Al Miller’s In Between Time is a Chicago blues masterpiece, plain and simple. Originally self issued in 1999/2000, it is back, reissued by Delmark Records. The talent on this album alone is worth a listen, even if they were just playing Jingle Bells! Instead, we are privileged to feast our ears on some seriously superior, mind blowing Chicago blues. Al Miller is on harp, vocals, and guitar. Also on guitars are Jon Primer (vocals too), Billy Flynn, and Dave Specter, all of whom have mad guitar skills! Rockin’ the drum kit we have, Willie “Big Eyes” Smith, Kenny Smith, and Mike Schlick. On piano we have the always amazing Barrelhouse Chuck, Ken Saydak, and Rob Waters on organ. On bass we have Harlan Terson and Billy Flynn. Rounding out this talented crew are Joe Filisko – harp, and John Brumbach and Barry Winograd on sax.

Enhancing the overall listening experience is the great mix, and good sound quality. At over 70 minutes, there is plenty here to love! Several standout cuts are scattered throughout the album. “My Baby Walked Out” is a great piano boogie, with nice harp and guitar lines. “In Between Time” is slow and features some more fine harp playing, sweet piano, and sexy guitar. “I Got It” is a great Jump blues that features some above and beyond harp playing from Miller. “Tighten’ Up On It” is tasty Chicago club blues. “’1839′” boasts wonderful piano from Ken Saydak, and dazzling, understated guitar from John Primer.

Perhaps the most interesting work on this album consists of the so-called “Chicago Trio,” also referred to as “Chicago Winter weather blues.” “A Better Day” reminds us of the early John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers material. “Lake Michigan Waters” is wonderfully slow, and dark. The previously unreleased “The Blizzard,” has some mighty fine Link Ray meets Rory Gallagher guitar playing from Billy Flynn – seriously superior.

If you love your Chicago Blues in a huge way, you will enjoy this album immensely. The playing is beyond insanely good, the sound is spot on, and the mix is perfect. This album will move you.

Al Miller Chicago Blues – Facebook

Al Miller at Delmark Records

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Back in the days of vinyl, when you had an album that was really smokin’, remember how you played it until it was worn out? Here at Chicago Blues, we have been trying to wear out the new Cash Box Kings album, Black Toppin’, from Blind Pig Records. Heads up Chicago Blues fans: This record kicks! CBK have taken old school Chicago Blues and introduced it to jump blues and swing. The music on this disc is fresh, vibrant, and alive.

The band on this outing consists of Joe Nosek – harp and vocals, Oscar Wilson – Vocals, Kenny “Beedy Eyes” Smith, Mark Haines, and Alex Hall on drums, Joel Patterson – lead guitar, Billy Flynn - rhythm guitar (lead on trk 5), Beau Sample – upright bass, Gerry Hundt – electric bass, Barrelhouse Chuck – piano, and Jerry Devivo on sax. If you aren’t recognizing most of these names, shame on you! These are some of the finest blues musicians playing today, and a major reason this album sounds as incredible as it does.

The album opens with “Blues Falling Down On Me,” a lively and steady thumping piece with some nice slide. “Trying Really Hard (To Try and Get Along With You)” reminded us of some of the great Louisiana Hayride music with its poignant Scotty Moore like guitar lines, great beat, and wry sense of humor. “Oscar’s Jump” is some fine jump blues with a Chicago edge. “Money, Marbles, & Chalk” is an alluring slow blues with righteous harp, piano and guitar lines throughout. “Walking Blues” sounds alive and vibrant, instead of dark and dreary, as it is sometimes performed. “I Don’t Wanna Fight” sounds straight off the radio of the 1950′s – amazing! “Tom Cat Blues” has a great vocal, along with more fine wailing guitar and sweet harp. “Gimmie Some of That” is funny, and well played with perfect guitar lines, along with much love coming from the upright bass of Beau Sample.

The best thing about this album is that it’s fun. The worst thing about this album is that there isn’t more of it! So … Let’s all go Black Toppin’ with the Cash Box Kings.

 The Cash Box Kings

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How long has it been since you’ve heard some blues and gospel infused soul that actually has a pulse? Has it been a while? Well, fear not. Longtime soulful singer Marion James delivers Northside Soul, her newest release on EllerSoul Records. Coming on the heels of her successful release Essence, Northside Soul is truly a work of soulful art!

For starters, the music itself is wonderful. The band does an amazing job of being tight as a band, but playing loose enough to let the music speak. There are glimpses of The Funk Brothers, James Brown, The Temptations, The Bar-Kays, and many others. The band is Steve Bassett – keyboards, drummers Dusty Simmons, George Sheppard, and Brad Ellsworth. Additionally, bassist Tod Ellsworth (who also produced the album) and guitarist Ivan Applerouth round out the band. Also a key ingredient to the album’s succes are the background singers and horn players who do a great job providing depth.

