Here are a couple more new releases for blues fans to check out. You'll be glad that you did.....there have been a lot of outstanding releases this year and the list of great new albums seems to be picking up with the hot weather approaching.
Last month, John Primer received a marker on the Mississippi Blues Trail near his birthplace in Camden, MS. I was hoping to go and hopefully get a chance to meet him, but things didn't work out. Primer has always released quality music over his years as a solo act and he's really been on a roll in recent years, with several fine albums on Blues House Records and a couple of collaborations with Bob Corritore. I've been a fan since I first heard him with Magic Slim and the Teardrops.
Like just about every musician in Chicago between 1955 and 1985, John Primer got his start and played a lot of gigs at the fabled Theresa's Lounge, which was owned and operated by Theresa Needham. Primer has assembled ten of his fellow Theresa veterans - harmonica masters Billy Branch and Harmonica Hinds, vocalists Mary Lane and Willie Buck, bass players Bob Stroger and Jeff Brinkman, drummers Twist Turner and Tony Mangiullo, and fellow guitarists Carlos Johnson and John Watkins for Tribute to Theresa's Lounge (Blue House Productions).
The thirteen songs on the album consist of four Primer originals written for the occasion paying tribute to Ms. Needham and reflecting on his time there and the importance of keeping the blues alive for future generations. The remainder of the songs are tunes that would be easily recognized by those who were a part of the audience on a given night at Theresa's and these tunes will be recognized by most blues fans, too. The performances are all great (all of the musicians are in their 70's, 80's and 90's and are still making vital contributions to the music) and it's a wonderful throwback to the way things used to be in Chicago and the blues world in general. It's hard to imagine a blues fan not wanting to hear this disc. Add this one to your must-hear list.
I used to regularly attend the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival in the late 80's and early 90's, but have only attended once since Katrina, in 2015. One of the thrills of going each year was discovering not only the new music being played, but the classic tunes that were part of the city's musical history. Well, folks......The Joe Krown Trio + 1 have recaptured that feeling for me with their latest release, Qualified (Sledgehammer Blues).
I first encountered keyboardist extraordinaire Krown as part of Luther "Guitar Junior" Johnson's band on a couple of albums, then several of Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown's albums, plus three collaborative efforts with guitarist Walter "Wolfman" Washington and drummer Russell Batiste, Jr. that mixed blues, jazz, and soul in equal measures. For this release, Krown and his trio (Casandra Faulconer - bass, Eric Boliver - drums) are joined by singer/guitarist Papa Mali, hence the "Trio + 1" tag.
Qualified includes eleven tracks, two originals by Papa Mali and one by Krown, plus covers of eight classic Crescent City tunes associated with Allen Toussaint, Professor Longhair, James Booker, and Dr. John that will have fingers snapping, toes tapping, and booties shaking. There's also a special appearance by Cyril Neville who delivers a masterful vocal on a fresh take of Toussaint's "Fortune Teller." Papa Mali does a fine job on vocals throughout and delivers the guitar goods on a couple of other tracks, while Krown and the Trio have a lot of fun playing these tunes. Joe Krown's albums are always a lot of fun, paying tribute to the past while continuing to create new music that carries the traditions onward, and this one is no exception.
Looking back quite a few years for our "Blast from the Past" pick, I highly recommend Alligator Records' second-ever release in 1973, Big Walter Horton with Carey Bell. We previously looked at the life of Big Walter Horton on the blog a little over ten years ago after a tribute album was released. Horton was one of the legends of the harmonica and he made it on our Blues Mount Rushmore list of harmonica players. He was not that well known and never really fronted his own band because he was very shy and quiet, but he backed a host of blues artists like Robert Johnson, Johnny Shines, Homesick James, Jimmy Rogers, Eddie Taylor, Honeyboy Edwards, Otis Rush, and later was a part of Willie Dixon's Blues All Stars, and made an appearance in the first Blues Brothers film during the Maxwell Street scene.
Horton made recordings of his own for Chess Records and Sun Records (leased to Modern/RPM Records) in the late 40's and became one of Chess Records' go-to harp players for various sessions. He also recorded the classic instrumental for Sun Records known as "Easy," and also recorded for Cobra, Jewel, and States Records. His harp can be heard on many Chicago blues classics like Jimmy Rogers' "Walking By Myself," Otis Rush's "I Can't Quit You Baby," and Johnny Shines' "Evening Sun." He also appeared on the Chicago/The Blues/Today series on Vanguard Records before recording this wonderful album with his protege Carey Bell.
By the time, this session was recorded, Bell was not really a protege.....he had already recorded a few times himself. There are eleven tracks here and the two harp masters are backed by the legendary Eddie Taylor on guitar, Joe Harper (who played bass on Bell's albums), and Chicago South Side drummer Frank Swan. Horton and Bell work so well together and to me, it feels like Horton was really inspired on these tracks, both instrumentally and vocally. The interplay with Bell really seems to bring out the best in his performance. In Bruce Iglauer’s book, he tells about Walter’s reluctance to play and how Bell would gently encourage him to play, which really brought him out. Big Walter Horton has always been one of my favorite harmonica players and this album is my favorite of his releases. Thankfully, he was able to record a few more before he passed away in 1981.
Looking at few new ones that are well worth any blues fan's time, plus a great one you might have missed from a few years back. Here we go......
Two of my favorite blues and soul vocalists are Johnny Rawls and Dave Keller. I've been a big fan of Rawls since his Rawls & Luckett release on Rooster Blues in the early 90's (Can't Sleep at Night) and Keller since his appearance as a guest vocalist on Ronnie Earl's Living in the Light release on Stony Plain in 2009. Both men have recorded prolifically over the past 15 - 20 years and they've shared the stage many times over the years.
