09-02-2020 > BLUES:MiX # 33 blues(y) songs from the BLUES circle 2005-1994

Shemekia Copeland

09-02-2020 > BLUES:MiX # 33 blues(y) songs from the BLUES circle 2005-1994 # Shemekia Copeland, Detroit Jr., Robert Belfour, Tom Waits, John Hammond, Alvin Youngblood Hart, B.B. King, Colin James, Taj Mahal, Joanna Connor, The Jeff Healey Band, Chris Duarte Group

B L U E S    M U S I C

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BLUES_circle The player always plays the latest playlist tracks. / A lejátszó mindig a legújabb playlist számait játssza. 

2005-1994

A powerful blues singer and daughter of blues guitarist Johnny Copeland whose award-winning recordings run the gamut from electric blues to soul and Americana.

Shemekia Copeland 

Breakin' Out 3:33

Poor, Poor Excuse 3:02

from The Soul Truth 2005

Shemekia Copeland can sing the heck out of the blues, but she isn't necessarily a blues singer, and on The Soul Truth she makes what would seem like a sure-fire move into Memphis soul territory, even working with Stax great Steve Cropper, who produced the album and adds his trademark guitar economics to most of the tracks...

Emery Williams Jr. is a living link to the great Chicago blues piano players of the 1940s and 1950s. Born on October 26, 1931, in Haynes, AR, Williams was given the name Detroit Junior when be began recording on his own in the 1960s...

Detroit Jr. 

Rockin' After Midnight (Lowell Fulson) 3:34

Blues on the Internet (Emery Williams, Jr.) 6:53

from Blues On The Internet 2004

Veteran blues pianist (and longtime Howlin' Wolf sideman) Emery Williams Jr. -- known professionally as Detroit Junior -- has had a renaissance of sorts in the past decade, releasing three albums on Blue Suit Records, and now this one, Blues on the Internet, on Delmark Records. Williams is a throwback to the classic Chicago blues piano style, and his warm, expressive vocals fall somewhere between a hoarse Ray Charles and a latter-day Bob Dylan, while his songwriting, although hardly innovative, is solid and workmanlike, avoiding most of the obvious blues clichés. His intent isn't to move blues into the 21st century so much as preserve the way it was played in Chicago in the 1950s (where Williams played alongside the likes of Jimmy Reed, Eddie Boyd, Eddie Taylor, and Little Mack Simmons)...  Fans of vintage Chicago blues piano will find this collection a delight...

Robert 'Wolfman' Belfour is a little-known but very powerful blues guitarist and singer based in Memphis, Tennessee. Born to sharecropper parents on a farm in Holly Springs, Mississippi, he began playing guitar in the late '40s after the death of his father who left the instrument to him. He learned by emulating the sounds of such greats as John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, and his idol, Howlin Wolf, as they were being broadcast on his mother's battery-operated radio. He was also influenced to some extent by his neighbor, Junior Kimbrough. Belfour's style is deeply-rooted in the sounds of his North Mississippi birthplace. It is a highly rhythmic and riff-oriented type of playing that can also be heard in the work of other players from the region, like Jessie Mae Hemphill, R.L. Burnside, and the late Fred Mcdowell.

Robert Belfour 

Crazy Ways (Robert Belfour) 4:17

Breaking My Heart (Robert Belfour) 5:01

from Pushin' My Luck 2003

Robert Belfour's sophomore effort for Fat Possum -- at 63, he is one of the youngest artists on the roster and is by far the most "polished," if the Delta blues can ever really be called that -- proves his debut was indeed only a beginning. In stark contrast to his labelmates, Belfour strictly plays acoustic blues, but he plays them with the same dark, trancelike feel of Junior Kimbrough, haunting spookiness of Fred McDowell, rhythmic intensity of John Lee Hooker, and sprawling drawl of Lightnin' Hopkins. Ted Gainey aids Belfour on a drum kit. While the first album was all of a piece, and everything but the vocal seemed to be recorded at the same level (and even then, Belfour couldn't always be understood among the ringing guitars and shuffling drums), Pushin' My Luck is nervier, a bit more edgy. Belfour's truly nearly unbelievable singing is a bit more in the foreground, enough to add to the hypnotic repetition in his music, while the drums -- played no more elaborately than Meg White's in the White Stripes -- are mixed just a tad higher, bringing it extremely close to the punch this stuff has when played in front of a live audience... I hope this guy lives to be a 100 and makes a record every year he's on this planet. Forget everything you just read: This record is amazing; just buy it.

09-12-2019 BLUES:MiX # 33 blues(y) songs from the BLUES circle 2011-2001

Ry Cooder

09-12-2019 BLUES:MiX # 33 blues(y) songs from the BLUES circle 2011-2001 # Ry Cooder, Buddy Guy, Davy Knowles & Back Door Slam, Julian Fauth, Tommy Castro, Snooky Pryor, Shemekia Copeland, Detroit Jr., Robert Belfour, Tom Waits, John Hammond

B L U E S    M U S I C

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BLUES_circle The player always plays the latest playlist tracks. / A lejátszó mindig a legújabb playlist számait játssza. 

2011-2001

Virtuoso roots guitarist who was steeped in the blues, but spent his career exploring new musical worlds from Tex-Mex to Cuban bolero.
Ry Cooder
I Want My Crown (Ry Cooder) 2:37
No Banker Left Behind (Ry Cooder) 3:36
from Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down 2011
Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down, issued between two national election cycles, is the most overtly political album Ry Cooder has ever released, and one of his funniest, most musically compelling ones, too. Cooder looks deeply into his musical past using his entire Americana musical arsenal: blues, folk, ragtime, norteño, rock, and country here... Those who've followed Cooder from the beginning will find much to love on Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down. Those music fans unfamiliar with his work but looking for a comrade in arms will find one here. That said, this is revolution music; worthy of dancing to, learning from, and singing along with: who says topical music has to be boring?

