The Blues Music Awards, 2010 Edition

The Blues Music Awards were held last night in Memphis.  It's always a great few days of blues.  In addition to the ceremony itself, there's plenty of good music to be heard in all the nearby clubs by many of the nominees.  There's also usually a big jam session after the awards that's always a blast.  I was fortunate enough to go about ten years ago, but that year there was a big blues festival overseas and most of the nominees were playing at the festival.  I did get to see some great artists though, like Robert Lockwood Jr., Joe Louis Walker, Bernard Allison, Pinetop Perkins, Rod Piazza, and Kenny Wayne Shepherd.  I also got to see a number of artists who were in the audience, like Lil' Ed Williams, Pete Mayes, Johnny Jones, and Sam Carr.  However, a huge, somewhat embarrassing number of winners were not present to accept their awards, which was a shame.  In recent years, there have been some changes, including moving the show up a few weeks closer to the Memphis in May festivities, moving from its longtime home, the Orpheum, to Tunica one time and now to Cook Convention Center.  It's a fun weekend to mix and mingle with many of today's blues artists.

2010 Award winners can be found here.  The big winner of the night was Tommy Castro, who won four BMA's, including the B. B. King Entertainer of the Year Award, Band of the Year, Contemporary Male Blues Artist and Contemporary Blues Album.  Check out one of the nominees (for Best Album, Best Contemporary Blues Album, Contemporary Male Blues Artist, Best Instrumentalist - Guitar, and Best Song, whew!) and entertainers last night.  Joe Louis Walker's latest release, Between A Rock And The Blues, ranks with his best.  This is from Anthology in San Diego, just a few weeks ago......performing "Sugar Mama."  Congratulations to JLW for winning Album of the Year.
 


The Lifetime Achievement award was given to Buddy Guy this year.  Guy has done as much as anyone to bring new listeners to the blues over the years.  His guitar playing inspired numerous artists like Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck, who thankfully acknowledged their debt to him and other blues musicians over the years.  Guy has at times inspired and frustrated fans over the years, but there's no question he's been a positive force in the blues world for many years.  May he continue to be for many years to come.  Check out this clip from the 1970 movie, Chicago Blues, featuring Guy performing one of his classic tunes, "First Time I Met The Blues."  While the footage doesn't show very much of Guy's playing, the performance of the song is one of his best. 



There are several new inductees into the Blues Hall of Fame that were recently announced as well. The performers inducted are Lonnie Brooks, Charlie Musselwhite, Bonnie Raitt, the "Father of the Blues" W. C. Handy, Gus Cannon and Cannon's Jug Stompers, and Amos Milburn. Non-performers honored include author Peter Guralnick and longtime King Biscuit Time host Sonny Paine. Sam Charters' The Bluesmen is being honored as this year's Classic of Blues Literature.

There's a great set of songs and albums being honored as well.  All should be a part of any discerning blues fans' collection.  The songs being honored are "All Your Love (I Miss Loving)," by Otis Rush, "Fever," by Little Willie John, "Key To The Highway," by Big Bill Broonzy, "Match Box Blues," by Blind Lemon Jefferson, and "Spoonful," by Howlin' Wolf.  This year's albums are Strong Persuader, by the Robert Cray Band, Hung Down Head, by Lowell Fulson, and I Hear Some Blues Downstairs, by Fenton Robinson. 

This is a great set of music.  "All Your Love (I Miss Loving)" is one of Rush's many classic tunes, "Fever" has been covered by artists in all genres, as have "Key To The Highway," and "Match Box Blues."  "Spoonful" is actually a variation of an old Charley Patton tune (who was a major influence on Howlin' Wolf), but nobody can touch the Wolf's version.

Strong Persuader was a big factor in many current blues fans' entry into the blues world (including yours truly), but the other two album entries are uniformly excellent as well.  Robinson's release was his second for Alligator Records and is as good or better than his debut.  Hung Down Head is actually a mini-greatest hits collection of Fulson's Chess output and, sorry, but I think they used the wrong take of "Tollin' Bells" as the single.

