With help from Ground Zero Blues Club performers, Morgan Freeman orchestrates unique take on the Delta blues on Symphonic Blues Experience

Posted on August 25, 2026 by Mike

“Symphonic blues” probably isn’t the first sound that comes to mind at the mention of the Ground Zero Blues Club, a self-described “raw, down-home” Clarksdale, Mississippi, venue co-founded by lifelong blues music lover and actor Morgan Freeman in 2001 that features live music from local and national artists four nights a week. In considering how they might be able to share some of the magic so often heard at the club with the rest of the world, Freeman and his colleagues decided to take a band of regular performers from Ground Zero on a North American tour, also adding a whole other element that could help expose a bit different of a group of listeners to the blues, something Freeman describes as “blending the grit of the Delta Blues with the majesty of a symphony orchestra”.

This isn’t of course the first time blues has been paired with an orchestra: blues harmonica and piano player Corky Siegel (Siegel-Schwall Band) has been doing it since 1966, often with a focus on Chicago blues, including quite successfully in recent years in a smaller chamber format. Eric Clapton’s been backed by orchestras at such venues as the Royal Albert Hall (24 Nights) and Lincoln Center (Play the Blues: Live from Jazz at Lincoln Center) over the decades, pairing with Wynton Marsalis on the latter, whose Blues Symphony has been recorded now by several orchestras. In August 2023, Joe Bonamassa recorded his Live at the Hollywood Bowl with Orchestra CD/DVD, and, next month, fellow blues-rocker Warren Haynes will be releasing a live album he recorded with the Asheville Symphony Orchestra back in 2019. But we’re hard-pressed to think of anyone who’s done it so focused on the Delta blues and on the type of scale Freeman has with his Symphonic Blues Experience tour.

We missed the show when Freeman & co. came through our town earlier this year, but fortunately we haven’t missed out entirely on hearing this unique take on the blues, thanks to a just-released accompanying recording of the project from Decca Records. With the orchestral music recorded at the legendary Abbey Road Studios in London in partnership with the majority Black and ethnically diverse ensemble Chineke! Orchestra and the Delta blues portion recorded by the legendary Boo Mitchell at his Royal Studios in Memphis, the 12-song Morgan Freeman’s Symphonic Blues Experience spans nearly a full century of blues music, from a 1927 gospel blues classic from Blind Willie Johnson to a tune from the 2025 hit movie Sinners.

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Janiva Magness brings Truth to the room (and our ears) with first major live album

Posted on August 13, 2026 by Mike

If you’ve heard blues soulstress Janiva Magness at all during her decades-long career, you know that she’s one of the best in the business. And if you’ve ever been fortunate to see Magness live, well, that will only make you appreciate her talents even more. So many have of course wondered over the years when Magness might put out her first live album (aside from her limited, little-known 1991 debut More Than Live), something for which the time is apparently right with Magness’ release of Truth in the Room: The Clearmountain Sessions (Blue Élan Records). And we’re happy that say that this one, like everything we’ve heard from Magness, does not disappoint, with 10 tracks from throughout her catalog and mixed by famed producer/mixer/engineer Bob Clearmountain (Live Aid, Paul McCartney, Bryan Adams, The Rolling Stones, Rock N’ Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremonies, The Who, and much more).

It’s perhaps only appropriate that this Blues Music Awards 2009 B.B. King Blues Entertainer of the Year (a recognition Magness was only the second woman ever to win, following Koko Taylor) starts her set with a cover of a track from the King of the Blues himself in a swinging “My Bad Luck Soul”, the title track of a 1999 album from Magness.

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Blues-rocker Albert Castiglia not slowing down with release of new album recorded at Abbey Road

Posted on July 31, 2026 by Mike

It’s been a while since we’ve talked here about Albert Castiglia as a solo act, with the Florida-raised blues-rocker doing quite a bit of collaboration in recent years, with the likes of fellow guitarist and singer Mike Zito (frequently joined by comedian Bill Murray) under the name of the Blood Brothers and also D.K. Harrell and Chris Cain on a fantastic tribute to the Three Kings of the Blues. 

