Each year at the end of January, the Blues Foundation hosts the International Blues Challenge in Memphis. It's a competition among relatively unknown blues artists. Local blues societies sponsor entrants in two categories, Single Artists/Duos and Bands. Over 225 acts participated this year.
The winner of the Band competition was Mr. Sipp, the Mississippi Blues Man, sponsored by the Vicksburg Blues Society. Mr. Sipp is 36-year-old singer and guitarist Castro Coleman, who leads a band, the Kin Folk, consisting of just keyboards, bass and drums. Here he is singing "Mrs. Jones" from last year's competition. (It's not unusual for bands to participate more than once and gradually move up the food chain.) If you go to this website, you can sample several video clips of this band.
Second place went to the Ghost Town Blues Band from the Memphis blues Society. And in third place, a local Pittsburgh group, Billy the Kid and the Regulators, sponsored by the Blues Society of Western Pennsylvania. This is the title tune from their CD, as performed at the BSWPA competition in April.
The Single Artist/Duo competition went to a veteran Canadian bluesman, Tim Williams, sponsored by the Calgary Blues Music Association.
The second place finisher was Lucious Spiller from the Ozark Blues Society of Northwest Arkansas.
The winner of the Best Self-Produced CD competition was Hank Mowery for his album Account to Me, sponsored by the Western Michigan Blues Society. Here's the title song, a great piece of Louisiana swamp R&B.
As noted in Part 1, I've been called on to evaluate six self-produced CDs for the Blues Foundation. Here are my mini-reviews. I have nominated the first two for advancement to the next round of the competition. The others are in alphabetical order.
Kat Danser, Baptized By the Mud
Kat Danser is a singer-songwriter from
Alberta, Canada. The guitar work by
Steve Dawson, who also produced, is top notch throughout. He also
plays banjo and pedal steel. Daryl Havers' piano, when called upon,
is appropriately funky. Background vocals add texture to several of
the songs.
Ms. Danser's natural singing voice is a
strong contralto, similar to Tracy Chapman, but she's also capable of
excursions into a higher register. Of the twelve songs, she wrote eight. Danser's songs are mostly about personal relationships, but
her lyrics are several notches more sophisticated than most contemporary blues. On “Sweet Baybay,” she modestly compares herself to her lover.
“Crazy For You” is a love song in
the guise of a European travelogue (or vice versa). Her self-image, as reflected by “Winsome,
Losesome,” is of someone who is capable of intense highs and lows.
In a slightly different context, “Hear Me Out, Think It Over”
would make a great '50s doo-wop song. The title song, featuring
banjo and accordian accompaniment, has (for me) no obvious interpretation, but
it sounds mythic and intense. “Notes From the Other Side” is
written from the perspective of someone who is dead.
The program is nicely balanced by four
covers. There is an effective arrangement of the spiritual, “Oh
Mary, Don't You Weep,” and the somewhat obscure Barry Mann-Cynthia
Weil-Brenda Russell civil rights anthem, “None of Us Are Free,”
from Solomon Burke's CD Don't Give Up on Me. Finally, there
are two traditional blues: “You Gotta Move” by Mississippi Fred
McDowell, and Ma Rainey's lesbian manifesto “Prove It on Me
Blues,” which casts an entirely
different light on the lyrics of some of the other songs.
The packaging is absolutely
top-of-the-line, featuring beautiful artwork by A Man Called
Wrycraft, and lyrics to all of the songs. For a while, the entire CD is available here, but you have to consent to some loss of privacy.
Big Jim Adam, Cajun Moon
From the opening notes of Robert
Johnson's “Come in My Kitchen,” it is clear that Big Jim Adam is
an accomplished slide guitarist with a relaxed but powerful singing
voice. A veteran blues man from Colorado, now living
in Florida, he is a previous contestant in the International Blues
Challenge, along with pianist John Stilwagen. Adam functions as a
one-man band on all but three of the twelve songs, playing slide
guitar, harmonica and doing percussion with his feet—and yes, he
does sound a bit like Dr. Ross at times.
