Our
Bet
you didn’t know that
Hallowe’en is the third biggest
party day of the year. It’s right
behind New Years and Super
Bowl Sunday. Not so sure it
beats out a good Blues party
though. With Oct winding
down & Nov about to gear
up, we want to tell you that The Yale will be
Celebrating 130 Years the last six days before
they Close the doors on Nov 20th for seismic
upgrading & renos that will take upwards of a
year. More about that shortly, but first let’s
remind you of what’s happening over the next
30 days.  Thurs Nov 3rd Texas based
Zydeco band L’il Brian & the Travellers are at
Highway 99 in Seattle  Soul, Funk, R&B
singer Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings play
the Showbox at the Market in Seattle on
Thurs Nov 9th & the Wild Buffalo in
Bellingham on Sat Nov 12th & Molson
Canadian
House
at
the
Vancouver
Convention Centre for Grey Cup on Sat Nov
26th  Soul brother Curtis Salgado hits the
Triple Door on Remembrance Day, Fri Nov
11th & at Jazzbones in Tacoma on Sat Nov
19th  Highway 99 welcomes Oregon based
Blues singer Karen Lovely on Sat Nov 12th 
Austin TX Funk, R&B, Blues band Black Joe
Lewis & the Honeybears have a Thurs Nov
17th gig at the Rickshaw Theatre in
Vancouver  Blues Legend & the last of the 3
Kings, B.B. King stops by the River Rock
Show Theatre in Richmond on Sat Nov 19th
 Blues diva Candye Kane returns to
Highway 99 in Seattle on Sat Nov 19th  Grey
Cup weekend will see Colin James & The
Fabulous Thunderbirds at Molson Canadian
House in the Vancouver Convention Centre
on Fri Nov 25th  L’il Ed & the Blues
Imperials also play during Grey Cup
Festivities on Fri Nov 25th & Sat Nov 26th 
Blues radar just
locked on to this item.
Russian Bluesman, & a
B.C. resident, Arsen
Shomakhov & his band
will be playing The Yale
this coming Weds Nov
2nd. When Mikhail
Gorbachev’s
“Perestroika”
relaxed
longstanding communist restrictions, young
Russians freely gravitated toward Rock & Roll
and some to British Blues Rock, then to a
mimicry of Delta & Chicago Blues & finally a
Blues sound with a distinctly Russian feel. In
the late eighties Arsen & his band began with a
mixture of Rock, Blues, & Jazz, before
morphing to cover straight Blues material by
the early nineties.
By 2008 Arsen had
relocated to the west coast of Canada where
he formed another band & has played
extensively on these shores. If you haven’t
seen them, we recommend you check them
out. These are serious players.
Looks like a great night of
Blues at The Yale on Fri
Nov 4th. Kenny “Blues
Boss” Wayne, Russell
Jackson, & Gary Comeau
will have everybody up dancing with
some great piano & Zydeco driven
music. I’m thinking, with these three hep cats,
you’ll likely be hearing a whole lot of New
Orleans influenced and Old School Blues ‘n’
Zydeco. You should note Kenny’s got a hot
new CD, “An Old Rock On a Roll”, produced by
Duke Robillard that is out on Stony Plain.
Sorry
for the short notice,
but we just recently heard
that Louisiana Bluesman
Anders Osborne will be at
Neumo’s Crystal Ball
Reading Room which is at
925 East Pike St. in Seattle
this coming Fri Nov 4th. Osborne is a special
guest performer with former Lenny Kravitz
Band member Karl Denson and his band Karl
Denson’s Tiny Universe. Denson & friends
are touring, playing the Rolling Stones “Sticky
Fingers” album in its entirety.
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Expect plenty of fun at The Yale
on Sat Nov 5th with “Hurricane”
& the Hooligans featuring
Dave “Hurricane” Hoerl of The
Twisters, along with many of his
equally talented musician friends.
Speaking of which, don’t forget, you
can see 2011 out & ring in 2012 with
The Twisters, & Dave, on Sat Dec
31st at the Rhumba Room in White Rock.
Expect a swingin’ dinner & dance that night.
One
of Canada’s fastest
rising Blues trios, Ottawa’s
MonkeyJunk will be stopping
by The Yale on Sat Nov 12th.
This group will be bringing a
whole mess o’ swamp rhythm
‘n’ blues, soul boogie, funk & deep blues in
their bag o’ tricks. The trio won a Maple Blues
Award before they even had a CD out. Find
out why they’re getting such rave reviews.
