Hey Blues Fans,

The voting for the 2009 Blues Blast Music Awards is now open. Anyone can vote for their favorite Blues artist and your vote gets you a free subscription to Blues Blast Magazine. (If you are already a subscriber, you are good to go and vote too!) To vote now CLICK HERE.

To see a complete list of the 2009 nominees CLICK HERE.

We want you to be an informed voter so  our friends at GLT Blues Radio 24/7 have a "listening page" where you can sample the music of the nominees BEFORE you vote.  CLICK HERE to listen now.

Voting will remain open until August 31st, 2009. Be sure to cast your vote to have a chance at the FREE prizes given away in random drawings each week to those who vote. You could win a CD, a T-shirt or FREE tickets to the Blues Blast Music Awards Ceremony on October 29th, 2009 at Buddy Guy's Legends in Chicago by voting.

It's FREE and FUN so vote for your favorite Blues artists today, To vote now CLICK HERE.

Blues Blast Music Awards October 29th

The 2009 Blues Blast Music Awards will be held at Buddy Guy's Legends on Thursday, October 29, 2009. Information on the artists playing and how to purchase tickets will be announced soon. We will announce some attractive sponsorship opportunities and some special advertising packages for the 2009 artist nominees, their management or record labels next week. 

Blues Wanderings

We went to Urbana, Illinois last weekend to see the Urbana Blues, Brews and BBQ festival. This is only their second year but they had about 5,000 fans on Friday night and even more on Saturday night in spite of temperatures in the mid 90's.

Their lineup included the Delta Kings, The Kinsey Report and slide master Sonny Landreth on Friday with the Impalas, Gina Sicilia, Bob Margolin, Eddy The Chief Clearwater, Pinetop Perkins and The Willie "Big Eyes" Smith Band and Buckwheat Zydeco on Saturday. Below are a few pics of the fun including Sonny Landreth, Willie "Big Eyes" Smith and Buckwheat Zydeco.

We will have a complete review of the festival in next weeks issue with pictures of all the Blues fun!

In this issue - Blues Reviews and MORE!

James Walker reviews a new CD from Cyril Neville.  George Fish reviews a new CD by Jake Lear. Dale Clark reviews a new CD by Joe Castellano Super Blues Band. Eric Steiner reviews a new CD by Bobby G Blues Band.

Bob Kieser reviews day two of the 2009 Chicago Blues Fest and reviews the Blues On The Fox Festival.

Lisa Zimmer send us part one of a two part interview with Slide Guitar Virtuoso, Jeremy Spencer

Cyril Neville - Brand New Blues

M.C. Records

www.myspace.com/cyrilneville

www.nevilles.com

10 songs; Time 45:15; Library Quality

Styles: Postmodern Blues, R&B and Soul

“Ok, Cyr-relle, yes, you are famous - along with your brothers Neville. Now, here you come over to the Blues. You better be bringing the deep goods, because I am not going to line up to kiss your sandals simply because of your name and other outstanding vocal accomplishments!” -- That was my attitude as soon as the CD arrived with it title, “Brand New Blues.”

While the rendering is far from 12 bar, old school, classic Blues, Mr. Neville has delivered an impassioned and intelligent set that will please all but the fussiest of purists. His fourth solo effort, first since 2000, the album’s price would still be affordable even if there was only one song, the 8:43 minute rework of Bob Marley’s “Slave Driver.”

Bob Marley’s old Jamaican Blues song about the evil and guilt of slavery is kept intact in the first half of the lyrics, but Neville’s re-working of the second half produces a powerful indictment of the forces behind the displacement of New Orleans’ poorest citizens following Hurricane Katrina and the refusal to facilitate bringing these people back home from their refugee status. Cyril’s superb vocals are joined in harmony by producer Brian J. and Chauncey Yearwood above the solemn organ of Art Neville. Brian J.’s guitar is perfect in its early ominous tones which yield to scolding punctuation in the solo.

Producer/musician Brian J. of The Pimps of Joytime is at the helm of most production chores and co-wrote the original numbers. In addition, this amazing Brian J. plays all guitar, bass, drums, keyboards, and percussion – except for the few parts played by guests Tab Benoit (guitar), Art Neville (organ), Waylon Thibodeaux (washboard), Ivan Neville (organ), Ian Neville (guitar), Jumpin’ Johnny Sansone (harmonica), Hagar Ben Ari and Andy Cotton (bass), and Chauncey Yearwood (additional vocals and congas). Oddly, a drum machine is disappointingly programmed on a few cuts, including an otherwise stellar title track with Tab Benoit’s creative guitar.

