Baltimore Blues Society BLUESRAG 2014 Feb

Official Newsletter Of the BaltimOre Blues sOciet yVol. 29, Issue 1, FeB.-MAR. 2014• MoJoWoRKIN.CoM

JO

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Sugar ray

& theBluetones

plus

ursula ricks

PLaY rOSEDaLE

FEB. 22 PAGE 3

Sugar ray

& theBluetones

plus

ursula ricks

PLaY rOSEDaLE

FEB. 22 PAGE 3

VOTE IN THE BLUES MUSIC AWARDS! PAGE 4

ThE NaZ BrOThErS: 25 YEarS OF BBS SOuNDBY BRADLEY ALSTONPagE 6

BBS INFO LINE: 410/744-2291Send address changes to: BluesRag

c/o Baltimore Blues Society PO Box 4522 Baltimore MD 21212

OFFICERSPresident - Bob Sekinger

410/638-1242 • [email protected] - Alan Burke

[email protected] - Larry Fogelson

410/377-8339 • [email protected] BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Bradley Alston, Mae Brooks, Larry Fogelson, Becky Hartman, Imelda Hill, Anne Jones,

Don Jones, Kevin Miskelly, Bob Sekinger, Brian Sweeney

NEWSLETTER STAFF

Design: Joe MacLeod 443/452-1550 [email protected]

Reviews Editor: Bob Sekinger 410/638-1242 [email protected]

Contributing Writers: Larry Benicewicz, Tom Cullen III, Dennis Rozanski, Jr.,

Bob Sekinger, Bill Camp, Kathy MinkePhotographers - Bradley Alston,

Larry Benicewicz, Bob Sekinger, Kathy Minke, Dave Strickler

CLuB LISTINgSDeadline: 15th of the month! Kevin Miskelly

410/377-4949 • [email protected]

ADvERTISINgBob Sekinger 410/638-1242

Advertising RatesFull Page - $100, 1/2 pg, $60 1/4 pg - $35

Advertising DimensionsFull Page - 7 1/2” w x 9 3/4” h

1/2 Page Horizontal - 71/2” w x 4 3/4” h1/2 Page Vertical - 3 5/8” w x 9 3/4” h

1/4 Page - 3 5/8 w x 4 3/4” h

DEADLINE: Editorial submissions and ad copy or mechanicals

must be in by the 15th of the month prior to each issue.

web site www.mojoworkin.comWEB MASTER

Doug Lyford [email protected]

Operations of the BBS are supported by grants from the Maryland State Arts Council, and agency funded by the State of Maryland

and the National Endowment for the Arts.The Baltimore Blues Society is an official

501(c)3 non-profit corportation dedicated to the preservation of America’s

Native musical art form - the Blues!

Baltimore

SocietyBluesRag is published monthly by Baltimore Blues Society, Inc.

401 Murdock Road, Baltimore, MD, 21212

LOOK OUT: For new developments from the BBS! We are hoping to pres-ent shows in other venues in the com-ing year in addition to the regular sched-ule at Rosedale American Legion.

We plan on revamping the website, to a more updated blog style that will be able to be updated more frequently. This, along with our Facebook page have become more impor-tant to promote our (and other) blues events. If you are on FACEBOOK and want to be sure and see BBS updates it has become more important that you actually interact with the site. FB has changed things in their hocus-pocus so that if you don’t “like” the page, posts, or pictures, you will not necessarily see items posted. Commenting on posts also helps. I personally avoided FB for a long time, being natu-rally paranoid, but I have to admit that I’m fully assimilated now. The frequent updated information and rapid feedback makes it an indispensable service for any organization.

GOT CABIN FEVER? Come out of hibernation and boogie with us for the first BBS show of 2014! Feb. 22, Sugar Ray & The Bluetones and Ursula Ricks will heat up the Rosedale American Legion. The Bluetones were just on the LRBC, and a special moment found the legendary John Hammond sing-ing their praises and sitting in with the band! They are a long time BBS favorite. Ursula Rick’s new CD MY STREET is a rich, tasty, funky, soul-blues stew that shouldn’t be missed. Certainly my favorite regional/local recording from last year! Don’t miss her on YOUR stage!

BLUES NEWS NEAR & FARB Y B O B S E K I N G E R

2 | b l u e s r a g | F E B R U A R Y - M A R C H 2 0 1 4 | M O J O W O r K I N . C O M

Baltimore

Society

Save the dateS!

BBS ShowS

2014april 26June 28aug 31

Alonzo’SOct 25Nov 29

✃

1331 Seling Ave., Rosedale, MD 21237 • BBS Info Line: 410-744-2291Advanced tickets: $25, DOOR: $30 • Send SASE by FEB. 14th to:

BBS Tickets - SUGAR RAY, PO Box 4522, Baltimore, MD 21212BBS members reserve tables (10tix) contact Sam Cohen (410) 866-6280

All are welcome! Coolers OK. BYOB.Food and beverage available. Legion bar is open.

M O J O W O R K I N . C O M

SATURDAY FEB. 22

Grammy nominated

PRESENTS Doors 8pm. Show

8:30-MidnightSugar Ray & The Bluetones

PLUS

URSULA RICKS

JO

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OS

EN

SA

M F

RIE

DM

AN

Rosedale American Legion Hall

M O J O W O r K I N . C O M | F E B R U A R Y - M A R C H 2 0 1 4 | b l u e s r a g | 3

RADIO FOR MUSIC

PEOPLE!The Roadhousewith BoB Sekinger Saturdays 6-9 Blues and roots, regular visits to Louisiana and occasional twang. new blues releases are featured.

WeaselFriday nights at 7-10,(repeated Saturday afternoon at 12) the

legendary WeaSeL brings three incredible hours of music

and story telling. Weasel handcrafts long themed sets about news events,

pop and american history and whatever else tickles his fancy.

Matt the Cat and the Juke in the Back

Fridays 10 - 12 1950’s r&B, rock n roll before they named it.

The Dirty Soul Party

with Scott Mullins Saturdays 9-12 - concocting a saucy bump and grind

blend vintage soul, funk, rock, Latin and african beats designed to get you off

the couch and on the dance floor.

If you would like to support any of these programs

or WTMD in general as an Underwriter, please contact Chris Hawkins, Underwriting Sales Manager,

at (410) 704-5307 or email [email protected] to learn more.

RAISING THE ROOF: The Blues Foundation is closing in on its fundraising target to begin the construction for the Blues Hall Of Fame. This will be located directly across from the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis. KUDOS to BBS board m e m b e r Imelda Hill! In addition to a very gener-ous person-al donation, she had raised over $3,000 in on the last two Legendary Blues Cruise’s for the HOF by selling “Monkey(s) On My Back,” pins. Do You have a Blues Monkey On Your Back? The BBS has made a pledge and we encour-age all members to as well. Gifts of $1,000 or more will be recognized in the new permanent home of The Blues Foundation. Learn more at blues.org We need to enshrine our blues heroes while they’re still here to expe-rience it!

VOTE NOW! The deadline for voting in the Blues Music Awards is 7:59pm, March 1. All members of the Blues Foundation are eligible. You can become a member online at www.blues.org. You do not have to vote in each cate-gory, only the ones you have an opinion for. So much good blues this year, it had to be hard to come up with the nominees. I do find myself in general agreement with most categories. The main exception seems to always be “Song Of The Year,” where I often prefer a different song on a recording from one the artists than the song actually nominated. Oh Well.

BLUES NEWS NEAR & FAR continued


Acoustic AlbumDoug MacLeod, There’s a TimeGuy Davis featuring Fabrizio Poggi, Juba danceHarrison Kennedy, SoulscapeRory Block, AvalonThe Hound Kings, Unleashed

Acoustic ArtistDoug MacLeodGuy DavisHarrison KennedyLittle G WeevilRory Block

AlbumBen Harper with Charlie Musselwhite, Get Up!Billy Boy Arnold, Charlie Musselwhite, Mark Hummel, Sugar Ray Norcia, James Harman, Remembering Little WalterBuddy Guy, Rhythm & BluesJames Cotton, Cotton Mouth ManLurrie Bell, Blues in My Soul

b.b. King EntErtAinErBobby RushBuddy GuyJohn NémethKim WilsonRick Estrin

bAndLil Ed & the Blues ImperialsRick Estrin & the Night CatsTedeschi Trucks BandThe Mannish BoysTrampled Under Foot

bEst nEw Artist dEbutAdrianna Marie and Her Groovecutters, Double Crossing BluesClay Swafford, RoosterGracie Curran & the High Falutin’ Band, Proof Of LovePaul Gabriel, What’s The Chance...Shawn Holt & the Teardrops, Daddy Told MeValerie June, Pushin Against A Stone

contEmporAry bluEs Album

Ben Harper with Charlie Musselwhite, Get Up!Brandon Santini, This Time Another YearBuddy Guy, Rhythm & BluesCyril Neville, Magic HoneyTrampled Under Foot, Badlands

contEmporAry bluEs FEmAlE Artist

Ana PopovicBeth HartBettye LaVetteCandye KaneSusan Tedeschi

contEmporAry bluEs mAlE Artist

Buddy GuyGary Clark Jr.Johnny SansoneKim WilsonOtis Taylor

dVdBlue Star Connection - Live at Knuckleheads (thE hEAlErs)High John Records - Time Brings About a Change (Floyd dixon)J&R Adventures - An Acoustic Evening at the Vienna Opera House (JoE bonAmAssA)Ruf Records - Songs from the Road (royAl southErn brothErhood)Shake-It-Sugar Records – Live (murAli coryEll)

historicAl AlbumDeath Might Be Your Santa Claus - Legacy RecordingsFreddie King The Complete King/Federal Singles - Real Gone MusicRoosevelt Sykes The Original Honeydripper - Blind Pig RecordsThe Jewel/Paula Blues Story - Fuel RecordsThe Sun Blues Box - Bear Family

instrumEntAlist-bAssBill StuveBob StrogerDanielle SchnebelenLarry TaylorPatrick Rynn

instrumEntAlist-drumsCedric BurnsideJimi BottKenny SmithTom HambridgeTony Braunagel

instrumEntAlist-guitArAnson FunderburghGary Clark Jr.Kid AndersenLurrie BellRonnie Earl

instrumEntAlist-hArmonicA

Brandon SantiniCharlie MusselwhiteJames CottonKim WilsonRick Estrin

instrumEntAlist-hornBig James MontgomeryEddie ShawJimmy CarpenterSax GordonTerry Hanck