This CD has some liabilities. It's not
all blues. The title song, written by Adam, is a country waltz
featuring violin by Jody Adams. The pop tune “If It Hadn't Been
for Love” also has a country flavor. The last thing blues fans needed was new versions, no
matter how competently done, of “Frankie and Johnny” and “John
Henry.” (My need for covers of these songs ended almost 50 years
ago, when I heard Mississippi John Hurt's definitive versions.)
Finally, there is a throwaway cut, “Heard It From Big Llou,” an
R&B duet with Adam's friend, Big Llou Johnson, with Stilwagen on
piano.
But when he is good, he is very, very
good. In “If I Was the Devil,” he tells us how he would tempt—and
scare—us into misbehavior. He would "promise you comfort, in trade for control." There are four other original tunes. “What
Owns You” is a social commentary on consumerism. On “Gumbo
Ya Ya,” about gossip, he gets strong support from
saxophonist George Whitesell. The haunting “Grasping at the Wind”
claims lyrics based on the Book of Ecclesiastes. (I wouldn't know.)
“Down on My Knees,” continues with the religious theme.
Finally, there are two well-chosen
covers, “Come in My Kitchen,” and in an interesting
contrast, a soft version of Keb Mo's “Henry.” Here's a low fidelity live take of "Kitchen." It sounds much better on the CD.
Chris Antonik, Better For You
Chris Antonik is a
singer-guitarist-songwriter from Toronto whose songs fall into the
category of blue-eyed soul. Not only does he have a tight band with
organ, bass and drums, but five of the songs have horn accompaniment
and there are some background vocals. This is a highly professional
CD.
Antonik is willing to share the
spotlight. He sings only six of the eleven songs. Organist Josh
Williams sings three, plus there is one each by guest artists Shakura
S'Aida and Mike Mattison (of the Tedeschi-Trucks Band).
The CD gets off to a rousing start with
“Long Way to Go,” an up tempo rocker featuring Steve Marriner on
harmonica. But the highlights of the CD are three Southern soul
ballads. “Broken Man” features an intense Mattison vocal. Here it is:
But
Antonik also has a nice way with slow tunes. On “Tell Me What You
Need,” he plays with time, stretching verses beyond the standard 16
bars. The inspirational ballad “I'll Help You Through” is a fine
choice to conclude the album.
Another highlight is a lively version
of Big Walter Horton's “Have a Good Time.” The vocal is by
Johnson, who also plays harmonica. He's accompanied by Antonik on
acoustic guitar. It's the only tune not written by Antonik and/or a
member of his band. It's an outlier, and a welcome change of pace.
Blind-Dog, Ashbrooke Sessions
Blind-Dog is Michael Gatewood, a
singer, slide guitarist and harmonica player from Indiana. I found
out his given name from the internet; there are no liner notes. I'm
not sure whether he is blind; the cover photo shows him wearing
shades. He is a solo artist. He chats briefly between songs, but
there is no audience. At the conclusion, he thanks us for listening.
Two of the songs are instrumentals—one
on guitar and the other, harmonica. The authors of the songs are not
indicated, but I don't recognize them and I assume they are
originals. Although unfamiliar, they have familiar themes such as
“Gone to California” and “High Water.” My favorite is “Blow,
Whistle, Blow,” about a man fleeing the cops who is waiting to hop
on a train. The chords sound great on Blind-Dog's National steel
guitar, and his strong harp is an effective stand-in for the train
whistle. Instrumentally, my only complaint is that some of his slide
playing sounds a bit too chattery for my taste.
This CD could have been my second
choice but for one problem. It has seven songs songs for a running
time of less than 25 minutes. You might say it's an EP rather than
an LP. To evaluate it simply on the basis of the average quality of
these songs seems unfair to the other contestants.