Standout tracks include “I Fell,” with its smooth sound and expressive piano, and the funky “Smokin’ Hot,” with its 1970′s club sound and great groove. Also of note are the New Orleans flavored “Next Time You See Me,” and another funky sounding delight, “Mr. Blues.” By far, the best cut on this album is “I Just Want to Make Love to You. This was originally penned by Willie Dixon and first recorded by the great Muddy Waters. James and company totally do this tune justice! This is like Sly and The Family Stone meeting up with Funkadelic in an alley and saying “Hey fellas, let’s see what you can do with this.” Great beat, well played, and James’ vocal is perfect here. If this doesn’t get you moving, you are dead and just don’t realize it yet! This album is worth the price of admission.

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The music community is full of folks with big talent, big reputations, and sometimes, big egos. Often, the best reputations have been earned through hard work and talent. It’s funny how the people with the most talent are the most humble. They are so grateful to be doing what they love, and sharing their gifts with other music lovers. So it is with Big Bill Morganfield. As most blues lovers know, Morganfield is the son of McKinley Morganfield, better known as Muddy Waters. A pedigree like that carries a lot of expectations, but Morganfield has forged his own path in the blues.

Starting later in life than most musicians, Morganfield didn’t begin to study and play music until he was 27 years old. “Well my father passed away in 1983, and even on his deathbed, he was a little disappointed that none of the kids, none of the offspring, wanted to touch the music. To tell you the truth, we all thought he was doing a fantastic job with it, and we didn’t see how we could do anything better.”

Even then, he took six years and used that time for intense study. ”I thought it was gonna be easy. For some reason, when you listen to blues you say ‘Ah, piece of cake.’ But if you go ahead and try to duplicate what you hear, you be like ‘Wait a minute. Something is missing here. Mine sounds different from what theirs sound like.’ So I went through a little thing and I went out for a little while, and played around town, and really um, saw that I sucked. [Laughter] And I decided, um, back to the drawing board.

“I pulled myself off my little circuit and I said ‘Let’s start from the beginning.’ I started learning the Delta blues, and all the Robert Johnson, the stuff my daddy did. I just went from my learning process – right from the roots. I kept on. I started learning about Buddy Guy, Albert King, and all those cats – and Otis Rush. I went through the whole gamut of music and learning what I could from each one of those guys. Then I decided to come and do it again – try it again. And … lo and behold, hard work and and years of studying paid off.” Now mind you, while Morganfield was doing this, he was still working his day job as a teacher, and working nights as a car repo-man.

Morganfield could have spent his career trying to emulate or duplicate his father’s work, but instead, he has chosen to honor it. His own work has been recognized by his peers. Today, Morganfield is in the St. Louis Missouri Hall of Fame as Master Blues Artist, and a W.C. Handy Award Winner as Best New Artist (2000). ”I decided to fulfill one of his wishes, and I put out Rising Sun on a Blind Pig album – Blind Pig Records, and the rest is history. I intended to come in and do a tribute to him, to satisfy that part of me, and satisfy that part of him, and um, I guess you could say the bug hit me. I don’t know. But it’s been 16 years now – 14, 15, 16, something like that; I’m still doing it, so um, that was the reason.”

Morganfield’s new album, Blues With A Mood is a revelation, and his best yet. This well crafted, well played album, has a very old school feel. When we mention this to Morganfield, he is appreciative. “Well, thank you so much. You know, I just wanted to do a good job with it, and I wouldn’t be satisfied, I mean, just copy what my daddy did, or just stay within that genre, ’cause there are so many genres that are so bad, so incredible. So, you know, I learned what I could from him, and I tried to extend my knowledge and my base, per se. I think I would have did what he would have done.

“He learned that old plantation stuff and he went to Chicago. He just expanded it. He worked on the Delta thing, to the Chicago thing, to worldwide, and everybody respected him, the British players trying to copy off him and all that. It was a movement that he started. But it is still going today. It’s amazing that he passed away in 1983, and it’s just absolutely amazing to me to see, I mean, I’m like ‘Wow.’

“What he did is still so fresh on our hearts and our minds. We can hear it – all these other young cats coming up – we can hear it. The influence, it’s just amazing! So I have so much respect for my daddy, and not only my daddy, those other cats, they all made the world go round. They gave us something that we are still enjoying today. It’s a wonderful thing.”