Thank goodness they finally decided to make an album together, and what an album it is! Tribute to Soul (Third Street Cigar Records) is an album any blues or soul music fan should have in their collection. Rawls and Keller have been friends for over 15 years and have toured together several times across the U.S,, but this is their first collaborative effort.
The song list pays tribute to many of Rawls' mentors, so there are tunes associated with Joe Tex, James Carr, Otis Clay, Eddie Floyd, Z.Z. Hill, Tommy Tate, O.V. Wright, Benny Lattimore, Little Johnny Taylor, Willie Hightower, and Jimmy Hughes. Some of the songs will be familiar to blues and soul fans, but there are several seldom-heard treasures that will become new favorite songs to many listeners. Rawls and Keller are both wonderful and Keller's band provides stellar support, with Keller on lead guitar throughout. I can't tell you how excited I was to get this CD. This is a long overdue collaboration and, hopefully, one that might reoccur from time to time in the future.
Sadly, there's no videos of the songs yet available on YouTube, but here's a Rawls/Keller combo from Keller's 2020 duet album What You Give - Duets (another great release) that will give you an idea of what to expect.
Friday Blues Fix interviewed Zac Harmon way back in 2012 and that Ten Questions With....can be seen here. He got his start in Jackson, MS on Farish Street, playing with local legends like Dorothy Moore, Sam Myers, and Z.Z. Hill before moving to Los Angeles in the 80's, where he worked as a musician, writer, and producer for the O'Jays, the Whispers, Karyn White, Alexander O'Neal, and Black Uhuru.
Despite his success, he longed to return to his roots, so he started recording the blues in the early 2000's. His band won the I.B.C.'s Best Unsigned Band award and I first caught up with him with his subsequent release, The Blues According to Zachariah, which won the 2006 Blues Music Award for Best New Artist Debut. He's been pretty prolific since that time, cutting albums for a host of labels including Blind Pig and Catfood Records.
His most recent release is Zac Harmon & The Drive Live, which was recorded at various shows in the U.S. and Europe and effectively captures Harmon and the band's energetic stage presence. Most of the songs are taken from Harmon's earlier releases, but several of them are from his earlier releases that blues fans might have missed the first time around. There are also a couple of crowd pleasers from his most recent releases as well. Harmon is in good voice and the band provides excellent support throughout the set. If you haven't experienced the superb blues and soul artistry of Zac Harmon, this is a fantastic place to get on board.
It always puts a hop in my step when I get a new album from the Sauce Boss. Also known as Bill Wharton, the Sauce Boss is a most interesting character. He's a master guitarist and his original tunes are always entertaining. His website EPK describes him as "a musician, a chef, a raconteur, and purveyor of gourmet hot sauce (Liquid Summer Datil Pepper Hot Sauce), a songwriter, and a standup comedian.”
During his shows, he makes a pot of gumbo on stage during his performance (the recipe is on his website) and serves gumbo to the audience at the end of his gig. He's also the subject of the Jimmy Buffett song "I Will Play For Gumbo" and he's appeared in Living Blues, GQ, and Gourmet magazines, more than likely the only person ever to appear in all three.
The Sauce Boss' latest release is With Extra Sauce. The "extra sauce" consists of guitarist Neal Goree, bassist Kendrick Jacobs, and drummer Brett Cook, along with string arrangements that accompany a couple of the songs, eight of which are Sauce Boss originals. He plays marvelous slide guitar throughout (on one track, he plays a three-string cigar box guitar in a 9" cast iron frying pan), and his own songs are always a lot of fun. The two cover tunes are classics, but the Sauce Boss and friends put a fresh coat of paint on both. What a fun album! You can also hear more about the Sauce Boss via his memoir The Live and Times of Blind Boy Billy, which includes his story, along with songs and recipes.
Let's look back at a great release that you might have missed first time around....Johnny Heartsman'sThe Touch. Apparently, a lot of folks may have missed it. For some reason, I missed it as well. Heartsman played guitar, keyboards, and flute and played on many recordings in the San Francisco Bay area in the 50's and 60's while playing with Jimmy McCracklin, Sugar Pie DeSanto, Big Mama Thornton, Al King (check out his guitar on King's Atlantic single "Reconsider Baby"), Jimmy Wilson, Joe Simon, and Johnny Fuller. He had a hit of his own in 1957 with "Johnny's House Party (Parts 1 and 2)," on Music City Records which made it to #13 on the Billboard R&B chart.
Heartsman moved between blues and R&B in the 60's and 70's before settling into the blues groove in the late 80', when he released a solo album, Sacramento, that was well-received. In 1991, he recorded The Touch for Alligator with Dick Shurman serving as producer. When I interviewed Shurman years ago, he cited Heartsman as his favorite all-time blues musician. The album is a seamless mix of blues, soul, and jazz, probably not as much "Genuine Houserockin' Music" as normally associated with Alligator and that might have been some of the problem with it's popularity, or lack thereof.
It is a highly entertaining album that finds Heartsman on guitar, keyboards, and flute while providing solid vocals. There are some tracks that swing really well and I really like his work on the keys, which have a B3 flavor to them. While I've never really associated the flute with the blues, the tracks on which he plays flute work really well. I can remember Alligator head man Bruce Iglauer expressing his disappointment at the sales of The Touch in one of his Living Blues letters and I have to agree....it really deserved better. I wish I had picked it up back in the early 90's, but I'm glad to have it now and most blues fans will certainly enjoy it.
Several years ago, I got a Facebook friend request from a young guy in Central Mississippi named Harrell Davenport. Now I wasn't sure who he was at the time, so I checked his profile and saw that he was 15 years old and a big blues fans, which is a rarity in this day and time, at least around here. I accepted his friend request and soon, we began corresponding. He was already pretty proficient on guitar and harmonica and would share videos of him playing and singing on Facebook.
