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SOULFUL Vocalist Stephanie “Stevee“ Wellons’ lifelong love of music took root in her Pittsburgh-area home, with her mother at
the piano while she, her father and her siblings gathered ’round to sing. In fact, she recalls her first performance as toddler in her crib, singing a beer jingle she’s heard on the radio. At age 14, Wellons started a singing group with some of her school friends, performing at talent shows and socials in her neighborhood. Her professional career took flight at age 21, shen Wellons began performing with her former
husband in various bands. She then struck out on her own, performing in supper clubs in the area, and then with several popular bands in the city. In 2015, she formed the Stevee Wellons Band to participate in the Blues Society of Western PA’s Blues Challenge, and they won first place. After performing at the International Blues Challenge in Memphis, the group recorded their first full-length CD, Born To Blues in 2018, and have been performing regularly ever since, opening for acts including Shamekia Copeland, Ana Popovic, Tommy Castro and Samantha Fish.
Band member Cheryl Rinovato is also the other half of Soulful Femme, their blues/funk/jazz duo
whose debut album, “It Is Well With My Soul” was released last year. After taking on a double major at the prestigious Berklee College of Music, Rinovatobegan her musical career as a studio musician. After a time spent in a disco band, playing six nights a week at Holiday Inns (of which she says, “It put a roof over my head…. I have no complaints), a move to Pittsburgh helped her musical career take off. Rinovatohas been awarded the prestigious Jim Weber Award, given to blues guitarist of the year, in 2012, 2103 and 2015. She is a Delaney-endorsed guitarist with two signature guitar models.
The musical chemistry between Wellons and Rinovato in the
Stevee Wellons Band was quickly – and crystal – clear, leading to the creation of Soulful Femme and their 2021 debut It Is Well With My Soul. The album features appearances by Joanna Connor “40 Under” and Bernard Allison “Dead Mans Blues.” The album’s title was inspired by the hymn, and bookends the CD, comprised of 11 original tunes (plus the hymn),
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FEMME which reached No. 2 on the Roots Music Report’s Top 50 Soul Blues Album Chart immediately upon its release. The track “Ribbon” was written and co-sung by Mark Byars, the duo’s Floridabased co-writer. The three have also released a collaborative EP entitled Deadline.
During the pandemic downtime,
Renovato also undertook a new project called Band Together Pittsburgh, which works to provide vocational music programs for children with autism. Wellons was a vocal instructor at the prestigious Afro-American Music Institute for nine years, and currently coaches privately
Stevee Wellons+ Cheryl Rinovato
as well as at an area community college.
A big R&B fan, Wellons’ musical influences range from Stevie Wonder, Jimi
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Hendrix and Marvin Gaye to Julie Andrews and Funkadelic. Wellons credits Jimi Hendrix’s Are You Experienced album as a seminal eye and earopening experience. Rinovato’s influences are also varied, ranging from Duane Allman and Tower of Power to Jerry Butler and Frank Zappa. The distillation of all of these flavors into their unique blend, guided by their shared experience of a lifetime drenched in music, has already borne bounteous fruit. With plenty of critical and audience acclaim already piling up, We can’t wait to get a taste of what Wellons and Rinovato’s musical partnership serves up next. More at soulfulfemme.com.
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S P O T L I G H T AUGUST 18 LAGNIAPPE HOUSE MIAMI
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Ruben Caban
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FROM A PHOTO BY PS AVELLO PHOTOGRAPHY
Puerto Rico-born trombonist Ruben Caban has toured and/or recorded as a sideman and soloist with an array of internationally renowned artists including Frankie Valli, Jon Secada, Nicole Henry, Dianne Shurr, Randy Brecker, Arturo Sandoval, Ira Sullivan, Oscar De Leon and Paquito De Rivera, and is part of Ed Calle’s 2015 Latin Grammywinning album Ed Calle Presents Mamblue. Caban began his career at age 15 as a freelance trombonist in the central Florida area, working for international salsa artists, local bands and Orlando attractions. In 2018 Caban released his first solo album Shafted, a collection that displays his virtuosity both with his instrument and with his compositions. On it, Caban offers original songs that fuse Latin jazz, hard-bop and funk into a distinctly unique sound. He describes the album as a musical voyage of discovery of a jazz trombonist growing up, listening to a variety of musicians and genres that play an influential role in shaping his signature sound. The well-received album was a medalist in the 2018 Global Music awards. Caban attended the University Of North Florida, then obtained his Masters Degree in Jazz Performance at Florida International University (FIU). He currently teaches Jazz trombone, Jazz theory and Jazz & Popular music history at FIU, Broward College, MiamiDade College and Barry University. As an international jazz educator he has taught jazz theory and Afro-Caribbean music clinics in Poland, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Jamaica, Cuba, South America and Puerto Rico. More at rubencaban.wixsite.com.
