Harrison Kennedy - Shame The Devil (201

> The album

Northern man, southern blues

A catching album from a catching blues artist. Harrison Kennedy has an Irish name, is from Canada and sings like an old Mississippi country bluesman. A guitar, banjo or mandolin and a harmonica, with spoons percussion from time to time, is all he needs. Able to reach a high pitch at times, Kennedy has crafted a very captivating vocal and musical signature, far from what he was singing in the million albums selling Detroit soul group Chairmen Of The Board in the early seventies, or with Marvin Gay as a guest !

About the blues he confessed one day : "Blues has always been deeply anchored in me. Before the abolition, some of my slave ancestors ran away from southern plantations up to Canada, but a large part of my family stayed in Tennessee. When I used to visit them in my youth, I was always deeply moved by the soul of this music who had helped them to survive. Contrary to what most people think, blues is not a sad music, it helps to overcome sorrow and hardship."

His songs are the exact illustration of this philosophy. Listening to Kennedy is a voyage deep down in the old South, from the farms of the Mississippi Hills and the Delta cotton fields to the damp Louisiana lands. He's a gifted songwriter and his meaningful and sometimes caustic lyrics are carried by his roots vocal texture.

His guitar, banjo or mandolin and his harmonica keep down-home, at the service of his words. Some songs are rhythmically enriched with a bass and less frequently, with tasty and discreet organ or accordion lines, or in a quite modern way by a (wah-wah) electric guitar in the background.

The songs featured in this collection are varied and imaginative but keeping a musical unity. The only wrong note of the album is the final track "You Don't Know Me". It doesn't fit at all and should have been removed in my opinion.

The same year this album came out (2011), Harrison Kennedy reached second place among 83 participants at the Blues Foundation's International Blues Challenge, in the solo artist category. Given his great talent, this is anything but surprising. What's hard to figure out is how he didn't win !

A video choice

• Toronto Blues Society's Pioneer Profile Series, H. K. in conversation with 2021 Juno nominee Julian : https://youtu.be/atGwehw-NRY
• At the Winterfest in Hamilton, Ontario, in 2021 : https://youtu.be/cUIW-oQfDA4
• In the "Who is" epicReel series : https://youtu.be/9U7Qy7wTwe4
• At the 2013 Orangeville Blues and Jazz festival : https://youtu.be/KDitoHTJzhI
• At the 2014 Blues Music Awards Live on Blues Radio International : https://youtu.be/9Y53e1cPEj0
• Performing "Shame The Devil" at the Club Belvedere in Thorold, 2011 : https://youtu.be/8DXayQJjLeo 
• On Talkin Blues Video Podcast, episode 43 : https://youtu.be/T1fdhdTXW0 
• At the 10th Anniversary of the Waterfront Blues Festival in Woodbine Park, 2014 (Harrison Kennedy - vocals & guitar/"Nappy" Keith Lindsay - keyboards/Justin "The Kid" Dunlop : bass) : https://youtu.be/cQuSfiQM2-8 
• At the 2011 Underground Railroad Music Festival in Drayton, Ohio : https://youtu.be/01CXFlLtNgQ 
• At the "McHattie for Mayor" Fundraiser in 2014 : https://youtu.be/IHb0xdS10Qk
  
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T-Bone Singleton - 1996 Walkin' The Floor

> The album

 The swamp blues minister

Born in New Orleans in 1952, Terry R. Singleton had settled very early in Baton Rouge, where he died in 2005. A bluesman and a part-time minister, he was deeply influenced in his youth by gospel, but also by South Louisiana blues veterans like Silas Hogan, Tabby Thomas or Arthur 'Guitar' Kelley that he heard playing at street corners and in local blues bar-joints, and by other regional performers like Slim Harpo or Lightnin' Slim that he could listen to on local radios.

In the mid-1970s he joined Buddy Powell's Condors as guitarist of the band. A few years later, Powell left to take the musical direction of the Gloryland Baptist Church. Singleton followed his steps, stopped playing and chose to devote to his religious faith instead, until being ordained a minister.
During this ministry, Singleton faced a moral dilemma that kept him away from the blues : according to the old obscurantist sanctimonious bias that decreed that blues was evil and "baptized" it "devil's music", it was not tolerated by religious congregations, unlike gospel, of course, and even jazz. Singleton had to choose between the blues or his evangelical duties. "On a personal point of view, I don't see any reason not to play blues, but as a minister I can't do it. My congregation judges the blues as a sinful music though it's the closest musical genre to gospel you can find !", he explained to Alison Pringle who wrote the CD's liner notes.

Fortunately for us, the demon of the blues finally caught him back ! Produced by Larry Garner, "Walkin' The Floor" (the album) gathers ten of the many songs written by Singleton during the previous decade, when he could not officially play blues, but went on doing it privately.
The first thing that struck me is that Singleton is not only a good singer but a really excellent guitar master putting out a seducing cool, aerial and clean sound. The second one is the large use of a church-sounding organ certainly inherited from his active church period. And the third is the opening track of the album, the surprising very jazzy "Sunset Blues". In fact not so surprising considering what he says above.
"Walkin' The Floor" (the song) is a fast rocker with up-front piano and a guitar solo inspired by Chuck Berry and the likes.
On the eight and a half-minute "Reconcile", a slow pulse blues with Oscar Davis' nice intervention on harmonica, Singleton's lyrics may well be double-entendre. The "reconciliation" he's singing about apparently concerns his relation with a woman but may as well refer to the holy man returning to the blues, after years of abstinence.
In the excellent "Boogie Train", the guitar line reminds me of a familiar sound… Oh yes, the swampy sound of Creedence Clearwater Revival in their early records !
After the very gospel "Light In A Dark Place", Singleton delivers a six-minute long blues, "Gonna Make Me Cry", punctuated with nice guitar lightnings in the manner of B.B. King. The following "Let Me Be Your Man", another rocking track, again features the same exciting guitar sound. Same feeling on the final two tracks, "Tryna Get Along" and "Power Up", where Singleton shouts his love of the blues.

This album is a real good surprise. Singleton's guitar mastery and personal sound, his songwriting, his vocal signature are exciting, and I bet not many people would guess about his religious side ! The late T-Bone Singleton will certainly be remembered as a bluesman not as a pastor !