KoKo tAylor AwArd trAditionAl

bluEs FEmAlEDiunna GreenleafLavelle WhiteTeeny TuckerTrudy LynnZora Young

pinEtop pErKins piAno plAyEr

Barrelhouse ChuckDave KeyesMarcia BallMike FinniganVictor Wainwright

rocK bluEs Album oF thE yEAr

Mike Zito & the Wheel, Gone to TexasTedeschi Trucks Band, Made Up MindThe Rides, Can’t Get EnoughToronzo Cannon, John The Conquer RootWalter Trout, Luther’s Blues

songBlues in My Soul, Lurrie Bell , Lurrie BellHe Was There, Cotton, Hambridge & Fleming, James CottonThat’s When The Blues Begins, James Goode, Ruff Kutt Blues BandThe Entitled Few, Doug MacLeod, Doug MacLeodThe Night The Pie Factory Burned Down, Johnny Sansone, Johnny Sansone

soul bluEs AlbumBobby Rush, Down In LouisianaDave Keller, Soul ChangesFrank Bey & Anthony Paule Band, Soul For Your BluesJohnny Rawls, Remembering O. V.Otis Clay, Truth Is (Putting Love Back Into The Music)

soul bluEs FEmAlE ArtistBarbara CarrDenise LaSalleDorothy MooreIrma ThomasSista Monica

soul bluEs mAlE ArtistBobby RushFrank BeyJohn NemethJohnny RawlsOtis Clay

trAditionAl bluEs AlbumBarrelhouse Chuck & Kim Wilson’s Blues All-Stars, Driftin’ From Town To TownBilly Boy Arnold, Charlie Musselwhite, Mark Hummel, Sugar Ray Norcia, James Harman, Remembering Little WalterJames Cotton, Cotton Mouth ManLurrie Bell, Blues In My SoulThe Cash Box Kings, Black Toppin’

trAditionAl bluEs mAlE Artist

Anson FunderburghBilly Boy ArnoldJames CottonJohn PrimerLurrie Bell


BLUES MUSIC AWARDS NOMINEES2014 - 35TH BLUES MUSIC AWARDS

The NAZ BroThers: 25 Years of BBs sound:

An Interview with John

Narusiewicz


Naz Family Gathering. Stan,Tom, Dan and Debbie

Baltimore Blues Society: Greetings John and congratulations on 25 years of providing excel-lent sound for the Baltimore Blues Society Shows.John Narusiewicz: Thanks.BBS: So you have been doing sound for the BBS since….JN: Since the first show at the American Legion Hall in Rosedale in 1989. Up until then the BBS was using whoever was available.BBS: How was the first show in 1989?JN: It was well attended, not a sellout, but a good crowd, a couple hundred people there at least. The first show I put the speakers right next to the stage. The second show we adjusted because the placement interfered with the sight line of the crowd. It really prevented those on the sides from seeing the band. So I went out before the next show, purchased longer speaker cables and changed the speaker placement to the two corners in the room and they have been there ever since. It has a slight impact on the overall sound, but the compromise was necessary for the overall enjoyment of the concert.BBS: Growing up, what was your introduction to music?JN: When I was a kid, my mother had a piano. We did not have a TV and my father war in Korea fighting the war, so our introduction was my brother and I sitting on the piano bench listening to my mom play.BBS: What type of music did you hear from your mom?

JN: Mostly big band music like Benny Goodman, Glen Miller, and the standards like Gershwin and Cole Porter. I really grew up lik-ing a band sound. I still do That was my introduction to music. We would listen to whatever sheet music she could get her hands on because she could read charts, but she did not play by ear, so if she could not get the music, we were not working on it!BBS: Does she still play?JN: Oh yeah. She plays where she is living and when she visits me, she always request that I bring one of my keyboards in the house for her use. So I grew up liking a band or group sound, not a group of indi-viduals and when I put together my first band I was looking for a group sound. So I started listening to the local AM top 40 radio stations that played bands like Carl Perkins and Elvis, this was the late 50’s early 60’s, and then the Beatles came out and I thought they were great because of the harmony. A little later the Mommas and the Poppas came on the scene and I thought they were great, because of their blended voices. I loved the harmony in a band..and still do.BBS: How did you get involved with doing sound?JN: I think my first involvement with wires was as a little kid in my hometown of Onimia, Minnesota. Back then a kid could wander around town alone and be safe. I would wander into the 8X8 foot building that housed the town’s telephone exchange. Back then you did not have direct dialing. Customers would pick up the receiver and ask the operator to connect them to the person they wanted to talk to. The operator would pull a wire and place it into a hole, similar to a guitar jack and make the connection. I would sit on her lap and insert wires and that was my first experience with wiring. I was about 3 or 4 years old. When I put together my first band, at age 13 and I really wanted a band so I taught Mark to play the bass and I taught my brother the keyboards. At that time if you wanted a good sound system…you built it yourself. There were no Best Buys or Guitar Centers back then. My Dad had wood working tools in the garage and I got help building the cabinets. I picked up the speak-ers and power amps myself and paid for it by collecting soda bottles, cutting lawns and shoveling snow. The PA system was so good that people wanted us to enter Battle of the Bands contests, just so that they


2014 will commemorate a quarter cen-

tury of John Narusiewicz, aka the NaZ

Brothers, providing sound for Baltimore Blues Society

shows. Starting in 1989 John has been a fixture at every BBS show, a singu-

lar accomplishment! The blues world, indeed the world at large was a different

place in 1989. A new car was $15,000, and the gas to run it was only 97 cents

per gallon. A new home, $120,000 and the average income for Americans was

$27,000.In that year, Taylor Swift was born and Ted Bundy executed. San Fran-

cisco sent teams to both the World Series and Super Bowl that year. In the blues

music world 1989 saw a Grammy Award go to Robert Cray and WC Handy

Award to Albert Collins. The Top song in the country was Bobby McFerrin’s

“Don’t Worry Be Happy”

Last month at a sandwich shop outside Westminster, MD, the BBS and John

sat down for an interview. [BRADLEY ALSTON]

Crossbow Band. John, Bill Euler, Andy Margileth, Frank Emma, Sam the Dog, Gil Winslow

could use our system for the show! I still have the speakers hanging in my garage and they still work.BBS: Did you train or attend school to do sound?JN: No but I was always a person who would ask questions, do the research, read a lot, I would seek the knowledge from people, books and manuals. I arrived in Maryland around 1967-68 and the first thing I tried to do was to put a band together and quickly discovered that no one needed a guitar player, so I switched to keyboards…..BBS: Do you consider yourself a musician.JN: Oh No! I’m interested in musi-cal instruments and how they work and work together, but I am by no means a musician.BBS: What instruments can you play?JN: Well, keyboards, guitar, bass. I recently started messing around


The NAZ BroThers: 25 Years of BBs sound

John with he Nighthawks and Kelly Bell backstage at BBS Show

Doing sound for early Alonzo’s Picnic

with a cello and have had a viola. Awhile back I picked up a flute. I’ll have to get back to that one day.BSS: ImpressiveJN: I eventually did get a in a band which led to my involvement with radio. I was always fascinated with radio and as a kid, rebuilt one that I found. Well when I moved to Maryland and Gaithersburg, the first progressive rock 24 hour AM

station opened very close to my house. WHMC. I met the owner and struck up an acquaintance and started just hanging around. The owner liked me and suggested that I get a radio license and do more. So I went off to a technical school and obtained a 1st class engineers license and started a part time job a WHMC. Now not everyone had a 1st class license because you only

needed a 3rd class to talk on the radio. It was a fun time. I had my own show for a time. I worked with Barry Richards as his engineer and ran the board.BBS: Barry did a stint at Baltimore’s first FM progressive rock station, WKTK and also hosted a rock show on WMAR TV2. I remember a live TV performance by Humble Pie that still resonates to this day!

JN: Yes Barry was a pioneer who helped to promote folks like Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix and it was a heady time. DC was called the San Francisco of the east in terms of raw talent. The station helped promote phenomenal bands like; Crank, Fallen Angels, Nedy Bump Bo, the Flavor, Cherry People and Sinbad.BBS: Who are some of the nota-


tOp lEFt: John 1964, tOp RIght: Newport Band John on Guitar, bOttOM lEFt: Mom and John 1986, bOttOM RIght:

Mom (Mercine) John 1951

ble artists that you have provided sound?JN: Well, there was Bo Diddley, Steven Stills, The Dixie Chicks, Exile, The Drifters, Platters, the Temptations, Four Tops and Courtney Love to name a few. I’ve done Country Music Festivals for years and sound for some of the big stars. Also did sound for the president, Bill Clinton’s Christmas party and Hillary Clinton’s broth-er wedding.BBS: Who are the Naz Brothers?JN: Since my brothers are in Minnesota the standing Joke is everyone who works with me is a Naz Bro, they are all my brothers since Sam and George help me out they are Naz Brothers. We are adding you to the list! My “day

job” involves doing sound for corporate clients in downtown DC and Baltimore. Most BBS members would not recognize me in my day-time work clothes, mostly tuxedoes. We are playing the standards, stuff I really like such as the Big Band music. BBS: How did you get involved with the Baltimore Blues Society?JN: I received a phone call from Dale Patton. He said a mutual friend referred me who said I was a dependable and sober fel-low. Someone who would show up sober and end the night sober and Dale said that sounded like a good combination to him! Unfortunately some sound guys have earned a bad reputation. Well after the first show, Dale said “you’re our man” I try to follow my mother’s advice to treat every-body like I want to be treated. I got along with the band and audience and always have. There were only two times in my 25


The NAZ BroThers: 25 Years of BBs sound

The early years of the BBs could best be described as ‘loosey-goosey”

It was a fun place to be. Anyone who knew Dale . . . knew Dale!

Joan Jett Concert

Set Up for the Southern Guns

years with the BBS that I got really mad, one was with an audience member and that was resolved very quickly. The other was with a musician, who was lucky I did not get madder. I do not take that kind of abuse from no one.In the early days, Dale would bring in Zydeco bands, good ones as well as great blues bands. We still do.BSS: Favorites BBS bands over the years?JN: Well, there were many. One that stands out still is Chris Cain. I would have paid to do sound for that band. They were that excellent! They had that band sound with great musi-cians…like the Nighthawks. Other favorites would be of course, Billy Price and definitely Coco Montoya. With Coco you can listen to his recording and that is fine, but his live shows are just phenomenal. Years ago we (BBS) had Mitch Woods with a pick up band that included Clark Matthews and two horns, probably the J Street Jumpers. That was one hell of a show. Not many musicians can fly in solo and play well with a new band. Mitch pulled it off.BBS: Early days of the BBS, any good stories, remembrances?JN: The early years of the BBS could best be described as ‘loosey-goosey” It was a fun place to be. Anyone who knew Dale….knew Dale! One story I remember, was a huge hurricane was parked over Maryland, just sitting there and dumping historic amounts of rain. It was also Alonzo’s. I recall pulling into Alonzo’s yard leaving a 4 inch wave of rain behind my truck. It was scary. Dale was in a good mood and I recall him standing in the middle of the parking lot looking up into the sky that was pouring buckets and declaring “I think it’s going to blow over” (laughter) It did not of course and we wound up at the Cats Eye for a miserable time. But that was Dale. I think the BBS was blessed in the early days because Dale was surrounded by good people like Ray [Smith] Joann [Lutz] and Donna [Andrews]. They really helped to keep things together. Ray was always

wonderful and was always apologizing. He would walk up to me and say, “it good to see you…and I’m sorry” (laughter) and I would say, Ray it’s only a little thing and we will get through this. (laughter) They were all good people who cared about the members and the music. Then there was Marcia (Selko) who was organized and that kicked the managing of the BBS up a notch and things got better. Now we have Bob and although he has a lot of irons in the fire and is very busy, I think he has the best understanding of the business end of music than anyone before. He understands music from the musician end, the technical end…everybody. He understands that there are certain things that have to be done to run a tight ship..and he takes care of them. Maybe because he was in bands as a younger man, like myself and has a broader exposure to the over-all music experience then someone who just listened to music. And that kicked the BBS still another notch. So things have gotten better and I understand that it is not the easiest job and it’s not like we are paying him a huge salary.BBS: Finally, how do you stay on top of the many and myriad technical changes ever pres-ent in your business?JN: Every time I come to a BBS show I have a new piece of equipment. I still have to study and stay on top of the new advances in the field. I was the first to buy a digital board on the East Coast from the Guitar Center. I was and have always been about the music. It has been a good marriage with the Baltimore Blues Society over the last quarter century. 25 years went by quickly. I’m looking forward to continuing the relationship and producing great music , great shows and great experiences.BBS: Thank you John for making the sound great for the last 25 years and we look forward to the next 25!


