With Father’s Day upon us, it seemed like a good day to revisit one of the very first posts on our blog, looking at the many second-generation bluesmen and women.
Here’s wishing a happy Father’s Day to the musicians — and fans — who are helping to make sure the blues live on by sharing it with their children!
Fathers and Sons (and daughters too)
Last week’s post regarding Elmore James, Jr., got me to thinking about some of the other children of blues greats who are helping to keep the genre alive through their own music. A few (in no particular order) who jump to mind:
Shemekia Copeland – daughter of Johnny “Clyde” Copeland
Bernard Allison – son of Luther Allison
Sam Carr – son of Robert Nighthawk
Lurrie Bell – son of Carey Bell
Kenny “Beady Eyes” Smith – son of Willie “Big Eyes” Smith
Big Bill Morganfield and Mud Morganfield – sons of McKinley Morganfield (Muddy Waters)
Kenny Neal – son of Raful Neal
John Lee Hooker, Jr., and Zakiya Hooker – son and daughter of John Lee Hooker
And that’s not even mentioning some of the other relatives to blues greats, the likes of Phil Guy (the late brother of Buddy), Alex Dixon (grandson of Willie Dixon), and Nick Holt (brother of Morris Holt, a.k.a. Magic Slim), to name a few. Or artists whose music and/or relative’s music often encompasses the blues, including Derek Trucks (nephew to Allman Brothers Band drummer Butch Trucks) and Doyle Bramhall II (son of Doyle Bramhall), both of whom have joined none other than Eric Clapton on tour in recent years.
Even a quick list such as this is enough to suggest that there is much truth to the phrase “blues in the blood”
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.
Even those of us seemingly afflicted by “Born Under a Bad Sign” syndrome (you know, where “if it wasn’t bad luck, [we] wouldn’t have no luck at all”) can experience a small stroke of good fortune every once in a while, such as our needing to be in Phoenix a few weekends back for a work meeting and discovering that guitarist John Primer and harmonica player Bob Corritore — who we would later learn first met one another back in the 1970s when Corritore went to see a Primer-supported Junior Wells play — happened to be performing at Corritore’s local blues club The Rhythm Room in conjunction with the pair’s sophomore album Ain’t Nothing You Can Do!, 
Having previously seen these two play together (along with a stageful of other greats including Bob Margolin, Bob Stroger, and the late pianist David Maxwell) during a 
While the resulting recording does see the multi-generational pair (who’ve since adopted the nickname of TajMo for their collaborative work) revisiting one of those songs — a slow, acoustic “Diving Duck Blues” (Sleepy John Estes) that’s so stripped down with just the duo’s guitars and vocals that you can sometimes hear Mahal breathing — as well as a few other bluesy tracks in the pleading opening original “Don’t Leave Me Here” and the bouncy country blues of “She Knows How to Rock Me” (Piano Red) that follows, TajMo (Concord Records) also offers up a number of very pleasant surprises. That includes terrific covers of both The Who’s “Squeeze Box” and John Mayer’s “Waiting on the World to Change”, along with the catchy, memorable originals “All Around the World” and “Soul”.
It was here that guitarist Monster Mike Welch (Sugar Ray and the Bluetones) and vocalist and Lead Belly descendant Mike Ledbetter (Nick Moss Band) delivered their first soulful performance together in the form of Rush’s “Right Place, Wrong Time”, and for those in attendance or who have since seen the video of that song (which can you watch below), it was clear that there was a rare bit of chemistry here. Although that particular number curiously wasn’t revisited on this resulting collaboration between Welch and Ledbetter, the soundtrack to their initial encounter obviously hasn’t been forgotten, serving as the inspiration for the title of what we hope is just the first of many studio projects between the two, in Right Place, Right Time, another gem from the good folks at Delta Groove Music.
Despite the current political mood, this spring seems to be one of much collaboration in the blues music world, with new joint projects out or on the way from the likes of Taj Mahal and Keb’ Mo’, Charlie Musselwhite and Ben Harper, Guy Davis and Fabrizio Poggi, and Michael Ledbetter and Monster Mike Welch, to name a few. We’ll have more for you on some of those other projects in the weeks ahead, but thought we’d get things started with a reunion of two bluesmen we last heard