BALTIMORE BLUES SOCIETY BluesRag Fall 2020

R E M E M B E R I N G F R E D A PA R K S • PA G E 6

OFFICIAL NEWSLETTER OF THE BALTIMORE BLUES SOCIETY V O L . 3 5 , I SS U E 2 • FAL L 2 0 2 0 • MOJOWORKIN.COM

P H O T O S B Y L a r ry F o g e l s o n

KE E P I N G T H E B LU E S AL I V E !

PETE R AGUSA

TIMEKEEPERS FOUR OF TODAY’S BEST BLUES DRUMMERS!

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Baltimore Society BluesRag is published

by Baltimore Blues Society, Inc. 401 Murdock Road, Baltimore, MD, 21212 BBS INFO LINE: (410) 638-1242 Send address changes to: BluesRag c/o Baltimore Blues Society PO Box 4522 Baltimore MD 21212 OFFICERS President - Bob Sekinger (410) 638-1242 • bob@mojoworkin.com Treasurer - Alan Burke aburke@mojoworkin.com Secretary - Larry Fogelson (410) 377-8339 • fogie@mindspring.com BBS BOARD OF DIRECTORS Bradley Alston, Mae Brooks, Larry Fogelson, Imelda Hill, Anne Jones, Don Jones, Kevin Miskelly, Bob Sekinger, Brian Sweeney NEWSLETTER STAFF Design: Joe MacLeod (443) 690-3275 joe.macleod@gmail.com Reviews Editor: Bob Sekinger (410) 638-1242 bob@mojoworkin.com Contributing Writers: Bradley Alston, Dennis Rozanski, Jr., Bob Sekinger, Kathy Minke Photographers - Bradley Alston, Larry Benicewicz, Larry Fogelson, Kathy Minke, Bob Sekinger, ADVERTISING Bob Sekinger (410) 638-1242 Advertising Rates Full Page - $100, 1/2 pg, $60 1/4 pg - $35 Advertising Dimensions Full Page - 7 1/2” w x 9 3/4” h 1/2 Page Horizontal - 71/2” w x 4 3/4” h 1/2 Page Vertical - 3 5/8” w x 9 3/4” h 1/4 Page - 3 5/8 w x 4 3/4” h DEADLINE: Editorial submissions, ad copy, or art must be in by the 15th of the month prior to each issue.

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The Baltimore Blues Society is an official 501(c)3 non-profit corportation dedicated to the preservation of America’s Native musical art form - the Blues!

BLUES NEWS NEAR & FAR

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COVID BLUES: So, the BBS has clearly been on hiatus for a while! We had to cancel an announced show(Lil Ed & The Imperials) for the first time in memory, our June date, Alonzo’s, Oct and Nov have also been cancelled.When Covid restrictions were put into place way back when, we hoped that preventative measures would be effective and we could swing Alonzo’s. It was gonna burn out in the hot weather, remember? Sadly, that was not to be and we don’t see things returning to normal anytime soon. That said, we have set dates for next year and will resume as soon as it makes sense to do so. I’m told that next year marks the BBS’s 35th anniversary. We’d like to have a party around that! As this is written the past few weeks has seen some outdoor, socially distanced events taking place.We even held off this newsletter a few weeks holding out some hope that maybe we could swing an outdoor event in October. Ultimately it seemed a bit too risky as reported attendances have been spotty. If only we were headed for warmer weather! The Facebook page remains active and popular (over 5,000 followers) The webpage is also seeing some tweaks with a new calendar and..

CHARGE IT: Now on the Mojoworkin.com’s membership/donation page you can pay by credit card! We are kicking and screaming our way into the 20th Century! Become a new “supporting” member, renew or make a donation.

Even without making any announcement about this we have had several dozen people use the feature to join/renew. Big Thanks to Doug Lyford for all his efforts here, Thanks to Doug and Kevin Miskelly on the new calendar. Big Thank yous to Bradley Alston for instigating in general. Looking forward to reading Bradley’s BBS history.

PICS: Previous years Alonzo’s Memorial Picnic highlights take the place of current events and shots from Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise #34 are featured. Normally, we’d have run these cruise shots in a Spring issue. Remember, if we inspire you to go bluescruisin’ please be sure to list us as a referral! October 2021 is the next opportunity.

NEW AND UPCOMING RELEASES: Blues artists and labels in particular have been hard hit by the pandemic.They rely on bandstand sales more than most. This is a good time C O N T I N U E D O N PA G E 4

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BLUES NEWS CONTINUED to order those discs and merchandise you’d been thinking about!

Here’s a few recent and upcoming recordings you should consider.

Roomful of Blues In A Roomful of Blues: These cats keep chugging along with classic and updated jump, jive and wail! Phantom Blues Band Still Cookin’: Always tasty, this band delivers their fourth recording sans Taj Mahal. Killer cuts all round. Anthony Geraci Daydreams in Blue: Following up on two outstanding “all-star” recordings with this disc that keeps the vocals with Dennis Brennan and Anthony himself, while bringing in guitar stars Monster Mike Welch,Walter Trout and Troy Gonyea. Jose Ramirez Here I Am: Capitalizing on his second place finish in last years International Blues Challenge (sponsored by D.C. BS) Costa Rican Jose has enlisted Anson Funderburg to produce this disc. A killer band backs up nine originals and two covers. Kat Riggins Cry Out: The sixth recording for South Florida’s “Baby Doll of the Blues.” Powerful anthemic tunes here!

Sugar Ray & The Bluetones Too Far From The Bar: featuring Little Charlie Baty in his last recordings. Rock solid Bluetones with Smooth Sugar Ray. John Nemeth Stronger Than Strong: With a few exceptions, a mostly straight ahead blues record from Nemeth and the Blue Dreamers.

Dig it!

Vanessa Collier Heart on the Line: More of what you have come to expect from the charming Ms. Collier. Johnny Iguana’s Chicago Spectacular: Long time Chicago piano sideman Iguana drafts pals John Primer, Bob Margolin, Billy Boy Arnold, Lil Ed Williams and others for twelve solid Chicago cuts. Lloyd Jones Tennessee Run: Fun record from Oregon based Jones, who heads to Kevin McKendree’s Rock House studio for this one.

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When Little Richard Came to Town

BY B R A D L E Y A L S T O N

P H O T O : L A R RY F O G E L S O N

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N THE FIRST weekend in August 2007, Little Richard came to town. After a too-long absence, the King of Rock & Roll was finally returning.The occasion was the inaugural concert series of the Paetec Jazz Festival and Mayor Sheila Dixon launched the festival from the dignified offices of City Hall. Richard’s last visit to the city was possibly in 1993 to record an award-winning promo for the successful Baltimore Orioles baseball team.

The location of the event was at the rejuvenated Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, the showcase of the city’s downtown renovation efforts.The gem of the municipal project is the Pier Six Concert Pavilion, a tent covered outdoor waterfront amphitheater that opened in 1981.

Over the years the venue had hosted many top- notch entertainers.

The star-studded evening in addition to Rock & Roll Pioneer Little Richard, included soul-singer extraordinaire Al Green, and the long reigning “King of the Blues,” B.B. King.

On the evening of the long-awaited concert, the excited sold out crowd of over 3,000 arrived and was treated to a pleasant, soft evening breeze and lower temperatures after a scorching late summer heat wave.

The lull waiting for the arrival on stage of Little Richard seemed longer than it actually was. The concession lines moved briskly as patrons quickly returned to their seats in anticipation of the fabled entertainer. Little Richard’s last performance in Baltimore in popular memory was so long ago that he was more of a phantom legend than a real-life performer. In 2007, Little Richard, born Richard Wayne Penniman, was 74 years old and hailed as “The Architect of Rock & Roll.” His professional career had spanned the modern musical life of the country and his carefully created stage persona was encased in the collective cultural memory.

Finally, the much-anticipated time arrived. Little Richard entered the stage with the assistance of an aide and using crutches. He was dressed in a vintage Little Richard style, shimmering silver and purple iridescent suit and shiny gold colored low-heeled boots.

After the assistant helped him to the piano that was stationed strategically in the middle and close to the front edge of the stage, he broke into an extended monologue that was nostalgic Little Richard style. He shared helpful hints on hair care, diet, manicure and pedicure suggestions and relationship management. Once the Georgia-born artist launched into his music set however, he was once again the legendary Rock & Roll avatar. He became one with his piano and banged out his genre creating hits including, “Lucille,” “Tutti Frutti,” “Good Golly Miss Molly,” and “Bama Lama Bama Loo.” Richard’s connection with the audience was evident and electric. Few performers could engage and enthrall concert goers like Richard. One of the many highlights of the memorable evening was his invitation to more than 25 enthusiastic men and women in the audience to join him on stage to dance while his excellent 10-piece band, featuring two drummers, exploded with the standard, “Old Time Rock & Roll.”

There have been many great concerts at Pier Six Concert Pavilion over the years, but few like the evening when Little Richard came to town. Little Richard died May 9, 2020 ●

Little Richard’s last performance in Baltimore in popular memory was so long ago that he was more of a phantom legend than a real-life performer.

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Freda and Zeke

REMEBERING FREDA PARKS CO-OWNER OF THE FULL MOON SALOON, “BALTIMORE’S HOME OF THE BLUES”

BY BRADLEY ALSTON

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REDA PARKS-PHILLIPS and her husband Leon “Zeke” Phillips owned and operated the Full Moon Saloon in Fells Point from 1990 to 2007.The tavern became the focal point for the 90’s burgeoning blues scene in the region and was instrumental in launching the careers of many of today’s prominent blues musicians.

Freda died of lung cancer on July 12, 2020.

Freda was born December 7, 1948, to Odell and Ruby Woodie.

She was raised in Baltimore and graduated from Kenwood High

School. She attended the Maryland Institute College of Art, where she studied photography.

Freda Parks and Zeke Phillips met at Leadbetters in the early 70’s and always talked about having a bar in Fells Point. First, however, there was a profitable diversion when the entrepreneurial couple built a successful chain of five retail stores called Ezekiel’s Wheel.

Along the way Freda obtained a realtor’s license. One of her real estate listings was for the owners of a bar on Aliceanna Street in Fells Point called the Full Moon. Freda and Zeke discussed buying the establishment themselves and, after some negotiations, became the new owners.

The bar was already a fixture in the neighborhood, and they decided to keep the name. They engaged local artist Charlie Newton to design a logo. Eventually the logo evolved into the iconic snarling wolf howling at the moon. That logo can now be found on tee shirts the world over.

Freda and Zeke went into the Fells Point bar business at the time when the historic former shipping community was in one of its cyclical changes. Fells Point was founded in 1763 by Edward Fell. He inherited the waterfront land from his father William, a Quaker shipbuilder from Lancaster, England. Edward married Ann Bond. After Edward’s death, Ann Bond and her father continued developing the land by selling lots and required that a building be constructed by a certain time. Fells Point was Baltimore’s original deep water harbor and became one of early America’s premier shipbuilding communities and a destination for European immigration

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and free African Americans. Many of the streets in Fells Point are named after the Fells family, including, Ann St., Bond St., Aliceanna St., Fell St., and Lancaster St. The community was transitioning and attracting more affluent, upwardly mobile younger residents. Gentrification followed. Freda recalled, “When we arrived in the community, the old Fells Point was starting to change a little in the early 90’s.Yuppies were starting to move in. At the old Fells Point Festival you could walk from bar to bar with a drink in your hand and then they had beer gardens.

That hurt the local bars. In the beginning, it was a little difficult because we did not know a lot about the bar business. We kept it as is, at first using musicians already playing at the Moon. Later, we decided to be a blues bar. The bar interior was already set up. Zeke had someone change the stage and put in what would become the “blues pews.” In terms of bar personnel, I bartended in the beginning with staff from the old Full Moon and eventually moved in above the bar.”

The fledgling bar owners wanted an establishment and a public space that welcomed everyone. Looking back to those early days, Freda once shared, “We strived to bring in music that people would enjoy and started the blues jams for up-and-coming musicians.

Some of the first bands we booked were the Big Dog Band, Tom

The Full Moon Saloon was the beloved “Home of the Blues” and one of the few public spaces in Baltimore where everybody could freely and safely interact, and musicians collaborated nightly.

region’s esteemed musicians, started at the Moon.“Freda was always supportive of my singing and she and Zeke are the reason I am a part of the blues community and for that they both have had a place in my heart.”The Moon also became a place that celebrities visiting the area would make their way to in order to jam or just hang out.

They included actor and musician Bruce Willis, Peter Tork from the Monkees, Slash when his band Guns N’ Roses was playing Pier Six, and Los Lobos. They all interacted, played music with one another, hung out with the Full Moon patrons, and had a good time. The Moon also booked national blues touring acts like Big Jack Johnson, who found a second home there, Chicago harp icon Carey Bell, Zydeco ace Roy Carrier, and Guitar Gabriel. Lil Ed and the Blues Imperials had one of their first appearances outside of Chicago at the Moon.

Chuck Berry’s keyboardist Daryl Davis, Tino Gonzales, Big Jesse Yawn, John Brim, Bobby Parker, Robert Lighthouse, and Muddy Water’s guitarist Bob Margolin all graced the stage at the Full Moon.

A very special evening was the visit by Pinetop Perkins.

The Baltimore Blues Society and the Full Moon had always been mutually supportive. When the annual Labor Day weekend festival, Alonzo’s “Eat the Rich” Picnic, which at the time was being held at Alonzo Bennett’s house in Dorsey, Maryland, was rained out, the Full Moon answered the urgent call and let the BBS move the entire outdoor concert to the bar.

In all those years the quixotic little bar that Freda and Zeke purchased became ground zero for the blues wave that was roaring through the region.The Full Moon Saloon was the beloved “Home of the Blues” and one of the few public spaces in Baltimore where everybody could freely and safely interact, and musicians collaborated nightly.

Freda Parks, surrounded by friends Linda Mauk, Kristin Corsi, and Ann In December 2017, the Baltimore blues community Marie Cushing at the Full Moon Saloon Reunion, Cats Eye Pub, Dec 2017 gathered to honor Freda and the legacy of the Full Moon Larsen, Bob Margolin, and the Nighthawks. We wanted everyone Saloon at the Cat’s Eye Pub in Fells Point. to feel at home and enjoy the music. Most people became part of Longtime Full Moon Saloon door manager and family friend, our family and everyone got along. That was the public space that Linda Mauk, remembers the atmosphere at the tavern: “Family.

Zeke and I wanted to create.”