John in his usual work attire

Eutaw Place

locatEd in thE lowEr level of thE historic bEth am syn-agoguE in baltimore’s reser-voir hill neighborhood, Eutaw Place brings grEat musicians to baltimore at an affordable ticket Price in a comfortable

{seated} atmosphere.

Ernie haltEr w/victoria

voxsat. mar. 1 8pm2501 Eutaw

Place BalTimore410/484.9110

EutawplacE.org

mAgic sAmLive at the Avant GardeDELMARK

For A bucK-FiFty, a lifetime of bragging rights was yours that Saturday in ‘68. Because a handful of change got you inside the cramped quarters of Milwaukee’s most notori-ous hotspot as “Magic Sam” Maghett and a red Epiphone Riviera were onstage liv-ing up to every tremoloed millimeter of his nickname. So perfect was the set that the blues gods took mercy on us and finally nudged sound engineer Jim Charne to share his immaculate tapes from that June show. Behold Live at the Avant Garde: the finest live document of Magic Sam never to have been heard before. Flashing back with this one is a real gift. Not simply for such a stunning reenactment of West Side Soul, Sam’s crown-ing masterpiece which hit record shops just a few weeks earlier. Nor only for unfore-seen bonuses like the mini Muddy suite, which tacks “Still a Fool” onto “Hoochie Coochie Man.” Or even the equally rare run through Jimmy Rogers’ “That’s All Right,” where Sam pulls double duty, swapping shivering lead in between shimmering rhythm lines. But for something which has evaded his live-action recordings: crystalline clarity. Clarity so sharp that drum-mer Bob Richey’s opening snare crack could cut glass. Clarity so spacious that the lowest slung guitar notes streaming off “All Your Love (I Miss Loving)” separate fully from Big Mojo Elem’s rolling bass bump. And the notes keep coming, shuffling “Don’t Want No Woman,”

boogying “Feelin’ Good,” hard riding the instrumental “Lookin’ Good,” then ever so hypnotically sloshing “It’s All Your Fault Baby” back and forth on that oh-so-cool rocking sea-wave riff. It’s Sam road-testing the fluid six-string magnificence he and fellow frontiersmen Otis Rush and Buddy Guy were pioneering ninety miles due south, back home in Chi-cago. Yet only Sam could infuse gospel fervor into the soul of “That’s All I Need” with the sweet, bright rap-ture of his Sam Cooke-like reach. You’d never guess from all the energy and relaxed bandstand banter that, in a handful of weeks, he would be dead of a heart attack, sto-len at age 32. Thunderstruck nights like this, though, are why Sam’s magic still amazes to this day.

Dennis Rozanski

John & sylViA EmbryTroublesDELMARK

minEd From dEEp out of the South Side, John & Syl-via Embry’s After Work is pure gold disguised as black vinyl. Rightfully worshipped as one of Chicago’s greatest secret records—alongside, say, Joe Carter’s Mean & Evil Blues, Big John Wrencher’s Maxwell Street Alley Blues, and Smokey Smothers’ Sings the Backporch Blues—this lost treasure likewise vaporized before many had the cov-eted chance to get knocked unconscious by its contents. Yet another authentically rough-and-tumble master-work was denied its essen-tial listening by its label’s abbreviated lifespan. And

as Chicago blues brawls go, this one for extinct Razor Records was born under quintessential conditions: cut in one single, sub-zero, bliz-zard-howling January day. It was 1979, yet carbon dating could easily misidentify its simple rock-free earnest-ness by tens of years earlier. Thank the band’s impecca-ble pedigree for that. Johnny Embry survived all around town, out on Maxwell Street and inside joints as fabled as Buddy’s Checkerboard and Turner’s Lounge, by tuning his guitar to the cut-you-quick pitch of a switchblade. Deadly sharp, his solos con-ducted ragged surgery atop “Iceman” Robinson’s lock-down rhythm guitar, slicing up the hard slap of “Wonder Why” even more mercilessly than the roly-poly “Johnny’s Bounce.” Sylvia, his wife for a spell, was no less a threat, having thumped electric bass for wild man Lefty Dizz. However, her ruthlessness sprung from her throat, sing-ing in bursts of raw power. The growls (“Blues This Morning”), groans (“I’m Hurtin’”), and gripes (“Trou-bles”) are Sylvia’s very own. Combined, the couple made double dynamite. Imagine the kind of wicked sparks if Big Mama Thornton did her wide-mouthed balling inside a tornado spewing razors. Meticulous fidelity ensures as accurate a document of their barroom sound as the several truly-live numbers from the Bold One Lounge, meaning both sets reek of stale beer and cigarette smoke. Now digitally reborn as the newly titled Troubles, the original album significantly expands with Johnny’s first 45 and never-heard bonuses. You need this one.

Dennis Rozanski

michAEl bloomFiEldFrom His Head to His Heart to His HandsCOLUMBIA/LEGACY (3-CD/

DVD BOX)

osmosis Accounts For only a portion. A meager, yet

nonetheless crucial, portion of the mercurial composite that was Michael Bloomfield. Because enrolling in Chi-cago blues universities like Pepper’s, Silvio’s, and The-resa’s during the late 1950s into the early ‘60s provided once-in-a-lifetime opportu-nities to sop up from such local six-string professors as Muddy, Buddy, Otis and Sam that intangible—but most often sorely missing—element sought by all blues players: soul. Without it, you can be technically brilliant. With it, you are legitimately dangerous. Bloom was the latter—an outright killer. For when it came to guitars, his flying fingers already came pre-loaded with supremely gifted talent. So once zapped with the kind of genuine grit which can’t be bought for any price, those to-die-for chops coursed with honest-to-God blues power.For a while there, both coasts—Newport and New York City on the east; Monterey and San Fran-cisco to the west—ran off that very power source. But Chicago got shocked by the first voltage. As early as ‘64, Bloomfield, aided by another precocious kid named Char-lie Musselwhite on harp, debuted with “I’ve Got You in the Palm of My Hand.” It’s what West Side ghetto-bar authenticity sounds like. Yet you’d never guess its nasty tumble of razored treble traced to a 21-year-old Jewish kid from a want-for-nothing white North Side family. That’s blues power for you.

But, in tracking the flow of that power From His Head to His Heart to His Hands to those venues and beyond, this multimedia boxed-set starts even before the start. Clocking in a few months earlier that year are the audi-tion tapes which first wowed A&R soothsayer John Ham-mond Sr. into signing the guitar prodigy on the spot. The blister ingly picked “Hammond’s Rag,” from among them, had to have left second-degree finger burns. But finger burns were par for the course, being con-tinually seared right up to the very end, as barbed-wire bottleneck riffs unfurled around “The Groom’s Still Waiting at the Altar” on the Warfield Theater stage with Bob Dylan by his side. That was on November 15, 1980. Ninety-two days later, Bloomfield’s 37-year-old body was discovered, over-dosed and lifeless, inside his parked ‘65 Chevy Impala. Like those earliest demos, that final public performance has never been heard before. Until now—as part of an audiovisual retrospective on the majesty and muscle in those 16 years.Divvying up that span are three themed CDs. Along with pre-history, Roots provides classic proof that Bloomfield not only helped design Chicago blues 2.0, but invent folk-rock 1.0 as well. The first update began with recruitment into the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, then founding his own horn-torched Electric Flag (dig “Killing Floor”). That’s when

BLUES REVIEWS


Bloom ‘n’ Butter re-imag-ined Coltrane as “East-West” (originally codenamed “The Raga”), which justly took on its own epic mythology, as “His Holy Modal Majesty” and a live “Her Holy Modal Highness” later did with Bloom ‘n’ Al Kooper. The second innovation resulted from playing lead guitar at the Judas moment when Dylan plugged folk’s acoustic purity into a fire-breathing amplifier. The voiceless back-ing track to the movement’s thunderbolt anthem, “Like a Rolling Stone,” reveals the instrumental inner work-ings between Kooper’s cartwheeling organ and his corkscrewing guitar express-ly instructed not to play any “B.B. King shit.” That same session also donates a “Tombstone Blues” outtake with the Chambers Brothers vocally seconding its ramrod tension.Jams is just that: some word-less, most live, and some oth-erwise. Last Licks speaks for itself too. Between them lie plenty more assorted Super Sessions of the kind that yielded the Kingsian gran-deur of “Albert’s Shuffle” with Kooper—Bloomfield’s organ-grooving alter ego and curator of this whole collection. His guitar-for-hire work alongside Fathers and Sons-era Muddy Waters is here. Janis Joplin’s Kozmic Blues Band gets bolstered. He gigs with “& Friends.” As well as largely alone and unplugged at an extensively sampled night in McCa-be’s Guitar Shop. Then the guarded vaults open for truly Lost Concert Tapes which no one has ever heard—unless you originally had a ticket. Like the liquid fire of “San-tana Clause” smelted at the Fillmore East in ‘68. And the bootlegged night at The Bottom Line a decade later. Only Kooper could wildly inter-splice the “best parts” from Fillmore East and West performances to build the perfect “59th Street Bridge Song (Feeling Groovy)” hybrid. The rarest, though, has to be the two shots of Electric Flag from the Car-ousel Ballroom.The archaeology doesn’t stop there. In order to visually

telescope through Bloom-field’s rise, reign and demon-prodded fall, Bob Sarles’ indispensable documentary, Sweet Blues, does its share of impressive digging. Because hearing Bloomfield shake and squeeze strings is a vital expe-rience. But watching him do so is another. Unearthed from the dig site are all sorts of treasures, quite remarkably including a clip of the ‘elec-tric flag,’ a novelty gift from Quicksilver Messenger Ser-vice that ended up naming Bloomfield’s self-combusting band. As the wealth of can-did snapshots and live-action concert film roll by, inter-view footage continuously tells the whole historic tale in the words of his mentors (B.B. King, Yank Rachell), band mates (Kooper, Mus-selwhite, Nick Gravenites, Elvin Bishop), impresarios (Bill Graham, Chet Helms), and a hundred admirers (John Hammond Jr. to Bob Weir). Many a portrait gets painted: a virtuosic library of blues licks, a take-no-crap ball buster, a perfect bridge between pistol-packing Chicago bluesmen and tie-dyed San Francisco hippies, a frenzied insomniac, a free bird, that proverbial ‘real deal.’ Importantly, though, Bloom-field himself gets plenty of words in edgewise too. As reel-to-reel interview tapes spin, Michael comes to life as only Michael—in his own intense way, man—could.These three CDs of music, 40 pages of liner notes and an hour-long DVD are befitting of a Guitar God worshipped (as witnessed here) by Guitar Gods from Clapton through Santana.

