In November Chicago’s Numero Group will be releasing a book of photos, Light on the South Side, by Michael Abramson, who captured many scenes of Chicago’s South Side in the mid-’70s. The pictures were taken at clubs including some well known to fans of blues of that era, such as Pepper’s and High Chaparral, but most are of the patrons rather than the musicians. More photos here.; a PDF file of the Chicago Tribune Magazine article that inspired the project is here.
The 132-page, 12 x 12 book will contain over 100 photos and an essay by Nick Hornby, and will be accompanied by a two-LP set of vintage soul and blues, “Pepper’s Jukebox,” featuring the likes of Bobby Rush, Syl Johnson, Artie “Blues Boy” White, and Ricky (”Cut You A Loose”) Allen. You can listen to samples of all the songs at the link for the book. Numero Group has been producing some wonderful reissues of “Eccentric Soul” over the past decade, and recent put on an Eccentric Soul Revue featuring artists including Syl Johnson and Renaldo Domino. I’d recommend spending some time exploring their catalog online, as you won’t find most of the stuff there anywhere else. If you preorder Light: On the South Side early they’ll throw in an MP3 version of the album.
There’s a really nice article today in the New York Times about one of my heroes, Delmark Records‘ Bob Koester, who is now celebrating his 56th year in the record business. He’s also the proprietor of the wonderful Jazz Record Mart, which is just north of the Loop in downtown Chicago. Bill Steber and I had the fortune to visit the 55th anniversary blues show last year at Buddy Guy’s Legends during a research trip for a Chicago issue of Living Blues, and recently a DVD and a CD recorded at that show were issued by Delmark, both called “It Ain’t Over.” Here’s a sampler from the DVD:
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I received an e-mail this morning from my friend Joe Rosen, one of the top photographers of the blues and roots music scene, about some photo essays of his work from this year’s Ponderosa Stomp and the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. The Stomp pics are here; the Jazz Fest pics are here. I sometimes make the mistake of describing Joe as a “blues photographer,” but he’s just plain a great photographer, and you can see the range of his work at his website.
former Excello recording artist Classie Ballou at the Stomp. Photo by Joseph A. Rosen
retro soul queen Sharon Jones at the 2009 Jazz Fest, photo by Joseph A. Rosen
The North Mississippi Hill Country Picnic celebrates its fourth year this weekend with another great lineup of artists, including many members of the families of Hill Country veterans R.L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough, and Othar Turner. It’s set in a beautiful field near Potts Camp, which is about ten minutes southeast of Holly Springs on Highway 78, and just about thirty minutes or so from Oxford. It looks like it’s gonna be hot, but one saving grace is that there’s a creek, shaded by trees, next to the field where the festival is located.
On Sunday the festivities continue at the Foxfire Ranch between Oxford and Holly Springs with the Juke Joint Duo - Cedric Burnside and Lightnin’ Malcolm.
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Here’s a video of Rev. John Wilkins performing his father Rev. Robert Wilkins’ song Prodigal Son, which was later covered by the Rolling Stones. The video is from last year’s festival, and was produced by Joe York and Eric Feldman of the Center For Documentary Projects at the University of Mississippi — Joe and Eric are also the producers of Highway 61.
I just added some specific information to my post from yesterday regarding the schedule for the Bentonia Blues (and Gospel) festival. Nice to see that the Eric Deaton Trio, Bill Abel, and T-Model Ford are on the bill. Also, at Saturday night at 8pm at the Jubilee Jam in Jackson Eddie Cotton, Jr. is playing in the slot in which Koko Taylor was originally billed. On Saturday at 11:50AM Jesse Robinson and the 500 LB Blues Band are playing at the festival — on Saturday the festival is free until 3pm
Bill Ellis has a nice story in the Memphis Commercial Appeal on a new exhibit about at the National Civil Rights Museum called “Soulful Journey,” which is running until July 22. The exhibit is divided into three parts: 1) “Africa to America,” which chronicles slavery; 2) “Free but not Equal,” which covers Reconstruction to the present day; and 3) the “Blues Pavilion,” which examines civil rights issues through the life of Bobby Rush. There’s some nice quotes from Bobby, and it was interesting to find out that a film made of his 2007 visit to China is part of the exhibit. And it’s great to see Bill Ellis writing about music for the Commercial Appeal again.
