A momentary lapse of inspiration

 On sabbatical leave. Will be back soon.

Meantime, I invite you to explore Onurblues through the Archives or the Tags.

Take all care of yourselves in this instable world.

Journey To Nawlins, Chapter XVI : The Piano “Professors” (Jelly Roll Morton, “Tuts” Washington, Champion Jack Dupree, Professor Longhair, Fats Domino, Eddie Bo, Ellis Marsalis, Huey "Piano" Smith, Allen Toussaint, James Booker, Dr John, Henry Butler, David Torkanowsky, Tom McDermott, Jon Cleary, Davell Crawford)

A century in ivory
Among the sacred instruments of New Orleans music, piano comes next to the iconic brass instruments. The Crescent City counts numerous influential pianists who brought an essential contribution to the unique New Orleans sound for a century.

Blues 'N' Trouble : highlands boogie & loch blues Not swamp blues but loch blues, not Mississippi Hill Country style but Highlands boogie, not moonshine fueled but soaked in old whiskey, here are...

The volcanic bluesboys from Scotland

Boogie, jump, stomp, shuffle, honky-tonk, ragtime, rock'n'roll..., Blues 'N' Trouble is the most exciting blues band I've heard in a long time. This deserved making a pause in the Journey To Nawlins series (that will continue very soon indeed).

B.B. King who was backed by Blues 'N' Trouble on several occasions in his UK tours complimented them as “the best white blues band in the world”. The album "Lazy Lester Rides Again" (1987) on which they backed the Louisiana bluesman was crowned with a WC Handy award. Still, Blues 'N' Trouble remains largely unknown to many blues fans though it gained a cult status among sharp connoisseurs and local supporters along his touring path.

Journey To Nawlins, Chapter XV : Wild Injuns Down In New Orleans* (The Wild Tchoupitoulas, Bo Dollis & The Wild Magnolias, Big Chief Monk Boudreaux, Donald Harrison Jr & Congo Square Nation, Chief Adjuah & the Xodokan Nation of Maroons, And Many More...)

Flamboyant Black Masked Indians

Mardi Gras Indians are probably the most exotic and picturesque element of New Orleans unique cultural traditions. Actually the term “Mardi Gras Indians” is not used by those it designates. They rather call themselves “Black Indians” or “Masked Indians” or “Black Masked Indians”/”Black Masking Indians”, “masking” meaning dressed in personally hand-crafted costume.

Journey To Nawlins, Chapter XIV : Mem Shannon (complete discography)

The man from Phunkville

Mem Shannon is a bluesman. But a bluesman from New Orleans, which means that he plays his own local recipe of blues ― I called it Shannon's blue gumbo groove ―, a typical New Orleans mix of swamp rock & blues, R'n'B, soul…, all in a thick funk gravy, with a very attractive jazz underlining, and always a saxophone around. Appealing, exciting, spellbinding !

Born in New Orleans just before Christmas 1959, Shannon started to play guitar in his mid-teens, and got serious about it after seeing B.B. King in concert. King's economical playing style was a major influence for Shannon who always cover a few King's songs during his gigs, a fact largely confirmed through the videos selected below.

Journey To Nawlins, Chapter XIII : Brass Bands & Second Line (Dirty Dozen Brass Band, New Orleans - Rebirth Brass Band, New Orleans - The Hot 8 Brass Band, New Orleans - Milton Batiste & Alton Carson with the Magnificent Sevenths, New Orleans - Mardi Brass Band, France - Funky Butt Brass Band, St Louis)

Social Clubs, Brass bands, Jazz Funerals and Second line

Early New Orleans brass band

Before going any further, in order to get a basic insight into the New Orleans brass bands ecosystem, it seems necessary to me to remind a few facts through this introduction, actually a remixed version of a text from Chapter III.

The tradition of brass bands in New Orleans appeared in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a fusion between European military bands and African traditional music (especially from the Yoruba culture of Nigeria) brought by enslaved West Africans. New Orleans Brass bands played a significant role in the development of early jazz.

