November 2011

Leaves are falling and the air is getting crisp. Summer is only a memory and a hope, a light at the end of a long tunnel. Time for caramel apples and trick or treats. The goblins and ghouls and zombies will be at the door and running from house to house. Jack-o-lanterns will be carved and casting their toothy smiles on the step. Must be time to party!

If you get this in time and have a chance, don’t miss the Sue Orfield Band at the Mabel Tainter Theater in Menomonie on Friday, Oct. 28. These guys are great! Surrounded by Mike Schlenker on guitar, Randy Sinz on bas, and Dave Schrader keeping the beat, Sue blows the meanest sax in the Midwest. Sue was recently featured on the cover of West Wisconsin magazine.

Oct 28 you can also catch Left Wing Bourbon at The Mousetrap in Eau Claire, possibly the best funk & blues group around.

If you can’t make it to the Tainter and enjoy live music in the middle of the day catch Sue with AcoustiHoo at Obsessions Chocolate’s Chocolate Lounge on Saturday, Nov. 5 from 2 – 4 p.m. This excellent group of musicians include Luke Fischer on guitar & vocals, Olaf Lind on fiddle & mandolin, and Josh Gallagher on keyboard. They kick out an eclectic mix of tunes and are a real treat!

On Oct. 29 The Pumps are playing at the Eagle’s Nest in Boyceville and Lucas K & the Coolhand Saints will be playing at The Sheely House in Chippewa Falls.

On the 30 Ross William Perry will be hosting a CD release party at Shari’s Chippewa Club in
Durand. The Jonestones will be playing at the Bottle & Barrel that night as well.

That just about gets us to November. There is a lot to do around the area to get you out of the house. Be sure to check out our website for band schedules and links. http://www.chippewavalleyblues.com/

A little history for ya! 

Singer, songwriter, and guitarist Keb' Mo' is considered one of the brightest new stars in the blues genre. Since his 1994 debut on the OKeh label, he has won numerous awards and has expanded his work to include television and film soundtracks as well as frequent concert appearances. His unique melding of traditional blues with more recent elements, from pop to rock, have won critical praise and propelled Mo's recordings to the top of the charts.

Born Kevin Moore in Compton, California, in 1952, Mo' grew up steeped in the musical traditions that his extended family had brought from the Deep South. He listened to blues recordings and R&B on the local radio station, and heard gospel music every Sunday at the Baptist church his family attended. By age ten, he was recruited into his school band, where he began on trumpet. The young musician went on to try steel drums and other percussion instruments, french horn, and guitar. But once he discovered guitar, Mo' knew he had found his instrument. "When I put my hand on the guitar the first time, that was it,". During the early 1970s Mo' began to find modest success as a backup musician. In 1973 he joined a blues-rock group headed by Papa John Creach,. It wasn't until 1990 that Mo' got the break that would turn his career around. The casting director for a theater production in Los Angeles, needed an actor who could play a Delta blues musician. So successful was his performance that Mo' was cast in another bluesman role in the play Spunk. These roles led to solo engagements that boosted Mo's popularity. His exposure to Delta music prompted him to go back to study the blues classics. Among his most important blues influences were the legendary Robert Johnson and contemporary giant Taj Mahal.

In 1994 Mo' signed with Epic Records on their newly revived blues label, OKeh. That year he released his debut album, Keb' Mo', which was his new professional name. The record earned glowing reviews. The success of Keb' Mo' led to more engagements at music festivals, clubs, and coffeehouses. Mo' began opening for such big stars as Jeff Beck, Carlos Santana, Buddy Guy, Joe Cocker, and George Clinton. In 1996 Mo' released his second album, Just Like You, which won a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album--as did his next release, Slow Down, in 1998. Mo's music could soon be heard everywhere--on radio; on the television series Touched By an Angel and the CBS drama The Promised Land; on several film soundtracks, including One Fine Day, Tin Cup, and Down in the Delta; and on the concert stage, as Mo' shared star billing with such performers as Bonnie Raitt and Celine Dion. Many leading artists covered Mo's songs, from Joe Cocker with "Has Anybody Seen My Girl," to B. B. King with "Dangerous Mood."

Mo' has also covered the Hank Williams hit "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry," for a tribute album to the great country-western star. Comfortable with his melding of the old and the new, Mo' has said simply, "I trust my instincts and go with them," according to Down Beat magazine. "It's important to respect the elders and study them," he added, "but it's just as important to do your own thing."

Awards: Blues Artist of the Year, 1996; Grammy Awards, Best Contemporary Blues Album, 1996 and 1998.  Taken from www.answers.com/topic/keb-mo

The next Chippewa Valley Blues Society meeting will be at Pizza Plus / Bottle & Barrel, in downtown Eau Claire 7 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 8th, hope you can make it.

Thanks for lending me an ear! See ya around!

October 2011

Summers gone and it’s time for some history! If you’ve been reading this column for the last year and a half, you probably already have a collection of blues albums. In the off chance you might want some help expanding or starting a collection here are some suggestions by the noted blues historian Rev. Keith Gordon.

