Mark Hummel’s Ultimate Harmonica Blowout 2017
w/Corky Siegel, Howard Levy, Jason Ricci, Mark Hummel, Son Of Dave & Duke Robillard
Saturday, January 21, 2017; 7:30 pm
Grammy nominee, two time BMA winner Harp Blower, band
leader, author and 26 year organizer of Blues Harmonica
Blowout, Mark Hummel has assembled one of his most
adventurous Harmonica Extraviganzas to date. Hummel has
changed the title of this particular show due to the variety
of the artists to the Ultimate Harmonica Blowout, as its wide
ranging motif indicates with overblow guru Howard Levy
(Bela Fleck, Kenny Rankin), Duke Robillard (Roomful of Blues,
Fabulous Thunderbirds, Bob Dylan), Corky Siegel (SiegelSchwall, Chamber Blues, Chicago Blues Reunion), Jason Ricci
(Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Johnny Winter-Grammy winning
cd) plus show stopping Canadian harp genius Son of Dave
(Crash Test Dummies).
This year's Blowout has RW Grigsby on bass, Wes Starr
on drums and Chris Burns on keys. These players all have
resumes that include Asleep At The Wheel, Maria Muldaur,
Mose Allison, Carlene Carter, Delbert McClinton, Marcia Ball,
Jimmy Vaughn, James Cotton, CA Honeydrops, Golden State/
Lone Star, Kim Wilson and many more.
This series was started in 1991 and has grown to become
an international event, having played festivals and theatres
like Nottonden Blues Fest (Norway), San Francisco Blues
Fest., Chicago Blues Fest., Ultimate Rhythm & Blues Cruise,
Pocanos Blues Fest., Mississippi Valley Blues Fest., American
Music Fest. (Fitzgeralds), BB King's (NYC), Heritage Blues
Fest., NY R & B Fest., King Biscuit Blues Fest., El Dorado Blues
and Brews (Reno, NV), Edmonton Blues Fest., Yoshi's NiteClub,
Monterey Jazz Fest., North Atlantic Blues Fest., and many
other venues that have been sell-out shows.
CORKY SIEGEL is known
internationally as one of the worlds
great blues harmonica players, blues
pianist, singer, songwriter, author
and celebrated composer of bluesclassical forms. He is a recent winner
of the Lila Wallace/Reader's Digest/
Meet the Composer's national award
for chamber music composition and
the Illinois Arts Council Fellowship
Award for Music Composition, Chicago Lifetime Achievement
Award, and inductee into the Chicago Blues Hall of Fame.
Born Mark Paul Siegel in Chicago in 1943, Corky’s
professional music career began when he founded the now
legendary Siegel-Schwall Band in Chicago in 1964 with
guitarist Jim Schwall. The group was a major component of
the young generation of white blues artists—also including
Paul Butterfield, Charlie Musselwhite, Harvey Mandel, Barry
Goldberg, Nick Gravenites and Michael Bloomfield—who
learned the historic Chicago blues style at the feet and hands
of such towering figures as Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Little
Walter, Willie Dixon, Buddy Guy and Sam Lay.
Corky played with all these greats at Siegel-Schwall’s first steady
engagement, in 1965 at Peppers, Chicago’s internationally
renowned blues club. They were soon signed to Vanguard
Records, with blues luminary Samuel Charters producing.
Their first album, The Siegel-Schwall Band, was released in
1966, and with it the group made San Francisco a virtual
second home: There the likes of Janis Joplin, Santana, Steve
Miller and Joni Mitchell opened for them (Siegel-Schwall
actually produced Mitchell’s demo tape); the band
would record three more classic albums for Vanguard up
through 1970, then five for Wooden Nickel/RCA through 1974.
After releasing three solo albums, Corky founded Corky
Siegel’s Chamber Blues, featuring himself on harmonica,
piano and vocals, the West End String Quartet of topflight
Chicago classical string players, and Frank Donaldson on
world percussion instruments. The novel ensemble performed
Siegel’s pioneering blues/classical music compositions and
released its first album, Corky Siegel’s Chamber Blues, on
Chicago’s famed blues label Alligator Records in 1994. The
album gained rave notices from publications like Billboard and
Stereophile, and has been followed by two more albums.
