gary, Indiana, where he sang with his friend John Scott. While still a teen, he began playing guitar, entirely self-taught. Peterson cited musicians like Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf (Chester Burnett), Jimmy Reed, and B.B. King as his early role models. After moving to Buffalo in 1955, he continued playing with various area blues bands, and ten years later he opened his own blues club. Too Many Knots In 1970, Peterson recorded his first album, The Father, the Son, the Blues on the Perception/Today label. While he ran his blues club at night, he supplemented his income by running a used-car lot during the day. Peterson's debut album was produced and co-written with Willie Dixon, and it featured a then-five-year-old Lucky Peterson on keyboards. Peterson followed it up with Tryin' to Keep the Blues Alive a few years later. Peterson's other albums included Rough and Ready and Too Many Knots for the Kingsnake and Ichiban labels in 1990 and 1991, respectively. Don't Let the Devil Ride The album that put Peterson back on the road as a national touring act was 1995's Don't Let the Devil Ride for the Jackson, Mississippi-based Waldoxy Records. Throughout the '90s and up to the mid-2000s, Peterson was also an active live presence on the Tampa, Florida blues scene, and the 2000s also saw Peterson record another duo album with son Lucky, 2004's If You Can't Fix It on the JSP label. Peterson returned to Alabama in the mid-2000s, and died of a heart attack there on December 12, 2010. A master showman who learned from the best and knew how to work an audience, James Peterson left a legacy not only as an accomplished blues guitarist, but also as a crafty songwriter endowed with a deep, gospel-drenched singing style. 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!

