Key to the Highway    

2020-02-23 Mardi Gras edition    7-11PM      

Blue Lu Barker

Lonesome Sundown

Three various artist sets

Ron Thompson memorial set

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Just as I was about to post this, I saw this note about a benefit concert Sunday from 4-8PM from our friend Johnnie Cozmik and his J.C. Smith Band: myself, and the San Jose Moose Lodge have put together a fundraiser for Leslie Rubulcaba Muniz. As you have probably seen in the news over the past few months, their family was a victim of a devastating fire and they lost everything. We are putting together this fundraiser and all we’re asking is $20 to show up, listen to some music, send well wishes and have a few drinks. It’s the best way I know I could try to help the family so hopefully you guys can show up and help me help them. It is at the San Jose Moose Lodge, 1825 Mt. Pleasant Road in San Jose. The event will be from 4 PM to 8 PM so please come by; they can use your help. Thank you in advance.

I’m not sure exactly who Leslie Rubulcaba Muniz is but I do remember Jerry Rubulcababa was one of Johnnie’s early guitar playing buddies.  If I didn’t have the show I would be there.  Please consider going and having some fun while you help out within the Blues community.

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I just heard on Wednesday that Ron Thompson had passed away eight days ago and I wanted to pay tribute to him with the time left over from the show I had planned.  Right off, I’d like to acknowledge the Mercury News obituary, All Music’s online biography and Ron’s own website for the factual material and quotes in my tribute.  I have a full eighty minute CD prepared that I will transition to after our two disc Mardi Gras show, so let’s talk about the main portion of today’s show.  Since Mardi Gras is February 25^th this year, it’s about time we get ready with a good variety of the musical flavors of the New Orleans vicinity.  I love this first set, especially the first six songs!  To me, someone who has never been even close to New Orleans, they convey the feelings I would expect to find that day and that place.  If I could make the entire show feel like this, I’d be ecstatic.  What better way to kick off the festivities than with the great horn bands Rebirth Brass Band and the Dirty Dozen Brass Band.  I have to confess to getting the two confused, but I was lucky to see one of them quite a while back at the San Francisco Blues Festival.  Although obviously not purely a Blues band, they set a raucous, unmatched precedent for the acts that followed as they came off stage and tromped through the audience, not an easy task in the tightly packed crowd.

In New Orleans’ traditional parades, the locals dress up in elaborate takeoffs of Native American garb with the various neighborhoods forming their own tribes, and the Wild Tchoupatoulas are one of these.  If you are about my age, you probably remember a commercialized version of a bayou standard, Iko Iko, by the Dixie Cups; Dr. John gives the tune a more traditional taste.

Red Tyler was one of the most in-demand horn players around the New Orleans recording studios and he chose a Dizzy Gillespie instrumental here, followed by a Gospel pick by Irma Thomas, one of the area’s Grande Dames.  We close the first set with another instrumental by probably the area’s most prolific composer, Allen Toussaint, probably better known for his authorship and producing than his piano playing.

This set was mostly sourced from disc one of Rounder’s Louisiana Spice and Rhino’s New Orleans Party Classics.  Rounder’s disc one also provided most of the later piano set while disc two was entirely responsible for our middle set.  We have short write-ups to follow for the two featured artists (there is not that much info available about either one), and as much as I really enjoy the Zydeco / Cajun music, I don’t have a good enough handle on its history or artists to try to explain it, so just kick back and check out this up tempo third set.  Just try to not move your feet!

A Mardi Gras show would be incomplete if I failed to throw in a good dose of their piano players, or as they are known locally, professors.  I believe Marcia Ball is actually from Texas but her style definitely crosses the border, and we open our last set with probably my favorite of her tunes.  I was fortunate to catch her one early evening at the FREE outdoor “Jazz in the Plaz” midweek summer concert series in Los Gatos; despite the name, they seem to have one Blues artist a season (I also saw Chris Cain the other time I went).

The most influential of the piano players was Professor Longhair and the song here is the reason there is a popular music venue named Tipitina’s.  He is also the author and originator of the show’s opening track, Mardi Gras in New Orleans.  Henry Butler is a more recent favorite; his number came from the album Blues After Sunset.

