Lee Pons belongs to that long tradition : “It’s a tradition that came from the birth of blues, in the lumber and turpentine camps of the Delta to the parlors and juke joints. There was a time when the piano was the only instrument, besides the voice, in blues. It was king !”, he explained in an interview on American Blues Scene.
Buddy Flett (born Bruce Mechlin Flett in 1951) is a survivor : he spent several years recovering from a nasty viral encephalitis which required a medically-induced coma followed by a month-long intensive rehabilitation in hospital. He contracted the virus while on a blues cruise playing with the famous Mississippi-Arkansas bluesman Hubert Sumlin (1931-2011), his master, his mentor, his friend, himself mentored by the legendary Howlin' Wolf during the two decades spent as his first guitarist…
Drummer Willie “Big Eyes” Smith was the first to join Muddy Waters in 1961, followed by Perkins who took over Otis Spann's seat behind the piano in 1969, and by bassist Calvin “Fuzz” Jones who got on board in 1970 (his real nickname would be originally “Fuzz Box”). Perkins, Jones and Smith backed Waters for many years before leaving to form the Legendary Blues Band in June 1980 with harmonicist Jerry Portnoy.
Spoon's voice is so hoarse that you wonder if he's gonna make it to the end of each song. Actually he died from throat cancer two years after this 1995 live recording in a Vancouver club. But the then 75-year old veteran never lets his voice fail him.
Blue Dragon was going to celebrate its eighth birthday this month, the cream of blues-influenced music blogs, always posting original albums far from the mainstream, under the strict management of its two impassioned blog-masters. Blue Dragon was my exclusive partner since January 2022, and we had a great time all along.
This decision from the Big Brother of the blog world is all the more unjust that it certainly results from repeated denunciations by malevolent blog visitors who didn't accept BD's very strict rules, first of all the engagement not to share the albums with anybody or any other blogs. Some didn't want to abide and found nothing else to have their mean petty revenge than to destroy an eight-year work. Just disgusting !
How else to explain that while Blue Dragon went through its difficult last months, so many similar blogs have lived their life quietly without any hassle from the copyright patrol ?
From last August Blue Dragon started to receive infringement notices from a mysterious London office, and seeing some posts put back to draft without notice (nor any real logic) directly by Blogger/Google. When contacted for explanations, none of these entities ever answered !
Without its partner, Onurblues' future is uncertain. I'm presently thinking about a way to continue with a different concept... I'll keep you informed right here. ■ Onurbix
Before WWII, Lonnie Johnson, Big Bill Broonzy in the first years of his career, Lonnie Chatmon of the Mississippi Sheiks, did play violin, and of course later, the great Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown.