Is The Yale going out in Style or
with a bit of a Whimper? It’s
your call! Word is that The
Yale will go out celebrating a
lot of Local Home Grown Blues
& Music talent, many of whom have played the
Legendary Venue regularly over the past thirtysome years as Vancouver’s Home of
Rhythm & Blues. They’ll be presenting theme
nights such as Piano Blues night on Weds
Nov 16th with Kenny “Blues Boss” Wayne,
David Vest, Michael Van Eyes, John Lee
Sanders, & Willie MacCaulder. Thurs Nov
17th will feature the likes of Chilliwack, Roy
Forbes, Shari Ulrich, Jim Byrnes, Texas
Flood, & others. On Fri Nov 18th you can
catch the Best of Electric Blues Guitar with
Jimmy D. Lane, David Gogo, Tim Vaughan,
& James Rogers. An Allstar Blues Revue
happens on Sat Nov 19th with Dave Barton,
Kenny Boychuck, Joani Bye, Jerry
Doucette, Darrell Mayes, Rob Montgomery,
Murray Porter, Nadine States, & more. On
the Final Day of Sun Nov 20th it’ll be the Dal
Richards Orchestra, & Jim Byrnes from 2 –
6p, then Brickhouse, Harpdog Brown, Bill
Johnson, John Lee Sanders, Michael Van
Eyes, & Guests.
Over
on the coast, west
of Mount Vernon, The
Rock Fish Grill in
Anacortes will welcome
Too
Slim
&
the
Taildraggers
for
a
Thurs night gig to kickstart next month with a
Dec 1st date. With 11 “Studio” albums and 4
“Live” albums behind him, Tim is one of the
hardest working musicians I know. His Seattle
based blues rock trio have come a long way in
the past 25 years since they originally formed
in Spokane in 1986. The line-up has changed
a couple of times over the years, and the
current line-up with Polly O’Keary on bass &
Tommy Cook on drums is by far the best lineup to date.
Want to
welcome in
2012 in Seattle?
The Triple Door has
booked
Coco
Montoya and his
band for New Year’s
Eve, Sat Dec 31st.
Montoya, who currently records on RUF
Records, has been honing his fiery & explosive
guitar style combined with impassioned vocals
over the past 30 years working his way up to
being one of the top acts in the upper echelons
of the Blues Rock genre. Not bad for a guy
who started out as a drummer. Coco’s latest
album, the soul-filled “I Want it All Back” has
been spending a lot of time in my CD player.
A regular
visitor to The Triple Door in
Seattle, guitar ace Johnny A, returns to
this hip Seattle venue on Tues Jan 24th.
His performances at Eric Clapton’s
“Crossroads Festival” has helped
spread this young man’s notoriety as a
top guitar player who walks in that
same rarified atmosphere as Jeff
Beck, Jimmy Page, Sonny Landreth
& Eric “Slow Hand” Clapton.
Johnny’s such a great guitarist with
his own signature sound & style that Gibson
has produced a “Johnny A” signature model
guitar in recognition of this eclectic musician.
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Highway
99 Blues Club in
Seattle will be importing
some Cajun & Zydeco music
to add a touch of Louisiana
heat to their January line-up
with
the
“Zydeco
Sweetheart”. Rosie Ledet &
the Zydeco Playboys will
deliver a little Cajun spice on Thurs Jan 26th.
Rosie was born in the heart of Cajun country
where she was surrounded by Zydeco music,
but took little interest in the genre until she
attended a dance and saw the great Boozoo
Chavis, which got the young Rosie to thinking
about taking up music. With Rosie, you can
expect music that’s soul-filled with plenty of hip
shaking grooves.
East
Bay R&B, Soul, & Funk
band, Tower of Power, will be
funking it all up at Jazz Alley in
Seattle coming up in Feb 2012.
This horn driven band will be there
for 4 successive nights, from Thurs
Feb 9th thru Sun Feb 12th. With 43 years of
great East Bay Soul, the 10 piece TOP band
continues to garner rave reviews for their funk
filled shows that have fans dancing in their
seats. A month after these Seattle gigs, Tower
of Power will embark on a European tour that’ll
take them to the U.K., Holland, Norway,
Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, Luxembourg,
Germany, Switzerland, France & Italy.
Blues
and Jazz Diva
Catherine Russell has
been
booked
into
Benaroya Hall in Seattle
on Mon Mar 6th. A native
New Yorker, Ms. Russell
comes by her musical
ability honestly. Her father was longtime music
director for Louis Armstrong, & her mother who
holds advanced degrees from Juilliard & the
Manhattan Schools of Music is a top bass
player & vocalist. Catherine has performed &
recorded with Paul Simon, David Bowie, Cyndi
Lauper, Levon Helm, & others. She recently
contributed a prohibition era sounding song to
the “Boardwalk Empire – Volume 1, Music from
the Original HBO Series”.
Watch
out for Blues
Legend James “Super
Harp” Cotton & his band,
with Darrell Nulisch on
vocals, to do a couple of
nearby dates this coming
March. They will play at
McIntyre Hall in Mount Vernon, WA on Sat
Mar 11th and then on Sun Mar 12th they’ll be at
the Port Theatre in Nanaimo.
