Monday 25 February 2013

This week's playlist

J.J. Cale - "Midnight In Memphis"
Blind Blake - "Diddie Wah Diddie"
Elvin Bishop - "Devil's Slide"
Mark Robinson - "Drive Real Fast"
The Blues Brothers - "Minnie The Moocher"
The Mississippi Sheiks - "Sales Tax"
The Jimi Hendrix Experience - "Rainy Day, Dream Away"
Mark Robinson - "Broke Down"
Mamie Smith - "Crazy Blues"
Hambone Willie Newbern - "Rock And Tumble Blues"
Mark Robinson - "Runaway Train"
Big Bill Broonzy - "I Can't Be Satisfied"
Robert Wilkins - "That's No Way To Get Along"
Rory Gallagher - "Don't Know Where I'm Going"
Ike And Tina Turner - "Ain't Nobody's Business"
Cee Cee James - "Feel My Love Come Down"
Fats Domino - "Boogie Woogie Baby"
Buddy Guy - "Hard, But It's Fair"
Creedence Clearwater Revival - "I Put A Spell On You"
Sleepy John Estes - "Someday Baby Blues"
Mark Robinson - "Memphis Won't Leave Me Alone"
Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble - "Love Struck Baby"

Featured Artist: Mark Robinson

Mark Robinson
Mark Robinson’s debut album Quit Your Job — Play Guitar ignited like the first kaleidoscopic blast of a fireworks display. It was an attention-grabbing harbinger of even more exciting, incendiary things to come. DJs quickly embraced the disc and About.com Blues, Blues Underground Network and BluesVan branded it one of 2010’s best.
Now Robinson’s follow-up Have Axe — Will Groove provides an even more colorful and explosive display of the Nashville-based guitarist and songwriter’s estimable skills. And while the title of Quit Your Job —Play Guitar was autobiographical, the songs on his new release are even more personal… and dirtier and funkier and grittier. And when it comes to Robinson’s sterling guitar work, they’re also more colorful.
“Have Axe — Will Groove is about finding my voice as an artist,” he explains. “The songs are stronger and fit together well, and they all say something about my life — whether they’re inspired by things that happened to me or that I was reflecting on, or by the music and the experiences that have guided me along the way playing blues and country and other styles.
“What I’m interested in,” Robinson says, “isn’t being flashy or making the latest hit single. I’m making records and playing gigs to try to make music that moves people.”

Monday 18 February 2013

The Jake Leg Jug Band

Neil (guitar), Duncan (bass), Andy (banjo), Esther (washboard)

Members of The Jake Leg Jug Band joined us for a chat about themselves,
their new release, and music in general.

This week's playlist

Willy & The Poor Boys - All Night Long
Jake Leg Jug Band - Bring It With You When You Come
Pete 'Snakey Jake' Johnson - Stormy Weather
Memphis Minnie - Black Rat Swing
Little Brother Montgomery - The First Time I Met The Blues
The Memphis Jug Band - K.C. Moan
Jake Leg Jug Band - Keep Your Mind On It
Bonnie Raitt - I Ain't Blue
Jim Kweskin - Somebody Stole My Gal
Jake Leg Jug Band - Baby You Gotta Change Your Mind
The Riverside Ramblers - Dissatisfied
Rockin' Dopsie - Zydeco 'Round The World
Zoot Money - Get On The Right Track
Jeff Black - All Right Now
Jake Leg Jug Band - Boxcar Blues
Grandpa Banana - Love Is A Five Letter Word

Featured Artist: The Jake Leg Jug Band

                                 The Jake Leg Jug Band
Playing a wealth of music from the 1920's and 30's, incorporating a heady mix of Country Blues, Ragtime, Vaudeville, Jug and Gospel, The Jake Leg Jug Band take you back in time with songs inspired during the American prohibition, using a mix of instruments true to the period to bring you songs about easy riders, bootleg liquor and trying to stay out of the jailhouse!
The band features Duncan Wilcox (Vocals & Double Bass & Kazoo) formerly of 'The Queensberry Rules', Esther Brennan (Vocals & Washboard) from The Boat Band, Neil Hulse (Vocals & Guitar) ex Boneshaker, from Bluegrass band 'The Slippery Hill Boys', Andy Anderson (Vocals & Banjo) and regular session man Purcy Harmonica (Vocals, Harmonica & Ukulele).
Following the release of the band's debut album 'Cottonmouth' on both CD and 10" vinyl format, the band continue their live shows and are quickly growing their reputation as a lively, feel-good band.
Expect interpretations of music from more obscure and often curiously named artists of the era including Cannon's Jug Stompers, Mississippi Sheiks and Washboard Sam.