Journey To Nawlins, Chapter XII : Dr. John (Television, 1994 - Anutha Zone, 1998 - Creole Moon, 2001)

 → Thanks also to the late Blue DeVille...

New Orleans' voodoo wizard

Dr. John, who departed this world in June 2019 😢, was a fascinating character ! Not only was he a great pianist, but he was also a fantastic composer, arranger and producer, and he had the most incredible and inimitable voice you could find. The words were rolling around in his mouth as if he was swallowing a gumbo or munching an oyster "po' boy" while singing ! Just listen to the way he pronounces the word "limbo" on track three ! His kind of squeaking voice should normally be hard to bear. Not with the Doc. Instead it's highly captivating.

Self baptized the Nite Tripper and famous for his voodoo witch looks  —  fancy feathered hats, mojo necklaces, sculpted canes, skull on his piano —, he personified New Orleans through his mix of swinging Nola R'n'B and swamp funk soaked in damp Creole voodoo mystery. Not many could do that

Journey To Nawlins, Chapter XI : Kermit Ruffins (Discography 1992-2017)

Is Satch back ?

If New Orleans' tutelary figure Louis Armstrong ever had a spiritual son, Kermit Ruffins must be the one. Even more than trombonist Glen David Andrews. He has the trumpet, he has the growling voice, he has the rejoicing kind and warm friendliness, he has the exuberant showmanship.

Oddly enough, though he started playing trumpet at 13, he didn't get really interested in jazz before discovering Armstrong at the age of 17, which is amazing considering that he is a full New Orleanian, raised in Tremé and in a very musical family (1).

Journey To Nawlins, Chapter X : Tremé : The Music, The Neighborhood, The Seriesb (About The Soundtrack From The HBO Original Series, Seasons 1 & 2)

Is music stronger than hurricanes ?

Before going any further, I must strongly encourage those who didn't or couldn't watch yet this fascinating series to do so by any mean (downloading, streaming * or... buying the DVDs separately or the complete box set). This is not compulsory to appreciate this great 2-CD soundtrack but it will put things in perspective.

Journey To Nawlins, Chapter IX – Troy Andrews a.k.a. Trombone Shorty

Trombone slinger

Jazz ? Not in the way you imagine. R&B ? Yes, but not as you'd think. So what ? So, it's New Orleans, the Big Easy, the city where all musics mingle together, where all styles nourish each other, where horn instruments are sacred, where all people of all colors brotherly dance on Mardi Gras, where musicians are laid to their grave in music…

The old French city where slaves were entitled to sing, play percussion and dance on Congo Square on Sundays… The city where jazz is born, where rock'n'roll was born, where rhythm'n'blues was born, where funk was born… The city where unclassifiable musician Troy Andrews aka Trombone Shorty was born in 1986...

Journey To Nawlins, Chapter VIII - Various Artists & Albums

 All from Nawlins
(except one...  guess who)

 

 

 

► Snooks Eaglin - New Orleans Street Singer (1959/2005) : https://onurblues.blogspot.com/2022/02/snooks-eaglin-new-orleans-street-singer.html

 

 ► Johnny Sansone - The Lord Is Waiting And The Devil Is Too (2011) : https://onurblues.blogspot.com/2022/11/johnny-sansone-lord-is-waiting-and.html

Journey To Nawlins, Chapter VII : Irma Thomas

→ Thanks also to the late Blue DeVille

The Soul Queen of New Orleans

The soul voice of Irma Lee, aka Irma Thomas, born in 1941 in Ponchatoula, Louisiana, has been heard on airwaves, jukeboxes and in concert halls by several generations since her debut nearly 65 years ago. Her early career wasn't easy and she had to be thoroughly tenacious to become one of New Orleans icons. But she had a treasure : her voice.