That is what you felt you were a part of and when you came to the Many bands and blues musicians that are a major part of the Full Moon Saloon. Zeke & Freda welcomed everyone. Whether it regional and national music scene today got their start at the Full was your first time there or you were a regular. That is what Zeke Moon. They include Rick Chapman, White Lightnin’ Hopkins, & Freda created. You came for the music. You came back because Jim Orr, Jimmi Sexton, and Old Man Brown. Others were the you were family.” late Reggie Wayne Morris, Automatic Slim, Duffy Kane, Clarence Freda’s beloved husband Zeke Philips died June 10, 2006. Freda is Turner, David Earl, and Kelly Bell. Ursula Ricks, now one of the survived by a son from an earlier marriage, Bryan Parks. ● M O J O W O R K I N . C O M | FA L L 2 0 2 0 | B LU E S R A G | 7

TIMEKEEPERS: FOUR OF TODAY’S BEST BLUES DRUMMERS! Pete Ragusa, Clark Matthews, El Torro Gamble, Mark Stutso

BY BRADLEY ALSTON

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LUES MUSIC is like architecture. They are both built on a solid foundation that supports and frames the rest of the structure and design. In the blues that foundation is the drums. They provide the groove, the beat… the time, for the rest of the band. Over the years the blues have provided some of music’s exquisite timekeepers, including Sam Lay (Howlin’ Wolf ’s drummer), Fred Below (Little Walter’s and Chuck Berry’s), Tony Coleman (BB King’s and Otis Clay’s), Willie “Big Eyes” Smith (Muddy Waters’), Al Jackson Jr. (Booker T & the MG’s), and Clyde Stubblefield (James Brown’s) Those drummers were the foundation that early blues magic was built on. Today, the Baltimore/DC/Northern Virginia and Southern Pennsylvania region is fortunate to host some of the best, world-class drummers performing, and they are the talented musical descendants of the early masters.

So, let us visit with four of the best blues drummers found anywhere. Their talents, drive, and commitment have been essential in Keepin’ the Blues Alive!

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Photo: Larry Fogelson

PETE RAGUSA arboe & The Nighthawks! The 1940’s jazz band was formed J by two brothers who had recently returned from the fighting in World War ll. Those returning soldiers & brothers were Peter

and Frank Ragusa, and both excelled at the saxophone and led the popular band around the post war, DC-area hot spots. That was during the Truman administration and many years before another DC-based band, also named the Nighthawks, would invite a young Pete Ragusa, the son and nephew of the Ragusa brothers to join them on drums.

The drums were the sound and instrument that Pete Ragusa was drawn to, and he started drum lessons at age 12. There was always music around the Ragusa house. “I grew up listening to the many records my father would play. Almost entirely big band and opera.”

Big Band showcased some of music’s greatest drummers, and young Pete’s attention was captured at first by the pyrotechnics of Gene Krupa on the explosive Benny Goodman’s “Live At Carnegie Hall” album and the timeless “Sing, Sing, Sing.” Pete remembers, “In that same period I also liked Chick Webb, George Wettling and especially Davey Tough. Tough was a metronomic monster. There are too many today that I admire in all fields of drumming to be able to name all of them. I even listen to the classical/symphonic drummers, as I was trained classically. Up until last year I was the tympa-

nist for seven years with The Arlington County Orchestra.”

“As I grew older, I listened to a lot of radio in the late 50’s and the 60’s. I listened mostly to the black radio stations that played soul music that had gotten under my skin because of the different grooves I heard. I listened to WOL, WOOK, WUST along with WPGC, WEAM and WCAO out of Baltimore. All of them were AM stations at the time but some eventually went stereo broadcast.”

Pete was a music major in college and acquired keyboard skills in order to study. He is also a songwriter and, while with the Nighthawks, the band members all collaborated on songs and shared the credits. Later, Pete wrote a few songs on his own, several of which were used on the television series Homicide and The Wire.

“When I write I usually start either with a drum groove in mind that I would program on a drum machine or with a chord progression that I would later add a groove to. Usually there’s a title in mind and verses follow later.”

Pete’s first band experience was with a high school soul ensemble called The Manchurian Candidate, named after the 1962 movie about a politician’s being used as a puppet by an enemy power. After that, while in college, he played in a six-part harmony cover band named Easy. Later he was the original drummer for The Razz, which the Washington Post called “a raucous proto-punk/hard rock/performance art group that in its heyday … was the biggest thing on Muddy Waters band with John Primer on guitar & the Nighthawks at Painters Mill early 80’s

the local club circuit and was considered a sure bet for major label stardom.”

And then came the Nighthawks. “I was leaving The Razz and a friend I and the Hawks knew recommended me to them. Mark and our friend came to see me with The Razz at a gig we played in Georgetown. We talked briefly and made plans to get together. The Hawks were replacing their bass and drummer and were auditioning various pairs of players. One rehearsal the bass player couldn’t make it, so they paired me with Jan Zukowski.We were locked from the first beat. I stayed for 35 years.”

The Nighthawks are associated with classic Chicago blues perhaps more than any other American roots band. The genesis of that partnership can be traced to the seminal DC nightspot, the Bayou.

“We had a regular gig at the Bayou in Georgetown and were bringing in good crowds. They normally were closed on Monday. Mark asked them if we could do a Blue Monday there and bring in different Chicago Blues artists. The club paid enough to fly artists in from Chicago, put them up, and send them home with some cash in their pockets. A huge thanks goes to the Tremonte family, who owned the club at that time, for taking the risk on this project. We would open and then back up each headliner. It was a tremendous success and is the single reason so much of our audience became Blues aficionados.”

Pete saw the evolution of the blues from its origins in southern African American communities to its crossover to the broader American mainstream. “To a lot of people, the British Blues bands were the first versions of blues songs they heard. It was for me. The Razz played a lot of the blues the Rolling Stones were recording.

If you needed to hear more, you went the next step to discover the originals. I think that’s what most people did in the 60’s, as well as the folk artists who were also covering some of the same songs.”

On his own definition of the blues, Pete is both philosophical and historical. “The blues can be a feeling of happiness, sadness, sorrow, pain, misery in your life. It’s expressed in the songs that all blues players write and sing. And the style has morphed into so many different forms even before it left the Delta. And today’s Blues is even more transformed. Some people say it’s distorted from its origins and some like where it is now at. And that is a generational modification. It will be an argument till the end of time.”

Pete and the Nighthawks were a very busy and in-demand ensemble. They were playing 300-plus dates a year, at least 50 percent of which were on the road. “I say humbly … I don’t remember all those venues. LOL! I’d say 85 percent are gone,” Pete fondly recalls.

“Our first tour was to Richmond,VA, on a Friday, then Raleigh, NC, on Saturday. I think we opened for Muddy, but I could be wrong. Our touring started out as weekend work. As we played more out of town, we expanded our audiences quite quickly by word of mouth. At some point we could play every college town from DC to Atlanta, Georgia, and work every night of the week.

The drinking age was still 18 and every college town had one club that everyone went to. When the drinking age changed to 21, it literally cut the audiences in half or less.”

Pete has many wonderful memories with the Nighthawks and played with some of the legends of American music.

“There are so many stories from the road and playing, but two of my favorites are with Muddy Waters and BB King.We were playing a week-long gig with Muddy at the Cellar Door in Georgetown, DC, around 1978, and on the last night Muddy called us all up to play with him. I got behind Willie Smith’s kit, and Bob Margolin called Caldonia. Now I am totally scared I might mess up and behind Muddy at that. So, I tried to play as quiet as I could so as not to get in the way. Muddy is sitting on a stool right in front of me. He turns around and motions to me moving his arm up and down as if he’s hitting the snare drum. I’m thinking oh no I’m too loud. So, all during the solos he keeps turning around motioning the same way. I’m lost I don’t know what he wants now. He turns all the way around and takes the sick out of my left hand and WHACKS the snare drum several times. That was my lesson on how to play with Muddy Waters.”

“Around 1979 we were opening a show at The Great Southeast Music Hall opening for BB King.We had previously met BB, opening shows with him and had a really good rapport with him and his band. On this occasion we had opened, and BB called us all up to play. His band was a bit stunned by this move but graciously let us come up. We started out playing a slow blues and he and Thackery traded riffs back and forth, and Jimmy even imitated licks that BB played, which tickled BB. Now BB has this thing he does where he goes from a slow blues right into a shuffle on the turn around.

Without going into deep music theory, he basically plays a 3 into 2 feel if you’re counting. We’ve seen BB do this a lot, so we knew what was coming. But his band were in the wings watching and I know they were thinking uh oh here comes a train wreck. But we caught the change and nailed it. BB turned around to me and says, ‘All right Mr. Drummer!’ A very proud moment.”

Pete eventually left the Nighthawks. The constant touring and performances eventually took its toll. “After 35 years most of which

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TIMEKEEPERS was on the road, I needed a break. I’ve always tried to put myself in as many musical possibilities as I could. There have always been several players I’ve wanted to work with, and this was the time to do it. I’ve played with Tom Principato, Tommy Lepson, Billy Price, Moonshine Society, Johnny Tikton, Dave Chappell, Mitch Woods, Bad Influence, Ron Holloway, Cathy Ponton King, Liz Springer, Arty Hill, Ruthie and The Wranglers, Scott Ramminger, The Thrillbillies, I’m forgetting a lot I’m sure.”

In this Covid-19 pandemic, Pete, like many musicians, is taking it a day at a time. “I probably won’t work till the end of the year. I feel very vulnerable just recently having a cancer scare (I’m ok) and being diabetic puts me in that group that are more susceptible than others. I don’t mind the time off.”

Pete was around at the birth of the Baltimore Blues Society in 1986. Asked about his remembrance of the early days of the BBS, he grins and shares … “Much alcohol and great crowds!!!”

Photo: Bob Sekinger

CLARK MATTHEWS “

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E HAS A HEADACHE!” Those were the words DCbased blues musician Cathy Ponton King bellowed after her drummer called and cancelled. One hour before the band was to meet at the Bethesda House for the scheduled early-morning start of a long and exhaustingly planned road tour down south through the Carolinas, he said he had a headache. “Frickin unreal,” Cathy remembers thinking between lapsing into quiet panic and disbelief.

“So, we went through an entire list of drummers in DC. Can you meet us NOW and go on a two-week tour with a blues band….yes – meet us now! Cathy’s undeserved and unfathomable predicament was saved by a recent arrival to the DMV area. “Clark Matthews saved my ass! It was touring around little blues and honky tonk venues for two weeks. He had never met us. He learned our songs in the van on the way there. Clark is the saint of the blues drum.”

Clark Matthews continues to be the saint of the blues drum, giving bands just the right timekeeping, back beat and groove to coalesce their sound into the product they strive for. His phone number is on speed dial for many band leaders, not only because he is one of the premier drummers working today, but his work ethic, reliability, and maturity lend a stability and cohesiveness to both new and experienced bands. In one busy month, Clark played 13 gigs with 11 different bands.

Clark has a worldliness that may reflect his well-traveled youth.

“I was born outside Chicago (suburb of a suburb); raised in Omaha; moved to Lincoln, NE; and moved to New Orleans from there. I only lived in NOLA ‘78-79’, then moved to the DC Metro area (Northern VA).” An older sister sang in a couple of bands but never made it a career. His family will tell you that baby Clark was pounding out rhythms on his highchair as an infant. An interest in the drums crystalized when a friend taught him some basics on a snare drum so he could be in a 7th-grade band. “That started it.

Then two years later I bought my first drum set, an old Ludwig, for $150.”

He listened and was influenced in those early adolescent years by the music on the radio. “Jimi Hendrix was on the radio at that time, so Mitch Mitchell for sure. The Beatles were a big influence on me as they led me to the British Invasion bands like The Kinks, The Stones, Led Zeppelin; all of those drummers, but especially John Bonham, have informed my playing.”

As fate would have it, although young Clark was listening to an eclectic and broad array of musical styles, the first professional band he worked with, in the late 70’s, was a Country Cajun and Pop ensemble called the Lucky String Band, which played 6 nights a week at the now-defunct Chuck’s on Bourbon Street in New Orleans. “That was unusual because I’d never played country and was listening to a lot of Bebop and Jazz at the time. Anyway, that gig led to playing in several country bands in the French Quarter.

There are way too many stories to tell about that time. You’ll just have to wait for my memoir for those, “he chuckled” let’s just say I was lucky to survive.”

The country music experience in the French Quarter prepared the way for Clark to continue his relationship with that musical style when he relocated to this region. “After moving to the DC/ metro area in the early 1980’s, I dropped into the country scene and picked up a gig with Ranger Joe & the Buffalo Band. We played 5-7 gigs per week at places like Bronco Billy’s and Hillbilly Heaven. It was fun learning more about Country music and its history. I enjoyed playing that circuit.

“I bounced between Country and Folk/Rock bands for several years in the early ‘80’s and somehow ended up doing a few gigs with Cathy Ponton (King). Playing with her band was my first intro to Blues as well as short road gigs. It also led Steve Jacobs and Lips Lackowitz (Mark Hurwitz) to seek me out and offer me a spot in their band. Tough Luck was a harmonica-based band that played a mix of Blues and Rock and we did a lot of touring which eventually led to me auditioning for Tom Principato’s band.”

Clark’s experience with Tom Principato furthered his tutelage

Bob Margolin and Mark Wenner from the Nighthawks with the Bob Margolin Band, Mookie Brill on bass, Clark Matthews, drums 1989.

Photo courtesy Bob Margolin

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into blues music. He toured with Tom for three years and played the top blues clubs like the Roxy in DC (where Los Lobos crashed their gig one night), Mark Gretschel’s Twist & Shout and Tornado Alley, the Bayou, the 8x10, and a standing gig at the Wharf in Old Towne, Alexandria, VA. “But it was the European tours that really stand out. We’d travel through Europe playing clubs and large festivals and fans would be singing along to our original songs! The exposure I received backing Tom aka (“Pato”) was incredible. I owe him a lot.”

Now, with a growing reputation, other national bands came calling. “I left the Tom Principato Band to join Bob Margolin. Bob, coming from eight years as Muddy Waters’ sideman, took me to Blues school. He educated me on the deep Delta and Chicago Blues styles and the drumming greats of Fred Below, Willie “Big Eyes” Smith, and Arthur Crudup’s drummer Melvin Draper, just to name a few. The highlight during my tenure with Bob was playing the 1990 Chicago Blues Festival. At one point during our set we were joined on stage by Grady Gaines and Nappy Brown, the latter of whom we often toured with.That was loads of fun! We were also fortunate to back greats like Pinetop Perkins and Sunnyland Slim.

My time with Bob was too short-lived, but what I learned from that experience further shaped my drumming and made me a much better interpreter of the Blues.”

After the sojourn with Bob Margolin, Clark left the road, but soon found himself back on tour. “I came off the road for a short time after Bob but was quickly pushed back into service by my wife because, as she puts it, I’d grown grumpy. I re-joined my old buddies in Tough Luck and we went out on tour backing harmonica great Carey Bell. Most of our touring consisted of gigs on the east coast, with higher concentrations of shows in the south.There were some harrowing nights driving in a van with rattling ball joints, bald tires, and a stench that only four guys on the road can create. Playing with Carey was amazing and with Steve Jacobs holding down guitar duties, it was killing.”

Along the way, Clark has been an integral part of two of the major outdoor music festivals in the area. He was the longtime production manager for the Hot August Blues Festival and has been the unofficial stage manager for the Baltimore Blues Society’s annual picnic and festival, “Alonzo’s.”

The Covid 19 pandemic has had a devastating impact on live music and venues. Clark recalls his musical involvement pre-Covid.