Video
> T-Bone Singleton at the St. Louis Blues Festival in 1990  : https://youtu.be/BAmsJ9UvpFQ

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Doyle Bramhall - Fitchburg Street (2003)

> The album 

SRV risen from the dead ? No, his mentor Doyle Bramhall !

Miracle ! Stevie Ray was not dead ! Not in 2003 in any case. Isn't it his voice and his good old Stratocaster on this album ? Of course not, but the similarities are puzzling. I am grateful to Lou Cypher, from Blue Dragon, for drawing my attention on the fact that originally it was not Bramhall who was influenced by SRV, but the contrary.
Doyle Bramhall is closely linked  to SRV : he played with him, he wrote songs for him, and both Dallas-born knew each other from their teens because Bramhall was close to SRV's elder brother Jimmie Vaughan. Actually, in the 1970s, in Austin, Bramhall and Jimmie took young Stevie Ray first as bass player in their band Texas Storm, then as the lead guitarist of their Nightcrawlers. In these years SRV got his vocal style from Bramhall, and more generally the distinctive sound that sticks like a trademark on his whole discography.

"Fitchburg Street", named from the West Dallas road where Bramhall spent his youth, is his second solo album, nine years after "Bird Nest on the Ground" in 1994. It's a rich, strong, typically contemporary Texas blues work featuring mostly covers of old blues and soul material revisited through this special "Bramhall sound" that influenced SRV so much.
Half the tracks are borrowed from bluesmen like John Lee Hooker, Jimmy Reed and Howlin' Wolf, or from less famous authors (read below). Only one song is co-signed by Bramhall : the famous "Life By The Drop", originally written for SRV and featured in a more acoustic version on "The Sky Is Crying", revisited here as a solid electric song.

John Lee Hooker's "Dimples" opens the album in a heavy mid-tempo version that shows again how much the Bramhall sound inspired SRV. The outstanding "Changes", a Buddy Miles song recorded by Hendrix' Band of Gypsys, is a great tribute to Hendrix (like SRV did with his version of "Voodoo Chile") : great voice, great sound, great guitar by Bramhall's son, Doyle Bramhall II, and Pat Boyack  !
Bramhall and his casting of excellent fellow musicians revisit with his special style some soul material like "I'd Rather Be (Blind, Crippled & Crazy)", originally recorded by O.V. Wright, and "That's How Strong My Love Is", or blues like Jimmy Reed's "Baby What You Want Me To Do", " It Ain't No Use", and the second Hooker cover, "Maudie", again featuring a good lead guitar by Pat Boyack. The last two tracks are Howlin'Wolf's classics, "Fourty Four" and "Sugar (Where'd You Get Your Sugar From) " always stamped with that same Bramhall sound brand.

Apart from Bramhall himself, drummer and producer of this opus, and his excellent guitar wizard of a son, the other "star" of this album is indeed that full solid heavy sound put out by the band in its different configurations, a sound that Bramhall with his long time accomplice Jimmie Vaughan, contributed greatly to forge. So you can bet he knows all about producing this "new" Texas blues sound, popularized by SRV, and so much imitated nowadays.
Unfortunately Bramhall died of heart failure in 2010, at 62, twenty years after his famous "disciple" who brought the "Bramhall sound" to summits.

Who wrote what
01 - Dimples : James. Bracken/John Lee Hooker
02 - I'd Rather Be (Blind, Crippled & Crazy) : Charles Hodges/Darryl Carter/Overton Vertis Wright
03 - Changes : G. A. Miles a.k.a Buddy Miles
04 - Life By The Drop : Barbara Logan/Doyle Bramhall
05 - That's How Strong My Love Is : Roosevelt Jamison
06 - Baby What You Want Me To Do : Jimmy Reed
07 - It Ain't No Use : Dan Hollinger/Gary Levone Anderson a.k.a Gary U.S. Bonds/Jerry Williams Jr aka Swamp Dogg.
08 - Maudie : John Lee Hooker
09 - Fourty Four : Chester Burnett a.k.a Howlin' Wolf
10 - Sugar (Where'd You Get Your Sugar From) : Chester Burnett a.k.a Howlin' Wolf

Who played what
- Vocals, Drums, Percussion : Doyle Bramhall (all #)
- Drums : Chris Hunter (# 2, 8)
- Bass : Jim Milan, Mike Judge (# 1, 3, 9), Roscoe Beck (# 2, 4, 8, 10)
- Guitar, Bass : Robin Syler (# 10)
- Acoustic Guitar : Rick Rawls (# 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8)
- Acoustic Guitar, Electric Guitar : Tom Reynolds (# 4)
- Rhythm Guitar :  Dave Sebree (# 4, 10)
- Guitar : Doyle Bramhall II (# 1, 3, 5, 9), Pat Boyack (# 2, 8), Dru Webber (# 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8), Johnny Peebles (# 5)
- Bodhrán : Dave Ferman (# 3)
- Harmonica : Gary Primich (# 1, 10)
- Keyboards : Lewis Stephens, Riley Osbourn (# 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8)
- Piano : Lewis Stephens (# 5), Riley Osbourn (# 7, 8, 9)
- Tenor Saxophone : Paul Klemperer
- Trumpet : Wayne Jackson
- Backing Vocals (# 2) : Susanne Abbott & Tina Rosenzweig

Videos
> At the Beale Street Music Festival in Memphis, 1996 (67mn) - Doyle Bramhall : vocals, drums / Zonder Kennedy : guitar / Riley Osborne : keyboardss / Jim Milan : bass - featuring Andrew Love (tenor sax) & Wayne Jackson (trumpet) from The Memphis Horns: https://youtu.be/5Dp3PQkT030 -
> Doyle Bramhall (drums) with Casper Rawls (Fender Telecaster), Nick Curran (Gretch), Scott Nelson (bass) at Blues on the Green in Austin, 2008 (61mn): https://youtu.be/HxbL-poAask
> Doyle Bramhall, Robin Sylar (guitar) and Mike Judge (bass) at Schooners, in Dallas, 1991: https://youtu.be/apQqMhkTNxE
> Doyle Bramhall, Casper Rawls, Jim Milan and Mike Keller at the Fort Worth Main Street Arts Festival, in 2011: https://youtu.be/v_swMDd5hAk
> Doyle Bramhall & band at the Vancouver Island Musicfest 2005 : https://youtu.be/OarYtW9dsT4 & https://youtu.be/l7RCm-gL02E

