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Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Phoenix Blues Society News
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Midnight Bells Are Ringing - T-Bone Walker Jr.
R.S. Rankin was born in Royce City, TX. on February 22, 1933. Growing up in the East Texas cotton fields, his mother would always talk about her brother Aaron and how he had made it big as a blues musician. One day in 1946, his famous uncle dropped by their farm to visit his sister and her family. Rankin recalled that he was driving a two-tone Buick and all of his coat pockets were filled with cash. Rankin talked T-Bone into buying him a guitar and went on the road with him as his personal valet. Uncle T-Bone, gave him guitar lessons, bought him a white tuxedo and put him his show with him. He even let him sit in on his 1957 sessions for Atlantic doing a triple-play showoff between the both of them and renowned jazz guitarist Barney Kessel. Rankin decided then that it was time to lead his own band, and he settled in Los Angeles. He recorded a session for Atlantic in 1959, but the recordings were not issued at the time, they later popped up on a 1972 LP compilation from the label. Somewhere in the late 50's he was featured on the television show hosted by Soupy Sales. The only solo recordings by Rankin that ever saw issue was for Bill Wenzel's Midnite label in 1962. This song was a regional hit. Due to declining health and general disgust with the music business, Rankin stopped performing in 1967. In 1975 he appeared at one Los Angeles memorial show devoted to his uncle. By that time he was living somewhere in the Bay Area.
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Dust My Broom - Texas Bluesmen Revue
In February and March 1995, seven Texas Blues musicians set out on a European journey to spread their Texas Style Of Blues from Athens to Amsterdam and many points in-between through four countries. The Texas Bluesmen European Rhythm & Blues Revue stars consisted of Texas blues veterans Curly 'Barefoot' Miller (92 yrs.), Robert Ealey (71 yrs.) and Joe Jonas (59 yrs.). So, what you're holding in your hands here is piece of Blues History. This is the Texas Bluesmen Revue recorded live at the Floz in Berlin, Germany on 22 February, 1995. This is probably the first and the last time this complete show will ever be performed.
Joe Jonas / Harmonica, Vocals
Curly "Barefoot" Miller / Piano, Vocals
Robert Ealey / Vocals, Trambone 'Human Harp'
Tone Sommer / Guitar
Richard Chalk / Guitar
Andy Forster / Bass
Ty Grimes / Drums
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Texas Johnny Brown and William Hollis
Texas Johnny Brown is truly one of the legendary figures of the American blues scene. Johnny began his professional musical career in Houston in the mid- 1940s with Amos Milburn's "Aladdin Chickenshackers". Johnny played guitar on many of Milburn's recordings on Aladdin Records, and Milburn and other members of his band backed Johnny during his Atlantic Records recording session in 1949. Johnny also appeared on Ruth Brown's first Atlantic Records recordings, which were cut during those sessions.
Three of Johnny's original songs from his Atlantic session, There Goes the Blues, Bongo Boogie and Blues Rock, were included on an Atlantic compilation of blues guitarists in 1986. Johnny recut There Goes the Blues for his debut full-length CD, Nothin' But the Truth, which was released in 1998 by Choctaw Creek Records.
Johnny toured with Bobby "Blue" Bland and Junior Parker in the 1950s and 1960s as guitarist and bandleader and was a studio musician for Houston's Duke/Peacock Records. He recorded a number of his own compositions for Duke/Peacock, including Snakehips and Suspense, and his distinctive guitar style graced the recordings of numerous other Duke/Peacock blues artists, including Bland, Parker and Joe Hinton. Johnny also wrote the beautiful blues classic, Two Steps from the Blues, which was one of Bland's biggest hits. Nothin' But the Truth marks the first time that Johnny recorded Two Steps from the Blues himself. Nothin' But the Truth also contains nine new original compositions by Johnny and an instrumental version of Aretha Franklin's Am 't No Way.
Nothin' But the Truth was nominated for a W.C. Handy Blues Award (1999) for Comeback Album of the Year and received Real Blues Magazine '5 Real Blues Awards as Best Texas Blues CD (New) and Best Independently Released Blues CD for 1998.