While Longhair was the most successful, the most technically proficient was James Booker.  Booker’s career was hindered immensely by his drug habit.  I find it difficult  finding tracks to play because he often strayed mid-number from a Blues tune to classical, all good but not really fitting my presentations, but the Rounder CD gave me a piece that was not previously in my collection.  I have more CDs by far by Champion Jack Dupree than any of the other piano grand masters and I hope the included song tells you why.  Another artist I was fortunate to see, at JJ’s in Mountain View on one of his last visits since moving to Europe in the sixties or seventies, that evening Jack played solo and infused his performance with a large dose of wit and general good feeling.

I don’t know a whole lot about Tuts Washington except that he was a strong influence on many of those who followed him, nor do I know much about Eddie Bo other than that his included track fits in well.  And I’m not going to even try to say anything about Fats Domino other than that our set closer is taken from his portion of Proper’s four disc set Gettin’ Funky.      enjoy

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Our first featured artist was born Louisa Dupont in New Orleans on November 13^th 1913.  Her father ran a grocery store / pool hall but certainly made most of his money during Prohibition off of bootleg liquor.  At the age of thirteen, she ran off with guitarist / banjo player Danny Barker, landing them in New York City in 1930 after their wedding as the couple had their own groups, but Lu could sometimes be found fronting for Cab Calloway (with whom Danny had a long run as part of the orchestra) or Jelly Roll Morton.  The fact that Danny was already a highly desirable jazzman certainly enhanced Lu’s opportunities.  The couple most often performed together from before their marriage right up to his passing in March 1994.

1938 saw her first vocal recording session (for Vocalion) where some PR guy came up with the Blue Lu Barker moniker.  Her 1938 number, Don’t You Feel My Leg, was revitalized in 1970 by Maria Muldaur.  Despite occasional criticisms about her limited range, no less a luminary than Billie Holiday stated that, “Blue Lu Barker was my biggest influence”.

In the forties, the couple was signed to the Apollo label who had two other major R&B vocalists in Wynonie Harris and Dinah Washington.  One of the sessions even featured Charlie Parker, although Danny never embraced the new Bebop style, preferring to play in the Dixieland revivalist style of the time.

After thirty-five years in New York City, they went out to California in 1965, giving Lu the opportunity to record an album for Capitol.  Soon after, they returned to New Orleans because her mother had health issues, allowing them to put their careers back on track.

The songs we hear today all come from a 52CD set which I highly recommend, the ABC of the Blues, spanning from the twenties into the fifties, a great bargain that is still available for less than $60.  I purchased it almost seven years ago so it has been pretty much overlooked for a while, but each time I pull up the booklet I am reminded that it is likely the best purchase I’ve made in my memory.  A few of the artists fully consume the allotted 20 tracks per disc (Bo Diddley, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Howlin’ Wolf, Robert Johnson, B.B. King, Little Walter, Leadbelly, Bessie Smith and Jimmy Yancey, all of whom were already well represented in my library), which makes it an even better buy for the uninitiated Blues fan, but for the other forty-some discs two artists get ten tracks apiece.  For me, the earliest acoustic and classic style of singers fill vacancies in my collection as well as a bunch of artists from the thirties and forties that I either had never even heard of or just had not had the time (or finances) to look into.  This set is a good example of the quality of most of those acts.  I’m sorry, but I just cannot over-emphasize the value of this box set!

I came across mention that our opening track, A Little Bird told Me, stayed on the Billboard chart for fourteen weeks, peaking at #4 after its late 1948 release, so it should be safe to presume the rest of our set is from the same time period.  Lu continued her long career right up to her recorded performance at the 1998 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.

Since starting this essay, I picked up a copy of their performance at the 1989 New Orleans Jazz Festival.  I was disappointed with Lu’s performance; there was really nothing up tempo, but I should have known better to expect the same vocal tone forty years after the recordings heard here, not to mention she was likely still recovering from a recent tracheotomy as part of her throat surgery.  It was pleasurable to get a glimpse of Danny’s music (he sang five numbers following Lu’s opening five), mostly banjo rather than guitar, with a six-piece traditional jazz backing ensemble.