The coolest thing about this young man was that his musical tastes went beyond blues. While we discussed various blues artists like Sonny Boy Williamson I and Elmore James, he also knew quite a bit about other artists in jazz and even reggae. He was pretty well-read and willing to dig deeper into the music all the way back to the roots, which is pretty remarkable for any blues fan, much less a 15 year old blues fan.
It was really great to see blues musicians commenting on his Facebook videos, offering praise, advice, and encouragement. That's one of the great things about the blues world......all of the musicians that I've encountered have always been a pleasure to deal with. They are very nice and giving to their fans and to their fellow musicians, and it made my heart feel good to see how they worked with Harrell Davenport.
Over the past couple of years, Davenport has been playing some of the blues festivals around the country, winning acclaim for his performances and, really, he sounds like he's been doing this a whole lot longer than he's actually been around. He performs with an understated confidence, energy, and enthusiasm and the fans really respond to his music.
Over the past year, he's released several fine singles (one of which we reviewed here back in November) and they have also been well-received. June 5th will mark the release of his first full-length album, Young Rell, on Little Village Records. I will be reviewing it in depth in the June issue of Blues Bytes, but here's a capsule summary.....
The young man has learned his lessons well. The twelve tracks include ten originals that range from Chicago blues and Delta blues to southern soul. His songwriting is quite impressive, drawing from experiences in his own life and he digs deep into his own soul for some of these numbers. His harmonica playing and guitar work (he plays lead on seven tracks, Andersen on four) are also first rate and his vocals are also strong. This is a powerful debut release from a young blues artist who offers further proof that the blues are alive and well and should be for a long time.
My other review this week is a book review. Many blues fans are familiar with Robert Mugge, the filmmaker who's responsible for some of the best documentaries on blues, jazz, Louisiana music, gospel and soul in the past five decades. Among those works are Deep Blues, Last of the Mississippi Juke, Pride and Joy: The Story of Alligator Records, Hellhounds on My Trail: The Afterlife of Robert Johnson, Blues Breaks, Blues Divas, A Night at Club Ebony, Deep Sea Blues, All Jams on Deck, Big Shoes: Walking and Talking the Blues, Deep Roots, The Art and Music of Bill Steber and Friends, and Elvin Bishop's Raisin' Hell Revue. Mugge has also done films on Sun Ra, Sonny Rollins, and the formidable Creole and Zydeco music scenes in Louisiana, plus the moving New Orleans Music in Exile, about the city's musicians and music scene recovering from the double whammy of Hurricane Katrina and Rita in 2005.
Mugge's latest book is Quotes from the Road: The Wit and Wisdom of American Musicians (The Sager Group), which features excerpts from 150 of the interviews that he conducted during the making of his films. Many of the discussions are items that were not heard in the films, so there's lots of new info if you've seen the films already. The book is divided into 25 chapters, each addressing a different theme, such as beginnings, family traditions, struggles with recording and touring, musical styles and techniques, favorite performances and venues, and songwriting. Other topics discussed include racism, politics, and dealing with adversity in daily life and with their careers.
All of the subjects are worth reading about, but blues fans will enjoy the interviews with Lonnie
Brooks and his son Ronnie, Lil' Ed Williams, Koko Taylor, Katie
Webster, Marcia Ball, Robert Lockwood Jr., Roy Rogers, Willie Coffee
(friend of Robert Johnson), Vasti Jackson, Chris Thomas King, Bobby
Rush, Little Milton, Willie King, Deborah Coleman, Denise LaSalle,
Odetta, Ann Peebles, Irma Thomas, Mavis Staples, Otis Clay, Tommy
Castro, Kim Wilson, Buckwheat Zydeco, Elvin Bishop, Ted Drozdowski,
R.L. Hulsman, Larry McCray, Coco Montoya, Lee Oskar, Jimmy Thackery,
Rev. Billy C. Wirtz, and other contributors. The interviews with Al Green, Willie Mitchell, Sun Ra and Sonny Rollins are also fascinating, along with artists like Boozoo Chavis, John Delafose, Beau Jocque, Nathan Williams Sr. and Jr., Corey Ledet, Rosie Ledet, Lawrence "Black" and Sean Ardoin, and Major Handy, and the entire chapter on recovering from Katrina is recommended reading.
Mugge always brings the best out of his interview subjects. They always feel so comfortable talking to him and it actually feels like these artists are talking directly to you. I have to admit that I read this book in only a few sittings. It was that interesting and compelling. If you are a fan of these styles of music, then you will probably find yourself enthralled with its contents as well.
For this week's oldie but goodie, let's check out U.P. Wilson. Many years ago on this blog, I devoted a post to the life and music of the Texas Tornado way back in 2011. However, I had not delved very deeply into his non-JSP Records catalog. I recently began listening to some of those recordings and the first one I picked up was On My Way (Fedora Records).
Fedora released some pretty good recordings over ten year-plus period from 1997 to around 2008, and this release from Wilson was issued around 1999 and was taken from an LP Wilson released on the European label Red Lightnin' Records in 1988. The first ten tracks are from the original album with the last two tracks coming from a live appearance, also from 1988.
When I first heard U.P. Wilson, I was not prepared for his intensity and his energy. I ended up picking up all of his JSP recordings....he was well represented by them with five albums, a "best of", and appearances on a few compilation discs. He passed away in 2004, but the label also released a DVD of one of his performances in the UK, which showed that he was a master showman on stage just like he was on his recordings.
On My Way is a few years before his JSP recordings and it is raw and ragged, with a mix of covers (done in the distinctive U.P. Wilson style) and lots of his fierce and fiery fretwork. I remember the cover of his first JSP release had a blurb stating that he was one of Stevie Ray Vaughan's favorite guitarists and listening to On My Way, it's easy to understand why. Any of Wilson's releases are worth a listen, but this is a good one to start with if you can find it.
Your humble correspondent is traveling the next few days, so this post will be a quick one. Please come back next week for more blues that you can use. In the meantime, here's a neat little album that slide guitar fans might dig that you might have missed some thirty years ago, like I did.