Since returning to music full-time in 1991, Johnny has played the Telluride, Colorado
Blues & Brews Festival (2000), the Baltimore (2000), W.C. Handy Blues Awards (1999),Chicago (1998 and 1996), Houston Juneteenth (1998, 1996 and 1995), Pocono (1997), Molde(1997), Long Beach (1996) and Bowie Street (1999, 1996 and 1995) Blues Festivals, the 2001Mardi Gras Galveston Festival, the 2000, 1999, 1996 and 1995 Houston International Festivals, the 1999 Reliant Energy Power of Houston Festival, the 1998 Bluestock Festival and the 1992 Blues Estafette, and has toured in the United States and Europe. He is scheduled to play the Houston International Festival in April 2001. He has also been featured on the cover of Juke Blues Magazine (issue 41; July, 1998) and in Living Blues Magazine (January/February, 1997) and Soul Bag (Fall, 1996). Johnny also won the 2000 Houston Press Music Awards for Best Blues and Best Male Vocalist and the 1999 Houston Press Music Awards for Best Guitarist and Best Male Vocalist.
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Can't Stand The Rain - Jo Harman and Company
From initial attention grabbing performances at The Great Escape (music industry) Festival and headlining prestigious London clubs like the acclaimed 606 and award winning Hideaway (where she, and they, cut their first ever live album), Jo and her top class band (whose CV's include the likes of Bob Dylan, Jessie J, BB King, Beyonce, Sting, Bowie and more) have been making waves of the 2011 festival circuit, including appearances at Chagstock, Meadowlands and North Devon Festival. Wholly positive reviews and growing airplay internationally, 3 separate BBC Introducing sessions, an increasingly impressive gig roster and prestigious support slots for the likes of Marlena Shaw, Terry Callier and Average White Band (where she supported them three times on their recent UK tour), have only added to Jo's growing reputation as a blues, gospel and soul fuelled singer of exceptional promise.
Having already worked with Grammy Winning and double Grammy nominated producers, Jo is currently recording tracks with a view to releasing a debut studio EP later in the year.
2012 gig dates confirmed (more to follow) include:-
Sun. 22nd Jan, Pizza Express Jazz Club, Dean Street Soho (sold out)
Fri. 24th Feb, Hideaway, Streatham, London
Sat. 24th March, Theatre on the Steps, Brignorth, Shropshire
Sun. 22nd April, Cafe Des Artists Festival, Lewes, Sussex
Thur.10th May, Latest Musicbar, Brighton (Alternative Escape Festival)
Sat. 19th May, Lustleigh Hall, Devon
Tues. 29th May 100 Club London
Fri. 22nd Jun, Durham Blues Festival, Durham
Sat. Jun Cleethorpes Blues Festival, Yorkshire
Fri. 24th Aug, Limetree Festival, Yorkshire
Sat. 8th Sep, Exchange Arts Centre, Dorset
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The Blue Wednesday Jam with Gregg Wright, Tomorrow Night!
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Juke - George Harmonica Smith
George "Harmonica" Smith (April 22, 1924 – October 2, 1983) (born Allen George Smith) was an American electric blues harmonica player
Born in West Helena, Arkansas, United States, but brought up in Cairo, Illinois, he began playing professionally in 1951. He was recruited to join Muddy Waters' band in 1954, making his presence between the short-lived Henry Strong, and James Cotton. He would rejoin Waters in 1966. He eventually made the decision to leave Chicago, and spent much of his adult life on the West Coast of America.
Smith played with the blues combo, Bacon Fat, and tutored its harmonica player Rod Piazza, and mentored guitarist (Blues Musician) Buddy Reed, before joining forces with Big Mama Thornton in the 1970s. He appeared on her album Jail (1975), and with another harmonica student William Clarke.
The few solo albums he recorded in his life reflected his admiration for the playing style of Little Walter.
George "Harmonica" Smith died in 1983, in Los Angeles, California at the age of 59.
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Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Al vaiven de mi caretta - AfroCubism
ELIADES OCHOA guitar and vocals (born Songo la Maya, Cuba, 1946)
With his trademark cowboy hat and penchant for wearing black, Eliades Ochoa has been dubbed "Cuba's Johnny Cash." There's more than a fashion statement in the comparison to America's greatest country singer, too, for Ochoa is a "guajiro" (from the countryside) and a champion of rural Cuban styles such as son and guararcha.