Eugene
Oregon’s own
and the Original Blues
Brother,
Curtis
Salgado has just signed
with Chicago- based
Alligator Records. Salgado, an incredibly
gifted soul singer, band leader, songwriter, and
harmonica icon, will release his debut album
on the label in the Spring of 2012. Early on in
his career Curtis was the featured vocalist in
the original Robert Cray Band, had a stint with
Roomful of Blues, and Santana, before striking
out on his own releasing some 7 albums. His
first album on Alligator will be his 8th overall.
Here’s
something that will
make a perfect Christmas
gift for the avid Blues fan.
Renowned
Canadian
broadcaster & host of
CBC’s “Saturday Night
Blues”, record producer,
Stony Plain Record Label owner, & writer,
Holger Petersen, just released a book called
“Talking Music”. It’s a collection of 19 of
Holger’s in-depth radio interviews with some of
the pioneering men & women who created the
Blues sounds that have influenced popular
culture & music in North America. Many of the
featured interviewees are no longer with us,
except in spirit and on recordings. Divided into
4 collections, “Talking Music” highlights the
British Blues Revival, Delta & Memphis Blues,
Artists who helped build Stony Plain Records,
and Bonus Tracks. Each interview is preceded
by informative background info on the artist
being interviewed, Holger’s own stories of their
meetings, and photographs. You can order
“Talking Music” for $25 plus taxes direct from
Stony Plain at www.stonyplainrecords.com
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Signed
by Blind Pig
Records this past summer,
Chicago’s Cash Box Kings
are an up & coming group
of young Blues guns to
keep an eye on. Doug, one
of my buddies, a fellow
Bluesnut, & hip to great new acts told me about
this hot group a while ago. They’re ability to do
it old school nailing deep-in-the-pocket Blues,
while adding a freshness to their own originals
that stay true to the spirit of ‘40’s & ‘50’s
Chicago style Blues & the Delta Blues of the
‘20’s & ‘30’s has attracted a lot of buzz. Check
out their Blind Pig debut “Stomp & Holler”. It
explores the crossroads where Blues and
Country meet covering classics by Hank
Williams, the Stones, & Muddy mixed in with a
number of originals.
Currently on tour in Europe
with Walter Trout on what is
being billed as “The Giants
of BluesRock” tour, singer,
songwriter, producer, &
guitarist Popa Chubby has
a brand new album out that
was just released this past October 11th on the
Mascot / Provogue label. The CD is called
“Back to New York City” & contains 11 nasty
cuts featuring Popa delivering his pedal to the
metal Blues Rock with fat, scalding guitar work.
The music is an autobiographical look at
Popa’s struggles, triumphs, & memories of
every sidewalk, subway, dive bar, & tattoo
parlor, that left an imprint on his psyche.
If
you’re not familiar with
them, then you owe it to
yourself to get familiar with
Southern
R&B,
Roots
Rockers, J.J. Grey &
MOFRO. And, there’s no
better way to get to know
them than with their brand new CD / DVD
release, “Brighter Days” on Alligator. Filmed
& recorded at a lively, 2 hour incendiary
concert in Atlanta Georgia, the discs feature
many of their top songs like “Lochloosa”, “The
Sun is Shining Down”, and the title track
“Better Days”. It’s well worth the price.
We
regret to pass
along the news that
another of the Muddy
Waters Blues Band
alumni
has
died.
Following
a
long
hospitalization, singer
& harmonica player
George
“Mojo”
Buford passed away in
Minneapolis on Tuesday October 11, 2011.
Born on November 10, 1929, Buford was born
in Hernando, Mississippi. While still young, he
left Mississippi for Memphis Tennessee where
he learned his early lessons in the Blues. He
eventually relocated to Chicago in 1952,
forming his own band, The Savage Boys,
which eventually became the Muddy Waters
Junior Band. That band subbed for Muddy
when he was on the road.
In 1959 George played in Muddy’s band for a
few years before he moved to Minneapolis in
1962 to front his own combo. He eventually
rejoined the Muddy Waters Blues Band for a
year in 1967 and then a longer stint with the
band in the early 70’s. When Jerry Portnoy
split with other Waters band members to form
the Legendary Blues Band, Buford once again
returned for one last stint with the Muddy
Waters Blues Band. R.I.P. George “Mojo”
Buford, November 10, 1929 – October 11,
2011.
Don’t forget to put your clock back 1 hour this
coming weekend.
Remembrance Day is coming up.
Hope you’ll buy a poppy to
support our Veterans and in
Remembrance of those who
fought and continue to fight so
that we can live with the freedoms and rights in
a democratic society.
More news of the Blues variety will be coming
our way in about a month’s time.
www.canadianpacificblues.com
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