A few years back, I started listening to some albums from the Testament Records catalog. Testament was founded in 1963 by writer Pete Welding, who edited Down Beat magazine. The label released a variety of roots music.....blues, gospel, country, and jazz until it was shut down in 1977. Hightone Records acquired the catalog in the mid 90's and re-released nearly every album on CD, adding a few new compilations along the way.
There are a lot of fantastic recordings on Testament from artists like Big Joe Williams, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Johnny Shines, Otis Spann, J.B. Hutto, Robert Nighthawk, and several excellent compilations. One that was intended for release before Testament closed up shop was Bottleneck Blues, which consists of 22 recordings, some of them field recordings made by Welding and blues scholar David Evans, who contributes the extensive liner notes for the CD.
The album showcases a variety of bottleneck guitar styles and features a few tracks from Big Joe Williams, Nighthawk, McDowell, Hutton, Shines, John Littlejohn, Napoleon Strickland (who played a one-string "jitterbug" mounted on a wall), and Honeyboy Edwards. Some other standouts include Blind Connie Williams, and Mott Willis, who played slide with a knife, adding a bit of Hawaiian style to his slide playing.
If you want to dig deeper into traditional blues, especially slide guitar blues, Bottleneck Blues can still be easily found on Amazon or Discogs and it well worth your time. I'm glad that Hightone made the decision to release it. In fact, any of the Testament Records catalog is a pleasure to listen to and they're relatively easy to track down.
This week, I've been busy trying to finish up my reviews for the May issue of Blues Bytes, which should be out sometime next week, so in the meantime let's take a look at an older album that you might have missed the first time around.....
I've been a fan of Otis Rush almost as long as I've been listening to the blues. He was born in Neshoba County, Mississippi, around 15 - 20 miles north of where I live, so that played a role, but it was his combination of guitar and vocals really grabbed me upon hearing his Hightone Records release, Right Place, Wrong Time back in the late 80's. Later on, I picked up his live release from Blind Pig, Tops, and not long after that, I found his tracks on the Chicago! The Blues! Today! anthology from Vanguard Records and the Chess collection of early 60's Rush and Albert King recordings, Door To Door.
I also managed to round up a two volume set from Paula Records that collected Rush's early sides with Cobra Records, recorded in 1956 - 1958. As allmusic.com puts it....."If Rush had never recorded another note, his legendary status would remain intact based solely on these recordings." These tracks were later reissued as The Classic Cobra Recordings 1956 - 1958 by Varese Sarabande in 2000 and included the A- and B- sides of all of Rush's Cobra singles issued, plus alternate takes, all released with slightly improved sound from the Paula release, which was released in 1991.
Over time, I managed to fill in most of Rush's recordings that followed, including his two studio releases in 1994 and 1998, his Cotillion/Atlantic, Delmark and Evidence releases, and the controversial Alligator Records release originally released in Europe in the late 70's (Alligator overdubbed keyboards from Lucky Peterson in hopes of giving it a full, more modern sound). There were also a few live releases during the 90's and early 00's, as well, including a pair of DVDs.
However, I had difficulty tracking down his two sides recorded for Duke Records in 1962. Duke signed him and just sat on him, only recording one single for release at the time....I've always assumed that the label signed him, basically to sit on him where he wouldn't be able to cut any new records to compete with their other artists.
The A-side of that single, "Homework," appeared on a Duke Records compilation in the 90's, but that was it, until I discovered another winning CD from the UK label Jasmine a couple of years back. I Won't Be Worried No More - Otis Rush's Chicago Blues 1956 - 1962 captures 27 tracks from Rush's Cobra, Chess, and Duke recordings, and it should be required listening for anyone who digs Chicago blues.
Rush really had buzzard luck as far as recording. His sides for Cobra generated several tracks that charted on the R&B charts, and he was backed by some of the future legends of the blues, such as Willie Dixon, Lafayette Leake, Odie Payne, Jody Williams, Wayne Bennett, Little Walter, Little Brother Montgomery, Fred Below, and Ike Turner.
However, this is where the bad luck kicked in.......Cobra Records, which released Rush, Buddy Guy, and Magic Sam's first recordings, folded in 1958 due to money woes. Rush's Cobra output included several tunes that are considered blues standards today, including "Double Trouble," "My Love Will Never Die," "Three Times A Fool," "Keep On Loving Me Baby," and "All Your Love (I Miss Loving)." That's about as good a run as you can ask for in the blues world. All of those tracks are on this collection, along with most of his other Cobra output.....there are a couple missing, but they're hardly noticeable.
Rush signed with Chess Records in 1960, where that label recorded six sides, but only released two singles, one of which was a great one - "So Many Roads, So Many Trains." This collection included all six of Rush's sides, the same ones collected on the Door To Door album from 1970, plus two additional tracks that had only appeared on an LP for Blue Light Records. The Duke single, "Homework," is also included along with it's B-side, "I Have To Laugh."
Rush remained active until 2004, when he suffered a stroke. I got to see him in 2009, when the state of Mississippi dedicated a blues marker for Rush in his hometown of Philadelphia, MS. He was extremely moved by the honor as he sat with friends and family for the unveiling. He passed away in 2018 on September 29. His guitar work has inspired so many later guitarists and many of his songs have been recorded by other blues and rock artists.
Any of Otis Rush's recordings are worth a listen, but I Won't Be Worried No More - Otis Rush's Chicago Blues 1956 - 1962 captures his first eight years as a recording artist in one sitting and those tracks serve as an excellent introduction to not just Chicago blues, but to one of the genre's masters.
It's time once again for another edition of Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, and Something Blue. This makes our 24nd edition. For a long time, this was one of our favorite themes and it dates back to FBF's early days as a weekly email sent to co-workers. It serves as a great way to introduce new and old tunes to new and old blues fans.