Additionally, Corky has written and performed works for the
Grant Park Symphony in Chicago (most recently Blues for a
Green Planet-Opus 10) and the National Symphony Orchestra
at the Kennedy Center. He composed Continuum with
renowned choreographers Alwin Nikolais and Murray Louis,
and his music has also been choreographed and performed
by five international ballet companies and has been used for
numerous motion pictures and national TV specials, as well as
the Olympic men’s figure skating competition and the World
Championship skating competition featuring Olympic gold
medalists Torvill and Dean. His recent commission from the
Lancaster Symphony Orchestra, The Symphonic Blues Suite,
has already been performed many times around the world.
HOWARD LEVY Iis a multiple GrammyAward Winner and an acknowledged
master of the diatonic harmonica, a
superb pianist, innovative composer,
recording artist, bandleader, teacher,
producer, and Chicago area resident.
His musical travels have taken him all
over the geographical world and the
musical map. Equally at home in Jazz,
Classical music, Rock, Folk, Latin, and
World Music, he brings a fresh lyrical
approach to whatever he plays. This has made him a favorite
with audiences worldwide, and a recording artist sought after
by the likes of Kenny Loggins, Dolly Parton, Paquito D’Rivera,
Styx, Donald Fagen, and Paul Simon. As a sideman, Howard
has appeared on hundreds of CDs and played on many movie
soundtracks.
He is perhaps best known for the four CD’s he recorded with
Bela Fleck and The Flecktones, a unique band that set the
musical world on its ear back in the early 1990’s. He got back
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Mark Hummel’s Ultimate Harmonica Blowout 2017
together with the band in 2010 and recorded the CD Rocket
Science. They toured extensively in 2011-2012, and Howard
won a Grammy for Best Instrumental Composition for “Life in
Eleven,” which he wrote with Bela Fleck.
Howard’s other prominent collaborations include three CDs
with Trio Globo (Glen Velez and Eugene Friesen), two with
Lebanese Oud player/composer Rabih Abou Khalil, and one
with the avant- garde Jazz Riessler/Levy/Matinier Trio.
Howard is music director and chief composer for the Latin/
Jazz group, Chévere de Chicago. He produced and released
the band’s CD Secret Dream, and Time Capsules with his
acoustic swing group, Acoustic Express, on his own label,
Balkan Samba Records. His solo Jazz CD, Alone and Together
on Balkan Samba, and his Jazz trio CD Tonight and Tomorrow
on the Chicago Sessions label, both received 4-star reviews in
DownBeat.
In 2011 Howard also released a classical CD featuring his
“Concerto for Diatonic Harmonica and Orchestra,” the first
concerto ever composed for the diatonic harmonica. He has
performed the piece more than 20 times in the US and Europe. He
also has an online harmonica school, www.howardharmonica.com.
Howard’s harmonica playing was featured on the
soundtracks of A Family Thing, Striptease, A Time to Kill,
Straight Talk, and Vietnam, A Long Time Coming. In the dance
world, Howard collaborated with Indian dancer Ranee
Ramaswamy in Where the Hands Go, The Eyes Follow, a fusion
of photography, poetry, dance, and music, all live, with poets
Robert Bligh and Coleman Barks. In 2004 he performed with
members of The Hubbard St. and Joffrey dance companies in
Moody Hollow, choreographed by Lauri Stallings. In theater,
he won a Joseph Jefferson Award for his music for Brecht’s
Puntila and his Hired Man (1986). In 1997 he co-wrote the
music for Tales From Trashmania, a one woman show by
Bonnie Koloc.
JASON RICCI (Story of a Mooncat) is
one of the most popular harmonica
players on the planet today. Listed in
almost every top ten list of players
on the internet today, Jason Ricci
is a polarizing force always in the
spotlight and on the tips of critics,
artists and fans tongue’s everywhere.
Through two plus decades of
endless touring, TV appearances,
recordings and the internet Jason Ricci’s style of playing is
so revolutionary and influential that there exists an entire
younger generation of players imitating his music, clothes,
gear, and even stage presence. Nicknamed “Moon Cat” (a
street name he once used in Nashville and New Orleans to
avoid police detection), Jason has been an almost constant
force for decades in the studio, festivals, club dates and
press. Love him or hate him, through performing, singing,
song writing, teaching, harmonica playing and activism in
the fields of L.G.B.T., mental health and addiction, it is not an
overstatement that this young, white, queer, skateboarding,
punk rock loving, multiple convicted felon Moon Cat from
Maine is currently changing the world through music and
education.