Dennis Rozanski

Eric bibbJericho RoadSTONY PLAIN

FlAt-brimmEd Eric Bibb is somewhat steamed. Graciously, compassion-

ately, calmly steamed—but steamed nonetheless. He’s not one for grousing about whiskey ‘n’ women, though. Nor for battering his oft-times acoustic guitar to express grievances. Five decades of recorded smooth sailing attest to that as faith-fully as each album cover does to his longstanding love of hats. Driven more by heart than gut, Bibb’s got loftier issues grinding inside him here: socially-minded issues like peace, freedom and sim-ply making the right choices for a better world. Societal hellhounds snapping at your heels pack a mighty hefty bite. So good thing his signa-ture sound can be so caramel smooth, the sweet melodic soothe just as effective as his serene tone of voice in helping any medicine go down super easily. With a spirit of hope and determi-nation, “Have a Heart,” “Let the Mothers Step Up,” “The Right Thing” and a reprise of “With My Maker I Am One” pave Jericho Road with sing-alongable mantras gen-tly prodding for change, or at least yearning for greater mindfulness. No wonder Bibb symbolically named the album after the same road where the Good Samari-tan’s lend-a-hand act is said to have unselfishly occurred. Even with a huge interna-tional cast flavoring the lay-ers of orchestration with sliv-ers of rootsy exotica (African kalimba, Turkish saz, gourd banjo) and starched sunshine (Session Horns Sweden), Bibb remains ever so warm-ly intimate. Right down to “Now,” his sweeping encore plea for global unity, hidden as a bonus.

Dennis Rozanski

pEtE AndErsonBirds Above GuitarlandLITTLE DOG

gonE is his Bakersfield twang that so famously revived honky-tonk in the 1980s and ‘90s, long since replaced by the exquisite sting of L.A. noir blues. Amplifiers now glow from stormy T-Boned blustering, where cowboy-booted shuf-fles once shook them like tigers by the tail. So if you only know guitarist/produc-

er/arranger Pete Anderson from brilliantly architecting Dwight Yoakam’s hillbilly-deluxe glory years, then you haven’t met the man with the golden axe just lately. (It’s one of Reverend Guitars’ four signature models named after him.) Since going solo a decade ago, Anderson has returned to his first real love with stylish abandon. Except now, decades removed from the Muddy-inspired startup days back home in Detroit, the retro material is all his own, impeccably appointed with full-blown West Coast flair. Birds Above Guitarland, in turn, is way cool. Identifi-ably California cool, where melodies do their bouncing or burrowing with chilled heat. Horns are certainly part of the upscale aura, as is Anderson’s poured croon. Together, they can curl themselves around the sophisticated despair of “I Got Mine” like lazy smoke rings, or, alternatively, swing “Outta’ the Fire” hotheaded-ly. For its hook, “Fix It Man” instead raids Junior Walker’s old tackle box, choosing an extra catchy “Shotgun”-like organ stab. But the ultimate Martini blues gets stirred—not shaken—as “For You” cha-cha-cha’s its heartbreak up silken stairs plucked out by a flock of pizzicato strings. Twice, their Hollywood and Vine composure gets shat-tered by gorgeously abrasive guitar eruptions. Awesome, especially since Anderson’s amplifier always doubles as an icebox, radiating out the coolest of muscular solos whose tone of voice is just as paramount as what gets said.

Dennis Rozanski

tAmiKrEstChatmaGLITTERBEAT

grooVE, to kaffiyeh-wrapped blues-rockers of Mali, is many things. Groove

is almighty, carving into your consciousness as do hot winds into the surreal Saha-ran moonscape of its natural habitat. The groove is end-less, built to snake on and on, never dissolving unless its makers willfully pull the plug on their serpentine guitars. Groove is a lifeline, a beast of burden capable of trans-porting the heaviest of emo-tions or the direst of hopes. The groove is lost in time, reliant on modern ameni-ties—Telecasters, Les Pauls, Western drum kits, elec-tricity—yet still so basally primal that dancing around moonlit campfires instinc-tively seems the most logical response to its trance. Spiked with bursts of handclaps and spontaneous howls firing off like bottle rockets, listening to Tamikrest—who form the Touareg trinity of des-ert blues with Terakaft and Tinariwen—is to hear the dawn of time. Except shot through an amplifier. And secretly spoken in Tamashek tongue. But, as their third masterpiece demonstrates, the groove is also impossible to be around without sub-mitting to its gentle hypno-sis, the relaxed yet relentless pulse exerting mild psyche-delic properties on body and mind. A strong aroma of dub rises off “Itous.” “Assikal” is embedded with pockets of spectral space. And instead of coiling around the rhythm, the guitars spider-walk across “Timtar,” hanging notes in midair like the cobwebbed memories the song pain-fully grabs for. Thematically, Chatma, which translates as Sisters, is a whole caravan dedicated to “the courage of the Touareg women.” Still, lyric fireballs continue being hurled at oppression and suffering, bombshells of sadness are no less devastat-ing than “my heart inhab-its a tomb where fears and


darkness live.” Because this music is genuinely rooted in the band, all the longing and loss, the cultural pride, the acid and tears are real. Anything bluer would be black. So, with much heart-break, some anger and total resolve, Tamikrest transcends language by steadily groov-ing onward.

Dennis Rozanski

John millErCountry Blues Guitar in Spanish & Vestapol TuningsSTEFAN GROSSMAN’S

GUITAR WORKSHOP (2 DVDS)

poll thE old mAstErs with this six-string inquiry: What’s the lifeblood tuning for your country-blues gui-tar? Answering back from ancient everywhere—the dusty plains of Texas, Beale Street, Delta cotton fields, metro St. Louis, Georgia watermelon patches, Caro-lina tobacco roads—would come a flood of commonly shared responses: Spanish and Vestapol, often translated to lay audiences as Open G and Open D tuning, respectively. Twelve of those respondents even show off their wares here. Actually, John Miller shows off their wares. Patiently picking apart intriguing examples of what greatness those tun-ings are capable of, he then reassembles each song right before your eyes with slo-mo split-screen ease. Miller beams down through layers of bedrock blues with his x-ray specs singling out such greatness as Elizabeth Cot-ton’s “When I Get Home,” a hymn which magically slides without a slide. And its moral

opposite in Jimmy Lee Wil-liams’ “Have You Ever Seen Peaches?,” a rhythmically mesmerizing tongue twister of questionable purity. With-out a single word, Bill Mon-roe Bluegrass Boy, Kenny Baker, and a D minor sev-enth chord haunt “Legend of the Whistling Brakeman.” Mance Lipscomb loads up his “Willie Poor Boy” groove with eclectic verses about troublesome gals and wives, possums and mules. Yet the real poor boy is capo king-pin Clifford Gibson, rolling “Bad Luck Dice” in spite of goldenly ringing treble runs. Flush with fantastic material drawn as much from relative unknowns (like Tarheel Slim and John “Thunder” Byrd) as marquis headliners (John Hurt to Blind Boy Fuller), these how-to lessons instruc-tively sprawl over two DVDs, one per tuning. But can Miller teach all their ancient rituals? Devilishly “getting greasy … yeah, grungy” over Memphis Willie B.’s eerie pitch-bending apparition, “Brownsville Blues,” alone confirms he’s the perfect man for the job.

Dennis Rozanski

monKEyJunKAll FrequenciesSTONY PLAIN

thEir First bAtch got bot-tled in 2009 as Tiger in Your Tank. To Behold followed in 2011. Brewed from a roots-mash back in the swamps on the outskirts of Ottawa, both taste largely similar, a fine proprietary blend of blues with a rock kick, addi-tionally flavored by whatever other influences happened to fall into the pot that day: Hank Williams, Muscle Shoals, I-40 roadhouses. In apt recognition, the Cana-dian trio—Steve Marriner on lead growl, guitar, har-monica, and keys; Tony D on lead guitar; drummer Matt Sobb—crammed their man-tle full with Juno and Maple

Blues Awards galore. All Fre-quencies, however, is absolute hard liquor. The hardest stuff yet, a Mason jar of fantasti-cally sludgy mojo. Their totally revamped, practically all-original recipe hits like a sledge, as sips of “Once Had Wings” or the equally doom-laden “Sirens in the Night” reveal. Brakes heavily grind, often decelerating the pace (Bobby Charles’ “Why Are People Like That?” re-lives as a knuckle-dragging mon-ster). The guitars, their riffs, and their underlying chords are huger, nastier, denser, more brutal, hunkered down. Little to no provocation is now needed for a bottleneck to shake down the spine of just about everything. Their freak flag flies. Marriner spins his especially bottomed-out baritone guitar through a Leslie cabinet. The wah-wah pedal gets punched, sending the hard strut of “You Make a Mess” swirling. Even the harp seems to pull a touch of evil into its “Right From Wrong” warble. By going heavy, dynamic range and stylistic nuance get crushed accordingly. But the new tonnage suits MonkeyJunk quite, quite well. Fearless? More like fear this.

Dennis Rozanski

horAcE trAhAn & thE ossun ExprEssBy Special RequestMAISON DE SOUL

tiny scrAps of paper feed the bandstand. Onto those tiny scraps of paper have been scribbled Louisianan magic words. Magic words with the proven power to make whole bodies physical-ly smile (“Motor Dude Spe-cial”), to sway heartstrings (“I’m Coming Home”), to jerk tears (“Nothing Takes the Place of You”), or acti-vate singalong reflexes you never knew you had (“Iko-Iko”). In concept, at least, that’s how Horace Trahan

built his whole new set: By Special Request. Fan favor-ites, lobbied for from dance floors and festival pits that he and his spiffy Dino Baffetti accordion have flamed along the way, eventually reached critical mass to warrant this all-covers album. And Trahan certainly knows a little about the Cajun Nation and the Kingdom of Zydeco. By age 18, he, under the apprentice-ship of one Acadian legend in Felix Richard, had so mas-tered the squeezebox that he hit the road with another leg-endary elder in D.L. Menard. Within a handful of years, both empires were his, held spellbound under the power of “That Butt Thing” smash. So although plunging into hallowed works tagged with names spread from Adam Hebert and Beau Joque to Professor Longhair and R&B man Touissant McCall, Tra-han’s no neo-traditionalist playing by the rules. He and his more zydeco-flavored Ossun Express motor their own way, adding heavy-met-al thunder to a Cajun piece like “The Back Door” from the steel-on-steel scrape of Rodney Bernard’s armored chest plate. Even tricking out “Don’t Let the Green Grass Fool You” by transistorizing some of the vocals through a vocoder-esque talk box. Such is the people’s choice.