One of the younger members of the Buena Vista Social Club, he has since become something of an elder statesman himself and has been a professional musician for almost half a century. For many years he was a regular at Santiago's famous Casa de la Trova, and, in 1978, he took over the leadership of Cuarteto Patria, a Cuban institution, which, by then, had already been performing for almost 40 years. He recorded two albums with the group for the Mexican Corason label and in 1986 met the veteran singer Compay Segundo, who joined Cuarteto Patria for a time. While with the group Segundo recorded the album Chanchaneando, which featured the original version of "Chan Chan."
A decade after their first meeting, Ochoa and Segundo famously reunited to perform the song as the opening track on the Grammy-winning Buena Vista Social Club. To that album Eliades also contributed lead vocals on "El Cuarto de Tula" and his own guajira showcase on "El Carretero." Since Buena Vista, he has recorded several fine albums under his own name, including Cubafrica (1998) with the great Cameroonian saxophonist Manu Dibango, Sublime Ilusión (1999), Tributo a Cuarteto Patria (2000), and Estoy Como Nunca (2002). He continues to lead Grupo Patria and tours regularly around the world.
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TOUMANI DIABATÉ kora (born Bamako, Mali, 1965)
One of the most significant musicians in Africa, Toumani Diabaté is the leading exponent of the West African harp known as the kora. Born in Bamako, he inherited his musical gifts from a long family lineage of kora masters. A child prodigy, he recorded his debut album, Kaira, in London in 1986, at the age of 21. With his playing bass, rhythm, and solo simultaneously on the instrument's 21 strings, Kaira was the first ever album of solo kora music and the start of a remarkable international career.
As an innovative and experimental collaborator, Diabaté recorded the two acclaimed Songhai fusion albums with the Spanish flamenco group Ketama and has worked with Damon Albarn, Björk, and the London Symphony Orchestra. His collaboration with Taj Mahal on 1999's Kulanjan explored the connections between West African music and the blues and was cited by Barack Obama as his favorite album during the 2008 Presidential election campaign.
In the more traditional vein, Diabaté has recorded widely with most of the greatest names in Malian music, both on his own albums and as a guest on releases by singers such as Salif Keita and Kasse Mady Diabaté. In recent years, he has recorded a series of thrillingly diverse releases for World Circuit/Nonesuch, including two albums of kora-guitar duets with Ali Farka Touré, including the Grammy-winning In the Heart of the Moon (2004), Boulevard de l'Indépendance (2005) with his groundbreaking Symmetric Orchestra, and the acoustic solo kora collection The Mandé Variations (2008).
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BASSEKOU KOUYATE ngoni (born Garana, Mali, 1966)
Descended from a long line of griots, Bassekou Kouyate was born in the Segu region of Mali, where his mother was a famous singer and his father was a celebrated player of the ngoni ba (banjo-like lute) on the local wedding party circuit. At the age of 16, Bassekou took his father's place, and by the end of the 1980s he had joined Toumani Diabaté's Symmetric Orchestra.
Since then, Kouyate has revolutionized the playing of the ngoni, adding extra strings to give him a wider melodic range and inventing new plucking methods to allow faster runs and more versatility. He also became the first ngoni player to use the instrument like a guitar, performing on his feet, instead of in the traditional seated position. As an accompanist, he went on to record with a wide variety of performers, including Taj Mahal and Ali Farka Touré, before forming the ngoni quartet Ngoni Ba and making his debut as a band leader on Segu Blue, which won the 2007 BBC Radio 3 Award for World Music as Best Album. He followed it in 2009 with a second album, I Speak Fula.
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KASSÉ MADY DIABATÉ vocals (born Kangaba, Mali, 1949)
The veteran griot singer Kasse Mady Diabaté began performing with the Super Mandé orchestra in his early 20s. He went on to become lead vocalist with Las Maravillas de Mali (later known as National Badema du Mali), a band famous for reworking traditional Mandé songs into a Cuban dance-band format. He recorded his debut solo album, Fode, in Paris, in 1989. An electric, dance-based recording produced by Ibrahima Sylla, Fode was followed a year later with a contrasting album of acoustic griot songs, Kela Tradition (1990). Kasse Mady Diabaté also sang on the fusion album Songhai 2 (1995) with Ketama and Toumani Diabaté.