We’ve long been a fan of Castiglia, as evidenced by his “Bad Year Blues” having been one of the first Blues Lyrics of the Week we posted on this blog more than a decade and a half ago, so we thought that his new album Grits & Glory (Gulf Coast Records), already his 13th solo album, might be a good chance to catch up with the guy who launched his career playing guitar for legendary bluesman Junior Wells.

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Two decades after release on CD, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings’ Classic Blues compilation available on vinyl for first time

Posted on July 25, 2026 by Mike

As much as we enjoy listening to the new blues music being released, occasionally we just have to go back and remind ourselves of some of the classic blues that helped to get the genre to where it is today. The 2003 CD collection Classic Blues from Smithsonian Folkways Recordings has long been a terrific way to do that, but now, for the first time, the 26-track collection has been reissued on vinyl, and it of course has never sounded better.

Admittedly, some of the songs on this collection–which has been one of the label’s best-selling titles–aren’t exactly the most relatable these days, talking about such things as a “Nickel’s Worth of Liver”, “boll weevil here, boll weevil there, boll weevil everywhere”, or “ridin’ along on my old mule” (or even in a slightly more modern Mercury ’49). But that doesn’t make these songs–some of which, after all, were recorded now more than 80 years ago–any less entertaining, with the humorous, folksy “Mule-Ridin’ Blues” referenced above from Big Bill Broonzy, for instance, being a good example of the part-spoken, part-sung style of song, something we also hear on numbers from Vera Hall (“Black Woman”)–whose voice some may recognize as having been sampled by Moby on his 1999 hit “Natural Blues”–and Lightnin’ Hopkins (“Come Go Home with Me”, recorded in 1959 in Hopkins’ Houston home). Although the songs here span a full half-century in their recording dates, the most recent of the numbers (the expressive guitar instrumental “One Dime Blues” from Etta Baker) was still recorded more than a third of a century ago, during a 1992 performance at Wolf Trap in Vienna, Virginia.

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Keb’ Mo’, Taj Mahal and others lend their talents to Morgan Freeman’s Symphonic Blues Experience

Posted on July 17, 2026 by Mike

Speaking of Taj Mahal–and his ongoing collaboration with Keb’ Mo’, known affectionately as TajMo–(as we were in our last post regarding Taj and his Phantom Blues Band’s recent visit to the Pittsburgh area), we should mention that both Taj and Keb’ are part of what sounds to be another terrific project scheduled for release in August, this one produced by actor and longtime blues supporter (including co-founding the Ground Zero Blues Club in Clarksdale, Mississippi, in 2001) Morgan Freeman. 

First announced on Juneteenth, accompanied by the first single from the album in Taj Mahal’s smoking take on the Son House classic “Death Letter Blues”, Morgan Freeman’s Symphonic Blues Experience (Decca Records) has now made available a second preview track, featuring Taj’s good friend Keb’. 

Combining rich strings, horns, keyboards and other instrumentation from the Ground Zero Blues Club Band and Europe’s mostly Black and ethnically diverse Chineke! Orchestra with stinging guitar and impassioned vocals from Keb’ , this is the most flowing, immersive version of Albert King’s “Cadillac Assembly Line” you’ve ever heard. Together with the chugging Mahal track, this song with Mo’ really has us looking forward to hearing the rest of the 12-track collection, which will also feature such well-known artists as Shemekia Copeland and Alvin Youngblood Hart, as well as Mississippi blues performers Super Chikan, Keith Johnson and Anthony “Big A” Sherrod, in addition to having been partly recorded by the legendary Lawrence “Boo” Mitchell at Memphis’ Royal Studios.  

Here’s the soaring “Cadillac Assembly Line” that features Keb’:

And here’s Taj with “Death Letter Blues”:

You can bet you’ll be hearing more from us on this collection come August!