BLIND PIG RECORDS ANNOUNCES LITTLE WALTER TRIBUTE RECORDING

"Little Walter Jacobs was one of the best singers of the blues and a blues harp player par excellence" - Keith Richards "Little Walter was a very, very powerful influence on me" - Eric Clapton Blind Pig Records has announced a live recording date for a special tribute to Little Walter Jacobs featuring some of the finest harmonica players on the current blues scene - Charlie Musselwhite, Billy Boy Arnold, Mark Hummel, James Harman, and Sugar Ray Norcia. The show will take place on Thursday, December 6th at Anthology in San Diego, California. The virtuosic Little Walter is without doubt one of the most influential blues harmonica players of all time. AllMusicGuide said, "The fiery harmonica wizard took the humble mouth organ in dazzling amplified directions that were unimaginable prior to his ascendancy. His daring instrumental innovations were so fresh, startling, and ahead of their time. His influence remains inescapable to this day -- it's unlikely that a blues harpist exists on the face of this earth who doesn't worship Little Walter." The idea for the Little Walter tribute recording grew out of a number of highly successful West Coast concerts in early 2012 that were part of an ongoing series of "Blues Harmonica Blowout" concerts organized by Hummel, who will serve as producer of the recording project, to be entitled Remembering Little Walter. Said Hummel, "Walter changed all the rules and raised the bar so high that nobody has yet surpassed him either in innovation or technical prowess. Walter's original sides have become the holy grail all other harpers are still trying to aspire to." Those sentiments were echoed by Charlie Musselwhite and Billy Boy Arnold, who both knew and were friends with Little Walter. In fact, both used Walter's backing musicians (Louis and Dave Myers, Fred Below, and Luther Tucker) in their own bands in the 60's and early 70's. Musselwhite said, "If you listen to Walter's earliest recordings you can see that he came from a down-home country style much like John Lee "Sonny Boy" Williamson. And then, probably with the urban influence of Chicago horn players, started phrasing like a saxophone. This phrasing combined with his creativity and amplification really took harmonica playing to a whole new level that hadn't been heard before. For me personally, besides Walter's being an influence, he was even more of an inspiration; an inspiration and invitation to experiment, take chances, see where it'll take you and to always follow your heart." He went on to recall, "Walter was always real nice to me. He'd give me a ride home after the gig or sometimes he'd walk with me to the bus stop and wait until the bus came. He was always acting like he was looking out for me; like he was going to be there if somebody started some nonsense with me." Billy Boy Arnold added, "When I heard Little Walter's harmonica playing on the recordings with Muddy Waters and others, I knew that Little Walter was the new Harmonica King. I bought every record that Muddy Waters made with Little Walter's harp playing on it. He was miles ahead of all the other harp players on the scene. No one could touch him. He was creative, innovative, and spontaneous. Little Walter is still the top and most influential harp player that ever played." CHARLIE MUSSELWHITE is one of the most recognized names in blues harmonica. Born in 1944, Musselwhite has traveled the long road from backwoods Mississippi to a teenaged upbringing in Memphis, where he first heard and learned the blues from its originators. On the South Side of Chicago, Charlie served his apprenticeship with Robert Nighthawk, JB Hutto, Johnny Young and Big Walter Horton and developed close friendships with blues icons Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson, Big Joe Williams, Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf. In the late 60's and mid '70s he and Paul Butterfield were very influential in introducing traditional blues to white audiences and the burgeoning scene of young rock and rollers. Renowned for his mastery of the traditional blues idiom, in recent years he's introduced elements of jazz, gospel, Tex-Mex, Cuban and other world music into his recordings. In 2010 he was inducted into the Blues Foundation's Blues Hall Of Fame. In addition, Charlie, who is one of the most beloved blues musicians in the world, has been nominated for six Grammy Awards and has won 24 Blues Music Awards. BILLY BOY ARNOLD, a contemporary of James Cotton and Junior Wells, started with Ellis McDaniels (later to be known as Bo Diddley) in Chicago in 1955, where they created the "Bo Diddley" sound at Chess Records. Billy Boy learned harp at the feet of the legendary John Lee "Sonny Boy" Williamson when Billy was just 12 years old. Billy went on to record singles for VeeJay like "Wish You Would", "Ain't Got You" and "You Got Me Wrong." In the mid-60's young British groups The Yardbirds and The Animals discovered Billy Boy's 45s and had hits with their own cover versions. In the early 90's Arnold firmly reestablished himself as one of the foremost practitioners of classic Chicago blues with a pair of critically acclaimed releases on Alligator. His most recent CD, Billy Boy Arnold Sings Bill Broonzy, has been receiving extensive airplay. MARK HUMMEL has been touring nationally since 1984 and has most recently written a memoir, "Big Road Blues: 12 Bars on I-80," put out by Mountain Top Publishing. Mark started his band The Blues Survivors in 1977 with Mississippi Johnny Waters and has since toured/recorded with Lowell Fulson, Eddie Taylor, Charles Brown, Brownie McGhee, Jimmy Rogers and many other blues legends. In 1991 Mark started the Blues Harmonica Blowouts which have grown to be a much heralded blues event on the national scene. These multi harp packages have included John Mayall, Huey Lewis, Snooky Pryor, James Cotton, Kim Wilson, Rod Piazza, Carey Bell, Lazy Lester plus almost every other player of note on the blues harp. Mark has been nominated four times for the best harmonica player Blues Music Award. Hummel's eighteenth and most recent CD is entitled Retroactive. JAMES HARMAN was born and raised in Anniston, Alabama, where he quickly picked up on the black blues and soul music being played on juke boxes and the radio in the Deep South. In his teens, he started playing juke joints and dance clubs throughout the South and recorded a number of 45s. In 1968 Harman moved to Southern California, where he became friends with Canned Heat, The Blasters, and led bands with top-notch talent such as Hollywood Fats and Kid Ramos. He's released numerous albums over the years, picking up 10 W.C.Handy/BMA nominations along the way. He has been inducted into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame and is the harmonica player of choice on recordings and live performances by ZZ Top, appearing with them on both David Letterman and Jools Holland's TV shows. SUGAR RAY NORCIA started the popular East Coast blues band The Bluetones 30 years ago with guitarist Ronnie Earl. They backed Big Walter Horton, Big Joe Turner, Jimmy Rogers, Otis Rush, JB Hutto and countless others in the early '80s all over the Northeast. In 1991 Norcia hooked up with the legendary Roomful of Blues band and toured the world with the 11 piece band, appearing on their Grammy-nominated release Turn It On, Turn It Up. Norcia also recorded the Grammy nominated release Superharps during his Roomful tenure with harmonica heavyweights Charlie Musselwhite, James Cotton and Billy Branch. In 2001, he reunited the Bluetones with guitarist Kid Bangham and later Monster Mike Welsh. The latest Sugar Ray and the Bluetones album, Evening, received four BMA nominations in 2012 including "Album of the Year" and "Traditional Blues Album" of the year. Following Little Walter's approach of having the very best musicians in his bands, Hummel has handpicked a sterling lineup of musicians for the show and recording in San Diego - Little Charlie Baty, the world renowned guitar slinger and former bandleader of Little Charlie and the Nightcats; second guitar will be Harman bandmate, Nathan James; June Core (Musselwhite, Little Charlie and Nightcats, Robert Jr. Lockwood and Hummel) will be on drums and RW Grigsby (Mike Morgan, Gary Primich and Hummel) will play upright bass. To see a video of the finale of the Little Walter tribute in Eugene, Oregon last February “To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson 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”