After a decade in Paris, he returned to Mali in 1998 and joined Taj Mahal, Toumani Diabaté, and Bassekou Kouyate on the recording of Kulanjan and became lead vocalist with Toumani's Symmetric Orchestra on the 2006 album Boulevard de l'Indépendance. AfroCubism is not the first time he has worked with Cuban musicians, for the late Buena Vista Social Club star Cachaíto López guested on his 2003 solo album, Kassi Kasse. His solo album Manden Djeli Kan appeared in 2009.
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DJELIMADY TOUNKARA guitars, (born Kita, Mali, in 1947)
Arguably the finest guitarist in Africa, Djelimady Tounkara was born Kita and grew up playing drums and the xalam (lute). His parents wanted him to become an Islamic cleric but the plan was abandoned as soon as he saw and heard his first guitar. After early success playing in the Kita regional band, by the mid-1960s he had moved to Bamako, where he joined Misra Jazz, before he was promoted to join the state-sponsored Orchestre National as rhythm guitarist.
After the orchestra was disbanded, Tounkara joined the now legendary Rail Band on its formation in 1970, playing at the Buffet Hotel de la Gare, next to Bamako's train station, in a line up that included the singers Salif Keita and Mory Kante. He remained the Rail Band's arranger and lead guitarist throughout its glory years and in its later revival as the Super Rail Band, and continues to perform with them in Bamako to this day. In addition to appearing on all the Rail Band's recordings, he has also released the solo acoustic albums Sigui (2001) and Solon Kono (2006), as well as Big String Theory (2002) with his trio Bajourou.
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FODE LASSANA DIABATÉ balafon (born Conakry, Guinea, 1971)
Born in Guinea into a family of virtuoso balafon players, Lassana Diabaté moved as a young man to Bamako in the early 1990s. He has since become fêted as Mali's most gifted player of the 22-key xylophone of the Mandé griots, appearing on albums by Salif Keita, Bassekou Kouyate, and Kasse Mady Diabaté, among others, and has been a long-standing member of Toumani Diabaté's Symmetric Orchestra. He also played on Kulanjan, Toumani's celebrated collaboration with the American bluesman Taj Mahal.
An innovator on his instrument, on AfroCubism, he can be heard playing two balafons tuned a semi-tone apart, extending the harmonic range of what is a fixed pitch instrument and allowing greater scope for improvisation.
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Cryin All The Time - 3TonSoul
Back in "the day"...Andy (guitar), and Mike (bass & vocals) performed together in a Detroit area Rock band called FREEDOM. At that time, Mike was a keyboard player.
Bands usually have a limited lifespan, and when the members of FREEDOM went their separate ways, Andy and Mike decided that they would someday perform together again.
During the same period, Mark (drums & vocals) lived about an hour North and played in the rock band ANTHEM. He would regularly perform in the Metro area.
As fate would have it, around 2005, Mark went with his fiance to see her brother-in-law (Mike) play keyboards at a Detroit area show. Mark and Mike hit it off, and a short time later, Mike asked Andy and Mark if they'd like to "get together and jam......but nothing serious". Mike would play bass.
It only took a few songs before they realized that there was something special happening.
Since that day the band has evolved into something VERY serious, indeed. They have a passion for performance as well as songwriting. Their shows are powerful and spontaneous, and audiences love the intensity.
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I Wish My Mother Was On That Train - "Blind" Joe Taggart
Blind Joe Taggart was an American blind country blues musician, from the 1920s and 1930s. He was a great influence on folk singer, Josh White, whom he traveled with. According to White, Taggart was a mean-tempered man. He recorded a few duets with Emma Taggart, who is believed to have been his wife.
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Bending Like A Willow Tree - Black Dog Blues Band
Playing good blues for every one who like's it.
Since 1989 in São Paulo Brazil, playing the blues.
Black Dog Daniel, returns to is birth land Madeira Island in 2006, and restart the band with local and foreign musicians .
Band Members: Daniel Caires Henriques AKA black dog- vocals/harmonica;
Rodolfo Cró- guitar;
Paulo Aveiro- bass;
Eduardo Fernandes- drums;
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As the Years Go Passing By - Marshall Lawrence
Marshall Lawrence (born 1956) is a Canadian acid blues musician. Lawrence is often referred to as the "Doctor of the Blues.
Lawrence became interested in rock and roll at age 10 and asked his father for a guitar. Lawrence enjoyed his Echo semi-acoustic guitar and was determined to learn how to play it, inspired by Jimi Hendrix.
