Beldon's Blues Point

The Last Gypsy: Bassist Billy Cox Part II

2011-12-29T17:32:00.001-08:00

Here is Part II of our interview with bassist Billy Cox:

BBP: Now Band of Gypsys lasted only a month and a half. Why didn’t it take off? You guys had such great tracks. In college I used to listen to that album all of the time. Especially “Machine Gun;” it’s such an incredible song. How did that song come together?
Cox: Okay you asked two questions... (Both laugh)
BBP: I’m sorry, I got you on the phone and…
Cox: Okay. Management did not want that. They wanted him to go back to the same format that he had before. So we caught a lot of flak from the management. It was not wanted. A lot of times a lot of people think that groups have the power to say yes and no and this and that. That’s not true. Sometimes if you’re under contract, you have to go with the people who have you under contract. And so that band was not wanted. So we had to disband. Okay, and the other question was…
BBP: The song “Machine Gun.” That song really was something…

Cox: It probably was a jam. It all started with a jam. Jimi had this unique talent of starting things off and laying in the cut til everybody joined in, and then he’d go off from there. So it just started and I gave it my flavor, and Buddy gave it his flavor and he said, “Hey that’s pretty good.” So he went off and wrote some words to it and bang! Because we rehearsed quite a bit. Rehearsal is the key element for playing songs and playing them right. You’ve got to practice.
BBP: What was your favorite song from Band of Gypsys?

Cox: I don’t know. You’ve asked the wrong man that, because I enjoyed playing all of those songs. Every song. I had a direct input into all of those songs so I enjoyed playing all of those songs. I didn’t have any so-called favorites; you know “Machine Gun” was good, “In from the Storm” was good, “Dolly Dagger,” “Isabella,” all of those songs were good. I loved playing them. I couldn’t get stuck on one song; the most important thing I wanted to do was play the music, so I was stuck on the music, not a particular song.
BBP: That’s incredible. Let me ask you this. Hendrix in terms of—how do I phrase this question—in terms of his relationship with the black community. I was younger during that time, but I always had the impression that his music wasn’t really accepted by African-Americans during that period. I remember later reading he got booed at a street fair in Harlem. What was happening with all that?
Cox: Well you had racial divides in the media also because his music was predominately on the FM stations. So blacks did not have FM stations where they really felt comfortable and FM stations at that time did not play R&B and blues. They do now, but back then they did not. And so rock was predominately played on the FM stations. And in the black stations, somebody said “Who’s this guy?” Well a few guys knew who he was, but the vast majority of them did not know. It’s not like it is today.
BBP: Right. And who do you like now? Who’s out there now—rock, blues—who do you like to listen to?
Cox: I listen to all of them. I came up from a—my mother was a classical pianist and I came up under Mozart, Handel, Liszt, the whole bit. And then I gravitated to the bebop...and then the blues and R&B. Today, I feel like—I still love Albert King, and Eric Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughan. B.B. King and various artists. I still like to listen to artists. I don’t have any one favorite. I listen to all of them. Then I have a lot of jazz records too. I’m still into Miles, Herbie Hancock, and Jaco Pastorius and things of that nature.

BBP: Are there new performers, guys who are out these days who perhaps were not out when you were around? I’m talking about younger guys now. Does anyone have your ear at this point?
Cox: You mean bass players, groups or what?
BBP: Groups, anybody. Any musicians…
Cox: I like what Marcus Miller’s doing, and Victor Wooten, and still like Stanley (Clarke) and guys of that nature as far as the bass players go. I’m really concentrating on my group, Billy Cox’s New Band of Gypsys. I mean we’re really doing a lot of rehearsing, a lot of work and we put together this CD and—but guys live so far apart that, but we get them together, at least once a month, and we do what we have to do musically.

BBP: Are you guys going on tour anytime soon?
Cox: Hopefully I’m trying to get them on this Experience Hendrix tour.

BBP: Oh. Okay. I know you were playing on that..I remember I saw a video of you playing on that tour. A few musicians were playing on that. I just wanted to ask you a couple of more things about Hendrix. That period. Just a couple of rumors that..
Cox: I’ve just been told I have to wind it up, but go ahead.
BBP: …Yeah, I appreciate the time you’ve given me. One was this talk that Michael Jeffery had him killed…
Cox: …And I saw Elvis…You know, you can’t run around with rumors and innuendoes on people. We got the news about what happened and sometimes people are not happy with what happened. They want to make it the way they want it to happen. And there will always be rumors and innuendoes on the stars. The Michael Jacksons, the Elvis Presleys, the Janis Joplins, the Jimi Hendrixes. But I don’t believe everything I read in the funny papers.
BBP: (laughs) But his relationship with Jeffery was kind of strained at times…was that true?
Cox: Are you looking for gossip or are you looking for the truth?
BBP: I’m looking for the truth because of things I’ve read over the years.
Cox: Jeffery was a manager. And he did what managers do. You have some good managers, you have some bad managers and mediocre managers, but he was a manager. So I didn’t hear them argue. I didn’t hear them fuss. So I can’t definitely say that they…but I knew that he was thinking about changing managers. Sometimes relationships between artists and managers after five, six, seven years, they change. I’ve seen that over hundreds of artists who have signed with one manager and after their three years with a three-year option is up they go to another place hoping that they can make more money and be more creative or what have you. So nothing stays the same. Change is inevitable.
BBP: I wanted to ask this about you. About ten years ago the Cort guitar company released a signature bass guitar under your name. How’d that come about? And what’s going on with that right now?
Cox: Well that was the contract. I was under contract—there goes that contract again—I was under contract to them for about three years, three-and-a-half years, something of that nature. But I put out this Freedom Bass and it was a pretty good bass. And we had a few sales. In fact, I’ve still got a couple of them. It was a Cort, and they were the only ones that were really nice. And so I took out the time to design this bass and I guess you could probably pick up some. They’re not out like they were; I think Cort has 300 different styles of guitars they put out. They’re a humongous company. But they were very good to me. I had a lot of fun. Made a little money. And you move on.
BBP: And you were involved in the design of this bass?
Cox: Yes, I designed it.
BBP: Did you ever get any feedback on it from other bass players?
Cox: I was at (a) convention and…I was standing around. A lot of people didn’t know who I was, I had one of these funny hats I wear from time to time (laughs)…and, quite a bit of compliments. I was there and a lot of people liked it. A lot of people bought it.
BBP: Wow. That’s incredible. I just want to slip this last one in. Right now, you’re the last person from either the Jimi Hendrix Experience or the Band of Gypsys who’s still alive. When you think of that, what goes through your mind?
Cox: My last CD was called “The Last Gypsy Standing.” And in fact the main track to that is also on the Old School Blue Blues which you probably have.
BBP: I heard that, yeah.
Cox: I thank the creator for sparing me this length of time. I try to take care of my health. I didn’t go to the gym this morning because I have about four or five things to take care of on the phone…but tomorrow morning bright and early I’ll be at the gym. I try and exercise, try to eat the right things, take care of my health. I think that’s more important, especially when you get a little older. So I’m just trying to take care of what I’ve got, and what I’ve been given.
BBP: But in terms of what you did with Hendrix and that whole period, what the two of you were doing together, do you feel a responsibility to, maybe, carry on the legacy?
Cox: Well I have to do what I have to do. In fact I’ve been called to speak. I’ve spoken at the University of Indiana, University of Illinois, Fisk University, and I try to be a mentor to a lot of the young musicians coming up. I’ve been there and done that. And I try to give the best advice that I know how to them, and if they ask for it I’ll speak truthfully to the best of my ability and knowledge.
BBP: Right. And I know you were just out in California with the Wild Blue Angel?

Cox: Yeah, that was a lot of fun. The Wild Blue Angel was edited a little better and a little differently and it was very unique to be able to do that. Myself and John McDermott with the Hendrix Corporation and the fellow who produced the movie, he was there. We were on the panel.
BBP: What kind of questions do you get when you’re on panels like that?

Cox: Any kind. People ask anything off the cuff from the type of bass I use to the type of contract that I signed. The general public, you could be faced with any number of questions.
BBP: And do the questions vary as to the age of the person asking them? Do the older people ask different kinds of questions than the younger people do?
Cox: I never even tried to find out who did what, but I do know that the Jimi Hendrix legacy is continually living on. I look at the tours and anywhere from six, seven, eight and anywhere from 18, 19, and 20-year-old kids are still picking up the guitar. And guess what? The first artist they try to play like is Jimi Hendrix. They embrace his musical genius and they know most of the songs, basic songs that Jimi played. So I’m still signing autographs for them; so this is two, three generations later.
BBP: Wow. That’s incredible. That’s really incredible. Is there any guitarist out there now, who you think comes close to him in terms of ability or approach?
Cox: Umm..I mean you asked me that I think a little earlier here in the interview, but…not really. I’m not going to…I can’t give everyone…Jimi Hendrix defined the guitar. Everyone had their chance to define it, so he came about and he defined it. So anybody who is copying him is not defining the guitar. They’re copying Jimi Hendrix. There are a lot of people who imitate and try to duplicate, but there’s only one Jimi Hendrix. And every now and then the spirit slips through the portal of time into this reality and blows our mind. And Jimi Hendrix slipped through that portal of time. I’m not smart enough to tell you where that portal is located. But he did that. And he realized that fate is a card that’s dealt at birth, but destiny is what you do with those cards.

Here again is Billy's website:
http://www.bassistbillycox.html

The Last Gypsy: Bassist Billy Cox Part I

2011-12-28T14:03:00.000-08:00

In 1961, while an army private stationed with the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, bassist Billy Cox and a friend were walking past a base service club when they heard someone playing unusual licks on a guitar.
It sounds like crap, Cox’s friend said. But Cox heard something different. Something he liked.
He went inside to meet the guitarist, who five years later would become famous under the name Jimi Hendrix.
Their friendship began with the two playing the so-called “Chitlin’ Circuit” in the South and Midwest during the early 1960’s. They went their separate ways for a while after Hendrix was discovered by Chas Chandler of the Animals.
But eventually Hendrix called his old buddy and the rest is music history. Cox was with the band that played with Hendrix in August, 1969 at the famous Woodstock concert. Then the two joined with drummer Buddy Miles to form the short-lived but pivotal power trio Band of Gypsys. The concerts performed by the group over New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day from 1969 to 1970 were once dubbed by Rolling Stone Magazine as one of the ten greatest of all time.
Now 70 years old (he’s a year older than Hendrix), Cox lives in Nashville, where he keeps busy with both his more current projects and with representing the legacy of the music he created with Hendrix, who is still considered by many the most important and influential rock guitarist who ever lived.
Leading the New Band of Gypsys, a group featuring Byron “Showman” Bordeaux and Vincent “In the Pocket” Fults on guitars and Gary “Freight Train” Skipper on drums, Cox has released Old School Blue Blues, a collection of traditional blues songs, some with a rock edge that heralds back to his time with Hendrix.

The album includes “The Last Gypsy Standing,” a song also included in Cox’s 2009 album, “Last Gypsy Standing.”
“I wanted to reiterate what it was all about,” Cox reportedly said to the online magazine Hollywood Today in explanation of the duplication.

The only surviving member of either the Jimi Hendrix Experience or Band of Gypsys, Cox has played with the Experience Hendrix tribute tour and will do so again in 2012. Earlier this month, he was part of a panel that discussed Hendrix at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles after a screening of the movie Blue Wild Angel: Jimi Hendrix at the Isle of Wight. Cox played with Hendrix at that concert, which was held in England about three weeks before the guitarist’s death.
Cox also keeps busy with his video production company, which produces blues and gospel shows.
Cox was born in Wheeling, WV. His father was a Baptist preacher and a mathematics teacher and his mother was a classically-trained pianist. His interest in music received a boost during his teen years after his family moved to Pittsburgh and he came into contact with a number of jazz musicians. He reportedly discovered he liked the sound of the electric bass after trying other instruments.
His early partnership with Hendrix led to them forming the King Kasuals band, which performed regularly at the Del Morocco, a popular Nashville club, as well as on the road. The two musicians continued to support each other’s careers over the years, with Cox once recommending Hendrix for a recording session with famous Nashville disc jockey Bill “Hoss” Allen (Cox talks about that in the upcoming interview) and Hendrix suggesting that Little Richard hire Cox as a bassist. (Cox could not do it. He also talks about thatin the interview).
Cox also gave creative support to Hendrix, whose up-front style frequently put him at odds with the bands he played with during the early part of his career.
When Hendrix went to Europe in 1966, he asked Cox to come along. When the bassist said he had other obligations, Hendrix told him he would achieve success and contact him again. After the dissolution of the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Hendrix kept his promise, and this time Cox accepted.
Cox was with Hendrix when the guitarist played his famous rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner" at Woodstock.(There's a story about that in the interview too.)
Cox has played with other noted musicians, among them Sam Cooke, Slim Harpo, Joe Simon, Charlie Daniels, Rufus Thomas, Carla Thomas, Etta James, Gatemouth Brown, Maxine Brown, Nappy Brown, Patti Labelle, Freddie King, Earl Gaines, Wilson Pickett, Little Milton, Johnny Taylor, Earl Gaines and Betty Davis. More recently, he has played with the band Gov't Mule.
He has also worked with gospel performers such as Sister Edna Galva Cook, Brother Joe May, Shirley Ceasar, the Brooklyn All-Stars and the Consolers.
We’re presenting our interview with him in two parts. In the first, we ask him about his new album Old School Blue Blues and about a curious little trick he and Jimi Hendrix played to get more practice time while in the Army. And that’s not all:
BBP: I heard the new CD. Tell me how it came together.
Cox: It came together because my wife and I, we’re around the same age and we realize that the stuff that we grew up with, which was blues—the real authentic down-home blues—we don’t hear it anymore. We’d take our trips, we’d have a lot of CDs of early traditional blues and we listened and we liked it. So we decided to kind of come out of the area that we were known in. But you know, if you stop and really look at it, all Hendrix was playing really was loud blues. “Voodoo Child,” nothing but blues, blues changes. “Red House.” But we went back to the roots of it all and we had fun doing this and we had a lot of people on board who felt the same way we did. The title song is “Old School Blues.” Blue Blues.

BBP: One thing I’ve noticed is that, over the years, you’ve been involved with several projects, this being the latest in which you’ve utilized guitar players. Are you looking for a certain thing because you did play with Hendrix? I mean he must have very hard shoes to fill.
Cox: I know that no one can really fill Jimi Hendrix’s shoes. But I’m looking for guitar players that have the deep soul feeling and are able to project it out. That’s basically what I’m looking for when I’m looking for guitar players. I have two with the group now that are pretty good. But then sometimes I will venture out and play with other groups from time to time. But I love those kind of guitar players who feel it from inside and the only way I can define it is, I can hear it. It’s like when I first heard Jimi Hendrix at the service club at Fort Campbell. I was a young kid, he was making mistakes, he wasn’t quite there, he was in his infancy musically and I turned to the guy next to me and I said “Man, that’s pretty unique isn’t it?” He said “It sounds like a bunch of crap to me.” So I went inside and introduced myself because I knew that there was something there. And that something is what I look for in guitar players.

BBP: During that period a lot of people were hearing Hendrix and they just thought, just like your friend did, that it was basically noise. I mean, Hoss Allen….
Cox: I got a story about that. We went over to (a studio used by Hoss Allen). When they weren’t cutting their artists on the roster, then the general public could utilize the studio. So we go over and cut the stuff. We got ready to do it, and Hoss says “Billy do you know any guitar players?” I said “Yeah I know a guy who could probably do that for us.” So I called Jimi Hendrix in, along with Johnny Jones. And he started playing, and on the one track after Hoss had played it back, he came in and said “Man I don’t know if I can use this guy. He’s just too doggone loud.” Thirty-some years later Hoss said, “Billy I’ve got those 16 tracks of those sessions that we did and had Jimi Hendrix on.” He said “Dammit I believed I erased ten million dollars!”
BBP: Oh my God!
Cox: He had taken Jimi off because he had said he was a little too loud.
BBP: Wow! Wow! Hindsight is definitely 20-20…
Cox: …I tell you…
BBP: Yeah, that’s something else. But what were you hearing? Because it’s amazing that all of these other guys were kind of dismissing him as weird or freakish or whatever, and you actually heard something in him. How do you explain that?
Cox: I heard the future. I heard the genius. I heard the…it’s just going to take him a while to develop. And I saw him put 25 years in a guitar in five years, because it became a night and day affair.
BBP: Now I understand during that time, you and he kind of had this thing that you did to get more practice time in while you were in the army. Eventually they caught onto you but you kind of pulled it off for a while. Do you remember how you did that?
Cox: They never got onto me; I did it until I got discharged. What I did was (laughs) I don’t know if you have time to hear this story, but…
BBP: Sure!
Cox: We used to practice and play down at the service club and this Special Services, I don’t know if they have that division now but they were guys who kind of took care of the service clubs, made sure paperwork was done, made sure the cleaning crew got in, and then they had the people who were paid by the USO who came in later in the day to open it up. So I knew the one guy, Ron, who was fixing to get discharged, so I go to his commander and I said “Look Colonel, Ron’s fixing to get discharged, and I’d like to have his job down here that he’s got.” “Well, you’re an airborne man,” he says. “You can’t be on jump status to get this job. But if there’s some way you can terminate your jump status, I’d be glad to have you.” So I went to a sergeant in my outfit who got things done. I says, “Look, what would it cost me to get terminated out of jump status and moved over to the Special Services?” So he came back about a week later and said “It will cost you fifty dollars and two fifths of Canadian Club.” So I terminated my jump status and I wound up over in repo detachment where everybody is dispersed. So I heard the first day: “Thompson, Germany!” “Harrison, Vietnam!” etc. Next day, the same thing. The third day he said “Cox, Special Services!” I knew I had pulled it off! So my job was to get up about eight or nine o’clock—it was a different type of regiment in the detachment I was with in the USO and Special Services, so we knew we had a cleaning crew that came down at nine o’clock. So I had up to that time to get there. And I’d get there, and they’d clean up. Meanwhile I explained it to Jimi, so after he had formation—(laughs) he was just a mere peon, I think maybe he had one stripe, no one even really looked for him—well he wound up walking down to the service club and after my clean-up crews, we would rehearse all day long. We did that up until the time I got discharged.
BBP: And they never caught on to you?
Cox: No they didn’t.
BBP: Wow. That’s amazing. Now I remember reading at one point that Hendrix, when he was playing with Little Richard for a while, that he actually invited you to join the band.
Cox: Yes. Here in town, when I finally got to Nashville, I had a place on Jefferson Street. So we’re all sitting out and talking and we look up and there’s this Silver Eagle coming down the street. See, most of the time Jimi—he’d go out, call me from Chicago, “Man, I got with this group and I’m stranded.” Twenty bucks would get you from—heck, maybe 35 or 40 dollars would take you from New York to LA in that day and time in the sixties. But I’d get the money up and he’d come back and play with the King Kasual Band, then he’d go off, get stranded someplace else, and he’d come back. But this time, he had left for about three months. It was the longest he had left, and I looked up and here’s this silver Eagle coming down the street, and out jumped—pulled right up in front of my house—out jumps Little Richard. And the neighborhood just went crazy. Little Richard came up to me and said, “Uh, you must be Billy Cox. Jimi has said a lot about you. Get your stuff and let’s go. I need a bass player.” I said, “Well sir, I’m with this group, and I have to give them at least a week or two week notice. I can give them a week’s notice.” He says: “Oh I need a bass player now. You gotta come now. You know who I am?” I say: “Yes sir, I know who you are, and I respect you and your music, but, you know business is business.” So he says: “Okay, Jimi, I can’t convince him.” Jimi shook my hand, and they got back on the bus and that was the last I saw of him until he called me to go to Europe. He said: “there’s this guy who saw me in the (Greenwich) Village and he wants to take me to Europe and make me a star.” But at that time I had a publishing company and I was producing groups. And he said: “this guy’s going to take me to Europe and make me a star and I told him about you.” And I said: “Jimi, I’d like to come. I said, but uh, right now…” I just gave him some off-the-wall excuse because I knew intuitively that there’s the possibility that I could have been a hindrance. So I gave him a little off-the-wall excuse. So I didn’t go. And then later on he called me, he says “Okay, I’ll make it, and I’ll send for you.” And that’s just what he did, about two-and-a-half years later.
BBP: Do you regret not going then?
Cox: No. Not really.
BBP: What were you doing during that period he was in Europe?
Cox: I had a publishing company, and then a recording studio was in the back, so I produced a lot of R&B. And I was having fun doing it and made a little bit of money.
BBP: And I guess you were working with some pretty well-known artists at the time.
Cox: Well at that time locally, we had a lot of good local southern artists that were doing some things. And then after all I was working also on the “Night Train” show. And then one weekend out of the month we would go to Dallas, Texas to record “The Beat,” (a Dallas-based television program). I had a partner who took care of the business when I was not able to be there.
BBP: I see. Tell me a little about how you connected with him again. It happened around 1969 after Noel Redding left the band, right? And you guys were up in upstate New York with Juma Sultan and there were other musicians with you. The band I believe was called Gypsys…
Cox: “Gypsys, Sun and Rainbows” or something of that nature. Well, he finally got the telephone call to me. He said: “Man, I really need you, I need you to come up.” See, when we rehearsed, we came up with a lot of riffs. Some people call them patterns. We had fun with these patterns, hooking them together, making songs and a lot of times we’d say: “Man, if we put this on record, they’d lock us up.” Because it was ahead of its time, the stuff that we were doing at that particular time. So he knew that we had a kindred spirit musically. And then after all we played at the Del Morocco here, forty-five minutes on, fifteen off. We did that year-in and year-out. And then we did the other gig; when we went down to Printer’s Alley and the various places here in Nashville, it’s always 45 on, 15 off. So we got a chance to not only play, but a lot of times we practiced on stage.
BBP: Wow. And I understand also when Hendrix played “The Star Spangled Banner,” you were kind of playing the first five or six notes, and then you stopped.

Cox: Yeah. Intuitively I knew that something was wrong with this picture because he just all of a sudden just went there and then I had to stop and say “Wait a minute.” Something told me “Just stop playing and let him have it.” No one else was playing but me and him. And I stopped and what an incredible solo!
BBP: Yeah, yeah, you see it in the movie Woodstock. I mean it’s just amazing. Well, tell me how Band of Gypsys came together. You were trying to help him out of a lawsuit.

Cox: …A contractual obligation that he had signed—I don’t know if you read that part of the history—he signed this—this guy says: “Well look man, all I need you is just sign this little piece of paper saying we can do this.” Because really Jimi did not do a lot of homework on contracts etc., and the guy caught him off guard, and he signed this contract for a dollar. And it meant a lot of things were written in this contract. So here he is famous, and the next thing you know, he’s going to be sued for $15 million dollars.
BBP: Wow…
Cox: .... So he told me about it and I says: “Well look, let’s give them something. I don’t know what we can give them. We’re musicians, and you got a name.” He says: “Well, I don’t have the money.” And I said: “Well, you might not have the money, but like I say, we’ll give him something.” And so finally he came up with (the idea to) give them this album, and that was me and him on board, and then finally Buddy Miles—Mitch (Mitchell) was in England—so Buddy told him: “Look, we’re friends, and our friendship’s not about money, so let’s do it. Let’s give them this thing we discussed.” So we rehearsed for a couple of weeks, and lo and behold, we did two gigs New Year’s Eve and two gigs New Year’s Day. That was the Band of Gypsys.