The blues may have been born in the Mississippi Delta, but Chicago is the place that the music became a lasting part of American musical culture. With blues music pioneers like Big Bill Broonzy, Tampa Red, and Memphis Minnie blazing the trail for those who would follow, the Windy City became synonymous with not only a style of blues music, but often times with the blues itself. A lot of great songs have come out of the city's long-vibrant blues scene; these are ten of the best Chicago blues songs.

1. Big Bill Broonzy – "Key To The Highway" (1941)

Smart enough to recognize the changes on the horizon; Big Bill Broonzy was one of the few Delta bluesmen to make the successful leap towards the more urbanized Chicago blues sound of the 1930s and '40s. Broonzy's majestic "Key To The Highway," derived from the original piano blues song by Charlie Segar, was recorded in 1941 and has since become a blues standard. Although the best-known version of the song was recorded by Eric Clapton and his Derek and the Dominos band, Little Walter had an R&B chart hit with it in 1958, and it has been recorded by artists like Johnny Winter, Junior Wells, the Rolling Stones, and Freddie King.

2. Buddy Guy – "First Time I Met The Blues" (1960)

Buddy Guy's "First Time I Met The Blues" was more than just another great single release from the Chess Records blues factory, it was a musical statement announcing the guitarist's arrival as a creative force and a musician to be reckoned with on the competitive Chicago blues scene. Guy had recorded a couple of underperforming singles for Cobra Records before he signed with Chess, but the release of "First Time I Met The Blues," with its fiery guitarwork and tortured, Robert Johnson-styled vocals, would kick off a significant half-decade of artistic triumphs for Guy and Chess.

3. Howlin' Wolf – "The Red Rooster"(1961)

Picking just one Howlin' Wolf song as his "best" is a chore when you consider a catalog that hold classic songs like "Moanin' at Midnight," "Smokestack Lightnin'," "Evil," and "Wang Dang Doodle," among many others. Backed by the sublime leads of underrated guitarist Hubert Sumlin, Wolf's reading of Willie Dixon's "The Red Rooster" is a powerful, slow-burn blues with a healthy measure of slide guitar, potent drumming by Sam Lay, and Dixon's low-key upright bass. When it was covered by R&B great Sam Cooke a couple of years later as "Little Red Rooster," it would reach #11 on the Billboard pop chart; the Rolling Stones would score a #1 U.K. hit with the song in 1964.

4. Jimmy Rogers – "Walking By Myself" (1956)

Guitarist Jimmy Rogers isn't nearly as well-known as he should be after spending years apprenticing at the side of the great Muddy Waters during the early-1950s. When Rogers left the Waters band in 1955 to pick up a solo career that he had begun in 1950, he recorded a couple of songs before hitting on "Walking By Myself." An adaptation of a T-Bone Walker song that Rogers had performed on, "Walking By Myself" is a smooth-as-silk fusion of rhythm and blues, with one of Rogers' most soulful vocal performances, Willie Dixon's strutting bassline, and Big Walter Horton's masterful harp accompaniment, which is, at turns, both sultry and spicy.

5. Junior Wells – "You Don't Love Me, Baby" (1965)

When Delmark Records' head Bob Koester recorded Junior Wells' classic album Hoodoo Man Blues, he was trying to capture the sound and feel of a sweaty blues romp at Theresa's Lounge, the South Side blues club where Wells and guitarist Buddy Guy ran the house band. Few songs articulate the Chicago blues sound better than "You Don't Love Me, Baby." With Guy on guitar (billed in the album's credits as "Friendly Chap"), delivering a spry riff and trembling rhythms, Wells' belts out the lyrics in his typically understated style before cutting loose with a short harp solo near the song's end.

6. Koko Taylor – "Wang Dang Doodle" (1965)

Songwriter Willie Dixon didn't like "Wang Dang Doodle," considering it the worst of the hits that he penned for Howlin' Wolf. As for the Wolf, he openly scorned the tune, considering it a "levee camp" song and beneath him, but he recorded it nonetheless and scored a hit. Dixon's dislike of the so-called "party song" didn't stop him from going to the well one more time when he produced Koko Taylor's version of it in 1965. With Taylor's robust pipes joyfully belting out the song's infectious chorus, it would rise to #4 on the Billboard R&B charts and reportedly sell more than a million copies. It has since been covered by everybody from rockers like Ted Nugent and Savoy Brown to the Pointer Sisters and 1990s alt-rock goddess P.J. Harvey.

7. Little Walter – "Juke" (1952)

Little Walter Jacobs was Muddy Waters' harp player during the early-1950s when he recorded "Juke" at the tail-end of a Waters' session for Chess Records. A fluid, swinging instrumental with an easily-recognizable central riff and some tasty six-string fills courtesy of Jimmy Rogers, the song would spend an incredible 20 weeks on the Billboard magazine R&B charts, and hold the number one position in a chokehold for six of those weeks. With the song's success, Little Walter would skate away from the Waters band, steal away Junior Wells' backing band the Aces, and launch a solo career that remains one of the most significant in the Chicago blues.

