Monday 27 January 2014

Featured Artist - Jake Leg Jug Band

Today we are joined in the Jake Leg Jug Band ahead of the official launch of their new album "Next Stop" at The Clonter Opera on Saturday 8th March. The album is already available to buy from the usual online type places.
Have a look at their website HERE.

Monday Morning Blues 27/01/14 (1st hour) by Kev "Legs" on Mixcloud

Monday Morning Blues 27/01/14 (2nd hour) by Kev "Legs" on Mixcloud

This week's playlist

Little Feat - "Mellow Down Easy"
The Jake Leg Jug Band - "Alabama Blues"
Buddy Guy & Junior Wells - "Messin' With The Kid"
J.J. Cale - "Midnight In Memphis"
The Dixieland Jug Blowers - "Memphis Shake"
Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated - Baby Don't You Love Me"
The Jake Leg Jug Band - "Maple Leaf Rag"
Sleepy John Estes - "Milk Cow Blues"
Mississippi John Hurt - "Monday Morning Blues"
The Jake Leg Jug Band - "Frisco Town"
Mance Lipscomb - "Mother Had A Sick Child"
Janiva Magness - "Your Love Made A U-Turn"
Blind Willie McTell - "Mr. McTell Got The Blues"
Jimmy Rogers - "Left Me With A Broken Heart"
Paul Rodgers - "Muddy Water Blues (Acoustic)"
Dr. Feelgood - "My Babe"
The Jake Leg Jug Band - "Sugar In My Bowl"
Robin Rogers - "Need Your Love So Bad"

Monday 20 January 2014

This week's playlist

The Trevor Sewell Band - "DNA"
Connie Lush - "Blues Is My Business"
Alison Joy Williams - "Blues Sure Get Me"
Alison Joy Williams - "Blonde Hair Blues"
Ma Rainey - "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom"
Wes Mackey - "Life Is A Journey"
Connie Lush - "Send Me No Flowers"
Mike McGuire - "Kentucky Morning"
Bill Bourne and The Free Radio Band - "Maggie's Farm"
Connie Lush and Blues Shouter - "24 hr Blues"
Jim Allchin - "Overlocked"
Nine Below Zero - "Mama Talk To Your Daughter"
Charlie Musselwhite - "Been Gone Too Long"
Miss Marcy and Her Texas Sugar Daddy's - "Sugar Daddy"
Kerri Powers - "Buttercup"
Guy Clark - "I'll Show Me"
The Black Keys - "Run Me Down"
Connie Lush - "Love Me Like A Man"

Featured Artist: Connie Lush

Connie Lush
Connie Lush has been recognised as one of the finest Blues singers in the UK, winning five times, “Best Female Vocalist Uk” earning a place in the gallery of greats, alongside Alexis Corner and Eric Clapton to name just two. Twice voted “European Blues Vocalist of the year” by the French Blues Trophies Awards” and nominated again “Best UK Blues Vocalist” 2011-2012.
Growing up in her native Liverpool, her Mother used to send her to the record store every Saturday to purchase the top 10 chart hits. So it was that from an early age Connie became acquainted with the likes of Lonnie Donegan, Brenda Lee and Ray Charles.
From there she started listening to Little Feat and Bonnie Raitt and, after an audition at the Colne Blues Festival, she plucked up the courage to join husband Terry in his band,
In recent years, Connie has performed in over 30 countries. She has played at some of Europe’s largest and most prestigious festivals, including Glastonbury Festival 2011 and wowing audiences in Moscow, New York and LA , recording in “The Cotton Row Studios” in Memphis and of course singing at BB Kings, Beale St....Connie also toured with BB King through the Uk, finishing at The Royal Albert Hall London.
Connie is also a known songwriter, writing for TV and featuring at Jazz FM and other radio stations as a DJ. She continues her love affair with audiences everywhere, bringing her enormous “Gusto” for life and music wherever she goes. As BB King said “That Woman makes my heart sing!”