BBP: Was it hard, that format? What was it like playing bass for him?
Cox: I played bass with him most of my musical life at that time. I mean we were in the service, we went to Clarksville and lived there. We were playing in the clubs. We went to Indianapolis and lived there, played in the clubs, came back to Clarksville, played in the clubs, came to Nashville—so my association with Jimi Hendrix had been a very musical brotherhood for a long time. I didn’t look at him like everybody else looked at him. He was my partner, and a cool guy. So we were musically hooked at the hip, if you might say that.
BBP: Yeah, I got that impression. And did he play bass himself?
Cox: Yeah he played bass. In fact, one reason why he called me, he’s the bass player on (thinks for a minute) “All Along the Watchtower.” Jimi played bass on “All Along the Watchtower.”
BBP: Did you show him things?
Cox: Yeah. He showed me things and I showed him things. I mean he was very good at the bass.

Anyone seeking more information on Cox should check out his website at:
http://www.bassistbillycox.html

Warm Winds over Woodbridge: Saxophonist Tony Craddock, Jr. Part II

2011-12-15T18:39:00.000-08:00

When we left off with Tony Craddock yesterday, we were talking about whether he would prefer a career in music to one in science. We start off part two of our interview by asking him about the tools of his trade:

BBP: Now tell me a little about your approach to the saxophone. I mean of all of the saxophone players out there, who are your influences? Who are your favorite saxophone players out there?
Craddock: My biggest influence, definitely Boney James. As I said, my taste in jazz moves more towards the smooth jazz side, so growing up I listened to a lot of Boney James. I listened to a lot of Kirk Whalum as well. Because Kirk Whalum had a similar style, but he also got into the gospel genre, which I appreciate, which is also where I’m looking to take my career, kind of cater to the inspirational and gospel side of jazz as well. As far as classical jazz, I listen to a lot of Stan Getz, because I like his sound. He’s known as having quote-unquote “The Sound.” Very sweet, silky kind of sound. I also listen to a lot of musicians who are not saxophonists because of the way I view saxophone. I kind of view it more as a voice, more so than an instrument. So when I play the saxophone I try to almost create an effect where it’s singing rather than playing. So I feel like the kind of musicians I listen to, I try of listen to musicians who melodically also have a quality where they make their instruments sing. For instance, I listen to a lot of Pat Metheny, the guitarist, because I think he makes the guitar somehow have this singing quality that I think is rare.
BBP: Okay. In an article I read about you, it mentioned that you like Anita Baker. You try to model your style of playing after her style of singing…
Craddock: I do. What I particularly aim to do is, you know Anita Baker has a very rich, deep voice that nobody can mimic. I’ve never heard anybody say, “Oh my gosh, that person sounds like Anita Baker.” It’s almost like comparing somebody to Michael Jackson: it just doesn’t happen. But that kind of uniqueness she has in her sound is the same kind of approach I take to the saxophone.
BBP: Tell me a little bit about this album that you have out now. What made you decide to make your first album a Christmas album? Those are notoriously hard to market because Christmas only comes once a year. Every article I ever read about somebody doing a Christmas album, they always raised the concern that Christmas only comes once a year and people are not inclined to buy a Christmas album at any other time but Christmas.
Craddock: Okay. Well I did this album with the understanding that there definitely had to be a follow-up sophomore project that wasn’t based on Christmas. So I knew about, like you said, there’s a lot of concerns that you can’t sell Christmas music outside the months of November and December. So I came into this knowing that. But my approach, it was a bit of a no-brainer to me to do a Christmas album, just because I feel as a new musician, you need something to reel your listeners in. And for me, I know I have a creative approach to the saxophone, creative approach to production, and I felt I could take Christmas songs and throw my own creative twist on them in a way that creates a unique listening experience for listeners, you know. Give them a different perspective on the songs that they’re used to hearing in a traditional way. So I felt if I did a Christmas album and took a new approach to it, and captured a certain audience, then when I did my follow-up projects, I would gain sort of a following of supporters and fans, because they’d know what I could do musically. So I approached it from the perspective of Christmas music: everybody likes it. So it almost gives people an excuse to listen to your music. People are usually pretty receptive to Christmas music, so I felt that same receptiveness would translate over to my project and people would be willing to try something new.
BBP: How did you go about producing this album? Tell me how you conceived it, and executed it.
Craddock: The production for the album actually began probably around June. It was a pretty quick process because I knew I had to get it done before the start of the academic year. First I worked very closely with my assistant producer on the album, his name is Ricardo Cordero…a lot of the work on the album was collaborative with him. We took a lot of the arrangements, sat down; I was at the keyboard, on the saxophone. He was at the keyboard and we kind of figured out how we would twist the songs and rearrange them to our musical liking. So between the month of June and August we were in the studio day and night, just grinding out the album, making sure it was ready for this fall.
BBP: Was it difficult…I mean at Christmas time people do cover songs, and I guess you could classify Christmas carols or Christmas tunes as cover songs. Was it hard to find a way to breathe new life into these songs? I guess it was a challenge to kind of make these songs unique, I guess it was kind of a challenge to your skills, I suppose, right? Was that another reason why you did it?
Craddock: I really didn’t see it as much of a challenge because again, I try to take that creative approach to music, just in general. So whenever I hear a song, or whenever I hear a vocalist sing a song or something like that, the first thing that comes to mind is: how would this sound on the saxophone? And then how could I change it to make it my own? So I actually—believe it or not, in the production process, I actually found myself having to hold back from changing the songs even more. Because if I had it my way, I would have been a bit more radical with the arrangement. But I realized I had to, I guess, have what I called “controlled creativity.” Be creative with the songs and make it unique and whatnot, but still leave enough of the originality in it so that people recognize it. So I actually wanted to change the songs more. So the creative aspect of it, making the covers my own was the least of my problems.

BBP: Let me ask you this. You mentioned that you want to come out with a sophomore album pretty soon after this one is running its course. Are you working on that now? And if you are, where are you with it? At what point are you at?
Craddock: Right now, I have about four songs. Four original songs composed by me that are pretty much ready to go. I have the ideas down, the melodic concepts, I just need to get into the studio and add instrumentation to it. But I’m looking to add a couple of gospel covers, and maybe a few jazz covers as well to the album. But the album would contain at least half of original content from me. So I’m pretty early in the process because I’m still promoting the Christmas album. But come January, I’ll be going full-force into production of the second album.
BBP: Do you have an ETA on this project? Estimated time of arrival?
Craddock: No sir, I don’t.
BBP: And are you now part of a band? Do you have a regular group of people you perform with?
Craddock: Right now I don’t.
BBP: Are you looking to assemble one? And is it possible that the people who play with you on the album will play out with you? Because I know that a lot of musicians, they do an album and to promote the album they go out and play live.
Craddock: Correct. I have secured a couple of gigs for next year. I will be using some of the musicians from my album—in addition to other musicians that I have a good rapport with—to tour around the D.C. area. But again, since I am in school, I kind of have to be balanced in how much energy I spend towards music versus school. So if I wasn’t in school I’d definitely throw a hundred percent towards music. But I can only expend so much of my energy towards music because I still have to sustain the educational side of my responsibilities right now.
(He graduates from graduate school in May 2013)
BBP: Your music career as a whole, where would you like to take it? Where would you like to be ten years from now?
Craddock: Ten years from now, I’d definitely like to be a well-respected, hopefully household name, a saxophonist known for having a very smooth melodic easy-going sound, but still a good amount of jazz content, and I’d also like to be known as somebody who is a Christian, and my music will hopefully reflect the inspirational and Christian side of my life.
BBP: I guess that means you want to get out of the D.C. area. What I mean is, that you want to be known outside of Washington….
Craddock: Correct. I want to be known internationally.
BBP: Would you like to get into the Christian music market?
Craddock: I would.
BBP: And that would be something you would do in addition to the smooth jazz market?
Craddock: The way I look at it, I feel like they go hand-in-hand. I think the unique thing about the saxophone, or any instrument that’s not a voice, there’s no words to it. So I feel like inspirational jazz, gospel jazz, smooth jazz, I feel like they can all go hand-in-hand. It’s all about the message behind the music, so I don’t feel like I have to necessarily separate the two. I feel like they’re actually pretty complementary.
BBP: Great! Alright! And remind me of this: which saxophones do you play? The tenor, the alto, the baritone?
Craddock: I play the soprano and alto.
BBP: Soprano and alto, okay. And which one do you like best?
Craddock: I’m actually pretty new to the soprano. I just began playing the soprano about a year ago. So I’m more comfortable on the alto right now. But I do feel like I…I feel like I am slightly favoring the soprano.
BBP: Okay. But you’re more experienced with the alto.
Craddock: I’m more experienced on the alto.
BBP: I see. Okay. And are there possibilities that you see with the soprano—things you can do with it—that you don’t see with the alto? Or is it just a question of being proficient with both expands your range?
Craddock: I think I have equal opportunities with both of them. ..I think the unique thing about the soprano is, the kind of warm romantic tone that you associate with the soprano, almost makes it seem like it’s another instrument. A lot of people don’t even know soprano saxophone is a saxophone because it doesn’t look like one. You know somebody asks me “What saxophone is that?” and I say “the saxophone that Kenny G plays.” And everybody goes “Oh! Oh!” So I feel like the soprano, there are definitely opportunities, because in jazz it’s one of the least used saxophones. Tenor sax is by far the most used and alto is pretty widely used as well. But given that the soprano is one of the more rare saxophones, it has a pretty unique sound. I definitely would like to expand upon that, make it part of my music.

Christmas in the Air is available through CD Baby, iTunes and Amazon.com. It's also available on Craddock's Facebook page at:

http://www.facebook.com/tonycraddockjr.html

Warm Winds over Woodbridge--Saxophonist Tony Craddock, Jr.

2011-12-14T13:02:00.000-08:00

Tony Craddock, Jr. traces his interest in meteorology and science to The Weather Channel.
Watching the 24-hour cable weather news network as a child prompted the Woodbridge, Virginia native to major in atmospheric science at Cornell University.
But The Weather Channel also sparked an interest with a less obvious connection to temperatures, precipitation and cold fronts.
As a child, Craddock’s ears perked up whenever he heard the smooth jazz songs played on “Local on the 8s,” The Weather Channel’s segment depicting local weather conditions.
He enjoyed the music so much that at about age 12 he picked up an alto saxophone and learned how to play. While growing up, he played at church and other venues and at Cornell formed a student organization of musicians dedicated to smooth jazz and rhythm and blues.
Two months ago, the now 23-year-old Craddock reached a plateau with the release of “Christmas in the Air,” a collection of Christmas-related music that marks his maiden voyage as a recording artist.
Ironically, The Weather Channel has added two songs from the album, “O Little Town of Bethlehem” and “The First Noel,” to the rotation of songs that accompany its programming. Pandora Radio has also picked up songs from the CD.
It’s also drawn some attention from the smooth jazz community.
“The depth of his perception and innovative nature can be clearly found in this recording of many of our beloved Christmas tunes, which he recreates in many ways to place a very impressive signature on them,” wrote Ron Jackson of The Smooth Jazz Ride, an online publication.
“….It is always refreshing to listen to music that is well-conceived, even if it consists of covers (which can be the most difficult to reproduce in a stand-out way without an abundance of creativity and imagination). Craddock puts such a nice touch of each of these and really makes you feel as though this is a production of all-original material.”
Craddock’s strides in his music career come as he continues to pursue his interest in science. He is now at George Mason University in Fairfax County, Virginia studying for his master’s in public health—training he hopes to combine with his undergraduate work in meteorology.
Still—never mind the implications of his decision to name his production company “Cold Front Music, LLC—“ he says he is sure that music is his first career choice.
“In the meantime I’m taking care of the academic portion of the equation and making sure that I have my education to fall back on,” he said. “But ideally my goal is to do music full-time and I’m trying to work towards that.”
We had a chance to talk to this possibly conflicted, definitely talented young man about his life, his music and the new album. We are presenting the interview in two parts. We will post the second part tomorrow:

BBP: My understanding is—just from what I read about you—that you actually got started in music watching The Weather Channel?
Craddock: That’s correct.
BBP: How’d that happen? Tell me the story.
Craddock: Well, around the age of eight, I realized I had a fascination with the weather, and the media source I ran to to fulfill that passion was The Weather Channel. And through watching The Weather Channel, I fell in love with “Local on the 8s,” which is the local segment of the show. And The Weather Channel was renowned for playing smooth jazz in the background, and I actually fell in love with that music. And I think that was actually the impetus for me wanting to begin the saxophone. The saxophone was an instrument that I kind of anchored to the most from the music they played on The Weather Channel. So when middle school rolled around, around the age of 12, when it came time for me to pick an instrument, the saxophone was the first one I ran to, just because of the positive experiences and influences I had from The Weather Channel.
BBP: So were you like part of a school band or something?
Craddock: You know I did the middle school band thing, then moved up to some band in high school, but the majority of my playing experience actually came from church.
BBP: Where did you get a saxophone? Did your parents buy you one?
Craddock: My parents invested in one.
BBP: Okay. And did you take lessons?
Craddock: I took lessons sparingly from about eighth to the tenth grade. I also studied briefly under—one of my musical mentors and still one of my musical mentors to this day—his name is Rob Maletick. I’m still in contact with him and he’s been a great mentor to me. After about the tenth grade, I really didn’t take any formal instruction.
BBP: And it seems like at the same time that your interest in music was born, your interest in science was born as well. I mean you developed that watching The Weather Channel too, right?
Craddock: Correct. Correct.
BBP: And did you actually develop an interest in meteorology at that point?
Craddock: I did. I think my interest in meteorology came first. And then I think, through the “Local on the 8s,” I became interested in weather. So the two fields, even though they seem pretty different, I think they actually have a weird connection, or odd connection in my case, just because I link the music with the weather.
BBP: Okay. So in other words meteorology and the weather are two different things.
Craddock: They are. But for me they’re sort of one in the same. Just because of the way I experienced them growing up.
BBP: And when you say meteorology, that’s actually the study of weather…
Craddock: The study of weather, correct….
BBP: …And when you say weather, you mean, discussing it on the media? The action of giving forecasts on the media and that sort of thing?
Craddock: Correct.
BBP: Tell me a little bit about where you took your music career after high school. Were you part of a band at Cornell?

Craddock: I never became part of a formal jazz band just because my rigorous curriculum. But I did on the side play along with the gospel choir my freshman and sophomore years. Come junior year, I started a jazz ensemble called “After Six” with a couple of my friends. I leaned more towards the smooth jazz R&B side, so we wanted to develop an ensemble that catered to that music. We did some standard jazz covers, but mostly smooth jazz, R&B, neo-soul type of music. And I led that ensemble for two years—my junior and senior years—and also led the movement for it to become a registered student organization on campus, because I wanted to make sure that after I left Cornell, the group would still be sustainable.
BBP: And is it? Is it still going on?
Craddock: It’s still alive and well.
BBP: And are you in touch with the people who are members now?
Craddock: I am.
BBP: And are you advising them on different things? How to play, or how to run this organization, or whatever?
Craddock: I guess you could call my role more of a graduate or alumni consultant. You know we have a list-serve and we still communicate back and forth all of the time….
BBP: Okay. Tell me what you’re doing now academically. You’re now at George Mason?
Craddock: Correct. I’m at George Mason working on my Master’s in public health with a concentration in epidemiology, which is more or less the study of disease.
BPP: Okay. And what do you intend to do with this?
Craddock: My goal ideally is to combine the MPH with my undergraduate degree in meteorology and do some sort of environmental health consulting. Bridge the two fields to find ways to inform people about how everyday weather impacts their lives.
BBP: But at the same time you’re pursuing musical ventures as well. Do you think you have time for both?
Craddock: Well at this point I sort of have no choice but to make time for both. But my goal is to do music full-time. In the meantime I’m taking care of the academic portion of the equation and making sure that I have my education to fall back on. But ideally my goal is to do music full-time and I’m trying to work towards that.
BBP: Okay. So if you had your choice between pursuing what you’re studying in school and doing the musical career, you would do the musical career?
Craddock: No doubt. I’d definitely go for music.

Don't forget to catch Part II tomorrow.

Bluesy Christmas Wishes from The Godfather of Go-Go

2011-12-07T10:10:00.000-08:00

With his reputation as the “Godfather of Go-Go,” it’s easy to forget that Chuck Brown is also a bluesman.
But the 75-year-old Brown, who last year received a Grammy nomination for “Love,” his collaboration with singer Jill Scott and bassist Marcus Miller, does get into a blue mood every once in a while.
One such time was last Saturday at the Cultural Arts Center of Maryland’s Montgomery College, when Brown and harmonica player Phil Wiggins provided part of the entertainment at a ceremony marking this year’s presentation of the Maryland Traditions 2011 Alta Awards.
Brown, credited with single-handedly creating go-go, a funk style of music based in D.C. that is known for energetic live performances, had included his version of “Every day I Have the Blues” on his 2007 CD, We’re about the Business. At the ceremony, he and Wiggins, who for several years had performed with the late guitarist John Cephas as part of the Cephas and Wiggins acoustic blues duo, delivered another standard, “Key to the Highway:”

Brown and Wiggins also acknowledged the time of year in a bluesy way by playing “Merry Christmas, Baby:
”
At the ceremony, three recipients received the awards “for their ongoing efforts to preserve and maintain the state’s living heritage.”
The winners were:
• Singing and Praying Bands of Maryland, a group of performers singing a style of music with origins in West African religion, Christianity and African-American ring shout tradition.
• The Patterson Bowling Center, Baltimore’s sole duckpin alley and the oldest duckpin center in the world.
• Rich Smoker, who carves hunting decoys.
Also performing at the ceremony was singer/guitar Warner Williams, who this year was recognized as a National Heritage Fellow by the National Endowment of the Arts. Chuck Brown received the same award from the NEA in 2005.

Finding Her Way Back Part III: Leszia Renee

2011-11-30T00:08:00.000-08:00

This is the third and last part of our interview with Gospel singer Leszia Renee. Here she talks about her current--and first--album "What About Me?"
BBP: Tell me about your music career. I’ve got something that you’re singing in dinner theatres, apparently.
Renee: Yeah, I often perform with a theatrical production company. It’s called Stage House, musical production and they’re based out of San Bernardino as well. And I’ve been working with them over the past several years. It’s been a blast. I always—because I don’t desire to sing for the world, so the parts that I accept, I have to make sure that I know that they’re Christ-centered, they’re Christ-grounded. We also did Roger’s and Hammerstein’s Cinderella and I was quote-unquote the Fairy Godmother. We’re doing the musical production of The Wiz. I’m Dorothy. We did Oklahoma. So musical theatre, I have a good time with, you know? I have really good time with. And the songs that I’m chosen to sing I can reference them to God. I can reference them all to God because they bear witness to His goodness.
BBP: And I also understand you have a CD out?
Renee: Yes I do. It is entitled What About Me? And it’s interesting because again it comes from, when you listen to it and you hear the songs and of course the fast ones, you’re going to dance to because you’re like “Hey, that has a really good beat.” And I want you to know, as God does, that you can dance for Him. And you can shake your tail for the Lord. And when you listen to the slow ones, you know, you listen to the words and you’re like “Oh wow, oh boy, you were somewhere on that song, weren’t you?” And it was. And the title of the CD again is What About Me? And that came about from me doing that God when-why-and-howcome and when-are-you-going –to-do-what-I-want-you-to-do and Lord-I’m-tired-of-waiting, and the Holy Spirit said to me one day “Well, what about Me?” and (makes a gasping noise)….
BBP: …..Wow…..
Renee: ……You just asked me “what about you” and all of this time I’ve been saying “what about me” and it just broke my heart. It broke my heart, and then you know, Jesus,that place that I was at where I was contemplating driving off of, off of a cliff. They are all living testimony of just how good God is and what he’s brought me to. There are some crazy songs on there. It shows the side of me that he’s placed in me as far as that loving to just rock. It’s like “what if?” and it’s like “what if God wasn’t on the throne and what if we were out here alone?” So I stepped back and, as he was giving them to me, I was going “Are You sure God you want me to sing it like this? Really God?” And then, especially the really personal ones, I’m like: “God are you sure you want me to tell people this, God? Really? I thought this was between me and you. I’m not supposed to be telling everybody this. You said that I can take everything to you and you’d keep it to yourself, and now you want me to do what?” And the Father was like: “Yeah. Because you’re not the only one who’s living it. You think I brought you through it so you could hold it all to yourself?” And I said: “Well I guess that’s it. I’ll open up my mouth and sing.” It is a collection of fast songs, slow songs and medium-speed songs that anybody can appreciate. There’s a song on there that’s close to my heart, because again, the love of children that I have, it’s called “Hallelujah Yeah” I specifically wrote for children. Something that they can catch on to and it’s happy. Because children need to learn from a young age it’s okay to praise God, it’s okay to go this route. You are not uncool because you love Jesus, because you love the Lord, you want to work for Him, and as a matter of fact, you’re way cool because you do so. I’m happy with it because it is a complete dedication to the Father and to just how wonderful He is.
BBP: What’s the name of that song again?
Renee: "Hallelujah Yeah"
BBP: Hallelujah? Yeah?
Renee: Hallelujah! Yeah!
BBP: Yeah, like “Yeah?”
Renee: Yeah. Exactly. Because like a little kid, like, you know, they’ll go “yeah!” And the chorus is just (sings) “Hallelujah..ye-e-ah! Hall-e-lu-jah! yeah!” Something that a child can do (laughing).
BBP: And when did this album come out? Is this your first album?
Renee: It is.
BBP: Oh, okay…
Renee: Yeah!
BBP: And this is all original material?
Renee: It is all original material. Oh my Gosh, and it’s released from GVR records. I have to give through God thanks to Larry (Martin Kimpel) because he’s a good guy in and of himself and the fact that God pulled on his coat strings. When I first met him and I had the opportunity to speak to him, because we have a mutual acquaintance, that’s how I heard of him. And so I sent him a couple of songs and never got a response and (you’re thinking) maybe he didn’t like it, and so we got together coincidentally at that mutual acquaintance’s birthday party and it just so happened that I sat right next to him. And I’m all talking, and whenever given the opportunity I will talk about God, I love to talk about how amazing God is, and he said “I’ll have to revisit those songs that you sent to me!” And he did. And he loved them. And he said “okay, let’s get together. We need to get together. We have to do something.”
BBP: So he produced the album? Is he the producer?
Renee: No.No.No. No. No. I produced. I co-produced with a gentleman named R.J. I am the producer and the executive producer, but his label, GVR Records, is where it’s released from. He is the one that had been working to get me out there, you know. I just finished..had the opportunity to perform at the San Diego Gospel Fest..
BBP: Yeah. Kirk Franklin..
Renee: Yes! It was cool! It was cool as all get-out! I very much enjoyed that! And I’m always, I’m always, whenever given the opportunity to minister, I will sing. I want to sing for God. I just do. I don’t care where the venue is. If you say, can you be there to sing for this, I’m like “Sure can.” Because that’s just another opportunity to let God get the glory for that. Someone can be reached, you know that, someone can find out that, in spite of me and all I’ve done, He can give her joy..He can do the same thing for me. So you know I’m just blessed. I’m grateful to be blessed by the father.
BBP: How is it to meet Kirk Franklin and did you actually sing with him? Did you get on stage and sing with Kirk Franklin?
Renee: No, No. We shared the stage. I’m the little fish in the pond. (laughs). He’s the bighuge fish in the pond! So unfortunately I did not get the opportunity to do a one-on-one with him. I shared the venue with him.
BBP: But still that must have been..
Renee: ..It was okay because I am speaking prophetically. Praise God. And yes I will. And not only will I get the opportunity, but we’ll see what God does.
BBP: Okay. Let me ask you about some of the songs on your album. How many are on there?
Renee: There’s a total of 15.
BBP: 15.
Renee: Yes.
BBP: And of those 15, which ones..I mean they all stand out, I know, for something..
Renee:…Various reasons…..
BBP: ….Various reasons. But is there one that, if you were on an island and a radio deejay came to you and said: “This is the last song of yours that will ever be played.” Which song on that album would you want the world to hear?
Renee: “What About Me?”
BBP: Okay. And why?
Renee: Because it’s God asking us the same question that we all ask Him. What about me? What about what I need. What about what I want. What about the life that I want you to live? Again, it is a knife in the heart when God audibly speaks to you and he asks you the question: “Okay Leszia, what about me?” And “What About Me?” would be that song because it’s not about me. I know with that being the title of the CD, God chooses things for the reasons only He knows why He chooses things. I’m pretty sure, especially as a gospel singer, you’d see that as the title of your CD, “well what about me,” you’d go, “My God, how vain is she? Yeah, well what about you?”

