There’s now just less than a month remaining until the 2017 edition of the annual Project Blues fundraiser about which we’ve told you in the past. They’ve had some great lineups for this event since its inception, including such names as Booker T. Jones; Keb Mo’; James Cotton; a Muddy Waters Tribute Band that featured John Primer, Bob Stroger, David Maxwell, Bob Margolin, Bob Corritore, and Kenny “Beedy Eyes” Smith; Anson Funderburgh; Diunna Greenleaf; Karen Lovely; Jonn Del Toro Richardson; Tom Holland, Sean Carney, Omar Coleman; Bernard Jenkins; the Texas Horns; and Dave Specter, among others, with many of the artists having put in repeat appearances through the event’s history.
Taking place Saturday, August 12th at Columbus’ LifeCare Alliance Center, this year’s six-hour event is looking to be another good one, featuring guitarist Ronnie Earl & his band The Broadcasters as headliners, with Margolin, the Texas Horns, Holland, and Del Toro Richardson all also making return appearances, as well as local musicians Lenny Paul Fatigati, Bobby Floyd, and Drivin’ Home.
Proceeds from the event will again benefit the Columbus Cancer Clinic and go towards helping to pay for the services the clinic provides individuals and families afflicted by cancer.
And if you purchase a general admission or premium general admission ticket through the Project Blues website before July 30th, you’ll automatically be entered in a contest that will allow selected first place winners to upgrade their tickets to front row VIP seating, second place winners to upgrade to premium general admission seating, and third place winners to receive an additional pair of general admission tickets!
There are plenty of blues men and women who never received the respect or attention they deserved, and perhaps no one was more criminally underrated than late blues guitarist and singer Phil Guy, a genuine blues brother to the legendary Buddy Guy and longtime player on the Chicago and world blues scenes. An inspiration to Robert Cray and others, Phil’s been gone for nearly nine years now, but friends and family have done their best to help keep his memory alive through an annual 
Similar to the companion CD that was available in 2012, this one includes all of the songs from the DVD except for two, a “Country Boy” from Waters that took place early in the program (prior to the Stones’ arrival) and an instrumental reprise of “Baby Please Don’t Go” from Dizz. While it’s nice to hear the complete set of tracks and be able to fully witness everything that takes place through the DVD, this recording is much too good to pass up also having in your collection, regardless of whether you have already seen or own the DVD version.
Together, they produce a delightfully entertaining baker’s dozen of songs, from the swinging, Sugar Ray & the Bluetones-like sounds of the opening “House Party” (Amos Milburn) and Clifton Chenier’s “All Night Long”, both featuring Al Falaschi on saxophone, to the stripped-down Delta blues of Robert Johnson’s “Traveling Riverside Blues” that features just Wilson on vocals and Paterson on guitar, to the light breezy ragtime of the closing original “Don’t Let Life Tether You Down”, one of three songs on which Nosek handles vocals, providing such sage advice as “don’t let money run your life, cuz’ greed leads to strife” and “so leave that Facebook alone, and your iPhone at home/ don’t let things tether you down/ don’t let rectangular screens pull you ’round on a string/ don’t let things tether you down”.
Though guitarist/singer Linsey Alexander‘s name may not be one you recognize, his sounds are ones you surely will, combining the southern soul to Midwest stylings of the likes of Otis Clay, Johnny Rawls, and O.V. Wright with the straight-up Chicago blues of Buddy Guy, Junior Wells, and Tail Dragger. You get to hear rather distinct examples of each on the first two tracks of Alexander’s latest album Two Cats — his third release for Delmark Records — in the swaying, horns-laced and smooth-vocaled opener “I’m Not Your Problem” and smoky “Where Did You Take Your Clothes Off Last Night” that follows, featuring a dragging, “Damn Right I’ve Got the Blues”-ish bass line and some gritty harmonica from Paul Hanover.
Now, Birchwood and his band are back with the follow-up to that successful debut in Pick Your Poison, an intense, often gritty all-original offering that goes a long way in continuing Birchwood’s trajectory as one of the genre’s fastest rising artists. From the thick Hill Country sounds of the opening, fife and drum-driven “Trial By Fire” and T-Model Ford-ish modern day social commentary “Police State” (“Sayin’ you got the right to remain silent/ Seems they got the right, Lord, to remain violent/ Gotta shake these shackles before it’s too late/ Or we’ll be trapped in a police state”) to the New Orleans gospel of “Even the Saved” with its heavy Robert Randolph-like lap steel (an instrument Birchwood learned from Florida neighbor, Texas bluesman Sonny Rhodes) that has all the oomph of a number from a Blues Brothers movie and a funky, swaying “Are Ya Ready?” that demonstrates Jimi Hendrix’s influence on Birchwood to the smoky jazz ballad “Lost in You”, it doesn’t matter which poison you pick, it’s all pretty potent stuff that, when put together, goes down extremely well and is highly infectious.
showtime: Kings & Queens from A to Z contains images of more than 120 mostly blues artists captured during performances that took place from Vancouver, British Columbia, to Chicago, New Orleans, and Memphis, to Tampa, to Switzerland, France, and Sandor’s hometown of Vienna, Austria. Having been taken between 2004 and 2014, the book of course includes photos of many musicians who are no longer with us, including, for example, B.B. King, David Honeyboy Edwards, Koko Taylor, Etta James, Allen Toussaint, Percy Sledge, Michael Burks, James Brown, Willie Kent, Chuck Brown, Solomon Burke, Sharon Jones, and Marva Wright, which alone makes this a worthwhile volume for any true blues fan’s coffee table.