25th International Blues Challenge - Memphis 2009

25th International Blues Challenge

here is the list of winners for 2009:

Band, 1st place
South Florida Blues Society--JP Soars & the Red Hots

Band, 2nd Place
Cascade Blues Association--Ty Curtis Band

Band, 3rd Place
Ottawa Blues Society--MonkeyJunk

Best Guitarist (in a a band) Award
JP Soars

Solo/Duo, 1st place

Blues Society of Tulsa--Little Joe McLerran

Solo/Duo, 2nd Place

Crossroads Blues Society of Mississippi--Alphonso & Richard

Best Self-Produced CD Award

"Hollerin'!" Nathan James & Ben Hernandez took home the Best Self-Produced CD Award for their newest effort (Many of you will recall, this duo won the 2007 International Blues Challenge).

Here is a summary of the IBC week (from http://blues.org/ibc/past.php?YearId=25)

From the opening night, with last year’s runner-up Shakura S’Aida belting out the National Anthem at the Memphis Grizzlies game to the Wednesday night party at the New Daisy Theater featuring previous IBC Winners like Trampled Under Foot, Sean Carney, Homemade Jamz and Jonn Richardson to the 184 acts from around the world to the all day Saturday finals to jams in every Beale Street venue, the IBC has become THE winter blues event to attend.
It was not that long ago that the IBC, aka the International Blues Challenge, hosted 20 to 30 acts which competed in one or two clubs on Beale. Solo performers and bands were lumped in the same category and the few fans, mainly family, crammed into the New Daisy theater. Today it has grown into a world class event with enough music to satisfy every blues taste.
For those not familiar with the format, 10 clubs on Beale Street each host 10 bands for a 25 minute performance on both Thursday and Friday nights. Another 6 clubs host 10 solo/duo acts during the same period. The top scoring band in each venue then moves to the Saturday finals.
With program in hand, one simply darts from club to club starting at 5 PM searching out the best of Beale. When the dust finally settles, around midnight, your friends will tell you about all the great bands you missed. That sets up your Friday schedule.
This year, the Blues Foundation started Friday’s music at 11 AM with two exciting showcases during the afternoon. Alfred’s hosted a showcase of 11 International acts which came to Memphis to compete. High energy bands from France’s Blues Sur Seine, Norway, Croatia, Ottawa, Quebec, Australia, Israel, and Italy showed all afternoon that the blues thrives around the world. At the same time, the Foundation hosted a Youth showcase for 24 bands whose members were under 21 years old. Blues Societies were asked to send their best Youth band to showcase talent. Held in four clubs on Beale, the Youth Showcase featured a 9 year old string slinger, a 15 year old slide guitarist, bass players whose bass is bigger then they are, and a 14 year old boogie woogie master. This showcase was enough proof that the blues can still catch the ears of today’s younger generation.
As it that was not enough music, Blind Raccoon and Yellow Dog Records each held showcases in the Rum Boogie and King’s Palace respectively. At the Blind Raccoon show, fans could hear musicians like Dave fields, Chris James, Patrick Rynn, Tas Cru, Billy Gibson, Steve Howell, and the Delta Flyers. The highlight here was when Super Chikan unveiled his OBAMA guitar, complete with Chikan’s unique stimulus package. Yellow Dog’s show included the varied musical Mary Flower, Rich Del Grosso and Fiona Boyes.
Highlights of my two days of running from club to club included the Grady Champion revue from Jackson, MS. I first met Grady 13 years ago and haven’t seen his show in almost 10 years. His combination of Southern soul, funk, and blues was a refreshing break from blasting guitars. Another highlight was the sweet, acoustic stylings of Washington’s Alice Stuart. There were explosive sets by Austin’s Mike Milligan and the Alter Boyz, Conrad Oberg on both piano and guitar, Dan Treanor’s trippy Afrosippi blues band, and the Phil Gates band. On the street I had difficult choices between the booming voice of Austin “Walkin’ Cane,” the dense guitar groove of Darrell Raines and George Caldwell, the finger picking of Roger “Hurricane” Wilson and the hill country blues of 80 year old veteran L.C. Ulmer and his 17 year old student, Chase Holifield.
The finals included the soul stylings of Monkey Junk, Ottawa’s top blues band, the four handed boogie-woogie of Poland’s Boogie Bo ys, the sultry come hither blues of Phoenix’s Meredith Moore, the passionate guitar work of Pryor Baird, the fresh blues vision of Boston’s Delta Generators and the gorgeous 10 minute slow blues guitar of eventual band winner, JP Soars and the Red Hots. Follow that with a 6 act performance in the solo duo category won by the gorgeous Piedmont finger style of 24 year old Little Joe McLerran and Saturday was a night that satisfied every blues taste.
But the music never stops when the shows end. Steady Rollin’ Bob Margolin hosted his annual after party jam at the Rum Boogie on both Friday and Saturday night. On Saturday, Michael Burks and Shemekia Copeland both stopped by to join Bob’s jam. The New Daisy hosted a Youth Jam session on Friday night that produced enough energy to light the night. And on Saturday night, Big City Blue hosted a showcase at Morgan Freeman’s new Memphis Ground Zero.
Congrats to the Blues Foundation for having the vision to let this event grow into one of the premier music events on the Blues calendar.