Lawrence played his first gig in 1969 at Windsor, Ontario, under a band named The Peanut Gallery, playing a 1969 Gibson SG through a Fender Dual Showman blew an amp on "Johnny B. Goode." As a teen, he spent most of 1970s and 1980s exploring guitar rock styles, while he was employed at a car factory in Windsor. Later on in his life, Lawrence moved east to Kingston to pursue a Ph.D in psychology.
Lawrence mixes many styles of blues to his music. Henceforth, he is given the nickname "The Doctor of Blues." His music can be described as a fierce, energetic blend of blues, rock, soul, and funk. Together he calls it "acid blues." Another way to describe his technique is a tribute to traditional blues, but mixed with an energetic style.
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Put Me Back - Amy Hart
Born and raised in the Chicago Area, Amy Hart got her start playing blues in festivals opening for such artists as Koko Taylor, Junior Welles and James Cotton. Putting her own stamp on the groove she migrated to LA and released a track on the Mercury Records Soundtrack for "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" and from there hit the road as a singer/songwriter.
Decades, deals and several disks later she has returned to her blues roots, with the latest release, "Congratulations" on Painted Rock Records.
The new cd, available on itunes and all over the web on every digital download site, details the tribulations of her own personal journey from Chicago to Nashville, and to the Gulf coast where she witnessed the devastation from the Horizon Oil Spill to the Guif Coast way of life she enjoyed for a good part of the last 10 years.
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Slow Blues Instrumental - Gary Smith, David Barrett, Aki Kumar
Front man and harp player for the San Francisco Bay Area band Tip of the Top, Akarsha Aki Kumar is an ardent student of the blues and a master of the amplified Chicago blues sound.
Kumar derives his style mainly from American harp masters Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson, Big Walter Horton and George Smith, among others. His own playing reflects elements of these players, blended in with a signature sound of his own.
Gary Smith has been a huge influence on numerous harmonica players in the San Francisco Bay Area. He has largely influenced harmonica players Mark Hummel, David Barrett, Byrde Hale, Andy Just, and untold others. He currently has two CD's and a new instruction video just released by Mountain Top Video. Being in the San Jose and San Francisco Area in the sixties he was present when Paul Butterfield made his imprint on the harmonica world.
David Barrett is the world's most published author of blues harmonica lesson material (over 60 book/CD sets and videos published through Mel Bay Publications). Having played saxophone and trumpet for many years, David already had a solid musical background before playing the harmonica at age fourteen. By age sixteen he was already performing in blues jam sessions and harmonica shows in the California Bay Area. By age eighteen he was studying music theory in college and started teaching harmonica at local music institutes. By age twenty he released Building Harmonica Technique (Mel Bay Publications), the first serious blues harmonica method to be released in the market.
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President Obama Hosts a celebration of Blues music in recognition of Black History Month
The evening will be filmed for a PBS special “In Performance at the White House: Red, White and Blues,” which will air as part of the Emmy Award-nominated PBS “In The White House” series on Monday, Feb. 27 on PBS stations nationwide. (Check local listings.) It's live now!!
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Savoy Brown in Jim Thorpe, PA - Greg
I got a chance to see the band in the cool town of Jim Thorpe PA Saturday night. Another inspired show by this excellent band. I liked the version of 'Time Will Tell' that they did. There was some real interesting soloing by Kim that had a retro feel to it but seemed to be a new slant. I think that ability is what makes these shows so good. They update the classic stuff to mesh with the excellent new stuff they are playing now.The band is heading over to the UK this Spring. I asked Kim if he'd be calling any of his old mates there to join him and he said that it was possible that he would. I asked him to have a camera or at least a tape rolling if he did. Someone get Chris Youlden on the line!
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Devil Down Records artist: Turchi - Road Ends In Water - Review
I have had the opportunity to review the new recording Road Ends In Water by Turchi. It will be available for sale on March 1. This is a really interesting recording and one that should be well received by fans of the new primitive blues movement (like me). By the new primitive blues movement, I refer to bands such as the Black Keys, The White Stripes and so many other bands who have gone back to the roots of the blues and put their own spin on the style.