- On Friday night there’ll be a preview show for the North Mississippi Hill Country Picnic at Rooster’s Blues House in Oxford featuring artists including former R.L. Burnside bandmates Kenny Brown and Cedric Burnside. Last week I posted the lineup to the picnic with links to the artists — the picnic takes place on Friday June 26 and Saturday June 27.
- On Saturday Jimmy “Duck” Holmes is hosting the 37th annual Bentonia Blues Festival in Bentonia, which is about 30 miles northwest of Jackson just off Highway 49.
UPDATED INFO
An open mike starts at the Blue Front Cafe at 8am with acts including 19th Street Red, and at 9am a separate gospel stage opens. Here’s a tentative schedule from the Yazoo tourism folks.
9:00 – Bentonia Inspirators
9:45 – Bentonia Mass Choir
10:15 – Dynamic Sounds of Gospel
10:45 – Bentonia Male Choir
11:15 - Temple Love Male Choir
11:45 – Van Foster & Ray Robinson
12:15 – George Winford & The Chosenaires
According to Duck this is the schedule for the blues stage:
Duck, who is the proprietor of Bentonia’s 60-year-old juke joint the Blue Front Cafe, performs in the distinctive style of local performers Skip James and Bud Spires, and has recorded several records for Jeff Konkel’s Broke and Hungry label over the last couple of years. And recently another CD of Holmes, Gonna Get Old Someday, was released on Big Legal Mess, a label run by Bruce Watson of Fat Possum. That CD was produced by my friend Amos Harvey, and features Holmes together with harmonica player Bud Spires and drummer Calvin Jackson, who is the father of Cedric Burnside.
- On Sunday night at 7pm I’ll be hosting a Summer Sunset Series in the Grove on the Ole Miss campus featuring Rev. John Wilkins, who preaches at the Hunter’s Chapel church in Como, whose congregation once included Mississippi Fred McDowell and Otha Turner. He’s the son of early bluesman Robert Wilkins, who later became a preacher and whose song “Prodigal Son” was covered by the Rolling Stones. If you subscribe to the (free!) Highway 61 podcast you can listen to a show that discusses how Hunter’s Chapel connects various north MS musical traditions.
Last year rain forced his show to be held inside at Fulton Chapel. Hopefully the weather will be with us this year, and the trees provide wonderful shade from the recently brutal sun. I posted the following video of Rev. Wilkins performing Prodigal Son — shot by Highway 61 producers and engineers Joe York and Eric Feldman at last year’s North MS Hill Country Picnic — on my recent Picnic post, but it’s worth seeing again and again….
- On Monday two Mississippi Blues Trail markers will be dedicated in the Delta. At 10am a marker acknowledging Cleveland’s Chrisman Street — which was once lined with nightclubs that featured leading blues acts - will be unveiled at 210 Chrisman Street. At 2:30pm a marker will be unveiled at Po’ Monkey’s juke joint in Merigold, which was opened by owner Willie “Po’ Monkey” Seaberry in 1963. The marker also discusses the history of the juke joint more generally. I’ll be speaking at both unveilings.
The headliner at the Sunflower River Blues and Gospel Festival in Clarksdale (August 7-9) will be soul singer Bettye LaVette. This year’s festival honor Clarksdale native Sam Cooke, who will be acknowledged with a Mississippi Blues Trail marker during the festivities. The lineup once again features soul/blues performers on Friday night, more traditional acts throughout the day Saturday, and gospel on Sunday.