Blues at the Grammy's - 2009

Blues Grammy Winners:

The 51st Grammy Awards were held on Sunday, February 8, but you didn’t see the Blues categories, which were held earlier.

Below are the nominees in the Blues-related categories. They winners are in bold:

Best Traditional Blues Album

The Blues Rolls On - Elvin Bishop - Delta Groove Music

Skin Deep - Buddy Guy - Silvertone Records

All Odds Against Me - John Lee Hooker, Jr. - Steppin' Stone Records/CC Entertainment

One Kind Favor - B.B. King - Geffen Records

Pinetop Perkins & Friends - Pinetop Perkins & Friends - Stoneagle Music/Telarc

Best Contemporary Blues Album

Peace, Love & BBQ - Marcia Ball - Alligator Records

Like A Fire - Solomon Burke - Shout! Factory

City That Care Forgot - Dr. John And The Lower 911 - 429 Records

Maestro - Taj Mahal - Heads Up International

Simply Grand - Irma Thomas -Rounder Records

These are all winners!

The Blackmailers - Blues and Fun from Moscow

Zlato Zrno Blues (2004)

My friend Alex S. introduced me to the music of the Blackmailers about 2 years ago, and suggested that I contact them.
They kindly responded by sending us copies of their first two albums.

Featuring a with a nice horn section, their sound reminds me of Blood Sweat and Tears, and the full voice of the lead vocalist reminds me allot of David Clayton Thomas.
Even though the singing diction isn't perfect, the overall message comes across -
these guys love the Blues and are having a good time when they play!!!

Guitarist Alex Baryshev and singer Timo Kopylov provide us with an interesting mix of Jump Blues, Chicago Blues, some Jazzy Blues, and a strong spicing up with some Balkan music!!!

Paradise Fanfare Blues (2006)

I give these 2 albums 4 thumbs up (out of a possible 5).

Sam Bluzman Taylor - 1934- 2009

Where Sam Bluzman Taylor is concerned, I can profess almost total ignorance. I had hardly heard the name 'till someone mentioned a live show of his on one of the Blues forums. But the minute I checked him out, I found a charming, dynamic, and powerful "Bluzman" who was quietly tucked away in the Long Island, N.Y. area, and was a respected member of the Long Island Blues Society, . His musical history includes playing in early funk and soul bands such as BT Express and Joey Dee & The Starlighters. He was awarded Blues Trust Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003, as well as being inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame.
To me, Sam Taylor strongly resembled Matt "Guitar" Murphy Wikipedia: Matt Murphy which made me more curious about him, and once I heard his music I found a powerful singer with strong roots in gospel and soul, as well as a fine electric Blues guitarist.



Here are
some video clips of Sam

here are a few selected Obits and references to Sam Bluzman Taylor:

Long Island Music Hall of Fame site

Newsday Obituary

Keith Gordon - About.com Guide to Blues on Sam Taylor

R.I.P. Davy Graham - Brit guitar virtuoso

It's a sad day for guitarists and guitar fans around the world!
R.I.P. Davy Graham (1940-2008)



For those who are not familiar with Davy Graham (born in Leicester to a Scottish mother)
he wrote a famous little guitar instrumental named "Anji" (sometimes spelled "Angi")
(not to be confused with Mick Jagger's song "Angie")
Graham was a pioneering young virtuoso guitarist who was equally adept at playing
English Folk songs, Beatles, American Blues, modern Jazz, and even Indian music on his guitar.
I recommend the album "Folk , Blues and Beyond" as a starting point that represents his best work
[ Folk Blues and Beyond on AMG ]