Monday 11 February 2013

This week's playlist

Josh White - "Blood Red River"
Robert Cray - "The Score"
John Lee Hooker - "I See You When You're Weak"
Billy D and The Hoodoos - "Somewhere In The Middle Of The Blues"
Flying Burrito Brothers - "Honky Tonkin' Honky Tonk"
Led Zeppelin - "Bring It On Home"
Ezra Buzzington Rustic Revelers - "Brown Jug Blues"
Leroy Carr and Scrapper Blackwell - "How Long, How Low Blues"
Barbecue Bob - "Atlanta Moan"
Robert Cray - "Blues Get Off My Shoulder"
2BLU and The Lucky Stiffs - "Dead Man's Blues"
Mike Stevens - "Milk Cow Blues"
Robert Cray - "Sleeping In The Ground"
The Keller Sisters - "Those Baby Blues"
Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page - "Draggin' My Tail"
Wesley Pruitt Band - "Thief In The Night"
Muddy Waters - "Mannish Boy"
Buddy Guy - "Try To Quit You Baby"
"Eddie Boyd - "Key To The Highway"
Richard Staines and Satinder Grewal - "I Can't Be Satified"
Eliza Neals - "Money (That's What I Want)"
Billy Boy Arnold - "I Ain't Got You"
Robert Cray - "Too Many Cooks"
Champion Jack Dupree with John Mayall - "Third Degree"

Featured Artist: Robert Cray

Robert Cray
(born August 1, 1953, Columbus, Georgia, United States)
Cray started playing guitar in his early teens. He attended Denbigh High School in Newport News, Virginia, and wanted to become an architect, but around the same time that he began to study architectural design he formed the band Steakface, which played covers by Jimi Hendrix, Quiksilver Messenger Service, Fleetwood Mac, and others.
By the age of twenty, Cray had seen his heroes Albert Collins, Freddie King and Muddy Waters in concert and decided to form his own band, who began playing college towns on the West Coast.
In the late 1970s he lived in Eugene, Oregon, where he formed the Robert Cray Band and collaborated with Curtis Salgado in the Cray-Hawks.
In the 1978 film “National Lampoon's Animal House”, Cray was the uncredited bassist in the house party band Otis Day and the Knights.
After several years of regional success, Cray was signed to Mercury Records in 1982. Two albums on HighTone Records in the mid-80s, “Bad Influence” and “False Accusations”, were moderately successful in the United States and in Europe, where he was building a reputation as a live artist. His fourth album release, “Strong Persuader”, produced by Dennis Walker, received a Grammy Award, while the crossover single "Smokin' Gun" gave him wider appeal and name recognition.
By now, Cray was an opening act for such major stars as Eric Clapton (who remains a friend to this day), and sold out larger venues as a solo artist.
Cray has generally played Fender guitars ( Telecasters and Stratocasters) and there are two signature Robert Cray Stratocasters models available from Fender. The Robert Cray Custom Shop Stratocaster is made in the United States in the Fender custom shop and is identical to the guitars that Cray currently plays, while the Robert Cray Standard Stratocaster is a less-expensive model made in Fender's Ensada, Mexico plant.
Cray had the opportunity to play alongside John Lee Hooker on his album “Boom Boom”, playing the guitar solo in the song "Same Old Blues Again". He is also featured on the Hooker album, “The Healer”, he plays a guitar solo on the song "Baby Lee". The entire Robert Cray Band backs Hooker on the title track of Hooker's 1992 album "Mr. Lucky", where Cray plays lead guitar, sings, and banters with Hooker throughout the song.
Cray was invited to play at the "Guitar Legends" concerts in Seville, Spain at the 1992 Expo, where he played a signature track, "Phone Booth". Albert Collins was also on the bill on this blues night of the "Legends" gigs.
Cray continues to record and tour. He appeared at the Crossroads Guitar Festival and supported Eric Clapton on his 2006-2007 world tour.
In Fargo, North Dakota, he joined Clapton on backup guitar for the song "Crossroads".
In 2011, Cray was inducted to the Blues Hall of Fame.

Monday 4 February 2013

This week's playlist

John Pippus - "Tell Me Why"
Blind Boy Fuller - "You Got To Have Your Dollar
Tommy Johnson - "Cool Drink Of Water Blues"
Tommy McClennan - "Cross Cut Saw Blues"
Delta Twins - "Big Shoes"
B.B. King - "Sneakin' Around (With You)"
John Mayall - "A Big Man"
The Memphis Jug Band - "On The Road Again"
Robert Cray, Albert Collins and Johnny Copeland - "Black Cat Bone"
Blind Boy Fuller - "Shake That Shimmy"
Fleetwood Mac - "Shake Your Money Maker
The Sensational Alex Harvey Band - "Hole In Her Stocking"
Blind Boy Fuller - "My Best Gal Gonna Leave Me"
Robert Johnson - "32-20 Blues"
Mississippi John Hurt - "Candy Man"
Debbie Davies - "True Blue Fool"
Jethro Tull - "It's Breaking Me Up"
Jim Jackson - "Hesitation Blues"
Big Joe Williams - "Baby Please Don't Go"
Sunday Wilde - "Show Me A Man"
Blind Boy Fuller - "Baby You Gotta Change Your Mind"
Sonny Terry - "Harmonica Stomp"