Journey To Nawlins, Chapter VI - The Rough Guide To The Music of New Orleans (2-CD Special Edition, 2012)

→ Thanks also to the late Blue DeVille

The city where music never stops

In a recent review, I wrote : “New Orleans and her Mardi-Gras and Carnival, New Orleans and her old dixie jazz, New Orleans and her jazz funerals and second line parades, New Orleans and her tribal rhythms, New Orleans and her swamp blues and bayou R'n'B, New Orleans and her Zydeco and Cajun music, New Orleans and her French creole culture, New Orleans the unique, New Orleans the Big Easy where music is a way of life, New Orleans the Big Funky…” These few lines would fit perfectly this 2-CD Rough Guide.

Journey To Nawlins, Chapter V - New Orleans Funk (Vol. 1, 2, 3 & 4 - 2000, 2008, 2013, 2016)

→ Thanks also to the late Blue DeVille

The Big Easy...

The Big Funky

New Orleans is a fascinating musical melting-pot which not only gave birth to jazz more than a century ago, but also to funk. Funk is before all a matter of rhythm and groove, and both are historically printed in the city's DNA. This amazing four-volume 85-track collection (mostly rare singles) intends to show how this new genre of music evolved, from the pioneering steps of innovative musicians in the 1950s to adulthood in the 1970s.

Journey To Nawlins, Chapter IV - The Neville BrothersFiyo On The Bayou (1981) - Live at Tipitina's 1982 (1998) - Yellow Moon (1989) - Brother's Keeper (1990) - Valence Street (1999) - Walkin' In The Shadow Of Life (2004)

→ Thanks also to the late Blue DeVille

Art, Charles, Aaron & Cyril Neville

Mystic funk on the bayou

Nawlins R'n'B, bayou funk, Afro-Caribbean voodoo atmosphere and... the unique angelic voice of brother Aaron : the Neville Brothers' sound became one of the trademarks of the Crescent City.

The origins of the Neville Brothers as a band are intricately entangled with the history of several previous New Orleans groups where the brothers honed their trade : eldest brother Art's band The Hawketts in the 1950s; The Sounds, that became the house band for Allen Toussaint's Sansu label in the late 1960s, and later took the name The Meters; The Wild Tchoupitoulas, a Mardi-Gras Indian group led by their uncle George Landry aka Big Chief Jolly, whose backing band were the Meters until 1976 when they disbanded.

Journey To Nawlins, Chapter III - The Dirty Dozen Brass Band (My Feet Can't Fail Me Now, 1984 / We Got Robbed! Live In New Orleans, 2003 / Funeral for a friend, 2004)

 → Thanks also to the late Blue DeVille

The fabulous dozen brass band

The Dirty Dozen Brass Band (DDBB) couldn't be from anywhere else but New Orleans (please pronounce “noo orlayhan” like Gregory Davis shouts at the beginning of "We Got Robbed!". Founded in 1977, the DDBB is a modern re-incarnation of the traditional brass bands that animated the streets, especially for “jazz” funerals and “second line” parades organized by “Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs” (SAPCs). Redad more detailed info below.

In the 1970s and early 1980s, the New Orleans brass band tradition experienced a renaissance, with bands breaking away from traditional styles and adding elements of funk, be-bop jazz, and later even hip hop, to their repertoires, applying one of the primary law of life on earth : who can't evolve disappears. This is exactly what the DDBB did : they added “modern” instruments, mainly electric guitar and keyboards, to the traditional brass structure, and modernized the drumming style. While old brass bands gave birth to traditional New Orleans jazz, contemporary brass bands incorporated in turn some modern jazz patterns, especially improvisation spaces.

Journey To Nawlins, Chapter II - The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival The 50th Anniversary 5-CD Set (2019)

 → Thanks also to the late Blue DeVille

→ The pics on this page concern only the artists featured in the 5-CD box Set

JazzFest : the fantastic New Orleans gumbo

The opening Golden Eagles track immediately takes you to the roots of New Orleans rich music : a mix of African chants and percussion, early jazz and blues lament. Next, Trombone Shorty and his band add a little Latin touch with their long “One Night Only”. With the Donald Harrison band or Terence Blanchard, we enter the world of classic modern jazz (“Free To Be”, “A Streetcar Named Desire”)… All the ingredients of the Nola musical heritage are featured in this fantastic 5-CD box featuring 48 artists, 50 songs, two announcements and… one rain alert (doesn't that remind Woodstock ?)