Jimmy Rogers All-stars Blues Band - 1999 Blues Blues Blues (1999)

> The album

Sweet Home Chicago or the bluesmen's bluesman

I'm generally suspicious of albums featuring a casting of prestigious guests. It often smells (not to say stinks) commercial concerns. This was probably the case for this Jimmy Rogers opus. Venerated by his fellow musicians, Rogers was rather ignored by the public. So in 1997 a gang of admirers agreed that this should change : Jeff Healey, Eric Clapton, Mick Jagger & Keith Richards, Taj Mahal, Lowell Fulson, Stephen Stills, ex-Led Zeppelin Jimmy Page & Robert Plant ! Not really a bad gathering ! And contrary to my suspicions, this is really a great album ! Unfortunately J. Rogers died a few months after the recording sessions and never saw the album, published in 1999.

First, I love Jimmy Rogers voice which has a John Lee Hooker-like deep grain. Second, the recording and mixing are perfect, producing a rich enticing sound where each voice and instrument's intervention is clear. Third, the long second presentation text by George Graham, not featured above but present in the "Info" file of the download, is so complete that there's not much I can add. I advise all to read it carefully.

This great album is a concentrate of what's best in Chicago blues for the
main reason that J. Rogers was among those who forged it, particularly through his position as first guitar and composer in Muddy Waters band roughly between 1947 and 1955. He then gained his highly praised reputation among other bluesmen, including the young English blues lovers who started the famous 1960s British blues revival by giving birth to bands such as the Yardbirds, the Rolling Stones, the John Mayall's Blues Breakers and a whole lot of others.

Back to J. Rogers' influential role in the rising of Chicago Blues. For
example, the iconic classic "Sweet Home Chicago", covered by hundreds of bluesmen, was written by J. Rogers. Three other Rogers originals are featured here : "That's All Right", the famous "Ludella " and "Goin' Away Baby". "Gonna Shoot You Right Down (Boom Boom)" is a Jimmy Rogers/John Koenig/John Lee Hooker collaboration. Muddy Waters is here through two tracks, as well as Jimmy Reed, Memphis Slim, Sonny Boy Williamson and Maceo Merriweather, each on one.

On the guests side, Clapton is particularly brilliant on "Blues All Day Long" and "That's All Right". Nothing much to say about Jeff Healey on "Blow Wind Blow" : he delivers a nice guitar solo. Taj Mahal left his guitar, and choose harmonica and vocal. He is perfect on "Bright Lights Big City" and "Ludella", as is Lowell Fulson on "Ev'ry Day I Have The Blues", but the contrary would have been surprising. After all, they're at home.
The inseparable pair Jagger-Richards are so much at ease that they've been entitled to three tracks : the boogies "Trouble No More" and "Goin' Away Baby", and "Don't Start Me To Talkin'". Despite his easily identified nasal vocal texture, Jagger knows how to sing the blues, no doubt about it, and he shares vocals with J. Rogers without any inhibition.
The case of Stephen Stills is interesting because this excellent guitar player hasn't been much devoted to blues since the cult 1969 Super Session album with Al Kooper and Mike Bloomfield. But he shows here that he hasn't lost his blues abilities both in singing and on guitar, bringing a very personal distorted sound on "Sweet Home Chicago" and "Worried Life Blues".
Finally is the puzzling case of Jimmy Page and Robert Plant on "Gonna Shoot You Right Down". If the first is excellent as usual but discreet, the second causes the only disappointment of the album. Robert Plant is a fantastic singer, probably one of the very best in rock, but blues is not really his cup of tea, it seems, and he doesn't sound at the right place.
The two excellent harmonica specialists, Carey Bell and Kim Wilson, and great pianist Johnnie Johnson are really superb and the album wouldn't be the same without them. Last, Jimmy D. Lane, credited on guitar, is of course Jimmy Rogers' son. He made a career for himself and recorded some really interesting rocking Hendrix-influenced blues albums. But that's a different story…

Who wrote what  ?
1-Blow Wind Blow : McKinley Morganfield a.k.a Muddy Waters
2-Blues All Day Long : James A. Lane a.k.a Jimmy Rogers
3-Trouble No More : Muddy Waters
4-Bright Lights Big City : Jimmy Reed
5-Ev'ry Day I Have The Blues : Memphis Slim (as Peter Chatman)
6-Sweet Home Chicago : Jimmy Rogers
7-Don't Start Me To Talkin' : Rice Miller a.k.a Sonny Boy Williamson
8-That's All Right : Jimmy Rogers
9-Ludella  : Jimmy Rogers
10-Goin' Away Baby : Jimmy Rogers
11-Worried Life Blues : Maceo Merriweather
12-Gonna Shoot You Right Down : Jimmy Rogers/John Koenig/John Lee Hooker

Who did what ?
- Bass : Freddie Crawford
- Drums : Ted Harvey
- Piano : Johnnie Johnson (tracks 1 to 3, 5 to 12)
- Harmonica : Carey Bell (tracks 2, 5, 8, 12), Kim Wilson (tracks 1, 3, 6, 7, 10, 11)
- Guitar : Jimmy D. Lane, Jimmy Page (tracks 12), Keith Richards (tracks 3, 7, 10), John Koenig (tracks 4)
- Vocals : Mick Jagger (tracks 3, 7, 10, 12), Robert Plant (tracks 12)
- Vocals + Harmonica : Taj Mahal (tracks 4, 9)
- Vocals + Guitar : Eric Clapton (tracks 2, 8, 12), Jeff Healey (tracks 1), Jimmy Rogers (all tracks), Lowell Fulson (tracks 5), Stephen Stills (tracks 6, 11)

___________________

Drink Small - Does It All (2003)

> The album

The Blues Doctor

It starts with an old piano sounding like it's coming straight from one of these old times downtown Chicago, New Orleans or Charleston sleazy joints. Suddenly surges a deep voice singing "I Wanna Make Love" ! On the next song, an old steel guitar rings, sounding as old-time as the piano. The guy is laughing while singing his stories. It all sounds down-home rustic, it often sounds gospel, it sounds different, funny and tragic at the same time, it sounds... Drink Small.