Featured Artist: Blind Boy Fuller

Blind Boy Fuller (born Fulton Allen)
                        (July 10, 1907 – February 13, 1941)
Unlike blues artists like Big Bill or Memphis Minnie who recorded extensively over three or four decades, Blind Boy Fuller recorded his substantial body of work over a short, six-year span. Nevertheless, he was one of the most recorded artists of his time
Fulton Allen was born in Wadesboro, North Carolina, United States, to Calvin Allen and Mary Jane Walker. He was one of a family of 10 children, but after his mother's death he moved with his father to Rockingham. As a boy he learned to play the guitar and also learned from older singers the field hollers, country rags, and traditional songs and blues popular in poor, rural areas.
He married Cora Allen young and worked as a labourer, but began to lose his eyesight in his mid-teens. According to researcher Bruce Bastin, "While he was living in Rockingham he began to have trouble with his eyes. He went to see a doctor in Charlotte who allegedly told him that he had ulcers behind his eyes, the original damage having been caused by some form of snow-blindness." However, there is an alternative story that he was blinded by an ex-girlfriend who threw chemicals in his face.
By 1928 he was completely blind, and turned to whatever employment he could find as a singer and entertainer, often playing in the streets. By studying the records of country blues players like Blind Blake and the "live" playing of Gary Davis, Allen became a formidable guitarist, and played on street corners and at house parties in Winston-Salem, NC, Danville VA, and then Durham, North Carolina. In Durham, playing around the tobacco warehouses, he developed a local following which included guitarists Floyd Council and Richard Trice, as well as harmonica player Saunders Terrell, better known as Sonny Terry, and washboard player/guitarist George Washington.
In 1935, Burlington record store manager and talent scout James Baxter Long secured him a recording session with the Amderican Recording Company (ARC). Allen, Davis and Washington recorded several tracks in New York City, including the traditional "Rag, Mama, Rag". To promote the material, Long decided to rename Allen as "Blind Boy Fuller", and also named Washington Bull City Red.
Over the next five years Fuller made over 120 sides, and his recordings appeared on several labels. His style of singing was rough and direct, and his lyrics explicit and uninhibited as he drew from every aspect of his experience as an underprivileged, blind Black person on the streets—pawnshops, jailhouses, sickness, death—with an honesty that lacked sentimentality. Although he was not sophisticated, his artistry as a folk singer lay in the honesty and integrity of his self-expression. His songs contained desire, love, jealousy, disappointment, menace and humor.
In April 1936, Fuller recorded ten solo performances, and also recorded with guitarist Floyd Council. The following year, after auditioning for J. Mayo Williams, he recorded for the Decca label, but then reverted to ARC. Later in 1937, he made his first recordings with Sonny Terry. In 1938 Fuller, who was described as having a fiery temper, was imprisoned for shooting a pistol at his wife, wounding her in the leg, causing him to miss out on John Hammond's “From Spiritual To Swing” concert in NYC that year. While Fuller was eventually released, it was Sonny Terry who went in his stead, the beginning of a long "folk music" career. Fuller's last two recording sessions took place in New York City during 1940.
Fuller's repertoire included a number of popular double entendre “hokum”songs such as "I Want Some Of Your Pie", "Truckin' My Blues Away" (the origin of the phrase "keep on truckin'"), and "Get Your Yas Yas Out" (adapted as "Get Your Ya-Yas Out" for the origin of a later Rolling Stones album title), together with the autobiographical "Big House Bound" dedicated to his time spent in jail. Though much of his material was culled from traditional folk and blues numbers, he possessed a formidable finger-picking guitar style. He played a steel National resonator guitar. He was criticised by some as a derivative musician, but his ability to fuse together elements of other traditional and contemporary songs and reformulate them into his own performances, attracted a broad audience. He was an expressive vocalist and a masterful guitar player, best remembered for his uptempo ragtime hits including “Step It Up And Go”. At the same time he was capable of deeper material, and his versions of "Lost Lover Blues", "Rattlesnakin' Daddy" and "Mamie" are as deep as most Delta blues. Because of his popularity, he may have been overexposed on records, yet most of his songs remained close to tradition and much of his repertoire and style is kept alive by other Piedmont artists to this day.
Fuller died at his home in Durham, North Carolina on February 13, 1941 at 5:00 PM of pyemia due to an infected bladder, GI tract and perineum, plus kidney failure.
He was so popular when he died that his protégé Brownie McGhee recorded "The Death of Blind Boy Fuller" for the Okeh label, and then reluctantly began a short lived career as Blind Boy Fuller No. 2 so that Columbia Records could cash in on his popularity.