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Taj Mahal and the Phantom Blues Band make Time for Pittsburgh on tour in support of new album

Posted on July 14, 2026 by Mike

We’ve been fortunate to see bluesman Taj Mahal perform live several times over the last dozen years or so, each time as part of a different configuration, first as an acoustic duo with Keb’Mo’ at the 2013 Crossroads Guitar Festival and then with Keb again–this time backed by a band–four years later through their TajMo collaboration. In between those shows, we also caught him fronting his trio, and then, more recently, saw him lead the Taj Mahal Quartet at the 2023 Three Rivers Arts Festival. Each of these sets, of course, was excellent, so we were particularly excited about Taj again returning to the Pittsburgh area, seeing that he’d be joined by his accomplished, Grammy Award-winning band, the Phantom Blues Band (PBB), about whom regular readers of our blog know we’ve also had plenty of good things to say over the years, including this recent review of their new album with Mahal, Time.

We learned a few days prior to Saturday night’s show that Phantom drummer Tony Braunagel wouldn’t be making this date, and then noted when the band took the stage that their usual guitarist Johnny Lee Schell and horn players also weren’t performing this night, so, although we didn’t get the full genuine Phantom Blues Band experience (which just gives us a great reason to go see them again sometime), what we did get during the hour-and-a-half or so performance was still pretty terrific with Taj swapping out between guitar, harmonica, resonator and maraca throughout the evening and the experienced stand-ins on guitar (Josh Sklair), drums (Brannen Temple) and horns, along with Tony D on percussion, keeping up nicely with PBB bassist Larry Fulcher and keyboard/organist Jim Pugh.

There were, of course, a few songs from the new album, in the flowing “Wild About My Lovin'” and rhumba-flavored “You Put the Whammy on Me” (one of the songs on which Taj played maraca), as well as others from the band’s earlier projects with Taj, including the groovy, opening “Strut” and fiery-vocaled “Blues Ain’t Nothin'” from the Dancing the Blues album and the beautiful “Queen Bee” off Senor Blues.

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John Primer and friends remember one of Chicago’s great blues venues with Tribute to Theresa’s Lounge

Posted on June 17, 2026 by Mike

Chicago’s Theresa’s Lounge has been closed for some four decades now, having shuttered back in 1985, but the club still very much lives on in the hearts and memories of those who got their starts playing there, learning from the likes of such legends as Junior Wells, Willie Dixon, Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, James Cotton, Otis Rush, and many others. After beginning his career playing for tips on Maxwell Street and then getting his first gig at Theresa’s Lounge in the 1970s, guitarist John Primer was one of those next generation bluesmen who honed his chops at the renowned establishment during its three decades operating, and, on the new Tribute to Theresa’s Lounge (Blues House Productions), has invited a few old friends who also came up in the club to join him in remembering and paying tribute to it, including such now-greats as Billy Branch, Willie Buck, and Bob Stroger, to name just a few. 

While some of those friends join Primer for just one song, with, for example, Willie Buck on vocals for just Muddy Waters’ “Champagne and Reefer” and Mary Lane–the only regular woman singer at Theresa’s–providing the sweet-vocaled yet pointed lyrics of “Mary’s Song”, many others can be heard on multiple tracks throughout the album: Billy Branch joins on vocals and harmonica for a jaunty “Sugar Sweet” and then on harmonica for three other songs, including “Champagne and Reefer,” one of seven tracks on which Bob Stroger plays bass, while Carlos Johnson and John Watkins are also each featured on lead vocals and guitar for one song in addition to each playing guitar alongside Primer on at least other four tracks. Rounding out the band, Harmonica Hinds plays on the tracks that don’t include Branch, with Twist Turner and Tony Mangiullo splitting drum duties across the album and Jeff Brinkman covering bass on the half-dozen songs without Stroger.