Journey To Nawlins, Chapter I - Doctors, Professors, Kings & Queens : The Big Ol' Box Of New Orleans (1927-2003)

→ Thanks also to the late Blue DeVille

The Big Easy in a box

The Crescent City, The Big Easy (sometimes The Big Sleazy for its darker sides), The City that Care Forgot, NOLA... welcome to New Orleans announces the short opening track by Galactic & Theryl deClouet, mischievously adding “welcome to the Third World”.

This fascinating 4-CD box embarks us on a 5-hour cruise into the extreme richness of the unique musical melting-pot of New Orleans. A Wikipedia article describes it better than I would : “New Orleans has long been a significant center for music, showcasing its intertwined European, African and Latino American cultures. The city's unique musical heritage was born in its colonial and early American days from a unique blending of European musical instruments with African rhythms. As the only North American city to have allowed slaves to gather in public and play their native music (largely in Congo Square, now located within Louis Armstrong Park), New Orleans gave birth in the early 20th century to an epochal indigenous music : jazz. Soon, African American brass bands formed, beginning a century-long tradition. […] The city's music was later also significantly influenced by Acadiana, home of Cajun and Zydeco music, and by Delta blues.”

Mighty Sam McClain : Solo Discography

→ Thanks to my accomplice L.C.

 

A man's redemption

Another good one gone… It's a long time I wanted to write about this soulful mystic blues singer. The early life of Samuel McClain is not very different from dozens of other bluesmen : born in Monroe, North Louisiana, in 1943, singing in church very young, early vocation for music, escape from home and from an abusive step-father at 13, "school" on the Chitlin' Circuit with R&B guitarist "Little Melvin" Underwood, meeting of DJ and producer "Papa Don" Schroeder at the 506 Club in Pensacola, Florida, who opened him the doors of the Muscle Shoals studios, first hit single in 1966 with a cover of Patsy Cline's "Sweet Dreams", more sides recorded in Muscle Shoals and Nashville for Amy Records and Atlantic, but without any commercial success (most of these sides were later compiled in "The Amy Records Sessions, 1966-1969", released in 2014).

Eric Clapton - Blue's (Live in Oslo, April 5, 1995)

→ Thanks to my friend L.C.

Warning ! Before all, to prevent any disappointment from Clapton's fans (and other blues aficionados), I'll quote my friend L.C. who shared this bootleg with me : “While far from being perfect, the general sound is good enough to enjoy the music, provided the listener has the proper audio system.” The proper audio system… You've been warned.

Slowhand in Viking land
This two-CD bootleg was taped at the Spektrum in Oslo, Norway, on April 5, 1995, one of the over 120 concert halls visited by Clapton during his 1994-95 “Nothing But the Blues” world tour which followed the release of his studio album “From The Cradle”. The same tour during which the official 2022 release “Nothing But the Blues” was recorded on November 7, 8 & 9, 1994 at the San Francisco Fillmore.

Deborah Coleman - Takin' A Stand (1994), I Can't Lose (1997)

→ Thanks to L.C.

From Van Halen to Billie Holiday

Deborah Coleman died much too early, in 2018, at age 61, leaving us wondering how high her career would have taken her.

She was born in 1956 in Portsmouth, Virginia, in a very musical family : her father, a Marine, played piano, her brothers and sister, guitar and/or keyboards. She started guitar at eight, later changing to bass and playing in local R'n'B and rock bands in her mid-teens, before switching back to guitar after discovering Hendrix, Cream or Led Zeppelin. But she had to reach 19 years old to fall for the blues after hearing John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf at a festival.

Dwayne Dopsie & The Zydeco Hellraisers - Now It Begins (2001), Jazzfest 2001, Traveling Man (2006), Up In Flames (2009), Set Me Free (2021)

→ Thanks to the late missed Blue DeVille and L.C.