“I had been working a day job and being a weekend warrior backing local acts. There was no touring going on, but I was playing about 5 days a month supporting Roger Girke & the Wandering Souls, Johnny (Ticktin) & the Headhunters, and Flatfoot Sam & the Educated Fools. I was commuting and working full-time at my day job, hiking as much as possible, and visiting microbreweries, a hobby I enjoy with my wife Joan. I was also cutting tracks for Roger Girke’s forthcoming release (TBA).”

Clark is reflective about the personal impact of the hard-hit live music scene today. “I miss having the opportunity to create music on a regular basis; I miss performing with my brothers.”

On keeping it together in these peerless times, he shares, “I’ve found myself trying to keep up my chops by rehearsing more than I ever have. I’m doing a ton of home improvement work too. I’m also a person of faith and that has kept me mentally grounded through the pandemic.”

Clark Matthews continues to be a “saint” of the blues drums.

Delaware bluesman and band leader Roger Girke sums up the feelings of many when he shared, “Clark always shows up with a smile on his face and ready to give it his all. Heck he’s even played when he was recovering from ankle surgery! Clark is an awesome, caring, focused person who I so very honored to have as a close friend and fellow music maker.”

Photo: Larry Fogelson

EL TORRO GAMBLE he beloved cartoon character Charlie Brown and his music T has inspired many youthful dreams and endeavors. One of these was a successful blues drumming career! As a very young lad,

El Torro Gamble watched a Charlie Brown holiday special on the Gamble family television set and was smitten with the jazzy rhythms of the drums. Around the same time, El Torro saw the explosive jazz drummer, Buddy Rich, on another television program and was impressed by his virtuoso technique, power, and speed. It was a lesson he never forgot. El Torro is not a name one often finds on a blues band roster. “My father was military and was stationed in Roswell, New Mexico, before coming to Walter Reed in DC. I’m the baby of five kids and he had a few drinks the day I was born and yelled out “El Torro.” He is the first musician in his family, but there was always a lot of music around in his youth. “Growing up, I enjoyed everything Mom and Dad listened too. In addition, my older brothers and sisters brought home the latest hits, R&B, Soul, and Funk Crooners. Mom loved country music, so that was in the house too.”

El Torro fondly recalls the first time he experienced live blues.

“My Dad did love the blues. He loved Jerry -- The Iceman -- Butler, Johnny Taylor, Arthur Prysock. But he also loved John Lee Hooker, Bobby Blue Bland, Curtis Mayfield, etc. In my back yard most weekends, we had a nice wooded area where the men would drink, shoot craps, and listen El Torro and Bill Kirchen, 1999 to this old man play genuine Piedmont Blues, and his name was Warner Williams!

We called him ‘Pie Jo.’ That’s his nickname.”

In addition to Buddy Rich, young El Torro was impressed by other musicians and instruments, in which he has remained interested to this day. “I discovered the British band BRAND X, and the amazing Percy Jones’s bass playing, I was hooked. The band had Phil Collins on drums and Phil is my biggest drumming influence. He like most Brits (Charlie Watts & Bill Bruford) loved jazz and could swing so hard. Phil’s smooth and clean backbeat was so funky.” El Torro learned to play other instruments and continues to play them. In addition to being one of the best drummers on the blues scene today, he is also a multiinstrumentalist, excelling at guitar (lead & rhythm), bass, and keyboards. He also sings.

El Torro’s journey to become a premier blues drummer started in Washington DC. He is a child of the late 60’s and 70’s music

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TIMEKEEPERS scene – the time of the psychedelic craze and fusion jazz. “I was in Junior high school when a friend invited me over to hang out.

I was turned on to the music of Frank Zappa, Weather Report, Mahavishnu, Return to Forever, and everything down that path.”

The arrival of the 1970 live album by the band Rare Earth was the event that jump started El Torro to take up the drums seriously. The recording had a drum solo on the band’s take on the Temptation’s hit “Get Ready.” “I used to grab spoons and mock playing like him,” remembers El Torro.

The 70’s also was the time of the psychedelic funk ensemble, Parliament-Funkadelic, and El Torro became a funkateer. “I loved Parliament Funkadelic,” El Torro shares, “because they dressed up wild and were crazy.” It was a type of freedom of expression that fit in well with the times. The band’s founder George Clinton said that the Washington-Baltimore area was one of the band’s most successful markets. Their Capital Center concerts, in Landover, MD, were legendary, and they even wrote a song about Washington, DC, for their successful 1975 album, “Chocolate City.” Along the way El Torro also picked up a fondness and appreciation for classical music.

El Torro found a natural connection to the blues and the burgeoning blues scene around the DC, MD,VA area (the DMV). He, like so many other, started off by attending blues jams, learning blues drumming, and meeting other musicians. El Torro recalls those early days: “I only knew of this one club called ‘City Blues’ in DC. They had a jam session on Sunday nights and the bands played on the weekends.This was the mid 90’s. If you played blues, you could work in the DMV. I had a lot to learn in the ‘shuffle’ department. I was a straight up punk-rock-funk-metal drummer and there was not a lot of $$ to be made doing that at the time.

So, I had to adapt and learn the language. One of the DC-based drummers I met and learned a lot from was Big Joe Maher. He was very instrumental in teaching me how to shuffle and swing.”

El Torro quickly became a go-to drummer for concerts and studio work. He has collaborated with musical luminaries including Stanley Clark, Marcus Miller, Root Boy Slim, Bobby Parker, Bill Kirchen, Lester Chambers, Walter Wolfman Washington, and Tom Principato, and he opened for Jeff Beck and Tower of Power in Italy. “Huge education with Bill Kirchen. I do love and respect country music and he took me on a Desibilly train ride I’ll never forget.”

He loves touring but cautioned newcomers to approach the music business and touring with an open mind and open eyes.

“The road isn’t for the lighthearted and thin-skinned.”

We caught up with El Torro after a successful return -- with a pause in the coronavirus pandemic -- to live concerts with a wellattended show at the famous Birchmere music venue in Northern Virginia with the Billy Price Charm City Rhythm Band, one of the most exciting soul-blues ensembles working today. Billy Price offered, “Torro is a great drummer and a great guy. He has played with so many great artists. He really drives my band, and we’ve had a ball playing together in Lucerne, Switzerland, Florida, and all over the DMV.” El Torro’s life’s journey through American music has served and prepared him well for his present career with the blues.

“The blues can be a release for venting your struggles and strife in life or an outlet for testifying your belief ” he offers. “It is a derivative of gospel music so you can jump and shout and preach what’s in your soul. All your love, all your fears, all your everything.”

Mark Stutso at a Rosedale BBS Show. Photo: Bob Sekinger

MARK STUTSO he audition was way too early in the morning, and the comT petition was fierce. A palpable sense of the unknown hung over the room as the process unfolded. Finally, the winners were

announced, and Mark Stutso heard his name called. He had made the cut to be one of the four drummers for his 2nd grade Christmas play!

Mark’s drumming prowess was recognized early on in his home region of West Virginia and southwest Virginia. His first band collaboration was during grade school, where he banged out the time on his older brother’s snare drum alongside his mother as she played boogie woogie piano. His gateway trip to the larger music world was conducted by the 45 rpm records his older sister brought home, and he heard a lot of Motown and Top 40 tunes.

The West Virginia of Mark’s youth was still a vibrant coal mining region, and the mines were the eventual destination for many of the area’s young men. Mark remembers, “I indeed did some coal mining! I operated heavy machinery for United States Steel Corp. at their deep mine operations in Gary, WV, from 1972 to around 1977. I was playing part-time, but I already knew where I wanted to be. After a mining accident that nearly cost me my life, I worked to play full-time. I made a promise that day. I prayed that if I would be delivered from this predicament, I would never get off the drum set again. For better or worse, richer or poor.”

Mark’s exodus from the coal mines was facilitated by his gifted drumming plus an enviable work ethic and an engaging personality.

His vocals are a force to be reckoned with. Round that out with

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an innate songwriting talent and you have the foundations for a successful career. On the central role of the drums in a band, Mark explains, “I’m a groove drummer. Play time. Make folks move their ***. That’s my reason as opposed to going into the history of how drums, or whatever they carved out, spoke a language. And that’s what drums did. They STILL speak a language. And that language is what talks to the soul.You move, you groove, you tap your feet.”

For those drummers who are curious about Mark’s thoughts on drum kits, he explains, “There are so many brands out there now.

Many custom-built things popping up that are incredible. I’ve used many different brands at the many festivals I’ve played. My main road set is made by TAMA. They are 1982 Super Star series. And I have an older 1965 Ludwig set. I have a custom-made snare drum that I love a lot. It was made by John Stubblefield, www.stubblefielddrums.com, out of the Charlottesville, VA area. Then I have another snare drum that was put together for me by Ronnie Owens in Richmond,VA.” One of the highlights of a Nighthawks concert is when Mark takes over the singing duties. His vocal delivery has engaged otherwise chatty patrons at our BBS Rosedale shows. He has a deep-soul sound that evokes the old Stax Records masters. “I love singing.

Again, I love everybody that can do it well! I do not have any singers that I want to sound like. I couldn’t sing like the singers I like! I love the old soul singers. I’d like to sing like Mavis Staples or Gladys Knight. I know that sounds crazy for an old rock n roll hippie dude!”

His songwriting is an evolving process and reflects his seemingly boundless creativity. When asked to describe his songwriting process, Mark is modest “I’m not that ‘deep,’ LOL. I’ve not been trained, so I’m not really writing music lines or compositions. I’ll grab a line or something that I’ll hear. A thought may cross my mind and I’ll try to run with it. It’s tough for me not being able to sit around and strum an acoustic guitar or piano and play something that would trigger that thought. I’m a drummer. I’ll think FEEL and a groove and see if I can phrase my lyrics and not be ‘sing songy.’ I don’t write songs that feature a whole lot of technical drumming.

The song and lyrics, a melody, the story is the priority to me. I would love to be more aggressive on drums in my own songs, but it’s just not what I hear!”

Mark’s early music experience in West Virginia and southwest Virginia came right after graduation from high school.

“I grew up liking and playing middle of the road rock-n-roll.

I was a jukebox and started out in all cover music bands. I really didn’t know what I liked until I fell into this blues stuff! Out of high school, it was Tea & T. Co. We were a rock cover band. Played locally in south WV, southwest VA. Leather, from Bluefield, WV worked about the same area. Several members flowed in and out of Leather, which eventually led me to the band, TRICKS that I mentioned earlier.Then to Ruffryder. In 1984, the rock band, Black Oak Arkansas stopped playing and touring for a while (Jim Dandy and Rick Reynolds). The rest of the band continued on but had to change the name to Ruffryder. Jim was kind and allowed us to use former members of BOA in our promo! This band did shows with many rock acts. Gregg Allman Band, Foghat, Steppenwolf, to name a few.”

Mark emergence into the blues and blues-rock world came about with a chance introduction to Nighthawks co-founder Jimmy Thackery, who had left the group in the early 80’s. “I was working in Rockville, MD, at Veneman Music Co. In the mid to later 80’s. I ran the downstairs warehouse, shipping, dispersing incoming instrument repair to their proper departments. Part of my job was taking guitar repairs to the guitar shop. Occasionally, I would see this guitar case come in from Thackery. I knew The Nighthawks name but had never seen them. And I used to see their name in places when I was

Mark with Jimmy Thackery in Belgium, 1992.

on the rock band circuit. Anyway, I was kicking around with Mike Melchione and we were cutting some home recording stuff and I would bring it into the guitar repair man, John Warden, and let him listen to it. Time went on, I joined the Smut Bros and left the music store. One day, after I had left the music deal, Thackery came in to pick up a repair. He was telling John that he was shaving down the big band that he had, The Assassins, I think, and was looking for a drummer that could sing. John told him that there was a guy (me) that used to work here who brought tapes in that were pretty good, here’s his name and number! I was working at the time as a mail room clerk at a magazine publishing company about horses! One day, my office phone rang, it was Jimmy. He introduced himself. He started to tell me what he had going on. I kept interrupting him by saying: I’ll take it! He chuckled and, let me tell ya what’s going on! I chuckled back and said, I’m in a f---g mailroom, get me the hell outta here!! It had been over 5 years since I had been out on the road! I toured with Jimmy Thackery & the Drivers doing 300 gigs a year for the next 18 years.” After Thackery, Mark relocated to Pittsburgh where in 2006 he recorded a solo CD, “Rock My Soul,” on Moondog Records With the recent personnel shift in the Nighthawks, Mark is now a senior member of the band. After a long and fruitful genre-abundant musical journey, he has found his place in the blues and roots orbit and has played with the royalty of that world. They include Joe Bonamassa, Magic Dick, Buckwheat Zydeco, Kim Wilson and the T-Birds, and John Nemeth. “I’ve got to play behind Hubert Sumlin, Snooky Pryor, Robert Jr. Lockwood, Luther Allison, Mudd Morganfield, Pinetop Perkin, Calvin “Fuzz” Jones, Bob Margolin, John Hammond, Bonnie Raitt, and Maria Muldaur, to name a few.”

He fondly remembers his many appearances for the Baltimore Blues Society, where he has appeared with a variety of talented musicians. “I have played several shows within the last 4 years involving the BBS! All being with The Nighthawks and Blues Warriors, Billy Price, Billy Wirtz, or Daryl Davis.”

Mark, like the rest of us, is dealing with an uncertain future with the Covid-19 juggernaut rolling over the country. On keeping grounded he starts with an attitude of gratitude. “I try to make myself realize what a great job I have. I try to keep myself out of harm’s way as much as I can. Any kind of injury would sideline me!

I’m not a real fitness guy and I try to be a little careful of how I eat. But I don’t have gurus or go into deep meditation and things like that. There is a park that I walk in and its usually very quiet. I cherish walking through the wooded area!” ●

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BLUES REVIEWS ALEX DIXON

The Real McCoy

D I XO N L A N D I N G M U S I C

B is the hard-shuffling roar of

race yourself! The Real McCoy

Chicago blues destiny getting seized on the South Side. Because, more than being a spitting image of the late bass-thumping, songwriting godhead Willie Dixon, Alex Dixon is his bass-thumping, songwriting grandson.

In him, the future has come knocking. The 45-year-old’s overwhelming response comes by its grind and glory naturally.

For without granddad Willie, gaping holes would exist in the catalogs of Muddy and Wolf, Little Walter and Otis Rush, on and on. No “Hoochie Coochie Man,” “Wang Dang Doodle,” “Spoonful,” “My Babe,” “I Can’t Quit You Baby” or tons more anthems. No bass would bump along Jimmy Rogers’ “Walking By Myself,” Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode” or Sonny Boy Williamson’s “Don’t Start Me Talkin’.” So crucial was Willie’s role in the music’s history that no one blinked when his 1970 album was titled I Am the Blues.That heritage, passed down and built upon here, shakes walls.

In the presence of the collective Chicago pedigrees at play here, The Real McCoy rings true.