With such a name (his real name ― how could his parents name him "Drink" ?!) the guy couldn't be anything but unique. His unusually profound voice takes you while his fingers run on the piano keys in a hazardous race sometimes close to the hitch of a wrong note ("Bingo Lover") or screech on the guitar strings.

His songs, most of them self-penned and sometimes full of humor, mix Piedmont blues, juke-joint piano, ragtime, boogie or gospel, often punctuated with jokes and laughter. He explains how he got his moniker : “They call me the Blues Doctor ‘cause I can play all the styles : bottleneck, ragtime, Piedmont blues, Chicago blues. I can tear them up. I am the Blues Doctor.” On this album, he is alone on piano or guitar, only backed sometimes by a small female choir.

Born in 1933 in Bishopville in South Carolina, right in the Piedmont region, Drink "The Blues Doctor" Small is a living legend in his native area. He started his musical life singing gospel before turning to blues at the end of the 1950s. He slowly lost his eyesight from old age and became blind in 2014, but the man still went on performing, as can be seen on some of the videos listed below. In between, he recorded eight albums , and appeared on several regional blues compilations. "Does It All" in 2003 is the sixth one. Not so small, isn't it ? 

 

Video interviews & lives
> A short interview around 2007 : https://youtu.be/MSBREWbeMfI
> On Fox TV about the Sweet Palmetto Blues Festival in 2012 : https://youtu.be/rEbnkB7zdKg
> Guitar picking demonstration by the "Blues Doctor" in his living room in 2008 : https://youtu.be/adN05Co_MXc 

 

> 86 and blind but still performing, here at the 23rd Carolina Downhome Blues Fest in 2019 : https://youtu.be/VgZfHdKJ7iE
> At the same Carolina Downhome Blues Fest in 2018 : https://youtu.be/SOdsXzSNieQ
> At 85 at the Festival of Discovery in Greenwood, SC, in 2018 : https://youtu.be/OUaHq4JTK0U
> At the South Carolina Pecan Festival in 2017 (43mn) : https://youtu.be/fwTrjUbXyJI
> Remembering his friend James Brown, University of SC, in 2015 : https://youtu.be/kyKnSIn8Iwo
> At a school program in Columbia, SC, in 2015 : https://youtu.be/8L-R6q2hN1o
> Celebrating his 82nd birthday with musical friends & guests at the 145 Club in Winnsboro, SC, in 2013 (39mn) : https://youtu.be/nNTMoi12Dy8
> At Chickie Wah Wah in New Orleans in 2013 : https://youtu.be/ovGv4ZbO_5A
> At the Jus Blues Music Awards in 2013 : https://youtu.be/sbidyd6A2iA
> At the 145 Club in Winnsboro, SC :
   - In 2011 : https://youtu.be/hXyXBv5uVHs
   - In 2012  : https://youtu.be/BA-y2v0K1oQ
> At the Lowcountry Blues Bash in Charleston, SC, in 2012 : https://youtu.be/22EbCZrtQWE
> At the Jubilee Festival of Heritage in Columbia, SC, in 2011 : https://youtu.be/5PuoWpsNOoM
> At the Hunter Gatherer in 2009 : https://youtu.be/ncXj1fL9LKU

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Hazmat Modine – Box Of Breath (2019)

> The album

Hazmat extravagapizza

This is one of the most unusual stuff I've heard lately ! The recipe is simple, it's like an extravagant improvised home-made pizza : take a blues-based pastry, open your musical fridge, look what's in stock, take some of each stuff you think will fit together, put what you chose on the pastry and bake in the oven. Then you give it a strange name, why not Hazmat Modine, it sounds good, and the deal (or rather the pizza) is foregone !
The "Hazmat Modine" is a cross-cultural dish made of blues, R'n'B, brass jazz (preferably eastern Europe Balkans and klezmer style) and Afro-beat rhythms, with a pinch of (Middle) Eastern music, baked with an approach often categorized as "ethnic jazz" or "world fusion".

A look at the band members profile helps to understand the various influences that each one brought to the group. Wade Schuman, the leader, is originally a painter who loved jazz and set himself to become a harmonica blower and gritty singer, and co-writes most of the songs with Erik Della Penna. This one, banjo and guitar specialist, has a more folk background, but also works for television and on musicals. Tuba player Joseph Daley is said to be one of the best American ”Lower Brass" specialists. Canadian born Patrick Simard, in charge of drums and percussions, has studied Moroccan Gnaoua music and traditional drumming in Benin, Senegal or Cuba. Pam Fleming (trumpet, flugelhorn) has worked with reggae artists like Burning Spear and Dennis Brown, as well as several klezmer bands. Steve Elson (baritone and tenor saxophone, clarinet, flute and duduk ― an oboe from Armenian origin) has more a R'n'B background. Israel native Reut Regev is famous as a trombone specialist. The guests include Balla Kouyate from Mali on balafon* (here present on half of the tracks) or violinist Charlie Burnham, an old accomplice of modern jazz guitarist James Blood Ulmer.
Such a musical melting pot couldn't be from anywhere but a cosmopolitan city like New York. But none being a prophet in his own country, Hazmat Modine has probably toured abroad more than in the US, and in doing so, ingested and digested many forms of music encountered on the road.

Their songs are in perpetual motion, all but schmaltzy, and never end the way you expect. For example the first track, "Crust Of Bread", starts like a kind of "afrobeat brass country blues" with a bubbling King Sunny Ade-like guitar and balafon rhythm, before evolving towards a R'n'B and klezmer thing with horns and even a Herbie Mann style flute.
Banjo appears on "Box Of Breath", a real hypnotic Hill country blues, sprinkled from time to time with riffs from the R'n'B/klezmer horn section. "Be There" a R'n'B with harmonica explodes into a trumpet and tuba final, while "Hoarder" sounds like a "Pink Panther"-like tune played by a New Orleans funeral parade brass band.
"Lonely Man" has a definite African twist, "Get Get Out" a klezmer one. "Lazy Time", "In Our Home" and the "Ain't Going That Way" lament are blues mixed with jazzy klezmer horns spiced with blues harmonica. The funeral march rhythmed blues "Dark River" puts Shuman's harmonica up front. Back to African beat with "Delivery Man" which ends up in a definite klezmer explosion. The false last track, "Extra-Deluxe-Supreme", is a funky half spoken piece. Finally, the real last, supposedly hidden, track "Sound Check In China" was recorded in China as explained in the title on Shuman's cellphone during a tour of the band in the Great Wall empire.