High voltage Dopsie fever

I don't know what kind of voodoo medicine Alton Rubin aka Rockin' Dopsie or his wife were ingesting before making children, but there's no doubt it was strong stuff. A glimpse at the incredible energy of two of their sons, Rockin' Dopsie Jr and his younger brother Dwayne Dopsie, and you're convinced !

With his bodybuilder look, Dwayne Rubin aka Dwayne Dopsie, born in 1979 in Lafayette, he was 19 when he founded his own band, the Zydeco Hellraisers, in 1999. That same year he won a competition run by the American Accordion Association and was declared “America’s Hottest Accordionist”.

His band fully deserves its name of Hellraisers as, under Dwayne's leadership they deliver a high-voltage Zydeco built from a mix of rock'n'roll, rhythm'n'blues and red-hot two-steps, peppered with occasional reggae rhythms.

Roscoe Chenier - Doing Alright Again (1996)

→ Thanks to L.C.

The best kept secret of the Cheniers

How can a small region like South Louisiana produce so many renowned musicians is a mystery. This puzzling phenomenon also concerns other regions like the Mississippi Delta or, farther, a little island named Jamaica (let's not even talk about their athletes).

Many Louisiana family clans take pride in several generations of famous artists. Most of those families (Creole or Cajun) can trace their ancestry way back in the 17th or 18th century, before the “Louisiana purchase” (1803) and bear French names : Arceneaux, Ardoin, Balfa, Fontenot, Broussard, Chavis, Frank, Carrier, Delafosse, Lejeune, Cormier, Ledet, Savoy, Williams, Rubin (aka Dopsie), Neville or… Chenier.

Andy J. Forest : GrooveRockBluesFunk'n'Roll Live (1989) / Live! (2004) / NOtown Story-The Triumph Of Turmoil (2010)

→ Thanks to L.C.

Let the good groove roll

Andy J. Forest knows how to set you in a joyful mood for the day with his albums full of humorous energy and recorded live for many of them. Real live albums with no later studio overdubs or edits ! The music slaps you in the face with solid slamming beat and flapping groove. The blues jumps hard and nice, sometimes taking a slower but equally jazzy swinging pace.

Forest's hot harmonica and powerful imaginary vocals are running energetically over excellent guitar and keyboard work, and tight job of always perfectly chosen bass-drums sections.

The songs cover a large range of styles ― rock'n'roll, blues and R'n'B, Zydeco and even a few jazz-rock infused numbers ―, and it's not surprising that for over 40 years Forest has been a New Orleans resident, a city where one doesn't joke with groove and letting the good times roll.

The Catch-Back, vol. 8 : Memphis Gold, Kenny Neal, Little Joe McLerran, Percy Strother, Selwyn Cooper

...they deserved to be featured here…

Memphis Gold - Pickin' In High Cotton (2011)

Memphis Gold, born Chester Chandler in 1955 in Memphis, has been an active "bluesician" for some 60 years but, oddly enough, he has only 4 albums out so far, this being the last one to date. A Vietnam veteran himself, he is also active in veterans and fellow blues musicians health help fund raising events.

His career could have stopped abruptly in 2008 though. He fell some 35 feet down from a tree and suffered a triple fracture of the back that could have left him in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Fortunately his strong will plus good medical care helped him to avoid such an unfortunate fate. As a consequence, he now walks with a cane and sits most of the time during his shows, as it appears in most of the videos proposed below.

Heard lately #1 - Bobby Rush, Eddie Ray, Little Smokey Smothers, Ali Farka Touré with Ry Cooder, The Neville Brothers Live, Zac Harmon

→ Express reviews of some albums I listened recently

Bobby Rush - All My Love For You (2023)

All I knew was his name seen here and there in articles and reviews, and this album is a very, very good surprise. Horn fueled soul blues from top to bottom, with some R'n'B numbers like “One Monkey Can Stop a Show”, as Louisiana (where Rush was born in 1933 as Emmett Ellis Jr.) can produce.