Blue Lu was inducted into the Louisiana Blues Hall of Fame in 1997, one year prior to her passing on May 7^th 1998 at the age of 84.  The last great event for Blue Lu occurred after her death when the celebration of her life New Orleans style was documented in a video broadcast

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Cornelius Green was born December 12^th 1928 on the Dugas Plantation outside of Donaldsonville, Louisiana, one of twelve children.  He first learned basic piano in his teens, then began on the guitar with lessons from a cousin in 1950.  After a year in Jeanerette, Louisiana, working as a truck driver, he moved to Port Arthur, Texas in 1953, finding employment at the Gulf Oil refinery as he acquainted himself with the local music nightlife.  Here, he signed on to Zydeco great Clifton Chenier and his Zydeco Ramblers as second guitarist behind Philip Walker in 1955 for gigs at the Blue Moon Club, leading to tours going as far as up to Chicago and out to Los Angeles, as well as a recording session for Specialty Records.  Green was even responsible for Chenier’s recording The Cat’s Dreaming after the guitarist fell asleep at a session.

Since I’m so fond of mentioning artists I have had the privilege of seeing, I should bring up the fact that my first exposure to Zydeco was through Chenier and his Red Hot Band at the Mountain Winery (it went by another name back then) in the Saratoga hills around 1981.  Lightnin’ Hopkins was to headline the show but was ill and replaced by Johnny Hammond.

Later in 1955, after failing to get Specialty to sign him up on his own, he left Clifton and Port Arthur for Opelousas, Louisiana, getting married in the meantime, all in all a busy year.

In Opelousas, Green was playing with Lloyd Reynauld and began to write his own material.  He also heard about producer J.D. “Jay” Miller, the man who would become known for bringing out the Swamp Blues sound with artists like Lightnin’ Slim, Slim Harpo and Lazy Lester, so Green prepared a demo tape and took it to Miller at his Crowley studio.  Miller was impressed enough to have Green bring in his band he had been gigging with at the Domino Club in Eunice and they put together his first single, 1956’s Leave My Money Alone backed by Lost Without Love, but before leasing it out to Excello Records, Miller gave Green a more suitable professional name.  “I gave Lonesome Sundown his name. . . .  Well, Cornelius Green didn’t sound too commercial.. We’d always try to pick out a fairly commercial name.”

The follow-up release was Lonesome Whistler b\w My Home is My Prison, the latter not making today’s airing but based on the fact that Sundown’s wife kept calling the studio to find out where he was.  Miller saw what this did to his singer and quickly wrote and recorded the song “with Lonesome Sundown singing it like every word meant something to him”, according to the liner notes for I’m a Mojo Man: The Best of the Excello Singles, which contains both sides of twelve of the sixteen 45s put out.

The second release fared better than the first, but nothing made it onto even the local charts.  While the list of players is not well documented, we do know that harp blower Lazy Lester, pianist Katie Webster and sax man Lionel Prevost each were among the musicians who participated in the Crowley sessions.  Still, Sundown and Miller stayed the course through nine years until the disappointed singer decided to leave the industry to join the Apostolic Church in 1965, around the time of his divorce.  Sundown, about his Christian conversion, where he would become a minister: “it gave me a beautiful mind concerning my life and the things around me – things to be enjoyed, things to be admired, things to be appreciated.”

Sundown came out of retirement in 1977 to record an album reuniting him with Philip Walker, Been Gone Too Long for the Joliet label.  Even after a re-release by Alligator in 1979, the album just really never caught on.  Sundown then did a few concerts, including a performance at the 1979 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, and he and Walker did tours, the farthest being to Japan and Sweden, before moving back to Louisiana finding work outside of music.

Lonesome Sundown passed away on April 23^rd 1995 in Gonzales, Louisiana, after a 1994 stroke took away his ability to speak.  He was inducted into the Louisiana Blues Hall of Fame in 2000.  Hopefully, this set will make you wonder why he was so relatively underappreciated.

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One of the Blu Lu Barker tunes, Here’s a Little Girl, just kept running through my head, particularly the verse with “she can drink a lot of Hadacol”, and I was compelled to look into the product mentioned.  I was already aware of one song, Hadacol Bounce, by the legendary New Orleans pianist Professor Longhair, but apparently it was the subject of many songs, not exclusively by Louisiana artists, and crossed into just about every popular musical genre around as long as the product existed, from about 1943 into the 50s.