The Eric Hughes Band, Drink Up
The
Eric Hughes Band is a popular, veteran group that plays well-known
clubs in the Memphis area. He recently celebrated his tenth
anniversary on Beale Street. This is his fourth CD. In spite of the
band's apparent prosperity, the packaging is minimal, not even
indicating the authors of the songs. I'm going to assume they are
originals, with the exception of “Mama Don't Allow,” which is
given a John Lee Hooker-style treatment and Sleepy John Estes' “Going
to Brownsville.”
The
title song leads off the CD and announces loudly and clearly that
this is a bar band. The problem is that what sounds good as
background music when you're drinking and talking with friends may
leave something to be desired when you're sitting alone, giving your
full attention to the music.
For me
there were two highlights. “Tested Positive For the Blues“ is a
novelty number which reminds me of some of Rick Estlin's recent
tunes. “That's My Baby's Mama” is a catchy pop tune with an
original way of stating a common theme—that the singer is still
hung up on one of his ex-girlfrends.
“Going
to Brownsville” has its highs and lows. It begins with some
presumably deliberate microphone distortion, perhaps in the hope of
giving it an old-timey sound. It doesn't work for me, but once the
band starts playing, it settles into a very nice groove.
Unfortunately, it goes on too long, with Hughes singing the same
chorus over and over. I mention this because the same thing happens
on the guitar instrumental, “Raining on Beale.” It has a great
hook, but they run it into the ground by repeating about 20 times.
Rather than these boring repetitions of
the melody, wouldn't it be better to give the musicians more solo space?
Lady
Dee, Me and the Boyz, It Will Be Done
Lady
Dee is, I presume, Deanna Custard, a soul singer from Wichita with a
voice that reminds me of Tina Turner. She is backed by a
mediocre-sounding band consisting only of guitar, bass and drums. It
would be interesting to see what she could do with more and better
instrumentation.
She is
at her powerful best on two soul ballads. The opening song, “Never
Believe,” is the highlight of the set, and “Living in the Past”
is a close second. Both songs were written by Lady Dee, who also
wrote the up-tempo title tune.
Unfortunately,
I found the rest of the CD to be entirely forgettable. There
are two instrumentals by Spencer Cummings, who is probably the
group's guitarist, and three covers, including Johnny “Guitar”
Watson's desultory “I Want to Ta-Ta You.”
Each year, the Blues Foundation
encourages less well-known blues artists without recording contracts
by giving an award for the best self-produced CD. In 2007, I was
invited to be a judge at the semi-final
level. They sent me two CDs, and I was to pick one for advancement
to the finals. I chose Sophisticated Ladies
by Sue Palmer and her Motel Swing Orchestra. Sue Palmer is a
boogie-woogie pianist who plays jump blues in the style of late-'40s,
early-'50s women like Camille Howard and Hadda Brooks. It's music
from back in the day when the was considerable overlap between the jazz, blues and R&B markets. I loved it. My judgment couldn't have been
too far off the mark, because the album went on to win the prize.
Nevertheless, I was
never asked to be a judge again until a couple of weeks ago, when I
got an email from Joe Whitmer, Deputy Director of the Blues
Foundation. I told him I no longer have a radio program, but I guess
they were desperate. I think I'm participating in the first round of the contest this time. Yesterday I got a package containing six CDs. I'm to simply pick my first and second choices; no
justification is needed. My decision is due on the 28th,
Thanksgiving Day.
There are 77 CDs entered in the competition. Each was nominated by a local blues society affiliated with the Blues Foundation. The Blues Society of Western PA has an entry, Empty Roads, by Dan Bubien. The winner will be announced at the International Blues Challenge in Memphis on January 25.