BBP: Right.
Renee: But then when you listen to it and you actually see and you actually hear that it’s God asking you “what about what I need?” We have this picture of God as—and He is—all-encompassing. He is all-powerful, He is the Alpha and the Omega, and that He needs nothing. He doesn’t need anything. But what He wants is for us to love Him. And He wants us to want Him. That’s God’s Heart. Through that song, it’s God’s Heart speaking out. It’s God saying: you know the best that I have, I gave it to you. I shed My blood, I suffered for you. And it’s like: “Wow, you’re right. Because I sent you to that cross, Jesus.” “But what about me” is what he’s saying.
BBP: Tell me a little bit about some of the other songs on the album. What they talk about and how they may have come about.
Renee: If I was given the opportunity to have two songs, it would be “I Won’t Stop.” Because while I was out in the world, I danced, I partied, I got my boogie on (laughs), you know. And just because I’ve decided to live Holy doesn’t mean I can’t dance anymore. And when you read the Bible you’ll see that David danced for the glory of God. So “I Won’t Stop” is like “hey yeah!” It’s a party tune. I’m dancing, but I’m dancing for God. I’m dancing because my soul is excited about worshipping Him and praising Him. And the dance that I’m doing, it’s not provocative, it’s nothing sexual, but it is a true joy that only God can give you, and I won’t stop until He gets enough (laughs). “Whatcha’ Gonna Do?” That was funny as well, that came from us living our lives, you know, me doing exactly what I wanted to do. I had stopped going to church. And God said “Leszia, what are you going to do? At the end of this day, meaning at the end of your life, when it’s time for you to stand before Me and you have to pay for everything that you’ve done, whatcha’ gonna do?” (She then starts singing the melody to “Bad Boys,” the theme song to the television program “Cops”) “What you going to do, when He comes for you?” Where you going to run, where are you going to hide? Where you going to run to? And I’m like “Wow. Really God? Really God?” and He’s like “Yeah, Leszia. Really.” And so “Whatcha’ Gonna Do?” came out of that. And then, another of the songs is “Didn’t You Know?” And, again, that’s an up tempo beat song, and it actually came from a sermon that I received, you know. That “Didn’t You Know” I would never leave you; “Didn’t You Know” that I would never let you fall. “Didn’t You Know” that I would never forsake you. You know He said he would never leave us, so I had to live that to know that God wouldn’t leave me. That God would not forsake me. That no matter how low I go, and how low I had gone, that He didn’t let me fall, because my life was still here. I still had the opportunity to glorify Him. And that’s where that came from. Then there is “Count Your Blessings.” “Count Your Blessings,” (laughs) “Count Your Blessings,” praise God, is not an experience in as much as a personal experience. I guess again maybe it was. “Count Your Blessings” I actually wrote for my sister. My older sister, who has four children. Who has a husband, who like myself is married but God has blessed her, but still unhappy with your life and you’re looking out, wishing and wanting for everyone. You need to count your blessings that God has given to you. One, two, three you know. And then you’re seeking and searching when Jesus is your answer. “Count Your Blessings,” that one’s dedicated to my sister. I love her (laughing). I hope she doesn’t hear this.
BBP: Well, it is an interesting part of the story, yeah…(laughs)
Renee: (Laughing); Yeah! I know! I know. I know. Oh no. Oh no. Oh My God. And then “Deliverance” was...”Deliverance” was just a question that the Holy Spirit had me to ask. You know, (quoting the song) “are you lonely, are you scared, are you tired and no one cares.” He was asking me this, you know….
BBP: …Right….
Renee: ….and I was answering Him. So that’s where “Deliverance” came from. He told me “deliverance is waiting for you,” you know, and I’m like “wow.” “Can You Hear the Spirit Call?” I was too busy doing what I wanted to do and living how I wanted to live that I couldn’t hear God speaking to me anymore; I couldn’t hear his spirit calling out to me. And it wasn’t until I shut up and I actually heard him…Oh my gosh, and then…Oh My God...I feel pretty good here, reliving all of this again. “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.” It’s a cry. It’s a cry. It is from a broken heart. It is from unrealized dreams. It’s from a repentive heart because at the end of “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus” I end the song with where my heart was, which was crying out, and I’m saying “I’m still Your child hoping that You still love me too.” But I didn’t know at the time. I didn’t know at the time if God could still love me, if God still wanted me. You know, here I am again, I’m jumping up and down God, I’m standing in the middle of this world that I’m screaming to the top of my voice because you don’t look like you see me. You don’t look like you hear me God. You know, I’m alone. I’m in the dark and I’m asking you to guide me through this. And so here I am. And then “This May Be Your Last Try” is just my heart compelling people to turn to Christ because it may be your last chance. Tomorrow—we’re not promised tomorrow. We’re not even promised the next five minutes. I’ve been given the opportunity to ask you, you know, I’m a messenger. God sent me to ask you “Will you choose Him” before it’s too late? And that’s where “This May Be Yours Last Try” you know, it came from. Oh my gosh, song after song is just a testimony that I love , or me being an empty vessel that God used to get his message through. I’m grateful. I’m very grateful. I’m honored that he will allow me to be used. Are you kidding? Me, of all people? “Lord, Do You Know What You’re Doing?” It’s the only thing I can say as I surrender my hands up. But…He’s amazing and there’s probably more songs that I could have put on the CD, but there wasn’t enough room.
BBP: Let me ask you, the style that you sing in, is it traditional gospel?
Renee: No, not at all. And that’s the weirdest thing to me. Because if I had to categorize myself, I couldn’t. I don’t sing traditional gospel because…to me, traditional gospel is singing “God, I don’t believe in you, or God, I don’t believe that You have given me everything that I need to stand waiting on You,” and traditional gospel comes from a standpoint of people begging God, and that’s not where I am coming from. I’m coming from a standpoint of standing victoriously because He brought me through. I’m praising God. I’m thanking God. So I would say—and it’s not inasmuch as contemporary Christians, because I got “Roll Up On There” which is a great hard rock song. (laughs). If I have to. If I were to put myself in a category, it would not be praise and worship. I’m not southern Baptist. I don’t do hymns. I just, I am, I’m just… Oh My God…. Oh my God, I’m… “Gospel Praise.” What about that?
BBP: “Gospel Praise.”
Renee: “Gospel Praise.” Yes.
BBP: Okay…
Renee: “Gospel Worship Praise.” Because again, I don’t do typical gospel because gospel is (sings) “Oh Lord Help me to…” Really? (chuckles). (sings) “and soon and very soon.” No, that’s not where I’m coming from.
BBP: Are there any secular artists that you like?
Renee: No. And again not taking anything from them because God has given us all of the ability to do what we do. It’s just, what you choose to do with what he’s given you the ability to do. I don’t listen to secular music, so I couldn’t tell you a Beyonce song, you know? I know the name Beyonce because it’s plastered everywhere, but I couldn’t name her song. However, if I reach back in the day, I like Whitney Houston’s voice. When Whitney sings “I Love the Lord,” oh my God! That melts my heart!That melts my heart! So I very much love Whitney’s voice. Whitney, the old Whitney. Oh… Who else? Rachelle Ferrell. She’s a jazz singer, and just her vocal ability sends chills. She can sing! She can sing. But that’s it.
BBP: The reason I asked you that was because you mentioned one song you described as hard rock, and I was thinking…
Renee: Yeah! It’s the “What if?” And again, I have no idea where it came from! I used to listen to, when I was younger…what was the name of that group…God…Eagles!
BBP: Yeah, Eagles.
Renee: It’s the words that I would classify as hard rock because rock words are just so in your face…it’s like “as a matter of fact.” (makes a sound like a guitar playing). Like, what are you going to do with that? And that is very much “What If.”
BBP: Where do you want to go now? You have an album out, you’ve had it out for a couple of months now. First album. First of all, what are you hearing and what feedback are you getting about the album?
Renee: All positive. And that’s very strange because I’m just in awe. I am surprisingly shocked and wonderfully in awe that people can bear witness, that people can receive it, because they’re living it, or they have lived it. So the feedback I’ve got, everything has been positive. Because you expect to have your nay-sayers. You expect to have someone to say, “Well how come you don’t sound like Mary Mary?” Or ”You’re not sounding like Kiki Shepard.” Because I’m not Mary Mary and I’m not Kiki Shepard. Can I blow? Yeah, I can do all things required through strength of me. Yes I can. Can I go behind them and we sing the same song and it will be two separate versions that are as compelling? Yes! Because I know what God can do through me. But the feedback has just blown me away. I’ve had people to come up and say to me “I have just lost my mother, and here I am, minister to me. Because you were able to sing exactly what I was feeling.” Again, my response to all of the feedback that I am getting is always “Wow God, really?” I mean I’m in awe of Him. In awe of Him.
BBP: Where do you want your career to go? What’s your next step? Are we going to see a sophomore album anytime soon?
Renee: Yes. Larry and I were just speaking the other day about going into the studio to do the sophomore album. I’ve written a lot of songs, and yeah, there’s like a sophomore album coming out within a year or going into production of a sophomore album, which I’m looking forward to, because, in and of itself, this is his gift, this is what God has given him the ability to do. And I understand now why God allowed me to go through so many other people before, you know, because before the original thing comes the Devil is going to deceive you. He will send people your way—I have other labels, other publishing houses saying “yeah, that’s great, and we want to work with you, and we want to do this, but we’re going to need 75 percent of your royalties, and given the fact that you’re giving up a finished product, we’re going to need you to do x, y and z and….” no..and God did not give me this just to give it away.
BBP: Do you want to experiment with different styles? Do you want the sophomore album to be like the freshman album, or do you want to take it in a different direction?
Renee: I am led by the spirit always. So if God wants it to reach people who like to listen to jazz, there will be songs on there for that. If God wants it to reach people who like to listen to hip-hop, there will be (hip-hop style) songs on there. I don’t really classify myself because when you hear this CD, there’s no category that you can put it in and say “Okay, it really kind of fits all in this, or it really kind of fits all in that, or it kind of fits in all of this,” because there’s something in it for everyone.

Finding Her Way Back Part II: Gospel Singer Leszia Renee

2011-11-28T22:01:00.001-08:00

In the following portion of our interview, gospel singer Leszia Renee talks in depth about a ten-year period in her life in which she said she was alienated from the Lord.
Giving herself to Jesus Christ at age seven, she let the influences of the world turn her away from Him at age 24. Shopping was more important to her than spirituality then, she said, and any singing she did was more for an American-Idol style pursuit of fame than any celebration of God. All of this eventually brought on a despair that intensified after she married (she has been married to Adolphus Holcomb, an electrical engineer, for seven years) and found she could not conceive a child.
The despair was pushing her to thoughts of suicide, she said. But gently, she said, God was pushing her back to Him:
BBP: You’ve been exposed to music all of your life. But tell me when you first thought “Well, maybe I can make this music, maybe I can sing.” You said you used to listen to your mother when you were in the cradle.
Renee: I was listening to my mom, but again. I remember being a small child in the bathtub making up songs…I can remember as far back as four or five years old doing that, you know, just singing songs. And of course there were always talent shows at schools that (as if reminiscing of the time) “of course I’ll sing! I don’t mind getting up there and singing!” I’m a little bit frightened to stand in front of people to sing because again, it’s my gift; it’s what God has anointed me to do. It wasn’t again until I had decided that I want that whole American Idol dream and I want to be this superstar and let me have at it this way, there’s just so many different turns and twists that will lead you down a road of destruction and I’m not knocking anyone as far as where they have so chosen to walk. But as far as the path that God has placed me on, it’s never been that. And we can either do what the will of God says for our lives or we can do what our own will says. Okay, well I tried it my way…and I was so empty inside. There was nothing, and you get so confident and you say “Oh my Gosh, you can just sing so good and girl you know you can really kill that song,” and you’re like ”yeah.” It’s empty. It’s empty praise coming from people that are looking to be filled with whatever light you have…And I remember the very first song that I wrote, the very first song that I wrote furiously for real was “Can You Hear the Spirit Call?” And that’s one of the songs on my CD and it came from the standpoint of me doing and trying what I wanted to do and not what God wanted me to do and just feeling empty, or feeling like I’m in a roomful of people but I just want to be in the background, just quiet somewhere because no one actually really hears me. And I’m talking to God and I’mangry and I’m saying: “God where were You when I needed You and how come You didn’t answer me when I called you?” And it was through me writing to God and—isn’t God wonderful enough to allow us to always be truthful? Because He always knows what’s always going on in our hearts anyway? But it wasn’t until He allowed me and I allowed myself to get out of the way to where I was able to write up the pain in my life. Write out the experiences that I should not have taken and offer them up and literally to sing for forgiveness to my Heavenly Father, because those were the first songs. I mean I’ve got notebooks full of songs that are “Oh let’s shake it” and “Let’s Do This” but no, it’s not what He wanted for me. And I desired what He desired for me which was righteousness.
BBP: Right. I did read that you found God at the age of seven but that you kind of turned away from Him at 24 and that you were kind of on a different course for ten years…
Renee: Yes.
BBP: Tell me a little about that.
Renee: (Sighs) The loneliness. You know, the loneliness brought me back. The impatience took me away. It wasn’t moving fast enough. I’m a microwave society type of person. I can push a button, I can get my meal in 30 seconds or less. “Ok God I’m expecting you to do the exact same thing for me.” “No God, I don’t want to wait. I want this now. If you’re not going to give this to me now, I’m going to go out and I’m going to make this happen.” And it was that thought pattern that got me to the place where “Oh, My God” this is empty. I’m not satisfied, you know. There’s something in me, there’s a hole, there’s a longing, God that—I’m singing, I think this is what I want to do, you know. But I’m not being filled, I’m empty as I’m singing. So again, it’s wasn’t until God allowed to hit me what I considered in my life rock-bottom, which is I could no longer hear God. I didn’t hear him talk to me anymore. I didn’t hear him guiding me anymore. I don’t ever want to ever be where I can’t hear that small voice going “Leszia, I want you to go this way. Leszia, no I don’t want you to do that. Leszia, I need you to stop. Leszia, I need you to go over here and do this.” I donot want to be where I cannot hear God’s voice speaking to me, and I had gotten myself that way. He never moved away from me. He of course was always standing there. Always waiting for this, His Prodigal Daughter, to return. But yet His Prodigal Daughter was just out there doing her own thing, thinking I was having fun. But like I said, it was empty, I really could be at a family gathering or in a room full of people, and I feel like crying, and would often sit back and cry. And there was nothing wrong with me physically, there was nothing wrong with me mentally, but it was my soul that was crying out, my empty spirit that was crying and it was crying out for God. And it wasn’t until I literally—I stepped back, and I stopped singing for a while. Everything was just iffy, it was just all plain, it was all dull, and I shut off.
BBP: You shut off?
Renee: I shut up. I shut down. I let not a vowel come out of my mouth! It wasn’t until I stopped singing that I reached that point and then of course when you stop doing what God has given you to do, oh that’s when the enemy comes. That’s when the devil comes. And there’s the devil trying to tell me “Nobody’s going to miss you if you’re gone. You’re really not doing anything with your life. Why don’t you just go ahead and drive off of that cliff? Who’s going to care?” At that point in my life I was so empty, I was so lonely, I was so lost, and I thank God for His spirit. Because even when I held up my hand and let go, God did not allow me to be loose from his hand. And it was his love for me that brought me out of that depression. I have journals and I found one of my journals a couple of months ago, and I was in a dark place when I wrote it…and me again, having thoughts of suicide and nobody in my family knew, because, having seen me you would just think that my world was fine.
BBP: I read something in here, Song Vault, it’s a little biography of you that says (reading): Gospel Recording artist Leszia was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. She gave her life to Jesus Christ at the tender age of seven. But the influences of the world got the best of her, and by the time Leszia had reached the tender age of 24 she turned away from the teachings of God. For ten long years Leszia walked in the temporary pleasures of the flesh doing whatever she felt right to her. And when I saw that I thought I’d better ask you about that, just so I can get a read on where you are now.
Renee: Oh, no, it doesn’t necessarily mean contaminating your body. My body is a temple. But selfish. Self-centered? Are you kidding? Shopaholic? Okay. Buying whatever I want. Not caring if my brother was okay. I didn’t care that you had a bill that was due. My bills were paid but yet I’m sitting up here and I’m going to Nordstrom and I’m getting ready to spend $500 on some shoes. You know? But yet you’re ready to get evicted, but I’d rather have those shoes than help you out with your bills. Seeing people on the side of the road who truly look and need to be helped and turn my face away! Are you kidding? Everybody can be there for their family, because they love their family, but you know I’m going to go ahead and cast the bigger net. Let’s cast the net beyond your family. Let’s cast the net beyond your friends. Let’s go ahead and cast that net beyond your community and let’s cast the net that encompasses your whole world. That wasn’t me. I was selfish. I was very selfish. Oh I went to clubs. I danced. Are you kidding? Come on now! God no, I did not sleep around, but I had a bunch of boyfriends. I had them doing whatever I wanted them to do under the pretense that you’re going to get what you think you’re going to get. But you’re not going to get it. By no stretch of the imagination am I an ugly person!
BBP: Right. I saw your picture. You’re very attractive.
Renee: And with that being said…you know but my father told me something a long time ago that I treasured as a child. That a man will do anything that you want him to do, so long as he thinks he’s going to get your body. The minute you give him your body, then he’ll stop doing for you, if he decides to do so. If he loves you, he’ll continue to do it. Okay, I took all of that to heart. “I know what you want from me. Yeah, you got to do this for me. I have that.” Again, it was just wrong! I knew what I was doing! I chose to do it. Again, I chose not to go to church on Sunday. I chose to completely turn away from God. Are you kidding? I’m out on Friday. I’m having a good time. Me and my girlfriends, we’re at the club. We’re just out doing our thing. We’re having a good time. But it wasn’t a good time. You know that life…being in the limelight with men really throwing money at you…it’s so empty. It is empty. Because it’s not (hesitates) love. It’s lust, it’s not love from God. It’s love from the world. And the world…it will abandon you. So I wasn’t out there on the corner selling my body. I wasn’t out there doing drugs, sniffing cocaine, smoking it.. but what I was doing was just as bad because no one sin is really greater than another, they’re all the same. So yeah sure, go ahead! I might as well have been doing it. Because in the eyes of God, what I was doing was just as bad. It was equal.
BBP: What was happening to you musically? I mean what kinds of songs were you singing? Were you singing secular songs, more or less?
Renee: Oh, yeah! (laughs heartily). Oh definitely I was! Are you kidding? Yes I was! “I can show you a real good time?” I’m like wow, “Is this what you’re doing with what God has given you?” Wow! How is that glorifying God? And again, it wasn’t until the enemy started talking to me and telling me “Leszia just go drive off the cliff. Go ‘head. Nobody’s going to miss you. You’re not doing anything really with your life. It’s not working out.” But it wasn’t supposed to work out. Not like that. Because that was not what God had planned for me.
BBP: And you really were at the point of suicide?
Renee: Yeah, I was. Yeah I was. Yeah I was. Yeah I was.
BBP: Wow. Tell me about what happened, just..
Renee: (Sighs) Just a very, very dark place. Feelings, lonely. Lonely. Lonely, lonely as all get-out. Again, not feeling my self-worth, okay? You know here I am, and I want children. The biggest desire for a woman beyond—in our flesh—beyond wanting to get married, you know is you want to have that child. You want to see a “mini-me” you know. You want to see your mirror image, your reflection, running around because then, everything that you’ve done or not done in life, you do vicariously through your child. And so when that did not happen, it just, I mean it put me into such a state of depression…it consumed my every thought. My every thought was to achieve this child. Went through everything possibly within my flesh. Went through the fertility treatments, spent thousands of dollars, you know, for it to not work. You know the first time you have this hope and it doesn’t work…in my actions, in my anger I will not sin, and I didn’t sin against the Father. But then the second time it didn’t work, it broke me down so and the pain was so intense that out of my mouth that no, I didn’t sin, but I also didn’t cry out. And it was in that silence that the devil got really loud. (laughs). And I mean really, really, really loud! And that’s when the thoughts of suicide, the feeling of worthlessness, set in. And that’s why I said, Mother’s Day is one of the hardest days for me, if not the hardest day of the year for me, every year.

(Tomorrow, we will present the third and last part of our interview with Leszia Renee. Then, she will talk extensively about her music career and particularly about "What About Me," her current CD.