A prolific songwriter, Rush signs all the tracks (including “TV Mama”, not to be mistaken with the same and often covered title from Lou Willie Turner aka Luella Brown, Big Joe Turner's wife). Two lively titles stand out , “I'm Free” and “I'm The One”, about blues music, which sound largely autobiographical.

Vanessa Collier - Meeting My Shadow (2017)

→ Thanks to L.C.

The lady with the saxophone

A few years ago, recalling one of his past performances, a blues giant told : “There’s a young lady came onstage with me, I forget where it was, but she’s playing an alto saxophone, and man, she was amazing !” The bluesman is Buddy Guy, the young lady is Philadelphia-based vocalist, saxophonist and songwriter Vanessa Collier, and the performance was on the Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise (LRBC) #29 in 2017.

Lonesome Sundown – Been Gone Too Long (1977)

→ Thanks to L. C.

The last swamp boogie

John Lee Hooker's "Boogie Chillun" was the first song that he learned to play on guitar. He was about 20, his name was Cornelius Green III and he was living in his native town of Donaldsonville (Louisiana), some 40 kms south of Baton Rouge, on the West bank of the Mississippi river, a town famous for being the first in the US to elect an African-American mayor following the Civil War, in 1868.

Very young he was working with his family in the cane fields. At the age of 18, he moved to New Orleans where he worked in various jobs for a couple of years before returning home in 1948 when, inspired by Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker, he began taking guitar lessons from a cousin.

Tomcat Courtney - Downsville Blues (2008)

→ Thanks to L. C.

The nine lives of the Tomcat

Another vintage low-down bluesman who didn't record a first album before old age. Tomcat Courtney's debut studio work and only nationally released opus, came out when he was… 79 ! Earlier, he had only self-released live recordings on cassette or CD for sell after his gigs.

“The kind of blues I’m playin’, now they call it Texas style”, he explained. “But we called it the country blues, you know… It’s the style of picking, with your fingers and all that. It wasn’t any bottle-necking, like Mississippi blues.”

Harry "Big Daddy" Hypolite - Louisiana Country Boy (2001)

→ Thanks to L. C.

The miraculous album

A really magnificent haunting blues voice for a beautiful album coming from ― and catching you by ― the guts. Despite the obvious talent of Harry Hypolite, it's totally unbelievable that this superb recording which exhales the favor of the muddy waters of the bayous is his first and only solo opus, recorded while he was 63 !

Born in April 1937 in St. Martinville, Louisiana, in a Creole French speaking family, Hypolite did not learn English until going to school at the age of 6. He had a rough youth, obliged to drop out after the fourth grade to go out and work : from about 12 years old he cut sugar cane, dug sweet potatoes or picked okra and cotton.

"Turn, turn, turn (To Everything There Is A Season)"...

Dedicated to Marcus aka Blue deVille

Chorus : 

To Everything (Turn, Turn, Turn)

There is a season (Turn, Turn, Turn)

And a time for every purpose, under Heaven

Pete Seeger

A time to be born, a time to die

A time to plant, a time to reap

A time to kill, a time to heal

A time to laugh, a time to weep

[Chorus]

Requiem for a friend

Marcus famous avatar

R.I.P. Marcus...
His real name was Marcus. He was from Belgium. In 2015, he created a rich music blog where he always posted excellent albums, often impossible to find elsewhere.
“Blues, Rock, Country & Bluegrass, Cajun & Zydeco, Soul…”, announced the header.
A real Ali BaBa's cave !

Mitch Woods - A Tip Of The Hat To Fats, Live From The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival 2018 (2019)

→ Thanks to my unique partners...

Jumpin' the boogie !

Things are not always what they seem to be : on the seventeen tracks of this live homage to Fats Domino, only nine are music, the other eight are usual live patter and banter. But the real surprise is elsewhere : this tribute doesn't feature any song written by Domino ! Not a single one !