These are the six CDs they sent me:
Big
Jim Adam, Cajun Moon
Chris
Antonik, Better
For You
Blind
Dog, Ashbrooke Sessions
Kat
Danser, Baptized By the
Mud
Lady
Dee, Me and the Boyz, It
Will Be Done
The
Eric Hughes Band, Drink
Up
Of the six, I'm
only slightly familiar with Eric Hughes, whose music has appeared on
a couple of samplers issued by Blues Review and Big City
Rhythm and Blues magazines.
Here are the
criteria, in descending order to importance.
Blues
content (Is this a blues recording?)
Musical
performance (musicianship)
Audio
quality of the presentation (production values, levels)
Cover
art and design (professional packaging, ready for the rack at your
favorite musical outlet?)
Credits
and liner information (informative, professional)
Since
a couple of the CDs have only minimal packaging and liner notes, I'm
wondering how I will weight this if they turn out to have the best
music. Music rules, I think. It should be fun. Everyone likes to
be asked their “profesional opinion.” I'll let you know how it
goes.
The 34th Annual Blues Music
Awards was held by the Blues Foundation on May 9 in Memphis. Here
are the winners. A complete list of the nominees in each category
can be found here.
Performances
Album of the Year: Michael
Burks—Show of Strength
Acoustic Blues Album: Ann Rabson/Bob
Margolin—Not Alone
Contemporary
Blues Album: Michael Burks—Show of Strength
Rock
Blues Album: The Tedeschi-Trucks Band—Everybody's
Talkin'
Soul Blues Album:
Curtis Salgado—Soul Shot
Traditional Blues Album: The Mannish
Boys—Double Dynamite
Best
New Artist Debut: Big Llou Johnson—They Call Me Big Llou
Historical
Album: Various Artists—Plug It In! Turn It Up!: Electric
Blues, 1939-2005 (Bear Family
Records)
DVD of
the Year: Muddy Waters and the Rolling Stones—Live at
Checkerboard Lounge (Eagle Rock
Entertainment)
Song of the Year: Janiva Magness and
Dave Darling—“I Won't Cry” from Janiva Magness—Stronger
For It
Performers
Entertainer
of the Year: Curtis Salgado
Acoustic
Artist: Eric Bibb
Contemporary
Blues Female Artist: Janiva Magness
Contemporary
Blues Male Artist: Tab Benoit
Soul Blues Female Artist: Irma Thomas
Soul Blues Male Artist: Curtis Salgado
Traditional Blues Female Artist:
Ruthie Foster
Traditional Blues Male Artist: Magic
Slim
Band: The Tedeschi-Trucks Band
Bass: Bob Stroger
Drums: Cedric Burnside
Guitar: Derek Trucks
Harmonica: Rick Estrin
Horn: Eddie Shaw
Piano: Victor Wainright
A few observations:
To vote, you must be one of the
4500 members of the Foundation. This makes it more like a popularity
contest than most other awards. For example, it's unlikely
that many voters have heard all the nominated albums, so familiar
artists have a big advantage.
There are so many categories that
it lessens the value of each award.
The award winners seem to get
paler with each year that passes. Of course, so does the audience.
I hate to be a cynic, but you'll
notice it anyway. If you want to win, it helps to die within the past year (Michael
Burks, Magic Slim, Ann Rabson).
The Grammys are the time we find out
the favorite jazz and blues recordings of the older pop music
performers and technicians who dominate the voting. I suspect many
of the voters don't pay much attention to either genre. Jazz and
blues fans should return the favor by not paying much attention to
the Grammys.
Blues has been demoted to a single
category. Gone is the old separation between “traditional” and
“contemporary” blues, which seemed to confuse the judges anyway.
Dr. John won the Best Blues Album Grammy for Locked Down.
The other nominees were Shemekia Copeland, 33⅓;
Ruthie Foster, Let It Burn;
the Heritage Blues Orchestra, And Still I Rise;
and Joan Osborne, Bring It On Home. I like Locked Down,
but calling it “blues” really stretches the category. I would
have given the Grammy to Shemekia or the Heritage gang.