Finding Her Way Back: Gospel singer Leszia Renee

2011-11-27T21:26:00.000-08:00

At 24, gospel singer Leszia Renee turned herself—and her voice—away from the Lord she had been serving since the age of seven.
“Selfish? Self-centered? Are you kidding? Shopaholic?” said Renee, who is based out of Moreno Valley area of Southern California. “Okay. Buying whatever I want. Not caring if my brother was okay. I didn’t care that you had a bill that was due. My bills were paid but yet I’m sitting up here and I’m going to Nordstrom and I’m getting ready to spend $500 on some shoes. You know? But yet you’re ready to get evicted, but I’d rather have those shoes than help you out with your bills.”
But feeling empty about the decisions she was making—and driven almost to the point of suicide--Renee returned to the Lord at age 33.
Now, ten years later—instead of shopping at Nordstrom—she occupies her time with San Bernardino’s “Crossing Over Ministries,” where she teaches Sunday School, directs the choir and runs “Everyone Eats,” the ministry's food pantry.
And instead of pursuing American Idol-style dreams with her singing, she is now using her voice for the Lord. To that end, she recorded “What About Me?” her 16-song debut album as a professional gospel singer. The album’s release last June was designed to coincide with a San Diego performance in which Renee opened for gospel star Kirk Franklin.
Renee says the songs reflect what God wants her to sing, including the title song, the name of which refers not to a self-centered question from her, but a query from God asking her about His place in her life.
She released the CD with GVR Records & Entertainment, a company founded by Larry Martin Kimpel, a Christian recording artist and a bassist (if you want to know more about him check out our interview posted July 26 and July 30 of 2011) who has worked with George Duke and Anita Baker and who now plays with Frankie Beverly and Maze.
“He’s the perfect shepherd that God has placed me under. God placed him in my life so that I would not be taken advantage of,” she said of Kimpel, adding jokingly that the bassist “..has to give an account to God on how he treats me.”
A phlebotomist by trade, Renee has music in her roots. Her mother, Rosie Lee, sang in church and was a member of a couple of gospel groups. A vacuum repair and sales company owner, her father Carl was less involved in music but had a good voice when he sang Sam Cooke songs during weekend trips taken by the family, Renee recalls.
Our interview of Renee will be presented over the next three days. In the first part, she talks about what she learned about singing from her mother and about life from her father. She also talks about some of her favorite gospel singers:
BBP: Let me ask you about singing. I know that some of your influences were at least—you like Yolanda Adams and B.B. and C.C. Winans? You listed Karen Clark. I thought that was very interesting because I spoke to her about three or four days ago and you also listen to Aretha Franklin and I found that interesting because Karen Clark is apparently playing Aretha Franklin in a movie. But that’s just stuff I’ve heard. Tell me a little bit how each of these singers have influenced you.
Renee: Well, with regards to Yolanda Adams, the way that God just uses her and how you can feel the spirit move as she’s exalting God, that is just something to behold and the ability that the Holy Spirit has to touch you so that you bear witness to what she’s saying, you know…it’s just as you hear the spirit of God in someone as they sing, it’s like you are sitting at the feet of God and you’re in awe of what he can do. So again, the first voice that I heard happened to be my mom…Yes I love all of those other great vocalists, but that first voice I heard from my crib, that first voice that I heard singing in the choir, the voice that God has placed inside of me, it comes from the voice that he put inside of her. So I take nothing away from all of the Aretha Franklins, and I love Yolanda Adams…but I just break down and I cry at the glory of God when I hear my mother sing because again, it’s just an awesome thing to behold.
BBP: Tell me your mother’s name?
Renee: My mother’s name is Rosie Lee.
BBP: Okay. And was she a professional singer? Was she singing at a church?
Renee: She always sang at her church. She sang with a couple of groups. ..
BBP: Gospel style?
Renee: Gospel. (laughs) She’s always exalted God for the gift he’s given her.
BBP: And did she record?
Renee: She sang with the Heavenly Voices, yeah. They recorded. The Sounds of Grace, they also recorded. Several different groups that I can’t remember off the top of my head….
BBP: Has she helped you with your singing? Has she helped you with your career?
Renee: (laughing) I have tried to get my mother to sing with me and I just cannot get her in the studio with me…but will we in the future do something together? Definitely. I’ve written several songs specifically in mind that she and I can do a duet. But right now, as of today: not at all! I can’t get the woman to commit!
BBP: Okay. Has she though given you advice? I’m sure she pays attention to what you do…
Renee: Right..
BBP: She has. What has she told you? What has she said to you?
Renee: To sing for Him and Him alone. My testimony is I sing for an audience of one, it really doesn’t matter who’s standing before me. That comes from my mom. That comes because you’re offering up, again, praises to the Father! You’re offering up the sacrifice of praise to God and so the biggest influence that she has placed upon my life is when I stand up and I sing, I’m not trying to impress men. You know, I’m not trying to impress the critics of what I’m doing because I’m singing my heart out to the one who loves me first—that I love more than anybody—and that’s the Father.
BBP: Tell me a bit about your father.
Renee: My dad (laughs) My dad, very strong-willed. I would say that my persistence, I definitely got from him as far as being determined to not let anything get in my way or stop me. My dad is stubborn as all get-out. I love the man. He has his own walk with God, as does everyone. But his influence in my life was the introduction to our Heavenly Father as a father who provides for you. Because my father is very much a provider himself. This is the foundation that I learned about my spiritual, my Heavenly Father that God always takes care of us, because my father always takes care of us…You know so I would say by him just being a diligent provider, an excellent provider that he in his acts showed me the love of God.
BBP: Let me ask you something else about your father. Outside of music, you said he’s a self-made man, that he owned a vacuum company and everything, what lessons did he impart to you…well, musical and otherwise?
Renee: Hard work. Hard work pays off. Never second guess yourself. Trust in the God-given ability that He has placed inside of you..

(Tomorrow: Leszia talks about what took her from God, and what brought her back.)

College Park Blues

2011-11-20T20:22:00.001-08:00

The man facing the audience in cowboy hat and sunglasses sang and played with all of the experience one would expect from an 81-year-old man who had been performing in front of an audience since childhood. But the guitar licks and singing that cut the air that night had the energy and drive expected from a much younger man.
Warner Williams was playing the Fourth Annual College Park Blues Festival, held November 12 at the University of Maryland’s Ritchie Coliseum.
As the opening act, he was the perfect performer to set the bar for an evening of blues that would later feature Clarence “The Bluesman” Turner, the D.C. Blues Society Band with singer Ayaba Bey and guitarist Tom Newman and his band.
One of only nine people this year to win the National Endowment of the Arts’ National Heritage Award, Williams can arguably be seen not only as an American musical icon, but a piece of musical history. The National Endowment of the Arts describes him as a performer of “Piedmont Blues,” a storytelling style of music found in the region between Maryland to Georgia and west to the Blue Ridge Mountains. Williams, who said he likes to play blues and spirituals, playfully calls it “front porch music.”
That evening, the rapt, almost reverential attention he received from the audience seemed to recognize his status. Hardly anyone was talking, and few were looking at anything else in the room other than Williams as he played a set that acknowledged the Veteran’s Day weekend with an instrumental of “God Bless America” and also included his version of “Blueberry Hill,” the classic made famous by Fats Domino.
You can almost feel what I’m talking about in these videos of his performance. Here’s “Blueberry Hill:”
And this segment includes the instrumental I mentioned, plus other gems:

Up next was Clarence “The Bluesman” Turner, who will represent the D.C. area in January-February 2012 at the International Blues Challenge in Memphis. Turner, who plays bass in addition to guitar, first learned to appreciate the blues from his father’s collection of Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters records. He started playing guitar at the age of eight and was playing clubs in the D.C. area by his early teens. Starting in his early 20’s, he dropped out of music for more than ten years, but eventually returned to the blues—and performing.
His band at the festival included Sean Graves on drums, Dave Satterwhite on bass, Avon Dews on harmonica and Chuck Pearson on keyboards/organ. Here they are with “She’s 19 Years Old:”

Then came the D.C. Blues Society Band with Ayaba Bey, who had previously performed at the 2011 D.C. Blues Festival. The band includes Sam’I Nuriddin on guitar, David Harris on harmonica, David Jackson on bass and Joseph Thomas on saxophone. Catch the solos by Harris and Thomas as the band plays “I Want to Make Love to You:”

Here they come back with “C.C. Ryder:”

The show ended with guitarist Tom Newman, who started performing professionally at age 16 and began teaching at age 18 while a student at Howard University. At Howard, he recorded the hit record “Let’s Do the Latin Hustle” with Eddie Drennon and the BSS Unlimited Band. Over the years, he has played with Stanley Turrentine, Roy Ayers, Lloyd Price, Wilson Pickett and others.
As you can hear in the following video, in which he plays “Hideaway,” there is a jazz flavor to what Newman does:

As we said before, Newman played with Wilson Pickett. Here he is with his version of “Funky Broadway:”

SHOUT OUT: By the way, the gentleman with the fancy dance steps shouting “Go ‘head” to the bands is Jeremiah. He is a big fan of the blues here in D.C. and the concerts would not be the same without him.

Rodeo Kings and Queens

2011-11-15T23:24:00.000-08:00

When they formed Blackie and the Rodeo Kings in 1996, principals Colin Linden, Tom Wilson and Stephen Fearing were basically only thinking about making a one-shot tribute album to Canadian Folk Music Legend Willie P. Bennett, a musician they all viewed with reverence. But their effort soon took on a life of its own.
After a while the group—which takes its name from Bennett’s 1978 album Blackie and the Rodeo King—were playing live dates.
Eventually there was a second album, a double. Then a third album. Then a fourth. Along with them came awards and nominations for awards, including the Juno they received for their 1999 effort, Kings of Love. Blackie and the Rodeo Kings’ music even found its way to the IPod of U.S. President George W. Bush.

Fast-forward to the present, when the critically-acclaimed Canadian folk/rock/blues/country group has released Kings and Queens, its seventh album. Three years in the making, Kings and Queens features 14 songs that Linden, a guitarist known for his work with the Band; Wilson, former lead singer of the 1990’s rock group Junkhouse and Fearing, who has collaborated with high profile producers such as Steve Berlin of Los Lobos; recorded with several iconic “queens” of music, all but three American.
The high profile list includes Rosanne Cash, Exene Cervenka, Holly Cole, Emmylou Harris, Amy Helm, Janiva Magness, Mary Margaret O’Hara, Sam Phillips, Serena Ryder, Pam Tillis, Sara Watkins, Lucinda Williams, Cassandra Wilson and Patti Scialfa. The songs run the gamut from pop-chart contenders (“I’m Still Loving You” with Helm) to bluesy slow burners (“Shelter Me” with Scialfa) to country ballads (“My Town Has Moved Away” withTillis) to driving Tom Petty-style rockers (“How Come You Treat Me So Bad” with Magness) to lazy country wind-twisters (“Step Away” with Harris). There are songs where band members and guests individually duet up and others where everyone sings together in what Linden calls a “wild roving gang sound.”

Maybe because of its high infusion of American starpower, the album is gaining more of a foothold in the United States than previous Blackie efforts, says Linden, a Toronto native who now lives in Nashville. The band currently has dates in several U.S. cities, including here in the D.C. area where it will play Jammin Java in Vienna, Virginia on Friday, November 18. For those of you who will be in the D.C. area then, Jammin Java is located at 227 Maple Avenue East, Vienna, Virginia. The phone number is 703-255-1566 and Jammin Java’s website can be reached at
http://jamminjava.com/
Beldon’s Blues Point had a chance to talk to Linden about the group, the new album, and many topics in-between, including his friendship with the late keyboardist Richard Bell, who was known for his work with Janis Joplin. Linden started by talking about the group’s origins, which evolved from a night in which two of its founders co-incidentally came upon the same idea:
Linden: It was a wild bit of synchronicity. It was 15 years ago and I had been producing records for a number of years. I was an artist on Sony at the time. And my wife and I were sitting around our table and one of the things that was sort of the rage at the time was tribute albums and I was looking for a project to do for our company which we had just started. And I was thinking wouldn’t it be great to do a tribute album to our dear friend Willie P. Bennett, who’s such a great songwriter? Nobody knows, people don’t know how great he is. And his songs are fantastic. Wouldn’t it be great to do a tribute album to Willie? But maybe make it like it was a tribute band with just other singers and me. So instead of having 12 different artists do it, it’d just be like a common production and two or three different singers and it could be a really stylized great project. Okay. We’re talking about this. I take a break and walk over to my computer—this is in the early days of the Internet—and I get an e-mail from Stephen Fearing, who is a friend of mine, but I don’t really know him very well. Stephen says in his email “Wouldn’t it be great to get together and do a project of Willie P. Bennett songs sometime?” Very same day. Same moment. So it was unbelievable synchronicity. So I immediately called Stephen back and said “You’re not going to believe this,” but Janice and I were just talking about the very same thing.”
BBP: Wow
Linden: And it was amazing, and that night (guitarist/singer) John Hiatt was playing in town and we both went to the concert and I said “Look Stephen, we’ve got to get together and talk about this. This is too weird. We’ve got to do this.” And he was enthused about it. So we sat down and talked and we both thought of our mutual friend Tom Wilson, who at the time was the leader of one of Canada’s biggest rock and roll bands called Junkhouse and was having a bunch of hit records in Canada, but he was also a real big fan, an old friend of Willie’s. So we suggested the idea to him and he said “Anything you want, I’m there.” So three weeks—it actually wasn’t three weeks later—well, five weeks later we were in the studio making our first album, which we thought was going to be our only album. But we had such a great time in the studio, and the guys who ran our record company—who had agreed to put it out, our good friend Bernie Finkelstein—was so enthused about the band, he said, “Would you guys be able to do a few show if I booked them?” Well, we did eight months worth of touring, got nominated for a Juno award in Canada, and fell in love with each other. And said “We gotta do this again. We gotta do another album.” So we did a follow-up album, it ended up being a double album, had six Willie P. songs, six songs of our own, or seven songs of our own, or something like that, and then a few songs of other writers who we really admired. And we ended up having a hit in Canada! And we felt “Oh man, we gotta do this again.” So a couple of years later we get together again and we make an album called Bark (the title could be viewed as initials for the group, (B)lackie (A)nd the (R)odeo (K)ings) and we have an even bigger hit. So it turns into kind of an ongoing side project that has had sort of a wonderful life of its own ever since. Which brings us to Kings and Queens, which is the most ambitious project we’ve tried to do.
BBP: Yeah, tell me what you were trying to do with that. I understand that it took three years to put that album together?
Linden: Yep. It was a little longer from inception to release. We got the idea for the record in 2006. At the end of 2006 we were playing on train across Canada with the Cowboy Junkies and rehearsing for a show which we were the host band of and I was musical director for that was celebrating the thirty year anniversary of Last Waltz (a concert by the Band held in San Francisco on Thanksgiving Day, 1976). And it was so much fun kind of working towards a project together instead of just doing our own songs. It felt really good, it felt really healthy for us to be kind of working in a collaborative way. And you know we had a number of different really vocal and really positive supporters who were female artists who were so great to us: Pam Tillis being one, Rosanne Cash being one, and we kind of thought, I thought, “Man wouldn’t it be great for us to do an album where on every song we had a different female artist joining us?” And the guys said, “Yeah, that’d be really cool.” And then 15 minutes later I thought, I blurted out “Let’s call it Kings and Queens.” And we all thought it was a cool idea. And then—it was really time to do another record—but we were kind of, in the back of our minds, getting ready for that to be a big, major project for us to do. In the meantime I got called for 2008 to play guitar with Emmylou Harris, which was a wonderful thing. So the plans got put on hold for a while while I did that, and you know we all continued and made other solo albums the way we always do between Blackie albums. But we stuck with the idea and I made a few calls and sent out a few e-mails, first of all to Pam and Rosanne, because I thought they were really the reason that we were willing to do it, and when they both said immediately “yes,” it gave me some confidence. And then I got a hold of Amy (Helm), who was very, very supportive of our band and was wonderful to work with when I was in her band; and I got a hold of Lucinda Williams—I had produced a number of tracks for Lucinda when she was living in Nashville and we were still very, very good friends. And I got a hold of Cassandra Wilson; I played on the album that T-Bone Burnett produced for her called Thunderbird, I played guitar on some of that and I really hit it off with Cassandra. And of course I was friends with Sam Phillips for many years, and I just think that she’s such an incredible artist and I was friends with Amy Helm—I did a ton of work with the Band in the early 90’s, especially late 80’s, early 90’s—and so I was familiar with Amy (Amy Helm’s father Levon Helm was a drummer for the Band) from when she was a teen-ager. So we had kind of a group of people who we asked quickly and all said “yes.” So it gave me the confidence to think that it actually could happen.
BBP: Now a number of these singers that you’re working with here are American. Are you hoping that this album has more of a penetration into the American market? Was that one of the aims of...
Linden: Yes it wasn’t really. I mean it was an aim but there are three great Canadian women on it too. Serena Ryder, Mary Margaret O’Hara and Holly Cole..it wasn’t specifically that we were…we actually, we weren’t specifically saying “Let’s get a bunch of American women on it.” But a lot of the gals who I had worked with already and who I was friends with and who were fans of the band and who said “yes" to it happened to be American. And so it wasn’t really done that way by design, although it has helped. We’ve certainly made much bigger inroads with this record than any other record we’ve done.
BBP: Was it hard…I mean, you’re talking about a number of busy schedules including your own..was it hard kind of coordinating all of this? Getting all these people, getting them to the studio in a timely fashion to get this out?
Linden: Well. In the one hand it was, but on the other hand I was just real patient with it. We all were real patient with it. And we just wanted it to be real, we wanted it to be the best record it possibly could be. We didn’t want to settle for anything on it. We wanted it to be fantastic. Just the very, very best record it possibly could be. So that was kind of what was on our minds about it and we just didn’t want to compromise at all. Remember the material that we had for this record was stuff, it wasn’t all by design for it. Some of it was just what we had, you know the songs that we felt were the strongest songs of us. So once we got the first number of tunes cast with the first group of gals who said “yeah,” then at that point we were dealing with a body of material that was kind of a finite body of material and it became more about saying “Hey who would be great on this song, and who would be great on that song.” So the rest of it got kind of—we worked it out based on the material that we had.
BBP: Oh. Okay. Now I understand that Janiva Magness is on one song?
Linden: JAN-i-va. JAN-i-va Magness.
BBP: I’m bad with pronouncing names sometimes. I’m sorry…
Linden: No problem…
BBP: …But what prompted you to bring her on board?
Linden: I produced two of her albums. I produced Bury Him at the Crossroads and I produced Do I Move You and I think Janiva’s a star. I think she’s really just a spectacular singer, wonderful artist, and I wanted her to be a blues player on the record because I’m a blues player, first and foremost. And I just knew Janiva would knock it out of the park, and she did.
BBP: Right. Now I understand that the song she does is called “How Come You Treat Me So Bad,” sort of a Tom Petty-type song? How did you come to use her style to make that song what it is?
Linden: Well, you know it’s an interesting thing with that one because it was kind of complete without having an extra vocalist on it because Stephen and Tom sing the whole thing throughout. I mean I chime in on the bridges, but mostly its Stephen and Tom. And it was a bit of a head-scratcher to figure out “Okay, how to make this relevant for this record?” But the song was so great, so I kind of thought if we approached it like the four of us—you know the three guys in the band and whoever our guest was going to be—it would be like a gang. And Tom sings in a real low voice, so I wanted to have someone who could sing an octave above Tom, and we would make like a harmony sandwich, just knock it out of the park with this sort of wild roving gang sound and I knew Janiva could relate to it conceptually and I knew she could deliver vocally, and she did. It wasn’t an obvious duet though, if that’s what you’re mentioning. Absolutely, that’s true.
BBP: Yeah. Well I was thinking that. I’m sure you were picking certain singers, as you said, to conform to certain songs that you were doing. You were aiming for a certain effect, and not necessarily a duet, but that you thought that a particular person’s qualities would contribute to what you had in mind with a particular song, I guess is what I’m thinking here. In terms of working with the other singers were there other moments that stand out?