Monday Morning Blues 20/01/14 (1st hour) by Kev "Legs" on Mixcloud

Monday Morning Blues 20/01/14 (2nd hour) by Kev "Legs" on Mixcloud

Monday 13 January 2014

This week's playlist

Chicken Wilson & Jimmy 'Skeeter' Hinton - "Chicken Blues"
Charlie Patton - "Rattlesnake Blues"
Pokey La Farge & The South City Three - "La La Blues"
Jack Derwin - "Still The Same"
Jo Ann Kelly - "Whiskey Head Woman"
Rachelle Coba - "View From Here"
Status Quo - "Lazy Poker Blues"
Mississippi Sheiks - "He Calls That Religion"
Walter Trout Band - "Got To Kill The Monkey"
Soulstack - "Let Me Be Your Fool"
Tommy Johnson - "Big Road Blues"
Tedeschi Trucks Band - "Learn How To Love You"
Bo Carter - "Corrine, Corrina"
Johnny Winter - "Lights Out"
Jody Weger - "Talkin' Daytime Drinkin' Blues"
Norine Braun - "Drunk"
Hooray For The Riff Raff - "St. Roch Blues"
Tommy Castro & The Painkillers - "When I Cross The Mississippi"
Savoy Brown - "I Miss Your Love"
Skip James - "Devil Got My Woman"
Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble - "Little Wing"

Featured Artist: H.C. Spier

H. C. Speir
(October 6, 1895 – April 22, 1972)
Born Henry Columbus Speir in Prospect, Mississippi.
Speir was a white businessman who ran a music and mercantile store on Farish Street, in Jackson's black neighborhood. In 1926, through selling blues records in his store, he began working as a scout for the record companies producing the records, such as Okeh, Victor, Gennett, Columbia, Vocalion, Decca and Paramount.
Using a metal disc machine in his store, Speir made demo recordings of the musicians that he sent to the labels, before arranging for more formal recording sessions. Word spread among blues musicians that Speir could help them make records, and many came to audition at the store. This audition process — along with the ensuing recording sessions — was dramatized in the Wim Wenders -directed instalment of the television mini-series Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues: A Musical Journey, entitled The Soul Of A Man.
Among the numerous musicians whom Speir introduced to the record companies were Ishman Bracey, Tommy Johnson, Charlie Patton, Son House, Skip James, Robert Johnson, Bo Carter, Willie Brown, The Mississippi Sheiks, Blind Joe Reynolds, Blind Roosevelt Graves, Geeshie Wiley, and Robert Wilkins. He also auditioned, but turned down, Jimmie Rodgers.
Speir retired from recording in 1936, and left Farish Street after a 1942 fire at his store. In the 1960s, Speir was extensively interviewed by blues scholar Gayle Dean Wardlow about the recordings he had made. On April 22, 1972, Speir died at his home in Pearl, Mississippi after suffering a fatal heart attack. He is buried alongside his wife at Lakewood Memorial Park Cemetery, in Clinton, Hinds County, Mississippi. According to a living family member, Speir's "headstone does not recognize him for his accomplishment in the recording industry".
Speir was posthumously inducted into the Blues Hall Of Fame in 2005.

Monday Morning Blues 13/01/14 (1st hour) by Kev "Legs" on Mixcloud

Monday Morning Blues 13/01/14 (2nd hour) by Kev "Legs" on Mixcloud

Monday 6 January 2014

This week's playlist

Lonnie Johnson - "Happy New Year Darling"
Lightnin' Hopkins - "Katie Mae Blues"
Philipp Fankhauser - "It's Gonna Rain"
Fiona Boyes - "Waiting For Some Good News"
Acoustic Endeavors - "Cordially Invited To The Blues"
Pete 'Snakey Jake' Johnson - "I've Been Well Warned"
Whistler And His Jug Band - "Jug Band Special"
Ray Charles - "I've Got A Woman"
Anni Piper - "Live To Play"
Roscoe Chenier - "Bad Luck"
Lightnin' Hopkins - "Papa Bones Boogie"
Simon Prager and Masha Vlassova - "Jelly Bean Blues"
Corey Lueck and The Smoke Wagon Blues Band - "Josephine"
Lightnin' Hopkins - "Coffee Blues"
Roomful Of Blues - "Dressed Up To Get Messed Up"
MonkeyJunk - "Let Her Down"
6th Street Rhythm And Blues Revue - "Just Like A Man"
The Bankesters - "I Gotta Have You"
Michael Jerome Brown - "Sing Low"
Jason Daniels - "Riding Back To Memphis"
David 'Honeyboy' Edwards - "Kansas City"
Lightnin' Hopkins - "They Wonder Who I Am"
Eddie Boyd - "Key To The Highway"