Hadacol was maybe the last great snake oil, claiming to be a multi-vitamin remedy for just about anything that could possibly ail you, from cancer to arthritis, and it contained twelve per cent alcohol to boost its sales, particularly in the dry counties of the South.  It was recommended that one tablespoon should be mixed with half a glass of water and taken four times daily, but it was clearly often taken in straight shots or in a cocktail.  The concoction was described by Time Magazine as "a murky brown liquid that tastes something like bilge water, and smells worse."

Time also reported its creator, four-term Louisiana Democrat Senator Dudley J. LeBlanc, to be "a stem-winding salesman who knows every razzle-dazzle switch in the pitchman's trade".  LeBlanc came up with the product in 1943 after asking a doctor to provide him a pain medication and it is thought that, on a return visit, LeBlanc took a bottle with him to replicate when the nurse was otherwise occupied.  He took the name from the first two letters of the words in his former Happy Day Company, portions of which had been ordered shut down by the Food and Drug Administration, adding the first letter from his last name, hence Hadacol, the col portion intended to bring to mind alcohol.  His little joke when asked about the name was, “Well, I hadda call it something”.

The American Medical Association was not impressed with the product, as evidenced by this 1951 statement: "It is hoped that no doctor will be uncritical enough to join in the promotion of Hadacol.  It is difficult to imagine how one could do himself or his profession greater harm from the standpoint of the abuse of the trust of a patient suffering from any condition. Hadacol is not a specific medication. It is not even a specific preventive measure."

Promotion was one thing LeBlanc knew how to do.  In addition to testimonials appearing on all the media outlets, his people created promotional items such as signs and clocks, a "Captain Hadacol" comic book, T-shirts, an almanac, plastic thimbles printed with the Hadacol logo, water pistols and cowboy-style holsters, glasses for drinking the diluted mixture, and a stamped metal token (LeBlanc’s likeness on one side and the Hadacol logo on the reverse) redeemable for 25¢ off their next purchase.  All of these, as well as hand bills from the shows, used bottles and even the boxes that housed them are sought out by memorabilia collectors.

But the promotion of the most interest to us would be the traveling Hadacol Goodwill Caravans of entertainers of all stripes in what must have been the last of the big time medicine shows.  The 1950 version moved in 130 vehicles as it first played one night stands in the South before heading west.  There was music, dancing chorus girls and circus acts performing with appearances made by major personalities such as Lucille Ball, Minnie Pearl, Mickey Rooney, Dorothy Lamour, Carmen Miranda, George Burns and Gracie Allen, Judy Garland, Chico Marx, Groucho Marx, James Cagney and Hank Williams (Williams also hosted the inappropriately titled, Hadacol-sponsored Health and Happiness Show in 1949), even separate shows with well known Jazz and Blues artists to cater to the Black audiences.

For the 1951 tour, LeBlanc booked a seventeen car train named the Hadacol Special.  Luminaries this time included Jack Dempsey, Milton Berle, Jimmy Durante and Cesar Romero, with a full month spent in Los Angeles.  Each night the crowd was bought to its feet by the closing act, Hank Williams.

The price of admission was two box tops for adults, one for children, each costing in today’s money either $10 or $30 for the family size.  Musician Weldon "Big Bill" Lister remembers, "The only way you could get into that show was with a Hadacol box top, And believe me, we played to crowds of ten, twelve thousand people a night. Back in those days there wasn't many auditoriums that would hold that many people. We played ball parks, race tracks - you know anywhere where they had enough big bleachers to handle those kind of crowds."  September 17^th 1951 was the final Caravan date after rumors of tax problems arose.  Some of the performers were laid off while others were left stranded without pay.  

In the fifteen months ending in March 1951, more than $3,600,000 worth of the tonic was sold.  LeBlanc would sell the company for $8,200,000, but the company turned out to be bankrupt as LeBlanc had been spending more on advertising than it brought in (only Coca-Cola was spending more than Hadacol at the time), combined with two million in bills and over a half a million in unpaid taxes, not to mention two million listed as Accounts Receivable, which was actually product out on consignment and now mostly being returned.  When asked on Groucho Marx’s radio show what Hadacol was good for, LeBlanc replied, "It was good for about five and a half million dollars for me last year."