Hazmat Modine is a unique blues/afrojazz/klezmer experience. You have to hear it ! Then it's up to you to decide if you like it or not...

Hazmat Modine Live
> At the New Morning in Paris (France) in 2016 (27 mn) - With Wade Schuman (harmonica, pan flute, vocals), Erik Della Penna (guitar, vocals), Michael Gomez (guitar), Steve Elson (saxophone), Mazz Swift (violin, vocals), Pam Fleming (trumpet), Jon Sass (tuba), Kevin Garcia (drums) : https://youtu.be/BVFd1ZXgvs0
> In Ukraine at the Kyiv Klezmer fest 2019 (73 mn) : https://youtu.be/12IF_SZd_As
> At the Kantine in Köln (Germany) in 2014 : https://youtu.be/CUzU5EcFB90

 * About Balla Kouyaté
- Balla Kouyaté and the balafon : https://youtu.be/EJvQ4T7YoUg
- Balla and children : https://youtu.be/GHj0fax5ylY
- With Hazmat Modine in 2020 (47 sec) : https://youtu.be/AUoRmQtTYGE 

Who plays what (tracks detailed credits)
01 - Crust Of Bread (4:26) Balafon – Balla Kouyate / Baritone Saxophone, Tenor Saxophone, Contra-Alto Clarinet – Steve Elson / Bread & Crust Percussion – Kevin Garcia / Trombone – Reut Regev / Trumpet – Pam Fleming / Tuba – Joseph Daley / Vocals, Fipple Flute, Bread & Crust Percussion – Wade Schuman / Vocals, Guitar – Erik Della Penna
02 - Box Of Breath (3:56) Balafon – Balla Kouyate / Drums – Tim Keiper / Percussion – Patrick Simard / Tenor Saxophone – Steve Elson / Trombone – Reut Regev Trumpet – Pam Fleming / Tuba – Joseph Daley / Violin – Mazz Swift / Vocals, Banjo Guitar – Erik Della Penna / Vocals, Resonator Guitar – Wade Schuman / Breath Orchestration – Scott Lehrer
03 - Be There (4:55) Drums – Tim Keiper / Percussion – Patrick Simard / Tenor Saxophone – Steve Elson / Trombone – Reut Regev / Trumpet – Pam Fleming / Tuba – Joseph Daley / Violin – Charlie Burnham / Vocals – Mazz Swift / Vocals, Guitar – Erik Della Penna / Vocals, Harmonica – Wade Schuman
04 - Hoarder (5:39) Balafon – Balla Kouyate / Drums – Tim Keiper / Tenor Saxophone – Steve Elson / Trombone – Reut Regev / Trumpet – Pam Fleming / Tuba – Joseph Daley / Guitar, Banjo Guitar – Erik Della Penna / Diatonic Harmonica, Vocals – Wade Schuman
05 - Lonely Man (5:46) Balafon – Balla Kouyate / Drums – Tim Keiper / Percussion – Patrick Simard / Tenor Saxophone – Steve Elson / Trombone – Reut Regev / Trumpet – Pam Fleming / Tuba – Joseph Daley / Viola – Charlie Burnham / Vocals – Mazz Swift / Diatonic Harmonica, Vocals – Wade Schuman / Vocals, Guitar – Erik Della Penna
06 - Get Get Out (4:34) Drums – Tim Keiper / Idiophone [Daxophone] – Mark Stewart / Tenor Saxophone – Steve Elson / Trombone – Reut Regev / Trumpet – Pam Fleming / Tuba – Joseph Daley / Vocals, Percussion – Patrick Simard / Diatonic Harmonica, Vocals – Wade Schuman / Vocals, Guitar, Banjo Guitar – Erik Della Penna
07 - Lazy Time (3:48) Drums – Tim Keiper / Percussion – Patrick Simard / Tenor Saxophone – Steve Elson / Trombone – Reut Regev / Trumpet – Pam Fleming / Tuba – Joseph Daley / Vocals, Guitar – Erik Della Penna / Vocals, Harmonica, Guitar, Human Beatbox & Beatbox Bass – Son Of Dave / Diatonic Harmonica, Vocals – Wade Schuman
08 - In Our Home (4:41) Drums – Tim Keiper / Percussion – Patrick Simard / Tenor Saxophone – Steve Elson / Trombone – Reut Regev / Trumpet – Pam Fleming / Tuba – Joseph Daley / Violin, Vocals – Mazz Swift / Banjo Guitar, Vocals, Guitar – Erik Della Penna / Diatonic Harmonica – Wade Schuman
09 - Ain't Going That Way (4:34) Balafon – Balla Kouyate / Drums, Trash Percussion – Tim Keiper / Tenor Saxophone – Steve Elson / Trombone – Reut Regev / Trumpet – Pam Fleming / Tuba – Joseph Daley / Vocals – Mazz Swift, Patrick Simard / Banjo Guitar, Vocals, Guitar – Erik Della Penna / Diatonic Harmonica, Vocals – Wade Schuman
10 - Dark River (3:11) Balafon – Balla Kouyate / Drums – Tim Keiper / Percussion – Kevin Garcia / Trumpet – Pam Fleming / Banjo Guitar, Vocals – Erik Della Penna / Percussion, Solo Tuned Harmonica – Wade Schuman
11 - Delivery Man (4:27) Balafon – Balla Kouyate / Baritone Saxophone, Contra-Alto Clarinet – Steve Elson / Drums, Percussion – Tim Keiper / Trombone – Reut Regev / Trumpet – Pam Fleming / Tuba – Joseph Daley / Banjo Guitar, Vocals – Erik Della Penna / Solo Tuned Harmonica – Wade Schuman
12 - Extra-Deluxe-Supreme (6:02) Contra-Alto Clarinet, Baritone Saxophone, Tenor Saxophone – Steve Elson / Drums – Tim Keiper / Percussion – Patrick Simard / Trombone – Reut Regev / Trumpet – Pam Fleming / Diatonic Harmonica, Vocals – Wade Schuman / Vocals, Guitar – Erik Della Penna
13 - Sound Check In China (hidden track) (3:11)  Recorded by Wade Schuman on cellphone at SNPAC Theater, Xian, China, on Oct. 19, 2018. Tuba - Joseph Daley / Banjo - Erik Della Penna / Harmonica - Wade Schuman / Drums - Patrick Simard