For those unfamiliar with the format, we offer a song from the early days of the blues (Something Old), a song from a recent blues artist (Something New), a blues artist covering a rock song or vice versa (Something Borrowed), and finally, someone who epitomizes the blues.....usually a legendary artist (Something Blue). Here we go......
For Something Old, let's go way back to 1930 for "Everybody Oughta Make A Change," by Sleepy John Estes. I first heard this tune recorded by Eric Clapton on his Money & Cigarettes album in the early 80's. Born in Tennessee in 1899, he and his family moved to Brownsville when he was a teen. He lost his right eye soon after when a friend hit him with a rock. He started performing at 19 at parties and picnics while working in the fields during the day. He was usually accompanied by harmonica player Hammie Nixon and James "Yank" Rachell, who played guitar and mandolin. He played with both of these musicians for over 50 years.
His recording career, at least his first one began in 1929 and recorded tracks like "Drop Down Mama," "Milk Cow Blues" (a.k.a "Leaving Trunk"), and "Someday Baby Blues." He recorded for Decca Records and Bluebird Records, and later returned to record in the early 50's for Sun Records unsuccessfully. He was rediscovered by Bob Koester and Sam Charters in 1962, completely blind by then and destitute. He appeared in Charters' move The Blues and later recorded for Koester's Delmark Records.
Although he was in his late 20's/early 30's when he recorded his first sides, he sounded like an older man when he sang. A lot of the blues revivalists searching for artists in the early 60's sort of wrote him off because they figured he was dead, but he was very much alive and his later recordings were as powerful as his early recordings. I guess he grew into his voice. He passed away in 1977 from a stroke, but he was a big influence on artists like Robert Plant, Bob Dylan, and Taj Mahal. His early recordings and later recordings are uniformly fine, so if you're not familiar with him, check him out.
For Something New, how about a track from one of the young lions of the blues scene, 27 year old D.K. Harrell from Ruston, Louisiana. An amazing guitarist and singer, Harrell sang along to B.B. King when he first heard him at age two. He sang in his church as a boy, but continued to follow the blues. After he got his first guitar at age 12, he was writing songs by 16. He was inspired by King and you can hear a lot of him in his music, the tone of his guitar and his vocals. His first paying gig was at the B.B. King Symposium at Indianola, MS, where he got to play "The Thrill Is Gone," backed by King's band.
Harrell also is influenced by Albert King, Freddie King, Muddy Water and other and he has used a little bit of their style forging a distinctive style of his own. He release the excellent album The Right Man on Little Village Records in 2023 and it won acclaim from blues fans all over. Last year, he signed with Alligator and released Talkin' Heavy, which improved on his first release and made many Top Ten lists last year (including FBF's). Blues fans should love D.K. Harrell's music, which is a mix of traditional and contemporary blues. Here's "Grown Now," a single from Talkin' Heavy.
For Something Borrowed, let's stay close to the present time with a track from the B.B. King's Blues Summit 100 collection compiled by Joe Bonamassa. If you haven't heard this set and you're a blues fan, you are missing out. This is one of the best tribute albums I've heard because it honors its subject, is fairly reverential, and it seems like the participants are having a blast with the opportunity to acknowledge one of the true legends of the blues.
Our selected track is performed by jazz guitar legend George Benson, who actually doesn't play guitar on the track (Bonamassa and Josh Smith do a wonderful job in that capacity), but he turns in a marvelous vocal performance. Benson was one of my first guitar heroes and the reason that I started my long journey to listening to the blues via his excellent guitar/vocal recordings throughout the 70's. I got into jazz before I moved to the blues and his guitar work was a huge reason why.
Benson, at 83, is still playing in the states, but stepped back from international touring in 2024, having released an album of standards in 2024 that he originally started recorded in the late 80's, but completed it with his record label's encouragement. Joe Bonamassa continues to be incredibly prolific with his own recordings, but even more important is his work in bringing under-recorded blues artists back, such as Larry McCray, Eric Gales, Dion, and Jimmy Hall, with new releases on his Keeping The Blues Alive Records.
For Something Blue, here's the harmonica legend James Cotton. Cotton was born in Tunica, MS and was mentored on the harp by Sonny Boy Williamson (Rice Miller version) after losing his parents at a very young age. When Williamson left Cotton to live with his wife in Milwaukee, he just gave his band to Cotton, still very young, and the band fell apart. He started playing harmonica in Howlin' Wolf's band in the early 50's, also recording his own single for Sun Records, "Cotton Crop Blues," in 1952.
He began playing in Muddy Waters' band in the mid 50's, though Little Walter played harp on most of Waters' recordings. By 1957, Walter and Cotton were alternating on the recording sessions. He formed his own band in the mid 60's with Otis Spann on piano, and they performed both blues and R&B tunes, adding a horn section for some tunes. Cotton was one of the few blues artists who really crossed over to the rock audience during this time, recording with Buddha Records and appearing at numerous festivals.
In the 80's, he recorded for Alligator Records, where this track comes from, a dynamite version of Bobby "Blue" Bland's "Ain't Doin' Too Bad." The album this track comes from, High Compression, was a cool album that was part traditional and part contemporary. Incidentally, Bland and Cotton found out that they were half-brothers shortly before Bland passed away. There's a great documentary about Cotton, Bonnie Blue: James Cotton's Life in the Blues, which can be seen on Tubi TV that you should check out if you're a fan of blues harp. Cotton remained active, despite losing his voice due to throat cancer, until shortly before his death in 2017. Even though he couldn't sing anymore, he could still blow the back off a harmonica.
When I started this blog in February of 2010, I honestly never figured I'd still be working on it sixteen years and 3 months later. I never even considered that we might reach 500 posts, or 1,000,000 views (we passed that number a couple of weeks ago), but here we are.
