Walter Trout is facing the fight of his life, yet he's still thinking of his fans. In spite of his recent illness and hospital stay, the legendary blues-rock guitarist has been hard at work finishing up a new album to celebrate the 25th anniversary of his solo career. On June 10th, 2014 Provogue Records will release Trout's The Blues Came Callin' , a twelve-song celebration of life in the face of...
No big surprises on the blues chart for the week ending April 12, 2014, although there's one big (and not entirely unexpected) debut. The third collaboration between singer Beth Hart and guitar-man Joe Bonamassa, Live In Amsterdam , hits the chart running at number one. Considering that the pair have, together and separately, had a strong presence on the chart for a couple of years now, a two-disc...
April is here and along with spring flowers comes the annual event known as Record Store Day. This year's RSD will be held on Saturday, April 19th at an independent music retailer near you, and if you're not sure where to go drive with a handful of currency to undertake your buying binge, the Record Store Day website has a list of participating stores you can check out. ... Read Full Post ...
There's a little more shuffling among the Top Ten on the blues chart for the week ending April 5, 2014 than in previous weeks, with a couple of re-entries of old favorites. We're happy to see the Michael Bloomfield box set, From His Head To His Heart To His Hands , reappear at a very respectable number six, a nice feat for a multi-disc set with a higher price tag than your usual CD. The Royal Southern...
If you blinked, you may have missed it...the Reverend wrote about the long-lost A Celebration of Blues and Soul concert a month ago and mentioned its impending broadcast on a PBS station near you during March. If your local PBS affiliate is anything like mine, however, it showed the concert during the middle of the night or sometime mid-afternoon when only the insomniacs and bedsitters might watch....
Not much to crow about, really, with the blues chart for the week ending March 29, 2014. Much of the Top Ten remains the same, maybe shuffling a couple of places here and there. Gary Clark, Jr. still holds down the top spot, guitarist Robben Ford is nipping at his heels from number two, and Joey Bones still has a pair of aces in the Top Ten. This week's outlier seems to be the return of the piano...
The Reverend has written quite a lot about blues-rock guitarist Walter Trout over the past six years, and for good reason. Not only is the popular bluesman a great talent, he's also a heck of a nice guy. His kindness and consideration for others is as well-known as his "leave it all on the stage" live performance ethic. Trout has been entertaining blues fans for better than 40 years now, first as...
It's been almost four years since the release of the Holmes Brothers' critically-acclaimed 2010 album Feed My Soul , so it's long past time for another taste of the trio's unique blend of blues, soul, and gospel music. On April 1, 2014 Alligator Records will release Brotherhood , the latest and greatest from singer and guitarist Wendell Holmes, bassist Sherman Holmes, and drummer Popsy Dixon (he of...
There's only one new debut on the blues chart for the week ending March 22, 2014 but it's a big one, as guitarist Robben Ford's A Day In Nashville comes very close to unseating Gary Clark's long-running dominance of the top spot. A Day In Nashville is as close to truth in advertising as you'll find these days, the album recorded in a single (lengthy) session on a single day in the Music City. ......
Most men begin to slow down a bit by the time they hit their 70th birthday, but not the Texas Tornado, Mr. Johnny Winter . With his 71st year laid out in front of him, the veteran blues guitarslinger celebrated with the release of his new career-spanning box set, True To The Blues ; an appearance on the Jimmy Kimmel Live! TV show; and an electrifying live showcase at South by Southwest last week....
Canadian blues 'n' roots legend Jim Byrnes followed up on his award-winning 2010 album Everywhere West with the acclaimed 2012 traditional country collection I Hear The Wind In The Wires . That album may have confused long-time fans, but it was entirely in character, Byrnes trying his hand (and quite well, I might add) on material that he loved, including songs from Hank Williams, Marty Robbins, Tom...
There's a little more shakin' on the blues chart for the week ending March 15, 2014 than usual, with the debut of guitarist Joe Louis Walker's excellent Hornet's Nest album. The follow-up to Walker's critically-acclaimed, award-winning 2012 album Hellfire , you'll get more of the same only better from Hornet's Nest , which hits the chart running at number seven. ... Read Full Post ...
Walter Trout has suffered some health issues lately, but you can't keep a good man down! This year the beloved blues-rock guitarist celebrates his 25th anniversary as a solo artist, officially launching his solo career in 1989 after making his bones over lengthy tenures with blues-rock legends Canned Heat and British blues-rock legend John Mayall's Bluesbreakers. The 2013 release of Luther's Blues...
s Going Back Home album. Scheduled for April 8th, 2014 release, Going Back Home is Johnson...
s finest. Both the Kim Simmonds and Savoy Brown album Goin' To The Delta and guitarist Matt Schofield...
longtime Chicago home into a museum in his honor. As we reported early last month, the sale of the North Kenwood was ready to close at any moment, with the prospective buyer planning on turning the home into a tribute to Waters and the many bluesmen-and-women that made the Windy City their home. The sale evidently fell through, though, and Chandra Cooper - Waters...
The collaboration between soulful singer Beth Hart and popular blues-rock guitarist Joe Bonamassa has been both critically-acclaimed and commercially successful. While their 2011 album Don't Explain laid a foundation and flitted on and off the blues chart for a couple years, their 2013 album Seesaw earned the pair a Grammy® nomination and still sits in the Top Ten. So, what do Beth and Joe do...
Not much new on the blues chart for the week ending March 1, 2014 but that's not necessarily a bad thing. After upsetting the apple cart last week, former Free/Bad Company voice Paul Rodgers slips down to number two with his excellent The Royal Sessions collection of fine Southern soul. Gary Clark, Jr. bounces back into the top spot, and guitar legend Michael Bloomfield manages to hold onto the number...
A momentous occasion last week, as the New York Times and other news outlets are reporting about a court case involving Delta blues legend Robert Johnson . On Thursday, February 20th, 2014 the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled that Claud Johnson, the bluesman's son and legally recognized heir, could keep profits generated by the only two verified photographs of his father. ... Read Full Post ...
The Reverend has spent much of the last week getting caught up after a weekend trip to Toronto, and while I was out of pocket (literally, as we found we had no cell service north of the border), The Blues Foundation released its list of 2014 Blues Hall of Fame inductees. ... Read Full Post ...