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Blues Artist Of The Month: Marcia Ball

Marcia Ball

With a sound that is often equal parts Texas blues and Louisiana swamp, blues pianist Marcia Ball has quietly forged a successful career as one of the leading advocates of American roots music....

Joe Bonamassa Reviews

Blues Spotlight10

Tommy Castro CD Preview

Friday April 29, 2011

Tommy Castro Presents The Legendary Rhythm & Blues RevueTommy Castro and his talented band have hosted the twice-a-year Legendary Rhythm & Blues Revue for at least a couple years that I can remember, which has already resulted in a fine CD release, 2008's Command Performance. On June 7th, 2010 Alligator Records will release Tommy Castro Presents The Legendary Rhythm & Blues Revue - Live, the latest from Castro, a two-time winner of The Blues Foundation's B.B. King Entertainer of the Year award.

Just like the late-night jam sessions on the cruise, Castro is joined on the CD by a veritable "A List" of blues talent. The one-and-only Janiva Magness sings a little blues, dynamic guitarists Michael "Iron Man" Burks and Debbie Burks bang away on their instruments, R&B; singer Sister Monica Parker and soul man Theodis Ealey add their considerable talents to the mix, and one of the Reverend's personal faves, singer and guitarist Joe Louis Walker, drops by to jam a little. To top it off, the album includes 2008 International Blues Challenge award winners Trampled Under Foot, who have also just released their own album, Wrong Side Of The Blues.

Castro is one of the most dynamic and charismatic performers in the blues world today, and his band - themselves winners of a Blues Music Award as 2010 "Best Blues Band" - are top notch professionals who know how to blend a deep rhythm & blues groove. It may not beat actually riding the waves with a boatload of blues fans, but Tommy Castro Presents The Legendary Rhythm & Blues Revue - Live is gonna be red hot!

Related Content:
Legendary Rhythm & Blues Revue - Command Performance CD review
Tommy Castro - Hard Believer CD review
Janiva Magness - The Devil Is An Angel Too CD review
Joe Louis Walker - Blues Conspiracy CD review

Photo courtesy Alligator Records

2010 Blues Music Awards DVD

Wednesday April 27, 2011

2010 Blues Music Awards DVDThe 32nd annual Blues Music Awards ceremony takes place next week in Memphis, Tennessee and, as usual, we expect The Blues Foundation to throw a heck of a party. For those of us unable to pay the freight to make it down to the Bluff City to experience the event for ourselves, The Blues Foundation is nice enough to release the previous year's awards show on DVD just so that we can live vicariously through our big-screen TVs and disc players. The DVD of the 2010 ceremony offers up over two hours of great music from a wide range of performers; read our review of the 2010 Blues Music Awards DVD....

Related content: Blues Music Awards 2011 Nominees

Photo courtesy The Blues Foundation

Alligator Records Album of the Month: Fenton Robinson's Somebody Loan Me A Dime

Monday April 25, 2011

Fenton Robinson's Somebody Loan Me A DimeLong before singer Boz Scaggs laid claim to Fenton Robinson's classic slow-blues grind "Somebody Loan Me A Dime," the Mississippi-born, Chicago-based guitarist had earned a reputation as a smooth-as-silk vocalist, an even slicker instrumentalist who brought jazzy tones to his diehard blues, and a talented songwriter whose material was recorded by artists like Lowell Fulson, Buddy Guy, and others.

While Robinson recorded a handful of singles for various small, independent labels, it wasn't until he signed with Alligator Records and worked with producer Bruce Iglauer that he would find his true artistic voice. The collaboration between Robinson and Alligator would result in a trio of acclaimed, accomplished albums, beginning with 1974's underrated gem, Somebody Loan Me A Dime, a landmark of Chicago blues. Read our review of Fenton Robinson's Somebody Loan Me A Dime....

Photo courtesy Alligator Records

Pennsylvania Blues Festival 2011

Friday April 22, 2011

Blues singer Shemekia Copeland

When the long-running Poconos Blues Festival was cancelled for 2011 due to economic reasons after an amazing almost two decade-long run, blues fans in Pennsylvania were sorely left out in the cold. After 19 annual events, the Poconos Festival had grown to become one of the most popular shindigs on the east coast, drawing a reported 12,000 music lovers each year from 30 states and 10 foreign countries.

After the disappointment, though, comes a ray of sunshine in the form of original Poconos Blues Festival promoter Michael Cloeren, who has resurrected the left-for-dead event as the Pennsylvania Blues Festival. Scheduled for Saturday, July 30th and Sunday, July 31st, 2011 at the Blue Mountain Ski Area's Valley Lodge, the first annual Pennsylvania Blues Festival will feature 15 artists performing on two stages over the weekend event.

The festival kicks off with a Friday night pre-festival jam by Chicago bluesman Studebaker John & the Hawks before a pretty robust line-up blows the weekend into the stratosphere. See who else will appear at the 2011 Pennsylvania Blues Festival....

Shemekia Copeland photo by Philippe Noisette, courtesy Alligator Records

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