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Jason was a featured performer on Johnny Winter’s Grammy
Award-winning CD Step Back (2014). He has received multiple
Blues Music Award Nominations 2009 – 2016, and won a
Blues Music Award in 2010. Jason was a featured performer at
the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame with Zac Brown andTom Morello for
the Paul Butterfield Blues Band induction in 2015. He has worked
and/or recorded with Junior Kimbrough, RL Burnside, Nick
Curran, Walter Trout, Ana Popovic, Cedric Burnside, Joe Louis
Walker, Peter Karp, Sue Foley, and many others.
MARK HUMMEL Grammy nominee,
Blues Award winner, Author, Harp
Man has received Blues Music Award
nominations for the second year in a
row as 2015 Best instrumentalist –
Harmonica and 2015 Best Traditional
Blues Album – The Hustle is Really On.
Last year he was Grammy Nominated
for his Remembering Little Walter CD
he produced and performed on. Mark
also won Best Blues CD AND Blues Traditional Blues CD at the
BMA in Memphis. Mark's The Hustle Is Really On climbed to
#2 this year and stayed in the top five for four months in the
Living Blues Radio Charts. Hummel's book BIG ROAD BLUES: 12
Bars on I-80, has been garnering rave reviews all around the
U.S., and was nominated for best Independent Book release.
Mark Hummel started playing harmonica in 1970 and has
gone on to become one of the premier blues harmonica
players of his generation, thanks to over thirty recordings
since 1985, including the Grammy nominated 2013 release
Blind Pig recording Remembering Little Walter, part of the Blues
Harmonica Blowout CD series Hummel started in 1991. These
events have featured every major legend (Mayall, Musslwhite,
Cotton, etc.) on blues harp as well as almost every player of
note on the instrument- a who's who of players.
Mark Hummel is a road warrior - a true Blues Survivor.
Along the way, he has crafted his own trademark harmonica
sound - a subtle combination of tone, phrasing and attack
combined with a strong sense of swing. Mark has been with
Electro Fi Records since 2000, releasing five CDs. Thanks to
Mark's earlier albums, constant touring and appearances at
the major blues festivals, he's firmly established his solid
reputation around the U.S. and Europe.
Hummel was born in New Haven, CT but raised in Los Angeles
till he graduated high school. Mark moved to the Berkeley at
age 18 to pursue a career in blues music, where he felt the
music was taken more seriously.
Mark started the Blues Survivors in 1977 w/ Mississippi
Johnny Waters. By 1984 Hummel began a life of non-stop
touring of US, Canada and overseas, which he still continues
at least 130-150 days out of each year. Hummel has toured
or recorded with blues legends Charles Brown, Charlie
Musselwhite, Lowell Fulson, Billy Boy Arnold, Carey Bell, Lazy
Lester, Brownie McGhee, Eddie Taylor, Luther Tucker and
Jimmy Rogers.
Hummel penned a memoir in 2012 for Mountain Top
Publishing, BIG ROAD BLUES: Twelve Bar On I-80, to which
Huey Lewis says "This book should be required reading for
Mark Hummel’s Ultimate Harmonica Blowout 2017
ANY aspiring blues musician, LOVED it!" The memoir has
been heralded in Blues Revue, Living Blues plus many blues
publications coast to coast.
Besides the Blowouts Hummel has continued the Blues
Survivors. His band for the last four years has been Golden
State/Lone Star Blues Revue which released a new CD in
March that features both the Sacramento bass player RW
Grigsby and Austin drummer Wes Starr (both on this show),
plus guitarists Anson Funderburgh ( Dallas) and Little Charlie
Baty (Sacramento) on guitars. The group is a mix of CA/TX
musicains, hence the name. Mark has had three Blues Award
nominations for best Blues Harmonica (2007, 2008 & 2009) plus
the Little Walter CD has garnered two nominations in 2014 for
Best CD and Best Traditional CD.