We mentioned that Hadacol was the subject of numerous songs and, although I have not heard any of these, I thought this would be some of the more relevant to us: "Drinkin' Hadacol" by "Little Willie" Littlefield, "Everybody Loves That Hadacol" by Tiny Hill and His Orchestra, "H-A-D-A-C-O-L" by Al Terry (Allison Theriot), and "Hadacol (That's All)" by the Treniers.  But the one that stands out to me is "Hadacol Boogie," most recently covered by Jerry Lee Lewis (along with Buddy Guy) on his Last Man Standing album.

"Hadacol Corners" by Slim Willet might have been the inspiration for the town later known as Midkiff in Upton County, Texas, to initially request the name Hadacol Corner, but the U.S. Postal Service refused.

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Every time I thought about Ron Thompson in recent years, I wanted to kick my butt around the block a few times because I let a golden opportunity pass me by.  It was a no-brainer.  Certainly because I feel that I do interviews terribly, I never got around to inviting Ron to KKUP for an interview although I knew he was happy to do it.  It would have been such a natural fit because my show ended at 5PM on Wednesday afternoons and Ron had a weekly gig a coupla miles away at the Poor House Bistro starting at 6PM.  I often stopped by for a couple of beers and some Blues on my way home, but before I capitalized on the situation Ron’s health started a strong downhill trend and he had to give up the gig.

Ron was a big supporter of community Blues radio.  He performed a couple or three times at KKUP’s Blues marathons and added slide guitar to one of Johnnie Cozmik’s J.C. Smith Band CDs.  Speaking of Johnnie, there was a time when he was often unavailable as my alternating host so he made arrangements for Ron’s sister, going by the name Mercy Baby, to cover the shows he couldn’t make.

I first heard about Ron when I was living in Ben Lomond around 1978.  A guy I met had him play at a party and, knowing I was into Blues, he was proud to play a tape from it for me.  Later, in the early 80s when I started tending bar, a friend of mine who knew Ron played an LP for me because I was a big time Magic Sam fan and he figured I would verify what he already knew, that it was, indeed, not Magic Sam but Ron Thompson.  I wasn’t very familiar with Ron, but it certainly was not anywhere near Sam’s style.  The album, Just Pickin’, is one of the three CDs used on today’s playlist, along with Just Like a Devil and Magic Touch.  I also have a John Lee Hooker live 1977 recording from the Keystone in Palo Alto, a 2CD set titled the Cream, which includes Ron and John Garcia on guitars and the harmonica of Charlie Musselwhite, so it may be included on a future show.

Ron, one of the most revered Bay Area Bluesmen in recent decades, was born in Oakland on July 5^th 1953 and grew up in Newark.  A multi-instrumentalist, Thompson mastered piano, harmonica, piano and mandolin, but it was his guitar playing that most set him aside from the rest, whether it was alone on an acoustic country Blues or in a full band setting headed up by his vocals and electric guitar, especially powerful in the bottleneck slide style.

Ron began learning slide shortly after picking up guitar at the age of eleven.  He spent about five years playing the Bay Area clubs on his own and backing other artists, most notably Little Joe Blue, in his late teens.  In 1975, Ron joined John Lee Hooker’s Coast to Coast Blues Band where he stayed as bandleader for at least three years, then formed Ron Thompson and the Resisters in 1980.  After signing with Takoma Records, Ron had his first release in 1983, Treat Her Like Gold.  In addition to his own gigs, Thompson was still a popular backing guitarist for folks like Lowell Fulson, Etta James and Big Mama Thornton.  Ron made a connection with Fleetwood Mac drummer Mick Fleetwood in the early 80s and came together in Mick Fleetwood’s Blue Whale, performing when the schedules of both musicians aligned.

His second album, Resister Twister, was released by Blind Pig in 1987, garnishing Ron a Grammy nomination, followed in 1990 by Just Like a Devil, a collection of tunes gleaned from his appearances on Mark Naftalin’s Blue Monday Party radio show and released on the pianist’s Winner label.  Naftalin is probably best known from his part on the early Paul Butterfield Blues Band albums before he, like so many other white Chicago Bluesmen, moved to the Bay Area.  (Think Michael Bloomfield, Elvin Bishop, Charlie Musselwhite.)

