On this day in 1983 one of the greatest ever bluesmen passed away. Please take a minute to stop what you are doing and reflect on the life and achievements of Muddy Waters.
“She’s nineteeen years old – and got ways like a baby child”
“Whoh yeah!”
Monthly Archive for April, 2006
Just bumped into Ian completely by chance. He told me that it was off tonight.
Hey everyone, I have created a public calendar here that I will use in addition to this blog to share gig information.
Please let me have some feedback on how this is working for you.
Cheers
Ken
It seems I was looking at the Podcast feed page on Feedburner rather than Dave’s real site. So please take a look at this link to go to Dave Raven’s blues podcast page. I listen every week, highly recommended.
Pop on over to Juke Joint Video by clicking here to see a great collection of videos available for you to view online for your Blues pleasure.
Some of these I had seen before, but hey, the blues is too good to see just once. I watched Little Charlie and the Nightcats again just the see the smiling drummer.
I just followed the link to Dave’s page and on my screen it doesn’t display well as there’s a chuffing large picure forcing the screen to scroll. Don’t let this worry you, just follow the link and scroll down a bit to see the pictures and enjoy the music.
Dave Raven presents a nice podcast on the blues each week. My only criticism is that it could be encoded at a higher bitrate to increase the quality, however this is not possible due to some podcast agreement or guideline — anyway that’s not the point of this blog entry.
The point is that Dave often features a guest on his show, a longish interview is recorded but only edited highlights make it to the final broadcast. Dave in his wisdom posts the full interview for download or playing on-line. This week the excellent Doug MacLeod was interviewed and the interview in length can be downloaded from here along with other bluesy podcasts from Dave.
I am half way through this excellent interview and Doug has played a couple of great songs live on Dave’s houseboat. Enjoy!
Trafficker playing at ‘The Nova’ (formerly The Lido) Prestatyn, Sat May 6th, 8pm doors
I only know about the following gigs for May…
4 May – Chris Farlow with Norman Beaker Band – Alexanders, Chester
12 May – Smokehouse Blues – Warrington Blues Club
15 May – Paul Jone and Dave Kelly – Alexanders, Chester
16 May – Rocky Athos – Harbourside Club, Liverpool Marina
16 May – Tommy Emmanuel – Telford’s Warehouse, Chester
21 May – Smokehouse Blues – Thornton Little Theatre, Cleveleys
28 May – Smokehouse Blues – Full Moon, Newcastle-under-Lyme
If anyone knows more then please drop me a line. Email address in the top right hand side of this blog page.
Interesting radio show from NPR in the U.S.
NPR : A Blues and Country Collection for Collectors: “A Blues and Country Collection for Collectors”
Americans should be proud of NPR, however in my typical unbiased fashion I can state with 100% confidence that BBC Radio 4 is *the* best radio station in the world. It’s great that “The Now Show” is now available as a downloadable Podcast. Check out this link for details. There’s a great section this week about generic pharmaceuticals. I howled!
My close friends will know that my all time favourite record is “Rocking the Boat” by The William Clarke Blues Band.
The piano player on that legendary record is the wonderful Fred Kaplan — born on 23 April 1954 in L.A. Happy birthday Fred. Mr. Kaplan has an amazing career and has featured on loads of great records under his own name and and as a sideman on other people’s records.
If Fred had only ever recorded one tune and that tune was “After Hours” from “Rocking the Boat” then he still would have made one of the best piano tracks ever. Despite his 80’s digital piano tone on that record, this tune is tremendous. Shame on you if you have never heard it.
No great link for you to follow, nor is there a cool gig to go to. My only news is that I picked up a harmonica today and let me tell you — I loved it!
I haven’t played for months and, to be honest, I had forgotten what a great and glorious instrument the harmonica is. I huffed and puffed for a good hour and loved it. I don’t have the chops that I used to but I was happy with my tone.
I feel good……..
I remember that the old DejaBlues TV site had a video of Rocky Athas for viewing. I’ve just checked and the The Deja Blues TV site appears to have gone now. So if you hunt around on the web you may be able to find this video again.
Deja Blues also had videos of other Northwest favourites Paul Byrd, Holland K Smith and others. I wonder whatever happened to Lila?
Also, I thought that I’d better blog the URL for Rocky’s website. It’s here. On reading the site I notice that Rocky, too has a link to the now dead video site.
Here’s the press release sent by John Welsh.
Rocky Athas
at the Harbourside Club, Liverpool Marina
Tuesday 16th May 2006 (doors open at 8pm)
Texan guitar-slinger Rocky Athas returns to the UK, having made such a huge impression last year – not least at The Cavern in Liverpool. His masterful guitar playing is wonderfully complemented by the excellent, bluesy vocals of Larry Samford and a top class rhythm section. Their music encompasses slow blues, ballads, Stevie Ray Vaughan-style shuffles and powerful blues rock.
Rocky grew up playing guitar with his pal Stevie Ray Vaughan. By the age of 23, he was honoured as one of the ten best guitarists in Texas by Buddy Magazine’s Texas Tornadoes. SRV received his induction two years later. They hold this honour with such noted guitarists as ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons, Johnny Winter and Jimmy Vaughan. In recent years, he has recorded a number of highly acclaimed albums on the British-based Armadillo Music label.
Liverpool Marina is situated at Coburg Wharf, Sefton Street, Liverpool L3 4BP.
Tickets for the concert (£10 each) are obtainable from John Welsh on 0151 428 2855.
This is timely. If you go to see Doug tomorrow then please wish him a happy 60th birthday for today, born 1946 in New York City.
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