Tune into the Weekend: Joe Louis Walker remembers B.B. and Lucille with some Regal Blues

Posted on November 19, 2021 by Mike

Veteran blues guitarist and singer Joe Louis Walker has a new album out this month on Cleopatra Records, which, as acknowledged by its title of Eclectic Electric, is indeed an eclectic collection of tracks ranging from originals like the chugging opener “Uptown Girl Blues” that features fellow guitarist Jimmy Vivino to covers that span from Muddy Waters’ “Two Trains Running” to a funky take on Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London” featuring song co-writer Waddy Wachtel on guitar, a swampified “All She Wants to Do is Dance” (Don Henley), and a “Hotel California” (the Eagles), featuring longtime Walker pal Murali Coryell on guitar, that may be even more haunting than the original with its blistering guitar work and Walker’s unique vocals.

But haunting is a far cry from the sound of our favorite track off the album: a new version of this swinging original we heard from Walker once before, back on the B.B. King Blues Band‘s 2019 album The Soul of the King. While this version again finds Walker backed by the former members of B.B.’s band, it also includes Doyle Bramhall II as a guest guitarist, and is just what the doctor — no, the King — ordered to help kick your weekend off right!

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Latest Jazz Festing in Place offers classic performances from B.B. King, John Lee Hooker, Dr. John and more

Posted on October 11, 2021 by Mike

If you didn’t tune in for the first weekend of this fall’s edition of WWOZ’s Jazz Festing in Place the past weekend (with the live, in-person version of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival once again cancelled due to the continued pandemic), you missed hearing some terrific archival sets from musicians from throughout the festival’s five-plus decade history. In addition to some well-known blues acts like B.B. King (1994), John Lee Hooker (1991), Bonnie Raitt (2009), Dr. John (2009), Clarence Gatemouth Brown (2000), Samantha Fish (2018), Marcia Ball (1999), Champion Jack Dupree (1990) and Walter “Wolfman” Washington (2016), highlights of this weekend’s lineup also included a 2013 set from Guitar Slim Jr. and the famed 1974 Professor Longhair “Fire Benefit” show — featuring the Professor himself as well as the likes of Dr. John, Allen Toussaint, The Meters, Earl King, and Snooks Eaglin — along with performances from such other greats as Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald and Stevie Wonder, Irma Thomas, the Allman Brothers Band, Buckwheat Zydeco, The Band, Dianne Reeves, John Mayer, the Funky Meters, Mahalia Jackson, Carole King, the Voice of the Wetlands All Stars and Herbie Hancock, among others.

The good news is you don’t need to be too bummed about missing it: you can listen to any or all of the past weekend’s sets for the next couple of weeks on WWOZ’s online two-week archive. And there’s also a  second weekend of the virtual festival starting this Thursday, featuring a whole different slate of performances, including sets from Allen Toussaint, Fats Domino, Jon Cleary, The Neville Brothers, Joe Cocker, Trombone Shorty, Bruce Springsteen, Van Morrison, Ellis Marsalis, Henry Butler, Dee Dee Bridgewater, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Santana, The Meters, Anders Osborne and more!

All of which is to say, if you’re not finding some way of Jazz Festing in Place, whether it’s catching the sets upon their initial broadcast or later through the online archive, you’re really missing out!

And many thanks of course to WWOZ for helping to “let New Orleans live in (all of us)” with the once-again fantastic programming!

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Tune into the Weekend: Canadian bluesman Steve Hill’s take on Robert Johnson classic Hellhound on My Trail

Posted on October 8, 2021 by Mike

Probably one of the biggest highlights of our week was the release of this new single from one-man blues band Steve Hill: a splendid cover of the haunting Robert Johnson classic “Hellhound on My Trail”, available now through all streaming platforms. We think it will be one of yours too!

Enjoy!

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Tune into the Weekend: Not just Dear America, but the Whole World’s Got the Blues on Eric Bibb’s latest album

Posted on September 17, 2021 by Mike

We can’t think of another bluesman or woman as consistently good at what they do as Eric Bibb; although his music may not always be the flashiest or provide for the most diverse of sets, there’s probably nothing that we’ve heard from the folk-bluesman over the decades that we haven’t appreciated and liked, and his latest album Dear America (Provogue Records/Mascot Label Group) is no exception.

Here’s our favorite track from the album, the creeping, slightly haunting “Whole World’s Got the Blues” that also features guitarist and singer Eric Gales:

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Remembering Mike Finnigan

Posted on August 17, 2021 by Mike

Not just the blues — but the whole music — world lost one of its greatest living musicians last week with the passing of organist and singer Mike Finnigan, whose work we admired not only with bands we’ve reviewed here over the years like the Phantom Blues Band and Mannish Boys and through his own solo career but also accompanying such household names as Taj Mahal, Etta James, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Bonnie Raitt, Joe Cocker, Dave Mason, and Jimi Hendrix, among others.

We’ve gathered just a small sampling of some of our favorite blues tunes from Finnigan for you below, but there’s plenty of more great stuff out there featuring Finnigan’s terrific playing and soulful vocals, fairly easily found through a Google search.

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Tune into the Weekend: 2019 International Blues Challenge Solo Act Winner Jon Shain Airs “2020 Blues”

Posted on July 30, 2021 by Mike

Even with 2020 now well within our rearview mirror, Covid and other events have helped to ensure the year will be long-remembered, and, for many, probably not among the U.S.’ finest days.

That’s just one of the issues North Carolina folk-bluesman Jon Shain, who won the 2019 International Blues Challenge in the solo/duo act category, explores on his latest album with longtime collaborator FJ Ventre, Never Found a Way to Tame the Blues (Flyin’ Records), along with such other subjects as the refugee crisis, global economics, and Holland’s new pot law as well as more classic blues themes like love gone wrong and life in the music business.