Dixon constructed his band like a fortress, worthy of defending bandstands all the way back to Pepper’s or Silvio’s. Sugar Blue and Steve Bell (Carey’s son) divide up harp powers. Guitar is likewise ruled by committee, counting Windy City warriors Melvin Taylor and Rico McFarland among its board.

The teamwork is indivisible; the

arrangements are unsubtly oldschool; the material is all Dixon (half Alex’s, half Willie’s). But the secret weapon lies in Lewis “Big Lew” Powell. The native Chicagoan’s surly bullhorn of a voice is gasoline poured on the band’s instrumental fire.

Booming out in stop-time, “Nothing New Under the Sun” joins “The Real McCoy,” another newcomer, in rivaling the ferocity of “Spider In My Stew” and “Howling For My Darling.”

Draped with a harp’s high, hanging notes, “My Greatest Desire” mellows down easy, unlike “ChiTown Boogie,” which comes in two blowout flavors: with or without words.

The Real McCoy is what brand-new vintage sounds like.

DENNIS ROZANSKI

Tryin’ To Get to You breaks the seal on a new Nighthawks era, unveiling a time-honored band that hasn’t lost a step or deviated course during its current transition. It’s still very much full-speed ahead, be that barreling down Los Lobos’ “Don’t Worry Baby,” taking the sharp switchback around James Brown’s “Tell Me What I Did Wrong,” or acoustically wobbling through Hovey’s own boozy “The Cheap Stuff.”

“Rain Down Tears,” traced back to Hank Ballard, swims in a pool of four-part harmony as deep as the groove imparted to “Come Love,” an old Jimmy Reed ride.

Elvis gets pickpocketed, too, for the title track which glides upon beautifully glassy guitar.“Baby It’s Time” is the dancer of the bunch.

What a sight for sore eyes these Nighthawks will be when sonically bombarding “Chairman of the Board” or immaculately swinging “I Know Your Wig Is Gone” from up on a bandstand.

That is, when these ’Hawks succeed in Tryin’To Get to You. DENNIS ROZANSKI

BISCUIT MILLER & THE MIX

Chicken Grease

A M E R I C A N S H OW P L A C E

C blues, capable of jolting hicken Grease is 500-volt

THE NIGHTHAWKS

Tryin’ To Get To You ELLERSOUL

H ever so close to 50 years in eard the big news? While

business, the lords of the Beltway—the Nighthawks—are 50% newer! Inky-armed founding member Mark Wenner dauntlessly continues to captain from behind his buzzing harp, and Mark Stutso still drums away.

But singing guitarist Dan Hovey and bassist Paul Pisciotta now respectively replace Paul Bell and Johnny Castle, who decided to pass on the grueling road-warrior life. Wily and already battletested, neither are greenhorns. In fact, Hovey clocked time gigging with the band in the recent past, occasionally subbing for Bell; Pisciotta originally auditioned in 1974, on the same day as Jan Zukowski.

by Marcus Randolph’s guest lap steel. Boom! Boom! And just like that, David “Biscuit” Miller has sparked another spontaneous party, this making his fourth studio one since the South Side Chicagoan established the Mix in 2000.

Biscuit is quick to spot. He’s the mile-wide smile attached to the bass being driven like a Mack truck. He’s also the highly kinetic one howling into the center mic. Doing both earns him special membership in the rarefied club of bassists who double as leading bluesmen (presided by the late Willie Kent). Prior, his bass also drove around harpist Mojo Buford, guitar phenom Anthony Gomes (for five years), and, for far longer than that, Lonnie Brooks (10 years).

But practical validation of Miller’s chops, even more so those two Blues Music Awards for Bass Player of the Year, is the bulldozer pulse felt by body and soul. The tom-catting “Two Legged Dog,” the wink-wink “Chicken Grease”: They all make beelines straight to feet and hips. But, so as not to overheat, the “Watching You” slo-jam is part of the cool-down phase— consider it the slow-dance portion of the party. Because, just as your cholesterol rises at the sight of Chicken Grease’s deep-fried artwork, so does adrenaline start spiking at those first roof-raising strains of “Here Kitty Kitty.”

the room in a similar jumpercable kind of way that a Lil’ Ed or Joe Louis Walker album can.

Plug it in and peg the meter with contagiously high energy out to have a funky good time. “Here DENNIS ROZANSKI Kitty Kitty” breaks the ice with call-and-response participation. LARKIN POE “609” immediately follows up Self Made Man with a hyperventilating lovesick T R I C K I - WO O boogie frenzied all the more ince banding together in 2010 under the banner of Larkin Poe, the Lovell sisters—lead vocalist Rebecca on guitar; Megan on lap steel— have scratched their blues-rock itch in their own special, hardedged way. 2018’s Venom & Faith changed the game. On the thrust of burners like “Bleach Blonde Bottle Blues,” their fourth record climbed up to a BMA nomination for “Best Emerging Artist Album,” kept ascending to a

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S

#1 slot on Billboard’s blues chart, and rose higher yet to a Grammy nomination for “Best Contemporary Blues Album.” Roaring mega-audiences stretched from the Chicago Blues Festival to Bonnaroo have been putting exclamation points on Larkin Poe’s mass crossover appeal.

But if Venom & Faith was the mark of definitive arrival, then Self Made Man is the gateway to lionization.This new-blood band sounds more liberated than ever, carving out their own niche on the serrated edge of “She’s A Self Made Man,” stripped down to berserk slide surges in “Scorpion,” whipping up adrenaline with every shout-along chorus to “Holy Ghost Fire.”Whereas Skip James and Son House have been hit up for songs, now it’s Blind Willie Johnson’s turn. “God Moves On the Water” adds new hand-wringing stanzas upon his Titanic-era ode to disaster, while pumping up the decibels all the while. “Every Bird That Flies” keeps on dashing hopes, casting a pall with heavy riffs that slog through the doom. But then, in the spirit of an old Carter Family tune, “Easy Street” ekes a glint of prospective sunshine out of the yee-haw bounce to its hardscrabble existence.

More than ever, Larkin Poe’s writing style deploys Rebecca to turn clever phrases in the midst of a six-string maelstrom.

And that constant collision of Megan’s 1940s Rickenbacker against Rebecca’s Fender Jazzmaster comes at you with the kind of wooly rock-and-roll fury that turns Self Made Man into a fantastically interactive album by keeping you upping the volume and hitting replay.

DENNIS ROZANSKI

has ever stomped. Its nasty roar kicks out the Jamz while ceremoniously busting down the door to a new era.

DENNIS ROZANSKI

RORY BLOCK

Prove It On Me STO N Y P L A I N

R tar and their steely slider of

ory Block, her Martin gui-

RYAN PERRY

High Risk, Low Reward RUF

T of uninterrupted guitar blis-

he album’s opening minute

ter declares that Ryan Perry is now full-grown fire. The message sent at the start of the leadoff “Ain’t Afraid to Eat Alone” is instant, loud and clear. After spending his teenage years as one-third of the Homemade Jamz Blues Band—an all-sibling youthquake from Tupelo, Miss., that became darlings of the festival circuit when not in the recording studio—the 20something-year-old just recorded his declaration of independence as a solo headliner, High Risk, Low Reward.

Per ry’s breakaway debut continues working a familiar format of bass, drums and his stinger of a guitar. But his very own brand now establishes on a whole higher level of swagger, reinforced by a voice deepened all the more since last heard on 2013’s Mississippi Hill Country.

“Homesick” and “A Heart I Didn’t Break” bear that coolly assured trademark.The title track works a fearsome trance using modern Mississippiness, whose kudzu riffing spills over into pondering the genre’s fate during “Changing Blues.” Of the little material that gets borrowed (including label mate Big Daddy Wilson’s smoldering “Oh No”), Perry signs his boldest signature over Wolf ’s “Evil Is Going On.” A newly designed stop-and-start motion does wonders for injecting a fresh sense of drama, as does the dirty distortion from strings being bent screamingly sky-high.

In the end, “Hard Times,” irked to the hilt, cranks up its strife, struggle and amplifiers into the heaviest mojo that Perry

choice have been tireless in paying back all the old masters on whom rest her constant craving for country blues. The truthin-advertising Mentor Series recently strung together homage to six inspiring patriarchs—Son, Skip, Rev. Gary, Mississippi John, Mississippi Fred, Bukka—with whom she studied in her startup days of the 1960s. In 2018, A Woman’s Soul marked a pivot to Block’s newest matriarchal series honoring Power Women of the Blues, inaugurated by the queen mother, Bessie Smith.

Prove It On Me, volume two, works a diffused strategy by instead spreading the love over 10 different early pioneers. The honorees motivate some of Block’s deepest archival dives yet.

Beyond campaigning for headliners Memphis Minnie and Ma Rainey (the title track’s creator), the setlist champions such wellkept secrets as the Kansas City Butterball (Lottie Kimbrough) and the Yas Yas Girl (Merline Johnson). From out of history’s recessed shadows, “Wayward Girl” and a salty “Milk Man Blues” get pressed back into service. “I Shall Wear a Crown” marches triumphantly out from the land of the lost, in memory of blind gospel angel Arizona Dranes. The innuendo baked into every wink and nod of “It’s Red Hot” dates to 1928.

True to Block’s longstanding M.O., Prove It On Me is indeed

a one-woman show. Yet the studio builds the lone slide guitarist into a band by layering her guitar, voice, and junkyard percussion (from oatmeal boxes to wooden spoons). Whether puffing new life back into 1930s reefer madness (“If You’re a Viper”) or landing a fresh gut punch (her own autobiographical “Eagles”), Block’s special touch with acoustic blues is as vibrant as 30some albums ago.

DENNIS ROZANSKI

LINSEY ALEXANDER

Live At Rosa’s DELMARK

D dles atop Linsey Alexander’s on’t dare mistake the 78 can-

birthday cake as any indication of tuckered-out glory: The growly Chicago guitarman is every bit a burner, as you and the crowd at Rosa’s Lounge witness. No wonder, after first serving as a South Side fixture, he’s since reigned over the North Side: This May 2019 set rips.

Alexander is in tiptop form, barking out displeased lines about “My Days Are So Long” or “Snowing in Chicago,” overemphasized by the massive steelgirder tone of his red Gibson.

And the band, sharp and crisp, doesn’t fancy or fatten itself up with horns; Roosevelt Purifoy’s fatback organ is its only indulgence. That way the guitar can take full advantage of “Have You Ever Loved a Woman” creeping along. The two-minute preamble solo forecasts the inspired battering that awaits. However, unlike “Going Back to My Old Time Used To Be,” it’s not as much the rapid-fire notes that stun here; those violent stringbends, arcing up and defiantly refusing to fall right back down, are what scorch the ground over the length of nine tense min-

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BLUES REVIEWS CONTINUED utes. Junior Wells’ “Ships on the Ocean,” another long, slow blues, operates on a cycle of tense-andrelease—instead of tense-andtenser. Phew.

Since signing with Delmark in 2012, Alexander has been siring a string of buzz-worthy albums that have boosted his stature far beyond that of a local secret, which he was for decades after pulling into town from Mississippi in 1963. However, Live At Rosa’s ranks as the best hour of all spent with Linsey.

Make that also one of this year’s best hours spent with live, unmuddled Chicago blues.

DENNIS ROZANSKI

across “I Had a True Love” or glide above the floating cloud that is “You Don’t Know What Love Is” (available here in both live and studio varieties). The cascades of notes are meant to be savored, not guzzled. Naturally, the T-Bone Walker tr ibute, “Stormy Monday,” thrives on fleet, uncluttered improvisation.

Atop that, Robinson’s voice richly coats songs with baritone molasses, spiked with soaring updrafts for dramatic effect. And grooving for 10 minutes is not out of the question. The wickedly lurching “Help Me” and a funky, hard-driven “Ghetto Train” (co-powered by Son Seals’ guitar) work the live moment by digging in and stretching out.

Indeed, his blues have always been a palette cleanser after the alleyway grit and barbarous slam of everyday Chicago. Too many long, silent years have gone by since any Fenton Robinson material has leaked out, making these brand-new vintage gems all the more worthy of being truly treasured.

creativity meet at the crossroads, all by themselves. No clutter, no dilution. By the same token, no hiding place, no guard rails. Just Katz being Katz, on tour of the piano’s many changing moods.

“Down At the Barrelhouse” and its life-of-the-party cocaptain, “Watermelon Stomp,” foster air pianists, thanks to the kind of heated two-fisted fury that comes off sounding like four-fisted fury. “Crescent Crawl” cruises New Orleans’ Seventh and Ninth Wards with heroes from Professor Longhair to Huey Smith on its mind.

“Red Sneakers” sports a tinge of properness to its stride. And “It Hurts Me Too,” the lone cover, leans hard on its blue Chicago upbringing. But, by the point that “Dreams of Yesterday” and “Midnight Plans” respectively waft and bop in, any need to comply with stylistic boundaries has been ditched in favor of unbound personal expression, culminating in “Redemption,” Katz’s freest compositional statement in the power of one.

DENNIS ROZANSKI

DENNIS ROZANSKI

JIMMY CARPENTER

the fistful of songs he writes.

Besides Mike Zito (Live From The Top), Billy Pr ice (Dog Eat Dog), Albert Castiglia (Masterpiece), and Kid Andersen (coming soon), Carpenter is among the early voyagers on Zito’s own label, Gulf Coast Records (est. 2018).

So, the precedent is set for firing on all cylinders. Based upon the set’s rip and tumble, the hungry band (loaded with guitar firepower) received that memo, escalating the title track’s boogaloo up to the level of “Wild Streak” until cresting atop the dirty-riff rocking “Wrong Turn.”

Carpenter muscles his horn all three times; but the instrumentals “LoFi Roulette” and “One Mint Julep” are when the gloves really come off. “When I Met You” doesn’t compete in that slugfest, yet its Memphis soul melody wins the heavyweight title for sticking in your head longest after closing time. When the encore does arrive, the prior 40 minutes have listeners fired up to pump their fists and hoist their beers with every rousing refrain of Eddie Hinton’s “Yeah Man.”

Soul Doctor

FENTON ROBINSON

DENNIS ROZANSKI

Out of Chicago: Live and Studio Sessions 1989/92

G U L F C OA ST

F always been at an absolute

cover on this roadhouse blast?

Very much so, since the Soul Doctor turns out to be Jimmy Carpenter, the brass cyclone who has whipped up winds behind Tinsley Ellis, Jimmy Thackery, Walter Wolfman Washington and, presently, Mike Zito. His fourth and boldest solo effort secures Carpenter as inherently far more than an in-demand hornman SISTER GERTRUDE MORGAN (who doubles as president of the Let’s Make A Record Las Vegas Blues Society); he’s also R O P E A D O P E a keen bandleader with a singing eet Sister Gertrude Morvoice tough enough to deliver gan—and she’ll be with you always. That whole Bride of Christ backstory.Those primitivist paintings. Of all, her haunting spirituals stand as the most indelible. Although, pound for pound, Let’s Make A Record may well be the purest gospel performance ever captured, its roughcut power rips through you in similar fashion to a Charley Patton record.

This album was her only one.