Here's a couple of the H.O.F. inductees in action....first, Bonnie Raitt performing the Sippie Wallace classic, "Women Be Wise" at Montreux in 1977.  Wallace wrote and recorded many standards in the 1920's and 30's and served as a mentor to Raitt. 



This is Lonnie Brooks, live at the Woodlands Blues Festival in 1993.  Brooks actually recorded as Guitar Junior in the 60's and enjoyed a couple of hits ("Family Rules," "The Crawl"), before signing with Alligator in the last 70's.  Brooks hasn't recorded an album since the late 1990's, but he's burned up the roads and airwaves touring over the past decade.  That's his son, Ronnie Baker Brooks, playing second guitar on this clip.  Lonnie Brooks is a combination of the best of the Louisiana swamp blues sound and the Chicago blues.  Nobody does it quite like him.



That's all for this week.  Next week, we'll look at some upcoming releases.

News and Notes

The latest issue of Living Blues features a cover story on a bluesman who varies a bit from the norm.  Corey Harris started out playing acoustic country blues in a pre-war vein, but has gradually expanded his sound with each album release, tracking the genre's own journey over time, mixing elements of New Orleans, the Caribbean, and African music.  While I prefer his earlier work with acoustic blues to his current reggae leanings (mainly because while there are plenty of people out there playing reggae, there are not so many playing country blues), I respect an artist who refuses to be pigeonholed and takes risks with his music.  Besides, he's still one of the most important young voices of the modern blues scene.  This beautiful track, "Honeysuckle," is from one of Harris' best CD's, 1999's Greens From The Garden. 


 
There's also a feature on Living Blues during the 1980's, with old pictures and a list of 30 of the best albums of the decade, along with 30 that you might have missed.  I had a nice portion of both lists in my collection and found it hard to disagree with their choices.  Check out the latest issue and see what you think.

There's also a new issue of Blues Bytes online.  This is one of the biggest issues ever, with reviews of some great new releases, some of which I previewed here a few weeks ago.  The new release by the Holmes Brothers is the Pick Hit this month and there are also reviews of new discs from the Mannish Boys, Kirk Fletcher, Coco Montoya, and Guitar Shorty.  I did the Flashback review, which covers two discs recorded on the same day in 1979, Buddy Guy's Stone Crazy! and Junior Wells' Pleading the Blues.  While most blues fans are familiar with the Buddy Guy release, the Junior Wells effort (which features Guy on guitar) is one that you certainly need to check out if you've previously missed it.

Don't forget the Memphis in May festivities this weekend, beginning April 30 and going through the weekend.  There's some major talent there each night, beginning on Friday with Joanne Shaw Taylor, Kenny Brown, Jimmy Thackery, Kenny Neal, Coco Montoya, and Jeff Beck.  Saturday, there's Alvin Youngblood Hart, the Burnside Brothers, Blind Mississippi Morris, the North Mississippi Allstars, Walter Trout, Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi, and Bobby "Blue" Bland.  Sunday, you've got Janiva Magness, Booker T. & the M.G.'s, John Hiatt, Hubert Sumlin, and Sonny Landreth.  That's just scratching the musical surface in May for Memphis, because next week (May 6) is the annual Blues Music Awards (see list of nominees here).  More on that next week.  Meanwhile, check out Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi from the last Crossroads Guitar Festival DVD, covering a song by another Derek......."Anyday" from Clapton's "Derek & the Dominos" period.



For nearly twenty years, Fred Sanders has been a staple of the Beale Street scene in Memphis.  On nice days, you can often catch him playing in Handy Park.  He was house guitarist at Club Paradise for seven years, playing with B. B. King, Bobby "Blue" Bland, and Albert King, and was a member of the Memphis Blues Caravan.  About ten years ago, someone got him in the studio and he cut a very good album that is well worth tracking down.  Here's Sanders from around this time last year, playing the old B. B. King chestnut, "Why I Sing The Blues," in Handy Park.



Before we sign off, please send get-well wishes to T-Model Ford, who suffered a mild stroke earlier in the week, according to a post on Blues-L.  The post states that he's at home and has use of his limbs, but is limited on one side of his body.  Ford was a big part of the recent M for Mississippi documentary and is still going strong in his late 80's.  Hopefully, he will be back on his feet soon.