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S P O T L I G H T b l u e s
Polly O’Keary
and the Rhythm Method
After learning to read music by kerosene lamp in a log cabin in a remote part of Washington State, Polly O’Keary started playing AUGUST 20 in ex-pat bars in Mexico at KILTED MERMAID 16. By 21 she had logged VERO BEACH more stage hours than most musicians twice her age. At 28, upon seeing Jeff Healey at a friend’s bar in Canada, she became obsessed with blues, studying and practicing her way on to the Pacific Northwest blues scene. Today, O’Keary is a PhD student, a world-traveled bassist, and one of Washington State’s most highly-awarded female blues singers and songwriters. But her music reflects the life of a modern blues woman; she’s seen the river rise and take everything more than once, and lived to laugh, sing, and write music about it. Polly O’Keary and the Rhythm Method is the trio she built with her husband and drummer Tommy Cook, winner of the 2017 Washington Blues Society Blues Drummer award, with whom she shared rhythm section duties for international touring act Too Slim and the Taildraggers for four years. Rounding out the trio is guitarist David Miller, previously of The Dave Miller Band, one of Southern California’s most popular blues bands for almost two decades. In 2021, all three Rhythm Method members turned 50, inspiring the name of their sixth and current release. 50 furthers the innovations that made the band’s last studio album, Black Crow Callin’, a finalist in the Best Self Produced CD category at the 2018 International Blues Challenge. More at polly okeary.com. AUGUST 19 BRADFORDVILLE BLUES CLUB TALLAHASSEE
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Christian Sands
With the release of his ninth and latest album Be Water, pianist Christian Sands has already enjoyed a remarkable career trajectory, touring and recording with Christian McBride’s Inside Straight and Trio, as well as collaborating with the likes of Gregory Porter and Ulysses Owens. The album takes its title from the philosophy of martial arts master and movie star Bruce Lee. Lee was an early idol for Sands, who grew up watching his classic films with his father and skillfully studied a variety of martial arts himself – until the notion of breaking boards and cinder blocks with his hands seemed ill-advised for a promising young pianist. Sands began playing piano at age three, and by age five he was composing. As a solo artist, Sands debuted with 2002’s Footprints at age 12 in 2002. Sands later gained wider recognition performing as a guest of his mentor, Billy Taylor at the famed pianist’s 2006 and 2007 Jazz at Kennedy Center series. Sands went on to study at the Manhattan School of Music. He appears with the school’s Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra, led by Bobby Sanabria, on 2009’s Kenya Revisited Live, which was nominated for a Latin Grammy. After graduation, he joined bassist Christian McBride’s outfit, recorded with bassist Ben Williams, and was a finalist in the 2014 American Pianists Association Jazz Fellowship Awards. A two-year residency with Jazz at Lincoln Center in Shanghai, China opened up new worlds of culture and philosophy to him, leading to the release of Be Water in 2020. More at christiansandsjazz.com.