Featured Artist: Lightnin' Hopkins


Sam John Hopkins
(March 15, 1912 – January 30, 1982),
Born Sam John Hopkins in Centerville, Texas, Hopkins' childhood was immersed in the sounds of the blues and he developed a deeper appreciation at the age of 8 when he met Blind Lemon Jeffersonmat a church picnic in Buffalo, Texas. That day, Hopkins felt the blues was "in him" and went on to learn from his older (somewhat distant) cousin, country blues singer Alger 'Texas' Alexander. Hopkins had another cousin, the Texas electric blues guitarist Frankie Lee Sims, with whom he later recorded. Hopkins began accompanying Blind Lemon Jefferson on guitar in informal church gatherings. Jefferson supposedly never let anyone play with him except for young Hopkins, who learned much from and was influenced greatly by Blind Lemon Jefferson thanks to these gatherings. In the mid-1930s, Hopkins was sent to Houston County Prison Farm for an unknown offense. In the late 1930s, Hopkins moved to Houston with Alexander in an unsuccessful attempt to break into the music scene there. By the early 1940s, he was back in Centerville working as a farm hand.
Hopkins took a second shot at Houston in 1946. While singing on Dowling St. in Houston's Third Ward (which would become his home base), he was discovered by Lola Anne Cullum from the Los Angeles-based record label Aladdin Records. She convinced Hopkins to travel to Los Angeles, where he accompanied pianist Wilson Smith. The duo recorded twelve tracks in their first sessions in 1946. An Aladdin Records executive decided the pair needed more dynamism in their names and dubbed Hopkins "Lightnin'" and Wilson "Thunder".
Hopkins recorded more sides for Aladdin in 1947. He returned to Houston and began recording for the Gold Star Records label. During the late 1940s and 1950s Hopkins rarely performed outside Texas. However, he recorded prolifically, occasionally traveling to the Mid-West and Eastern United States for recording sessions and concert appearances. It has been estimated that he recorded between 800 and 1000 songs during his career. He performed regularly at clubs in and around Houston, particularly in Dowling St. where he had first been discovered. He recorded his hits "T-Model Blues" and "Tim Moore's Farm" at Sugar Hill Recording Studios in Houston. By the mid to late 1950s, his prodigious output of quality recordings had gained him a following among African Americans and blues music aficionados.
In 1959, Hopkins was contacted by folklorist Mack McCormick who hoped to bring him to the attention of the broader musical audience which was caught up in the folk festival. McCormick presented Hopkins to integrated audiences first in Houston and then in California. Hopkins debuted at Carmegie Hall on October 14, 1960, appearing alongside Joan Baez and Pete Seeger performing the spiritual "Mary Don't You Weep". In 1960, he signed to Tradition Records. The recordings which followed included his song "Mojo Hand" in 1960.
In 1968, Hopkins recorded the album Free Form Patterns backed by the rhythm section of psychedelic rock band the 13th Floor Elevators. Through the 1960s and into the 1970s, Hopkins released one or sometimes two albums a year and toured, playing at major folk festivals and at folk clubs and on college campuses in the U.S. and internationally. He traveled widely in the United States, and overcame his fear of flying to join the 1964 American Folk Blues Festival, visit Germany and the Netherlands 13 years later, and play a six-city tour of Japan in 1978.
Hopkins died of esophageal cancer in Houston on January 30, 1982, at the age of 69. His New York Times obituary named him as "one of the great country blues and perhaps the greatest single influence on rock guitar players."

Monday Morning Blues 06/01/14 (1st hour) by Kev "Legs" on Mixcloud

Monday Morning Blues 06/01/14 (2nd hour) by Kev "Legs" on Mixcloud