The entire Dr. John
album is listenable on You Tube. I'm surprised Nonesuch Records
hasn't cracked down on that. I picked “Revolution” because I
like the visuals as well as the song.
One category is too
few for the blues. One indication of this is that Bonnie Raitt was honored for her CD, Slipstream, in a category called Americana. How about a Blues Song of the Year?
Jazz is spread out
over eight categories. Four of them are best CD categories. The
most competitive was Best Jazz Instrumental Album, which was won by
Pat Metheny's Unity Band. The other nominees were Chick Corea,
Eddie Gomez and Paul Motion, Further Explorations; Chick Corea
and Gary Burton, Hot House; Kenny Garrett, Seeds From the
Underground; and Ahmad Jamal, Blue Moon. I would have
given it to any of the other four over Metheny.
The Best Jazz Vocal
Album went to Esperanza Spalding for Radio Music Society.
Sadly, the Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album went to Arturo Sandoval for
Dear Diz. I say “sadly” because I was pulling for Ryan
Truesdell's Centennial: Newly Discovered Works of Gil Evans,
my choice for best jazz CD of 2012. The Best Latin Jazz album was
¡Ritmo! by
the Clare Fisher Latin Jazz Big Band.
The remaining four
jazz categories are for individual album cuts. The Best Improvised
Jazz Solo is a potentially interesting category, if the judges would
listen to a large enough sample of CDs. The award went to Chick
Corea and Gary Burton for the title cut from Hot House, a
bebop standard composed by Tadd Dameron in 1945. Here it is.
The
Best Instrumental Composition went to Chick Corea for “Mozart Goes
Dancing,” also from HotHouse. Centennial
did manage to score one victory,
the Best Instrumental Arrangement for “How About You?” Finally,
the Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying a Vocalist went to
Esperanza Spalding and Thara Memory for “City of Roses” from
Radio Music Society.
The International
Blues Challenge
The
International Blues Challenge is a competition among relatively
unknown blues performers sponsored by the Blues Foundation. The 29th
annual event was held in Memphis from January 29 through February 2.
The winners receive recognition, cash and gigs. A number of
well-known artists have competed in the past, including Tommy Castro,
Susan Tedeschi and Watermelon Slim. There are two categories of
competitors, Blues Bands and Solo/Duo Blues Acts. There are roughly
100 entrants in each category, sponsored by blues societies from
around the World. The Blues Society of Western Pennsylvania was
represented by the Jimmy Adler Band and the duo of Miss Freddye and
Greg “G-Man” Castille. They were not among the 17 finalists.
The winner in the Single Artist
category is Little G Weevil, sponsored by the Atlanta Blues Society.
Here's a video of his from the competition. I cannot identify the
song.
The winner of the Band competition was
the Selwyn Birchwood Band, sponsored by the Suncoast Blues Society of
Tampa, FL. Persistence pays. They were among the finalists last year. There are
several Birchwood videos available on You Tube. It's unfair to judge
a performer by amateur videos, but it's my impression that he is a
better guitarist than singer. In addition to a standard guitar, he
plays a slide guitar in his lap. Here he is doing “Crawlin'
Kingsnake,” a song originally recorded by Big Joe Williams, but
more recently identified with John Lee Hooker.
The Blues Hall of Fame
The Blues Foundation also announced
this year's inductees into the Blues Hall of Fame. The ceremony is schedule for May 8. Here are the
performers:
Otis Clay, soul singer
Earl Hooker, guitarist
Little Brother Montgomery, singer and pianist
Jimmie Rodgers, country singer and
yodeler—a surpising choice
Joe Louis Walker, singer and guitarist
Jody Williams, singer and guitarist
Otis Clay, Joe Louis Walker and Jody
Williams are still alive and performing.
The non-performers to be honored are:
Dave Clark, record promoter
Henry Glover, songwriter and record
producer
Cosimo Mattisa, record producer
The following individual songs are being inducted:
