Upcoming shows

One of my next shows will be spotlighting guitar / vocalist Alexis Korner. Many years ago, I thought John Mayall to be the father of the British Blues because he put together such great bands back in the late sixties. But Korner was sitting in with visiting American bluesmen Big Bill Broonzy, Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee, Memphis Slim, Champion Jack Dupree and Muddy Waters back in the mid-fifties and, along with harmonica man Cyril Davies put together Blues Incorporated in January of 1962 which became a gathering place for many who were about to embark on careers of their own, including at one time or another Rolling Stone Charlie Watts, Manfred Mann's vocalist Paul Jones, Long John Baldry, and the entire quartet of the Graham Bond Organisation: alto sax / keyboardist Bond, drummer Ginger Baker and bassist Jack Bruce (who both would form Cream with Eric Clapton) and sax man Dick Heckstall-Smith, who would join Mayall when he first added horns to his Blues Breakers. (Boy, was that a run-on sentence!) I recently came across a 1966 album entitled Sky High which has BBC broadcast songs added that will be the foundation of the Korner portion of the show with the Graham Bond Organisation providing much if not all of the rest of the show. I have since gone through my Baldry material and will include him also in that show.


September 30th. A fifth Wednesday! Didn't we just have one in July? I've been making a habit of getting away from the Blues these four times a year, so now that I've seen the calendar I'd better figure something out. Suggestions? I'm thinking maybe some L.A. bands like the Doors and Love, maybe Buffalo Springfield. Or some "Blue Eyed Soul" from the Righteous Brothers and the Rascals, but I'd like to hear from you.


I'll also soon be turning you on to a great CD I just picked up by Johnny Winter, the one that put him on my Blues map. It was called Second Winter (on vinyl, it was the only time I've seen an album use three sides) because it was his second release on Columbia although he had also released The Progressive Blues Experiment on Imperial. These albums plus the first Columbia release will be the basis of about half the show as early Canned Heat makes a logical complement to give you some of the best western white Blues of the late sixties, which is my nostalgia era. And you can't get much whiter than Johnny Winter. Expect to hear some scratches because the vinyl has been in my collection since the sixties!


Another project I'm working on is a show comprised entirely of Michael Bloomfield, from the Paul Butterfield Blues Band to the Electric Flag, to Muddy Waters' Fathers and Sons album to James Cotton, more Chicago blues with Charlie Musselwhite and Barry Goldberg, from Bob Dylan to Johnny Hammond, from his work with Al Kooper to performances with Nick Gravenites. I have all the materials I need in my collection except Janis Joplin's Kosmic Blues album; perhaps someone out there could loan it to me or at least let me know which tracks he played on. A great guitarist who made the move from Chicago to the Bay Area who played behind so diverse a bunch of artists that the show should stay fresh throughout.


If you saw the movie Play Misty for Me, you might have noticed a band playing in the background as Clint Eastwood was moving through the 1970 Monterey Jazz Festival. That was Johnny Otis' Blues Revue and he put out a double album of the performance that included some of the marquee R&B artists from a couple of decades earlier like shouter Big Joe Turner, saxophonist Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson, drummer Roy Milton, pianist Ivory Joe Hunter and singer Little Esther Phillips as well as guitarist Pee Wee Crayton and trumpeter Gene Connors with newcomers Delmar "Mighty Mouth" Evans, Margie Evans and Johnny's slide guitar playing son Shuggie Otis. I'll dig up some of the earlier recordings by this large group of headliners and take up two shows.


I'd also like to mention a book that I picked up maybe three years ago. It's the Blues-Rock Explosion by Old Goat Publishing and it provides excellent background for that decade when I fell in love with the Blues, including about ten pages per entry with Korner, Winter, Canned Heat and Bloomfield included in about 270 pages covering about 30 groups of the era. Although they are all white (with the exception of Taj Mahal), it gives you knowledge that is hard to find elsewhere. My copy is from the first edition (copyright 2001) with a list price on the back of $30.