W not a guitar?—owning the ait … is that a saxophone—

JSP

enton Robinson albums have

premium: The hitch being that the Chicago-by-way-of-Mississippi guitarist cut so precious few of them before passing in 1997.

Onstage recordings? Good luck finding one. That is why Out of Chicago is such a godsend. Not only does his discography get a boost, but via a host of scenarios: Live and Studio; fire and ice; with and without Son Seals. Plus, horns are always within reach.

Fenton wasn’t one to forcibly elbow his way into the Chicago pantheon; instead, the so-called “mellow blues genius” entered the guild of greats under his own terms, stylishly. That fact bears out on these six live and four studio tracks which trace to Europe: the Burnley Blues Festival and BBC Studios in 1989, and 1992’s Ecaussines Blues Festival. Hence, Out of Chicago.

Listen to his solo pan coolly

BRUCE KATZ

Solo Ride

A M E R I C A N S H OW P L A C E

S be

ometimes, the band needn’t convened. Sometimes, what’s best is to put musical teamwork on hold and just simply luxuriate in the pureness of one instrument being played exceptionally well. Solo Ride is precisely that: an unaccompanied, all-instrumental piano recital by accomplished keyboardist Bruce Katz, who has shored up the bands of Gregg Allman, Delbert McClinton and Ronnie Earl, and led his own group for nearly the last 30 years. Here, a series of 12 unguarded performances let technical chops and artistic

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M

It is anything but a polished, choreog raphed production.

The sound is simply that of one woman, with a tambourine in her hand, conviction in her soul, and her savior high above. Gratefully, no calculation was involved in its making, other than Larry Borenstein, his tape deck, and a fired-up Morgan striding into her prayer room with an attainable goal in mind: Let’s Make A Record. Recorded live, the music’s gloriously unrefined, improvised character is honored by leaving all the natural edges intact, the way it should be: raw faith. Amen to that.

Leading up to this day in 1970, Morgan continually calibrated her life, based upon a series of epiphanies. Around 1938, at age 38, she left her earthly husband in favor of absolute devotion to the Holiness movement; some 20 years later is when she self-described as the “bride of Christ,” visualized by the crisp, white habit she wore daily. (Her self-portrait graces the album cover.) Her revelations were directly transmissible. Especially when she sang.

She was neither a sweet songbird nor a roarer. At 70, any such potential qualities had long been replaced by sinew, left behind from years of evangelizing on street corners and inside tiny missions within New Orleans’ Ninth Ward. That said, the titanium sincerity in her single, solitary voice goes up against any mass choir or full-tilt pulpit band. By themselves, the 14 songs draw rhythmicity from how she swings phrases with a pendulum arc, reinforced through repetition of lines. The finishing touch came from the metallic rattle off her tambourine. Into the Light she goes, drilling down into “I Am the Living Bread” with a true believer’s resolve. Skipping along with the Holy Ghost to “Take My Hand, Lead Me On.” Infusing “The Gift of God Is Eternal Life” with spoken talk of Satan’s tail and his old, tattlin’ tongue. Then exploding with “Power” … over and over and over again.

In 2005, King Britt Presents Sister Gertrude Morgan remixed these tapes with instruments and

sounds, both real and electronic.

Let’s Make A Record, however, is the raw, untouched relic that has steeped in whisper-down-theline lore even long before the sweet bye and bye claimed the good Sister in 1980.

away on a trampoline.

After all these years, the world finally gets to bask in the glorious glow of Marumo, flying without wings through “Ha Se Nna Fela” not long after the huge, steelbelted chorus of “Toitoi.”

DENNIS ROZANSKI

DENNIS ROZANSKI

SASS JORDAN

makes Swiss cheese of “Palace of the King” with a torrent of piercing bends. Marriner’s harp swings “My Babe,” growing far pricklier when figuring forcefully in Taj Mahal’s 1968 blueprint for “Leaving Truck.” What could be more innate for a firebreather named Sass than to sink her fearless rasp into a bucket of blues?

Rebel Moon Blues

DENNIS ROZANSKI

STO N Y P L A I N

W records

MARUMO

Modiehi

MR BONGO

L Graceland hoisted a Gram-

ong before Paul Simon’s

my in 1987 and, in the process, introduced millions around the globe to the wonders of Afropop music, South African bands by the score had already been making special magic. Marumo’s stellar Modiehi, of 1982 vintage, is precisely the kind of under-theradar magic that sweetened the air from Johannesburg to Cape Town, but remained essentially unheard by outside ears.

All 12 times that the quartet, a product of the Athlone School for the Blind, locked voices in majestic harmony were some kind of wonderful. By showcasing their range, Modiehi makes for the best of both worlds: roughly, half the tracks nod to the times, stylistically roaming through dramatic Sotho soul (“O Mohau”) and quieted ballads (“Molato Ke Eng”) en route to a disco outburst (“Khomo Tsaka Deile Kae?”) that has since taken on a life of its own in the hands of digger DJs like Motor City Drum Ensemble.

The album’s other half throbs with a mbaqanga heartbeat, the indestructible township grooves that put Soweto on the musical map. “Siyahlupheka,” “Re A Hlopheha” and “Ke Eo Terene” are irrepressible shots of sunshine brightened all the more with the energy of fizzing guitars and a bass that sounds to be bouncing

ith more than a million sold worldwide over a career of 40 years, Sass Jordan has now shifted her sights from the kind of hard rocking that rubbed elbows with Cheap Trick and Van Halen, earned a judgeship on “Canadian Idol,” and merited a slot on the David Bowie Celebration Tour. The British-born Canadian vocalist’s ninth studio album steps apart from the prior eight.

Keeping its word, Rebel Moon Blues loads up heavily on blues, which Jordan and the Champagne Hookers—her road band noticeably boosted by harpist Steve Marriner—make quick work of, careening through seven covers and one rocked-out original (“The Key”) in a little over 30 minutes. The borrowed material builds on a spectrum spanning the downhome fervor of Keb’ Mo’ to J.B. Hutto’s Chicago rumpus to modern-era string benders as scorching as Freddie King. But each and every one of their songs gets revvedup by the gravelly grit in Jordan’s strong, Joplinesque voice, which burns the candle at both ends, capable of rocking your world after first coloring it blue. In doing so, “Am I Wrong” retains its organic stomp-and-slash action, thanks to Chris Caddell’s bottlenecking. He also cops the Allmans’ slide-guitar arrangement for “One Way Out” and

ZZ TOP

That Little Ol’ Band From Texas

E A G L E R O C K ( DV D + B L U - R AY S E T )

S rising off That Little Ol’ Band urprisingly, the first sound

From Texas—an immersion into the surreal heights of blues-rock force and renegade originality— is not that of an electric guitar.

But instead an acoustic one; a lone ghost galloping out of the distant past. Though no sooner has its 1920s bluesman, Henry Thomas, begun groaning “Texas Easy Street” than the world’s greatest rocket-fueled bordello boogie, 1973’s “La Grange,” blasts and blisters its way onto the screen. Yet in those adjoining seconds, kindred spirits have twinned, the evolutionary bridge has connected, the circuit symbolically completes.

And the rest is ZZ Top history.

Literally, for the next two hours.

From “Shuffle in C” to spinning fur guitars: It’s all here.

Capping off the band’s 50th anniversary last year, muchobearded guitarist Billy Gibbons, mucho-bearded bassist Dusty Hill, and beardless drummer Frank Beard tell the tale. Of how the trio modeled themselves after their likewise overdriven, blues-crazed idols Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience.

How they grew out of Dallas and Houston garages in the 1960s—as the Warlocks, the

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BLUES REVIEWS CONTINUED American Blues, the Hendrixtied Moving Sidewalks (celluloid proof provided)—and into a larger-than-life international sensation. Snapshots, home movies, animation, archival footage, Eliminator-era MTV videos, and a Texas-sized roundup of live performance illustrate the storyline in full. Just as colorful is documentary dialogue that works in psychedelic Thirteenth Floor Elevators, blowing out the Memphis Blues Festival, a Chimp in Orbit loophole, bluesman Banlon socks, training buzzards for the Worldwide Texas Tour spectacle, and finding that ZZ Top “sound.”

Along the way, insider secrets get divulged, too. Such as how old blues posters spawned the ZZ Top name, and then how “Mork & Mindy” rescued them from the jaws of becoming an organ trio. Ever wondered why Gibbons’ growl is so scuffed up for “La Grange”? Most crucial of all, though: What’s the deal with those whiskers?

Putting the icing on the fable are 40 minutes of bonus live material, split evenly between past and present. Concert stages from the 1970s and ’80s donate bedlam (wonky, post-punk “Manic Mechanic”), bottlenecking (“Tush”) and “Beer Drinkers & Hell Raisers.” But for diehard blues, fast forward to today.You’re an audience-of-one inside a vacated Gruene Hall, the oldest dancehall in Texas, for an exclusive mini-set that fires up “La Grange” in all its John Lee Hooker-on-steroids glory.

Nonetheless, what consummates the roadhouse deal are the deep tracks. First Album-era “Brown Sugar” and the majestically smoldering “Blue Jean Blues” tap into what’s been behind the ZZ Top mystique this whole Texas time.

not pussyfoot around. Belligerent, fearless, loud-mouthed: That sounds about the right attitude for a harp looking to brawl with any shuffle, slog, or churn that comes its way. Don’t Give Up on the Blues, Robson’s American solo debut, squarely lands its didn’tsee-that-coming punch on the sheer force of “Your Dirty Look & Your Sneaky Grin,” “That ’Ol Heartbreak Sound” and the 10 other originals.The tough, hornless Bruce Katz Band provides reinforcement.

Acoustic and jaunty, “Boogie at the Showplace” doesn’t bare fangs as do all the rest, reaching from “Land To Land” to the twoton grinder going by the name of “Fearless Leaders.” So good is the ooze of “Way Past Midnight,” over which a Hammond B3 lays an oil slick, that you pray vocals never break the spell. Gratefully, none do.

But, circling back to answer the originating question: As for Robson, he’s British-born (1978).

He’s Hohner-endorsed. He’s vetted by Alligator Records (having triangulated 2019’s Journeys to the Heart of the Blues with Joe Louis Walker and Bruce Katz). And he’s electroshocking the memory of Little Walter and fellow Chicago blowers into your ears with commanding, all-hear-this bravado.

Damn, he’s even shown up with his own personal anthem in the frothing “Giles’ Theme.” Now that’s a sure sign of being in for the long haul.

(Hot Buttered Soul, Eliminator, Soul Fixin’ Man) yielded the harpist’s 11th studio album. This isn’t his first Beale Street rodeo, however.

2009 and 2017’s International Blues Challenge prompted prior pilgrimages. But this trip rewarded Croatia’s Hohner-sanctioned blues ambassador with a new record to quickly feed off the momentum of 2019’s Chicago Rambler.

Memphis Light highlights Goluban’s range of making music.

Except for treating “House of the Rising Sun” to a roadhouse romp, he came up with all the songs. He sang them all, too, aside from a prominent cameo by booming-voiced Vince Johnson, who has understandably become a growing force in the nightspots around Memphis given his agonized crawl through “Fun Starts Here.” Sporting slide guitar and a pair of backup singers to class up the joint, the band covers the extremes of “Party Time Blues” to “Disappear For Good,” cast beneath a Fender Rhodes’ twinkling constellation.

The ensemble temper s Goluban’s harp to work in service of the song, rather than the other way around. The stops come out when “Hayloft Blues” lets everyone flex their nastiest side; and the instrumental dash through “Country Bag” frees up some extra blowing room. That said, here’s hoping that harmonica really slips its leash to run wild the next time out.

DENNIS ROZANSKI

DENNIS ROZANSKI

DENNIS ROZANSKI

GILES ROBSON

TOMISLAV GOLUBAN

WATERMELON SLIM

Don’t Give Up on the Blues

Memphis Light

Traveling Man

A M E R I C A N S H OW P L A C E

C D BA BY

NORTH ERN BLU ES (2 CDS)

W Walter Jacobs is this reed- Tindeed the upshot of Tomis- A ble-shot chaser to the stuho in the name of Marion

ruth be told, Memphis Light is

s a live-and-wiggling dou-

rattling Giles Robson? Because lav “Little Pigeon” Goluban’s dio heroics of 2019’s Church of the harmonica barking out from overseas visit to Memphis, where the Blues, Traveling Man scores behind his clenched fingers does time spent inside Ardent Studios front-row seats to a pair of solo 18 | B L U E S R A G | F A L L 2 0 2 0 | M O J O W O R K I N . C O M

Watermelon Slim shows. It’s pure Slim, the way Nature intended: Only him, his collection of slide guitars, his harmonica, and that eminently crumpled voice. One disc escorts you to the bandstand at the Blue Door, in Oklahoma City; the other disc follows suit at the Depot, a joint 30 minutes south on I-35.

Each of these 2016 gigs comes with its own distinct setlist, shedding light on the wealth of songs running around the former watermelon farmer’s head at any one time. Most of the 19 performances are five-minute chapters out of his life: unpolished honesty given a bottlenecked backbone. (Only the saga of “Jimmy Bell” earns wheezy harp accompaniment.) Narrative arcs differ between evenings. In Oklahoma City, for example, the endless blacktop preys heavily on his mind.“Blue Freightliner,”“Truck Driving Songs,” “Scalemaster Blues” and the cr ipplingly lonesome “300 Miles” convoy through personal memor ies from his gearjammer days. The Norman, Okla., set instead takes a dark turn through “Devil’s Cadillac” en route to staring down death during “Let It Be in Memphis.”Though, wherever his own thoughts go, that slide never stops jittering away.

What does get borrowed becomes Slim’s anyway, thanks to a hearty customization treatment: The Watermelon Man is no cover artist. So even when showing his colors as a longtime Fred McDowell loyalist (a marathon “61 Highway Blues”) or a faithful Wolf ally (“Smokestack Lightning” spliced into “Two Trains Running”), standard blueprints are never retraced.

Then again, nothing is standard about Slim.

DENNIS ROZANSKI

AL BILALI SOUDAN

THE STAR BEAMS

Tombouctou

Play Disco Specials

or thorny, hyperactive West African desert dance music that holds up spellbindingly well after all these centuries, Tombouctou is a modern godsend. An old-fashioned adrenaline fest. A primordial rock album, thousands of years before the concept of rock was ever hatched. The experience is nothing remotely close to anything you’d stumble across in the mainstream—or any stream, tributary or backwater, for that matter.

Its source is Al Bilali Soudan, a power quintet built on ancestral Malian terms: three jacked-up tehardents (hand-carved, fretless proto-guitars) and a percussive pair of calabashes. Wielding their ancient axes like Stratocasters attacking ancient, traditional grooves, the Tuareg band is lord of the takamba scene around the fabled stronghold of Timbuktu (aka Tombouctou). Here, the hypnotic hotbed of frenzied riff and rhythm, tangled around bone-rigid voices, presents a significantly heavier, harder answer to their self-titled album of 2013.