While the topics addressed on the album are sometimes weighty, the playing from Shain, Ventre and their guest musicians isn’t, weaving between straight blues, rock, folk, rockabilly,  ragtime, and jazz sounds created by guitar, upright bass, harmonica, mandolin, fiddle, piano, drums and percussion, and more.

Shain — who has played with the likes of John Dee Holeman as well as opened for acts such as John  Hiatt, Keb’ Mo’, and Little Feat — and Ventre deliver this particular track on 12-string and upright bass, accompanying powerful lyrics regarding  hatred and cynicism, equality, and hope for the future that include such statements as “I ache for my sisters—they’ve borne the brunt for so long/ I’m waitin’ for the day when they’re in power where they belong” and “I’m prayin’ for the youth—the only ones who could figure out this mess/ Our grand experiment has ended with us all under duress/ We got a national case of too much stress.”

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Eddie 9V sticks with impressing in Paste Studio session

Posted on June 25, 2021 by Mike

If you still haven’t had a chance to check out young Atlanta soul/bluesman Eddie 9V as we’ve encouraged, or you just want to take in more from him after liking what you’ve heard on either his livestreams during the pandemic and/or albums Left My Soul in Memphis, live Way Down the Alley, or most recent Little Black Flies, this week’s Paste Studio on the Road session with Eddie and his band provided a terrific opportunity to hear some of Eddie’s gritty music stylings, as well as from the artist on such things as recording his latest album, the musical vibe and lyrical inspiration created by fish fries, his spirit of choice, and the improving climate for live performances.

Musically, you’ll hear Eddie’s “nod to Elmore James” in “She Got Some Money” as well as the title tracks from both of Eddie’s studio albums and the single “The Come Up”, all of which are sure to get you groovin’ just in time for the weekend.

Watch Eddie’s Paste Studio session below!

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Tune into the Weekend with new single from Blues Music Award emerging artist nominee Jose Ramirez

Posted on May 14, 2021 by Mike

We haven’t yet had a chance to listen to Costa Rican blues guitarist and singer Jose Ramirez‘s Blues Music Award-nominated debut album Here I Come, but have certainly moved it closer to the top of our pile for checking out after hearing Ramirez’s latest single on Delmark Records, “Whatever She Wants” —  a nod, according to Ramirez, to some of the old-school blues/soul singers such as Johnnie Taylor, Bobby Bland and Bobby Womack.

A slow blues burner in the vein of such classics as “The Thrill is Gone” and “Still Got the Blues”, “Whatever She Wants” includes some soulful, passion-soaked vocals and guitar from Ramirez, with a funky, organ-driven turn about halfway through that leads into a stinging guitar solo.

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UK Blues Awards finalists Let the Good Times Roll during online ceremony

Posted on May 10, 2021 by Mike

The annual UK Blues Awards took place this past Sunday, again virtually due to the ongoing pandemic, with this year’s winners including When Rivers Meet for emerging artist of the year, band of the year, album of the year (We Fly Free) and most inspirational online performance of the year, Elles Bailey for artist of the year, Matt Long for instrumentalist of the year, Dom Martin for acoustic artist of the year, Connor Selby for young artist of the year and Shemekia Copeland for international artist/band of the year.

While the 105-minute program included terrific performances from a number of the individual winners, the real highlight of the awards was the closing jam featuring  many of the finalists and winners, including Elles Bailey, Matt Long, Paul Long, Dom Martin, Emma Wilson, Kyla Brox, Giles Robson, Toby Lee, Connor Selby and more, all recorded separately from their homes and sent in to UK Blues Awards to put together in this one romping take on the Louis Jordan blues classic “Let the Good Times Roll”, which is exactly what they do here. Enjoy!

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UK guitarist Will Johns rips it up on Bluesdaddy

Posted on April 23, 2021 by Mike

We’ve talked quite a bit here over the years about some of the second generation blues men and women helping to carry on the tradition of their fathers, including the likes of Bernard Allison (son of Luther), Shemekia Copeland (daughter of Johnny), Lurrie Bell (son of Carey), Kenny Neal (son of Raful), Big Bill and Mud Morganfield (sons of McKinley, a.k.a. Muddy Waters), and others.

Thus far, this same trend doesn’t seem to also be happening on the other side of the pond, at least not strictly in regards to the blues, but perhaps one of the closest examples of it you’ll find there — albeit through a bit less of a direct lineage — is UK blues singer and guitarist Will Johns. While Johns’ father Andy wasn’t a famous musician himself, he did work with many of them throughout his successful career as a record engineer and producer, including the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, Blind Faith, Van Halen, and Eric Clapton, who — through his previous marriage to Will’s mother’s sister Pattie Boyd — also happens to be one of several famous uncles to Will, along with George Harrison (through his even earlier marriage to Pattie), Mick Fleetwood (through his past marriage to another aunt), and Andy’s older brother Glyn Johns, also a well-known producer and sound engineer to some of the same acts as Andy as well as The Beatles, The Who, and The Eagles, among others.

For not being related to Clapton by blood, Johns does manage to sound a bit like him at times on his latest album Bluesdaddy — not so much in regards to singing as in playing and talent — particularly on such heavier blues classics as “Hoochie Coochie Man” and “Rolling & Tumbling”. All but one of the dozen tracks here, in fact, are covers, many of them quite familiar, including “Everyday I Have the Blues”, “Don’t You Want a Man Like Me”, “High Heel Sneakers”, “Oh Well”, “Sweet Little Angel”, “When You Got a Good Friend”, “I Just Wanna Make Love to You”, “Call Me Willy” (“Willie Brown Blues”) and “Walking and Crying”.

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