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Harrell Davenport may be young, but he’s sure got a keen ear for the blues, as evidenced on debut album Young Rell

Posted on May 28, 2026 by Mike

The annual Blues Music Awards just took place earlier this month but we’re pretty sure we’ve already heard next year’s winner in the Best Emerging Artist Album category (captured this year by Sean McDonald for his Have Mercy!) in the soon-to-be released debut recording from rising Mississippi marvel Harrell “Young Rell” Davenport. We don’t want to get ahead of things, being that there’s still a long way–and, we’re sure, plenty of other great releases from emerging artists–to go until the next awards, but we’re just sayin’ that, for anything to eclipse Young Rell (Little Village), it’s going to need to be pretty darn special.

While we thought we’d seen and heard enough of Davenport in recent years on social media and in videos to have a pretty good sense of what to expect from the now 19-year-old on his debut, we don’t know that anyone could have guessed just how impressive this first outing from him would be, offering at various times throughout the album the sound of much more established and classic bluesmen including the likes of Bobby Rush, Johnny Rawls, T-Bone Walker, Magic Sam, and James Cotton, among others, even if his voice isn’t yet quite as seasoned. In addition to demonstrating some serious talent on vocals, guitar, and harmonica across a superb variety of tracks, Rell also proves here to be quite a songwriter, having penned all but two of the dozen tracks himself.

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Taj Mahal and Phantom Blues Band have voodoo working again on first album together in two decades

Posted on May 11, 2026 by Mike

There are few acts from whom we’ve enjoyed hearing more in the past decades than 1) the great Taj Mahal and 2) The Phantom Blues Band, a group with which Mahal is very familiar, having in fact assembled them as his own band in 1993. After making three records and a concert DVD with Taj–including two Grammy Award winners in Señor Blues and Shoutin’ in Key–along with various of its members also being featured on one or two other albums from Taj’s catalog, The Phantom Blues Band continued on and have recorded some pretty terrific albums of their own since their last offering with Taj in the early 2000s, occasionally reuniting with Taj during those years to record a single or two for other projects.

It may have taken two decades for Taj and the band to record another full album together, but this latest pairing of Mahal with the Phantom Blues Band–Time (on Taj’s own Resonatin’ Records label in conjunction with Thirty Tigers)–seems to pick right back up where these old friends left off and is every bit as entertaining as what we heard from them back around the turn of the millennium. 

In the album’s liner notes, Ruthie Foster observes: “This band doesn’t ‘back’ anybody. They lift you up, carry you, and dare you to rise higher.” Indeed, even with Taj Mahal now recognized among the musical wonders of the world, it’s clear that the musicians around him are very much his equals when the tape is rolling, with each allowed ample room to stretch out and add their own special touches, only helping to make Mahal sound that much better.

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Alvin Youngblood Hart, Guy Davis and Corey Harris fight on for, and with, acoustic blues on long-hoped-for second volume of True Blues

Posted on May 2, 2026 by Mike

It’s been more than a dozen years now since we told you about the first True Blues album, featuring solo and joint performances from such blues greats as Taj Mahal, Corey Harris, Guy Davis, Shemekia Copeland, Alvin Youngblood Hart, and harmonica ace Phil Wiggins, and then, shortly after that, our pleasure in catching three of those artists–Davis, Harris and Hart–during their tour in support of the album, with each of the bluesmen playing solo before joining for a short set together to end the night. 

Although this long-awaited follow-up to that project doesn’t include any joint performances like the first album and concert did, Fight On! True Blues Vol. 2 (Yellow Dog Records) sees those same three bluesmen reunited at least in spirit, rotating through nine solo acoustic tracks that include traditional blues numbers associated with Charley Patton, Rev. Gary Davis, and Mississippi Fred McDowell, along with several originals much in the same vein, about which Davis commented: “The fight we are waging is to keep this precious music form alive. To us, there is not so much difference between our arrangements of blues classics and our newly created work. It’s all connected to the ancestral spirit.”

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