LaVette is one of the best soul singers still performing, and has experienced an inspiring comeback over the last couple years. She started performing in the early ’60s and scored some hits but became dejected about the music biz after a really good album she recorded for Atlantic in the early ’70s was inexplicably shelved. I just saw LaVette in Chicago last weekend and in Memphis at the Blues Awards about a month ago and she’s simply wonderful both to listen to and look at — it’s hard to believe she’s 63. You may have caught her performing Sam Cooke’s A Change Is Gonna Come together with Jon Bon Jovi at the Obama inauguration concert. Fresh Air rebroadcasted an interview with her right after that show. Here’s a video of LaVette performing the Who’s Love Reign O’er Me at the recent Kennedy Center Honors show that honored, among others, Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey.
Here’s some other recent stories of interest
The Commercial Appeal’s Bob Mehr wrote an article last weekend about the history of the music business in Memphis - notably how they’ve failed to regain the vitality of the late ’60s and early ’70s era of Stax, Hi and Chips Momans’ American Sound Studios - that features opinions from folks including Robert Gordon and Jim Dickinson.
Mehr has a related article that focuses on how in the mean time Austin’s music scene has grown dramatically. The Daily Texan features a story about a projected museum that will chronicle Austin’s “cosmic cowboy” scene from the late ’60s and early ’70s that revolved around clubs like the Armadillo World Headquarters (link thx to Chico Harris)
The New York Times featured a review of a new book about songwriters Leiber and Stoller, and they were recently featured on Tavis Smiley’s show.
My friend Eljiah Wald’s provocatively titled book “How the Beatles Destroyed Rock’n'Roll“ is getting some good (though not uncritical) press. Here’s reviews from the Chicago Reader and the LA Times, but go to first link to read through his nice summary of the book.
Barry Beckett, the main session keyboardist in Muscle Shoals and a noted producer, died last Wednesday.
Blind Boy Paxton, Dom Flemons, and John Heneghan and Eden Brower of the East River String Band at the Chicago Blues Festival
I had a great time today at the Chicago blues festival seeing artists including Sharon Jones, Big Jack Johnson, and Oxford’s own Wiley and the Checkmates featuring soul veterans Harvey Scales and Ralph “Soul” Jackson. The most pleasant surprise of the day for me, though, was seeing Los Angeles’ Blind Boy Paxton, who’s just twenty years old and specializes in blues from the ’20s. He appeared on a special package show that gathered together Dom Flemons of the Carolina Chocolate Drops and the East River String Band, a duo from the East Village. I picked up a copy of their LP “Some Cold Rainy Day,” whose cover was painted by R. Crumb just last year. If you look them up on youtube you can find some videos of them playing with Crumb.
Apparently Paxton was booked onto the show after Jim O’Neal discovered his myspace site and told Chicago Blues Festival director Barry Dolins about him. The musicians played in round robin style, though did all play together on a couple songs.
Here’s Blind Boy Paxton with “Ragged But Right”
And here’s Paxton together with Dom Flemons with Blind Blake’s “Southern Rag” — Paxton switches over to piano about halfway through.
Here’s Dom Flemons on his own with his take on Jim Jackson’s “Bye Bye Policeman”
And here’s the East River String Band doing Charley Jordan’s “Keep It Clean” with Dom guesting on bones
From left: Eddy Clearwater, Barry Dolins of the Mayor's Office of Special Events and director of the Chicago Blues Festival, Eddie C. Campbell, and Jim O'Neal, one of the principal writers and researchers for the Blues Trail
Vintage postcard of the former Illinois Central station
The 77th Mississippi Blues Trail marker was dedicated yesterday at the south end of Grant Park in Chicago, across the street from the former location of the Illinois Central station where thousands of migrants from Mississippi first arrived in Chicago. Rain and unseasonably cold weather put somewhat of a damper on the celebration, which featured talks from bluesmen and native Mississippians Eddy Clearwater and Eddie C. Campbell. The marker discusses the important role of the Illinois Central, whose Pullman Porters furtively delivered to Mississippians the African American newspaper the Chicago Defender, which encouraged migration northward. It also acknowledges the great influence of Mississippi blues artists on the development of Chicago blues — the listing of artists was extremely selective because of the vast number — and the importance of Mississippi-born deejays Al Benson and Purvis Spann.