Linden: I love all of them. I love all of them, I have to say. And it’s not just me saying it, but we didn’t kind of do it all in one shot. We did it piece by piece. Before we asked somebody to be on it, we were, you know, we were very excited by the prospect of having them be on it. So really everyone turned out great as far as I was concerned; I was really, really happy with it. I was blown away with Patti Scialfa on the record, I have to say. Because she is someone who, I had never even met her. And you know she didn’t know the band or anything like that, it was a complete cold call. And she was just so wonderful. She was just an absolute wonderful woman; she’s the only one who I didn’t actually record myself. I sent her the track and her engineer and she recorded it, and the only word that I got back, she did two completely different fully realized versions of her duet plus a five-part harmony at the end. The only thing that she said, the only instructions that she gave me when they sent the file back was: if there’s anything else you want me to try, to let me know and I’ll do it. So I’m just thrilled and really honored.
BBP: Wow. That’s amazing. Tell me a little about the song that she did for you, though.
Linden: “Shelter Me Lord” is one of the two covers that are on the record. And I thought I wanted once again there to be that kind of component to the album, because that’s more my style. And it’s a
Buddy and Julie Miller song and I love what they do so much. Buddy recorded it with the fantastic McCrary Sisters singing on it, and I kind of thought it would be a great thing for Blackie and the Rodeo Kings to bring in, especially if we wanted to get a gospel-ish singer to sing on it, and you know there were a couple of people I had in mind. And when we had the chance to get Patti to be on the record she asked if we could send a few songs and I guess there were maybe two or three we had left at that point, and that was one of them, and I just said “Whichever one of these you feel like singing, go ahead and sing.” And that was the one that she picked.
BBP: Wow. What a story. Tell me a little bit about the tour. And what are your goals for it?
Linden: Well really it’s mostly just to get the word out in America more than anything else. We’re doing some really fantastic shows and we’ve done some really fantastic shows in Canada, which is great. We’re a little bit like a three-ring circus where all of the rings are in different places. I live in Nashville, Stephen Fearing lives in Halifax, Tom Wilson lives in Hamilton, Ontario, so we’re all over the map. So it’s always kind of a challenge for us to get together. But we really want people to hear this record and these are unusual times, so we just want to play in the places where they feel like they want to hear Blackie and the Rodeo Kings. We just want to dig in the best we can, you know, and hang on.
BBP: Now I understand that President Bush had one of your songs on his IPod?
Linden: Well, for starters, it was kind of one of those things that you think to yourself “Well, six years after it happened, someone’s going to be asking about this, because it’s kind of an unusual occurrence, and in that way it was really cool." You know my feeling about it? That we make music from our hearts, and with all of the love in our hearts and I’m not kidding when I say this. And we don’t try to be prejudiced towards anyone...if people react to our music and it makes their day brighter, it makes them happier, it makes them feel good, enriches their lives in some way, then it makes me happy to know that it would do that. Especially if it’s somebody who’s in the position of having influence on other people’s lives; boy oh boy I hope that somehow or other it can make that a positive thing. Because we need that these days. Is that an okay answer?
BBP: Hey, whatever answer you come up with. I was just curious..
Linden: I wish I could be a little more eloquent about it, to be honest with you. Suffice it to say that we—and here’s the other thing. When you’re a roots band that’s based in Canada, having anybody outside of Canada listen to your music is gratifying (laughs).
BBP: Yeah, I can see that…
Linden: Actually, having anybody period listen to your music is gratifying..
BBP: That’s true. Anything that you do, having anybody pay attention to it is gratifying! I certainly understand that. Did you ever talk to George Bush about it, or any of his people?
Linden: Oh no. No. Not a word. The whole story came to us completely by chance. It was when he was coming back from the Pope’s funeral, one of the reporters noticed he had an IPod. And the question was asked, what’s on the President’s IPod, what’s on IPod-one? So he listed the songs that were on it and there we were. He had some good stuff too. I mean John Hiatt was on it, Joni Mitchell, it was interesting.
BBP: Yeah, well I guess that must have been really a shock to find out that the President of the United States..I mean you talk about gratification and having people listening to what you do, I mean that must have really been a real rush to hear that the president is listening to what you’re doing. Doesn’t matter what your politics are…
Linden: It was kind of a wild thing. It was a little surrealistic, truth be told. But then again, such is life, isn’t it?
BBP: Tell me a little about some of the personnel changes…how has the band changed over 15 years?
Linden: One gigantic change, one unfathomable and never-recoverable change, which is that for the first many years of our band until June 15, 2007 when he passed away, we had the greatest keyboard player in the world playing with us, who was Richard Bell, who was my best friend.
BBP: From Janis Joplin…
Linden: Yep. And Richard played with me for 18 years, and when Blackie started up he was part of that too. So it was—it’s still weird going into the studio without him. I mean he’s there in spirit and we talk about him all of the time and we try to adhere to his standards of irreverence and try to adhere to his standard of unabashed joy in playing music. I don’t think any of us will ever get to the point where we’re at his level as a musician, although we’re all trying. It meant a lot to me that on the record the two keyboard players that we had were two guys who were great friends of his—that he would have approved of—one of them being John Whynot who is my other closest friend, who has recorded and engineered most of our records…he played piano on the record and Kenny Pearson played organ on the record. Ken was the organ player in Janis Joplin’s band when Richard was the piano player and they stayed close friends for the last 38 years of their lives. So I kind of felt like Richard’s spirit was there.
BBP: Oh yeah, it sounds like it was. How’d you get to know him? You said you and he were best friends. How did that happen? How did that friendship evolve?
Linden: Well, first of all I saw him play when I was ten years old at the Capital Theatre, with Janis Joplin. I saw him and Kenny, front row center, August 9, 1970..I think it was the ninth, maybe it was the fifth. I think actually it was August the 5, 1970. And it was just before I left New York and came back to Toronto where I was born and so it was a fantastic show, a totally memorable show. In the late 80’s I had become good friends with Rick Danko (a member of the Band), and Levon Helm and Garth Hudson (the Band’s organist, keyboardist and saxophonist) and was working with them and Jimmy Weider, who played guitar for them, and Jimmy was very close friends with Richard. Richard had been living in the south for about 16 years but he actually was from Toronto originally too, and Richard had decided, his mom was…getting older and he wanted to take care of her and he had a sister and four nephews and he really wanted to be around for their growing up. So he decided he would move back to Toronto, and I had met him once through the guys in the Band just a few months before and he said “I think I’m moving back to Toronto, can I give you a call?” So he called as soon as he moved back and my wife and I adopted him. And from then on we referred to him as our 45-year-old son, with every age it got a little more but..our 45-year-old adopted son, he just became a part of our lives and a part of our family and we started playing together immediately and around that time I was doing a lot of solo work and I brought Richard in on it and we played as a duo. We played with the Band together, when I got a call to put a band together for Bruce Cockburn, I got Richard and John Diamond—who still plays in my band—to be in that band. You know, he was like a secret weapon. I would bring him to a session and he would blow everybody away and come home. (laughs) And he was such a great person, it would immediately raise the bar on the quality of music for all of us. He was the greatest musician I ever played with and the most soulful…he was my best friend.
BBP: How did he pass away?
Linden: He had multiple myeloma which is bone marrow cancer.
BBP: Okay….
Linden: Which is a very, very treacherous form of cancer. He had it for 11 months and he fought like a champ.
BBP: What flavor did he add to Blackie and the Rodeo Kings?
Linden: The thing about Richard is Richard could play with Bruce Cockburn, he could play with Judy Collins, he could play with John Sebastian or Peter Yarrow. He could play with the Band or he could play with Muddy Waters or blues performers, and Richard—no matter what he was doing—he had the panache and the attack and directness of a blues player. And, no matter what he was doing—you know he could be playing a country song with somebody—there was just something about it that oozed soul. And he went for it, he was fearless in terms of what he would go for, in terms of pushing his own plan. And he was 100 percent artist and a 100 percent from the heart, all the time. So it brings an attitude. When you play with somebody like that it makes you fearless yourself, that you can go for it, that you can really play with everything you have and if you make a mistake, it doesn’t matter. You just go for it with the pure love of music and let it come through you, and he was a master. He had an incredible depth of understanding about arrangements in the classical sense, sonic, sonic power of what he was doing. (He) understood completely where he fit into things; brilliant arranger and had a huge harmonic knowledge and…just an incredibly deep musician.
BBP: That’s amazing. Tell me a little bit about Blackie and the Rodeo Kings. How would you classify your group? Is it more country? More blues? Kind of a mixture? More roots?
Linden: I think we think of it as a roots-based band, because we all have different roots, but they’re all traced into the same roots that turned into rock-and-roll, in some way or other: country, blues, folk music, you know. And we…kind of come at it because we’ve been front men for such a long time. We come at it in a certain way, none of us are kind of afraid to sort of go for it or jump into the spotlight and step on each other’s toes a little bit. We have a great admiration for each others’ writing, each others’ performing ability, and there’s just a certain thing that you get when you know that, if somebody came and hit you over the head with a shovel when you were playing, the other two guys would be able to take it and do pretty good without you. I think we all feel that. And that’s a better way of classifying our music than saying it’s this style or that style. You know what I mean? You know it’s more of the spirit of it, of the thing, than anything else. And we get that from Willie too, by the way. We get that from Willie D. Because that’s how Willie was. Willie very sadly left us in February of 2008, but his spirit permeates our band in every note. And basically, when it comes down to it, we’re still a Willie P. Bennett tribute band. That’s the most important thing.
BBP: That’s amazing. What will we see at Jammin Java? How are you going to entertain the troops here?
Linden: Well, we’re going to play stuff from Kings and Queens. We’re going to play stuff from probably all of our different records. And we’re going to probably do something we’ve never done before—we don’t what it is at this point—but usually we end up stumbling onto something that we’ve never done before. And it usually ends up being fun. We’ll probably make some mistakes, have a couple of train wrecks, laugh our heads off, and hopefully play some soulful spontaneous rockin’ music that will make people feel really good. That’s what we’re aiming for.
BBP: I’m sure you’re going to hit your mark. Definitely…
Linden: (laughing) Well some people say our bar is pretty low…
BBP: No, I wouldn’t say that. You guys are playing together too long for that. No, it sounds like it’s going to be a good time.

"I Just Play What Comes on My Mind"-Warner Williams

2011-11-03T08:20:00.000-07:00

Though the National Endowment of the Arts honored him this summer for singing them, Warner Williams doesn’t reflect too much on the technicalities of “Piedmont Blues:” what they are, what styles they evolved from or what region of the country they came from.
What the 81-year-old guitarist and singer thinks about is how much he likes making music and watching others enjoy it.
Williams has been playing guitar since he was nine or ten years old. Over the years he has played what the National Endowment of the Arts calls Piedmont blues—and what he calls “blues and spirituals”—around the D.C. area in churches, hole-in-the-wall bars and juke joints, night clubs, house parties and on the street.
Originally from the Washington, D.C. suburb of Takoma Park, Maryland, Williams comes from a musical family.
He learned guitar by watching his father, a music teacher, he said. All of his eight brothers and three sisters sang or played instruments and the family played together at home regularly when Williams was young.
Church was his first training ground. But by his teens, he was playing in clubs and on the street. He said he once was part of a band called the Moroccos but for the most part has not been a band player. He only played music part-time for much of his life, supporting his family by driving a truck for the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission. “I couldn’t live off music back there then because wouldn’t make no money,” he recalled.
For the last 20 years or so has played in a duo with Jay Summerour, a D.C. area harmonica player who appeared on Williams’ album, Little Bit a Blues, released in the mid-90’s.
In 2004, Smithsonian Folkways released a CD of Williams’ music entitled Blues Highway.
This summer, the National Endowment of the Arts awarded Williams a National Heritage Fellowship, the nation’s highest honor in folk and traditional arts. They described him as a singer of Piedmont Blues, a style found in the nation’s Piedmont section, which runs from Maryland to Georgia and west to the Blue Ridge Mountains. The style includes elements of blues, country, ragtime, jazz, gospel and fiddle tunes, and, in giving him the award, the NEA said Williams’ own influences range from Muddy Waters and Blind Boy Fuller to Hank Williams and Gene Autry.
But with his trademark sunglasses and cowboy hat, Williams views what he does with far less analysis. “I just play what comes on my mind,” he said.

Still, he likes the recognition, as he told Beldon’s Blues Point on October 24, 2011 at the Music Center at Strathmore in Bethesda, Maryland, after he and Summerour had just been featured performers at the 10th Annual (Montgomery) County (Maryland) Executive’s Awards for Excellence in the Arts and Humanities:
BBP: So what did you think when you found out you were getting (the NEA) award? What came into your mind?
Williams: Well, I was glad to get it. First time I’ve ever had one. But I was happy to get it.
BBP: Do you know what they mean by Piedmont Blues, what that means?
Williams: Hmm?
BBP: Do you know what they mean by Piedmont Blues, what that refers to?
Williams: No I don’t.
BBP: Okay…
Williams: I just play what comes on my mind. I’ve been playing it since I was about nine or ten years old. I heard my older brothers play blues so I got it from them.
BBP: How did you first learn how to play guitar? Who taught you?
Williams: I taught myself. I’m self taught.
BBP: When you first started out you actually played at clubs?
Williams: I played around the house. Around the house. When I got in my teens I started playing around clubs and things.
BBP: So how did people react to what you were doing?
Williams: Oh yeah. They used to give me free rides on the street car and everything.
BBP: That’s great.
Williams: They used to close the music off the Nickelodeon just to hear me play.
BBP: I understand that you weren’t a blues musician all of your life, that you didn’t make a living at it all of your life. That you did other things for work.
Williams: Well I worked, I drove trucks and everything man, but I just did that on the side. I couldn’t live off music back there then because wouldn’t make no money.
BBP: Can you live off it now?
Williams: I mean you could make music, you might get a nickel or a dime or something, back at that time. Back at the time that I was coming along, you were glad to get that. But nowadays it’s different. I used to play all out in the streets out in D.C. and everywhere. Yeah. Police run me off one corner, I’d go on the next corner. (Both laugh).
BBP: Why’d they do that?
Williams: Huh?
BBP: Why’d they do that?
Williams: Well I guess I was holding up the sidewalk for people.
BBP: So you were just out there trying to play your music and make a living and they kind of rousted you along….
Williams: Yeah. Right.
BBP: Oh. But you must have been good because you must have had an audience to block the foot traffic.
Williams: People liked it, yeah. I had a crowd every time I picked up the guitar.
BBP: So I understand you did your first album just a few years ago.
Williams: Back in the 70’s I guess. I forget what year it was.
BBP: That’s when you did your first album, back in the 70’s?
Williams: I think it might have been…might have been 70’s, yeah.
BBP: But you actually did your first album for a major label, it was like maybe seven years ago, right?
Williams: Huh?
BBP: You actually did your first album for a major label…well that’s what the newspaper said, that you did your first album for a major label, it was like seven years ago, back in the 90’s. When you were in your 70’s, you did an album….
Williams: Probably did, I can’t remember. All I know is..a whole lot of people made music off of me, man.
BBP: How would you describe your guitar technique?
Williams: I don’t know, I just …
BBP: You just play, right?
Williams: I just play, yeah (both laugh).
BBP: What’s your favorite song to do publically?
Williams: I like spirituals.
BBP: You said spirituals?
Williams: I play spirituals too. Spiritual songs. You know, hymms. I like them old songs, like “(On the) Sunny Side of the Street” and all them.
BBP: Got you. I know that you’re playing the College Park Blues Festival that the D.C. Blues Society is holding, what are you going to do there? What are you going to show us?
Williams: I don’t know. Whatever comes into my mind. I don’t never know what I’m going to play. Never know. Whatever comes into my mind is what I play. I don’t have no special song.
BBP: Now I’ve heard you mention the local places that you play at. Have you ever played around the country, gone to different parts of the country to play?
Williams: Oh I’ve played all over. Atlanta. I’ve played every juke joint around in Maryland. Down to South Carolina and everywhere. I’ve played everywhere. I’m 81 years old. I’ve been all over, man.
BBP: I bet you’ve got some wild stories too.
Williams: Oh yeah, I got some wild stories. Me and my brother used to walk the streets with a guitar back in our time.
BBP: You used to what?
Williams: Me and my brother Raymond used to walk the streets with a guitar back in our time.
BBP: Playing outside?
Williams: Playing outside. We used to have crowds lined up a mile down the road. Front porch music, that’s what we’d call it.

By the way, if you happen to be in the D.C. area on November 12—that’s next Saturday—you can hear Williams at the Fourth Annual College Park Blues Festival, a free concert put on by the D.C. Blues Society. Williams will kick off the festival, which will also feature the D.C. Blues Society Band with singer Ayaba Bey (you can find a video of them on our Sept 5, 2011 post), Clarence “The Bluesman” Turner (you can find a video of him on our October 17, 2011 post entitled “Crankin’ in the Capital”) and Tom Newman, a D.C. area guitarist known for his work with Stanley Turrentine, Roy Ayers, Wilson Pickett and Lloyd Price, among others. There will also be raffles, including one of a $600 Rocketeria G&L guitar. The event is at Ritchie Coliseum, across from the University at Route 1 and Rossborough Lane in College Park. Here is the D.C. Blues Society’s website for more information:
http://www.dcblues.org.html

And if you are in the Lehigh Valley area of Pennsylvania on Friday, November 11, you can catch three "Veterans of the Blues" at Bethlehem's Godfrey Daniels tavern. Multi-instrumentalist Maurice John Vaughn will join horn man B.J. Emery and vocalist/saxophone player "Holle Thee Maxwell" at Godfrey Daniels, located at 7 East Fourth Street, Bethlehem, PA. Tickets are $21.50 in advance, $24.50 at the door. Godfrey Daniels is holding the event in conjunction with the Lehigh Valley Blues Network. For more information check out this website:

http://www.godfreydaniels.org.html

Same Guitar, Next Year: Linwood Taylor and Bobby Kyle

2011-10-29T20:06:00.001-07:00

It was billed as a “Guitar Showdown," but it was far more congenial than competitive.

Guitarists Linwood Taylor and Bobby Kyle brought their bands to the Old Bowie Town Grille in Bowie, Maryland on October 28 to put on the latest in a series of joint performances.
Taylor’s band, based in the D.C. area, and Kyle’s, which plays out of Pennsylvania and New York City, have been doing joint shows together once or twice a year, according to Taylor. Some music fans may see the shows as an ongoing competition, but both guitarists say they are just a means to stay in touch musically. The two met over 20 years ago through the late guitarist and guitar amp specialist Cesar Diaz, a mutual friend.
One of the D.C. area’s better-known guitarists, Taylor has shared the stage with Johnny Winter and opened Albert Collins, Johnny Copeland, Lonnie Mack and Rory Gallagher. Last year, he finished a two-year stint with Joe Louis Walker’s band. Since then, in addition to his own Linwood Taylor band, he has played alongside harmonica player Anthony “Swamp Dog” Clark, Maryland’s Black Magic band and Devon Allman’s Honeytribe, among others. You can catch an in-depth—and I do mean in-depth—interview with Taylor on this blog dated February 22, 2011.

Playing with the house band at Tampa Bay’s Stuffed Pepper during the early 1980’s, Kyle joined Eddie Kirkland’s band in 1984. He stayed with Kirkland for six years, then joined Johnny Copeland’s band, performing with Copeland until the Texas bluesman’s death in 1997.

We had a chance to talk to both guitarists. Taylor talked about how he and Kyle met through Diaz:

Kyle talked about playing with Taylor and about working with Copeland and Kirkland. He recalled that Kirkland, who died in February of this year at the age of 87, was injured in the 1970’s when he was hit by a ricocheting bullet fired by the patron of a club where he was performing. Kirkland was an innocent bystander in the incident:

And the music? Hear for yourself. Here’s Taylor doing Hendrix:

Here's Taylor doing Stevie Ray/Buddy Guy:

Here he shows what he learned from Albert Collins:

And here he is again:

then it was Kyle's turn:

And he gave us his take on Latimore's "Let's Straighten It Out:"
This one, "The Spider and the Fly," was recorded at Electric Ladyland in NYC:

And this one was from his Johnny Copeland days:

Keep your ears peeled for the next "showdown"....

Helping a Friend of the Blues...

2011-10-23T20:01:00.000-07:00

The event was held for a serious reason: raising money to help an ailing friend. But the music was pure entertainment: the type that the friend, Living Blues Magazine and Rooster Blues Records founder Jim O’Neal, loves.

A group of D.C. area musicians headed by singer/guitarist Memphis Gold gathered at Surf Club Live, arguably the closest venue the National Capital Area has to a juke joint, on October 20, 2011 to raise money for O’Neal, who is suffering from cancer. There will be at least two more around the country organized for O’Neal,CEO of Memphis Gold's current label, Stackhouse Records. Memphis said that another scheduled for November 3 at Buddy Guy’s Legends in Chicago will feature him and singer/guitarist Kenny Neal.

A band including Memphis Gold, veteran bluesman Bobby Parker and guitarist Robert Lighthouse played a 40-minute set that highlighted the Surf Club Live event. They played for an audience warmed up by guitarist Rick Blue Steele and his band; singer Ida Campbell; the D.L. Funk Band of Dunn Loring, Virginia; singer Stacy Brooks, singer Shirley Lewis; singer/guitarist David Cole; and singer Mary Shavers, who was backed by Bad Influence, a popular local blues band.
O'Neal founded Living Blues in Chicago in 1970. In 1980, he co-founded Rooster Blues, a label specializing in Mississippi Delta style music with releases from artists such as Lonnie Pitchford, Roosevelt "Booba" Barnes, Larry Davis, Carey Bell, Willie Cobbs, Magic Slim, Lonnie Shields and Eddy Clearwater. The label shut down in 1998 and was sold the following year, resuming operations under its new owner in 2000 when it marked its 20th anniversary by releasing Willie King's Freedom Creek and reissuing classic blues recordings.
O'Neal, who also co-edited the book, The Voice of the Blues: Classic Interviews from Living Blues Magazine, was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 2002. The Living Blues website says he is receiving chemotherapy for lymph cancer, but that he does not have health insurance. Anyone wishing to contribute can mail checks to the Jim O'Neal Blues Fund, P.O. Box 10334, Kansas City, MO 64171. They can also make donations through PayPal to the account onealbluesfund@aol.com.
Cole did his version of “Walking the Dog:”

A short time later, Bad Influence helped out Mary Shavers as she talked about "A Mean, Mean Man:"

Later, the highlight of the show: Bobby Parker, who once played in Bo Diddley's band(See our interview of Bobby Parker, posted in two parts on October 30, 2010 and November 2, 2010) together with Memphis Gold, who has just released a new CD "Pickin' In High Cotton:"

Also, if you're in the D.C. area on November 12, 2011, catch this year's College Park Blues Festival, an annual event held by the D.C. Blues Society. This year's festival features Guitarist Warner Williams; the D.C. Blues Society Band with singer Ayaba Bey; the Tom Newman Band; and Clarence "the Bluesman" Turner, who only a week ago won the D.C. Battle of the Bands and in January will represent the area at the International Blues Challenge in Memphis. A $600 G&L Guitar will also be raffled.
I recently had a chance to talk to the 81-year-old Williams, who this summer recieved a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment of the Arts:

The show unfolds from 6-11:30 p.m. at the University of Maryland's Ritchie Coliseum, located at Route 1 and Rossborough Lane in College Park.

Crankin' in the Capital-the D.C. Annual Battle of the Bands

2011-10-17T21:52:00.000-07:00

It was the D.C. Blues Society's Battle of the Bands last Saturday and we all had a great time at the American Legion Hall in Wheaton, Maryland as several bands competed to see who will represent the Washington area at the International Blues Competition in Memphis next January. Not in any specific order, the bands were:

1. The Unruly Blues Band, based in Frederick, Maryland.

2.The Lady Rose Band, the only one to compete last year as well. By the way, that's Lady Rose at the top of this page:

3 Popular D.C. area guitarist/bassist/singer Clarence "The Bluesman" Turner, whose group covered "C.C. Ryder:"

4. Fast Eddie and the Slowpokes. The Greenbelt, Maryland-based group did its version of "Hideaway:"

5. The Steve Remy Band. The group covered "Down in the Hole," a song that became the theme song to the HBO television series "The Wire."

6. The Justin Pietrowski Trio from the Hampton Roads area of Virginia:

7. Terry Oates and The Mudcats, a group based in Winchester, VA:

As you can hear, we have some talented bands here in the Nation's Capital. But we know there are talented groups all over the country and we want to put videos of some of them on Beldon's Blues Point. So if you happen to be at a Battle of the Bands in your area and shoot some footage, send it to us at beldonsbluespoint@yahoo.com, or however you can get it to us. Also tell us a little about the bands, whatever you know. We're not starting our own contest, we're just trying to show the world as much good blues as we can.

Beldon's Blues Points-Readers Songs 10/15/ 2011

2011-10-15T02:37:00.001-07:00

It is time for a new crop of songs from our readers. We've delved into other genres in the past, but this collection is more from the traditional blues/R&B/Gospel mode. Most of these musicians are veterans with lots of experience under their belts so it's going to be interesting stuff. Information on the performers was gathered through e-mails and from biographies accompanying their songs.

We start with Wily Bo Walker, whose album cover sits at the top of this post. Wily Bo hails from the United Kingdom where he is the frontman for Rattlin’ Bone, a festival band which regularly tours across Europe. Rattlin’ Bone’s debut album, “The Life and Death Of…” is out and the band is now working on a second.
Wily Bo is also frontman for the guitar-based the Mescal Canyon Troubadors. He is now recording an album for the group, which is to be called “Stone Cold Beautiful.” The group has already released three singles: “Storm Warning,” “Loan Me a Dime” and “Model Blues.”
He is also working on an album with vocalist and songwriter Karena Kelly, who performs with Rattlin’ Bone and the Mescal Canyon Troubadors. The two have already released the single, “Angels In the Night.”
Walker also plays traditional jazz through the Wily Bo Walker Quintet, which at the beginning of 2011 recorded a cover of the popular Billie Holiday classic “You Don’t Know What Love is.”
Here are some Wily Bo Walker tracks:
http://www.reverbnation.com/wilybowalker.html

Back in the states, singer/guitarist Sharon Newport, known to the music world as SharBaby, is keeping busy with gigs, albums and the Alabama Blues Project, for which she teaches guitar to children.