Neville takes two more opportunities to lay bare the greed, incompetence and subsequent hypocrisy of government in “Cheatin’ and Lyin’” where he sings, “...makes me want to rise up for justice....” Tab Benoit adds a mean guitar solo to the accusatory “Mean Boss Blues.”

It’s not all political vitriol, however, as the album begins upbeat with Jimmy Reed’s “I Found Joy.” Sansone’s acute harp adds to the salacious fun found in the metaphorical kitchen in “Cream Them Beans,” a Gospel plea for strength is found in “Don’t Move My Mountain,” and there’s an absolutely wonderful cover of Bobby “Blue” Bland’s “I’ll Take Care of You,” written by Brook Benton.

One of the four Neville Brothers, Cyril Neville is the youngest, born on January 10, 1948, in New Orleans, LA. In 1967 (at the age of 19), Cyril began singing professionally, as he united with brothers Art and Aaron in the outfit Art Neville and the Neville Sounds, playing the New Orleans club circuit on a regular basis. 1970 saw the release of Cyril's debut solo single, "Gossip" b/w "Tell Me What's On Your Mind," which included backing music by brother Art's new outfit, the Meters.

The Meters eventually expanded their lineup by asking Cyril to join in on vocals and congas — contributing to such albums as 1972's “Cabbage Alley” and 1975's “Fire on the Bayou.” In 1974, the Rolling Stones offered The Meters a support slot on the bands sold out tour if they would hire Cyril Neville to sing and front the band.

His work as a human rights advocate does not stray far from his art. The joys as well as the complications and frustrations of growing up in the oppressed South can be heard through-out his solo and collaboration catalog.

In addition to his work with the Neville Brothers, Cyril has formed other bands over the years, including the Endangered Species Band in 1983 and the Uptown Allstars Band. Cyril also founded the New Orleans Musicians Organized (NOMO), which helps musicians who need business advice with their careers.

Cyril Neville has issued several solo albums on his own over the years, plus he has guested on various other artist's recordings, including albums by Edie Brickell, Jimmy Buffett, Dr. John, Bob Dylan, Daniel Lanois, Willie Nelson, Tab Benoit, and Big Chief Monk Boudreaux.
In the liner notes, Cyril says, “Thanks to my friend Tab Benoit. I should have listened when you told me to ‘go Blue’ five years ago, bro.” My Blues-fan-fears were clearly unjustified as Tab Benoit was spot on correct. You can just stay Blue, Mr. Neville.

Reviewer James “Skyy Dobro” Walker is a noted Blues writer, DJ and Blues Blast contributor. His weekly radio show “Friends of the Blues” can be heard each Thursday from 4:30 – 6:00pm on WKCC 91.1 FM in Kankakee, IL
To See James “Skyy Dobro” Walker's CD rating system, CLICK HERE

For other reviews and interviews on our website CLICK HERE.

A new CD from Michael Packer

Rikers Island Blues

CLICK HERE to buy the CD now

www.michaelpackerbluesband.com

 Send your Blues Society's BIG news or Press Release to:  

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River City Blues Society- Peoria, IL

The River City Blues Society's Wednesday Blues Series features the best traveling regional and National Blues musicians each Wednesday at 7:00pm. The shows are held at the Dragon's Dome, 3401 Griffin Ave in Pekin, IL. Admission is $4. Shows scheduled are:  July 8 - The Avey Brothers, July 15 - Nick Moss & The Flip Tops, July 22 - Joanna Conner w/ Donna Herula opening act

The Alabama Blues Project - Northport, AL

The Alabama Blues Project's award-winning Summertime Blues Camp gives students the opportunity to take music workshops in their choice of guitar, harmonica, drums or voice with some of the greatest professional musicians in our state, including Shar-Baby and Debbie Bond. Students who show exceptional skills will also be offered intermediate level classes. In addition, the Summertime Blues Camp offers art classes headed by internationally renowned artists including Lonnie Holley and Miz Thang, lessons in songwriting, life skills and blues history. The Blues Camp will also feature some very special guests including B. J. Miller and Dr. Burt!

Blues Camp is 9 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. from Monday, July 13th to Friday, July 17th. Friday's session will be an Open House Blues Café where the young musicians will showcase their talent with a music performance and art show. Family, friends and the wider community are invited!

The cost for Blues Camp is $200 per student. There are scholarships available for families with a limited budget. Space is limited and on a first-come, first-serve basis. Please contact Cara Smith a.s.a.p. at (205) 752-6263 or to register your child(ren) today. Thank you!