Performances don’t flinch at running long, freely extending until “Hoummaïssa” has had its fill of gyrating for eight dizzying minutes or “Apolo” deliriously blisses out for slightly less. Infused with all the raw, uninhibited charm of one of their local gigs, you could just as well be listening under a tent, partially sheltered from the nuclear sun but exposed to brash partying like it’s 1499.

Never once does the intensity break its penetrating stare.

Eleven tracks blur and feed into one, massively whirling freakout taken at a headlong pace. When nothing less than a trance will do.

F

ittle-known fact: Funkytown opened a franchise all the way down in the land of Zulu.

Yes, the mirror ball invaded as deep as Cape Town, making African disco very much a real thing. Exquisitely rare proof has resurfaced in the Star Beams’ Play Disco Specials, a long-lost party that speaks to the West’s funkification of the continent.

Four-on-the-floor grooves drive hi-hats into hissy fits, with the aim of putting bellbottoms into motion. Saturday night fever spreads all the more through dance-away arrangements enlivened by bright, brassy horns. Listeners were—and still continue to be—left with no choice other than to boogie down.

The album remains steeped in mystery to this day. “We Did It” and the three other long instrumental workouts don’t come with much backstory, other than being picked at the genre’s peak of freshness—1976—in South Africa. But the music really needs no preamble anyway, as its bold confidence and bumping bass lines are easily enough to get any room throbbing without need for introductions. Aside from infusing township jive into the ultra-chipper “Barney’s Moaning” by way of high-stepping riffs and a very smiley guitar, the Star Beams sounded less overtly South African than such fellow disco-funksters as the Movers or the Drive. So, when “Disco Stomp” stretches into an elongated dancefloor monster, its chugging pulse speaks the universal language understood by feet all around the world.Thirtythree total minutes that spell doom for any hope of relaxing.

DENNIS ROZANSKI

DENNIS ROZANSKI

CLERMONT

THE FORREST MCDONALD BAND

MR BONGO

L

Blues In a Bucket WO R L D TA L E N T

T album is out! Wait, not heard he new Forrest McDonald

of Forrest McDonald? Then let’s back up and try it this way: Heard of Bob Seger? Know “Old Time Rock and Roll,” that evergreen anthem which owned FM radio at the close of the 1970s? The one with that guitar solo urgently ripping in only 55 seconds from the start? Then, you have already met guitarist Forrest McDonald.

Or, for those soul lovers out there, the quiz could just as well substitute tracks from Bobby Womack’s Roads of Life for the same resulting answer.

Now fast forward roughly 40 years (in both cases) to arrive at McDonald’s currently ongoing love affair with the guitar. His 70-year-old fingers, 15 albums into a six-decade career, continue peeling off razor-sharp runs, squeezing off licks and bends, and venting solos to bring credence to “Blues In the Basement,” the bottlenecked “Blue Morning Sun,” and “Misery and Blues.” So, yes, Blues In a Bucket’s hallucinatory artwork may be Wonkaeque on the outside. But its contents stay blue on the inside, as the top-hatted McDonald underscores his grappling over loss and loneliness with the sting of his Gibson’s bellyaching. However, when popping up in “Boogie Me Till I Drop,” a horn section capsizes the grey skies with a New Orleans parade.

DENNIS ROZANSKI

mode of transport, then the waves of wah-wah-wahs underpinning Sonny Boy Williamson’s “Springtime Blues” or the firstposition daggers stabbed into Clifton Chenier’s heaving “One Step At a Time” surely will: Dermody drives a harp. And he has rootsy recordings with Eric Bibb, John Cephas, and Louisiana Red to show for it.

But, by uncharacteristically plugging in, My Dony ditches the front-porch folkiness of his three prior albums in a Chicago minute. The brash, new bite suits Dermody well, whose embrace of amplification is the reason behind “Hometown Blues” and the title track’s Halsted Street pounding.The setlist isn’t entirely wed to Chicago, however. Corey Ledet’s zydeco accordion wonderfully adds a sense of dislocation, nourishing grooves spread afar as “Real Time Man,” whose boogying is embedded with John Lee Hooker DNA, and a souped-up “Morning Train” that Beau Jocque once rode through south Louisiana dancehalls. Besides loaning her band to the session, folk/soul woman Rhiannon Giddens showed up to help “Great Change” hold church. “Too Late To Change Your Mind” strips down the furthest, to only harp, Dirk Powell’s equally crusty guitar, and a loveless love song fit for the alley.

Funny how a jolt of electricity can transform an acknowledged rustic.

DENNIS ROZANSKI

ALBERTO LOMBARDI

Hot Licks GRANT DERMODY

ST E FA N G R O S S M A N ’ S G U I TA R

My Dony

WO R K S H O P ( 2 DV D S )

THUNDER RIVER

I

n the blink of an eye, 52 bitef 5 Hole Draw Music, his pubsized Hot Licks flood out, as lishing company, doesn’t con- Alberto Lombardi uncaps a geyvey Grant Dermody’s preferred ser of fretboard moves just itching

I

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BLUES REVIEWS CONTINUED to be copped. The 160 tutored minutes are meant to be raided, made all the easier by slowmotion split-screen reiteration.

The deep pool of modular patterns are ideal for mixing and matching and snapping together to form whole phrases that, in turn, boost and build solos or arrangements.

Beyond building a stockpile of actionable ideas, Lombardi’s exercises also nicely double as finger calisthenics that hone coordination between hands.

Each bite-sized flurry of activity, pulled right from the session player-turned-soloist’s personal practice program and repertoire, is taught with an overarching goal in mind, rather than randomly spilling out.

Although the lion’s share climb up and down the frets generically, a handful of designs trace to sources as high profiled as “Yesterday” and “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” or Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles. With harmonics, legatos, arpeggios, rolling barres, triplets and triads also figuring into the plan, these Hot Licks are anything but quick, empty calories for your strings.

DENNIS ROZANSKI

CASH MCCALL

One Who’s Got a Lot (Digital single) BENNY TURNER

Who Sang It First (Digital single) NOLA BLU E

2 brought

019’s Going Back Home together Cash McCall and Benny Turner to jointly reminisce over their heydays in 1960s Chicago. That chance to nostalgically peruse the songbooks of Howlin’ Wolf, Elmore James and others came just in the nick of time, right before McCall’s 78-year-old body gave out that April. Now it turns out that Nola Blue Records, the source of Going Back Home, has bumped up the late McCall and 80-year-old Turner’s discog-

raphies a wee bit more by way of two independent singles: one apiece, each with its own YouTubeable video.

When not cutting his own soul/R&B sides (“When You Wake Up”), McCall, born Morris Dollison, Jr., spent a chunk of his early career as a session guitarist and songwriter at Chess Records.

Soon enough, he made a full conversion to blues. “One Who’s Got a Lot,” newly rescued from a 2014-2015 studio date, reflects those Chicago values as a randy shuffle.

Its release, in celebration of what would have been McCall’s 79th birthday on January 28, comes as four more valued minutes to spend with Cash.

Lest we forget those blues pioneers “Who Sang It First,” Turner, the singing bassist/ brother of Freddie King, wraps a respectful reminder within a smoothly rolling, contemporary melody. What implication might get lost in the artwork’s cottonpatch and church imagery, gets directly credited by Turner name-checking the genre’s forerunners from Ma Rainey and Blind Lemon Jefferson to Big Joe Turner.

DENNIS ROZANSKI

GERALD MCCLENDON

CARLA OLSON

Can’t Nobody Stop Me Now

Have Harmony, Will Travel 2

ive the people what they want. So, here is Can’t Nobody Stop Me Now. Whereas 2019’s Grabbing The Blues By The Horns was vastly bluer (as well as a double bill with Vince Salerno), this solo record owns up to Gerald McClendon’s title of “Soulkeeper.” Because gospel-bred soul music is McClendon’s specialty. And this classic throwback would have sounded just as alive back in the late-1960s with its Lord-have-mercy horns, warm purr of organ, and twinkling electric piano rubbing against the grain in McClendon’s throat, which builds suspense with preacher-like fervor. The sepiatinted artwork—McClendon in full plead mode, eyes clenched shut, body tensed, microphone in hand, heart tearing—also does its part to fire up the time machine.

The 12 sagas of flawed, damaged people (written by producer/drummer Twist Turner) keep loyal to the genre’s major tenets of slipping around and paying the price. The title track, in tandem with “I Started Over,” claws its way uphill, out of an emotional mire. But, alas. A stunning string of slow burns—“Where Do We Go From Here,” “Runnin’ Wild,” “It’s Over Now”—backslides into life’s worst that always brings out the best in soul singers. Tears drip from “Why Can’t We Be Together.” “Mr. Wrong” does its persuasive best angling for an evening’s dalliance. “Cut You Once” draws a jealous blade. “I Think About You” tries a little tenderness. And, even on the 10th listen, “She Don’t Love Me Anymore” hurts just as hard. Perfect for your next late-night meeting of the lonely-hearts club.

G

C cool cats, ever since pulling

DENNIS ROZANSKI

DENNIS ROZANSKI

D E LTA R O O T S

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S U N S E T B LV D

arla Olson hung with all the

together the Textones in order to rock 1978 Los Angeles. Solo work soon followed with the likes of Bob Dylan, Don Henley and John Fogerty.

But the singer-songwriterproducer still very much hangs with cool cats. All the proof needed bursts from the supercatchy Have Harmony, Will Travel 2, just as it did from 2013’s similarly star-studded prequel. Here, a fresh A-list of vocal duet partners gets baited in by a batch of earworms and hard-won wisdom borrowed from the likes of Stephen Stills, Patty Loveless, and the Searchers. Pairing Olson, who sings from behind her guitar, with the likes of Long Ryder Stephen McCarthy or the peaceful, easy feeling that is Timothy B. Schmit (Eagles, Poco) leads to rootsy, rocking Americana magic.

Right from the sunshiny outset of “Timber, I’m Falling in Love,” straight into Buffalo Springfield’s “A Child’s Claim to Fame,” then onto “Haunting Me,” wind gets blown into the sails of some of the most toe-tapping, singalongable heart-to-hearts. Four times Olson returns to her archives to remind us that past collaborations as gorgeously soulful as 1994’s “Honest as Daylight,” with silk-throated Percy Sledge and Mick Taylor’s lead guitar, hold up beautifully after all these years. Because, just as much as riding the rawhide trail alongside Gene Clark through 1987’s “Del Gato,” or newly mining Laurel Canyon jangle to help Herman’s Hermits’ Peter Noone wave “Goodbye My Love,” a great song given fresh, soaring wings never goes out of style.

THORBJØRN RISAGER & THE BLACK TORNADO

VANCE GILBERT

AL BASILE

DAMILY

Good Good Man

Come On In

D I S I S MY E

B’s Hothouse

Early Years: Madagascar Cassette Archives

RUF

T

horbjørn Risager and the Black Tornado thrive on blues stages and airplay charts all around the world. Understandably, the horn-heavy, eight-man platoon (est. 2003) is one of the flagships of Ruf Records, Germany’s blues label. But for as blue as the granite-voiced Risager and his fellow Danes are, they notoriously refuse to give into being neatly pigeonholed. Like their past three albums since 2014, this invitation to Come On In is best appreciated if left to drive without fussing over what preconceived roads should be taken. Black Tornado music is stylishly unmistakable. Call it artistic license hard at work.

Come on, who grapples with unsettledness as “Last Train” does, cloaked in stringy slide guitar that no sooner balloons up its orchestration into restrained abandon?

Or “Sin City,” whose lurching motion recalls a Deep South field holler, chomping and stomping around its colorfully evolving don’t-give-a-damn attitude.

Whether stripped bare or deep with many moving parts or morphing back and forth between both options, the arrangements always provide unexpected treats.

Nothing is stock, off the shelf.

Regaling a dive bar, the title track is drenched with Tornado coolness.

“Two Lovers” works in the atmospheric afterglow between dusk and dawn. However, a slurping “I’ll Be Gone” and the contrastingly jumpy “Over the Hill” do make it far easier to point directly at their Delta bottlenecking or hot tangle of West Side guitar, and proclaim blues to be identifiably on hand. Still, even then, the Black Tornado lets you know it’s them.

DENNIS ROZANSKI

SW E E T S P O T

ombie Pattycake” … And heir line of collaboration dates Z then there is Vance Gil- T back to 1973, when Al Basile arly Years: Madagascar Casbert. Indulge the troubadour first blew trumpet in Duke Robil- E sette Archives is just that: a with another three more minutes lard’s brand-new Roomful of Blues. lively delving into Damily’s fer-

“

BONGO JOE

after he’s finished wittily crooning about pastimes of the undead and he’ll reward you with tips on leading a happier life (“Pie & Whiskey”) or softening the path to mortality (“When I Cross Over”). Though by then, Good Good Man has already moved on to retickling the funny bone by letting a sharp intellect discharge its quiver of zingers into “Trust.”

Gilbert’s thoughts freely pivot that widely, able to cast Alpha Centauri, Halloween and “Cousin Shelly’s Station Wagon” in roles alongside lingering memories, the call of time, and the desire for personal good. And he’s been doing so on albums (13) and folk festival stages (Newport to Calgary) for decades now. Just as expectedly unexpected as the songs are the guests who help color them by curling around Gilbert’s acoustic guitar. On the list are Chris Smither, Subdude Tommy Malone, trombonist Herb Gardner, Celtic harpist Aine Minogue, and Al Green’s organist, Stacey Wade.

For as grayed and grizzled as the Philly-born poet has grown since opening for Shawn Colvin’s 1992 Fat City tour (which, in Gilbert’s own wry words, marked his “rise from absolute unknown to the ranks of the relatively obscure”), his voice retains its warmly disarming properties which enable 42 minutes of boundless pondering to hit home. Agreed, count this as “Another Great Day Above Ground.”

DENNIS ROZANSKI

By 1975, Basile upped and moved on; Robillard independently followed suit in 1979. Although each went their own prolific, merry way, a working bond would grow between them, which has long prospered off their profuse solo projects.

B’s Hothouse is no different.

Although this smooth, stately, stylish project is clearly Basile’s, the advantage gained from their teamwork is indivisible. The full charm of his 16th record comes from interweaving the strengths of two men on their game.

All of the 14 songs Basile croons come from releasing his inner sage, from cutting through the clutter of everyday details to poetically grapple with such core matters as eternal truth, intransigence, closeness, and the march of time. He’s also the source of those gleaming cornet solos, as well as the brassy arrangements which roll in Doug James’ tenor saxophone and “Doc” Chanonhouse’s trumpet.

Robillard, for his part, serves as producer, and also lends his band, including familiar faces like drummer Mark Teixeira and keyboardist Bruce Bears. But Duke’s most obvious mark is as the star guitarist, always there with just the right string of notes, be that articulately clanging “So-Called Storyteller,” playing the Steve Cropper to Bears’ Booker T. organ vibe on “Razor Wire,” or welding “What Dogs Wanna Do” onto a Howlin’ Wolf chassis.