Now playing out of Birmingham, Alabama, SharBaby was born and raised in South Bend, Indiana, where she received her nickname from an aunt when she was six years old. She comes from a musical family: her father was a gospel singer who sang with the Evening Lights, The Lambs Quartet and the Revelators during the 1950’s and 1960’s and over the course of his career opened for Sam Cooke, the Soul Stirrers, the Dixie Hummingbirds and the Alabama Blind Boys.
SharBaby herself first became interested in music when she was six, and, inspired by Howlin’ Wolf guitarist Hubert Sumlin, began learning guitar at 11. As a child and teenager, she sang with her sister Marilyn under the name The Braylock Sisters. “We sang together for about 15 years around South Bend, Indiana at parties,” SharBaby recalled in an email. “As we got a little older, we did some clubs.”
She moved to Pensacola, Florida where she joined a group called “The Big Fat Lie.” The group eventually came to be known as “SharBaby and the Real Blues Band.”
After that group she went on to play venues such as Rumboogies’ on Memphis’ Beale Street, the Ground Zero in Clarkesdale, Mississippi and Memphis’ Blue Worm Club, where she recorded live with Big Jerry’s Juke House band. She has shared the stage with Willie King, Oteil Burridge, Sam Lay, Honey Boy Edwards, Denise LaSalle, T-Model Ford, Jerry Portnoy and Cedric Burnside, among others.
She has also released several albums, including “My Life” in 2006, “Chicago Blues Alabama Style” and “Just Jukin” in 2009 and “SharBaby’s 11 O’Clock Blues” in 2011.
She has been influenced by a variety of musicians, including Tina Turner, Chuck Berry, Howlin’ Wolf, Sumlin, Little Walter, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, Little Richard, The Beatles and Ray Charles.
Here are some of SharBaby’s songs:
http://www.reverbnation.com/sharbaby.html

The next songs are from B.J. Estares and Route 61, a Colorado Springs, CO group featuring B.J. Estares on guitar and vocals (he’s also listed as a songwriter); Randy “The Hawkenator” Hawke on bass, guitar and backup vocals; Lenny “Boom-Boom” Perreault on percussion and back-up vocals and Doug Stepanek on drums and backup vocals (he’s also credited as the sound engineer). A San Diego native, Estares grew up with the big band music he heard his dad listening to. His interest in music started with the drums. He took up acoustic guitar after moving to Los Angeles when he was 12, and his love for the blues began at age 14 after his brother turned him on to Janis Joplin's "Turtle Blues." He then started listening to British artists like John Mayall and Eric Clapton, which led him to American notables such as Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Albert King, B.B. King, Freddie King and others.
Route 61 formed in the mid-2000's after Estares came to Colorado Springs and started writing songs and gigging with Hawke.
The group lists John Coltrane, Shelly Mann, Wes Montgomery, Miles Davis, Sergio Mendez, Willie Dixon, B.B. King, Eric Clapton, Robert Johnson, Duane Allman, John Mayall and Joe Cocker as influences. Here is some of its work:
http://www.reverbnation.com/bjestaresroute61.html

We next hear from Jonah Reuben and Accidental Proffit, a Christian music group that works in the rhythm and blues mode. The group, which plays around the Omaha, Nebraska area, has made some personnel changes since the release of "Heavenly Blues," its latest CD. The group now features Paul Koski on lead guitar, Gordon Kruse on bass, and Jonah Reuben on guitar and lead vocals. Here is some of Accidental Proffit's work:
http://www.reverbnation.com/accidentalproffit.html
The group never charges for their shows but relies on donations to their ministry. To book them, send an email to jonah@accidentalproffit.com or call: (402) 827-1991

As anyone who follows this blog knows, I'm a serious, longtime Hendrix fan. Here's Tommy Katona and Full Blast with their take on Hendrix's "Who Knows?"

Born in Memphis and raised in Clarkesdale and Tutwiler, Mississippi, David “Big Daddy” Griffin has been around music since he was a toddler. At five he used to entertain family gatherings by standing on top of dressers and singing Merle Haggard, Jimmy Rogers and Johnny Cash.
Griffin’s mother bought him an acoustic guitar and three months worth of lessons when he was ten, and at 14 he worked his first paying gig, playing rock before junior high school children at a private school in Marks, Mississippi. “I still remember a girl smiling big at the guitar player—ME,” he recalled.
A year later, he heard the group Pink Floyd for the first time and found himself drawn to the bass lines.
“I decided that it was time to go from rhythm guitar to bass,” he recalled. “I saved up some money, bought a bass guitar and an amp, and spent the next three years in the bedroom with records, tapes, and this new thing called a compact disc. I started playing in garage band jams for 3 more years, and an occasional backyard party.”
He joined his first bar band when he was 21, playing country, rock, the “Muscle Shoals sound” and blues. He also began learning stage production, how to work with sound and public address systems.
In 1991, while a member of a band called Phoenix, he met Prentis Goodwin, who had won the Jimmie Rogers festival in Meridan, Mississippi. Over the next year Phoenix worked as Goodwin’s backup band. Griffin then took off the next two years from playing bars to work with Andy Tanas, a one-time bassist for Krokus and Black Oak Arkansas. At one time he and Tanas opened for Charlie Robinson and Commander Cody.
Griffin then started playing with a Memphis-area band called the Ecclectics, working with drummer Phillip Dale Durham. He went on to play for Thump, a classic rock and 80’s pop band he joined after hearing its version of Mother’s Finest’s “Truth Will Set You Free.” He has played for the Mississippi Delta-area band the Shakerz and now plays bass for the Bouffants, a Memphis area band.
In addition to playing, Griffin works has worked as a sound person, crew chief, spot-op, lighting assistant, opening act and monitor engineer for Keith Anderson; Sinbad; Keith Sweat; ESPN2; Rick Braun; Boney James; Kirk Whalum; Pieces of a Dream; Earth, Wind and Fire; Bobby “Blue” Bland; Jerry Lee Lewis; Amy Grant; Too Short; Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown; Super Chikan; Jethro Tull and Bill Cosby, among others.
Here is Griffin performing with the Shakerz:

We have to take some time to announce a couple of music-related events:

One is the D.C. Blues Society's Annual Battle of the Bands, scheduled for TONIGHT (October 15, 2011) from 6 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. at the American Legion Post 268, located at 11225 Fern Street in Wheaton, MD. Competing are The Brothers Bone, Clarence "The Bluesman" Turner, Fast Eddie and the Slowpokes, The Justin Pietrowski Trio, The Steve Remy Blues Band, Terry Oates and the Mudcats and the Unruly Blues Band. JP Reali will perform as the area's solo/duo contestant. The winner will represent the Washington Area in the International Blues Challenge, held Jan. 31-Feb. 4, 2012 in Memphis.

Another--a very important one--is an all star concert led Thursday, October 20 at the D.C. area's Surf Club Live by singer/guitarist Memphis Gold to raise money for Living Blues magazine co-founder Jim O'Neal, who is suffering from lymph cancer. O'Neal, who also authored The Voice of the Blues, a collection of interviews with blues musicians, is now the chief executive officer of Stackhouse Records, Memphis' current label. Memphis Gold has joined with bluesman Kenny Neal to hold fund-raisers at various locations around the country.
Also scheduled to perform Thursday are Bobby Parker, whose work is said to have influenced musicians from John Lennon to Santana; singer Shirley Lewis, singer Ida Campbell, singer Stacy Brooks, guitarist Robert Lighthouse, guitarist David Cole, David Akers and Rick Blue Steele. Surf Club Live is located at 4711 Kenilworth Avenue, Hyattsville, Maryland.
Those who can't attend the fund-raisers but want to help can send checks to: Jim O’Neal Blues Fund, P.O. Box 10334, Kansas City, MO 64171. They can also donate at www.paypal.com to the account onealbluesfund@aol.com.

Still another is a performance by singer Nadine Rae at the Barebones Grill and Brewery in Ellicott City, MD at 9 p.m. on Saturday, November 5. Reservations are "highly recommended" for this event. The Brewery is located at 9150 Old National Baltimore Pike in Ellicott City. The number is 410-461-0770 and the website is http://www.barebonesgrill.com. If you want to know what you'll be missing if you DON'T go, check out Nadine at last month's D.C. Blues Festival:

Now here's harmonica player Bob Corritore with a bio of former Muddy Waters harmonica player George "Mojo" Buford, who passed away Tuesday:

RIP George "Mojo" Buford - November 29, 1929 - October 11, 2011. Best known as the longtime harmonica player in the Muddy Waters Band, George "Mojo" Buford was well known for his beautiful, raw-edged harmonica style, and his rich, emotional vocals. He died in a hospital in Minneapolis this morning after suffering with various health issues since early this summer. He was 81 years old. Born in Hernando, Mississippi in 1929, Mojo relocated to Memphis, Tennessee at an early age, then landed in Chicago in 1952, and in 1962 he would find a home in Minneapolis. He had numerous periods of employment in the Muddy Waters Band spanning 4 decades; first in 1959, again in 1967, again in the early 1970s, and was part of Muddy's final band lineup of 1980. Mojo Buford was a sensitive ensemble harmonica player and could provide a gorgeous textural backing for any Chicago blues song. Mojo was also a master of the more difficult Chromatic harmonica. He would record many fine sides as both a leader and as a frontman. His own albums appear on Mr Blues, JSP, P-Vine, Blue Moon, Blue Loon, Fedora, Rooster, Blues Record Society and other labels. Mojo and Luther "Georgia Boy" Johnson were also featured vocalists for two albums on the Muse label that showcased the Muddy Waters Band of the 1960s. There was also a notorious LP on the Vernon label titled Ray Charles / On Stage At The Palladium, which actually only had 2 Ray Charles songs with the remainder by "Mo Jo & The Mo Jo Chi Fours." Collectors marvel over this false advertising - and the Mojo sides are just great! In addition to appearing on numerous sides by Muddy Waters, Mojo's harp graced recordings by Jo Jo Williams, Otis Spann, and Texas Red. Mojo was also responsible for helping Bob Margolin land his job in the Muddy Waters Band. Special thanks to drummer/manager Doug McMinn, who's efforts in the later part of Mojo's career kept him working and in the public eye. Mojo's passing, along with the recent deaths of fellow Muddy Waters alumni Pinetop Perkins, Willie "Big Eyes" Smith, and Calvin Jones, leaves us with a huge void in our hearts as we remember the sound of that glorious band. Mojo was a sweet and generous individual with a beautiful toothy grin and a kind word for every situation. He will forever be remembered in blues history as one of the great harmonica masters of the Muddy Waters Band. To hear Mojo performing "Don't Go No Further" click:

To hear Mojo's great harmonica backing on Jo Jo Williams "All Pretty Woman" click:

To see a photo of Mojo. Pinetop Perkins and Willie "Big Eyes" Smith at last year's King Biscuit Blues Festival, courtesy of Bob Margolin, click here http://www.bobcorritore.com/images/Willie Smith 02.jpeg.html
God bless you George "Mojo" Buford.

We again thank Bob for that. We'll have more songs coming, so if we didn't get to you this time around, we'll hit you on the next. Take care.

An Evening with the Zydeco Sweetheart: Rosie Ledet and her Zydeco Playboys Come to Town

2011-10-10T11:13:00.000-07:00

My grandfather, Harrison Beldon, was from Pass Christian, Mississippi--a Delta town just a stone's throw from Louisiana-- so maybe that's what's been pulling me towards Zydeco over these last few years. The more I hear it, the more I like it, and in my opinion it's even better when someone highlights the Cajun rhythms and melodies that make up its core with blues, rock and jazz. As you know if you read my last post, I caught Buckwheat Zydeco and Chubby Carrier at the Blast Furnace Blues Festival in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania last month. I was almost a junkie for more Zydeco, and I got my fix last weekend when Rosie Ledet showed up with her Zydeco Playboys at Surf Club Live here in the D.C. area. Because I know you all want to hear the show too, I took plenty of videos (with Rosie's permission). I also talked with her about her Zydeco beginnings and her current plans, which includes work with a highly respected record label that specializes in blues and jazz, along with some upcoming overseas tours. But I know you all would rather hear music than chatter, so I'm starting with that:

Here's the group with "Swing that Thing:"

And here they are with "Take care of Your Dog:"

Here they are performing "Keep the Faith" from their newest album, Come Get Some:

They also did the Zydeco party song "Show Me Something" from her 2001 album of the same name:

And I'm throwing in this one, "You're No Good for Me" from her 1995 album "Sweet Brown Sugar:"

During a break she talked about her first experience with Zydeco:

She later talked about learning how to play the accordion and why she carried three to the concert that night. She also talked about why she likes Carlos Santana and how other styles are figuring into what she is doing now:

She then talked about record deals and upcoming tours:

Well, we got good stuff coming up. More songs from readers and an interview with an up-and-coming West Coast gospel singer who records with Larry Martin Kimpel's label (Remember him? The bassist from Frankie Beverly and Maze.) Plus, we'll have other surprises..

A Blast in Bethlehem: the Blast Furnace Blues Festival

2011-09-29T06:40:00.001-07:00

One night—shortly after beginning what would become over 20 years in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley—I drove past the historic Bethlehem Steel complex for the first time. At night the iron foundry, the headquarters building, the annex, the elevated rail ore-moving system, the blast furnaces, the ore bridge, the gas blowing engine house, the high house and other structures that form the site create an eerie skyline that I remember thinking at the time would make the perfect set for a sci-fi movie.
Never did I dream then that the plant, shuttered since the mid-90’s, would provide the personality for a new festival featuring top-notch blues talent. But the weekend of Sept. 16-18, it did just that. Converted since its closing into the campus for an arts and performance center, the site that weekend provided the backdrop for the Blast Furnace Blues Festival, a new event created by Michael Cloeren, whose Pocono Blues Festival closed in the summer of 2010 after 20 years.
As you can see from the photo above, the site is striking. But the maiden voyage of this festival was also memorable for a more solemn reason: the death of drummer and harmonica player Willie “Big Eyes” Smith (see a biography of Smith written by Bob Corritore in our last post), who succumbed to a stroke at age 75 two days before he was to perform at the festival with his fellow “Chicago All Stars:” guitarist Hubert Sumlin, bassist Bob Stroger and guitarist Bob Margolin. Smith's death was all the more bitter because it followed the death in March of another Chicago All-Star, 97-year-old pianist Pinetop Perkins, with whom he had shared a Grammy this year in the best traditional blues album category for their 2010 recording “Joined At the Hip.”
But the remaining All-Stars sought to make the Sunday night concert they put on to close the festival a joyful celebration of Smith's life rather than a sad ceremony over his death. “Willie wanted us to keep going,” a local newspaper reported Stroger telling the audience. “The last few days have been hard. But are you ready to have some fun?”
But whether you could see them around the Levitt Pavilion, a raised outdoor stage; or out of the windows of the Musikfest Café, an auditorium-style room restaurant/dining room/performance center on top of the campus’ 68,000 square foot headquarters building, the so-called Steel Stacks were a constant presence throughout all of the concerts, which, in addition to the All-Stars, were given by The Kinsey Report, Eddie Shaw and the Wolf Gang, the James Supra Blues Band, Mississippi Heat, the Sarah Ayers Band, the Deb Callahan Band, the Cedric Burnside Project, Mike Dugan and the Blues Mission, Andrew Jr. Boy Jones, Johnny Rawls, Eden Brent, Homemade Jamz, Dana Fuchs, Charlie Musselwhite, Bernard Allison, B.C. Combo, Buckwheat Zydeco, the Craig Thatcher Band, Todd Wolfe, Donovan Roberts, Teeny Tucker, Friar’s Point, the Holmes Brothers, Ruthie Foster, Chubby Carrier, Guy Davis, Sharrie Williams, and J.J. Grey and Motro. At times you could literally smell the residue from years-gone-by steel production.
You will see what I mean from the following set of videos, which includes interviews with some of the performers. The Kinsey Report was there Friday night, first performing by themselves then hosting a jam that over the course of the evening joined them with Eddie "Vann" Shaw of Eddie Shaw and the Wolf Gang; singer Sarah Ayers; guitarist Mike Dugan and bassist Rob Fraser. Here are the Kinseys performing by themselves:

Here they are with Shaw and Ayers:

And here's the Kinsey Report and Shaw with Dugan and Fraser:

By the way, you can catch a question-and-answer style interview with Kinsey Report bassist Ken Kinsey on our May 29, 2011 post and a video interview with his brother, guitarist Donald Kinsey, on our June 19, 2011 post.
The next day, we caught up with former Sheryl Crow guitarist Todd Wolfe, whom I remembered from my time living in the Lehigh Valley, where he still regularly hosts jams. I used to go to his jams all of the time; he even once showed me how to tune up my bass when I first started playing.
Wolfe started in New York City with a band called Troy and the Tornadoes, which opened for the Neville Brothers, Greg Allman, the Outlaws, Albert Collins, Johnny Winter and other acts. He recorded a demo with Crow, then a relatively unknown back-up singer, after moving to California in 1990. We conducted the following interview with Wolfe:

Later, he played acoustic guitar before an audience:

He also did this tune:

A short time later, Andrew "Jr. Boy" Jones was at the Musikfest Cafe. Check out the cool haircut his drummer has:

Here's more from Jones, whom, by the way, we interviewed for an April 25, 2011 post:

Next, it was Homemade Jamz' turn at the Musikfest Cafe. The band's members--19-year-old Ryan, who plays guitar; 18-year-old Kyle, who plays bass, and 12-year-old Taya, who plays drums--are bigger and even more polished than when we interviewed them for a Beldon's Blues Point post that ran October 13, 2010. Those familiar with the group will see what I mean here:

We wanted an update on what they have been doing lately:

Also on the outdoor stage was Dana Fuchs, a singer raised in rural Florida who has drawn comparisons to Janis Joplin and who actually played Joplin in Love, Janis, an off-Broadway musical. Fuchs, who at age 19 went to New York to pursue a singing career, also displayed her acting chops in Across the Universe, a 2007 love story set in the Vietnam era and built around Beatles music in which she plays an aspiring singer. You can tell from this video that she was probably pretty convincing in that part:

Here she is again:

Back at the Musikfest Cafe, singer/guitarist Johnny Rawls was delivering Mississippi Soul Blues:

A one-time band director for Southern soul legend Overton Vertis "O.V." Wright, the Columbia, Mississippi native worked with stars like Z.Z. Hill and Little Johnny Taylor while still in high school. In addition to being a recording artist, the 59-year-old Rawls is also a producer who has worked with singer/guitarist Lonnie Shields and others. I had chance to talk to him that night, after he hosted the Saturday night jam:

Next, on the outdoor stage, it was time for veteran harmonica player Charlie Musselwhite, who had recently recorded a couple of songs on Memphis Blues, Cyndi Lauper's blues album:

His set also included this:

The night came--

--and with it guitarist Bernard Allison and his band:

Allison, who first recorded at the age of 13 when he played on a live album made in Peoria, Illinois by his father, legendary guitarist Luther Allison, ended his set with:

Next outside was Saturday's headliner, Buckwheat Zydeco, aka Stanley Dural Jr., whose band once played for President Bill Clinton and who in 1996 performed before three billion people at the closing ceremony of the Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia:

They had a romp with this song:

At the Saturday night jam, Rawls invited Shaw to the stage:

We later had a chance to talk to Shaw about why he took up guitar when his father, Eddie Shaw, played saxophone. Shaw also talked about musicians he liked. Because of an interruption, the interview is in two parts. Here's part one:

Here, he talked about an upcoming album he has with Pinetop Perkins and Willie "Big Eyes" Smith! The recordings are ten years old, but haven't been released yet:

Sunday opened with singer Teeny Tucker, Cloeren and Jonny Meister of the University of Pennsylvania radio station WXPN discussing music legends Big Mama Thornton and Big Maybelle. While that was going on, the Lehigh Valley's own Friar's Point was performing outside. The group is known for representing the Lehigh Valley at the 2008 and 2010 International Blues Challenges in Memphis:

Later that morning came The Holmes Brothers. The band consists of Sherman (bass) and Wendell Holmes (guitar, piano), two brothers from Christchurch, Virginia who later relocated to New York; and Popsy Dixon (drums)another Virginian whom the Holmes met during a New York gig. Together, the three have shared the stage or recorded with Van Morrison, Bruce Springsteen, Willie Nelson, Lou Reed, Merle Haggard, Patti Smith, Bob Dylan, Keith Richards, Rosanne Cash, Odetta, and The Jungle Brothers, among others and in 1992 became the first American band to record for Peter Gabriel's Real World label. In 2003, they recorded two songs for the soundtrack of the televison series Crossing Jordan. See them here:

Afterwards was a one-man show from Guy Davis. The son of actress Ruby Dee and the late actor Ossie Davis, Davis first discovered the blues at a summer camp in Vermont run by John Seeger, brother of Pete Seeger. There, he learned to play the five-string banjo.
Davis has also been involved in acting, appearing as Dr. Josh Hall on the serial One Life To Live from 1985 to 1986. In 1993, he portrayed blues guitarist Robert Johnson in an off-Broadway production, Robert Johnson: Trick the Devil. His show at the Blast Furnace Blues Festival mixed music and comedy:

Meanwhile, back at the Musikfest Cafe, Chubby Carrier

was showing an audience the pleasures of zydeco:

Later, he performed his take on the theme song of "The Jeffersons" television series:

We then had a chance to talk with him:

Back outside, Texas-born singer-songwriter Ruthie Foster was bringing her mixture of soul, gospel, rock and blues to a Pennsylvania audience:

Foster, who seemed to lean more towards folk in the earlier stages of her career, also performed this song:

Well, we know this post isn't the same as hearing all of these great musicians live. But we hope it gave you a taste...

Beldon's Blues Points 9/22/11

2011-09-22T20:55:00.000-07:00

If you're going to be in Phoenix this weekend and you like the blues........