Big Boss Man - Big George Brock

Well, the days when blues was pop music and bluesmen were heroes have sadly passed, but there are still a few of those real-deal men (and women) out there. Big George Brock is just such a man. Sharecropper, boxer, club owner and, through it all, an honest-to-Muddy bluesman. From the cotton fields to the bright lights, big city, Brock has done it all. He's faced personal and professional ups and downs but never given up. Even today, with all the aches and pains of old age, the blues still lift him up. .. Born in Grenada, Mississippi on May 16, 1932, Big George spent his teenage years near Clarksdale, Mississippi, before settling in St. Louis, Missouri, in the 1950s. While living in the Clarkdale area, he did back-breaking fieldwork, boxed on weekends, and played the blues. He remembers hanging out at house parties in the Delta where folks like Memphis Minnie would show up. Even today, he still has relatives in the Clarksdale area, including his blues-playing nephew James "Super Chikan" Johnson and brother-in-law Big Jack Johnson. .. In St. Louis, Big George owned a series of blues clubs in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, including Club Caravan (formerly the Early Bird Lounge) – where his wife at the time was killed by stray bullets from a drunk's pistol – and New Club Caravan. Later, Big George & the Houserockers was the house band at Climmie's Western Inn for 12 years. During his career, Big George has played shows with blues legends like Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Jimmy Reed and many others. Garrick Feldman of the Arkansas Leader has said Big George is "about as good a harmonica player as any of the blues greats, and he knew and played with most of them." At various times, he's had fellow Mississippians Willie Foster, Big Bad Smitty, Terry "Big T" Williams, Jimbo Mathus and Bill Abel back him at shows, but most often, you'll find him with one of the best "unknown guitar players" in the biz: Mr. Riley Coatie. .. Besides his 6-string skills, this native of the Arkansas Delta is also known for his amazing family blues band. Coatie taught his children Tekora, Latasha and Riley Jr. to play in the old classic style that Big George Brock loves. May 12, 2006 — exactly one year and five days after he recorded his Club Caravan album — Big George Brock returned to a Mississippi studio to lay down tracks for a much anticipated follow-up CD. In those 370 days, a lot happened in Brock's world. In August 2005, he took part in Mississippi Public Broadcasting's Native Sons concert film project (since re-named Mississippi Bluesmen). In October, Steven Seagal tapped Brock to blow harp on the actor-musician's all-star blues album, Mojo Priest. In November, the Blues Foundation announced Brock's "Comeback of the Year" Blues Music Award nomination — a designation soon followed by several "year end" top CD lists and even a Living Blues Award nomination. By January 2006, Brock's own story in words and music had been captured on film by director Damien Blaylock and, on May 8, 2006, was released nationally on the DVD Hard Times “To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson 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!

Smokestack Lightning - Don't Laugh At Me - Howlin Wolf with Clifton James

One of the best blues lineups you'd likely dream of. Howlin Wolf : Vocal Guitar Sunnyland Slim: Piano Hubert Sumlin: Guitar Willie Dixon: Bass Clifton James: Drums One of a half-dozen essential drummers from the Chicago scene, Clifton James was closely associated with the mighty guitar slinger Bo Diddley for 16 years. This places James front and center at the creation of one of the most important beats in rock music, known as the "Bo Diddley beat" -- as if there was anything else it could be called. Actually, there might just be some other things that this beat might be called, as it is traceable back to ceremonial drummers of the African nation of Burundi, as well as forward into the avant-garde rock of Captain Beefheart, who often credited this beat as being the source of most of his songs. Although in the latter case, at least one of his Magic Band drummers, Jimmy Carl Black, has indicated that the exact instructions were to "play the Bo Diddley beat backwards." James worked off and on with Diddley, who also adopted the African traditions of praising himself through song, from 1954 through 1970, and is also heard on straight-ahead Chicago blues recordings by artists such as Sonny Boy Williamson II, Muddy Waters, and Buddy Guy. The drummer was also one of the Chicago players who was involved in bringing this great genre of blues directly to audiences, when the public's interest in the style mushroomed in the '60s. As a member of the Chicago Blues All Stars in the late '60s, under the loose direction of bassist and songwriter Willie Dixon, he toured Europe, the United States, and Canada, hitting many cities where this style of blues had never been performed live. Other members of this group included pianist Sunnyland Slim, harmonica champ Shakey Walter Horton, and the fine guitarist Johnny Shines. He had also toured Europe in 1964 as part of an especially stripped down Howlin' Wolf quartet rounded out by Slim and Dixon. A live recording released by this outfit, although not legitimate, is certainly worth seeking out. Better known, but not as strong musically, are the European recordings of Sonny Boy Williamson II, which combined Chicago bluesmen with members of the British blues-rock combo the Yardbirds. Another all-star outfit was the Chicago Blues Band, which included both Shines and John Lee Hooker in the frontline, despite the fact that the latter blues great was not from the Windy City at all. The Super Super Blues Band The drummer was also a popular choice if a loose jam session was the order of the day, as he had a pleasant, giving personality that helped smooth out any rough spots that might occur between these highly competitive blues stars. Although albums such as Super Super Blues Band, featuring four of the top names in Chicago blues, or Two Great Guitars, which brings together archrivals Diddley and Chuck Berry, tend to be disappointing, the tracks show off the ease with which James can lay down a nice groove, even if the stars can't seem to think of anything to do on top. James was also granted the occasional vocal number when performing with these type of all-star outfits, and sang the blues with enough aplomb to make some listeners wish he had had more of a solo career. He has led bands occasionally, including a tour of Holland in the '70s. If you like what I’m doing, Like ---Bman’s Blues Report--- Facebook Page! I’m looking for great talent and trying to grow the audience for your favorites band! - ”LIKE”