I don't really have a big anniversary post planned or anything...... just taking a look back at how Friday Blues Fix came to be.
The real origin of the blog was actually a group email from work. Around 2007 or 2008, I started sending a audio file or two to a couple of my co-workers who also enjoyed the blues on Friday mornings. Word got around and others asked to be included to the list, and soon I was including people who didn't work with me, so it got to be a pretty good-sized list of folks.
Sometime, along the way, I started including little information tidbits about the songs and the artists responsible. Since I listened to the blues a lot and read about the blues a lot, it wasn't that big a deal....I could usually knock an email out in a few minutes and everyone seemed to enjoy the information I was providing.
Near the end of 2009, I got an email from one of my bosses (who was on the Friday Blues Fix email list) saying that IT was complaining about file sizes being sent, which is kind of funny now, given the size files that go through emails these days, so he told me that I needed to stop sending them after the one that I had worked on for that Friday. At that point, the Friday Blues Fix email group concluded with little fanfare and hubbub.
While I was doing the emails, one of my co-workers, Brent Parks, said that I should consider starting a blog about the blues. He had started a few websites about different subjects, one of them being about the blues (he was a fan, too), and he thought it might be fun for me to try. For starters, he just attached some of my CD reviews from Blues Bytes and that was pretty cool. For kicks, I decided to do a Ten Questions with Larry Garner, who I had been corresponding with via email, and he included that on his site. I later recycled it as one of FBF's earliest posts back in 2010.
Also for kicks, we sat down and worked up a Friday Blues Fix ezine of sorts which included reviews, interviews, and blues news items. We never got past setting it up as a Word document prototype at the time and I kick myself for not keeping a copy of it because it would have been neat to see some 16 or 17 years later, but I haven't been able to track it down.
First FBF post - February 12, 2010
That's about as far as we got for a little while until one weekend early in 2010, I finally decided that I'd give it a try. I got into Blogger and started puttering around with a site, doing a lot of trial and error until I had it like I wanted it. In setting up a blog, I wanted to have something in place that (1) I enjoyed doing and (2) would be a solid source of information for both old blues fans and new ones.
One of the things that really helped me in doing the blog was that I had been listening to the blues faithfully for almost twenty-five years, and by that time I had covered a lot of ground. As I've said, I really enjoyed The Blues Brothers and the music that they played, so they led me to a lot of music that I'd never heard before. I think they led a lot of blues fans to the music during that period.
I had started leaning more into the soul, R&B, and blues-rock veins with Stax soul, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eric Clapton, Carlos Santana, and the Fabulous Thunderbirds after music started becoming more computerized and sterile in the mid 80's, but I've always liked to trace things back to their beginnings, so I managed to unearth a lot of great blues from the 50's, 60's, and 70's, and later on from the 20's, 30's, and 40's.
I had also read whatever I could find about the blues......as I've said many times, Peter Guralnick, Robert Palmer, Stanley Booth, Bill Ferris, Robert Gordon, Dick Waterman, and many other authors were indispensable sources of information for me.
Thanks to Bill Steber for allowing me to use his pictures for the blog header.
Another source who provided me with a lot of information many years earlier was a man from Houston named Jim Shortt. I met Jim on the old Blues Access message board - Blues Access was an excellent blues magazine that, with Living Blues, provided me with a lot of information about old and new artists and that message board was just wonderful to a relatively new listener. At the time, I was listening to a lot of Excello blues and that's how Jim and I connected. Jim knew a lot of the folks that I listened to and he also introduced me to the world of Duke and Peacock Records. He knew many of the artists who recorded on those sessions and he had endless stories about those guys and many others. I had started writing album reviews for Blues Bytes in 1999 and he was a big help to me in learning how to write reviews. We also exchanged mix CDs back and forth of our favorite artists (his were much cooler than mine).
Unfortunately, Jim passed away in 2008, a year or so before I decided to start this blog. I'd like to think that he would have probably contributed a few posts himself in the early years, like my friend Joe Goff, who I met through work. He contributed a couple of posts about B.B. King and Robert Nighthawk in the blog's early years. Sadly, I've lost track of Joe because he changed jobs several years ago, but I know he's still listening to the blues somewhere in a big way and I'd welcome any additional posts he'd like to contribute.
It was always a lot of fun to try and figure out what to write about each week. There was so much material to work with. Friday Blues Fix managed to publish every Friday for over seven years, until things just got too hectic in my everyday life. We had taken on some additional family responsibilities at home that took a lot of extra attention and that extended into some other family issues that developed along the way, so that, with work responsibilities took up most of my blogging time. I managed to crank out a few posts over the years and I was able to continue writing reviews for Blues Bytes during my spare time, so I wasn't completely away.
After a few fits and starts over the last couple of years, I'm hopeful that Friday Blues Fix is finally settling back into a groove. I appreciate those visitors who have stuck around through all the fits and starts, and welcome any new visitors to the blog who have showed up in recent months. I know that the blog is sort of an archaic way to communicate these days, but hey, I still listen to CDs so I'm sure there are others out there who still like to do things "the old way." Please be patient with us and stick around.....there's more to come, I promise.
Also, thanks to everyone who helped guide me into and through this process for their invaluable advice, suggestions, criticisms, and praise.
This week, FBF offers a bit of news and a couple of reviews for blues fans to check out........
A few months ago, some videos showed up on YouTube and few people were even aware of it. Ted Giola wrote about them on his Substack page, which attracted a lot more attention. According to Giola, sound restorer Nick Dellow managed to get his hands on a shellac master "test pressing" of Robert Johnson. The disk was made in 1940 from the original metal parts by George Avakian, a young producer at Columbia Records who was a big jazz and blues fan. They were left forgotten in Columbia's storage facility at Bridgeport, Connecticut. The YouTube video that Giola was describing was Take 2 of "Cross Road Blues," recorded by Johnson in San Antonio in 1936 (Take 1 was the track that was released). Check it out below. The sound quality is just amazing!