Added background noises recorded on cellphone in India, except #13.
All tracks written by Wade Schuman & Erik Della Penna, except track 7, Lazy Time, written by Wade Schuman & Benjamin Darvill.
Label : Jaro – JARO 4342-2 (Jaro Medien GmbH, Germany)
Issued on May 10, 2019
Copyright © Jaro Medien GmbH

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James Armstrong - Got It Goin' On (2000)

> The album

The recovery album

James Armstrong is among these post-war born bluesmen who carry on the blues spirit of their elders with real inspiration and mastery. Often too hastily compared to Robert Cray, Armstrong, now 64, recorded the present album at 43. This third opus could have never seen the light though.

In the spring of 1997, some time after the issue of his first album, the excellent "Sleeping With A Stranger" (1), while he was going to start a tour in support of his album, Armstrong and one of his young sons were very badly injured by a mentally ill man who broke in their home. Stabbed in his left shoulder, Armstrong suffered a "permanent nerve damage" (2) that kept him away from his guitar for several months. Fortunately, with strong will, help and reeducation, he managed to overcome his incapacity and play again. For our greatest pleasure !

While his second album recorded after the tragic events was still ominously titled "Dark Night", it looks like he chose the present album's first and eponymous song "Got It Goin' On" (one of the few he didn't write), as an optimistic reference to winning his long recovering fight.

Author or co-author of 8 of the 11 songs, Armstrong writes and plays an authentic medium tempo blues with a smooth swing maybe inherited from his jazz guitarist father. His guitar technique, often in slide mode, is subtly efficient, without any attempt of over-flashiness, all in self-control and always to the point. Like his guitar, his voice texture perfectly fits his songs.

This album is greatly built and neatly produced : each of the 11 songs, carefully chosen, deserves being present, there's no padding with unwarranted material, each has its own musical identity, and Armstrong masters the art of starting most of his songs with an efficient little riff of his own.

"Pennies And Picks" is cleverly structured around a Beatles' "Come Together" basis, while "Another Dream" features a really beautiful soulful guitar solo, as well as "Love Will Make You Do Wrong". The funky side is not forgotten with "2 Sides" and "Mr. B's", neither the jazzy swinging tempo with "Beat Up By Love" and "I'll Learn Some Time". Even more classical blues like "Shut My Eyes", "Likes Her Lovin'" and "Lucky Guy" are tagged with their own personal Armstrong trademark.

He is the kind of bluesman who makes you say : I want more. Long live James Armstrong !

(1) If you missed it, you can find it here (register and ask for a proper link in the Comments section).

(2) The full story

On April 28, 1997 at 8 a.m., a friend of Armstrong's next-door neighbor, entered Armstrong's apartment without permission. "I was on the floor playing with my two sons ― they were 9 months and 2 ½", Armstrong recalls. "The guy just walked in and I said, 'What the hell are you doing? Get out of my house'."
Armstrong, afraid for his children's safety, immediately picked up the phone and began calling 911. As he was making the call, he turned around to find the assailant running at him with a knife in his hand. The attacker stabbed Armstrong in his left shoulder/neck area.
"At this point I just tried to protect myself and protect my sons", Armstrong says. "I just fought the best I could. I figured if I could lead him outside, he would leave my boys alone."
But his plan didn't work. The assailant went right for Armstrong's older son. He picked him up and threw him over the second-floor balcony.
By the time the ordeal was over, Armstrong had been stabbed three times and his son had suffered a skull fracture. (borrowed from The Mercury News).
Also on JA's web site, Bio page : http://jarmblues.com

James Armstrong dicography
- Sleeping with a Stranger, 1995 (HighTone Records)
- Dark Night, 1998 (HighTone Records)
- Got It Goin' On, 2000 (HighTone Records)
- Blues At The Border, 2011 (Catfood Records)
- Guitar Angels, 2014 (Catfood Records)
- Blues Been Good to Me, 2017 (Catfood Records)

James Armstrong live
> Live at the famed Don Odells Legends Studio, 2017 : here
> A 1-hour concert in Belgium, 2017 : here
> A 36-mn appearance at the University of Maryland, 2018 : here
> Live at Bluestage club, Michigan, 2019 : here
> In Spain at Rock and Blues Zaragoza, 2020 : here

Slick Ballinger - Mississippi Soul (2006)

> The album

The blues boy and the preacher

Where the hell did this guy caught such a vibrato and high pitched voice ? It reminds that of Joan Armatrading in her beginnings. Today 38, Slick Ballinger was only 21 when he recorded this album.

Though from North Carolina, this musical prodigy traveled many times to Mississippi and quickly learned all about Hill Country blues from no other than the legendary Othar 'Otha' Turner, a fife & drum band mate of Jessie Mae Hemphill. Slick lived at Otha's farm for some time in 2002 and they became very close, he the clean-cut 18 year-old kid and Otha, who was then about 94. Is it then and there that he first felt the need for religious faith  ? The fact is that the next year, after Otha's death, he moved to Como where he started to go to church often and learned to play and sing gospel while going on with his performing the blues with a small band, the Soul Blues Boyz.

In 2004, they played at the International Blues Challenge and won the second place trophy. That same year Slick was also honored with the prestigious Albert King Award as most promising guitarist. That also won them a record contract which materialized in the "Mississippi Soul" Blues Music Awards winning album two years later. He was young, he started to tour the US, Canada, Mexico, he was now famous. But a different destiny was meant for him...

"Mississippi Soul" is a damn good blues album ! A mix of traditional Delta and Hill country blues. The music boogies hard, Slick's voice is shivering and his down-home electro-acoustic guitar is rocking heavy, Blind 'Mississippi' Morris' is impressive on harmonica, and Leon Baker drumming gives it all this unique typical Mississippi Hill country boogie drum beat. But the real star is the incredible voice of this young white boy who sings as if he were an old black country blues veteran.