The Arkansas River Blues Society - Little Rock, Arkansas

The Arkansas River Blues Society presents a monthly Blues jam at Juanita’s, 1300 Main Street, Little Rock, Arkansas the first Tuesday of every month, beginning July 7th, at 8 pm. The jam will feature a different house band each month. Unseen Eye, from Hot Springs, has been chosen as the first house band. Admission is $5 for the public and $3 for members of ARBS. Participating musicians are FREE and this is an open jam. For more information contact Babs at 501-920-7783 or check out www.myspace.com/arriverbluessociety

Central Mississippi Blues Society – Jackson, MS

The CMBS presents Blue Monday at Hal & Mal’s (200 Commerce St., Jackson, MS) every Monday night. Doors open @ 8:00 and music begins @ 8:30. Cover is $5.

The Blue Monday Band is comprised of the “best of the best “ musicians in the Central MS area. Featured artists are King Edward, lead guitar/vocalist and Pat Brown, Abdul Rasheed and Dennis Fountain as vocalists. Other regular band members are Dwight Ross and Rick Lewis (drums), Keith Collins (bass), Johnny Sharpe (keys) and Malcolm Shepherd (CMBS President) on Congas. Most of these musicians appeared in The Last of the Mississippi Jukes.

The Blue Monday Band plays the first set and then the event turns into a jam. For more info see: www.centralmississippibluessociety.com  or call Peggy Brown @ 601-613-7377

Illinois Central Blues Club - Springfield, IL

The Illinois Central Blues Club will be conducting its Third Annual Blues Challenge during the Old Capitol Blues & Barbeque, August 29, 2009 beginning at noon. Deadline to apply is July 15, 2009. Official rules can be viewed on the ICBC’s website, www.icbluesclub.org . The Challenge includes both the band competition and the solo/duo competition on the same day. The winner of the band challenge will receive $1,000 and the winner of the solo/duo challenge will receive $500 in travel monies to represent the Club at the Blues Foundation’s International Blues Challenge (IBC) in Memphis, TN January 20-23, 2010. Inquiries regarding this press release should be directed to Mark Edmiston, President of the Illinois Central Blues Club, at (217) 679-0721 or e-mail markredmiston@msn.com

BLUE MONDAY SHOWS - Held at the Alamo 115 N 5th St, Springfield, IL (217) 523-1455 every Monday 8:30pm $2 cover - June 29 - Deak Harp

Jake Lear - Lost Time Blues

www.jakelear.com

11 tracks

Total time: 47:42

Binghamton, New York singer/songwriter/guitarist Jake Lear, who debuted impressively with his Love and Charm CD in 2007, has just issued his second CD, Lost Time Blues, featuring his band, bass guitarist Carlos Arias and drummer Mike Ricciardi, and guest musicians Pete Ruttle and Brian O’Connell. Arias, originally from the Basque region of Spain and now dividing his time between Argentina, Binghamton and Spain, and Ricciardi, who’s drummed behind Foghat, Badfinger and other international recording artists, lay down a solid beat behind an impressive, rocking array of blues and folk-blues tunes. Jake Lear, who’s composed nine of the 11 tracks on Lost Time Blues, said he wanted to make a “somewhat disjointed” CD that incorporated several differing approaches. He’s succeeded, and succeeded very well.

But what impressed me most about Lost Time Blues is that this is a real booty-shaking CD that’s a great party album, with 11 very danceable songs. However, the CD’s highly danceable repertoire of nine rockers, three folk-rock tunes, and two slow numbers in no way detracts from the incisiveness and creativity of the songs themselves. This is a solid CD for listening as well as for hip-shakin’, feet-movin, finger-poppin’ good times.

Lear lists his main influences as T-Bone Walker, Freddie King, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Bob Dylan, and those influences are there in Lost Time Blues, along with the electric Chicago blues of Jimmy Rogers and J.B. Lenoir. Sharing space with this solid blues core is also another solid core built around the classic guitar-driven rock ‘n’ roll of Ronnie Hawkins, Link Wray, Chuck Berry, Carl Perkins and early Elvis Presley, along with a dollop of early Rolling Stones, the Mamas and Papas, white country-rock, and that early folk-rock paradigm, “Corrina, Corrina,” from the Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan LP.

The six vigorous rockers are the Lear-composed tracks of track 1, “Streets of Michaelangelo” (a Dylanesque title if there ever was one); track 3, “Leave This Town;” track 5, “Sure Gonna Miss You;” track 6, “Sometimes;” and track 9, the John Lee Hooker-like “Blues 3 Ways” (with, as the notes say, “[a]dditional lyrics…borrowed from Bob Dylan and Son House”). There’s also a sterling rock arrangement of Big Bill Broonzy’s “Key to the Highway ”(track 8). If these don’t move you to the dance floor, you’re likely to be declared legally dead!