As for the productive BasileRobillard alliance: What blues hath joined together, let no man put asunder.

ric past, a vetting of the nimble guitarist’s back pages as beautifully remastered from homeland tapes recorded between 1995 and 2002. While Early Years is academically all of that, it’s just as much a smile-from-ear-toear record that feels like a warm, starry summer’s night whenever blasting from your speakers.

For those uninitiated to the six-string euphoria of Tsapiky music, know that Damily is one of the genre’s master fretsmen.

Gray days fear his fingers’ giddy speed. His nonstop wellspring of electric lines—jumpy and jittery, articulate and intricate—has set flight to countless frolics in Madagascar’s backcountry. But world stages are no less immune to the fevered tempos. The irresistibly catchy spirit likewise sweeps up bass, percussion and excitable band members who sing out atop the Malagasy groove party.

On par with 2018’s Valimbilo and its Very Aomby predecessor, this song cycle is no less breathless.

“Tulear,” “Nahoda Mpamelon Anake” and four other dances flow with spontaneity, enough to make any audience putty in the rhythm’s hands. Yvel Mbola’s photographs and liner notes airdrop you into the sound’s habitat, painting visions of a bush village like Tongobury pulsating as generators hum and the amped-up music runs free. Even more so when “Mangebakebake” sweats for eight minutes. As with all things Damily, Early Years remains best appreciated when you’re in motion.

DENNIS ROZANSKI

DENNIS ROZANSKI

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BLUES REVIEWS CONTINUED

riff or tinting “Witness” with a sweet squeeze of Tex-Mex accordion. Although the ethereal whinny of their Vox organ will prick up ears, it’s the victorious comeback of Sexton and his songcraft that stands as the most welcomed surprise of all.

DENNIS ROZANSKI

WILL SEXTON

Don’t Walk the Darkness BIG LEGAL MESS

D mark of a fighter. Not just

on’t Walk the Darkness is the

because Will Sexton’s grit and grandeur reconvene for his first solo record in a decade. But even more triumphantly because this roots-rock catharsis arrives after the Texas songwriter/guitarist fully battled back from a 2009 stroke that robbed him of his skill set.

Sexton, a product of Austin schooling at the hands of W.C. Clark, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Joe Ely, has returned, big-time.

New compositions sift through thoughts and melodies, both plainspoken and cryptic, spanning the shrouded spellbinder of a title track to the headsdown boogying thrust of “What My Baby Don’t Know.” “Fell In Straight View,” beautifully flush with subtleties, pitches between dreamstate and waking; “Temptation’s Call” is anything but. The session also springs into action a pair of orphaned songs—“Don’t Take It From Me” (co-written with the late Waylon Jennings) and “Only Forever”—that sat, unperformed, in Sexton’s back catalog for years.

The secret force breathing life into the set is his backing band, the esteemed Iguanas.True to their revered nature, they shapeshift through whatever Americana scene gets called for, whether softly patrolling “Oh the Night (Night Owls Call)” with a wraparound saxophone

ANDREW ALLI

Hard Workin’ Man

of classic phrasings and voicings. Other than lighting three candles at the altars of George “Harmonica” Smith (“Good Things”), Big Walter (“Walters Sun”) and Little Walter (“One More Chance”), all this top-shelf material is drawn from his personal stock.Alli, who would have taught classes at the cancelled Augusta Heritage Center’s Blues Week, strolls (“Walkin’ Down”), swings (“Easy Going Man”) and slinks (“30 Long Years”) like 1954 has come again. Fighting vintage fire with vintage fire, the analog alchemy that goes on inside Atkinson’s Bigtone Studio makes everything sound as if it was captured down the hall the same afternoon Big and Little Walter were each also cutting their stuff.

ELLER SOUL

DENNIS ROZANSKI

F

or an instrument that cradles in the palm of the hand, the harmonica can tower sky-high.

Fair warning: There is no arguing that point with “Chrom-AThick,” a grueling bruiser of an instrumental whose 10-story, steel-girdered attack scared off any sort of vocals that dared try interrupting its rage. The lungs behind such intimidation belong to Andrew Alli, the late-blooming Virginian who just greatly expanded his portfolio from contributory tracks (Blues for Big Walter, Jontavious Willis’ Spectacular Class) and a six-song EP shared with guitarist Josh Small to this full-blown, full-length debut of his very own, Hard Workin’ Man. In the spirit of ‘Out with the new and in with the old,’ Alli’s music always gets treated right by his throwback band, championed by guitarist/bassist Jon Atkinson, a respected time traveler. Close your eyes, and everyone from Jimmy Rogers to Fred Below could just have well shown up to lay down a licklaced rhythm line or bounce the beat as Alli’s harp gets put through its paces, all the while thumbing through the big book

duet, hammered all the more by the back and forth of two sturdy voices atop a ramrod rhythm.

The set’s ten originals and one Edgar Winter Group redo sweep across life’s bad and occasional good, hitting up ex’es (“Explaining The Blues,” a cheater’s declaration of war) and oh’s (“We All Had a Real Good Time,” a blottoed partier’s creed). The thumping “All Your Lies” works a textbook Chicago shuffle; “Turn It Loose” is more about fun. “Front Porch” plays the heaviest hand of all with its imminent vengeance funneled into Curry’s scorched delivery and .44-caliber content, as well as Castiglia’s own wah-wah violence. Yet tucked within all this bluster is the hushed anomaly of “House Is Lonely,” whose elegant balladry extracts smoky sweetness from Curry’s typical belting.

DENNIS ROZANSKI

FRA FRA

Funeral Songs G L I T T E R B E AT

O Fra Fra tribesmen wrestle

penly taunting death, four

THE MARY JO CURRY BAND

Front Porch M A RYJ O C U R RY. C O M

V got an Illinois band. On top

ocalist Mary Jo Curry has

of that, she also has got clout.

Enough clout, in fact, to call on outside firepower to intermittently join her septet that prowls the Midwest with Hammond organ, saxophone and the guitar of husband Michael Rapier.

Front Porch’s guest rotation temporarily bumps up that lineup with the spotlit guitars of Albert Castiglia (Junior Wells, Sandra Hall) and Tom Holland (Eddy Clearwater, James Cotton). For extra measure, Kilborn Alley’s Andrew Duncanson tosses his gruffness into the mix by turning “Lookin’” into a pounding

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with mortality on a dirt patch in the north of Ghana.Their Funeral Songs, like echoes from distant African centuries, brim with life, actively shimmying and soaring in the sunlight, unflinchingly defiant of a requiem mentality.

Establishing himself as the singular force in the band is Small, a diminutive firecracker of a man whose bull-strong lead voice typically operates at peak urgency. “Helpless (Death Has Taken Everyone)” blasts out as his 12-minute aria, a fiery oration to

burn back the darkness with all of his throat. He’s also the resident rock star, throbbing away on a two-string Kologo ‘guitar,’ his grab-and-go instrument just as ancient as the rudimentary percussive shakers and rattlers or the carved-bone flute which swarm him. Primal rhythms prevent the heaviness from sinking down into the earth, lifting up the deep-trance groove to “You Can’t Escape Death” and injecting “Naked (You Enter & Leave This World With Nothing)” with nervy anxiety. “We Must Grieve Together” is a flourish of only voices, rising and falling in magisterial cadence. The clash between death’s grip and a very much breathing rush of life plays out in raw, rhythmic ceremony.

Chalk up Funeral Songs as another wildly surreal encounter you’d never get to experience had Ian Brennan not trekked his tape recorder in search of musical needles hidden in the world’s remotest of haystacks. Quite the head-turner of a way-way-offthe-grid surprise.

DENNIS ROZANSKI

nominations plus nine Blues Music Award wins, including an armful of Koko Taylor Awards).

But for this performance, Foster also traveled with a guitarist, a keyboardist, a bassist, a drummer, three backing vocalists, one conductor. And, wham!, 10 horn players. Hence, the Big Band.

Songs from her past (2017’s Joy Comes Back title track; “Singin’ the Blues” and a slew more off 2014’s Promise Of a Brand New Day; and also deeper dives than that) take on new, enhanced power from expanded arrangements built to feed her small musical army. All that intense lift maximally swings “Fly Me To the Moon” and a scat-a-rific “Mack the Knife.” The hallelujah resonance behind “Woke Up This Morning” and “Death Came A Knockin’ (Travelin’ Shoes)” converts the Paramount into a 1,200-seat church.Yet, for extracting the silk in Foster’s voice, the quiet interludes inside “The Ghetto” and “Phenomenal Woman” work wonders, until Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire” melts into pure gossamer magic when entirely recast by ever so tenderly pulling out the soul. In a flash, though, the exciting new math of 18 musicians plus one Ruthie Foster equals “Runaway Soul” in full-force glory.

DENNIS ROZANSKI

RUTHIE FOSTER BIG BAND

Live At the Paramount BLU E CORN MUSIC

A Ruthie Foster is in her

nd the crowd goes wild.

hometown of Austin’s historic house with her bigger-than-big Big Band, and Live At the Paramount is the memento from that grand January evening in 2019.

Wherever she goes, the vocalist is escorted by an entourage of professional accolades (no less than three consecutive Grammy

VICTOR WAINWRIGHT & THE TRAIN

Memphis Loud RUF

I tably, Victor Wainwright’s t had to come to this. Inevi-

ambitious creativity and flammable piano chops would boil over under ideal circumstances.

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What started victoriously with 2018’s Grammy-nominated Victor Wainwright and The Train has sparked the even bigger bang of Memphis Loud. More than ever, power and suspense merge with songcraft treated to vast production. Wainwright’s overloaded arrangements know how to send the heart into palpitations, abetted by a band who justifiably come by their name—The Train—mustering horn-driven exertions so torrential that the consecutive slam from “Mississippi” into “Walk the Walk” into “Memphis Loud” verges on battery.Yet keep on riding, and just around the bend are breathtaking vistas overlooking “America” and the expansive canyon of “Reconcile,” ever so soulfully hollowed out by a majestically broken heart.The musical drama keeps piling high as the tidal wave sweeps up flugelhorns, a lavishly uptown “Sing,” clavinets, harpist Mikey Junior, the cinematically climaxing “Disappear,” guitar stud Monster Mike Welch, and funky dirt clods kicked up by “South End of a North Bound Mule” in its pull.

When all is said and done, Memphis Loud will go down in the books as Wainwright’s epic leap of artistic faith, an immersion in the deep end of go-big grandness that’s best heard whole, as an hour-long adventure built on 12 scenes. In the words of Dylan: “Someday everything’s gonna be different when I paint that masterpiece.”

Well, consider Wainwright’s someday as here.That is until his next blast of mastermind imagination.

DENNIS ROZANSKI

DR. JOHN

Ske-Dat-De-Dat: The Spirit of Satch

L A ST M U S I C C O M PA N Y

I

n memoriam of the late Dr. John, Ske-Dat-De-Dat: The Spirit of Satch is taking a special limited-edition commemorative lap.What served so well as 2014’s tribute to Louis Armstrong now doubles back as the Dr.’s own tribute, one year after his passing in June 2019, at age 77.

The setlist may be Satchmo’s, but all else belongs to Dr. John,

whose teardown reconstruction reimagines everything from melody, rhythm and tempo to personality. Language, too (“Tight Like This” turns Spanish). The result is thrillingly disorienting: You know the lyrics (“Oh the shark, babe, has such teeth, dear”; “I see trees of green, red roses too”; etc), but you can’t begin to place the music. Hearing “Mack the Knife” go funky with Mike Ladd’s rap interlude, or “What A Wonderful World” fizz with the Blind Boys of Alabama, is hearing them for the very first time. More friends pile in to aid the 13 transformations, including Shemekia Copeland (skirmishing over “Sweet Hunk of Trash”) and Bonnie Raitt.

The guest list grows with New Orleans trumpeters like Terence Blanchard and James Andrews (Trombone Shorty’s brother), as well as Cuban jazz elder Arturo Sandoval, who all maintain a golden-toned bond with Armstrong.

From “Dippermouth Blues” to “Gut Bucket Blues,” the ancient past gets brought up to current NOLA code with fistfuls of Dr. John’s distinctive gris-gris dust, horns aplenty, Tremé funk, and, yes, an encore blast of Dirty Dozen Brass Band.

In other words: The good Dr. doesn’t borrow this material; he outright owns it, just like the true original he always was.

DENNIS ROZANSKI

JOHNNY BURGIN & SPECIAL GUESTS

Osaka” roars out as its wild and woolly anthem. No Border Blues uniquely takes the pulse of that thriving scene in Japan, which upholds classic Halsted Street values—grit, muscle, heart— with chops galore. Johnny Burgin, whose West Side pedigree reaches back a mile long, graciously serves as the imported host.When not grinding Elmore James’ “Sunnyland” (plus a few more), the singing guitarist altruistically defers to his many Japanese guests, all true believers and faithful Chicago disciples.

Every single player here— from piano pounder Lee Kanehira to gutbucket drummer Takagiman—plays their o shiri off. So fierce, in fact, that the hornet-nest energy enabled cutting all 12 tracks in one gangbuster day. No fuss; all muss.

Just perfect for a rowdy setlist drawn from Chicago stock (John Brim, Carey Bell, Burgin himself) and compatible hometeam originals. The most heavyweight bout of all breaks out over “Samurai Harp Attack,” as harpists Kotez, Kaz Nogio, and Iper Onishi compete in a threeway battle, tearing off chunks from the fantastically freewheeling mayhem. As vicious as that dogfight is, Little Walter’s “I Just Keep Loving Her” has the most fun being translated into Japanese as “Mada Sukinanda.”

Rough-and-rowdy confirmation that buzzing a harp down the spine of a shuffle or hollering pained lyrics is truly an international thrill.

No Border Blues

DENNIS ROZANSKI

DELMARK

B quarters on the South,West eyond its hallmark head-

and North Sides, Chicago operates a little-known, yet bustling, satellite blues branch on the Far East Side. There, “Sweet Home

KENNY “BLUES BOSS” WAYNE

Go, Just Do It! STO N Y P L A I N

L Boss” Wayne to make a

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eave it to Kenny “Blues

contemporary case for the continued relevance of boogie woogie.At a hale 75, the pianist is simply not one for the rearview mirror, preferring instead to drive forward when repurposing the boogie and jump blues mannerisms he so clearly loves. Rather than reminisce, Wayne composes. And over the course of 11 solo albums, his smooth, playfully seismic sound has become recognizable as a speedy, streamlined smile. The signature is that chilled voice calmly running several degrees cooler than the chugging locomotive rhythms.

Go, Just Do It!, his fifth for Stony Plain, certainly boasts its share of runaway trains.

Kicked off by the hor nstabbed “Just Do It!,” “You Did a Number on Me” and “ M o t o r M o u t h Wo m a n ” breeze past in one long exclamation. It goes without saying that “T & P Train 400” also rumbles. Yet Wayne isn’t all about the whoosh. “You’re In For a Big Surprise” is a perfect example. Stately and unhurr ied, the after-hours giveand-take duet with Grammyawarded jazz songbird Diane Schuur keeps hot only under the collar. Percy Mayfield’s “I Don’t Want to Be President” turns all the more funky when Wayne’s son, Cory Spruell (operating under his nom de rap SeQual), drops in a string of rhymes. “Bumpin’ Down the Highway” moves altogether differently, with its bigband swing lushly tugged by saxophone and trumpet. Still, “Let the Rock Roll” closes out emphatically affir ming Wayne’s favorite sport is masterfully battering keyboards in the name of a good time.

