Limited edition LP offers further listen to American Folk Blues Festival’s earliest years with previously unreleased recordings of Sonny Boy Williamson, Willie Dixon, T-Bone Walker, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, John Lee Hooker, and more

Posted on March 18, 2025 by Mike

American Folk Blues Festival Live in Paris 1962 • Bremen 1963 (The Lost Recordings)

There are, fortunately for us all, a good number of recordings from the American Folk Blues Festival over the years, but we’re certainly not going to complain about another one, especially when it sounds as good as this one does AND consists entirely of previously unreleased material. You’d think that, by now, any existing recordings of these shows would already have been unearthed and made available, although there were, of course, numerous offerings of the festival across the U.K. and Europe over its almost decade-and-a-half existence. So we’re glad that the good folks at The Lost Recordings were able to locate these sets from the early 1960s capturing previously unreleased material from the likes of such greats as Sonny Boy Williamson, Willie Dixon, John Lee Hooker, T-Bone Walker, and Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, also featuring appearances from Memphis Slim, Sunnyland Slim, Hubert Sumlin, Matt “Guitar” Murphy, and others.

The audio quality of this latest American Folk Blues Festival collection is some of the cleanest and crispest we’ve heard from live performances, particularly ones that took place over six decades ago. There’s a lot to like about the double LP set, including tracks from Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee such as the opening “I’m a Stranger Here”, the breezy “Born and Livin’ with the Blues”, and “I Got My Eyes on You”; Willie Dixon performing “I Just Want to Make Love to You” and stuttering his way through “Nervous”; a quiet acoustic set from John Lee Hooker that includes “I Need Money”, “Everyday, I Have the Blues”, “Night Time is the Right Time” and “My Own Fault”; and the jazzy, instrumental “Moanin”” from a T-Bone Walker-led band that also included Willie Dixon on bass.

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Louisiana bluesmen Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Bobby Rush easily recognized — and playing at their best — on single “Who Was That”

Posted on March 11, 2025 by Mike

Speaking of cross-generational collaborations (as we were in last week’s post on Kenny Neal and son teaming for a new single), we were pretty excited to hear about the upcoming album from two other Louisiana bluesmen, who were born more than 40 years and just over 50 miles apart: blues-rocker Kenny Wayne Shepherd and traditional bluesman Bobby Rush.

Here’s the first single released off of their upcoming album Young Fashioned Ways, featuring everything you’d expect from the pair: stinging guitar from Shepherd, gritty vocals and harmonica from Rush, clever lyrics such as “When I went into the bedroom, I could tell somethin’ wasn’t right/ it was all tore up like you been in a pillow fight”, plus some swinging horns. If you like what you hear in this shuffling number, the good news is that you only have to wait another week or so for the whole album, which releases March 21st.

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Kenny Neal and son Micah Willis collaborate on devilishly good new single Devil’s in the Delta

Posted on March 4, 2025 by Mike

Here’s some swampy blues released last week from Louisiana bluesman Kenny Neal and his son Micah Willis, with Kenny’s brothers Frederick (keyboards) and Darnell (bass guitar) helping to make it even more of a family affair (along with Amos Singleton also on keys and Michael Harris on drums). Kenny provides some gravelly vocals and gritty harmonica in addition to slide and rhythm guitar work on the track, with Micah contributing some slightly smoother and more soulful vocals to help balance things out, to make for a smoky, entrancing track that will transport you deep (some might say devilishly deep) into the Delta!

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Longtime Clapton sideman Andy Fairweather Low sure to get noticed with new album The Invisible Bluesman

Posted on March 1, 2025 by Mike

We wouldn’t say that British blues guitar slinger and vocalist Andy Fairweather Low has exactly been invisible until now, having spent much of the past few decades playing and touring with Eric Clapton. Keener observers among Slowhand fans might, for example, remember Clapton acknowledging Low at the conclusion of “Hey Hey” on 1992’s Unplugged album, and anyone who saw or heard Clapton’s 2013 Crossroads Guitar Festival either live or on recording is sure to remember Low’s rousing delivery, backed by Clapton, of “Gin House Blues”, a performance that had us, and we’re sure many others, running off to see what other music we could find from this guy already, and kicking ourselves for not having checked him out further the first time we heard Clapton say his name.

But we do kind of see Low’s point in titling his latest album The Invisible Bluesman (The Last Music Company). While we’re sure we weren’t the only ones on whom Low made quite an impression with his 2013 Crossroads performance and many other concerts with Clapton around the world, we recognize that other Slowhand fans might not have had these same chances to see Low singled out. And, truth be told, Clapton is just one of several well-known artists with whom Low has spent time as a member of the band over the decades, along with the likes of Roger Waters, George Harrison, Pete Townshend/The Who, and Bill Wyman, just to name a few. Based even on our own experience (failing to check out Low as a frontman until well after we first knew of him), we can of course understand how Clapton and some of those others might tend to cast long shadows over any of their sidemen, regardless of how talented those band members just might be.

Along the way, Low did of course put out several albums with his own bands, but The Invisible Bluesman is the first to be devoted to the blues, which, it probably won’t surprise you to read, is where we happen to believe Low most excels.

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Jon Cleary and band offer fresh, flying take on old favorite

Posted on February 26, 2025 by Mike

Here’s another single we’ve been digging recently, released this week, and that will really get your feet moving and you feelin’ good…the lead track from New Orleans (by way of the U.K.) pianist Jon Cleary‘s upcoming The Bywater Sessions album, a (very) uptempo take of an old favorite that, just like its name, is “so damn good”! Enjoy!

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TajMo returns with inviting new single Room on the Porch

Posted on February 20, 2025 by Mike

We’ve heard some great new blues singles these past few weeks and thought we’d share a few of them with you through a series of quick, no-fuss weekly posts, so that you can get right to enjoying them too!

