Posts Tagged ‘blues’
Charlie Musselwhite
The Charlie Musselwhite Band
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Nov 16th Charlie Musselwhite
Blues is tough,” Charlie Musselwhite explains. He could just as easily be talking about himself. Described by the San Jose Mercury News as, “the second coming of Led Zeppelin, with Tom Waits on vocals,” Charlie and his band embody the direct and timeless power of the blues. Charlie continues to deliver that hi-wattage intensity on stage, testifying to the truth of living in real America night in and night out. Whether it’s the rough river town of Memphis of his childhood, the rough South Side Chicago juke joints where he cut his teeth as a performer or the disillusioned Twenty First Century New Orleans, Musselwhite’s music still speaks - loud and clear - to the soul with passion and grace. When Charlie released his first record, 1967’s defiant Stand Back, the country was in the midst of an unpopular war and entering the slipstream of rapid cultural and political change. Fast forward four decades and not much has changed. Neither has Musselwhite’s musical wanderlust nor his creative ambition. His hunger to explore new sounds and possibilities resulted in an acclaimed 2007 collaboration with alt-rock institution Eddie Vedder on the Golden Globe-nominated soundtrack to the film Into The Wild. Vedder’s haunting vocals and Musselwhite’s aching harp strains added to the movie’s already powerful story. Charlie recalls the sessions as a mutual admiration society. “It was great. Sean Penn was there, too. They were fans and knew a lot of my records. We hit it off right away and had great rapport.” Charlie describes this give and take between himself and performers from other generations and different genres as, “a conversation.” It is an ongoing one that has been a key reason why his music remains so vital. “Every situation has something to offer and can spark new ideas,” he explains. “Something new comes out of it.” Musselwhite sums up: “It’s like… I know what I know. What do you know that can make things even more interesting?” Charlie also finds inspiration in diverse cultural experience. An avid traveler, Charlie loves to investigate all music “with feeling / music from the heart.” He and his band go wherever the gigs are - including China, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Brazil. Even though Charlie has already racked up thousands of miles on tour buses and still spends a great deal of time away from his current Sonoma County, California home, he still books tour itineraries that would wear out performers half his age. Charlie finds that these journeys allow him, “to get beneath the surface of the place.” These treks reinforce Musselwhite’s belief in music’s universality. No matter that they were half a world away from the American stages that gave birth to the genre, Charlie remembers hearing, “people playing blues in their own way, their own version.” Like some Jungian archetype, Musselwhite calls this a global “music of lament from the heart,” with, “different takes,” from country to country. Musselwhite’s most recent album, 2006’s critically praised Delta Hardware (released by Peter Gabriel’s Real World imprint), runs a wide emotional gamut from the hip-shaking boogie of, “Church Is Out,” to the haunting Katrina lament, “Black Water.” Charlie’s electric brand of roots music, drawing equally from rock and blues traditions, permeates the disc. But, in addition to the traditional, Delta Hardware finds Musselwhite stretching out and exploring new sounds, including bits of samples and drums loops. When asked if he is writing any new material, Charlie replies, “I’m constantly working on new stuff. It’s an ongoing process.” As if touring the globe, releasing acclaimed albums and embarking on major collaborations wasn’t enough for Musselwhite’s to-do list, he even found time to act in his first feature film, Pig Hunt. A bold, jarring and independent slice of horror dubbed, “cinematic punkabilly,” Pig Hunt isn’t for the faint of heart. But, for Charlie, whose part was created specifically with him in mind by script writer Robert Mailer Anderson, the shoot was, “Very professional… fun, serious work.” Musselwhite was born in the Mississippi - the cradle of the blues. He spent his formative years in another musical hothouse, Memphis, Tennessee. Fortuitously, he arrived during its burgeoning postwar ascent, a vibrant cross-pollenization of down-home country, swinging jazz and soulful R&B. Charlie remembers, “I just figured every place was like Memphis. In the neighborhood, I could take a walk a couple blocks in any direction and come across some guys playing blues, hillbilly, gospel or rockabilly literally on the front steps, or in the yard. You could hear the music, and follow the sound.” Some of the young hotshots just getting their start in the city’s nightclubs at the time were Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash. Charlie often found himself at Elvis’ parties or watching Johnny and Tommy Cash styling through the Memphis streets. Heck, Johnny and Dorsey Burnette lived right across the street from Charlie. Slim Rhodes lived only a couple blocks away. Music had sunk its teeth deep into Charlie, but economic necessity made him move to Chicago in the mid 60’s. Now on his own as a young adult, Musselwhite looked for a good job and a better life. But, inevitably, the South Side scene, filled with legendary players like Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf and John Lee Hooker, drew him in. Soon, Charlie was living in the basement of Delmark records with Big Joe Williams and meeting the era’s greats. Musselwhite’s prodigious talent and laidback attitude soon won him a place at their sides both on stage or sharing a bottle in the alley out back of the bar. During the course of the remarkable career that followed, Musselwhite has collected a treasure trove of awards and accolades, including 18 W.C. Handy trophies, and six Grammy nominations. Amazon.com named Delta Hardware the best blues album of 2006. Musselwhite has also been honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award from The Monterey Blues Festival, the Mississippi Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts and a prestigious Brass Note plaque on Memphis’ Beale Street (prominently placed outside B.B. King’s Club). The latest in this list is the Mississippi Trail Marker on the square of his birthplace, Kosciusko Mississippi. However, probably more meaningful for a true bluesman like Charlie has been the love and respect from his fellow musicians, which he has received in spades. The artists that Musselwhite has worked with reads like a veritable Hall of Fame honor roll: In addition to Eddie Vedder, Charlie has collaborated with Tom Waits, Ben Harper, Bonnie Raitt, The Blind Boys of Alabama, Gov’t Mule, INXS, Mickey Hart, George Thorogood and personal friend and best man at his wedding John Lee Hooker. Ultimately, though, for Charlie Musselwhite the thrill and challenge of engaging an audience fuels his artistry. “It’s about the feeling, and connecting with people,” he explains, “And blues, if it’s real blues, is loaded with feeling.” Charlie continues that, “it ain’t about technique either, it’s about truth, connecting to the truth and communicating with people.”
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Indigenous
Inigenous
October 4th 9:00 PM Oklahoma City Limts
Mato Nanji’s always provided the heartbeat of the band Indigenous — along with the warm dusty voice and the soaring, spirited guitar fireworks that have earned the group from South Dakota’s Nakota Nation a place among roots rock’s elite. But with the emotionally charged and musically visceral Broken Lands, the band’s second album on Vanguard Records, Nanji makes a transformation from sparkplug to visionary.
“I’ve wanted to make an album like this for years,” Nanji explains, “but to a certain extent my hands were tied. Now I feel like I’ve achieved so many things I’ve wanted this band to be. The songs I’m singing are more personal. The sound of the band has broadened, and we were able to explore all the influences that are woven into that sound – blues, soul, R&B, and even country — more than ever. And the guitar playing is more controlled, to really let the songs speak for themselves. On top of all that, I’ve grown as a singer. After being frustrated for a while, all of this makes me very happy. “What it amounts to,” Nanji announces, “is that Indigenous is a brand new band.”
He means that literally. From the group’s beginning in his parents’ basement through the release of 2006’s Vanguard debut Chasing the Sun, Indigenous was a family band. But after that disc was recorded Mato’s bassist brother Pte, his drummer sister Wanbdi, and his percussionist cousin Horse left to pursue other musical paths. “Everybody decided to go their own way, leaving me to carry on Indigenous,” Nanji says. “Playing with my family for 10 years was a lot of fun, but it was time to grow.”
So Nanji recruited guitarist Kris Lager, keyboardist Jeremiah Weir, bassist Aaron Wright, and drummer John Fairchild to tour behind Chasing the Sun. They also appear on Broken Lands, joined by drummer Kirk Stallings, percussionist Chico Perez, and Mato’s wife Leah Nanji on backing vocals. Producer Jamie Candiloro (Ryan Adams, R.E.M., Willie Nelson, the Eagles) completed the studio team.
“Jamie shined on bringing out the energy and honest sound we had going on,” Nanji says. “He had us set up and play live in the studio as if we were on stage. Some of the songs, like the acoustic-guitar shuffle ‘All Night Long,’ went down with even the vocals recorded live while the band played. Others, like ‘Should I Stay,’ are more textured, but benefit from the energy that comes with playing the basic tracks live.”