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S P O T L I G H T WITH JOHN HIATT & THE GONERS AUGUST 3 PHILLIPS CENTER ORLANDO
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Sonny Landreth
South Louisiana guitarist, songwriter and bandleader Sonny Landreth’s groundbreaking work has long mixed familiarity with experimentation. And his latest 10-song collection, Blacktop Run, stretches from hard-edged electric instrumentals to wistful acoustic ballads. After two Grammy nominations, multiple appearances AUGUST 5 at Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Guitar Festival and wide-ranging acclaim from ECKERD HALL fellow players and fans worldwide, Landreth is excited about playing the new CLEARWATER material live. “It’s all about telling the story,” Landreth says, “and as long as I can find my way up that path, I’m all in.” Known as the ‘King of Slydeco,’ Landreth AUGUST 6 apprenticed with zydeco king Clifton Chenier’s Red Hot Louisiana Band and a ST AUGUSTINE host of other accomplished roots artists. Chenier appeared on Landreth’s 1981 AMPHITHEATER ST AUGUSTINE debut solo release, Blues Attack. The harmonica player on that album, Mel Melton, teamed up with Landreth to form the band Bayou Rhythm, eventually adding Chenier to the lineup. Landreth also frequently played with John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, and continues to perform, as on these August dates, with John Hiatt and Buddy Guy as the featured performer in the backing band, The Goners. Landreth can also be heard across the U.S. with his own band at smaller festivals and venues. Clapton describes Landreth as “probably the most underestimated musician on the planet, and also probably one of the most advanced.” Landreth’s innovative guitar techniques introduced new sonic textures and a complex tonal vocabulary, all bound by bayou rhythms. His work can be heard on hundreds of recordings. More at sonnylandreth.com. AUGUST 4 BROWARD CENTER FT LAUDERDALE
FROM A PHOTO BY GREG MILES
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Quiana Lynell
In 2017, Quiana Lynell played with her trio at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. This event made the world sit up and take notice, and led to her performing in Poland in trumpeter Terence Blanchard’s Spike Lee tribute with a 75-piece orchestra. Growing up in small west Texas town, Lynell quickly realized music was a way to connect to the world. She won the Sarah Vaughan International Vocal Competition by infusing her classical training with her gospel upbringing to approach jazz as a storyteller. A graduate of Louisiana State University’s music department, Lynell has been a featured vocalist on various artist recordings, and has performed with the Nicolas Payton, Patti Austin, Herbie Hancock, Jon Batiste and other music luminaries. As a collegiate instructor she spent years helping establish the Popular and Commercial Music program at Loyola University New Orleans. Lynell continues to provide individual instruction and masterclasses, and created a nationallyshared program, “Made in America: Lyrically Speaking” in which she delves into jazz, blues and traditional American music from the vocalist perspective. Lynell’s 2019 debut full-length album A Little Love was met with critical acclaim, blending gospel and soul with a jazz approach. Her career has developed in the years since, allowing performances at notable venues and festivals including Lincoln Center Dizzy’s, Carnegie Hall and the Playboy Jazz Festival. Lynell also recently created “I Trained For This,” a health and fitness program designed for artists. More at quiana lynell.com. 12
S P O T L I G H T b l u e s 2022 BONITA SPRINGS BLUES FEST CHECK PRESENTATION PARTY AUGUST 14 CENTER BAR BONITA SPRINGS
Noah Wotherspoon
Hailing from Cincinnati, Ohio, Noah Wotherspoon has been immersed in the blues and mesmerizing audiences with his soulful guitar playing since he was a teenager. At 13 he opened up for Derek Trucks. By 16 he had jammed onstage with Bobby Blue Bland, and opened for Leon Russell, Latimore and Boz Scaggs. His band, which includes Rob Thaxton on bass and Brian Aylor on drums, formed in 2009. The band’s debut studio album, Mystic Mud, was presented with a Jimi Award for Best Blues/Rock Album of the Year in 2015 by Blues411. That year, Wotherspoon received the Albert King Guitar Award at the International Blues Challenge, and the band placed second in the finals. 2019’s all-original Mobile Juke House Theater was supported by an Eastern Europe Tour. The NWB continues to tour and have multiple projects in the works. Wotherspoon solo has recorded and released several albums (including Buzz Me, through blues audiophile label APO, which featured Hubert Sumlin and garnered a top ten spot on Living Blues Magazine’s radio chart). While known for his electric blues guitar playing, Noah + The Rescue Radio explores an eclectic mix of styles ranging from alternative, indie-pop/rock and psychedelia to new weird America, lo-fi vignettes, & experimental tape loops. Also, Wotherspoon performs with Jessi Bair, weaving an ethereal musical tapestry of Americana, alt/country, and Appalachian blues. In 2012, they released their first EP as a duo, Carolina Songs. In 2019, JB released two digital singles, “Memory Babe” and “Toy Rockets,” written by Wotherspoon. More at noahwotherspoon.com.
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