Here’s the first of them, released just today: a welcoming tune from Taj Mahal and Keb Mo to mark the return of their collaboration known as TajMo, the title track from their upcoming sophomore album. “Come on up, there’s room on the porch for everyone”!

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Tune into the Weekend: British guitarist/singer Mick Clarke still churning out Homework when it comes to the blues

Posted on January 23, 2025 by Mike

We’ve come across a few tunes from British blues-rocker Mick Clarke over the decades and must say we’ve always liked what we heard, but, for whatever reason, have never seemed to get around to checking out Clarke’s work more fully. Until Clarke’s latest project Bad Whisky Blues, that is, which Clarke describes as a “compilation of some favourite rockin’ blues tracks from the last few years,” plus a brand new take on the Jimmy Rogers classic “You’re the One”.

Most of the other tracks here are also covers or largely based off other songs, with some of Clarke’s more noteworthy takes including Howlin’ Wolf’s “Smokestack Lightning”, Bobby Parker’s “Watch Your Step”, Memphis Minnie’s “Chaffeur Blues”, Sonny Boy Williamson’s “Help Me”, and this one, originally recorded by Otis Rush:

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Tune into the Weekend: Curtis Salgado’s latest album much more than Fine By Me

Posted on December 27, 2024 by Mike

There are plenty of things to like about soulman Curtis Salgado‘s latest album Fine By Me (Little Village), with some of the biggest highlights including a swinging, soulful cover of O.V. Wright’s “Gonna Forget About You” that has Salgado joined by Robert Cray on both vocals and guitar (returning the favor for Salgado’s supporting vocals when Cray recorded the track on his 1980 debut album Who’s Been Talkin’), along with Little Village founder and executive director Jim Pugh on B3 organ & piano, Jerry Jemmott on bass, Kid Andersen on guitar and Derek “D’Mar” Martin on drums; the deep, powerful gospel of “Hear the Lonely Hearts” featuring the backing harmonies of The Sons of The Soul Revivers; and a crawling “You Give The Blues A Bad Name” that includes some stinging guitar from Anson Funderburgh, terrific piano from Loren Gold and great horns.

But perhaps there’s nothing better here than the groovy “Better Things to Lie About” that comes just one song in, complete with gritty, all-out vocals and rich harmonica from Salgado, some more of those slick horns, both guitar and keyboards from Kid Andersen and drums from D’Mar, among other backers.

But don’t just take our word for it: go ahead and give “Better Things to Lie About” a listen here, and then check out some of those other tracks too.

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Bluesman Lurrie Bell teams with fellow Chicago musician Frank Catalano on liberating Set Me Free

Posted on December 18, 2024 by Mike

Although we’ve certainly been tempted enough over the decades, we’ve resisted crossing over into the jazzier side of things much on these pages, in part to keep things focused squarely on the blues, since — even during this blog’s heyday — we’ve only ever been able to cover a fraction of all of the good things happening within the blues genre. But it probably won’t come as much of a surprise to you that we’ve also long appreciated the sounds of jazz, so the latest release from second-generation bluesman Lurrie Bell — who we’ve discussed often here, probably most recently in regards to him being a part of this family tribute album to harmonica-playing father Carey Bell — gives us a perfect excuse to, well, jazz things up a bit, with the talented, gritty-vocaled blues guitarist Bell this time teaming with renowned Chicago saxophonist Frank Catalano to offer some jazzy takes on familiar classics such as “Everyday I Have the Blues,” “The Sky is Crying,” “I’m Ready,” “Georgia On My Mind” and “At Last” as well as some terrific originals.

After kicking things off with a jaunty “Everyday I Have the Blues” that nicely sets the tone for the album with solos from both Bell and Catalano along with some sprightly piano from Tom Vaitsas, the masters and their band (also including Aaron Mitter on bass and Kurt Lubbe on drums) then move to a quiet, creeping version of “The Sky is Crying,” picking up the tempo again on the groovy title track with its “Messin’ with the Kid”-like horn lines. From there, they keep things swinging with “Shakin’,” the first of three terrific groove-filled instrumentals included here, along with the spicy “Tuna Town” and a “Kicking” that is exactly that.

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Blind Pig Records returns with smoking debuts from Jovin Webb and Sonny Gullage

Posted on November 12, 2024 by Mike

We’re sure we weren’t the only ones disappointed to read the news of the sale of fabled blues record label Blind Pig Records in early 2015, having heard and purchased many of the label’s albums over the years from such artists as Muddy Waters, Otis Rush, Pinetop Perkins, George “Harmonica” Smith, Tommy Castro, Carey Bell, James Cotton, and others. The label has put out a few albums since, mostly early on, but has largely been quiet for much of the past decade. So we were of course delighted to see the label’s late 2023 announcement of its relaunch, and even more delighted to hear some of its new offerings, despite coming from names much less familiar than those listed above. That said, a listen to these albums tells us that both of these names will be quite a bit better known in the coming years.

Jovin Webb – Drifter
We haven’t watched American Idol since its earliest years, and generally don’t feel that we’ve missed too much as a result, especially when we read that a guy as talented as Jovin Webb was eliminated before making it to the top five back in 2020. Fortunately, Blind Pig was savvy enough to sign the Louisiana native late last year and wasted no time in recording and delivering his debut album Drifter, which shows that Webb’s performances on Idol, which included takes on the Allman Brothers Band’s “Whipping Post”, James Brown’s “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World”, and Joe Cocker’s version of “With a Little Help From My Friends”, according to our research, were really only the tip of the iceberg in showcasing Webb’s immense talents.

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