His Blues and Jazz interpretations were particularly fresh and innovative in the early 60's when most acoustic players were still deep in the Folk traditions, and I guess that is my attraction to Graham's music - his take on the Charles Mingus tune "Better Get It In Your Soul" for example, which echoed the John Renbourn/Bert Jansch take on Mingus's "Goodbye Porkpie Hat" from the same period. They were all part of the same scene of what I would term "Acoustic Avant Garde Guitar", pushing the boundaries of what one could play on an acoustic guitar at the time.
Graham was to me the most mysterious of the group because he was much less accessible than the rest - his recordings were very hard to find until recently when the digital download age resulted in an explosion of reissues of many of Graham's albums from the 60's (many of those are uneven or not up to the same standard as "Folk Blues and Beyond" and "3/4 A.D.", so you must preview each album before buying).

The song Anji was named after Graham's big love at the time (early 1960's)
and was recorded by Paul Simon on the album "Sounds of Silence" (1966)
Paul Simon also used the tune as the basis for his song "Somewhere They Can't Find Me"
Fellow Scotsman and friend of Graham's - Bert Jansch recorded the definitive version of Anji on his album "Lucky 13" (1966)
and continues playing Anji to this day in his regular repertoire on stage.

And of course, there is the Israeli connection to this story - a man named Sidney Katzenel (another Scotsman)
who was a friend of both Bert Jansch and Davy Graham, and lived in Israel from the late 60's onward
(Sidney lived in Nahariya, where he was a high school teacher and a musician),
Sidney claimed that he had a direct hand in the composition of the song Anji.

And more Israeli connections - the namesake of the song, Anji herself, apparently migrated to
Israel sometime in the late 60's, and was living in Rosh Pina.
I don't know if she is still alive or her whereabouts,
but some people in the Israel folk community have told me they once knew her...

Rest in peace Davy Graham...

In memory - Robert Lucas

A YouTube clip dedicated to the memory of recently departed Blues great Robert Lucas


see this entry I wrote about him: Robert Lucas R.I.P.

Odetta Gordon - another legend has left us

http://www.boston.com/ae/music/blog/2008/12/odetta_19302008.html


Holy crap!!!
that was my immediate reaction as I just heard from a friend about the passing on of Odetta Gordon.
Another legendary artist gone.

I heard in the Blues circles recently that Odetta was in hospital and that
she was expected to get back on her feet in a few weeks.
- I was hoping to send her a copy of my book while she was recovering...
- She was very much hoping to sing at the Obama inauguration in January...

I met Odetta in 1980 at the Toronto Folk Festival,
I was asked to accompany her from the artist's tent to the stage (where I was a stage hand),
she put her arm under mine and let me lead her across the festival grounds.
I was a bit nervous, I mean this is a person I had known as a legend since my early childhood, and here I was arm in arm, walking her through the festival grounds.
She was very dignified, had great poise and posture, was colorfully well dressed, but also smelled strongly of perfume and booze at the same time!
The minute she got on stage, there was no doubt who was the greatest singer at that festival...



Rest in peace great lady.

R.I.P. Robert Lucas - an extraordinary Bluesman

I discovered Robert Lucas sometime in the mid-1990's when Audioquest records put out his recordings. With his rough whiskey voice, solid harmonica riffs, and powerful guitar playing, both electric and acoustic slide guitars, he had a very distinctive Blues style - as if he had been playing the Blues for 40 years or more. I had no idea that he was so young at the time, apparently he was in his late twenties at the time, but the album photos made him look much older. In recent years, after not hearing anything about him for a good while, I learned that he had joined the Canned Heat band as lead singer, a position he filled off and on up to very recently.
This week, as news of his passing due to drug overdose came over the internet, I was shocked to find out that he was only 46 years old. Some of his playing/singing at times was pretty dark stuff, I don't know what kinds of demons haunted him to make him turn to the drugs that led to his demise, but I hope he can rest in peace now, and that we can remember him for his contribution to the Blues.