Contender for the title of greatest blues guitarist ever, with a fiery, screechy, super-quick technique that influenced countless followers.
Buddy Guy
74 Years Young (Tom Hambridge / Gary Nicholson) 4:34
On the Road (Richard Fleming / Tom Hambridge) 4:11
from Living Proof 2010
Living Proof was designed partially as an aural autobiography from the legendary Buddy Guy, opening up with the stark summation “74 Years Young,” then running through songs that often address some aspect of a working musician's life... Like Skin Deep before it, Living Proof is distinguished by these bold, clenched blasts of sonic fury, but here the production has just enough grit to make the entire enterprise feel feral, and that’s a greater testament to Guy's enduring vitality than any one song could ever be.

British blues-rockers Back Door Slam boast a tough, streetwise sound that recalls veteran U.K. blues players such as Eric Clapton, Peter Green, and John Mayall, though these young guitar slingers represent a new generation -- when bassist Adam Jones joined the group in 2006, guitarist and singer Davy Knowles and drummer Ross Doyle were all of 20 years old, while Jones himself was just 19. 
Davy Knowles & Back Door Slam
Coming Up for Air (Davy Knowles) 4:36
Taste of Danger (Jonatha Brooke) 4:09
Riverbed (Davy Knowles) 3:38
from Coming Up For Air 2009
Perfectly acknowledging the whirlwind that inevitably happens when you're heir apparent to a litany of great bluesmen at the not-so-tender-anymore age of 22, Davy Knowles chooses an album title that sums up what it's like to follow the frenzy with another great gust of compelling songs and exciting studio activity. It's hard to tell the Isle of Man singer/guitarist's story without dropping some classic rock names, since he and his band, Back Door Slam, have played concerts with everyone from the Who to Buddy Guy and George Thorogood and toured with Kid Rock, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Gov't Mule. While many wanted to share stages with this powerful vocalist and brilliant axeman, one legend went a step further. Harking back to his blues-rock roots in Humble Pie, Peter Frampton makes Coming Up for Air his first foray into producing another artist's entire project...

29-04-2019 BLUES:MiX # 33 blues(y) songs from the BLUES circle 1996-2005

Sue Foley

29-04-2019  BLUES:MiX # 33 blues(y) songs from the BLUES circle 1996-2005 # Sue Foley, Karen Carroll, Little Mack Simmons, Tommy Castro, Robert Belfour, Boo Boo Davis, Junior Kimbrough, Taj Mahal, Guy Davis, Sean Costello

B L U E S   M U S I C

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BLUES_circle The player always plays the latest playlist tracks. / A lejátszó mindig a legújabb playlist számait játssza. 

1996-2005

This highly touted vocalist/guitarist originally hails from Ottawa, Canada, although her home base shifted to Austin, Texas, when she signed with Antone's Records and cut her debut set, Young Girl Blues, in 1992 (an encore, Without a Warning, quickly followed). Foley's wicked lead guitar makes her a rarity among blueswomen.
Sue Foley
Long Distance Lover (Sue Foley) 4:57
Try to Understand (Sue Foley) 5:03
Train to Memphis (Sue Foley) 4:40
from Walk in the Sun 1996
Walk in the Sun isn't quite typical Sue Foley. With her first three albums, the guitarist demonstrated that she had a firm grasp on searingly electric Chicago blues and high-voltage blues-rock. With Walk in the Sun, she expands her sonic palette somewhat, taking in gritty R&B, reverb-drenched surf and down-home country, among other styles of blues and roots music. Throughout the album, she demonstrates that she is gifted enough to effortlessly bring in these other styles without losing her distinctive identity.

...at 18 Karen Carroll struck out on her own, cutting her teeth in tiny South Side blues joints and developing a deep vocal style heavily influenced by jazz phrasing as well as the intensity of gospel...
Karen Carroll
Ain't It Nice (Lefty Dizz) 4:13
Talk to the Hand (Karen Carroll) 3:04
Neked J Blues (Karen Carroll) 9:11
from Talk To The Hand 1997
While her debut Had My Fun featured Carroll's thunderous, gospel-influenced vocals in a live setting, this studio recording also spotlights her burgeoning songwriting skills.

"He was one of the top harp blowers (and at times the best) in Chicago. - REAL BLUES Magazine
Malcolm "Little Mack" Simmons, came up from Twist Arkansas and earned his formidable harmonica chops in the southside jukes and in the blues clubs along Rush Street in the windy city. In a remarkable almost 50-year career, this childhood friend of James Cotton later performed with the some of the brightest lights of the blues world, including Robert Nighthawk, Sunnyland Slim, Luther Allison, Magic Sam, and Howlin' Wolf. 
Little Mack Simmons
Leaving in the Morning (W. Jacobs) 3:48
The Things I Used To Do (E. James) 3:50
You Mistreated Me (M. Simmons) 4:18
from The Best of Little Mack Simmons: The Electro-Fi Years
After a long battle with cancer claimed the life of harp legend Malcolm “Little Mack” Simmons on October 24, 2000, at his South Side Chicago home, blues music lost not only a brilliant innovator but another link to its storied past.
With the release of this recording, we at Electro-Fi are honored to preserve and present to you the musical legacy of a true original of Chicago blues—Malcolm “Little Mack” Simmons.