Blues With A Mood features top tier musicians including Eddie Taylor Jr., Colin Linden, and Bob Margolin, all on guitar. Morganfield is quick to praise all the musicians that played on the album. “Of course we all know that Bob Margolin played with my father, for years and you can still hear it through his playing, his Muddy Waters discipline. He comes from that school. He’ll tell you today that that changed his life, for the rest of his life, being onstage next to my daddy for that many years.

“Of course, Colin Linden. A lot of people are not familiar with Colin, he’s from Canada. He’s a, guitar, what you call ferocious. He’s one of those cats – he’s – I call him a musical genius. He’s a musical genius to me.” Eddie Taylor Jr., (son of Eddie Taylor, the guitarist behind the Jimmy Reed sound) also earns high praise from Morganfield. “He’s very talented. I think he’s one of the most underestimated guitar players on the planet today. Eddie is a really strong player. Augie Meyers (piano) is different from Pine [Top Perkins] and Otis [Spann], just rhythmly; he just plays these heavy rhythms! He’s so good! And [Tom] “Mookie” Brill was voted, I think at least twice, best bass instrumentalist at the BMA awards.

“Chuck Cotton plays kind of like Willie Smith, really rock-solid man! Tim Horn. He’s the most recorded sax player in the history of the music industry! He did a fine job with it (on this record). Steve Guyger, very accomplished harp player, kinda remind you of Little Walter. Then there’s another harp player, [Richard] “Doc” Malone, who did a fine job. So anyway, I was fortunate enough to round all these cats up, and get ‘em in the studio with me, ya know? Of course I own Black Shuck Records, so this was my dime I put this thing on. I was happy that I was able to pull it off, and to bring all this great talent together like that. It was just a really good experience for me.”

Blues With A Mood has an old school feel to it, but it is not dated by any means. The album breathes. Morganfield explains “It has a freshness to it. I thought it was very important not to, I call it a traffic jam. You know, you hear some music, you know, and you hear a traffic jam, and it don’t breathe. I try to be very careful and make sure we didn’t have a lot of traffic jams, and things breathe and create a little space, what I call ‘creating a mood,’ and you create a mood.”

Morganfield also wrote seven of the eleven songs on the album. “Yeah. That’s important to me. I wrote seven out of the eleven. It’s just important that I write. You know, it’s my own thing, and it’s my own spin on things. I always say that music should represent the time that it was written. And I try to write songs that represent the times that I live in.”

Over the course of our conversation, he offers two pieces of advice to younger players. First: “Younger musicians come to me, they ask my advice, I say ‘One of the things I can tell you is don’t be out there chasing dollars. Take pride in your work and the dollars will follow you. Don’t chase ‘em. Don’t shortcut it. Don’t put too much water on it. Don’t water it down; make it real, and try to make it strong, and people will respect you. Good things will come out of that kind of mindset.’”  Second: “The old guys used to say ‘It ain’t about going fast. It’s about laying down a groove. If you can’t lay down a groove, you don’t know nothing.’ That’s how they taught me.”

Big Bill Morganfield honors the past. At the same time, in his own humble way, he is helping a new generation of musicians build the future of blues, and carry on that tradition in a fresh, new, exciting way. No one can ask for any more than that.

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Being the son of Muddy Waters would be tough on anyone who wanted to sing and play the blues. It would be even more difficult for anyone that didn’t begin to really play music until they were 27 years old. Even then, Big Bill Morganfield took an additional six years to study and hone his music craft. All that effort has paid off handsomely. Today, Morganfield is in the St. Louis Missouri hall of Fame as Master Blues Artist, and a W.C. Handy Award Winner as Best New Artist (2000). Fortunately for blues fans, Morganfield tours regularly, bringing his sweet take on the blues to an ever wider audience.

On his latest Black Shuck Records release, Big Bill Morganfield gives us Blues With A Mood. Listening to this is such a rewarding experience! The album has a very old school atmosphere and feel to it. The songs are well crafted and very well played. There is not a single note out of place on this entire album. The production and sound quality are spot-on.

The personnel on Blues With A Mood reads like a who’s who of top tier players. Big Bill Morganfield – guitars and vocals, Augie Meyers – piano, Eddie Taylor Jr. – guitar, Colin Linden – guitar, Jim Horn blowing sax, Tom “Mookie” Brill thumping bass, Chuck Cotton stroking drums, and Richard “Doc” Malone on harp. Special guests include the great Bob Margolin on guitar, the amazing Steve Guyger on harp, Clark Stern on piano, and Brian Bisesi on guitar.