Dennis Rozanski

VAriousLegendary Country Blues GuitaristsVESTAPOL 13129 (DVD)

rArE is thE timE we’ve gotten to spend face-to-face with our Piedmont and Delta superheroes. Or, for that mat-ter, Texas high-plains drifter Mance Lipscomb. Rarer yet have been our chances to be held spellbound watching

the forgotten Henry John-sons of the blues world paw their way out from the unde-serving abyss of obscurity using chord after juggernaut chord. Face it, hearing Bukka White in action just isn’t nearly as intense as gawking at Bukka White stress-testing a National Tricone with fist and bottleneck violence. And the whole spectacle of Wash-board Pete Sanders embel-lishing Ralph Willis’ rattling guitar right there on the streets of ancient Philadelphia with percussion raided from someone’s kitchen is com-pletely lost on record. That’s why these two hours spent visualizing Legendary Coun-try Blues Guitarists make for a thrill-a-minute rollercoast-er ride, wildly jostling you from concert stages to city sidewalks to living rooms to spartan TV studios.

Fear not, superheroes do return to the rescue. Rev. Gary Davis lives again for ten New York minutes in Harold Becker’s gritty noir documentary. And at one historic point, dour Bukka, dourer Son House and dourest Skip James each take sequential turns shooting out the sun from atop the Newport Festival platform. Darkness, however, grows deepest when House, alone and in full color, convul-sively thrashes his copper slide up against an epic nine-minute “So Hard to Love Someone.”

Though don’t dare underestimate the secret superpowers of lesser mar-quis names, starting with that amped-up Henry Johnson. Watch Willie Trice, a direct Blind Boy Fuller disciple, go!, go!, go! impersonating an orchestra with only six simple strings that never ever go slack, stand still, or stop ringing. You’ll whoop it up with Memphis Jug Band guitarist Charlie Burse and washtub-bassist Will Shade endlessly yanking verse after goodtime verse out of “Kansas City Blues” like silk scarves from a trick hat. And you’ll burrow so deep into obscure geniuses as to reach Blind Connie Williams, who distinctively thwacks, then slides, then re-thwacks the living gospel out of a shapely

BLUES REVIEWS C O N T I N U E D


old archtop. Just be sure to duck as the woolliest Mississippi Sheik of all, ol’ Sam Chatmon, flings dag-gered insults (“Glad When You’re Dead”) just as point-ed as the sex-baited hook rigged for “Fishing Blues (Evil Jackson).”

All this footage, this diverse stew which few have ever viewed, is incred-ible. So incredible that if mind-blowing film of Son House tag-teaming “I Wish I Had My Whole Heart in My Hand” with Buddy Guy could be rousted up, then in producer Stefan Grossman rests our greatest hope for finding Charley Patton’s home movies.

Dennis Rozanski

sEAn chAmbErsThe Rock House SessionsBLUE HEAT

nAmEd AFtEr its place of studio origin, The Rock House Sessions actually pull double duty in title by like-wise publicizing its contents’ intent. But what other than house-rocking would you expect from a guitar fiend who led Hubert Sum-lin’s band into the ‘00s and now moonlights from his solo career as frontman for Blackfoot, the fine South-ern hellraising enterprise (est. 1970)? Except Sean Chambers, now ten years and five albums on his own, just re-invented himself. He still heavily deals in blues-rock decibels, as the manic panic through “Choo Choo Mama,” or the grander, gruffer, gamier grind to “Healing Ground,” reveals. Just even a quick peak at some of the songwriters pinched for the setlist—Alvin Lee, Gary Moore, Mike Zito: gunslingers, all three—divulges his plan to continue torching lyrics about existential angst with a Stratocaster. Dropped,

though, is the Sean Cham-bers Band, in both name and personnel. Instead, he’s just Sean Chambers, period, with a cadre of loud Nash-ville session aces riding shotgun. Included is pro-ducer Reese Wynans, famed for bumping Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Double Trouble up to ‘Triple Trouble’ by adding his keyboards. Yet their roar can nicely thin out, letting Chambers’ fin-gers absorb the soul, the rasp in his throat subside for love songs like the lightly horn-grazed “Holding On” or “Meant to Be,” which still churns its chords. Spew-ing flames while lumber-ing through the rubble of today’s troubled society, the two-ton “World on Fire” alone assures The Rock House Sessions more than live up to their billing.

Dennis Rozanski

John FAhEyIn Search of Blind Joe Death: The Saga of John FaheyFIRST RUN FEATURES (DVD)

no onE sounded like John Fahey. No one could have. He’d quietly invented his own genre by inventing his own six-stringed lan-guage—modally, harmoni-cally, dissonantly, cerebral-ly—by melding Delta blues with Bartók irreverence, then coating the typically acoustic, often solo, instru-mental-only amalgam with a titanium mystique. Ameri-can Primitive Guitar it was called. A cavern it is—deep, dark, vast, austere, engulfing, a tad spooky. You enter it; it enters you.

That relationship contin-ues with James Cullingham’s award-winning biopic, In Search of Blind Joe Death: The Saga of John Fahey

(johnfaheyfilm.com). The documentary casts a lin-gering spell, drawing you into its richly textured rev-erie with gorgeous new cinematography, archival footage, current-day sto-rytellers and even artful animation. Overflowing with Fahey’s music—“The Death of Clayton Peacock,” “Dance of Death,” “On the Death & Disembowelment of the New Age,” and all the others with names just as intriguing as their contents—you’re haunted straight through.

That’s because Fahey is a complicated genius, to say the least. He’s the Sun Ra of guitar, tuned to his own idiosyncratic (aka bizarre) wavelength transmitted from an astral command center way far out there. He’s Miles Davis, creatively, restlessly evolving across artistic manifestations, which included unsettling unplugged soundscapes, Dixieland orchestras, Indian ragas, smearing paint with brush and body, caustically plugged into gothic indus-trial ambiance. He’s Neil Young, another unpro-voked spiritual godfather to a Sonic Youth movement. He’s also Skip James incar-nate, expert at transducing emotional burdens and psy-chological scarring into sus-pended chordal tones and Hawaiian lap-slid geysers.

Liberating ghosts locked away inside guitars is a trick Fahey picked up from Mississippi’s hardest-core heavies—Charley Patton, Bukka White, the afore-mentioned James. So mag-netically drawn to them, the native Marylander ended up expounding upon the first one for his UCLA mas-ter’s thesis, and physically tracking the last two down during the 1960s.

But hunting down old bluesmen is only one of many biographical stops made along his depicted mortal journey. Hunting down old phonograph records in the same Deep South; meeting Blind Joe Death; his own Takoma Records; Joe Bussard’s shel-lac-lined lair in Frederick, Md.; Blind Willie Johnson’s

“Praise God I’m Satisfied”; TV studios, concert stages, art galleries; the squalid motel room in Oregon which served as his final headquarters: all flash past too. Plus lots of trains (rhythmic role models) and turtles (personal mythol-ogy/Freudian motifs).

So take your pick of why Fahey is justly famous and rightfully influential: He’s “not about playing it safe,” “got a real edge,” “on his own trip,” “venting his spleen on the recording,” “a provocateur,” “put you through all the things he was going through.” All this we learn from conversa-tions with a widely cast net of informants like lifelong pal Dr. Demento, producer Terry Robb, and fans from The Who’s Pete Townshend to No Neck Blues Band’s Keith Connolly. Injecting levity into the lore is sparring partner Stefan Grossman’s tale of their dueling “assas-sinations.” Although dead at 61 in 2001, Fahey still manages to speak his own mind here too, via a slew of performance and interview footage.

Going In Search of Blind Joe Death ultimately finds what it is looking for: the deepest appreciation for a sonic explorer that, like the man’s music, will never leave you.

Dennis Rozanski

Johnny wintErTrue to the Blues: The Johnny Winter StoryCOLUMBIA/LEGACY (4-CD

BOX)

bEAumont, tExAs, of all places, is birthplace of the

most unusual meteorologi-cal phenomenon: a Winter which paradoxically freezes listeners in their tracks by way of extreme heat. The blistering kind of melt-your-humbuckers heat which rightly should war-rant Kevlar shielding around True to the Blues, a great big tinderbox-set of guitar pyro-technics. Because Johnny Winter brought new—and literal—meaning to the con-cept of a white-out blizzard: the world’s greatest albino bluesman/rockstar whip-ping up blinding torrents of notes, their howl echoed by his equally stressed growl. He is without equal.

And that is made incandescently clear—56 foot-stomping times—by The Johnny Winter Story. Tracking his historic path all the way up to 2011’s all-star Roots shootout, the collection chronologically sprawls across 43 years, ran-sacking 27 albums, pried from eight labels, enough to stuff four CDs—all for one expanded definition of what exhilaration means. Inspired by example upon flaming example of Winter’s superpower ability to go long, bolting up and down the frets, hitting exact spots on multiple strings with seemingly radar-guided precision, editor-in-chief of Guitar World magazine Brad Tolinski lets fly his own 4,000-word solo, ver-bally connecting all the sonic dots.

The Progressive Blues Experiment of 1968 lights the fuse. Cut inside the Vulcan Gas Company—the Austin hangout where Rolling Stone magazine first discovered a “cross-eyed albino with long, fleecy hair, who plays some of the gutsiest, fluid blues you’ve ever heard”—the 24-year-old debuted. Triple-tracked on National steel, mandolin and harp, he’s a one-man acoustic band rattling “Bad Luck and Trouble.” “Mean Town Blues,” however, plugs in. And also enlists his first crew: drummer “Uncle” John Turner and the soon-to-be-famous bass of Tommy Shannon (later conscripted into Stevie


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Ray Vaughan’s Double Trouble). Hot on the heels of that indie record came Johnny Winter, his second debut record, the highly-visible official one unveiled on Columbia.

It, too, is among the raided here, as are: the three-sided double-LP Second Winter; a taste of the Live Bootleg Series; as well as Bob Dylan—The 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration where Booker T. & a couple of his M.G.’s help fortify “Highway 61 Revisited.”