Sharon McConnelll's lifecast of the late Willie King. I saw her make this at the Delta Blues Museum back in 2003
The latter attended a reception after the marker at Willie Dixon’s Blues Heaven Foundation, located in the former Chess studios at 2120 South Michigan Ave. It’s pretty wonderful to simply be the in building where artists including Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters cut many of their records, and there are nice displays on individual artists as well a collection of Como, MS-based Sharon McConnell’s “lifecast” sculptures of blues artists’ faces.
It was also nice to see old friends like photographer Marc PoKempner , whose blues works are collected in the book Down At Theresa’s, and Earwig Records‘ Michael Frank, who is hosting a 30th anniversary show for Earwig tonight at the venue Space in Evanston featuring artists including Honeyboy Edwards, John Primer, and Big Jack Johnson. See you there! I attended a “Legends of Chicago Guitar” show at Space last night featuring Lurrie Bell, James Wheeler, Billy Flynn and Jody Williams, with backing by bassist Bob Stroger and drummer Kenny “Beady Eyes” Smith. I was really impressed by the venue, which features really eclectic booking of Americana/roots artists.
This weekend Eddie C. Campbell, who grew up in Clarksdale, is celebrating the release of his excellent new Delmark CD Tear This World Up. I was visiting Delmark a couple months ago when producer Dick Shurman was doing the final mixes on the CD and it sounded great. Campbell will be the featured artist at the big festival show at the Petrillo Shell tonight, and is headlining an evening of downhome blues at Reggie’s Music Joint at 2109 South State Street on Saturday night. That show also features fellow Delmark artists Rockin’ Johnny Burgin, Taildragger, Johnny B. Moore, and Jesse Fortune, as well as Los Angeles-based guitarist Cadillac Zack, who is a major advocate for the hardcore downhome bluesmen who are still plying their trade.
I’m heading up to Chicago beginning today, and for those of you all who’ll be up there for the Chicago Blues Festival I thought I’d give you some heads up on some special shows.
On Wednesday night the local chapter of NARAS, the Grammy organization, will be hosting a Chicago Bluesfest Kickoff Jam at Buddy Guy’s Legends. Featured artists include Billy Branch, Pinetop Perkins, Nick Moss and Rick Nielson of Cheap Trick
On Thursday at 3pm a Mississippi Blues Trail marker will be dedicated at the south end of Grant Park. It’s the 77th marker and the second to be placed outside of Mississippi–another was dedicated in Memphis a couple weeks ago just off Beale Street by B.B. King. The markers outside the state acknowledge the influence Mississippi artists have had on traditions outside of Mississippi, and hopefully they’ll bring some folks down here to visit. Reception afterwards at the Blues Heaven Foundation, 2120 South Michigan Ave.
Visitation services for Koko Taylor will be held from 4 to 9 p.m. Thursday at Rainbow Push Coalition National Headquarters, 930 E. 50th. Visitation will continue from 4 to 6 p.m. on Friday, followed by funeral services at 6 p.m.
On Thursday night the club S.P.A.C.E. in Evanston, which is partially owned by Delmark blues recording artist Dave Specter, will be featuring the show Legends of Blues Guitar.
The Chicago Blues Festival itself begins on Friday afternoon - a full lineup is here.
On Friday night Earwig Records is hosting the 2nd Annual Blues On The North Shore show at S.P.A.C.E, which will also serve as a 30th anniversary party for the label, owned and operated the whole time by Michael Frank.
On Saturday night there’ll be a really nice show at Reggie’s Music Joint that will, among other things, celebrate the release of Eddie C. Campbell’s new CD on Delmark
I’m on the road and don’t have enough time to write up highlights from the Festival itself, but I’m looking forward to seeing fellow Oxonians Wiley and the Checkmates there on Sunday.
Bill Ellis has a nice 
- On Saturday Jimmy “Duck” Holmes is hosting the 37th annual 