Here's Take 1 of "Come On In My Kitchen," also recorded by Johnson at San Antonio in 1936....Take 2 was the released take. Again, the sound quality is just amazing. The original pressings that most blues fans have on CD or LP are pretty clear, considering their age, but these really bring out the qualities of Johnson's guitar work and vocals even more. I'm hopeful that there are more of these sides to be heard and that Dellow will share them. You can check out his YouTube page for more even more classic blues recordings remastered and updated.
Last weekend, we were able to catch Tab Benoit and Samantha Fish during their recent visit to the MSU Riley Center in Meridian, MS. Both did a good job, but I would give the edge to Ms. Fish. They both had a great rapport with the audience, but I think her guitar work was more dynamic and daring and she had a bit more variation in her set list. A lot of folks I talked to felt differently about it (I think this was many of the attendees' first exposure to Samantha Fish), but, hey, that's the way it goes.
Here are a couple of Friday Blues Picks for you to check out.....
Rick Vito - Slidemaster (MoMojo Records): I've heard several of Vito's solo releases.....he's been a member of Fleetwood Mac and Mick Fleetwood's Blues Band and played on numerous sessions with Bonnie Raitt, John Mayall, John Fogerty, Christine McVie, Leon Russell, Boz Scaggs, Bob Segar (that's his slide guitar solo on "Like A Rock"), and many others. Slidemaster is an all-instrumental album and it features new songs by Vito mixed with some older tunes that he remixed and remastered, plus several choice covers, including two by Fleetwood Mac founding member Peter Green. Vito covers a lot of ground on these tracks, all of which are firmly rooted in the blues. His slide work is beautiful, almost singing on several tracks, and the two Green covers may send blues fans unfamiliar with the early edition of the band scrambling for their recordings. Definitely a must-listen for fans of guitar, especially slide guitar.
Eliza Neals - Thunder In The House (E-H Records): Neals is a Detroit-based vocalist with an appropriately soulful delivery. She is also a great songwriter, having learned at the feet of the legendary Motown songwriter Barrett Strong. I've listened to her last seven releases and she continues to improve with each subsequent album. This is her strongest effort to date....she co-produced with Michael Puwal, who provides superb guitar work throughout the album, and she also provides all the vocals on the disc, lead and background, with effective and impressive results. With great songs and powerful vocals, plus a dynamic stage presence, Eliza Neals deserves to be heard by blues fans. She's a real talent and this is an album that blues and blues-rock fans will enjoy.
Last weekend, my brother and I were able to catch a couple of young blues stars in action at a venue 25 miles away. I haven't gotten to see a lot of live shows in the last ten years due to events that unavoidable, but things have gotten better in recent years. There have been some great shows at the MSU Riley Center in Meridian, MS, which is about thirty miles from home, and the Ellis Theater in Philadelphia, MS, which is about 25 miles away.
The Ellis was opened in 1926 as a movie theatre until the late 50's and later repurposed for live performances. It was revitalized and reopened in 2022 as part of Philadelphia native Marty Stuart's Congress of Country Music. It has hosted a variety of live acts during that time in the country and blues genres....one of the first acts to play the Ellis was the North Mississippi Allstars and my wife and I saw Dorothy Moore there a couple of years ago.
Last weekend the Ellis hosted Christone "Kingfish" Ingram, one of the rising stars of the blues. About 12-15 years ago, my good friend Joe (who wrote a few posts here in the blog's early years) sent me a video one Monday morning. He had traveled up to Clarksdale and had checked out the blues at Ground Zero. The email said, "This guy is supposed to be 13 years old......unbelievable!! They call him Kingfish." The video, which I can't find now, just blew me away. I mean, he looked like a pre-teenager up there, but he was playing guitar like a seasoned vet.
It's been really neat to watch this young man develop and show up on television and videos across YouTube. His albums for Alligator were great, especially the Live in London release in 2023, mainly because it showed him in his natural element, live performance. In September of last year, he released Hard Road on his own Red Zero label (FBF reviewed it last fall) and I think it was his best studio release yet.
So, yeah, I was a little excited for the opportunity to see Kingfish in a live setting. I've heard so many stories about him over the years that I grabbed up tickets the day that they went on sale back in January. At the time, I didn't realize he would have anyone opening for him. Last week, they announced that Mathias Lattin would be opening, which excited me even more.
(Note: While I do take photos....all of the ones below......I don't usually record the music to share because #1 the sound is usually distorted, so you can't really hear it, #2 I'd rather hear it and experience it first-hand instead of playing it back later, and #3 because I feel kind of guilty doing it..... I guess that goes back to the What's Happening TV episode where Rerun tried to illegally record the Doobie Brothers' concert 😉)
The Houston-born Lattin won the 2023 International Blues Challenge and Best Guitarist. He was 20 YEARS OLD, the youngest to ever win both awards. He began playing around Houston when he was 12 and joined The Keeshea Pratt Band, who won the IBC in 2018. He released Up Next not long after he won the IBC and it was one of my 20 favorite albums that year, along with Kingfish's Live in London. Lattin, now 23 years old, was recently signed to Red Zero Records, so hopefully, we will be seeing a new release from him soon.
The theatre was packed when Lattin took the stage, backed by his longtime bassist and drummer. They turned in an excellent 45 minute show, playing five or six songs. Lattin is a triple threat as a songwriter, vocalist, and guitarist. He played some great guitar that reminded me a lot of other Texas guitarists I'd heard over the years, but with his own distinctive touch. He's also a great vocalist and the audience really enjoyed his back-and-forth with them. He was certainly comfortable on stage and confident as a performer and my brother and I both figured he would be a hard act to follow. He and his band did a marvelous job.
