D’Mar and Gill Real Friend CD Review Chris Gill and Derrick “D’Mar” Martin are just what the album cover implies – an acoustic guitar and drum duo. The pair recorded Real Good Friend live in the studio for D’Mar’s Airtight Blues label producing a brilliant debut album by these two veterans of the music industry [...]
Archive for Category: "Jim Kanavy"
David “Frankie” Toler – A Year of Tears And A Lifetime Of Music
Drummer David “Frankie” Toler passed away on Saturday, June 4, 2011 in Bradenton, FL. Frankie was in hospice care after prolonged illness and two liver transplants. He was 59. Blues fans may remember him from his tenure in the Allman Brothers Band from 1980 to 1982. Frankie Toler was raised in Connersville, Indiana and got [...]
Festivals of 2011 Bring The Blues Community Together
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” Charles Dickens was certainly not thinking about the blues in 2011 when he wrote those famous words but they certainly seem appropriate. In 2011, the blues world had more than its share of ups and downs. Legendary performers passed away, festivals were cancelled, [...]
Watermelon Slim and Super Chikan – Okiesippi Blues CD Review
Watermelon Slim has been nominated for 17 Blues Music Awards. Slim is a member of Mensa – the social group for people with genius IQs. He also plays a mean harp. James “Super Chikan” Johnson is a Blues Music Award winner. He’s also a recycling enthusiast; he turns old items into exquisite, fully functional guitars [...]
Johnny Winter – Roots CD Review
I saw Johnny Winter perform last January in New York City. He’s not young anymore and after broken hips and surgeries in recent years he moves a little slow coming on stage and he has to sit while he plays. However, from the moment he picks up his guitar to the moment he puts it [...]
Ivan Appelrouth – Blue And Instrumental CD Review
Ivan Appelrouth must be one of the best kept secrets in blues. He’s got everything you could hope for in a blues guitar player – style, chops, timing, phrasing, and an uncanny ability to capture the essence of the material. Blue And Instrumental on EllerSoul Records is his first disc as a bandleader, however he [...]
A Night Of Blues History Coming to 2nd Story Blues In Bethlehem, PA
Presenting 3 Hours of Music Covering 1940 to Present Day Blues with Joe Beard, Chris Beard and special guest Mike Guldin 2nd Story Blues is proud to announce its next Blues concert event. It is a pleasure to bring to the Lehigh Valley a multi-generational American Blues retrospective, featuring Blues legend Joe Beard, his son [...]
Cedric Burnside – Feeling The Rhythm
Cedric Burnside may not be the King of the Blues, or even considered Blues royalty. He does, however, have a pure blues pedigree. His grandfather was Robert Lee Burnside, better know as North Mississippi blues legend R.L. (Rural) Burnside. Cedric spent many years on the road drumming for the man he calls “Big Daddy” and [...]
Duke Robillard – Low Down And Tore Up CD Review
Duke Robillard’s latest disc for Stony Plain, Low Down And Tore Up, couldn’t be better named. Duke gets gritty, digging in with classic tones, a live recording set-up, and a crack band that tears it up, down, sideways, and all points in between. Duke Robillard wanted to capture the spontaneity and feel of older recordings [...]
Samantha Fish, Runaway – CD Review
Hot on the heels of her participation in the Girls With Guitars project comes Samantha Fish’s new album Runaway on Ruf Records. The same core band is in place as is producer and Blues Music Award winner Mike Zito. The result is a cohesive, clear and confident. Recorded in January 2011 at Studio Erde in [...]
Bluestock 2011 – Awash in Music, Merriment And Memories
Skies were blue and spirits were high on Friday afternoon as the first annual Bluestock festival kicked off with two time IBC winner Lionel Young and his band, but a sense of foreboding was palpable as attendees wondered what Sunday would bring as Irene left a wake of destruction in her path up the east [...]
Pennsylvania Blues Festival – A Cure For The Pocono Blues
The first annual Pennsylvania Blues Festival took place on July 30th and 31st at Blue Mountain Ski Resort in Palmerton, PA. The festival is a new event from Pocono Blues Festival producer Michael Cloeren who created the Pocono Blues Festival in 1992. When the Pocono Blues Festival was unceremoniously dumped by Big Boulder after 19 [...]
Briggs Farm Blues Festival 2011 – A Record Breaker
The 14th annual Briggs Farm Blues Festival was held on July 8 and 9, 2011 and by all accounts it was a rousing success. Record breaking crowds gathered at the 350-acre family farm nestled off Route 93 in Nescopeck, PA just west of the I-80 and I-81 junction to hear international, national, and local blues [...]
A Chat With PA Blues Festival Founder Michael Cloeren
The Pocono Blues Festival has been a Pennsylvania tradition for 19 years, bringing the best of blues music to the Pocono Mountains and fans from around the globe. In November 2010, it looked like the tradition might be over. Michael Cloeren, the founder and producer of the festival explains: “After 19 years and working at [...]
Davina and the Vagabonds – Black Cloud CD Review
The blues genre is like a forest. There are many types of trees but they are all part of the larger landscape, intertwined and bound together at root level by the earth that surrounds them. Roots mingle below the soil and new hybrids that defy categorization occasionally emerge. The music of Davina and the Vagabonds [...]