Turchi has done a masterful job of presenting his own music, not a copy of the aforementioned bands, and it is really cool. The recording features 10 tracks, but I am unsure as to how many are originals as the interpretations are fresh. The first track, Keep On Drinkin' is great to get the groove started with Turchi's field holler type voice over slide work and backing instrumentals. On Watchya Tryin he uses the effective technique of singing along with his resonator on the melody and then steps back to play lead on what sounds like an electric guitar tuned in an open tuning. Be Alright has the tempo of the early Chicago blues stuff when it was first becoming electrified and the slide tone of Hound Dog Taylor (not his style...but the raw tone). One of the things that I really like about the release aside from the raw guitar playing is the vocal delivery which is sometimes distorted and sometimes delayed and sometimes in the present. Overall it is very effective. Do For You again a Chicago style blues in that it has the sound of the early electrified blues. Really cool. Don't Let The Devil Ride is a little more modern sounding but still retaining the raw edge present throughout the recording as with the great slide playing. I Can't Be Satisfied, the old Muddy Waters song is done much at the tempo of the original with substantially altered vocals actually putting me in mind of some of the effects the the Stones used on early recordings. Had the artist not thought through all of these issues I don't believe that the song could have carried it's weight. Really great! Shake'em keeps the original tradition strong with the slide resonator and dual slide work throughout. The final song, Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning has a very fresh look at the song. I have 3 times seen the title and gone back to the recording to hear it. It's a great tune and one that most of us know well. It is almost like a Hot Tuna take on a blues song but in this case, Turchi stays much closer to the original than Hot Tuna did on this song 40 years ago. It retains it's spirituality and is a great cap to the end of the recording.
I highly recommend this recording to anyone who likes the pure blues in an unadulterated form done by modern musicians. I feel that Turchi has done an excellent job.
Releases 01 March 2012
Vocals: Reed Turchi
Guitar: Reed Turchi, Luther Dickinson, Chris Reali
Bass: Chris Reali
Drums: Cameron Weeks
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JON CLEARY READIES NEW ALBUM OCCAPELLA
JON CLEARY READIES NEW ALBUM OCCAPELLA
Delving into the songbook of Allen Toussaint,
New Orleans musician plans CD release celebration at JazzFest
NEW ORLEANS, La. – The seeds for Jon Cleary’s sixth solo CD were sown when the acclaimed songwriter, pianist and singer was asked the hypothetical question, “Would you ever do a record of somebody else’s tunes?” The English-born Cleary, who has made New Orleans his home for more than three decades, provides his emphatic answer with the utterly captivating Occapella (released April 17 on the artist’s own FHQ Records).
An exploration deep into the bountiful songbook of Cleary’s musical touchstone, Allen Toussaint, the new album is as inspired as it is sure-footed. On this labor of love, Cleary inventively reimagines the classics “Southern Nights” and “What Do You Want the Girl To Do,” while he presents less familiar pieces like “Poor Boy Got To Move,” “I’m Gone” and “When the Party’s Over” as newly unearthed treasures.
“I wouldn’t say it’s a tribute,” Cleary says of Occapella. “The term ‘tribute’ sounds rather corny, really. On the back of the album, I just put, ‘Having fun with the songs of Allen Toussaint,’ which sums up the vibe a bit better. Toussaint’s music was the soundtrack of my adolescence, I’ve played a lot of his songs with the guys who had the original hits with them, and we’ve crossed paths on numerous occasions. So this record was a logical thing for me to do.
“I’d actually been messing around with a song of his called ‘Occapella,’ which he wrote for Lee Dorsey in the ’70s,” Cleary says of the project’s genesis. “It’s always been one of my favorites, so I started to do an a cappella version of ‘Occapella,’ and then one thing led to another. The idea of flexing my various musical muscles using Allen Toussaint’s songs as the raw material seemed really appealing. The challenge was to take each song and do a flip on it in some respect.”
Cleary plays every instrument on the album — keyboards, guitar (his first instrument), bass and drums — with one notable exception. On the ecstatically soulful opening track “Let’s Get Low Down,” Bonnie Raitt and Dr. John, both longtime musical associates, join him on vocals. Dr. John also plays guitar on the track, while bassist James Singleton and drummer Terence Higgins, both part of the flexible lineup of the Philthy Phew, lay down the deep gut groove.