DENNIS ROZANSKI

JIMI HENDRIX

Songs for Groovy Children: The Fillmore East Concerts

L E G A C Y/ E X P E R I E N C E H E N D R I X ( B OX E D S E T: 5 C D S )

T two consecutive evenings, he revolution raged over

with convenient seating at 8:00 pm and 10:30 pm. For five dollars, you got one of those seats and a lifetime of bragging rights.

Because Jimi Hendrix, America’s premier psychedelic bluesman—who similarly worked wonders for Stratocasters, headbands, “The Star-Spangled Banner,” feedback, the Marshall stack, and the posthumous art of still blowing listeners’ minds— was unveiling his next latest and greatest.

“The Fillmore is proud to welcome back a very old friend with a brand-new name: Jimi Hendrix and the Band of Gypsys.”And with that introduction—immediately answered by the scream of strings being bent violently up into the never-yetheard “Power of Soul”—the guitar god’s revolution officially kicked off. Twice a night, he shed his blues-rock skin on the Fillmore East stage, instead raising funk ‘n’ soul to the ninth power with a new bassist (Billy Cox) and a new drummer (Buddy Miles). If you missed out seeing them across those four New York shows straddling 1969 (a pair on New Year’s Eve) and 1970 (another pair on New Year’s Day), you were out

of luck. Basically, this two-night run was it: the Gypsys’ scorching debut and grand farewell simultaneously fused into one legendary stand.

Back together again for the very first time since then, Songs for Groovy Children monumentally reunites all four historic Fillmore East Concerts. Unlike 1970’s Band of Gypsys, which cherry-picked a single LP’s worth of songs, or any of the subsequent pick-of-the-litter variations that have been issued, this five-CD set boxes up the whole enchilada (except for a very small handful of tracks which continue to remain AWOL). Forty-three songs return in their original performance sequence. Restored to their unedited, au natural length.

Vibrantly remixed and remastered. Accompanied by 40 pages of essays (Cox’s words among them) and unseen photos (Did you know concert-goers received toy tambourines?) that make clear the significance of this event.

It’s a blast to hear Hendrix being Hendrix while enjoying newfound freedom in a fresh partnership, with its own sound and its own repertoire to go with it. So, Wednesday night’s inaugural launch into “Power of Soul” ceremonially decreed the Gypsys were not a rehash of what Hendrix, bassist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell did together as the

groundbreaking Jimi Hendrix Experience.

Little- to never-heard songs kept tumbling out: the sleek whiplash of “Ezy Ryder,” the escalated gallop through “Izabella.” Still, nothing hyperventilated to the extent of “ S t e p p i n g S t o n e.” F ro m “Burning Desire,” a schizophrenic jam with multiple tempos, chambers and personalities (electric typhoon, summer breeze), to “Who Knows,” which energizes its streetwise defiance from Cox’s bassline: Here was a vastly different alternative to what Sly Stone, George Clinton, the Isleys or, for that matter, any funk-soul act was out there offering.

But, like comfort food on an unfamiliar menu, ol’ Experience reliables got sprinkled here and there. “Fire” was its usual fireball self, as was the homicidal “Hey Joe.” The same very much goes for “Voodoo Child (Slight Return),” a perennial favorite that pushed tube amps to their brink from a wah-wah chopping down mountains with the edge of its sweep.“Purple Haze,” by capping off the final show’s greatest-hits encore, stands as the last live memento the Gypsys committed to tape.

The roar was somewhat different, though. Understandably so.The Gypsys were built differently than the Experience, locking down a grounded, rhythmic environment less conducive to rock’s furious thrashing. For his part, Buddy Miles, who had clocked prior time with Mike Bloomfield in the Electr ic Flag as well as with soul/R&B gods like Wilson Pickett before that, drove with a drier, fatback punch than Mitchell’s wildness.

More concrete beat, less concussive color. Vocal twists were part of the equation, too. Miles, as if leading a soul revue at the Apollo, sometimes fostered calland-response with Jimi or the audience, lobbying interactive participation through claps and shout-backs of “yeah.” During the R&B contours of “Stop” and “Changes,” he grabbed the reins outright.

Although some things had changed, others had not. Blues,

as a key example, never left Hendrix’s side, still figuring loudly into the game plan, still right there in plain view when “Bleeding Heart,” pinched out of Elmore James’ pocket, receives its searing. Blues is the force moving heaven and earth by way of massive ground swells in the riff behind “Hear My Train a Comin’,” Jimi’s own venom-dipped kissoff. But rarest of rare is “Steal Away,” a likewise slowly agonized blues borrowed from Jimmy Hughes, that earns elite one-off, one-of-a-kind status in the Hendrix catalog.

The overlap in four setlists comes with its rewards in the form of multiple copies of some songs, each internally different than the last. Among the tally is a pair of dive-bombing “Foxey Lady”s and a daily dose of “Earth Blues.” Two “Stone Free”s consume a half-hour alone, with December 31’s version winning for overall lengthiest jam, capable of absorbing five studio takes of “Manic Depression” or a flock of six “Little Wing”s within its 17-minute girth.

The richest cache, however, lies in not one … two … or even three—but four magnificent unveilings of “Machine Gun,” of which the runt of the litter storms for a mere nine minutes. From out of the dark, sinister corner of discontent, Hendrix really gets his feedback freak on even more majestically than usual by sculpting cataclysmic waves of freeform noise into a wartime horror soundtrack, complete with simulated firefights set to an aptly rat-a-tat drumbeat.

Poof! The 1960s are heard e n d i n g , l i t e r a l l y, d u r i n g December 31’s late show. “Auld Lang Syne” begins in 1969 but closes in 1970. Then not long after—Poof! again. Just as instantaneously as the Band of Gypsys had appeared, they were gone.

Hendrix would move on to his next and final phase, cobbling together the Experience v2.0 with Cox and Mitch Mitchell’s percussive retur n. But not before leaving behind these five hours from the Great New Year’s Experiment.

DENNIS ROZANSKI

M O J O W O R K I N . C O M | F A L L 2 0 2 0 | B L U E S R A G | 25

CHAMPION JACK DUPREE

Blues Pianist of New Orleans STO RY V I L L E ( B OX E D S E T: 3 C D S + DV D )

T fantastic—foretells the story.

he picture—plain, simple,

HOUSE OF WOUNDED GUITARS

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“If it ain’t broke, don’t break it!”

— BOOTSY COLLINS

Even before breaking the seal on four hours of some of the finest piano blues that New Orleans ever exported, the cover shot spells that out in full color. Champion Jack Dupree, a former boxer who transitioned from pounding faces to pounding keyboards, is seen standing somewhere abroad, alongside a car onto the side of which is painted in big, bold letters: Blues Pianist of New Orleans. It’s a rolling, four-wheel billboard advertising Jack’s barrelhouse services wherever he tooled around Europe, his adopted residence since vacating the States back in 1959. While making the rounds, a frequent stop in Copenhagen always proved productive, with the overwhelming evidence nicely boxed up here.

In those Danish studios, Dupree always found a slice of home— actually, 56 slices of home spread over three CDs. (Plus nine more slices when counting those captured by the DVD’s rare footage.)

It’s the early 1960s, and Jack— ceremoniously dressed in mod Nehru jacket with accompanying golden swinging medallion—is in stellar fighting form. (One session here skips ahead to 1979; the video dates to 1986, six years before his passing at age 81.) He has entered into his 50s, yet those same fists of steel that battled in 107 bouts through the 1930s haven’t let up on their clobbering. This time, “Gravier Street Rag,” “I Ain’t Got to Be Your Lowdown Dog” and “Number Nine,” a battering ram disguised as a train song, are now among the victims having to absorb punishing blows.With the keys wildly flapping away while downhome narratives get hollered out, the house rocks from Dupree defending his title of Champion. But watch out just the same when mood and tempo take a dive. The wallop behind such emotionally complex laments as “Trouble, Trouble” and “Have You Ever Been Alone” hits just as powerfully, beating the hell out of any nice day. Equal portions of fire

and ice authenticate Jack as a fullservice bluesman.

By this point, his musical career already came preordained by an array of American labels, including King, Federal, Folkways, and Atlantic. But, it all started back in Chicago at a session for Okeh in the summer of 1940.

Over subsequent decades, a rich mother lode of recordings was likewise amassed overseas by Storyville Records, the pride of Copenhagen. Their vault is the deep source of all the sights and sounds and surprises squeezed into this multidisc collection.

A wonderful bit of everything resides here.

By degrees, Dupree evolves over three basic musical scenarios, each with its own devoted CD. Jack works alone for a third of the time, accompanied by only his thundering left hand and a romping right. The variations are plentiful. “New Vicksburg Blues” is a real finger buster, rhythmically raining down heavy versus the pitch and roll of“Drive ’Em Down Special.” “Shake Baby, Shake” and “Keep Your Big Mouth Shut” are the rowdy extroverts of the bunch. On the flipside, there’s no doubting the heart when “Blues Before Sunrise” and “I’m a Gamblin’ Man” slowly unburden their load. Rumbling in the dirty low-end or working the ultrabright heights with knifelike stabs, Dupree transformed 88 keys into a one-man orchestra.

Then, the sound starts creeping up in fullness and personnel.

First, it’s with the camaraderie of Stuff Lange’s bottleneck guitar. Their alliance leaves pockets in Dupree’s romps and drags which Lange resourcefully fills with assorted glisses and glides.

From that telepathy come the winking sexuality veiled behind

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“Automobile Blues” and the openly howling desire for a “Big Fat Mama.” “Rocky Mountain Blues” is part talking blues, but larger part instrumental conversation. After awhile, guitar swaps out in place of a trio that peaks in the supreme highlight of “Daybreak Blues.” Swaddled ever so softly in bass and brushed drum patter, the breathtaking beauty in its sadness is everything Dupree ever was, instrumentally: power, fine detail, and feeling galore.

Ultimately, a full-bodied sound erupts as whole teams of European skill men get deputized as bona fide New Orleans jazz cats. Jack is in seventh heaven as Papa Bue’s Viking Jazz Band and Fessor’s (even bigger) Big City Band take turns transporting him back to his formative stomping grounds on the wings of “Mama Don’t Allow” and an even jumpier “Woodpecker.” Their hot trumpets and saxes, smashmouth trombones, and flyaway clarinets speak fluent Basin Street patois.

Their presence, as well as smaller subsets of musicians, uncorks an undeniable nostalgic charm in Dupree, who responds to the mopey “Careless Love” with similar relish as the heebie-jeebie energy in “Cross-Eyed Woman.”

You can hear him smiling at the center of every group.

Where this mini-boxed set goes the extra mile is by adding the bonus DVD, whose footage follows Dupree around Europe, from upright piano to upright piano.

The venues vary nicely from the solitude of a recording studio to a cozy nightspot where liquor and guitarist Kenn Lending’s Blues Band (complete with accordion) fuel some boogying. We’re also invited back to Dupree’s home in Hanover, Germany, where he and Louisiana Red, with guitar in-hand, raucously tear up “Mean Old Lonesome Train.” Seeing Jack work his magic is a special treat.

Either way—spelled out for you on a door panel or, best of all, spilled out from a piano— Jack Dupree came from New Orleans but gifted the globe with his blues. And this is a oneof-a-kind audiovisual monument to the world Champ.

DENNIS ROZANSKI

BLUESBEAT

2011 Front Row Dancers

A LOOK BACK AT ALONZO’S PICNIC!

PHOTOS BY DAVE STRICKLER (R.I.P.)

2010 Jon DelToro Richardson, Diunna Greenleaf

2016 Benita Dance

M O J O W O R K I N . C O M | F A L L 2 0 2 0 | B L U E S R A G | 27

ALONZO’S PICNIC! PHOTOS THIS PAGE BY DAVE STRICKLER

2015 Ivan Applerouth(RIP), Big Joe Maher, Steve Guyger, Andrew Ali, Ronnie Owens

2014 Jarekus Singleton, Sam Brady

2014 Regi Oliver, Selwyn Birchwood, Donald Huff 2013 Nothin But Trouble 28 | B L U E S R A G | F A L L 2 0 2 0 | M O J O W O R K I N . C O M

2015 Timo Arthur, Brandon Santini, John Nemeth

2016 Big Joe Maher

PHOTOS THIS PAGE BY BOB SEKINGER

2014 Dennis Gruenling, Doug Deming, Andrew Goham

2011 JP Soars, Debbie Davies

1998 Hubert Sumlin

2014 Bill Wax, Gaye Adegbalola

2009 Eugene Bridges, Seth Kibel 2000 Little Charlie Baty with Greg Piccolo M O J O W O R K I N . C O M | F A L L 2 0 2 0 | B L U E S R A G | 29

ALONZO’S PICNIC!

2004 Candye Kane

PHOTOS THIS PAGE BY BOB SEKINGER

2012 Mikey Jr. 2010 OG’s Sam Cohen, Polock (RIP)

2007 Sean Costello 2004 Nick Curran

2009 Tony Rogers, Robin Rogers

2012 Wendell Holmes

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2003 James Armstrong, Eddie Shaw

2010 Bill Heid, Bryan Lee, James Armstrong, Doug Macleod

2001 Jerry McCain

2013 Pete Kanaras, Little Charlie Baty, Steve Guyger, Mark Hummel, Ronnie Owens M O J O W O R K I N . C O M | F A L L 2 0 2 0 | B L U E S R A G | 31

LRBC PHOTOS BY BOB SEKINGER

Nick Moss, Dennis Gruenling

Ana Popovic

Marcella Simien, Terrance Simien

Anne Harris sits in with Terrance Simien

Tinsley Ellis

John Hammond

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Lech Wierzynski

Jeffrey Attakorah jams with Albert Cummings

John Nemeth

Bobby Ingano Taj Mahal Quartet

Lisa Mann

Dennis Gruenling, Victor Wainwright

Barry Cuda in the Piano Bar

Lurrie Bell

Chris Layton (KWS Band) M O J O W O R K I N . C O M | F A L L 2 0 2 0 | B L U E S R A G | 33

LRBC

PHOTOS BY BOB SEKINGER

Taj Mahal

Vanessa Collier, Arthur Neilson

Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Noah Hunt

Lech Wierzynski and Ben Malament (CA Honeydrops) Mark Early, Vanessa Collier

Thornetta Davis sits in with T-Birds 34 | B L U E S R A G | F A L L 2 0 2 0 | M O J O W O R K I N . C O M

Late Night in The Soul Lounge

Andrew Alli, Jontavious Willis

Leon Blue and Taylor Streiff (Nick Moss Band)

Geno Matteo, Larry McCray

Bill Rich (Taj Mahal Quartet) M O J O W O R K I N . C O M | F A L L 2 0 2 0 | B L U E S R A G | 35

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