May 2009

  • Mel Brown: Swamp Fever

    By cobwebsandstrange on 5/22/09 2:35pm
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    bluesfunkjunkbluesfunkjunkImpulse Records, more so than any other major jazz related label - and definitely more than Blue Note - found that experimenting with new sounds and giving folks a chance that perhaps didn't have the biggest name in the field as of yet ended up helping out the label. Albert Ayler and Coltrane both found a home there for a time. But while the sounds of Mel Brown weren't nearly as aggressive or abrasive, what he did with blues and jazz was important to the genre as any one else.

    By the late '60s there was no shortage of blues shredding on records across the States and even in Europe. The blues was augmented by any number of other genres - rock, jazz, soul or anything else that a people could figure out. Mel Brown, however, was from a background so rooted in traditional blues, that to play in other settings, initially at least, must have been odd.

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  • Super Session: Bloomfield, Kooper and Stills

    By cobwebsandstrange on 5/20/09 9:22pm
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    SoopaSoopaSuper groups are frequently as big a let down as they are incredible. The blues luminaries on Super Blues are ample proof of that. But sometimes a random assortment of odd talent works out to the benefit of listeners. There're some jazz recordings that work to that effect and in 1968, as rock was becoming more and more influenced by jazz tendencies - and vice versa - Al Kooper, Mike Bloomfield and Stephen Stills set just under an hour's worth of music to tape. The reason for the two different guitar players on Super Session, though, is interesting.

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  • No Meatballs: Josh White

    By cobwebsandstrange on 5/19/09 8:35pm
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    Archive of Folk MusicArchive of Folk MusicIn about 2000 I was taken to a concert at an outdoor venue in Cleveland called Cain Park. The park itself is rather small - maybe ten city blocks or so across. But within the confines of the trees, subtle hills and grass sits an amphitheatre. Notable folks from all genres of music have performed there - Bela Fleck to Rick Springfield. It can't be said that the place always attracts the biggest names - but it's a unique space in a city lacking in places to see music.

    The show that I attended was a triple headlined bill with Odetta, Ramblin' Jack Elliot and Josh White Junior. The elder two performers obviously each had long and storied careers. Their names are synonymous with folk, while the latter gentleman could be thought of as simply continuing on where his father left off.

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  • Skip James - Cypress Grove Blues

    By cobwebsandstrange on 5/17/09 11:35pm
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    He wasn't ever a champion of technical skill, but he was more than capable of singing...

  • 30th Anniversary Blues Music Awards

    By macallister on 5/16/09 12:05am
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    The 30th Anniversary Blues Music Awards ceremony was held in Memphis Tennessee, Thursday May 7th, 2009. Over forty performers provided an amazing event that lasted over seven hours. That's a lot of great music, by some very talented people, and we would have had to be there to fully appreciate it all. For those of us who weren't lucky enough to be in that audience, we have to content ourselves with scouring the web for clips, first-hand stories, and mp3s, at least until the DVD is released sometime next autumn.

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  • Flint: Doctor Ross

    By cobwebsandstrange on 5/5/09 12:40pm
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    Call the DoctorCall the DoctorIn reading Guitar Army by John Sinclair, the writer and pseudo revolutionary refers repeatedly to blues people that were performing around his town as he grew up. Sinclair recalls that the difference between the greed headed rock bands and these blues players was that the latter needed to play to alleviate some emotional turpitude. Those rich rockers, though, apparently were just doin' it death for a dollar. Who knew?

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  • Mamie Smith Paved the Way

    By macallister on 5/1/09 12:02am
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    Up until 1920, African-American singers had recorded commercial music, certainly, but not blues music. That changed in 1920, when successful vaudeville performer Mamie Smith (not related to either Trixie or Bessie Smith, by the way) the first commercial blues record. OKeh Records produced the recording, and the record was a complete and immediate success. "Crazy Blues" was the A side song, and on the B side, "It's Right Here for You"—and anecdotal accounts suggest over a million copies sold in the first six months alone. It was a radically new style of music to most of the record-buying public, and the sound of American music was forever altered. Mamie Smith blazed the path that Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday would follow, later. Mamie Smith and her Jazz HoundsMamie Smith and her Jazz Hounds

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