Additionally, Jeffrey “Jellybean” Alexander, Derwin “Big D” Perkins and Cornell Williams of Cleary’s Absolute Monster Gentlemen contribute backing vocals on “Popcorn Pop Pop,” “Wrong Number” and the title song, while Walter “Wolfman” Washington sings background vocals on “Everything I Do Gonh Be Funky.” Cleary self-produced Occapella in the well-appointed studio he’s installed in his home in the Bywater neighborhood of New Orleans. His neighbor, fellow expat John Porter — a veteran producer whose CV ranges from The Smiths and Ryan Adams to B.B. King, Buddy Guy and R.L. Burnside — received a co-producer credit for his expert assistance.
“My inclination at first was to pick the most obscure tunes I could find, because I’ve always been a bit of a funk detective,” Cleary explains. “Then one of my managers said, ‘It’s a great idea, but if you’re gonna do this, make sure there are some songs that people recognize.’ So I picked a couple of his better-known tunes, but I tried to take them in a different direction — to take an aspect of the melody or the chord progression, or perhaps his original arrangement, and present it in a different box, as it were.”
Cleary became aware of Toussaint as a youngster in the village of Cranbrook in Kent, England, when he noticed that three of his favorite songs — Frankie Miller’s rendition of “Brickyard Blues,” Robert Palmer’s “Sneakin’ Sally Through the Alley” and LaBelle’s “Lady Marmalade” — were all credited to the New Orleans legend. When his uncle gave him a copy of Toussaint’s classic 1972 LP, Life, Love and Faith, Cleary was hooked for life. Soon after finishing school, he made a pilgrimage to the Crescent City and knew he’d found his spiritual home. He “got thrown in the deep end, landing a job digging up banana trees and pretty much moving into the Maple Leaf Bar,” where he sat transfixed night after night listening to the likes of James Booker and Roosevelt Sykes tickle the ivories on the house piano. Before long, he was mixing it up with Dr. John, Snooks Eaglin, Earl King and other staples of the scene on club stages and in local studios.
As his reputation spread, Cleary became a hired gun for NOLA-based musicians and visiting artists alike, from Taj Mahal and Keb’ Mo’ to India Arie and Ryan Adams. He recorded and toured with renowned guitarist/bandleader John Scofield, and spent 10 years playing with Raitt, who recorded several of his songs, before regretfully taking his leave from that altogether gratifying situation in order to concentrate on his own music.
Though the new album is a departure from his previous recordings, which have focused all but exclusively on his own material, it has enabled him to come full circle in terms of his lifelong musical passion, exemplified by his sublime take on “Everything I Do Gonh Be Funky.” “That song will forever be associated with Lee Dorsey, who was Toussaint’s protégé,” Cleary points out. “Lots of other people have covered it as well, but I didn’t care — I just wanted to play it because it’s such a great song. The first time I heard it, I said to myself, ‘Yeah — everything I do is gonh be funky too.’”
To say that Jon Cleary has made good on that vow would amount to a gross understatement.
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Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood - Nina Simone
Eunice Kathleen Waymon (February 21, 1933 – April 21, 2003), better known by her stage name Nina Simone (/ˈniːnə sɨˈmoʊn/), was an American singer, songwriter, pianist, arranger, and civil rights activist widely associated with jazz music. Simone aspired to become a classical pianist while working in a broad range of styles including classical, jazz, blues, folk, R&B, gospel, and pop.
Born the sixth child of a preacher's family in North Carolina, Simone aspired to be a concert pianist as a child. Her musical path changed direction after she was denied a scholarship to the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, despite a well-received audition. Simone was later told by someone working at Curtis that she was rejected because she was black. She then began playing in a small club in Philadelphia to fund her continuing musical education to become a classical pianist and was required to sing as well. She was approached for a recording by Bethlehem Records, and her rendition of "I Loves You Porgy" became a smash hit in the United States in 1958. Over the length of her career, Simone recorded more than 40 albums, mostly between 1958 — when she made her debut with Little Girl Blue — and 1974.
Her musical style arose from a fusion of gospel and pop songs with classical music, in particular with influences from her first inspiration, Johann Sebastian Bach, and accompanied with her expressive jazz-like singing in her characteristic low tenor. She injected as much of her classical background into her music as possible to give it more depth and quality, as she felt that pop music was inferior to classical. Her intuitive grasp on the audience-performer relationship was gained from a unique background of playing piano accompaniment for church revivals and sermons regularly from the early age of six years.
After 20 years of performing, she became involved in the civil rights movement and the direction of her life shifted once again. Simone's music was highly influential in the fight for equal rights in the US
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