Standout cuts here include “Look What You Done,” “Money’s Gettin’ Cheaper,” the rarely heard “Ooh Wee,” “No Butter For My Grits,” “Tight Things,” and the autobiographical “Son Of The Blues.” For any lover of blues not to own this album would be criminal. Seriously!

Big Bill Morganfield

Blues With A Mood

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It’s always nice when a killer album lands on our desk for review. One mark of a really great album is that you can put in on, and once the music stops, you want more. So, you play it again. With their new Delta Groove release, Knockin’ Around These Blues, John Primer and Bob Corritore have given us that album. These gentlemen have been making music with some of the best for a long time.  Bob Corritore has played with Bo Diddley, Ike Turner, Big Jack Johnson, Robert Lockwood Jr., and many more. John Primer has also played with many greats such as Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters, and Magic Slim and The Teardrops.

The talented personnel here provide first rate backing. They are;  Barrelhouse Chuck – piano, Billy Flynn – guitar, Chris James – guitar, Bob Stroger – bass, Patrick Rynn – bass, Kenny “Beedy Eyes” Smith – drums, and Brian Fahey also plays drums. Of course John Primer is on vocals and plays some mean guitar, while Bob Corritore contributes his magnificent harp stylings.

Aside from being a well crafted album, Knockin’ Around These Blues is also a well rounded album. It’s just straight-up, no fuss blues. Standout cuts include the Jimmy Reed gem “The Clock,” with its beautiful groove, and “Leaning Tree,” with some killer vocals, gutsy harp, and overall back room, deep Chicago blues feel. Willie Dixon’s “Just Like I Treat You” is best described as “Texas dancehall meets Chicago shuffle,” and is a great performance. “Man Or Mouse” has a nice Jimmy Reed feel to it with a good vocal and playing from Primer, and yet again, really sweet harp playing from Corritore. The album’s closer is a Lightnin’ Hopkins tune, “Going Back Home.” This is some fine, moving blues, and while the whole band does an outstanding job, Barrelhouse Chuck’s piano playing is a cut above. If you are a blues lover, then this album is for you. You owe it to yourself!

Knockin’ Around These Blues

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Harpist extraordinaire James Cotton needs no introduction, especially to any blues devotee. Now in his sixth decade of bringing blues to the world, his singing voice may be diminished from cancer treatments, but the voice and beauty of his harp is not. At just under 48 minutes, Cotton Mouth Man is intended as a celebration of Cotton’s career. Produced by Tom Hambridge (who co-wrote 12 of the baker’s dozen songs), the album is huge, and Cotton has said he is proud of the result. Along for the ride are guests Ruthie Foster, Keb Mo’, Delbert McClinton, Joe Bonamassa, Gregg Allman, and Warren Haynes.

This album will amaze and captivate from start to finish. “Cotton Mouth Man” is fast paced, with Bonamassa laying down some tasteful, tone drenched guitar goodness, superior harp playing from Cotton, and steady drumming from Hambridge. “Midnight Train” features a beautiful intro from Cotton, Chuck Leavell’s choice keyboarding, and Gregg Allman’s synergetic vocal. “Wrapped Around My Heart” is slow, smokey, and features a great vocal from Ruthie Foster, who is never anything less than stellar. “Hard Sometimes” is a slow shuffle with killer harp from Cotton, the perfect ivory tickle of Chuck Leavell, and Delbert McClinton’s smooth vocal. The slow, almost Rhumba like “Young Bold Women” is an orgasm for the senses. “Wasn’t My Time To Go” features more fine harp from Cotton, piano from Leavell, and a good vocal from Keb Mo’.

James Cotton’s Cotton Mouth Man delivers, in a big way. Aside from the guest artists stepping up (and then some!), the house band is excellent. Hambridge plays great skins on several tracks, Rob McNelly does a fine job on guitar, Glenn Wolf lays down beautiful lines on the upright bass, and Darrell NuLisch tops it all off with just the right vocal touch. Don’t miss out on this; get you some soon!

James Cotton

Cotton Mouth Man

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Toronzo Cannon – Leaving Mood (Delmark Records)

Having grown up on the south side of Chicago in the Fuller Park area, due south of the Eisenhower on 90, a few blocks east to the area where Theresa’s Lounge was, at 4801 Indiana Ave., Toronzo was exposed to blues early and often. Listening to his CD Leaving Mood, released through Delmark Records, is a bus ride through the life, people and events of one of Chicago’s rising and talented blues stars.