Nanji’s big-toned guitar on Broken Lands’ dozen songs about romance and destiny continues to demand comparison to his idols Stevie Ray Vaughan, Los Lobos, Jimi Hendrix and Carlos Santana. His burnished style — full of ringing sustained notes and artfully bent strings — elevates the emotional appeal of numbers like the romantic soul-searcher ‘Should I Stay’ and the brooding blues-rock masterpiece ‘Waiting.’ Nonetheless, Nanji kept his gear for the sessions trim: a couple amps, including the distinctive organ-like whir of a Leslie speaker, and his trademark Stratocasters augmented by a Guild acoustic.
“I wanted to get more slide guitar into the album, too,” he says, “which gave me and Kris, who’s an exceptional slide player, new ways to have interplay.” So Lager added bottleneck to ‘All Night Long,’ the sweet ballad ‘Eyes of a Child’ and other numbers. “I’ve loved slide ever since I found Elmore James in my father’s collection of old blues albums when I was a teenager,” Nanji says. The other sonic addition is Leah Nanji’s harmonies on much of Broken Lands, “I’ve always been a big fan of women singing backing vocals,” Nanji says. “Leah was able to do some of that on Chasing the Sun, but to me her voice is an essential part of Broken Lands.”
Leah was also essential as a songwriter, co-authoring all of the songs with Mato except his self-penned ‘Just Can’t Hide.’ “This is the first time I’ve had a hand in writing every song for an Indigenous album,” Nanji says. “It’s very liberating, because I feel like I’ve truly invested myself. Leah and I have been writing songs together for years, and we had written about 20 for this album and narrowed it down to the best dozen.”
One of the most compelling is ‘Place I Know,’ a riff-rocker that decries the poverty and isolation of Reservation life and gives the album it’s title in the line, “all is lost in these broken lands.” “I love the way all of these songs came out, but ‘Place I Know’ is one of the closest to me,” Nanji says. “It’s important to bear witness about the things that inspire love in your life and about the things that make you sad. “But working on these songs at home with Leah in Sioux Falls was really fun,” says Nanji. “I got to just sit and play them again and again on acoustic guitar without pressure, and that helped me develop my vocal melodies and grow as a singer. Because of that, Broken Lands has my best vocal performances.
“Broken Lands makes me feel like I did when Indigenous was just starting out,” Nanji says. “We were excited about making music and making records, and maybe getting to tour all over the United States, which we did.
“Now Indigenous is a new band again and I feel that same excitement,” he continues. “But this time — when we start touring in August — I want to take these new songs and this great sounding band all over the world.”
I got the Promotion Blues
Promoting the blues is a difficult task that has sometimes paid dividends and sometimes only disappoints. I’m a blues fan by default. The music I really like just happens to be rooted in the blues. Because of this I have a taste for blues but it must be seasoned with a bit of rock to really grab me.
As a promoter I have tried to brand the type of show I do so that I could build a relationship with my customers. I have with a few exception booked acts that I want to see. An act that I feel will impress people whether they have heard of them or not. Hopefully they trust my judgment and will attend because they have discovered artists by virtue of attending one of my shows. I began this venture under the title of Route 66 Blues Project. I later changed the name to 79th Street Sound Stage so as to not limit myself to promoting the blues exclusively.
I recently booked Ana Popovic who is a blues based female guitar player from Europe. I had heard of her through blues societies and through the Blues Foundation when she was nominated for a Blues Music Award I had only heard some of her albums and explored her website. I liked the fact she had many influences both Jazz and Rock but it was bluesy.
I had a decent turnout targeting the blues community for the show. The problem is a decent turnout is under 100 people. If the show had sold 100 or over I would have been ecstatic. The blues I have found has a limited audience. I think I made a mistake promoting her as a blues artist. I was asked believe it or not to refund the ticket price to someone who thought Ana wasn’t the blues. The rational was when asked why she wasn’t the blues the best they could come up with was because she used a wah wah peddle. Sacrilege I suppose.