The spaciousness of this 4.5-hour adrenaline binge also accommodates molten marathons, includ-ing a pair of live “It’s My Own Fault”s—one with Michael Bloomfield and Al Kooper, the other with the Johnny Winter And band. The jackpot, though, is an epic embellishment of “Mean Town Blues.” Unholstered on the stage of the Fillmore East, its 18 revved minutes are what liberation sounded like to guitars in 1970. Slipping its leash, virtuos-ity unfurls in stages: racing the boogie, digging in the dirt, smoldering awhile, bulleting a bottleneck, repeatedly clashing with guitarist Rick Derringer, escalating, escalating high-er, escalating even higher still until spontaneously combusting into “Walking Blues,” before boogying back to the start to re-lunge into the signature descending riff.

Such is Winter, electri-cally juiced to the max. But all possible forms of awesome get sur-veyed here. So he’s also unplugged, stripped down to bare resonator metal for “TV Mama.” He’s com-pletely alone in “Dallas.” He’s totally banded every-where else. He’s in-studio. He’s larger than life, live, onstage at Woodstock, at Royal Albert Hall, at Madison Square Garden, Detroit’s Masonic Temple. He’s “Walkin’ Thru The Park” with Muddy.

He’s “Rollin’ ‘Cross the Country” with brother Edgar. He’ll even “Dust My Broom” down to saw-dust with Derek Trucks’ extra slide. He’s bottle-necking “Mojo Boogie” into ash. He’s outright shredding early incen-diaries (“Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” “Hustled Down in Texas”). He’s outright shredding newer slayer anthems like “Illustrated Man.” He’s atypically ten-derizing “Hurtin’ So Bad” with a plump cushion of horns. He’s a “Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing,” hunt-ing foxes. He’s a “Master Mechanic,” itching to do nighttime bodywork. He’s devoutly blue, bonded with Willie Dixon and Big Walter Horton. He’s jazz-fully lithe, tangoing around “Hard Way.” He’s irrever-ently rocking, especially anytime Derringer’s songs, production or, above all, second flaming guitar are around.

For hardcore fans, though, the most tantaliz-ing bait on the hook dates to the Atlanta Pop Festival. Unless your vinyl stacks boast the triple-LP The First Great Rock Festivals of the Seventies—Isle of Wight/Atlanta Pop, the sleek, simmering geom-etry of that day’s “Mean Mistreater” is brand-new listening. However, the only possible way to have experienced the breathless blur delivered as “Eyesight to the Blind,” or to have gotten riff-rocked by a particularly tight-fisted “Prodigal Son” is to have sat in the stands of Middle Georgia raceway for that July 5th set. Because nei-ther have been heard since then.So here is a Story guar-anteed to send air guitar-ists into finger-cramping ecstasy. To dish a huge inspirational slice of hum-ble pie for actual guitar dragsters. And to put the deep Winter freeze on everyone with true white heat.

Dennis Rozanski

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LEgEndARy R&B cRUISE #22photos by bob sekinger

Super Chikan


BLUESBEAT L R B C # 2 2 C O N T I N U E D

Otis Clay


Ana Popovic

Lil Ed & Vyasa Dodson (Salgado Band)


JB Adams and Corey Ledet

Super Chikan did a culinary demo

Curtis Salgado

Chris Cain

Horns at the Jam

Curtis Salgado jams with Sugar Ray

BLUESBEAT L R B C # 2 2 C O N T I N U E DBLUESBEAT L R B C # 2 2 C O N T I N U E D


Pirate Night (MC Big Llou Johnson)

There’s a Mardis Gras night

The Devils You Know & Tommy Castro

Tab Benoit & Danielle Schnebelen

Mick Welch (Bluetones) and John Hammond

Selywnn Birchwood


Drum Seminar with Tony Coleman, Chris Layton, Terence Higgins

Mike Finnegan (Phantom Blues Band) Victor Wainwright (SoHospitality)

& James Pace (Tommy Castro)

Eden Brent gets horns in the piano bar

Tab Benoit, Corey Duplechin

BLUESBEAT L R B C # 2 2 C O N T I N U E DBLUESBEAT L R B C # 2 2 C O N T I N U E D


BILLy ThompSon BAnd AT cIRcUITSphotos by dave strickler

Michelle Lucas

VENUESAVALon ThEATER

21 Shemekia Copeland 8pm22 Robert Cray Band 8pm

BARE BonES GRILL ELLIcoTT cITybarebonesgrill.com

1 Hard Swimmin Fish7 Boozehounds8 Time Will Tell14 Panama Rex15 Over the Limit21 Mercy Creek22 Linwood Taylor28 The 19 Street BandMARCH1 Andy Poxon7 Mobtown Kings8 Automatic Slim14 Damon Foreman15 Big Boy LIttle21 Steel Soul Cowboys22 Gary & the Groove28 Whisky Train29 Muleman Band

BEThESdA BLUES And JAzz SUppER cLUB7 Deanna Bogart Band 8:30pm $20 21 Joe Louis Walker 8pm $2522 The Soul Crackers with Tommy

Lepson 8pm $10

BIRchmEREMARCH 6 Tab Benoit with Tommy Malone

7:30pm $27.50

BLUE mondAy BLUES WESTmInSTER chURch

Westminster Presbyterian Church, 6pm-9pm 400 I Street S.W., Washington D.C. (202) 484-7700 westminsterdc.org/blues

cATS EyE pUB1730 Thames Street, Historic Fell’s

Point, Baltimore, MD 21231 (410) 276.9866, Afternoon shows 4pm, evening shows 9:30pm, catseyepub.com1 Tony Denikos Band, afternoon, Roger

Girke Band, night2 Steve Kraemer & the Bluesicians,

afternoon, Grapefruit Kings, night3 Phil Cunneff New Trio4 Matt Kelley & the Maybe Daddies5 Baltimore Rockabilly6 Pete Kanaras Blues Band7 Bad Neighbors8 Community Groove, afternoon, Eddie

& the Haskyls, night9 Steve Kraemer & the Bluesicians,

afternoon, Linwood Taylor Band, night

10 Phil Cunneff New Trio

11 Drunken Uncles12 Muleman Band13 Skyla Burrell Band14 Ruben Montoya Band15 Ursula Ricks’ Project, afternoon,

Smokin’ Joes, night 16 Steve Kraemer & the Bluesicians, after-

noon, Pete Kanaras & the Hi-Fliers, night

17 Pil Cunneff New Trio18 Timmy Shelley Band19 Robert Frahm Band20 Speakers of the House21 Nothin’ But Trouble22 Nothin’ But Trouble, afternoon, Carl

Filipiak Jazz Band, night23 Steve Kraemer & the Bluesicians,

afternoon, Timmy Shelley Band, night

24 Phil Cunneff New Trio25 Chaz DePaolo Band26 Dogs Among the Bushes27 Black Falls28 Billy Thomson BandMARCH1 Community Groove, afternoon,

Roger Girke Band, night2 Steve Kraemer & the Bluesicians,

afternoon, Grapefruit Kings, night3 Phil Cunneff New Trio4 Speakers of the House Mardi Gras

Party5 Baltimore Rockabilly6 Pete Kanaras Blues Band7 Bad Neighbors8 Tara, afternoon, Sweet Leda, night9 Steve Kraemer & the Bluesicians,

afternoon, Linwood Taylor Band, night

10 Phil Cunneff New Trio11 Drunken Uncles12 Muleman Band13 Skyla Burrell Blues Band14 Nate Myers & the Aces15 Dogs Among the Bushes, afternoon,

Lower Case Blues, night 16 Steve Kraemer & the Bluesicians, after-

noon, Pete Kanaras & the Hi-Fliers, night

17 Dogs Among the Bushes18 Matt Kelley & the Maybe Daddies19 Robert Frahm Band20 Speakers of the House21 Nothin’ But Trouble22 Nothin’ But Trouble, afternoon, Carl

Filipiak Jazz Band, night23 Steve Kraemer & the Bluesicians,

afternoon, Timmy Shelley Band, night

24 Phil Cunneff New Trio25 Chaz DePaolo Band26 Dogs Among the Bushes27 Ruben Montoya Band28 Deb Callahan Band29 Ursula Ricks’ Project, afternoon, Eddy

& the Haskyls, night30 Steve Kraemer & the Bluesicians,

afternoon, Muleman Band, night31 Phil Cunneff New Trio

EUTAW pLAcE2501 Eutaw Place, Baltimore, eutawplace.

org18 Guy Davis

JVS RESAURAnTjvsrestaurant.com

1 Bad Influence Band2 Linwood Taylor Band3, 10, 17, 24 Monday Wolfs Blues Jam8 Swamp Monsters 4:30pm, Nadine

Rae and the All Stars 9:30pm13 Jr Cline with Julia Nixon from

Recliners14 Dead Cat Bounce16 Memphis Gold All Star Jam18 Patty Reese and Lisa Lim show21 Bugsy Cline and the Blue Devils22 Jr. Cline and the Recliners23 Sol Roots Jam 4pm, Shrimp City

Slim 9 pm25 Baby Jake Steve Jacobs Band with Big

Boy Little27 Dave Chappell Band MARCH1 Karl Stoll and the Danger Zone2 Linwood Taylor Band 3, 10, 17, 24 Wolfs Blues Jam 8 S co t t Ramminge r and t h e

Crawslickers11 DC Houserockers13 Dan Hovey Band14 Tom Principato and Dan Hovey

show15 Mary Shaver Band18 Jr Cline and Ben Masson 22 John Prine Tribute show25 Baby Jake Steve Jacobs and Big Boy

Little Band27 Dave Chappell Band28 Jon Spears Band29 Catfish Hodge Band30 Sol Roots Jam 4pm, Memphis Gold

All Star Jam 9pm

RAmS hEAd LIVE12 JJ Grey & Mofro with Nicki Bluhm &

The Gramblers

RAmS hEAd on STAGE40 West St., Annapolis, MD (410) 295-

9761, ramsheadonstage.com6 Marcia Ball8 Tommy Castro15 and 16 Johnny Winter6 Marcia Ball 8pm8 Tommy Castro & The Painkillers

8:30pm15 Johnny Winter Band with Damon

Fowler 8pm21 Taj Mahal Trio Doors: 8pm28 Los Lobos: 40th Anniversary Tour

6:30 and 9:30pm

MARCH 3, 4 Tab Benoit 8pm8 Savoy Brown feat. Kim Simmonds:

‘Going To The Delta’ CD Release Party 8:30pm

11 Royal Southern Brotherhood feat. Devon Allman, Cyril Neville & Mike Zito 8pm

STATE ThEATER7 Marcia Ball and Tommy Castro and

the Painkillers23 Taj Mahal Trio

ThE TWISTEd TAIL 509 S. 2nd Street

Philadelphia, PA (215) 558-2471www.thetwistedtail.com

Every Sunday 5-9pm Open Blues Jam with Mikey Junior & Friends

Every Tuesday 6:30-9:30pm Downstairs Acoustic with Nicki Sbaffoni

Every Wednesday 8:30-11:30pm with Mikey Junior & Filthy Rich

1 Mojo Gypsies Rockin’ Rhythm & Blues www.mojogypsies.com

6 Nick Andrew Staver 8 :30-11:30pm Acoustic Blues www.NickAndrewStaver.com, www.face-book.com/nickstaver?fref=ts

7 downstairs Happy Hour Acoustic with Ian Lander 7:30-9pm www.face-book.com/ianscottlander?fref=ts, 9pm-1am Lisa Chavous & the Philadelphia Blues Messengers Rock-Solid Innovative Philadelphia Blues Quintet www.thebluesmes-sengers.com, www.facebook.com/lisa.chavous?fref=ts