David Coppa and Scrapple, who were the object of an August 7, 2010 post on this blog, will play the Paoli Blues Festival in Paoli, Pennsylvania at noon on October 1. the group just recently opened for the Fabulous Thunderbirds. For more information on the Paoli Blues Festival, check out this link.

http://paolibluesfest.com/performers.html

And on OCT 2ND, singer/guitarist Lonnie Shields will play the blues from 1:30-4 p.m. at the Media Food Festival. Known as the "Keeper of the Blues," Shields is traveling to Helena, Arkansas where he will perform at the annual King Biscuit Blues Festival on October 8. He is a regular performer at the King Biscuit festival. For more information on the Media Food Festival, look at this website:

http://mediabusinessauthority.com/banner/food_festival_2011_poster_7x11.jpg

For more information on the King Biscuit Festival, look at this website:

http://www.kingbiscuitfestival.com

On another note:

Last week I went to the Blast Furnace Blues Festival in Bethlehem, PA. I will have plenty more to report about that festival in an upcoming post (I've already put all kinds of interviews and videos from it on Youtube, but the reason I bring it up now is that the highlight of the event was to be a performance by the Chicago All-Stars: Guitarist Hubert Sumlin, Bassist Bob Stroger, guitarist Bob Margolin and drummer Willie "Big Eyes" Smith. Unfortunately, just two days before he was supposed to perform there, Smith died of a stroke in his Chicago home. For more on his passing, I again turn to Bob Corritore:

RIP Willie "Big Eyes" Smith - January 19, 1936 to Sept 16th, 2011. It is with great sadness that we report the unexpected passing of one the true greats of the blues. Willie "Big Eyes" Smith. Willie passed away this morning of a stroke. He was 75 and was musically active until the very end. A brilliant drummer, harmonica player and vocalist, he represented the true essence of Chicago Blues, and was highly regarded by all as an undisputed master. He was an alumni of the Muddy Waters band and wore those stripes with honor. Willie "Big Eyes" Smith was born in Helena, Arkansas in 1936, and started playing harmonica at age 17, shortly after moving to Chicago. His harmonica first appeared on record in the 1950s gracing recordings by Arthur "Big Boy" Spires, and Bo Diddley (Willie played the harmonica on the Diddley classic "Diddy Wah Diddy"). At some point in the mid to late 1950s he started playing drums and in 1959 began his long association with Muddy Waters. Smith's drumming first appeared on record on Muddy Waters' 1960 album release of Sings Big Bill Broonzy. Smith had a real gift for drumming and his playing would help to define the later Muddy Waters Band sound. Many of us remember the classic Muddy Waters lineup of Muddy, Willie, Pinetop Perkins, Bob Margolin, Luther "Guitar Junior" Johnson, and Calvin "Fuzz" Jones. In June of 1980 members of Muddy's band struck out on there own, and formed the Legendary Blues Band which eventually found Willie as the lead vocalist, showcasing his stellar, down-home vocals. Willie released his first solo album, Bag Full of Blues in 1995, which firmly established him as an artist in his own right. Willie would revive his first instrument in later years, and in 1996 he would release Way Back, which debuted his new direction, and showed him to be a solid harmonicist. His final recording, Joined At The Hip was a collaboration with the now deceased Pinetop Perkins, and it it earned the two a Grammy in the Traditional Blues category. We have just touched upon a few of the many recordings of Willie "Big Eyes" Smith who's discography as both a frontman, and a sideman represents the highest of heights in the blues. Willie had a strong work ethic and was a consummate professional, and as a result he worked relentlessly. He won numerous BMAs (Blues Music Awards) as "Best Blues Drummer", and he always carried great bands with him. Of note is the wonderful management of Patricia Morgan, who helped guide the later part of Willie's amazing career, and the impressive booking of Blue Mountain Artists. Also thanks to Willie for bringing out the wonderful talent in his band with Jimmy Mayes, Bob Stroger, "Little" Frank Krakowski, and for his wonderful collaborations with other Muddy alums. Willie leaves his greatest legacy with his son Kenny "Beedy Eyes" Smith, who has become one of the world's greatest blues drummers and carries on his father's sound and tradition. Prayers for all of Willie's family, friends, fellow musicians, and fans as we say goodbye to one of the greatest blessings of the blues. We love you "Big Eyes".

Bob also had the following information on funeral arrangements:

Sunday, September 25, 2011
Visitation 10 AM to 10 PM
Leaks & Sons Funeral Home
http://www.leadandsonsfuneralhomes.com/
7838 South Cottage Grove, Chicago, IL 60619 Ph:773-846-6567

Monday, Sept 26, 2011
Wake 10am until 11am
Funeral services 11am until noon
South Park Baptist Church
http://southparkbaptistchurch.com/
3720 S. King Drive, Chicago, IL 60653 Ph. 773) 548-6566

For Willie's website, check out:
http://www.williebigeyessmith.com/

blog directory

Beldon's Blues Points: Songs from Readers 9/12/2011

2011-09-12T07:47:00.001-07:00

Well, we've been promising them for a while and now here they are: songs sent in by our readers. We have some good blues here, but we've also thrown our net out a little bit to catch some other interesting styles.
By the way, the picture at the top is called "Robert Johnson with a 1935 Hudson Terraplane" and was painted by Chris Osborne of New Milford, CT, who says that copies are for sale. If you are interested, contact Chris at 860-354-3233 or drop her a letter at 24 Lester Lane, New Milford CT, 06776.
Now the music. We'll start with David Coppa and his band Scrapple. If you want to know more about them, check out a post we did way back on August 7, 2010 called "The von Trapp Family of Lower Merion Township." Here they are with "Slow:"

Born in the United Kingdom, Guitarist Chris Dair said he was inspired to play at an early age by French Gitano Flamenco guitarist Manitas De Plata. He developed a passion for blues at age 14 and began gigging around London at venues with people like John Mayall, John McVie and George Melly. Over the years, he has jammed or played with R&B and rock legends such as Rory Gallagher, Jimmy Paige, Captain Beefheart, Mark Knopfler, Peter Green and Jeff Beck, among others. Here he brings us "Lost in Wasted Time."

At 16, Brian Brazil discovered recordings from blues harmonica greats Little Walter Jacobs, James Cotton, Paul Butterfield and Charlie Musselwhite. He later learned country styles by studying Norton Buffalo and Charlie McCoy. As a performer, he has shared the stage with Albert King, Albert Lee, Coco Montoya and Don Preston. He has opened for other performers, including Bo Diddley, Albert Collins, Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard. You can catch some of his songs on his website: http://brianbrazil.blogspot.com/music:

Here are the songs of the group LAF. Originally formed in 1986 and reunited at the beginning of 2009, the group features Phil Matthews on guitar, keyboards and percussion; Alastair Boden on vocals; Andy Dobson on bass guitar and Rachel McCullough on harmony vocals. You can catch some of their songs on the following website:
http://www.reverbnation.com/lafpopmusic

We heard from Laura Vall, who described herself as an independent artist based in Los Angeles. Her music is "indie pop" in the style of Fiona Apple, Radiohead, Sade, Zero 7 or Beck, she said. Some of it follows:
http://lauravall.bandcamp.com ">

These next ones are from Raza, who hails from Karachi, Pakistan. Here is some of Raza's background: "From the age of 14 I started poetry and music composing, during my studies somewhere in 1999, I hardly managed to make a video of my song. I spent all of my mother’s savings in song’s audio and video. It was a good start but after it I was unable to continue my music journey because my mother had a serious heart attack and I left music industry and gave my all attention to my studies and in care of my mother. During all this I keep writing and composing and in result now I have more than 700 lyrics and 200 compositions which is upbeat, melodic and suits to Film Industry with genre of Rock, Soft Rock, Ballad, Jazz, Pop and Techno. Since then I tried to contact different music companies time to time so they promote me and to launch my videos. Unfortunately, I found no one who takes stand..."
Here is one of Raza's songs:

Here is another:

Guitarist Bob Crawford's musical resume includes stints during the 1970's as house jazz guitarist for various establishments in New York City, among them the Jazzmania Society, the Terrace at the Village Gate and the "Jazz Jam" series at the Brook. In 1979 he worked as guitarist, stage manager, and Live Sound Mixer for Larry Harlow and the Fania All-Stars, an ensemble of musicians recording under the Fania label, which specialized in salsa. Crawford is also the author of "Symmetric Cycles," a book on improvisation.
Here's his music:
http://soundcloud.com">
And here's his website:
http://carosta.com/bob-crawford/">

We also heard from guitarist Mike Goudreau, who picked up his first guitar when he was 14 "and hasn't stopped playing since"and who lists a wide range of influences, among them the Beatles, Chuck Berry, Ricky Skaggs, Johnny Cash, Nat King Cole, Louis Armstrong, Frank Sinatra, Albert King, Freddie King, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Powder Blues and Downchild. That variety has impacted upon his work; in the 1990's he formed the Boppin Blues Band, which released a CD in 1994 that included everything from Chicago blues to jazz-influenced 40's and 50's swing/jump/shuffle to country to gospel. He currently writes songs for film/televison. You can catch his work on "Everyone Hates Chris," ABC's "Dirty Sexy Money," TBS's"The George Lopez Show," NBC's "Friday Night Lights," to name a few.
Here is one of Mike's songs, "Why'd I Drink So Much":
http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=9485402">
Here is Mike again with "Gossipin' Mama":
http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=8133676">
And here's his website:
http://mikegoudreau.com">

By the way, We'd like to thank all of the people who sent in songs. We'd also like to thank all of the people who have decided to become followers of this blog. That really makes doing this worthwhile.

We're going to end this with some sad news from harmonica player Bob Corritore:
RIP Honeyboy Edwards - June 28, 1915 to August 29, 2011. The legendary Delta blues artist Honeyboy Edwards passed away peacefully at his Chicago home at 3am, August 29, 2011. He was 96. Honeyboy had formally retired earlier this year, due to a weakened state of health that did not allow him to tour. He is well known as a pioneer of Delta Blues, who made pre-WWII recordings. Honeyboy was a close associate of Robert Johnson, and the man who traveled from the south to bring Little Walter to Chicago for the first time. Born in Shaw, Mississippi in 1915, Honeyboy left home at age 14 to travel and perform with Big Joe Williams, which became the early model of his life's activities. Honeyboy's wonderful recording career started in 1942 when famed folklorist Alan Lomax recorded him in Clarksdale Mississippi for the Library of Congress. His prolific recording career boasts of releases for many labels over many years; ARC, Sun Records, Chess, Folkways, Trix, Testament, Evidence, Roots, Blue Suit, Blue Horizon, Genes, Blue Shoe, APO, Wolf, and of course the Earwig Record Label. He has received 2 Grammy Awards, 2 BMAs (Blues Music Awards), has been inducted in the Blues Hall Of Fame, received a fellowship from The National Endowment for the Arts, and won a KBA (Keeping The Blues Alive Award) in the literature category for his brilliant biography The World Don't Owe Me Nothing. His performances and recollections have provided us a window into the past. One must mention Honeyboy's long association with Earwig Music label chief Michael Frank. The two met in 1972 and Michael would grow into the role of Honeyboy's manager, harmonica player, and traveling companion. Michael has done so much to guide Honeyboy's career, and we pray for his strength during this time of grieving. Honeyboy's charm, wit and musical brilliance will leave a gap in the blues, never to be filled. The deep blues emotion that poured out of Honeyboy Edwards in each performance has left a lasting impression on the blues world. Thank you Honeyboy for the blessing of knowing you.
To hear Honeyboy Edwards 1942 Library of Congress recording of "Spread My Raincoat Down" click:

To see Honeyboy in the 2004 documentary film,Lightnin' In A Bottle, click here:

Bob also wanted people who will be in the Phoenix area this weekend to know about this:

Coming:
To all those who sent in songs, I know we didn't get to everyone today, but
your day is coming. As soon as I can transcribe the interview, we're also going to hear from a hot up-and-coming gospel singer from California who's now working with bassist Larry Martin Kimpel's (Remember? "The Groove Behind Frankie Beverly's Maze")GVR Records and Entertainment.

And there will be other surprises, for sure....

2011 D.C. Blues Festival with Preston Shannon

2011-09-05T22:43:00.000-07:00

A powerful thunderstorm Saturday morning left folks here in D.C. afraid that the 23rd Annual D.C. Blues Festival was going to end up more wet than wild. But thankfully the weather was nice by the time fans headed to the Carter Barron Amphitheatre in northwest Washington to check out the event, this year featuring a line-up headed by the "King of Beale Street," Memphis Bluesman Preston Shannon.
Before I get into the show, first a word about the Carter Barron, which is run by the National Park Service. Having grown up within a mile of it, it is a place very close to my heart, and I am sure it means a lot to a number of other people as well. Summertime in the 1960's and 1970's, anybody and everybody played there, including Bruce Springsteen, Earth, Wind and Fire, Ray Charles, The Four Tops, The Temptations, Rufus and Chaka Khan, Return to Forever, Nancy Wilson, Cannonball Adderly and Donny Hathaway. And those are the ones I can remember!
Nowadays, the shows are more sporadic, and that's a shame. The amphitheatre is nestled inside of a wooded section of Rock Creek Park, and it's still a great feeling communing with nature and hearing great music at the same time.
And you can't do better than a free blues show like this one, which also featured harmonica player Grady Champion, harmonica player Anthony "Swamp Dog" Clark and his All Stars, Nadine Rae and her All Stars, and the D.C. Blues Society band featuring Sister Dr. Ayaba Bey. The event is put on each year by the D.C. Blues Society.
But rather than talk about how good the music was, I'll let you hear for yourself. I guess we'll go in order of line-up. Starting it off was the D.C. Blues Society Band:

Next on stage, the "funk blues" of Anthony "Swamp Dog" Clark and his All-Stars, who in February went to Memphis to represent the D.C. area in the 2011 International Blues Challenge:

Clark's group also did the "Swamp Dog Shuffle:"

Next up, Nadine Rae and her All-Star Band, who you'll see her introduce at some point during this video:

Grady Champion, a former rapper who won the 2010 International Blues Challenge, followed:

Then, the headliner, the Grammy-nominated (his album, "All In Time" received three nominations in 2000) "King of Beale Street" Preston Shannon. To me, his version of "Purple Rain" brought back memories of a 1984 Prince concert:

He also came out with this Rolling Stones cover:

Delivering this Stax medley, the man didn't let anyone forget he was from Memphis:

His show also had this nice Albert King/Stevie Ray Vaughan slow blues piece:

Later that evening, Shannon played a concert party at the American Legion Post on Sligo Avenue in Silver Spring. His set included "The Clock," a song he said that Isaac Hayes once told him should be a hit:

During a break, Shannon talked about his Grammy nominations, among other topics:

At the party was a buddy of Shannon's, Memphis Gold, who recalled good times the two had spent together in Memphis. Memphis Gold also talked about an upcoming fund-raiser he plans to hold in Chicago for Jim O'Neal, co-founder of Living Blues Magazine, who has recently been ill:

Also at the party was Dr. Ayaba Bey, who had fronted the D.C. Blues Society band at the Carter Barron. She talked about her background singing jazz in New York, and the difference between singing a small club as opposed to a large concert hall, auditorium or amphitheatre:

As you can see, it was a good day in D.C.

Chicago Blues Festival: 365 Days a Year

2011-08-30T12:03:00.000-07:00

Since 1984, the Chicago Blues Festival has been a landmark event among blues lovers as the largest free blues festival in existence.
But many would argue that Chicago is a constant blues festival. I saw what those folks were talking about a couple of weekends ago when I headed out to the Windy City.
My favorite hang-out by far was Kingston Mines. Located on the North Side, the club has two stages, meaning that two bands can play one right after the other, with no breaks in the music. The club also has a special late night liquor license, allowing it to stay open to 4 a.m. on weekdays and 5 a.m. on Saturday. In Chicago, clubs with an ordinary license can remain open only until 2 a.m. on weeknights and 3 a.m. on Saturdays(I know all of you folks who live in Chicago know all this; this is for folks like me who don't).
While at Kingston Mines I caught a performance by Joanna Connor, a blues guitarist who has been part of the city’s music scene since arriving there from Massachusetts in the mid-80’s. Connor, who has recorded for Blind Pig Records and has shared the stage with Buddy Guy and saxophonist A.C. Reed, started off with this acoustic set:

She later joined her band for a set that included this very electric version of “Dr. Feelgood:”

I then had a chance for a few words with her:

Next up, Carl Weathersby, a former Army veteran and prison guard known for—in addition to his own work—his collaborations with Albert King and harmonica player Billy Branch. Here is Mr. Weathersby playing the blues. Make no mistake, he has formidable skill on guitar:

Mr. Weatherby wanted to talk, and when I thought we had run out of things to talk about, he proved me wrong. We kind of had two separate conversations after someone interrupted us. Here is the first part, where he talks about the Chicago Blues scene, among other things:

He then talked about his relatives, some of them prominent in the music scene. Aside from the interesting things he said about music, check out the way he handled this fellow who interrupted the interview and became belligerent with him while asking about an address:

Kingston Mines is down the street and about a block away from another nightclub called B.L.U.E.S., where guitarist Lurrie Bell was giving a show:

I have always wondered how Lurrie Bell can play like he does with all he's been through. Bell lost Susan Greenberg, his companion and the mother of his child, in January 2007. A few months later, He lost his father, renouned harmonica player Carey Bell. He also suffers from schizophrenia. I asked him about all of this in a quick conversation I had with him:

Well, hope you enjoyed this trip as much as I did....

Next Edition: Songs sent in by readers.

Chicago By Way of DC: Ronnie Baker Brooks comes to Washington

2011-08-27T06:17:00.000-07:00

Two days after an earthquake hit the city, another force had D.C. residents rocking: Ronnie Baker Brooks.
Brooks, of the famed Chicago blues family that also includes father Lonnie and brother Wayne, played two sets at Surf Club Live in Hyattsville, MD for the D.C. Blues Society on Thursday. Brooks entertained the audience for three hours in songs that ranged from Muddy Waters to hip-hop, at one point jumping behind the bar where he poured and downed a drink--all while playing his guitar.
The concert culminated in a playfully risque duet between Brooks and D.C. area singer Stacy Brooks.

Afterwards, Beldon's Blues Point talked to Brooks about his involvement in the then upcoming "Bluestock" concert on Hunter Mountain, NY and his views on the relationship between hip-hop and blues:

Straight Out of Memphis: Bluesman Preston Shannon

2011-08-25T12:56:00.000-07:00

While he was growing up, Preston Shannon frequently heard from his devoutly Pentecostal parents that his interest in blues would send him to the devil. But the Mississippi-born, Memphis-reared guitarist/singer would not be turned from his chosen path. Shannon, 63, became a prominent and respected bluesman, making a name for himself first along Memphis’ famous Beale Street corridor and then the world.
On Saturday, Sept 3, Shannon will perform at the D.C. Blues Society’s 23rd Annual D.C. Blues Festival at Carter Barron Amphitheatre, headlining a bill that also will feature harmonica player Anthony “Swamp Dog” Clark and the Blues Allstars, singer Nadine Rae and the Allstars and harmonica player and singer Grady Champion. Later that evening, Shannon will play the afterparty at Silver Spring American Legion Post 41, 905 Sligo Avenue, Silver Spring.