Slick takes full possession of covers and adaptations of traditional standards as if he created them himself. You dream you're at a country picnic, like those Otha Turner used to organize, with a band cooking hard to make people dance after the BBQ ribs, potato salad and home-made liquor.
"You Don't Love Me", "Mississippi Soul", "Juke House Blues" or "Sleeping Dogs Lie" are some of the hard-driving highlights of the album, but each track is really worth an in-depth discovery.

Comes the so-called hidden track, the hard rocking boogie “Talkin’ About Jesus”. I can't resist to quote the "religious" vision of the blues he speaks in the intro : “You know, the blues ain’t nothin’ but the trials and tribulations of what you’re going through in life. See, the old folks told me that every man down here on this earth is going to have the blues at one time or another, and that is the truth. They told me that long time ago back when the people was down in the cotton fields and tobacco fields and things, they said the blues was nothing but a gift from God down on a oppressed people. They said when He reached down and He gave these people there the ability to moan, [...] when He did that He gave them the ability to sing them blues… But right now people, we just got to give you the answer to the blues. Ain’t but one answer, and it goes something like this…”

All is said ! He soon got baptized, and a few weeks later while driving, would have been struck by the Holy Ghost. He then changed life and put his guitar, voice and musical talent to the service of the Lord, preaching and singing gospel blues (*) across the country. Not on the Chitlin' Circuit but on... the Evangelical one.

(*) For those who would like to listen to "Brother" Daniel Ballinger 2009 follow-up still rocking gospel-blues album "New Train", it's right here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkuvGDpoozo&list=OLAK5uy_nzehBCyG9wrOxO1iFsY-YyAQETlC_vvQw

I. The Blues Boy
> At the International Blues Challenge, 2004 : https://youtu.be/Y5_zYlOMdyQ
> At the North Atlantic Blues Festival, Rockland, Maine, 2005 : https://youtu.be/D4Okoiv0yno & https://youtu.be/S6D3le5xDkw
> With Billy Branch, Kenny Neal & Ronnie Baker Brooks aboard on The Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise (2015 ?) : https://youtu.be/YMquOp6-CuQ
> At BB's Lawnside BBQ, Kansas City : https://youtu.be/mk2SQw5_qhg
> "Sugar Mama Blues" live in 2006 : https://youtu.be/HkIat-GnKa4
> At the Last Call in Fort Lauderdale, Florida : https://youtu.be/DDeYJaY_sqI & https://youtu.be/eRkk4PV_ofs
> At Parrish Baker Pub, 2005 : https://youtu.be/WZh1GxlOXCk
> At The Depot Antique Mall, Oxford, Mississippi, 2015 : https://youtu.be/Q3iWWaYnP9o

II. The Preacher
> "I Want Jesus To Walk With Me" at a R. L. Boyce Picnic in Como, Mississippi, 2017 : https://youtu.be/iDdY-FbZsec
> At a religious meeting (probably 2019, an idea of what he is doing nowadays) : https://youtu.be/LCsyyxRjPSc
> Performing "Morning Train" at a church assembly (the boogie's still there) : https://youtu.be/zA3uONg5ysQ?
> Giving his testimony at the First Apostolic Church, Knoxville, Tennessee, part 1 &2 : https://youtu.be/1XxtFBHF-xk & https://youtu.be/a9II8_QWo6c
> Performing "Down in Jesus' Name" and "Morning Train" at 1st Pentecostal Church, Collierville, Tennessee, 2009  (low sound quality) : https://youtu.be/ABj5M_cEH5w
> Singing "Old Ship Of Zion" at Victory Church in New Albany, Mississippi : https://youtu.be/JxMkr0wXz1I
> "Brother" Ballinger in church, Roxboro, North Carolina, 2014 : https://youtu.be/2Z92H4R3hq0

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The John Slaughter Blues Band – A New Coat Of Paint (1992)

> The album

British Blues unslaughtered

From the first notes, you know it's British blues. When the last note fades away, you know it's British blues at its best, in the tradition of Alexis Korner, John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, The Yardbirds, Savoy Brown, Eric Clapton and of course Chris Barber whose band's guitarist was...  John Slaughter. As many musicians and bands who contributed to the revival of blues by converting white European audiences and inviting numerous US black bluesmen for recording joint-ventures in London between 1965 and 1975.

The young but talented John Slaughter was part of an obscure band whose drummer knew John Mayall. In 1964, one night that Mayall's regular guitarist was sick, Slaughter was asked to replace him. He probably did well because when Chris Barber later told Mayall he was looking for a good blues guitarists, Mayall recommended John Slaughter. In the summer of 1964, John joined The Chris Barber Band and stayed there until shortly before his death in 2010, except for a 8-year break from 1978 to 1986.

At the end of the 1980s, while still playing in Barber's band, Slaughter formed his own Blues Band. They recorded two albums, this one in 1990-91, and the second one, "All That Stuff Ain't Real", in 1994. Quite a slim output which probably explains why the John Slaughter Blues Band did not reach the top of the fame bill.

Concerning the material, "A New Coat Of Paint" is an all-American affair, except for John Mayall's
"Walking On Sunset". The covered songs are signed (*) by Ray Charles, Taj Mahal (is "another coat of paint" referring to his painting his mailbox blue ? !), Riley B. King aka BB King, Sonny Boy Williamson (his "Help Me" is served here by an excellent heavy blues version), and on the fringe of blues, Tom Waits (in fact, he is the painter) and J.J. Cale (his "Don't Go To Strangers" is delivered with a great sound produced by the acoustic rhythm guitar-afro-cuban percussions blend).

Nine good and effective blues tracks led by the perfectly matched leading duo, Slaughter on lead guitar and Paul Cox on gritty vocals. The last and tenth number is a funky cover of the R'n'B "Watch Your Step" written by Ted Hawkins (not to be mixed up with Bobby Parker who wrote a song identically titled).

In the beginning of the 1990s, contrary to a common legend, British Blues was not dead. The proof is on this album...
 