Now I don’t pretend to be the authority on what is and isn’t blues. I don’t promote blues acts exclusively. In fact my most well attended shows have not been considered blues acts at all. I think the problem with trying to define the blues hurts the genre by limiting its appeal and dividing the fans that already exist. Instead of being able to depend on a supportive fan base of a genre you have hope to appeal to a certain segment of the genre’.
How do you overcome the pitfalls that come with promoting the blues? I guess the answer is distancing yourself from the genre’. I promote music. You call it what you want. I hope you call it good. You can call it blues if you want but all you’ll get from me is that it is bluesy.
Ana Popovic
Jim Suhler and Monkey Beat
DALLAS, TX -
Along with Suhler on guitar and lead vocals, the band includes bassist Calrton Powell, keyboardist Shawn Phares and drummer Jimmy Morgan. Together, they’ve ben terrorizing clubs, theaters and festivals alike with their flamethrower brand of blues/rock. with a major side order of the Texas border mythology added to keep it spicy.
The same take-no-prisoners attitude has prevailed in Jim Suhler’s playing as a guitarist with George Thorogood and the Destroyers, with whom he’s recorded, toured and written songs for over nine years. Suhler has often been included in many of the “Top Ten Guitarists” lists featured in several music publications.
Blasting out Texas blues/rock for over seventeen years, Jim Suhler & Monkey Beat announce the February 17, 2009, release of the band’s new cd, ‘TIJUANA BIBLE’, which will be released in the U.S. on Underworld Records, distributed nationally by Burnside Distribution. Produced by Jim Suhler and Tom Hambridge, ‘TIJUANA BIBLE’ is powered by thirteen original songs, plus unique takes on Elvin Biahop’s “Drunken Hearted Boy” (with Bishop as a special guest on slide guitar), Rory Gallagher’s “I Could’ve Had Religion” and AC/DC’s “Up To My Neck in You”. Additional special guests include Joe Bonamassa on lead guitar (”Deep Water Lullaby”) and Jimmy Hall (Wet Willie) on backing vocals (Po‘ Lightnin’).
“TIJUANA BIBLE’ was recorded at Ocean Way Studios and 1808 Studios in Nasville, as well as Audio Dallas in Garland , Texas. The album takes it’s title from the notorious “Tijuana Bible”, an old time pornographic comic book, typically “starring” famous politicians, film stars and sports heroes of the day. “No one is really sure where they originated, but Tijuana, with it’s creative approach to all things entertaining, is certainly a good place to guess”, says Jim Suhler.
Several of the songs on “TIJUANA BIBLE” are also featured on the 2008 DVD release “REAL TIME: LIVE IN TEXAS”, recorded at Dallas’ Granada Theater, which also includes bonus tracks filmed at the Kwadendamme Blues Festival in the Netherlands and in the historic Deep Ellum section of Dallas.
Ana Popovic - June 20, 2009
Ana Popovic
Ana Popovic
Appearing live at Oklahoma City Limits Saturday night June 20, 2009
Ever since her debut album was nominated for a BMA for best new artist in 2003 American’s have embraced this Belgrade Serbia native, who now resides in Amsterdam, Ana Popovic will be making her first Oklahoma appearance Saturday June 20th at Oklahoma City Limits 4801 South Eastern.
Ana is yet another European heavily influenced by American blues artists but melds with her own Jazzy style developed listening to her fathers record collection filled with western popular music. Although she played professionally in Eastern European festival at an early age she came in to her own after moving to Amsterdam to continue her studies in graphic design. There she formed a Dutch band and became a fixture on the local music scene. She was signed to Ruf records and from there her career took an international course.
She is now touring in support of her newest release Still Making History on American label Delta Groove records. She has been lauded by such publications as Guitar Player Magazine “Ana is a superb singer and songwriter who can flatpick fluid jazzlines, and deep string bends with SRV-style and emotion.” She stands poised to shake your foundations.” Guitar One magazine.
For the second time Ana and her European band are invited to play at the Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise. On high sea Ana jams with Susan Tedeschi, Larry McCray, Bob Margolin and many more. Ana is part of Robert Radler’s guitar documentary ‘Turn it up’ aka TONE, about the worlds best guitars and guitar players.