8 9pm-1am lower case blues Hard Rockin’ High Energy Blues Band www.lowercaseblues.net

13 8:30pm Jersey Corn Pickers Bluegrass from the Garden State www.jersey-cornpickers.com, www.facebook.com/pages/The-Jersey-Corn-Pickers/143063552382465

14 7:30-9pm downstairs Happy Hour Acoustic Piedmont Blues with Chr i s topher Dav i s -Shannon Cdavisshannon.com, facebook.com/christopher.davisshannon?fref=ts, 9pm-1am Billy Thompson Band Soul, Funk & Blues Guitar Slinger www.billythompsonmusic.com, www.facebook.com/billy.thompson.9615?fref=ts

15 9pm-1am Dean Shot Smoking Blues Guitar from NYC www.deanshot-band.com

20 8:30pm downstairs Patrick McLaughlin Duo Blues Rock Guitarist & Vocalist from Columbus, Ohio www.patrick-mclaughlin3.com, www.facebook.com/PatrickMcLaughlinBand

21 7:30-9pm downstairs Happy Hour Acoustic Folk with David Falcone

Live Blues!For more listings visit mojoworkin.com



www.facebook.com/david.falcone.music?fref=ts

21 9pm-1am Brooke Shive & the 45’s Americana, Rock, Blues & Soul www.brookeshive.com

22 9pm-1am Shrimp City Slim featur-ing Norman Taylor & Eric Selby Low Country Blues & Original Songs www.shrimpcityslim.com

27 8:30pm downstairs Joshua Fialkoff & Frank Velardo, www.joshfi-alkoff.com, www.facebook.com/TheArdvarkFelon, www.facebook.com/josh.fialkoff.music

28 7:30-9pm downstairs Happy Hour Acoustic Blues with Nick Andrew Staver www.nickandrewstaver.com 9pm-1am Steve Cal Band Blues Rock Guitar Slinger, www.steve-cal.com

MARCH1 9:30pm Popa Chubby Brooklyn

Guitar Slinger popachubby.wix.com/popachubby#, 8pm Gypsy Joe & the Groove Prophets www.facebook.com/joe.alves.94?fref=ts

6 8:30pm downstairs Reverend Chris New Orleans Style Jazz & Blues Piano www.plebo.org, www.facebook.com/pages/Reverend-Chris-the-High-Rollers/229443627198250

7 7:30-9pm downstairs Happy Hour Acoustic Blues with Norman Taylor www.normantaylormusic.com 9pm-1am Chuck Lambert Band Powerhouse Blues Band from the Garden State www.chucklam-bert.com

8 9pm-1am VizzTone Recording Artist Little G Weevil www.littlegweevil.net

13 8:30pm downstairs Jersey Corn Pickers Bluegrass from the Garden State www.jerseycornpickers.com

14 7:30-9pm downstairs Happy Hour Acoustic with Blues, 9pm-1am Joshua Fialkoff www.joshfialkoff.com

15 9 p m - 1 a m G e o r g i e B o n d s Philadelphia Bluesman Singing Blues & Soul www.georgiebonds.com

20 8pm-12am downstair s Andrea Ca r l son Memph i s S inge r -Songwriter Performing Jazz and Blues www.andreacarlsonmusic.com

21 7:30-9pm downstairs Happy Hour Acoustic Folk with David Falcone www.reverbnation.com/davidfal-cone, 9pm-1am Reverend Chris and the High Rollers New Orleans Style Jazz & Blues Piano www.plebo.org

22 9pm-1am Toney Rock Blues Rock from DC www.toneyrocks.com

27 8:30-11:30pm Downstairs Acoustic with Ian Lander www.facebook.com/ianscottlander?fref=ts

28 7:30-9pm downstairs Happy Hour Acoustic Blues with Norman Taylor www.normantaylormusic.com, 9pm-1am Little Red Rooster, Chicago & West Coast Jump Blues www.littleredrooster.com

29 9pm-1am Bev Conklin & the BC Combo from the Lehigh Valley www.bevconklin.com

ARTISTSAUTomATIc SLIm

1 9 pm, Blues on Broadway with Clark Matthews and Steve Potter, Bertha’s, Fells Point

6 8-11pm, Ladies Night, with Jim Harrell, Acoustic Blues and roots music, Bare Bones Grill, Ellicott City, MD

20 5:30-7:30pm, Winter Wine Tasting and American Roots music with Jim Harrell (Acoustic Show), Overhills Mansion, Catonsville MD., catons-ville.org

MARCH1 9 pm, Bertha’s on Broadway, Fells

Point6 8-11pm, Ladies Night, with Jim

Harrell, Acoustic Blues and roots music, Bare Bones Grill, Ellicott City, MD

8 Automatic Slim and His Sensational Band, Bare Bones, Ellicott City, MD

APRIL3 8-11pm, Ladies Night, with Jim

Harrell, Acoustic Blues and roots music, Bare Bones Grill, Ellicott City, MD

BAd InfLUEncE BAnd1 9pm, JV’s Falls Church, VA7 8pm, The Stein Room, Silver Spring,

MD14 8pm, Hilton Washington Dulles

Airport, Herndon, VA15 9:30pm, Dogfish Head Alehouse

Gaithersburg, MD22 8pm, Ice House Café, Herndon, VAMARCH14 9pm, The 219, Alexandria, VA

BIG Boy LITTLE BAndbigboylittleband.com

(301) 932-27341 10pm first Saturday,Bar Cafe, 3000

Connecticut Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20008, 202-232-4225, www.zoobardc.com, free

6 8:30pm every Thursday, open blues jam, The Zoo Bar, 3000 Connecticut Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20008, 202-232-4225,www.zoobardc.com, free

14 9pm, Baby Jake Band w/ Big BoyLittle, 219 Restaurant, 219 King Street, Alexandria, VA 22314, 703-549-1141, www.219restaurant.com, $5

22 9pm, Big Boy Little BLocal Chop & Grill House, 56 W. Gay St., Harrisonburg, VA 22802, 540-801-0505, no cover, www.localchops.com

25 8:30pm, Baby Jake Band w/ Big Boy Little, JVs Restaurant, 6666 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church, VA 22042, 703-241-9504, free, www.jvsrestaurant.com

MARCH1 Big Boy Little Band (1st Saturday)

at The Zoo Bar Cafe, 3000 Connecticut Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20008, 202-232-4225, www.zoobardc.com, 10 pm, free

6 Big Boy Little Band hosts open blues

jam, The Zoo Bar (every Thursday), 3000 Connecticut Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20008, 202-232-4225,www.zoobardc.com, 8:30 pm, free

15 9pm, Bare Bones Grill & Brewery, 9150 Baltimore Nat’l Pike, Ellicott City, MD 21042, 410-461-0770, www.barebonesgrill.com, free

25 Baby Jake Band w/ Big Boy Little, JVs Restaurant, 6666 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church, VA 22042, 703-241-9504, 8:30 pm, free, www.jvs-restaurant.com

BG And ThE moJo hAndS8 Sala Thai Bethesda, MD 7:00 PM

dEAnnA BoGART8 Blast Furnace Blues Festival,

Artquest Center @ Steel Stacks, 101 Founders Way, Bethlehem, PA 18015, artsquest.org/steelstacks, (610) 297-7100, 3:30pm/ Stage 1 8:00pm/ Stage 2

STAcy BRookS stacysmusic.org

2 9pm-1:30am, Madam’s Organ, 2461 18th Street NE, DC, www.madam-sorgan.com

6-7 Ghost of the Blues (Stacy’s por-traying Etta James), Akron Civic Theater, Akron, OH www.ghost-blues.com

24 10:00pm-2:00am, 2014-Hog’s Breath Saloon, Key West, Florida, www.hogsbreath.com/keywest

MARCH3 10:00pm-2:00am, 2014-Hog’s

Breath Saloon, Key West, Florida, www.hogsbreath.com/keywest

9 9:00pm-1:30am, Madam’s Organ, 2461 18th Street NE, DC, www.madamsorgan.com

SkyLA BURRELL BAnd1 8pm, Fran’s Pub, New Hope,

Pennsylvania 4 7pm, Georgia Boy Blues Jam, The

Georgia Boy Cafe, Hagerstown, Maryland

11 7:00 PM Georgia Boy Blues Jam, The Georgia Boy Cafe, Hagerstown, Maryland

13 9:30pm, Cat’s Eye Pub Baltimore, Maryland

18 7pm, Georgia Boy Blues Jam, The Georgia Boy Cafe, Hagerstown, Maryland

21 9pm, Johannson’s, Westminster, Maryland


MARCH7 4pm, Georgia Boy Blues Jam, The



13 9:30pm, Cat’s Eye Pub, Baltimore, Maryland

14 9pm, Iron Horse Restaurant, Ashland, Virginia

15 9pm, MacGregor’s Havre De Grace, Maryland

18 7pm, Georgia Boy Blues Jam, The



APRIL1 7pm, Georgia Boy Blues Jam, The



dEB cALLAhAn8 6 :36-10 :30pm, Mard i Gra s

Fundraiser, Delaware Tech & Community College, 3rd & Orange Sts. Wilmington, DE, 302-453-3763

21 8pm-12am, The Blue Parrot, 1934 West 6th St., Wilmington, DE, 302-655-8990

22 6pm-9pm, Trio with Deb, Allen James & Garry Lee, Black Walnut Winery, 3000 Lincoln Highway Sadsburyville, PA, 610-857-5566

MARCH28 9:30pm-1:30am, The Cats Eye

Pub, 1730 Thames St. Fells Point, Baltimore, MD, 410-276-9866

AnThony SWAmp doG cLARk8 12pm, Lexington Market, Baltimore,

MDMARCH4 2pm, 662 Landover Rd, Landover,

MD, 207747 12pm, Lexington Market, Baltimore,

MD

GARy coGdELLFriday and Saturday 7-11pm the last

weekend of every month, the Country Store in St. George’s, DE, saintgeorgescountrystore.com

WoLf cREScEnzEwolfsmusicweekly.com

301-932-2734 7 10pm, Over the Limit (1st Friday)

with Tom Maxwell and special guest Paul Pfau, The Zoo Bar, 3000 Connecticut Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20008, 202-232-4225, www.zoobardc.com, 10 pm, free