Hideaway - Left Hand Frank Craig

Southpaw guitarist Frank Craig (like many of his peers, he played an axe strung for a right-hander, strapping it on upside down) never really transcended his reputation as a trusty sideman instead of a leader -- and that was just fine with him. But he stepped into the spotlight long enough to sing four fine tunes for Alligator's Living Chicago Blues anthologies in 1978. Craig was already conversant with the guitar when he moved to Chicago at age 14. Too young to play inside the Club Zanzibar (where Muddy Waters, Little Walter, and Wolf held forth), Frank and his teenaged pals, guitarist Eddie King and bassist Willie Black, played outside the joint for tips instead. Legit gigs with harpist Willie Cobbs, guitarist James Scott, Jr., Jimmy Dawkins, Junior Wells, Good Rockin' Charles, Jimmy Rogers, and Hound Dog Taylor kept Frank increasingly active on the Chicago circuit from the mid-'50s to the late '70s. He moved to Los Angeles not too long after the Alligator session, eventually hanging up his guitar altogether due to health problems. If you like what I’m doing, Like ---Bman’s Blues Report--- Facebook Page! I’m looking for great talent and trying to grow the audience for your favorites band! -  ”LIKE” Video

Mississippi Heat

On the back of Mississippi Heat's CD Footprints On The Ceiling, there is a photograph of a man with his eyes closed, playing the harmonica with such passion, that one is almost stunned by the actual silence of that frozen moment. Yet when he is heard live or on record on his harmonica, the listener is caught up by its fervent, inspiring presence. The man behind the harmonica is Pierre Lacocque, Mississippi Heat's band leader and song writer. Pierre was born on October 13, 1952 in Israel of Christian-Belgian parenthood. However, shortly after his birth, Pierre's family moved to Germany and France before going back to Belgium in 1957. By the age of 6, Pierre had already lived in three countries. A preview to his future musical career on the road. Pierre's childhood in Brussels resonated with the intense and impassioned Scriptural upbringing of his father, a Protestant minister, now living in Chicago, who became a worldfamous Old Testament scholar. Pierre, his brother Michel (Mississippi Heat's General Manager) and his sister Elisabeth (who did the artwork design on the Heat's first three CD's) went to a Jewish Orthodox School in Brussels. After the Holocaust, Pierre's parents and paternal grandfather (also a minister) felt that their children and grandchildren should learn about the suffering and plight of the Jews, as well as about Judaism in general and its philosophical and theological depths. At the Athenee Maimonides (Brussels) they were the only non-Jews ever (and since) to attend. At the Athenee Maimonides they learned old and modern Hebrew, all the religious rites and prayers, as well as studied the rabbinical commentaries on the books of the Old Testament. With the devotion to his studies, there was little time or room for much else. The family culture and priority was on intellectual pursuits, not on play such as soccer or music (two old interests of his). Serious studying, the reading of existential philosophers and theologians, were the only worthwhile activities condoned and encouraged by Pierre's parents, his father in particular. But thanks to the radio in young Pierre's room, there was just enough opportunity to unravel the subtle auditory endowments of Destiny. From the radio he heard and was moved by such soulful singers as Ray Charles, Otis Redding, and Aretha Franklin. Pierre was careful to keep the volume down. This is where he began to appreciate African- American music. ... The sound of the harmonica was first introduced to him when he lived in Alsace, France. His father was then a minister in a small village called Neuviller (1955-1957), not far from Albert Schweitzer's birthplace in Gunsbach. Pierre's father had bought him a green plastic harmonica toy. He was about three years old at the time. He remembers blowing in and out of it and feeling a surge of sadness that felt so familiar. As he experimented with the toy he often cried listening to its plaintive sounds. It was not until he came to Chicago in 1969, however, that he finally detected his destiny: playing the blues on the harmonica. He had never heard the blues saxophone-like amplified harmonica sound until then. In 1969 Pierre's father received a full-time Old Testament professorship at the Chicago Theological Seminary, located on the University of Chicago's campus. The family decided to move permanently to the Windy City and leave Belgium for good. Pierre was sixteen years old. The golden era of the 1950's electric Chicago sound was still having a vibrant impact on