Songwriting credits
Riding With The King : John Hiatt
Walking On Sunset : John Mayall
I Believe To My Soul : Ray Charles
Paint My Mailbox Blue  :Taj Mahal
Watch Your Step : Ted Hawkins
Cold Cold Feeling : Jessie Mae (Booker) Robinson
Woke Up This Morning : Riley B. King aka B.B. King & Jules Taub (Bihari)
Help Me : Sonny Boy Williamson (arr. By J. Slaughter)
Don't  Go To Strangers  :J.J Cale
New Coat Of Paint : Tom Waits

Videos
>> The John Slaughter Blues Band :
> At a 1993 concert in Tourcoing (France) :
- Part 1 : http://www.lacinematheque.fr/archivesmp4/1993-V-M-UMATIC-PRO-C9TV_0000000000478_WEB.mp4
- Part 2-1 : http://www.lacinematheque.fr/archivesmp4/1993-V-M-UMATIC-PRO-C9TV_0000000000467_WEB.mp4
- Part 2-2 : http://www.lacinematheque.fr/archivesmp4/1993-V-M-UMATIC-PRO-C9TV_0000000000471_WEB.mp4
> At the Q club, Montreux Jazz Festival 1992 : https://youtu.be/LmeXDTWRSoM
> At New Morning Club in Geneva (Switzerland) in 1994 : https://youtu.be/xIVPi2UDzT8

>> John Slaughter with the Chris Barber's Jazz and Blues Band :
- At the "Subway", Köln (Germany), in 1989 : https://youtu.be/KW_sJCGWbMk
(Lineup : Chris Barber - trombone ; Pat Halcox - trumpet, flugelhorn ; Ian Wheeler & John Crocker - tenor & alto saxophones, clarinet ; Johnny McCallum  - guitar, banjo ; John Slaughter  - guitar ; Vic Pitt - bass ; Alan "Sticky" Wicket - drums)
- With The Big Chris Barber Band at the Internationale Jazzwoche Burghausen, Wackerhalle, Germany, 2005 : https://youtu.be/QpvsQSOPuxc
(Lineup : Chris Barber - trombone, bass, vocals ; Pat Halcox – trumpet ; Mike "Magic" Henry – trumpet ; Richard Exall - clarinet, saxes ; Tony Carter - clarinet, saxes, flute ; John Defferary - horn, saxes ; Bob Hunt – trombone ; John Slaughter – guitar ; Andrew Kuc - guitar, banjo ; Vic Pitt – bass ; John Sutton – drums).

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Snooks Eaglin - New Orleans Street Singer (1959/2005)

> The album

Mister "Human Jukebox" unplugged

Fird Eaglin Jr. aka Snooks Eaglin is almost synonymous with his hometown of New Orleans. He was born there in 1936 and he died there in 2009. In between, he became a true legend there before his fame reached out to the world. Blind before he was two due to glaucoma, he made up for his handicap by developing an extraordinary musical ear, a fantastic memory (famous for knowing some 2 500 songs, he received the title of "Human Jukebox" ! *) and becoming a guitar picking virtuoso.

In 1952, he joined pianist Allen Toussaint's Flamingos, a local seven-piece band. Snooks Eaglin once explained that the Flamingos did not have a bass player, so he played both the guitar and the bass parts simultaneously on his guitar. "He played with a certain finger style that was highly unusual," said Allen Toussaint one time. "He was unlimited on the guitar. It was extraordinary."

Later, after the end of the Flamingos, between occasional gigs in local bars and clubs, Eaglin used to busk in the French Quarter streets. One day of late 1957 or early 1958, a musicologist from Louisiana State University, Harry Oster **, fell upon the street playing guitarist-singer, and decided to record this amazing musician singing a range of classic blues, folk and popular songs, from “Careless Love” to “St. James Infirmary” and “Everyday I Have the Blues.” These recordings, made in March 1958, were released as "New Orleans Street Singer" on Folkways Records in 1959 and later reissued on the Smithsonian label with additional material. It's this reissue that we're talking about here ***.

Eaglin plays 25 rather sorrowful titles in a folk blues style, on acoustic guitar, without any band, displaying an exceptional work, both virtuosic and down-home. In a song like "High Society", you can almost ear Django Reinhardt ! Eaglin even demonstrate his craft by showing two slightly different ways to play the same song on "Careless Love" 1 & 2, "Drifting Blues" 1 & 2 and "The Lonesome Road"/"Look Down That Lonesome Road".

If you want to ear what Snooks Eaglin sounded like alone and unplugged, this is THE album. Especially because his original solo discography is rather slim for a man whose career lasted for about 60 years !

* In a 1989 interview, Eaglin explained : "The reason I cover so much ground is that when you play music, you have to keep moving. If you don't, you're like the amateur musicians who play the same thing every night, which is a drag. That's not the point of music."

** Harry Oster had recorded inmates at the sinister Angola State Penitentiary, in particular Louisiana bluesman Robert Pete Williams.

*** Recorded and produced in New Orleans, in March 1958, the vinyl LP album was originally issued in 1959 by Moses Asch on the Folkways label as "Snooks Eaglin : New Orleans Street Singer" and featured only 16 tracks. The album presented here is the 2005 reissue, on Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, featuring 25 songs, including 8 previously unreleased tracks : #2, #8, #12, #13, #14, #16, #23 & #25.
 
A few videos
> One of the rare full set video of Snooks Eaglin, here live at Storyville Jazz Hall, New Orleans, in 1985 (42 mn) :  https://youtu.be/HuOSUROFUWM [Song List : 1.Intro 0:01 / 2.Mustang Sally 2:20 / 3.Let the Four Winds Blow  8:52 / 4.Guess Who? 11:22 / 5.Drop The Bomb15:15 / 6.Money 18:28 / 7.St Pete Florida Blues 21:53 / 8.San-Ho-Zay 26:53 / 9.Country Boy Down in New Orleans 30:23 / 10.Hideaway 32:51 / 11.Johnny B Goode 35:39 / 12.Talk to Your Daughter 39:20-41:48] 

> Snooks Eaglin with George Porter Jr. (6 part playlist) : https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL767E41629668AB71

> The New Orleans jazz funeral service for Snooks Eaglin after his death in 2009 : https://youtu.be/a1jiG66DVaM

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