15 Over the Limit edition of Hot Rods & Old Gas, Bare Bones Grill & Brewery, 9150 Baltimore Nat’l Pike, Ellicott City, MD 21042, 410-461-0770,www.barebonesgrill.com, free

MARCH7 10pm, Over the Limit (1st Friday)

with Tom Maxwell and Lisa Lim, The Zoo Bar, 3000 Connecticut Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20008, 202-232-4225, www.zoobardc.com, free

29 9pm, Over the Limit at Londontown Pub, 726 Londontown Rd., Edgewater, MD 21037, 410-956-9799, free

BRUcE EWAn “ThE REd hARmonIcA kInG”

22 10pm, Zoo Bar, 3000 Connecticut Ave., NW, Washington, DC, free

MARCH22 10pm, Zoo Bar, 3000 Connecticut

Ave., NW, Washington, DC, free

RoGER GIRkE BAndrogergirke.com

1 9:30pm, Cat’s Eye Pub, Baltimore, Maryland

7 9pm, Pietro’s Prime, West Chester, Pennsylvania

14 8:30pm, Bethany Blues, Lewes, Delaware

15 7pm, The Smokin’ Joes, The Cat’s Eye Pub, Baltimore, Maryland

22 7pm, Nora Lee’s French Quarter, New Castle, Delaware

27 6pm, with Glenn Ferracone and Fr iends, General Warren Inne, Malvern, Pennsylvania

28 8pm, Laurrapin Grille, Havre De Grace, Maryland

MARCH1 9:30pm, Cat’s Eye Pub, Baltimore,

Maryland 7 9pm, Pietro’s Prime, West Chester,

Pennsylvania 15 9:30pm, Nomad Bar, Wilmington,

Delaware 28 9pm, Pietro’s Prime, West Chester,

Pennsylvania

John JEnSEnPlays acoustic guitar and sings blues and

American roots music 4-6pm every Saturday, 49 West Cafe and Wine Bar, 49 West Street, Annapolis, MD, free

dUffy kAnE7 Old Brogue Irish Pub

8 Fast Eddie’s Roadhouse Revue, Fairfax VA, Double Bill: The Victor Wainwright Band with Duffy Kane & the Freedom Train

cAThy ponTon kInGMARCH28 Cathy Ponton King Band with Arlen

Roth Band, Bethesda Blues and Jazz Supper Club, 7719 Wisconsin Ave., Bethesda, MD 20814, (240) 330-4500

LoWER cASE BLUES7 9pm, High Stakes Bar, Fenwick

Island, DE 8 9pm, Twisted Tail, Philadelphia, PA 9 9pm, The Pond - Blues Jam,

Rehoboth Beach, DE 13 7pm, Delaware Distilling CO, Lewes,

DE 14 9pm, The Blue Parrot, Wilmington,

DE 16 9pm, The Pond - Blues Jam,

Rehoboth Beach, DE 22 9:30pm, Abbotts Grille, Milford, DE 23 9pm, The Pond - Blues Jam,

Rehoboth Beach, DE 27 8pm, Argilla Brewing CO, Newark ,

DE 28 9:30pm Pickled Herring Northeast,

MD

moonShInE SocIETy4 The 219, Alexandria, VA 8 The Hamilton, Washington, DC 11 The 219, Alexandria, VA14 Dogwood Tavern, Falls Church, VA

15 The Zoo Bar, Washington, DC 18 The 219, Alexandria, VA 22 The Hamilton, Washington, DC 25 The 219,Alexandria, VA MARCH4 The 219, Alexandria, VA 7 The Hamilton11 The 219, Alexandria, VA 14 Dogwood Tavern, Falls Church, VA 15 The Zoo Bar, Washington, DC 18 The 219, Alexandria, VA 21 Old Bowie Town Grille, Bowie,

MD 25 The 219, Alexandria, VA 28 Capital Ale House, Richmond, VA 29 Blue 5, Roanoke, VA APRIL1 The 219, Alexandria, VA 4 The Hamilton, Washington, DC

nATE myERS And ThE AcES1 Spyglass Ridge Winery, Sunbury, PA 6 Harrisburg Midtown Arts Center,

Harrisburg, PA 7 Old Forge Brewing Company,

Danville, PA 21 The Coliseum, Camp Hill, PA 28 MoMos BBQ, Harrisburg, PA MARCH6 Harrisburg Midtown Arts Center,

Harrisburg, PA

ThE nIGhT hAWkSMARCH28 Bikes, Blues, & BBQ Festival, Time

TBD, 440 Elton Brooks Drive, Douglas, GA

Deanna Bogart7 8:30pm, Bethesda Blues & Jazz

Supper Club, 7719 Wisconsin Ave., Bethesda, MD 20814, www.bethes-dabluesjazz.com, 240-330-4500

8 3:30pm stage 1, Blast Furnace Blues Festival, Artquest Center @ Steel Stacks, 101 Founders Way, Bethlehem, PA 18015, www.arts-quest.org/steelstacks, (610) 297-7100

noThIn BUT TRoUBLE21 4pm, Cat’s Eye Pub, 1730 Thames

St., Baltimore, MD, 2128nothinbuttroubleband.com

22 9:30pm, Cat’s Eye Pub, 1730 Thames St., Baltimore, MD, 21284

MARCH21 4pm, Cat’s Eye Pub, 1730 Thames

St., Baltimore, MD 2128422 Cat’s Eye Pub, 1730 Thames St.,

Baltimore, MD 21284 US

Andy poxonandypoxon.com

8 9pm, Blue Parrot Bar & Grille, Wilmington, DE

15 8:30pm, Old Bowie Town Grille, Bowie, MD

28 9pm, Local Chop & Grill House, Harrisonburg, VA

MARCH1 9pm, Bare Bones Grill & Brewery,

Ellicott City, MD APRIL5 9pm, Local Chop & Grill House,

Harrisonburg, VA


LIVE BLUES C O N T I N U E D


Tom pRIncIpATo1 Globe Theater, Berlin, MD, www.

globetheater.com, 410-641-0784 8 8:30pm, Jekyll & Hyde Tavern —

Frederick, MD, www.jekylland-hyderestaurant.com,301-694-0066

21 with special guest Tommy Lepson, Lancaster Roots and Blues, A Festival of Music,Venue and times TBA, Lancaster, Pa.

MARCH8 Barns Of Rose Hill, 95 Chalmers Ct,

Berryville, VA 22611, www.barnso-frosehill.org, 540-955-2004

15 9pm, Colonial Taver Fredericksburg VA, 540-373-1313, www.irishbri-gadetavern.com

20 8pm, The Barns at Wolf Trap, 1635 Trap Rd, Vienna, VA 22182, www.wolftrap.org/Barns, (703) 255-1900

nAdInE RAE8 9pm, Nadine Rae & the Allstars, JVs

Restaurant, 6666 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church, VA, 22042, 703-241-9504, free

15 9pm, Mid-Atlantic Jazz Festival with Nadine Rae & the Allstars with Dave Ylvisaker (keys), Andy Hamburger (drums), Mike Pryor (bass), and Charles Wright (guitar), Rockville, MD, $15

URSULA RIckS15 4-8pm, Cat’s Eye Pub 1730 Thames

St., BaltimoreMARCH29 4-8pm, Cat’s Eye Pub 1730 Thames

St., Baltimore

mARy ShAVER BAndMARCH1 8-11pm, with Steve Wolf, The Music

Cafe Damascus, MD, $1015 9:30pm, with Claude Arthur, JV’s

Restaurant Falls Church, VA

BoBBy SmIThBobbyMusicSmith.com

Saturdays 8-10PM, Online Radio, The American Music Hours wmbc.

umbc.edu

SpEAkERS of ThE hoUSE19 9:30pm-1:30am, Cat’s Eye Pub,

1730 Thames Street, Fells Point, MD 21231, 410-276-9866

LInWood TAyLoR BAnd8 JV’s Falls Church, Va15 Cats Eye Pub, Fells Point, Baltimore

MD 9pm 20 JV’s Falls Church, Va Guest artist

for Blues Jam 9pm

WoLf’S STILL STAndInG BLUES JAm

wolfsmusicweekly.com(301) 932-2734

3 8:30pm, with Tom Maxwell and special guest Matt Kelley at JVs Restaurant, 6666 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church, VA 22042, 703-241-9504, free, www.jvsrestaurant.com

5 7:30pm, with Tom Maxwell and Andy Hamburger, Londontown Pub, 726 Londontown Rd., Edgewater, MD

21037, 410-956-9799, free. 10 8:30pm, with Tom Maxwell and spe-

cial guest Paul Pfau, JVs Restaurant, 6666 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church, VA 22042, 703-241-9504, free, www.jvsrestaurant.com

12 7:30pm, with Tom Maxwell and Andy Hamburger at Londontown Pub, 726 Londontown Rd., Edgewater, MD 21037, 410-956-9799, free

17 8:30pm, with Tom Maxwell and special guest Linwood Taylor, JVs Restaurant, 6666 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church, VA 22042, 703-241-9504, free, www.jvsrestaurant.com

19 7:30pm, with Tom Maxwell and Andy Hamburger at Londontown Pub, 726 Londontown Rd., Edgewater, MD 21037, 410-956-9799, free.

24 8:30pm, with special guests Matt Kelley and Wave Milor at JVs Restaurant, 6666 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church, VA 22042, 703-241-9504, 8:30 pm, free, www.jvsrestau-rant.com

26 Wed., Feb. 26, Wolf ’s Still Standing Blues Jam with Tom Maxwell and Andy Hamburger at Londontown Pub, 726 Londontown Rd., Edgewater, MD 21037, 410-956-9799, free.

MARCH3 8:30pm, with Tom Maxwell and

special guest Mike Westcott at JVs Restaurant, 6666 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church, VA 22042, 703-241-9504, free, www.jvsrestaurant.com

5 7:30pm, with Tom Maxwell and Andy Hamburger at Londontown

Pub, 726 Londontown Rd., Edgewater, MD 21037, 410-956-9799, free.

10 8:30pm, with Tom Maxwell and special guest Paul Pfau at JVs Restaurant, 6666 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church, VA 22042, 703-241-9504, free, www.jvsrestaurant.com


17 8:30pm, with Tom Maxwell and special guest Linwood Taylor at JVs Restaurant, 6666 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church, VA 22042, 703-241-9504, free, www.jvsrestaurant.com

19 8:30pm, with Tom Maxwell and Andy Hamburger at Londontown Pub, 726 Londontown Rd., Edgewater, MD 21037, 410-956-9799, 7:30 pm, free.

24 8:30pm, Wolf ’s with Tom Maxwell and special guest Matt Kelley at JVs Restaurant, 6666 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church, VA 22042, 703-241-9504, free, www.jvsrestaurant.com


31 8:30pm, with Tom Maxwell and special guest Paul Pfau at JVs Restaurant, 6666 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church, VA 22042, 703-241-9504, free, www.jvsrestaurant.com

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Baltimore Blues Society BLUESRAG 2014 Feb