local bands. Luminaries such as Muddy Waters, Otis Spann, Little Walter, Junior Wells, Elmore James, James Cotton, Howlin' Wolf, Jimmy Rogers, Jimmy Reed, and so many others, were still dynamic forces to reckon with in the late 1960's. Unfortunately some had died by the time Pierre arrived in Chicago. Little Walter, Pierre's mentor and main influence, died in 1968 following a head wound he acquired during a fight. ... Otis Spann, Muddy Waters' long-time band member and perhaps the best blues piano player ever, had also recently died of cancer. On a Saturday night in the early Fall of 1969, Pierre decided to go to a concert being held at the University of Chicago's Ida Noyes. He had no exposure to Chicago Blues before then, and had no expectations as to what he was about to hear. As he listened to the band playing, he became overwhelmed with emotion and excitement at a sound he never heard before: A saxophone-sounding amplified harmonica! In his own words, " I was absolutely stunned and in awe by the sounds I heard coming from that harmonica player and his amplifier ... It sounded like a horn, yet distinct and unique". The harmonica player went by the name of Big Walter Horton, a name he had never heard before but who changed his life forever. What he heard that night, the music, the mood, the style and sounds, moved his soul. From that moment on, Blues music, and blues harmonica in particular, became an obsession. Two days later, on a Monday morning, Pierre bought himself his first harmonica (or "harp" as it is called in blues circles). Next he was buying records, instruction books, anything to do with the blues harp. He was talking to people, picking up new knowledge wherever he could. Obsession led to passion and intense dedication, and Pierre was practicing the harp six, seven hours a day, notpaying attention to the clock (although he is known to check the clock now to remind him when he needs to get off the stage, because if it was up to him he would keep on playing beyond the scheduled sets! His band members tease him about that). Pierre eventually finished High School (like Paul Butterfield, Pierre graduated from the University of Chicago's High School, better known as "The Lab School". The two never met, however, as Butterfield had left the school before 1969). Pierre then left Chicago to go to College in Montreal, Canada. He played harp through his College years, making a few dollars here and there. While at Stanislas College and later, at McGill University, both located in Montreal, Pierre got his first live experience with a local blues group named the ALBERT FAILEY BLUES BAND. About a year later, Pierre joined another band: OVEN. That was in the early 1970's when he lived for six years in that French-Canadian city (1970-1976). OVEN gigged regularly, and eventually won the Montreal Battle of The Bands contest in the summer of 1976. Unfortunately, the promoter who promised the winner $1,000 Canadian dollars and a record contract skipped town, and was never seen or heard from again. The news of the winand of the shady promoter did make the Montreal newspapers though... Not having the ill-fated Canadian blues career anymore, Pierre, 24 at the time, and disillusioned, came back to Chicago. Although playing the blues on the harp could never be more fitting as it was at this point, it couldn't pay the bills. And it was at this point (1976) that Pierre described his life as going "the intellectual route". Pierre decided to further his education in Clinical Psychology. It was during this period that Pierre met his Social Worker wife Vickie, and began working as a clinician at a Mental Health center in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago. For the next decade, Pierre was involved with his psychological work and research, finishing a doctorate at Northwestern University and publishing professional articles and a book, until a major insight took place in 1988. Pierre, an accomplished 36 years-old man, who had been studying Existentialism, Theology, History of Religions, etc. began to feel a void in his life. He began to re-evaluate his life and look into his own heart. Eventually he heard the answer loud and clear: He missed playing the blues. The awareness struck him like a beautiful horn, coming from an amp, distinct and unique, and yet a sound he had heard before, hidden all these years, but definitely not lost. And this is where Pierre's passion revived, his fire and "joie de vivre" rekindled, his ability to take what was lost inside of him all these years and turn it into the raw, powerful heat that it is today. If you like what I’m doing, Like ---Bman’s Blues Report--- Facebook Page! I’m looking for great talent and trying to grow the audience for your favorites band! -  ”LIKE”