In 2007, Ron’s album Resonator showed him as an acoustic solo performer. His last album, Son of Boogie Woogie, came out in 2015 on keyboardist Jimmy Pugh’s Little Village Foundation label and Pugh’s 2018 comments to the Marin Independent are poignant.   “Not only can he play the blues, he can sing it in a way that’s more convincing than practically anyone these days.  He grew up in tough circumstances in East Oakland, and I don’t think you can find a better example of someone who’s that believable, that authentic. He’s the real deal.”

It takes a lot to impress Tom Mazzolini, longtime Blues DJ and for decades mastermind of the San Francisco Blues Festival (in its last year the longest running Blues festival in the country), but Ron managed to pull it off.  “He played a long time with John Lee Hooker, and really got the Hooker style down.  When I heard him play slide (guitar), I thought he was the reincarnation of Elmore James.”  And, more explicitly, "I've always felt Ron is the most talented blues guitarist I have ever seen. He can do it all. He's extraordinarily gifted. What many folks aren't aware of is that Ron was a huge asset in the re-emergence of John Lee Hooker. He was the foundation for that boogie sound."

The enthusiastic praise continues from Andy Grigg, music critic for Real Blues magazine, who wrote: "If you haven't experienced Ron T. live, I can't even begin to convey the absolute go-for-broke Blues rave-ups and sweat-soaked pandemonium Thompson and his Resistors dispense on a nightly basis. When it comes to slide guitar workouts, I would say he's the Best in the World, and yet the man sings his ass off too."

In addition to the Bistro, in recent years Ron played local venues such as Biscuits & Blues in San Francisco or Fremont’s Mojo Lounge, even San Jose’s JJ’s in its heyday.  He honed his sound in East Bay clubs like North Richmond’s Playboy Club and Oakland’s Deluxe Inn or Eli’s Mile High Club.

Among his other domestic performances, which included many of the major Blues festivals, Ron’s international performances included the Jazz and Blues Sessions in Berne, Switzerland, as well as stages in Poland, Mexico, and Belize.  The list of musical luminaries Thompson played or recorded with is extensive, notably Carlos Santana, Bonnie Raitt, Tina Turner, Elvin Bishop, Bill Medley, Huey Lewis, Dr. John, Bobby Womak, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Robert Cray, Z.Z. Top, Big Mama Thornton, Bruce Willis, Luther Tucker, Jimmy McCracklin, Pee Wee Crayton, Carla Thomas, Booker T. Jones, Percy Mayfield, Etta James, B.B. King, and Jimmy Reed. 

When another Bay Area Blues legend, harmonica man Mark Hummel, assembled a lineup in 2013 for a tribute tour honoring Jimmy Reed, the Chicago Blues master who died in Oakland in 1976, with most notably Lazy Lester, Kim Wilson, Rick Estrin, Little Charlie Baty, Joe Louis Walker and Kenny Neal, Thompson’s long time friend Hummel emailed that “Ron stole the show!”

On tour after recording Chris Isaak’s San Francisco Days, Isaak warned the audience, "You might think these crowd barriers are here to keep you away from the stage. They're not. They're here to keep Ron Thompson away from you!"  Steve Cropper, guitarist, songwriter and founding member of Booker T and the MGs, stated, “What this guy knows, you can’t get out of a book”, but perhaps John Lee Hooker put it best and most simply: “Ron Thompson, he’s my main man!”

Aside from his one Grammy nomination, Ron didn’t acquire nationwide acclaim reached by many he performed with, he was held in the highest local esteem, Mayor Gavin Newsom proclaimed Sept. 5, 2007, as Ron Thompson Day in San Francisco.  He twice won Bammies (Bay Area Music Awards) and a Colorado Blues Society’s Lifetime Achievement Award.  He also made it into the Blues Hall of Fame.

Ron passed away eight days ago on Saturday, February 15^th at the age of 66 after long suffering the ravages of diabetes.  He required a leg to be amputated in 2017 and had been in a coma for about the last month due to a hypoglycemic seizure,  A memorial is being planned for April, according to Hummel.  Although his website, rtblues.com, appears to have been last revised around 2014 you still might want to check it for any updates that may occur.  Or maybe his Facebook page @ronthompsonofficial.