SON OF DAVE isn't you're average
blues musician. He's an international
cult Bluesman on a mission to save
your musical soul from atrophy. It
would be an easy game, sticking
to cliché’s and playing a circuit
of guitar-solo lovin', middle-aged
divorcees. No disrespect to the
working man's blues circuit, but
this one-man harmonica & beat-box
genius beats his own path, turning rhythm and blues upside
down and gathering a huge international army of devoted
fans from all walks of life.
Besides the outstanding live show and recordings, he's
known for his columns in music magazines (a book was made
of them), his banter with an audience and 45 rpm radio show
on Soho Radio, London. His albums are treasures, and his
songs have been used as soundtrack to Breaking Bad, a Robin
Williams film, huge brand campaigns and in upcoming first
episode of The Preacher on AMC.
Son of Dave – born Benjamin Darvill – is half a century old
now, and started out in the blues and biker bars of Canadian
mid-western city Winnipeg. Winnipeg was home to Grammynominated Crash Test Dummies, in which Son of Dave was a
member as a young man. But keeping his roots in R&B, S.O.D
has since released seven albums of his own, and performed
over a thousand concerts on five continents.
It takes some kind of genius with just harmonica, beatbox,
percussion and a loopstation to get on Later With Jools
Holland (U.K.) and Taratata (France) as well as being invited
to support artists as diverse as Iggy and The Stooges, Grace
Jones, Heavy Trash, UB40, Supergrass and the Yardbirds.
In the UK, where Son of Dave has based himself for 20
years, his last Blues at the Grand LP release resulted in
two headline tours back in 2014, followed by standout
summer performances at Glastonbury, Secret Garden Party,
Boomtown and Love Supreme, amongst others. These last
years have also seen him take the show around Europe,
performing to bikers at the Harley Davidson Rally in Austria
as well as wowing audiences in France, Italy, Poland,
Netherlands and Finland.
tunes, giving them his own unmistakable mistreatment.
Already known for his renditions of "Bonkers" - Dizzie Rascal,
"Black Betty" - Ram Jam, "Bom Bom" - Sam and the Womp
and many more, he decided to bow to public demand and
crank out more crowd pleasers on limited edition seven inch
vinyl. Not content with just that though, he now bows even
lower to popular demand and is extending his series into an
album of hit covers, released in 2016.
With a CV as long as your arm and a briefcase full of naughty
tricks, the master will not only be recording a new album of
original tunes, but is on the road again in 2016 and still hasn't
reached top speed. He's a long distance Bluesman, not a
quick burner. He'll still be going strong through his next fifty
years no doubt. It's YOU that has to catch him before sinking
into your old age.
DUKE ROBILLARD Since starting his
musical career in 1967 by founding
and fronting Roomful of Blues, Duke
Robillard has been at the forefront of
Blues, Swing and classic R&B/Jump
blues for over forty years earning him
his legendary status while influencing
and inspiring countless legions of
musicians and fans worldwide.
He has been nominated for two Grammy Awards for
traditional blues album of the year in 2007/2010 and named
Blues Music Awards Traditional male Blues Artist of the Year
in 2010.
Duke has won the Blues Music Award for guitarist of the year
five times, being the second most honored for that award and
has garnered no less than twenty-one BMA nominations in
various categories since 1989.
He was honored with a Blues Foundation “Keeping the Blues
Alive” award for producer of the year in 2004. Besides
winning numerous international awards from France and
Canada, Duke received the prestigious Rhode Island Pell
Award for “Excellence in the Arts” in 2007.
Leading his own group Duke has toured non-­stop for the
past 30 some years recording more than twenty critically
acclaimed CDs under his own name. He has toured as
guitarist with Tom Waits and the Fabulous Thunderbirds
and recorded with the likes of Bob Dylan, Ruth Brown, Jay
McShann, Pinetop Perkins, Kim Wilson, Jimmy Witherspoon,
Rosco Gordon, Maria Muldaur and many, more.
Duke and his band were nominated for band of the year in
2010
He was inducted into the Rhode Island Music Hall of Fame in
May of 2014.
Duke’s new CD for Stony Plain Records in 2015, titled The
Acoustic Blues and Roots of Duke Robillard is the “Acoustic
Blues Album of the Year” for the 2016 Blues Music Awards
and #45 of the 50 best blues albums of 2015 by Living Blues
Magazine.
Last year also saw the launch of a new series of "Filthy 45's"
where Son of Dave took on some classic (and not so classic)
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