I recommend exploring these two albums on Audioquest for starters (click on the links for a description):




Robert Lucas - Layaway Plan



















*************** ^^^^^^ ********************
"Former Canned Heat frontman Robert Lucas, R.I.P.
By Reverend Keith A. Gordon, About.com: Blues

Former Canned Heat frontman Robert Lucas, a skilled slide-guitarist and harp player, died on Sunday, November 23rd, 2008 from an apparent drug overdose, according to his manager Skip Taylor. The Long Beach, California native was just 46 years old.
Lucas first became known to blues fans as a member of guitarist Bernie Pearl's late-1970s band, originally playing harmonica behind artists like Big Joe Turner, Lowell Fulson, Percy Mayfield and other West Coast blues and R&B singers. Lucas worked on his skills for years before launching his own band, Luke & the Locomotives, in 1986.
It was with the 1990 release of his self-produced cassette tape, Across The River, that Lucas began to make a name for himself as a solo artist. After receiving a complimentary newspaper review, Lucas came to the attention of the L.A.-based AudioQuest Records label, which signed the young blues prodigy to a deal.
The label quickly released an acoustic-blues collection, Usin' Man Blues, a mix of original songs and classics from Robert Johnson, Son House, and Sonny Boy Williamson, in late-1990. Lucas would go on to release seven solo albums throughout his career.
Lucas hooked up with boogie-rock kings Canned Heat in 1994 as singer, guitarist and harp player, and would first appear on the band's 1996 Blues Band album, the last featuring founding member and guitarist Henry Vestine.
Between 1994 and 2008, Lucas served two stints as the band's frontman, touring the world in front of the band and contributing songs, instrumentation and vocals to recordings like 1999's Boogie 2000 and the band's 2007 Christmas album.
Lucas recently left Canned Heat to pursue his solo career, and for a relatively young blues artist, he had endless possibilities in front of him. In a statement to the press, Taylor said of Lucas that "his unequaled fury and stage presence, together with his earth-shattering vocal delivery, gave him the ability to channel many of the blues masters through his words, songs and musical ability.
Continuing, Taylor says, "He [Lucas] has been recognized by blues fans and critics worldwide as one of the most inspired singer, player and songwriter talents of the past decade."











Robert Lucas - Built For Comfort

Shake Hands with a Brother

A few months before going to Canada for our summer vacation, I realized that I could actually manage to attend some major concerts and see some of my idols for the fists time. One such concert was the beginning of the Allman Brothers Band summer tour of 2007, which was kicking off in Canada.
I went online to buy tickets as soon as I knew that I would be in Toronto at the right time, bought 2 tickets for the ABB show at Casino Rama which is a few hours north of Toronto, made sure I had booked a room at the Casino/Hotel, arranged the car rental, and we were all set, I was finally going to see not only the Allman Brothers, but Warren Haynes and Derek Trucks as well, since they are in the band in the last few years.

I remember the summer of 1973, the Brothers and Sisters album had just come out at the end of the summer vacation, I was in high school in the Boston area, and the local radio played music from that album all through the fall. That was my introduction to the Allman Brothers, and I have always loved their music, which is primarily based on Blues, it only took another 34 years before I could hear and see them live!

After checking in to the Casino Rama hotel, we were heading for the elevators to reach our room, and who should come out of the elevator but Gregg Allman!!!
Now, I don't like to be rude, or impose on celebrities, but before I knew what had happened, I heard myself blurt out "Hey Gregg!"
he turned around, I shook his hand and may have mumbled something like "It's a great honor to meet you", a half second of dead silence may have passed, and he turned back around and kept on walking. I later found out from the discussion group that he does this all the time, that he is just plain like that, not one to stand and talk with fans or strangers, and it's nothing personal...but I was star-struck nonetheless.

Anyway, the wife and I had a great time at the concert, Warren Haynes and Derek Trucks were nothing short of amazing, and the rest of the band was certainly what I expected too - classic Allman Brothers at the height of their game.

The Blues as Zen

This is an article that I wrote for a local magazine back in 1998,
I made some minor updates and corrections, and here it is:


The Blues As Zen

By Eli Marcus

What is the essence of Blues? I see the Blues as a kind of Zen. Like Zen the Blues at face value looks simple, easy. Actually the Blues is simple in its essence, however, as with Zen, a deep understanding of the Blues requires the student/disciple to travel along a path of gradual enlightenment. Brownie McGhee said: "Blues is life", i.e. the Blues is a way of life. It can also be understood that the Blues, like life, has complexity on the one hand, with levels and layers, changing and evolving in time but at the core - its essence is constant.

Willie Dixon said: "I am the Blues", expressing a level of Zen awareness about his life as a Bluesman. The origins of the Blues are quite diverse: not necessarily just musical, they are to a great extent a social/cultural expression of the enslaved and oppressed Black populations of America. Musically we find African melodies and particularly rhythms, intermixed with European musical forms, both folk and classical.