Ron told the Bay Area News Group in 2005, “Blues is like a medicine, or religion to me,  It’ll cleanse your soul.”

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For Your Information

To listen to KSCU on a computer, use either iTunes or WinAmp for the media player.

To listen to KSCU on a smart phone use either the NextRadio or TuneIn apps.

The studio phone number is (408) 554-KSCU or, for the digitally inclined 554-5728 but, as always, make sure no one is speaking on the air before you dial.

The mailing address for sending CDs, et cetera, is:

KSCU Local Music

500 El Camino Real

Santa Clara, CA

95053

KSCU radio’s studio is located in the basement of Benson Hall

KSCU’s Sunday morning Blues rotation has the Jakester, Mister G, Dave the Blues Dude and the Bluesevangelist between 9AM and 1PM.  Sherri Jones does her Blues show between 10:30AM and 12:30PM on Saturdays.  And, of course, me!

The best way to reach me is by email at coyledon@yahoo.com (my computer’s autocorrect adds a letter t, so if that shows up here please remove it before trying to contact me; apparently, cotyledon is some kind of botanical term).  I do send out my blog via email so, if you would like to be added to that list, just give me your address and I’d be happy to do so, otherwise all my writings going back to 2014 are still available at key2highway.blogspot.  I do recommend the direct email to let you know when I will be on, especially now that I will occasionally waiver from the second and fourth week of each month format.  Thank you all for your continued support.  Feel free to call me during the show; it gets lonely in the dungeon.

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Mardi Gras in New Orleans

Li’l Liza Jane

   The Dirty Dozen Brass Band

Do Whacha Wanna

   The Rebirth Brass Band

Meet de Boys on the Battlefront

   The Wild Tchoupitoulas

Shoo Fly

   Monk Boudreau with the Rebirth Brass Band

Iko Iko

   Dr. John

Peanut Vendor

   Alvin “Red” Tyler

Hold to God’s Unchanging Hand

   Irma Thomas

Whirlaway

   Allen Toussaint   34mins

A Little Bird Told Me

Here’s a Little Girl

Trombone Man Blues

Bow Legged Daddy

What Did You Do to Me?

Leave My Man Alone

I Want Your Husband

Now You’re Down the Alley

   Blue Lu Barker   21mins

Pere et Gargon Zydeco

   John Delafose

L’Ouragon

   Beausoliel

Laissez Faire

   Bruce Daigrepoint

Bayou Pon Pon

   Trio Calden

File Gumbo

   Zachary Richard

C’est Pas le Peine Brailler

   Geno Delafose

T’en as Eu

   David Doucet

Outside People

   Nathan and the Zydeco Cha Chas

Snap Bean

   Li’l Brian

Think it Over One More Time

   Buckwheat Zydeco

Give Him Cornbread

   Beau Jocque and the Zydeco High Rollers   39mins

When I Had (I Didn’t Need)

Leave My Money Alone

Lonesome Whistler

Lost without Love

Don’t Say a Word

I’m a Mojo Man

Don’t Go

Guardian Angel

Gonna Stick to You, Baby

Home Ain’t Here

Lonesome, Lonely Blues

I’m a Samplin’ Man

Learn to Treat Me Better

   Lonesome Sundown   31mins

That’s Enough of that Stuff

   Marcia Ball

Tipitina

   Professor Longhair

Death Has No Mercy

   Henry Butler

Three Keys

   James Booker

Hometown New Orleans

   Champion Jack Dupree

Tee Nah Nah

   Tuts Washington

Hard Times

   Eddie Bo

Boogie Woogie Baby

   Fats Domino   29mins

Cadillac Walk

Hip Shake

Bullet Blues

R.T.’s Piano

Honest I Do

Just Pickin’

Baby Please Don’t Go

Rollin’ and Tumblin’

   Ron Thompson   30mins

J.T. Shuffle

Silvertone Boogie

Pin-Eyed Woman

Hard Time Train

Just Like a Devil

Gangster Blues

Saddle My Pony

Walkin’ Blues

   Ron Thompson   31mins

E Street Boogie

Murderin’ Blues

Rockin’ and Rollin’ Blues

Little Drummer Boy

   Ron Thompson   17mins