Kingfish followed after a short break and it was an incredible show. He performed several songs from his Alligator releases and a few from Hard Road and it was pretty amazing. His band also did a fine job....their bass player was relatively new to the band and he was an absolute monster. Their regular keyboardist didn't make the show, so Buddy Guy's regular keyboardist Dan Souvigny sat in.
Kingfish's music has continued to evolve over the years and while most of the guitar clips you've heard from him over the years are of him just shredding, you really need to check out his recordings for the big picture. He's been incorporating different musical styles into his blues beyond rock, such as funk and soul on all his albums, but it's really evident on Hard Road. All of those styles were present during his show. His playing has such feel..... it's so far beyond that shredding that some people associate with him. His guitar playing is like an extension of his soul and serves as his voice as much as his own voice does. He left it all on the stage.....well, except for that 10-15 minute segment where he walked out and played in the audience, stopping about five feet from where we were standing.
Mathias Lattin came out and joined Kingfish for the encore and they had a playful headcutting contest that was a lot of fun, not just for them but for the audience who stuck around. I'm really excited about the future releases on Red Zero from both of them, and singer Dylan Triplett, another Red Zero signee.
All in all, the show was one that I won't soon forget, actually one of the best I've seen in a long time, and I hope that I get the chance to see them again soon.
I was one of those folks who made regular trips to the record store on Tuesdays, and later Fridays to see what new albums were hitting the racks. That was always exciting for me, not so much to find what was expected but to run across something that I wasn't aware of while I was browsing.....not necessarily new, but maybe a disc or two that I missed along the way. Sadly, those days are pretty much gone and a lot of music seems kind of throwaway these days as far as things go, but I still love to get my hands on an actual recording and hold it in my hands, pop it in my CD player and just sit back and listen. I know that there doesn't seem to be many of us left who prefer to listen to music that way, but I certainly will until there aren't any more physical copies of recordings left. Anyway, here are a few new releases for blues fans to check out......however you choose to check them out.
Selwyn Birchwood - Electric Swamp Funkin' Blues (Alligator Records): Birchwood started playing guitar at 13, mostly rock, before discovering Hendrix and the legendary guitarist's blues influences. He toured with Sonny Rhodes after high school, attending college in the process and earning an MBA. He formed his own band after graduating and they won the 2013 I.B.C. and signed with Alligator. This is their fifth Alligator effort (eighth release overall), the title indicates Birchwood's description of the band's music, a mix of blues, funk, jazz, soul, and whatever else strikes his fancy. He produced this one himself and it has a more earthy, funky feel than his previous efforts. There's a little Chicago blues, a bit of the Delta, a little Piedmont flavor to one track, and deep soul as well. He's a masterful guitarist and a strong vocalist and his mix of traditional sounds with contemporary blues will appeal to every blues fan that I know. Here's the title track, which pretty much serves as Selwyn Birchwood's mission statement. It will knock your socks off!
Bob Corritore & Friends - Ernestine Blues (VizzTone/SWMAF Records): I love Corritore's collections of recordings with all the guest stars. He either releases a set "From the Vault" that he's done over the past 20-30 years, or he releases a set of more recently recorded songs. This is one of the latter collections, with songs cut between 2023 and 2025. The guest star list is most impressive, with tracks from Pat Thomas, Sugaray Rayford, Bob Stroger, Tia Carroll, Johnny Rawls, Oscar Wilson, Tony Coleman, Charles Wilson, Willie Buck, Jimi "Primetime" Smith, Carla Denise, and Teeny Tucker with instrumentalists Ben Levin, Bob Margolin, Johnny Rapp, Kid Ramos, Nick Moss, Billy Flynn, Anthony Geraci, and many many more. There's not a bad track in the bunch and it's all good old traditional blues. Corritore provides his usual superb harmonica throughout the disc and this is one that blues fans will really enjoy from start to finish. Here's the first single from the album from Corritore and soul/blues master Rawls, "I Love The South." By the way, I love the comic book-like covers that are such a cool part of Corritore's albums.
Laura Chavez - My Voice (Ruf Records): I first heard guitarist Chavez backing Candye Kane on some of the late vocalist's releases and I was impressed with her style, precision, and power. She's backed a host of artists such as Nikki Hill, Deborah Coleman,, Dani Wilde, The Mannish Boys, Monster Mike Welch and Mike Ledbetter, and Vanessa Collier, to name just a few, but she's never releases an album of her own until now. She doesn't sing, preferring to let her guitar be her "voice," and boy, does she ever do that on these ten instrumental tracks. She wrote five of them and the covers all have special meaning to her as well....a CCR track (her father's favorite band), a couple of cool Memphis-styled tracks, including a Booker T & the MGs tune, a Blasters cover, and a couple of Mexican tracks that reflect her heritage. These tracks move from Latin flavors to jazz to the aforementioned Memphis soul to rock n' roll to urban blues. Chavez won the 2023 BMA for Instrumentalist - Guitar and it was certainly a well-deserved honor. This excellent set goes even further to prove that it was a wise choice.
Stefan Hillesheim Band - Live at the Chicago Blues Festival (Stella Blue Music): German-born singer/guitarist Hillesheim has been in the U.S. since 2014, making his way to the Windy City about four years ago. He's always loved the blues, so the move was a perfect fit. He's also a talented songwriter and vocalist and an outstanding guitarist. This set was recorded at last year's festival and Hillesheim is backed by Dionte McMusick (drums), Darryl Wright (bass), and Sumito "Ariyo" Ariyoshi (keys). As mentioned, the guitarist's original tunes are top notch, mixing blues, soul, jazz, and funk, and the band, particularly "Ariyo" on piano and organ, provides great support. There are eight original tracks and two covers - "Big Legged Woman" and "It Hurts Me Too." I have to admit that I knew little about Stefan Hillesheim prior to hearing this release, but he impressed me enough that I'm going to follow him from now on.