One of the inborn paradoxes of the Blues is that pain and frustration are expressed side by side with joy and spiritual elation, sometimes in the same song. This is a sort of Zen duality. The Afro Americans ("Blacks") arrived in America a few hundred years ago as slaves who were kidnapped out of Africa. With them came the famous "Talking Drums", which was both a form of percussion and an actual method of communication (like the telegraph).

White plantation owners soon understood that the drum-communication was a direct threat to their subjugating authority and a widespread ban of drums and drumming was enforced by the 1830’s. The result was apparently a strengthening of the singing rhythms as well as an emphasis on guitar (European origin) and banjo (African origin) as rhythmical instruments, a trend that has remained in the Blues to this day.

In the same token that rhythm was internalized or went "underground’, so did the Black slave's spirituality. The Black man brought with him from Africa a myriad of religious practices and beliefs which were quite foreign and strange to the Christian/European sensibilities of the White man. This included kinds of tribal witchcraft, Hoodoo and Voodoo.

The clash with Christianity, followed by a ban of Hoodoo and other ritual practices, caused the Blacks to hide these beliefs deep down inside themselves (much like the Maronites in Portugal - Jews who were forced to conceal their religious practices from public view and "officially" converted to Christianity). Again a duality arose with the Black man publicly embracing Christianity (producing Gospel music by the early 1900’s).

Many Blacks continued in secret the practices of Hoodoo and other pagan traditions, some of which are even witnessed in the Blues today. Muddy Waters was well known for the song "Hootchie Cootchie Man" (written by Willie Dixon) and also for "Got My Mojo Working", with lines such as:

"I got a black cat bone, ‘got a Mojo too,
I got a John the Conqueror root, I’m gonna mess with you...."
or -
"I’m goin’ down in Louisiana ‘gonna get me a Mojo Hand,
gonna’ have all you ladies right here under my command".

These ancient pagan religious references in the Blues may be the reason that "righteous" Blacks who were loyal to the church called the Blues "the Devil’s Music" and frowned on it or banned it outright in their homes and the community at large.
Gospel music, though really another musical form of the Blues, was strictly Christian and "White" in textual content, while the Blues have all the rest of the social and cultural content of the Black experience.

Much in the same way that Zen and Blues can be a process of enlightenment, the Black man has undergone a process of socialization and evolution in America. In the music itself we see lots of clowning and "hokum" in the Blues of the 1920’s and 30’s. The Black man in Vaudeville and early movies has no dignity, no self respect. His only expression of being a real person is his sexuality- the one thing the White man didn’t manage to repress. The White man was afraid of the Black man’s overt sexuality, leading to all the nasty stereotypes that exist about Black’s and their sexuality.

The expressions of sexuality that seemed natural and healthy in Black society, were too blatant for the uptight and even puritan White society in America of the 40’s and 50’s, and this was a major factor in keeping R & B and Blues from breaking the color barrier in the 50’s. The "softened" versions of the Black music that were hits for Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and other White performers were often simply "covers" of the Black originals that couldn’t break through, and were often stolen outright from the Black artists.

The late 50’s and early 60’s saw a maturation of the Black music scene, Chuck Berry became a star that appealed to Whites as well as Blacks, but just as the White audiences began discovering the wonderful Black heritage, the Black community began to turn away from the Blues as being archaic, and something they wanted to put behind them. For a while there was even a kind of shame involved in the old black culture and music, and only in the mid 1980’s did young Black artists find a renewed pride in the traditional Blues (witness Corey Harris, Alvin Youngblood Hart, Keb ‘Mo, Guy Davis, and Eric Bibb).

The great attention Blues has received in recent years in the media, including the United States government declaring 2003 as “The Year of the Blues”, is a "ship finally coming in" for artists such as John Lee Hooker, Buddy Guy, and the recently departed Luther Allison- artists who have patiently practiced their Blues craft for 30-40 years before achieving real fame and fortune. A pop-rock artist may rise to fame in 5 years and then vanish overnight, but the Blues, like Zen, is a patient and enduring art.

Living with the Blues and learning as we go, brings us full circle, like Zen, to the starting point of simplicity, an expression of everyday life-
"THE BLUES IS LIFE"
Brownie McGhee

© 1998-2008 Eli Marcus