8. Magic Sam – "That's All I Need" (1967)

Although guitarist Magic Sam, the epitome of the West Side blues sound, recorded some better-known songs – his late-1950s Cobra Records hits like "All Your Love" and "Double Trouble" come to mind – it was his work on the classic 1967 album West Side Soul that cemented Sam's legacy. The album-opening "That's All I Need" is pure soul-blues magic, with impressive Sam Cooke-style vocals and infectious guitars, Sam layering his unique tone on top of Mighty Joe Young's simple but stunningly effective rhythm guitar.

9. Muddy Waters – "Mannish Boy" (1955/1977)

When rock 'n' roll pioneer Bo Diddley recorded "I'm A Man" in early 1955, he "borrowed" somewhat from Muddy Waters' 1951 blues hit "She's Moves Me," and released the song as the B-side to his hit "Bo Diddley." In response, Waters reworked the song as "Mannish Boy," an answer, of sorts, to Diddley's broadside, with a swaggering rhythm and easily-identifiable riff. Waters would record the song again some 20 years later with producer and guitarist Johnny Winter for his 1977 album Hard Again. "Mannish Boy" has been used in half-a-dozen films through the years and has subsequently been recorded by artists as diverse as Jimi Hendrix, Paul Butterfield, Elliott Murphy, and Hank Williams, Jr.

10. Otis Rush – "I Can't Quit You Baby" (1956)

Between 1956 and 1958, guitarist Otis Rush recorded a string of hits for Chicago's Cobra Records label, but it all started with "I Can't Quit You Baby." A slow, powerful twelve-bar blues song written and produced by the great Willie Dixon for Rush, the guitarist was spurred on by Dixon to deliver a passionate performance that has stood for the ages. The song hit #6 on the Billboard R&B chart that year, and would frequently be revisited by Rush throughout the years, recorded in differing versions as the circumstances required. Many other blues and blues-rock artists have also found the song alluring, as John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, Little Milton, Gary Moore, and Led Zeppelin have all recorded "I Can't Quit You Baby."

In future Blues Notes, I will bring you some more histories and more info about performers, concerts in the region and other blues news from around the country.

The next Chippewa Valley Blues Society meeting will be at Pizza Plus / Bottle & Barrel, in downtown Eau Claire 7 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 11th, hope you can make it.

Thanks for lending me an ear! See ya around!

September 2011

Summers gone and soon it will be goblins and ghosts, then turkey and dressing. This summer seems to have flown by. By the time this issue hits the establishments that distribute it we will be presenting the last Tuesday Night Blues of the season MOJO LEMON. These guys really deserve to have been voted the Best Blues Band in the valley three years running. Their raucous boogie and blues make people shake their hips and yell for more whenever they play. To have them bring that joyful noise to the beautiful confines of Owen Park on the Chippewa River in Eau Claire always promises a big crowd and a good time! So be sure to join us Tuesday Aug. 30 at 6:30 p.m.

When this concert ends it will be the 44 that has been presented at Tuesday Night Blues over three seasons. There have been many outstanding performances by some of the very best musicians in the region and a few from outside the area as well. You, the fans that attend Tuesday Night Blues on a regular basis seem always grateful for the opportunity to see these wonderfully talented and entertaining players and have expressed appreciation, to them, and to us, for the chance to see and hear great music for free in the historic and wonderful venue that is Owen Park’s band shell. It takes a lot of work, time and money to produce these free concerts and without the positive feedback and support that is received on a weekly basis it would not be worthwhile. So, I want to express my appreciation to ALL of the faithful that make it out to Tuesday Night Blues, come rain or shine. THANK YOU!!!!!

Coming to the State Theatre in Eau Claire on Sept. 14 is one of the finest singer songwriters around today. John Hiatt is  "...one of rock's most astute singer-songwriters of the last 40 years." - Los Angeles Times

John Hiatt's career as a performer and songwriter has spanned more than 30 years and his work has been covered by everyone from Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, BB King, and Bonnie Raitt to Iggy Pop, Three Dog Night and The Neville Brothers. Hiatt began his solo career with the 1974 album Hangin' Around the Observatory. His landmark 1987 release Bring The Family received critical praise and was his first album to chart in the U.S. In 1993, Rhino Records released Love Gets Strange: The Songs of John Hiatt, which collected many of the cover versions of his songs that were recorded during the 80s and 90s. 2000's Crossing Muddy Waters was released to critical acclaim and was called "The most natural and relaxed John Hiatt album in years…" by All Music Guide. In 2008, Hiatt was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and was honored by the Americana Music Association with their prestigious "Lifetime Achievement in Songwriting Award."

One of my personal favorites by Hiatt is “Ridin’ With The King” which was covered as a duo by Clapton and B.B. King.  This will be an excellent concert! For more information and tickets go to http://www.eauclairearts.com/event.phtml/4F5DDFC8/john_hiatt_and_the_combo/

In future Blues Notes, I will bring you some histories and more info about performers, concerts in the region and other blues news from around the country.

The next Chippewa Valley Blues Society meeting will be at Pizza Plus / Bottle & Barrel, in downtown Eau Claire 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 13th, hope you can make it.

Thanks for lending me an ear! See ya around!