Like a south side neighborhood, this bus tour of the blues has both nice areas, and some a little more stark. The starker realities of life are no stranger to Toronzo Cannon, and he puts his insights to good use. Songs like She Loved Me, Chico’s Song, a happy “hurt to the heart tribute to Vernon banks, Open Letter(To Whom It May Concern), You’re a Good Woman and Leaving Mood depict the realities of life: the jail, the blues life, broken relationships, and death.  The musicians so capably backing Cannon are rhythm guitarist Lawrence Gladney, who contributed two songs and co-authored with Cannon seven others, Russel Purifoy on keyboards, Larry Williams on bass, Marty Binder on guitar, Matthew Skoller on harmonica, and on two songs Carl Weathersby playing lead guitar. There is a range of sounds, from the boogie woogie piano in Chico’s Song, the muffled mic vocals of Open Letter, and the hip moving bass of Do I Move You?

There are some nice parts of town on the Toronzo Cannon route. Lawrence Gladney’s  Come On.  We travel past two Cannon/Gladney collaborations, I Believe, and Hard Luck. In Hard Luck, the tempo slows down, and the Chicago slow, ballad style emerges with Carl Weathersby helping out on lead guitar on this typical blues, “I am so down on my luck” song.  We also go by I Can’t Take Her Nowhere, a bluesy date from hell song. A song where a date pukes!  Do I Move You has one of those bass lines that will get the dance floor filled with close moving bodies. Ah, good lovin’! Baby Girl, another typical man loses woman song, with organ supporting the guitar in this tune.  Earnestine is the contrast, with the title woman capturing the singers interest in this basic rocking blues tune. This part of town closes out with a cover of the Mike Wheeler tune, Not Gonna Worry. In this medium tempo tune featuring the basic sound of Cannon on this CD, a richly textured mix of keyboard and guitar with a strong rhythm section.

One might expect that a man who sees what Toronzo Cannon sees, and the influence of south side Chicago might make a man sullen, mean, depressed. And in some it does.  Not Toronzo Cannon. Bob Koester of Delmark Records said of Toronzo, “He’s really a sweet guy,” and it’s reflected in the audio following “Chico’s Song,” a clip where Toronzo laughs, then says, “That was bad man. Fo sho”

Fo Sho indeed. On this CD Toronzo drives us around the stuff of his life, adding all the musical talent he’s got to his stories. This is Chicago blues, today’s Chicago, as good as it gets. And though he still drives a bus between gigs, it’s high time that Toronzo Cannon drove down the full time blues route, coming to a city near you.

Purchase a copy of Toronzo Cannon’s Leaving Mood from Delmark Records

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30th Annual Chicago Blues Festival 2013

(CHICAGO, ILLINOIS) The 30th Annual Chicago Blues Festival expands to four days with a special opening night concert at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park the evening of Thursday, June 6 featuring a line-up of the genre’s next generation headlined by Shemekia Copeland.  Friday, June 7 the festival moves to Grant Park where Bobby Rush kicks-off the festival’s journey from the Mississippi Delta to Chicago and the world.

The 2013 Chicago Blues Festival is “Rollin’ Up the River” celebrating the blues with a musical journey up the Mississippi.  Throughout the 1940s and 1950s there was a “great migration” of African Americans from the southern United States to Chicago.  During that period, the “delta blues” landed in the “the promised land,” establishing the foundation for the genre’s electric guitar sound known as the “Chicago blues” style.  The voyage will start in New Orleans, Louisiana and Mississippi on Friday then to Memphis, Tennessee on Saturday ending in Chicago on Sunday, where the blues electrified the world.

Celebrating the future of blues music, the festival will open for the first time in Millennium Park on June 6.  Shemekia Copeland (crowned the “new” Queen of the Blues in 2011) will headline the evening with special guest, blues guitar prodigy and Buddy Guy collaborator, Quinn Sullivan.  The evening will begin at 6:30 p.m. with openers Blues Kids of America followed by Jamiah on Fire & The Red Machine.

The Chicago Blues Festival moves to Grant Park on Friday with performances by Irma Thomas and Bobby Rush (above) and his Blues Band. Saturday’s headliners include Otis Clay, Uvee Hayes, The Bar-Kays, Eddie Floyd (above) and Sir Mack Rice. The Chicago Blues Festival closes on Sunday, June 9 with performances by blues greats James Cotton (above), John Primer, Billy Branch, Eddy “The Chief” Clearwater and many more.

Highlights of the festival in Grant Park will include music on five stages:  The Petrillo Music Shell, Bud Light Crossroads Stage, Pepsi Front Porch, Mississippi Juke Joint and Windy City Blues Society Stage.  The festival will also pay special tribute to Delmark Records on its 60th anniversary and a centennial celebration of blues legend, Pinetop Perkins.   The full line-up will be announced later this spring.

Chicago Blues Festival Official Website

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