Acoustic guitar-driven folk-rock is expressed in track 2, Willie Brown’s “Ragged and Dirty (an old song most familiar in its Sleepy John Estes Rendition, “Broke and Hungry”), and the Lear-composed country-rockers “Muddy Water” (track 4, about a flood) and the philosophical screed, “Lost Time Blues” (track 10), with Lear’s guitar riffing joined by Brian O’Connell’s banjo. O’Connell plays gospel-inflected organ on the Otis Redding/Percy Sledge-inspired slow soul blues, “Boogie Woogie Woman,” a song great for holding your baby tight while you slow dance romantically. Another slow blues here is the last track, the pensive and lyrical “Bluebird” (both also Lear-composed).

O’Connell adds his organ talents to “Streets of Michaelangelo” as well, and Pete Ruttle plays somewhat Dylanesque harp on “Ragged and Dirty.” Jake Lear plays electric guitar on all tracks where he doesn’t play acoustic, and his electric solos are excellent, tasty, wonderfully understated, and, even though long, with several songs featuring two guitar solos, never subject to overlong gonzo technique-for-technique’s sake flash.

Like Ruttle’s harp, Jake Lear’s singing and songwriting can be described as Dylanesque as well. His vocal style is reminiscent of a lower-register Bob Dylan, and his masterful songwriting partakes of those deliciously surprising lyric twists that are so much part of Dylan’s songs, with their infusing into the mundane and standard the brittle and surrealistic.

All these making Lost Time Blues one strong effort from Jake Lear that’s both artistically compelling and fun to listen and dance to. Add to its credit the two Anna DeMauro photo montages that grace the front and back covers, and this CD becomes a visual knockout as well as an aural one.

Lost Time Blues can be ordered from Jake Lear’s website, above. Buy this CD for your next blues bash, and not only will you have a party to remember, you might even have this reviewer crash it as well. “Hey, hey, hey, good to see ya, hand me a cold one. Wow! Dig that Jake Lear Lost Time Blues CD! Hey baby, wanna dance?”

Reviewer George Fish lives in Indianapolis, Indiana, home of blues legends Yank Rachell and Leroy Carr, and writes a regular music column, “Blues and More” for the online Bloomington (IN) Alternative. He’s also published in the regional Indiana blues and alternative presses as well as Living Blues and Blues Access, and wrote the notes for Yank Rachell’s Delmark album, Chicago Style. He has also published on blues and pop music for the left-wing press as well, and has appeared in Against the Current and Socialism and Democracy, as well as the online Political Affairs and MRZine.

For other reviews and interviews on our website CLICK HERE.

Bobby G Blues Band - Bitter Cup

www.myspace.com/bobbygbluesband

Length: 51:30

Rating: A Solid Blues Record

One unexpected discovery for me at this year’s Blues on the Fox festival was Aurora, Illinois’ own Bobby G Blues Band at his CD release party after the festival was called due to rain. Bobby G’s a rock-solid bass player who has shared stages with some pretty influential bluesmen, including Larry McCray, the late Willie Kent, and Buddy Guy.

Bobby G’s latest CD features nine original songs, and it kicks off with a firey “Went Out Last Night” that showcases a very talented six-piece blues band. This long, introductory jam sets the stage with fine harp work from Tony Medina, the choice lead guitar chops of Al Spear, followed by some nice touches on rhythm guitar from Orpheus Golden.

Since I got back home from Bobby G’s CD release party in the historic Leland Building, I’ve listened to Bitter Cup a half-dozen times. Four of the nine songs clock in at over six minutes each, and while that may challenge some radio programmers, I like the way Bobby G provides opportunities for each of his sidemen to stretch out and strut their stuff.

While there’s some pretty hard-charging blues on Bitter Cup, Bobby G and the guys slow it down a bit on two romantic ballads tailor-made for the dance floor: “Miracle” and “Lovely Night for Romance.” Bobby G’s working to promote live blues music in the far Western Suburbs of Chicagoland, and I recommend this outfit highly. Live, they mix up the set lists with some inspired versions of classic covers, and I enjoyed “Papa Was a Rolling Stone” the night I first discovered this band. I was pleasantly surprised at Tony Medina on congas, and the twin keybards, too, that contributed to the band’s big sound.

Follow Bobby G and his band on his MySpace page, and check out live audio recorded at the Ballydoyle Pub (Blues on the Fox’ official after party club) at http://959theriver.cellit.us/ courtesy of FM 95.9, The River.

Eric Steiner is the President of the Washington Blues Society in Seattle, Washington.   The Society was the recipient of the 2009 Keeping the Blues Alive Award in the blues organization category. Contact Eric at president@wablues.org for more information.

For other reviews and interviews on our website CLICK HERE.