The album includes only titles “covered” by Domino, some previously sung by Wynonie Harris or Jackie Brenston, as well as two Woods originals with a Domino mood (though one is rather an adaptation). In fact more than a tribute to Fats, it's a tribute to Nawlins piano and pianists by a pianist who's not from the Crescent City. But of course this tribute couldn't take place anywhere else but in New Orleans, Domino's home town, at the prestigious Jazz & Heritage Festival 2018 which took place only five months after Domino's passing.

Chris “BadNews” Barnes (with Steve Guyger & Gary Hoey) – Live on the Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise #32 (2019)

→ Thanks to my unique partners...

Soft hokum but great showmanship

Comic actor, stand-up comedian and TV comedy sketches writer, Chris “BadNews” Barnes is also a blues singer and harmonica player, renowned for being one of the few contemporary devotee to hokum blues (read below). Here, live on the Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise, in February 2019 in the Eastern Caribbean, he works in a softer mode, though. A restraint imposed by the LRBC artistic management ?

Except his original “Hungry & Horny”, with a really funny introduction, most of his repertoire on this Live is made of efficient less explicit covers specially designed to make the cruisers dance.

Albert Cummings - Blues Make Me Feel So Good : The Blind Pig Years (3-CD Box) (2015)

→ Thanks to my unique partners...

Big boss man

A scorching guitar in the hands of a clean cut building contractor ! That could be a hasty portrait of Albert Cummings illustrating the saying : don't judge a book by its cover. Or an album as it happens. The fact is that he was not really destined to become a guitar hero, but a businessman in the construction industry.

Born in 1967, in Williamstown (Massachusetts), 56 today, Albert Cummings was raised in a musical family (his dad played guitar and fiddle in local bands). At 12, unable to wrap his hand around a guitar's neck, he took up the banjo and would have become at best a talented bluegrass player, but life has some funny tricks in stock.

Monster Mike Welch - These Blues Are Mine (1996), MMW & Mike Ledbetter - Right Place, Right Time (feat. Laura Chavez) (2017), MMW - Nothing But Time (2023)

→ Thanks to my unique partners...

Six-string wizard teenager

On his debut album “These Blues Are Mine” (1996), Welch had just turned… 16 ! Already the chops of a veteran guitar-slinger and the voice of an adult. Hardly believable !

When SRV died in the crash of his helicopter in August 1990, the boy, born in 1979, had celebrated his 11th birthday two months earlier and was already honing his skills at local blues jams in his native Boston. Yes, Boston… though when you hear his guitar you'd rather think of Dallas or Austin ! At these blues jams he had the lucky opportunity to play and learn from such experienced elders as Ronnie Earl, Luther "Guitar Junior" Johnson, Matt Murphy or Paul Rishell.

Dom Flemons - Black Cowboys (2018) / Prospect Hill-The American Songster Omnibus (2014, 2-CD reissue 2020)

→ Thanks to my unique partners...

Journey through the past

Dom Flemons is a unique musician. Self-baptized “the American Songster” since his eponymous 2009 solo album featuring early American roots music styles (blues, folk, cowboy songs, old-time banjo, jug band, fife and drum...) while he was still a member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops band (1), he extended his musical approach to ethno-musicology and history of music on his next ambitious projects : "Prospect Hill" (2014) and "Black Cowboys" (2018). "Prospect Hill" was extended to a 2-CD set featuring new material in 2020.

The Carolina Chocolate Drops : l. to r., Dom
Flemons, Rhiannon Giddens & Justin Robinson

Half Afro-American, half of Mexican descent, Flemons was born in Phoenix, Arizona. He studied English at Northern Arizona University, in Flagstaff, where he met Súle Greg Wilson, a local percussionist, banjo player and folklorist who became a mentor to him.

In the end of 2005, Flemons and Wilson, with Rhiannon Giddens and Justin Robinson formed the old-time string band, The Carolina Chocolate Drops, based in Durham, North Carolina. While active in the band, Flemons was leading a parallel solo career, but in the end of 2013 he left the group to pursue his "Prospect Hill" project.