Born in Olive Branch, Mississippi, Shannon came to the Memphis area when he was about eight. Despite his parents, he grew up with an interest in the blues, eventually cutting his teeth as a musician with a succession of Memphis groups starting with the Memphians, a rhythm-and-blues, horns-and-keyboards band he joined when he was 18. He went on to play for the popular Memphis-area bar band Amnesty before joining a group headed by popular R&B singer Shirley Brown.
But he didn’t launch himself completely into a career as a touring/recording blues artist until later in life. He was 40 when he became a full-time musician in 1988, 43 when he formed and led his own band for the first time and 46 when he recorded his first album, Break the Ice, which was released by Rounder Records in 1994.
After Break the Ice, Shannon began recording in earnest. He recorded two more discs for Rounder, 1996’s Midnight in Memphis and 1999’s All in Time, before turning to Title Tunes for 2006’s Be With Me Tonight, re-released earlier this year under the title Goin’ Back To Memphis by Continental Blue Heaven Records, a label based in Amsterdam.
Beldon’s Blues Point talked to Shannon in two separate phone interviews, the first of which was cut short by the East Coast earthquake! We thought we had struck gold with the first half, but the second half was even better! See for yourself…
BBP : I know that you’re from Memphis, and one thing I’m curious about is, how is the Memphis sound of blues different from other sounds, like Chicago? What makes the Memphis sound unique?
Shannon: Because here, it’s the original. I think that’s what’s different. Here in the south is where it all started. And it migrated to the north. So I think that’s why it’s different. Texas blues even sounds different than southern blues. Texas blues even sounds different than Chicago. But they all sound different from southern blues. And I think southern blues is the best. That’s just my opinion. Most of your original artists started in Mississippi. B.B. (King) started in Mississippi. He’s the King of the Blues. Albert King started in the south. Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf. Those are the original guys, you know.
BBP: But what specific about the sound makes southern blues what it is?
Shannon: It might be the style, and it might just be something that you can’t teach. It might just be the feel, I don’t know. I couldn’t explain that. But all I can tell you is that, it is different. And what I go by is the sound.
BBP: Okay. One thing I found is that your parents really didn’t approve of what you were doing because they were of the Pentecostal faith?
Shannon: Pentecostal….
BBP: …Tell me a little about that.
Shannon: They felt that that was the Devil’s music. Because it wasn’t of the church. And they were all about the church. So that’s why they didn’t approve of it.
BBP: Okay. How did you convince them otherwise? How did you convince them to be more accepting of what you wanted to do?
Shannon: I didn’t. When I became of age, they just accepted that, “he’s grown up now, so he can do what he wants to do.” So that’s basically how that was. When I first started playing R&B and blues, I got with a band. I had to—well I won’t say I had to—but I did, just slip out from home, just leave home, and got picked up around the corner so they wouldn’t know I was going to play the blues.
BBP: But who would come to pick you up? A band you were playing with?
Shannon: Yeah, the band I was playing with. And they were all older guys.
BBP: Okay….
Shannon: They were all older guys. The first band that I was a member of were guys that had been teaching school for six or seven years. So they were considered old to me at that time. Well I wouldn’t say “old” but “older.” Cause they were like 35, 36 and I was 18, so…
BBP: Okay. Who were they? What were their names? What was the name of the band?
Shannon: Oh, the band was The Memphians. They were the first band that I was a part of..
BBP: And what kind of music did you play? Blues?
Shannon: We played R&B. R&B and blues.
BBP: Okay…
Shannon: What’s so amazing, what’s so amazing back in those days, in the 60’s, you didn’t have a hundred categories of music. Music was either gospel, R&B or blues, or country and western, you know. Basically that was it. But now you have so many categories. A lot of times when I watch the Grammies I think that some of the artists out there are “pop.” Then it comes out, they’re R&B. Then on the other hand, they might win “pop….” So it’s kind of hard to distinguish between it.
BBP: Do you think that’s a bad thing, or a good thing….
Shannon: It’s a bad thing if it comes to an individual being, say for instance, nominated for something, and somebody that perhaps is pop wins their award for R&B or Blues (chuckles). That’s the only time you get to think it’s bad. For instance, if I were to look for a blues award, and somebody comes along in the R&B category and wins the award, I would think bad of it.
BBP: Meaning that you’re playing the category of music that you normally play, and somebody from another category comes and takes the award…
Shannon: Yeah, uh-huh. And if they take my award, then I’ll be pissed (laughs).
BBP: If somebody were to ask you what type of music you play right now, what would you say?
Shannon: I’m a bluesman. You know, I do some R&B on my CD’s, on all of my CD’s, I record some R&B, but you know, the thing about it is, there hasn’t been a blues hit record to my knowledge since 1968, and that was B.B. King’s “The Thrill is Gone.” So the reason that I put R&B on my CD’s is because it’s so hard for blues to get airplay now. Blues don’t get airplay except a certain time of the week, same time of the week, same day of the week, so if you can get a good R&B hit, you know you have the chances of it getting played all the time, on any radio station. But not the blues.
BBP: I got you. Have you had the experience of having an R&B hit…
Shannon: No I haven’t. I’m still looking (laughs). Now I know this too. The best song hasn’t been sung yet. The best lyrics haven’t been written yet. So I’m looking toward having a good—even a hit—blues song. It’s not impossible. Time changes. Music changes. Everything changes. I won’t say hip-hop is going out, I won’t say rap is going out. But R&B and real music is coming back, I think, and it’s time. I’m not saying that rap is not real music, but you know, what can I say? It’s not the kind of music that will last forever. You’ve got music that’s still being played now, that was recorded in the fifties. And maybe some older. But that’s real music, you know. It will be around forever. When I’m gone it will still be around. When you’re gone it will still be around. Because that’s the kind of music that lasts forever.
BBP: And blues is that type of music?
Shannon: Yeah. Blues will last forever.
BBP: One thing I’ve noticed is that a lot of the blues songs, a lot of the rock songs that people do are basically blues songs played a different way.
Shannon: Yeah. Rock’s been around a long time too. It’s going to be around.
BBP: Right. Do you think that’s a good thing that they’re kind of co-opting the blues music into rock or is that something you’d prefer not to see?
Shannon: It kind of intertwines. I hear a lot of blues guitar players playing rock so it’s kind of intertwined you know.
BBP: Right.
Shannon: I try to stay with the blues though, you know.
BBP: Right. I got you. Let me ask you a little more about your background. About your parents. So your parents never really accepted that you were playing blues. They just figured that once you grew up, there was nothing they could do about it.
Shannon: Yeah, yeah, they accepted it, you know. They would always tell me how wrong it was, and I was doing it for the Devil and I was going to Hell, but once you become of age you have to make up your own mind about what you want to do, because you are responsible for yourself.
BBP: Do they still tell you those things?
Shannon: They’re both deceased now. But they did that while they were here (chuckles).
BBP: Oh…Wow. Wow. Was that something that kind of..I don’t know…dampened your spirits about what you were doing?
Shannon: No. Once I became of age they didn’t force it down my throat. But they would mention it every now and then.
BBP: Wow, that must have been kind of hard to live with…
Shannon: …But once you leave home you don’t have to deal with it. If you’re still at home, yeah, you got to deal with it, but if you’re not at home you don’t have to deal with it.
BBP: How long were the Memphians together? Did you guys tour?
Shannon: Well, we played locally for about eight years.
BBP: And tell me a little bit about the band. Was it a four-piece band, five-piece band?
Shannon: It was a six-piece band. Actually it was a seven-piece band, because we had a rhythm section, two horns and a lead singer.
BBP: So in all that would be…
Shannon: Guitar; bass; drums; keyboard; two horns, saxophone and trumpet,
BBP: And did the Stax sound kind of influence what you were doing? I mean that’s based in Memphis.
Shannon: No I never did get the opportunity to do anything with Stax.
BBP: But, was what they were doing, did that influence you? I mean the type of music they were playing? You were right there in Memphis…
Shannon: Oh yeah, Stax had a lot of artists that I admire. Yeah, because Albert King was recording at Stax, and he’s one of my favorites blues singers.
BBP: And I understand you were in a band called Amnesty.
Shannon: That was the last band that I was in before I went on the road with Shirley Brown for three years.
BBP: You guys were playing the bar scene in Memphis?
Shannon: Yeah, we did the club scene. We did the club scene for a number of years.
BBP: And was that a different kind of sound than..
Shannon: It was R&B and blues.
BBP: Ok. So it was similar to what the Memphians were doing.
Shannon: Yeah. Right. Uh-huh.
BBP: And tell me about playing with Shirley Brown. How did you get connected with her?
Shannon: I got with her because she was looking for someone. She had recorded a song with an artist by the name of Bobby Womack. She was looking for someone to go on the road with her so she could sing that song. Her road manager came to the club and heard me sing, and at the time I was doing quite a bit of Bobby Womack’s material. And he offered me the job through her. And so I auditioned for it and she hired me. And I was with her for about three years.
BBP: So Bobby Womack is one of your influences?
Shannon: Not really. He was a good artist but he wasn’t really an influence, you know. I did a lot of his material because a lot of people thought I sounded a lot like him.
BBP: Okay. So tell me about—what were you doing with Shirley Brown. Were you touring outside of Memphis?
Shannon: Oh yeah. I toured all over the country with Shirley Brown. For three years. Then I decided to get my own group.
BBP: Was Shirley Brown the first time you played extensively outside of Memphis?
Shannon: No. I’d been on the road for a while with an artist by the name of Syl Johnson. He was based out of Chicago. I toured with him when I was with the Memphians. The Memphians and I toured with him. The entire band, yeah.
BBP: And that was throughout the entire years you were with them?
Shannon: I guess that lasted for maybe about three years.
BBP: Sort of later in the Memphians’ history?
Shannon: Yeah.
BBP: So you were touring with Shirley Brown and, was what she was doing different than what you had done before?
Shannon: Well she’s an R&B singer. She is strictly R&B: soulful, churchy. Real church. But she’s good at what she does. I would say one of the best at what she does.
BBP: Tell me a little bit how you got your own band together. What made you decide to want to do that, to go out on your own?
Shannon: Well, I know I wanted to be a blues singer so I wanted to do what I wanted to do. I wanted to do more blues than I had been playing. The opportunity had presented itself to me to do a blues show at a local club in Memphis on Beale Street. So that is what motivated me to put my own band together. One of the club owners had approached me and said “I want to do a blues show, and I want to have a blues night at the club. And I want you to do it.” That’s why I put my own band together.
BBP: This was around 1991 maybe?
Shannon: Yeah, something like that. Yeah. Exactly.
BBP: Has this band stayed together since then? Or have you changed?
Shannon: Oh, no, no, no. I’ve been through several bands since then. Musicians move on, do different things and whatever, you know.
BBP: Okay. So the band you’re playing with now, what is it like? What’s it made up of, now?
Shannon: Right now I’m just using a bass player, a bass player, guitar and drums. When the money gets bigger, I’ll add (laughs).
BBP: Yeah, that makes sense. So it’s a four-piece band basically, two guitars, bass and drums.
Shannon: Yeah.
BBP: Okay. Is what you’re playing different now than what you did…
Shannon: I’m doing more of my own material now.
BBP: You were discovered by Ron Levy (of Rounder Records). What happened?
Shannon: He just came in one of the clubs I was playing on Beale Street and heard me and was interested in recording me. And that’s how it happened. I did four albums since then. I did three on Rounder and one on Title Tunes. That’s a new label out of New Lisbon, Wisconsin.
(Shannon had to stop then and we picked up the interview the next day)
BBP: When we left off yesterday we were talking about the four albums that you had out. The first one came out—Break the Ice—right in 1994. Tell me a little about that?
Shannon: Ron Levy, who was the A&R (artists and repertoire, the division of a record company responsible for finding new talent) man and the husband of the owner of Rounder Records. He was in town, and he heard me play. I was playing at a club on Beale Street called the Rum Boogie, and he heard me, and he said “Man, you sound really good. I think you got something to offer. I’d like to record you.” Well naturally I didn’t believe that, I’d heard it so much. But who knows? Within the next, I guess, three or four weeks he came back and told me he was ready to record, was I ready. So we were fortunate enough to get the Memphis horns to do the horns on it. Wayne BBP and Andrew Love.
BBP: Let me ask you, how old are you n.ow?
Shannon: I’m 63.
BBP: Okay. So this first album was in 1994, which would have made you about…
Shannon: 43 or 44. Something like that.
BBP: Were you getting discouraged at that point?
Shannon: I started late. And I never knew, I never knew I would be doing this for a living. But I had been trying with the other groups I had been playing with. I did some recording with the Memphians. Matter of fact, I did an album—at that time it was called an album—with the Memphians, but it never did take off, never did catch onto anything. And then for a while I went with a local group called Amnesty—we did very little recording. But I never was discouraged because first of all, I had a job. I had a job, and it’s a whole different outlook when you’re doing music part-time and you’re depending on something else for a living. When I decided that I was going to go one hundred percent music in 1988 after I’d been on my last job for 19 years, that was an obstacle that I really had to think about. I’d been on the job 19 years and doing music on the side. So music was my side money. But I decided that I’m going music 100 percent because I cannot continue to do music and work a job. And actually music is a job. So I decided that, instead of doing two jobs, and I’m getting older, I’m going to do one. I’m going to make music my job. And it was a task for a while.
BBP: Is it still a task?
Shannon: No it’s enjoyable now. It’s still work, but it’s enjoyable.
BBP: And it pays the bills?
Shannon: Yeah.
BBP: And what kind of job did you have when you finally decided to…
Shannon: I was a warehouse supervisor in a place called Orgill Brothers. They dealt in parts and everything else for homes and farms and that type of thing.
BBP: You mean for machinery.
Shannon: Yeah.
BBP: Okay. What were you finding, that the job was interfering with the music or the music was interfering with the job.
Shannon: The job was interfering with the music. So it had got to the point whereas I would begin to reject my job because I loved music. That’s basically how it came about.
BBP: I see. And was that your first job?
Shannon: No. No.No. No. No. I had several jobs before that.
BBP: And you had these jobs while you were doing the music part time?
Shannon: Oh yeah. Music always had been part-time since I started. Up until 1988. I worked at a place called Hunter Fan. They built fans for homes and offices and everything else. I worked there for about four or five years.
BBP: That was your first job?
Shannon: That was my first job. My first real job.
BBP: And what were some of the other jobs you had…
Shannon: When I was going through high school I worked in a grocery store. And before the grocery store I worked on a farm, because my parents were sharecroppers. My chores started in the field at 11 years old. I had to go to the field, pick cotton, chop cotton. That’s how I know what the blues is all about. I’m not saying you have to do that to know what the blues is all about; in my case, that’s what happened (chuckles).
BBP: Wow. Yeah I guess that was a good teacher. Your parents were sharecroppers, meaning that they worked the land but somebody else owned it?
Shannon: Exactly. Exactly.
BBP: Okay. When you made the jump to full-time professional did you find that it opened doors?
Shannon: Well, yeah it did open doors because that put me in the process of going and looking for work. I put myself on the forefront as far as going to look for work, going to clubs, and asking, inquiring, “You need a band?” “I can do this.” “I can do that.” And some of them came through, you know. Like Rum Boogie. The first club I played at on Beale Street was a club called Club Royale. That was on—I would say—the east end of Beale Street.
BBP: When you were working the clubs on Beale Street did you run into other musicians, I mean a lot of famous musicians?
Shannon: Yeah. I ran into quite a few famous musicians. Even now, I play B.B. Kings club on Tuesday. Today is Tuesday. I play every Tuesday unless I’m on the road or playing somewhere because I would like to keep something going for myself and my band. So I play B.B. King every Tuesday night and you have people who come to—important people that actually come through town right now and most of the time they’re going to go by B.B. King’s if they have time. Because a lot of people go to B.B. King’s looking for B.B. Of course B.B. won’t be there, but that doesn’t mean they won’t go looking for him. And a lot of them come just to see the club.
BBP: And you’re playing there tonight actually. You have a gig tonight.
Shannon: Yeah. Tonight. Uh-huh.
BBP: What time do you usually start playing? 8:30.
Shannon: Uh-huh.
BBP: That’s incredible.
Shannon: When I first started really as regular at B.B. Kings it was like 1993. I was playing there four nights a week.
BBP: Why did you cut back?
Shannon: Well, they fired me. And they hired me back.
BBP: Really?
Shannon: Actually I played B.B.’s for, I would say, about six or seven years and I left there and signed a contract with the Isaac Hayes club. That was a brand new club that opened in 2001 at the Hotel Peabody. And I was under contract there. There was two Isaac Hayes clubs, one was in Memphis and the other was in Chicago and I was under contract to play both clubs. So I left B.B. King’s…
BBP: …So you would have to play Isaac Hayes’ club in Memphis and then you would travel to Chicago to play…
Shannon: Right. My thing was, I would do Chicago one weekend a month. And the rest of the time I was in four nights at Isaac Hayes here in Memphis.
BBP: So the decision to leave B.B. Kings’ was yours…
Shannon: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. At that time.
BBP: But before they had fired you in…
Shannon: No, afterwards. Afterwards…..
BBP: …..Oh, okay….
Shannon: ….I went back…Matter of fact, we did it on the business level. When I left B.B. Kings and went to Isaac Hayes, I sat down with the club owners and told them: “Look, they are giving me this offer. I can’t turn it down and this that and the other, we’re dealing as business people.” They understood. So they told me, they said “Well if you ever need me, let me know, call me back.” So when Isaac Hayes (club) came to the realization “Hey man, we’re paying Preston all of this money, we can get some other bands in here for much less.” So they decided to let me go. So when they let me go, I called B.B. Kings’ back. They hired me back.
BBP: When did Isaac Hayes let you go?
Shannon: When? Around 2003. I was there for close to two years.
BBP: Okay. Did you ever interact with Isaac Hayes?
Shannon: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Isaac was a regular there. Not necessarily playing, but you know he would always come by.
BBP: Did Isaac hear you?
Shannon: All the time.
BBP: What did he say to you?
Shannon: He told me I had a hit record. On my second CD, which was called Midnight in Memphis, I have a song on there called “The Clock.” And he predicted it was going to be a hit record. But naturally, you know, records don’t become hits unless they get airplay. So it lacked airplay. So he could understand—he did understand—why it didn’t become a hit. But it’s a hit record. Even today it’s a hit record.

BBP: Wow. And did you ever meet B.B.?
Shannon: Oh yeah. I’ve been on a show with B.B.
BBP: Okay…
Shannon: I’ve done several shows with B.B. I’ve played on stage with him.
BBP: What’s it like to play with him. He’s always first guitar when he plays, right?
Shannon: Well at the time I had the opportunity to play with him he gave me his guitar.
BBP: Oh…
Shannon: (Chuckles) Yeah.
BBP: He gave you Lucille?
Shannon: Uh-huh. I have pictures of it.
BBP: Was he playing at all?
Shannon: Yeah, he was playing. He and his orchestra was playing. I opened the show. My band and I opened the show and at the climax he recognized that I was in the house and called me up to sit in with the band and he gave me Lucille.
BBP: Really! How did you feel?
Shannon: It was wonderful. It was a wonderful feeling, given that Lucille belongs to the King of the Blues.
BBP: Yeah. That’s sort of like a samurai warrior giving you his sword.
Shannon: Right. Yeah. Right.
BBP: And what year was this?
Shannon: This was…it had to be…2005. 2006.
BBP: And B.B. was playing on stage with you when you sat in with the band?
Shannon: Yeah. You see B.B. played at his club here in Memphis once or twice a year….
BBP: But what was B.B. playing? Was he playing another guitar?
Shannon: No, he was just singing at the time.
BBP: Oh. He wasn’t playing. You were playing for him.
Shannon: Uh-huh. Yeah.
BBP: Oh wow. What an experience that was! You were the guitar-man for B.B. King when he was doing the vocals?
Shannon: Right.
BBP: Did he say anything to you afterwards about how you did?
Shannon: Oh yeah. I always talk to B.B. We always have conversations, you know. He always invites people on his bus and sits down and talks to them. I’ve had several conversations with B.B.
BBP: How’s he doing physically though? I notice he doesn’t stand up and play anymore. He sits down.
Shannon: He sits down and plays now. Because he’s still suffering with the diabetes and then on top of that, he’s 85 years old.
BBP: Is he your favorite performer?
Shannon: He’s one of them. As guitars and singers go, yeah, he’s one of them.
BBP: You said you were fired from his club at some point?
Shannon: Oh yeah, I was fired from his club. The club owner fired me because he got upset with me because I accepted an engagement that he didn’t feel I should have accepted.
BBP: Oh. You accepted it for a time that he wanted you to play for him?
Shannon: Right. Uh-huh. There was something special going on at the B.B. King club and he wanted me to play, but I had obligated myself somewhere else. It’s not that I did it and wasn’t supposed to do it. That was our agreement. We had an agreement. If I get another engagement, I give you a notice. If you get someone that’s coming here and I don’t play, you give me a notice. And all that was done like it was supposed to. But he still got upset because I accepted another engagement.
BBP: You had already accepted the other engagement when you found out he wanted you to play this special event?
Shannon: Well I thought the special event was coming up, but he couldn’t match it about the money.
BBP: Oh, I got you. (Both laugh). Well, that’s the way it is. When was this?
Shannon: This was back after he…maybe 2007, something like that.
BBP: Okay. But you’ve mended fences since then and you’re working at the club again.
Shannon: Oh I’m back. You got to get me back, man. I’m what he needs. I’m a bluesman…
BBP: Tell me also about these albums.
Shannon: Well actually I’ve got a brand-new CD just released, re-released in Europe this year called Going Back to Memphis. It’s a re-release of my 2006 CD. That CD was called Be with Me Tonight. Continental Records in Europe fell in love with the CD, they wanted to re-release it. So they re-released it about, oh, two or three months ago.
BBP: It’s the same songs, but they changed the name?
Shannon: Yeah. The picture, the package, everything was changed. The music wasn’t changed. (The 2006 version) was my first record with Title Tunes. And my last.
BBP: Why..well first of all why did you leave Rounder? You did three records with them.
Shannon: Rounder just gave me my release in 1999 because they wasn’t promoting me. They just—you know how record companies will do, a lot of them just sign you up and write you off for the income tax .
BBP: Right.
Shannon: It takes money to promote. If you’re not going to promote—regardless of how good your record is, if it’s not promoted—it’s the same as—what city do you live in?
BBP: Washington, D.C.
Shannon: If B.B. came to Washington, D.C. to the theatre and they didn’t advertise it, wouldn’t be nobody there, okay? Records are the same way. You record a record, it could be the best record that you ever heard, and your friends ever heard, and your family ever heard. But if the public don’t hear it, what does it mean? It’s got to be promoted.
BBP: So Rounder wasn’t promoting your material?
Shannon: Naw they weren’t promoting it. I appreciate what they did, but I bet they could have done more. ‘Cause I think I had really something to offer. Good material. A lot of my material was written by Willie Mitchell. You know who Willie Mitchell is?
BBP: Actually, I have to say I don’t.
Shannon: Willie Mitchell is the man who discovered Al Green. He and Al Green wrote “Tired of Being Alone,” not “Take Me to the River” but several songs, hit songs that Al Green recorded were written by Al Green and Willie Mitchell. Mitchell was the engineer and the producer and the writer.
BBP: Wow. Okay. And you have a relationship with him?
Shannon: Oh yeah. He produced two of my CD’s with Rounder.
BBP: So with that kind of creative power behind you, you felt they should have done more to promote you.
Shannon: Yes.
BBP: Wow, that’s incredible. You said he did the first two…
Shannon: No, he did the second two. He did my Midnight in Memphis CD, and my CD called All in Time. The last one came out in ’99 with Rounder.
BBP: That’s amazing. How did you hook up with Willie Mitchell?
Shannon: Willie Mitchell had at one time in 1994 opened a club on Beale Street. And I was fortunate enough to—well I already knew of him, and he lived here in Memphis. And I went by and met him and he hired me to play at his club.
BBP: So he liked what he heard and decided to work with you...
Shannon: Yeah.
BBP:Tell me about Title Tunes. How come that didn’t work out? You only did one album with them.
BBP:Shannon: We’re still friends. This was just a case whereas a gentleman was at one time a musician, got out of it, but he had always loved music. And he has always recorded music. He’s a good writer, and he would write music and go to Nashville to record it. And when he heard me, he just said “hey man, I would like to produce you.”
BBP: So, are you thinking about doing a new album, and if you did, would it be with Title Tunes?
Shannon: No I probably would do it with the new company, Continental Records, in Europe.
BBP: Have they asked you about that?
Shannon: Not as of right now, no. And then I’m thinking about doing my own thing. I might just do my own CD and promote it myself. I’m thinking about that also. But I’ll talk to Continental Records first.
BBP: One other thing I wanted to ask you about. I’m surfing the web the other day and I found some of your songs on Youtube. And you do this version of “Purple Rain.” What attracted you to that song? It’s not really what I would call a blues song.

Shannon: No it’s not, but I’m a blues player. I heard someone else do it and it was a hit song. And I said “Man, I’m going to do that song.” So I’ve been doing it for a long time and I always get everything positive when I do it. It really is a blues song. It’s got blues changes, and the way I play it, I play it as a blues. That’s what makes it so different from Prince. I play it as a blues. And I include the blues feel in it, because that’s the way I play. And that’s what people can relate to.
BBP: Do you like the way that Prince did it?
Shannon: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Prince is one of my favorite artists.
BBP: And what is it specifically that you like about Prince?
Shannon: He’s a super-talented individual, that’s what I like about him. Not only does he play guitar, and he’s good…he’s an awesome vocalist. He also plays every other instrument.
BBP: Now a lot of your original material, how would you describe yourself as a writer?
Shannon: I don’t do a lot of writing, I’m not gifted to write. I wrote a couple of songs—co-wrote a couple of songs on my last CD with a friend, but I don’t consider myself a writer. I need a little more experience first before I can consider myself a writer.

D.C. BLUES SOCIETY!

2011-08-14T21:07:00.000-07:00

Here in D.C., those of us who know Dr. S.O. Feelgood know he can put on a great show. And he was in rare form at the last D.C. Blues Society Jam, held at the American Legion Hall in Silver Spring, Maryland on Sunday, August 7. If you don't believe me, check this out:

Here are some other highlights of the jam:

See you at the next jam. And keep those songs coming. Best place to send them: beldonsbluespoint@YAHOO.COM

And don't forget singer Stacy Brooks birthday party, scheduled for 7-10 p.m. Wednesday, August 17 at the Proud Mary Restaurant, 13600 King Charles Terrace, Ft. Washington, MD.

In Philly with Hezekiah Walker, Richard Smallwood, Karen Clark Sheard and E.C. Scott

2011-08-12T19:01:00.000-07:00

A trip to Philly last weekend gave me a chance to hear—and talk to—some pretty prominent folks in the gospel world.
I was in town for the annual convention held by the National Association of Black Journalists, a group I have belonged to since my newspaper days. One of the convention traditions is the “Gospel Brunch,” where members eat breakfast while listening to gospel performers, many of them well-known.
Featured this year were Pastor Grammy-Award winning Gospel Artist Hezekiah Walker; Grammy-nominated group leader and keyboardist Richard Smallwood; and singer Karen Clark Sheard, known for both her solo work and that with the legendary group the Clark Sisters.
Though I think it is great music, I am not as knowledgeable of gospel as I am of other forms. But I had been hearing about Walker, Pastor and Bishop of the Love Fellowship Tabernacle, for years. Rappers have reportedly called Walker “The Pastor of Hip-Hop” because of his work in gritty sections of Brooklyn turning young people from drugs and crime. Somewhere in the following interview, I asked him how he felt about Christian hip-hop, which a few months ago I had written an article about:

Like me, Smallwood has roots in D.C., where in the eighth grade he had singer Roberta Flack as a music teacher. A founding member of Howard University’s First Gospel Choir, he was also a featured member of a gospel group called the Celestial Singers, where he took the place of keyboardist Donnie Hathaway.
I met the artists on August 7, when Smallwood was about two weeks out from releasing, Promises, his latest CD. He spoke to me about the album—and Christian hip-hop—in this interview:

Sheard, who is said to have influenced Mariah Carey, Faith Evans, Fantasia and Missy Elliott, talked about playing one of her own role models—Aretha Franklin-- in an upcoming biopic:

I also visited Warmdaddy’s, the Philadelphia night club that specializes in blues acts, where I caught a performance by singer E.C. Scott. I had fond memories of going there once in a while for Tuesday night jams—as well as the shows--when I lived in Allentown. E.C. Scott reminded me of why I like that place, which, when no one is on stage, has the best collection of blues videos I have ever seen. Here she is with her band Smoke:

Later, I had a chance to talk to her: