Todd Sharpville “Porchlight” 199 Words

 

Porchlight is the new album from the world's only "blue blooded bluesman" (Sharpville is a titled member of Britain's aristocracy, belonging to one of the UK's oldest titled families spanning well over 1000 years of royal heritage). The album was produced in Rhode Island by Duke Robillard & features guest appearances from Robillard, Kim Wilson &  Joe Louis Walker (Sharpville's childhood mentor). It features themes that echo TS's life experiences. These include divorce, child contact issues, depression, politics & alot of dark humour. Additionally, Todd’s father died just as the pre-production for the album began. The emotional aspects of this are therefore reflected throughout the recordings, the title track especially being a direct dedication to his dad. In the words of Todd, the “Porchlight” is symbolic of the “home fire that loved ones keep burning for us in the nether world, waiting to lovingly lead us back home to our maker.. In the meantime, the human plight to create earthly Porchlights is the closest we get to come to true divinity while we’re alive, comprising the basis for our earthly existence: family, security, moral guidance & love”. Sharpville's approach to music is a soulful one; he plays to "express" rather than "impress."

 

WatermelonTea includes 16 all new and original tracks and is released on our home grown Rinkled Rooster label. For this CD, I recruited hot young guitarist Zach Sweeney (Skinny Fats) and we both traveled to Mississippi on August 10th in search of a raw down home sound that you just don't hear much anymore. We arrived at Jimbo Mathus' (Squirrel Nut Zippers, Buddy Guy, Elvis Costello, Tri-State Coalition, South Memphis String Band, etc.) Delta Recording Service in Como, MS on August 11th and immediately got to work. Jimbo produced and played on the CD along with his partner Justin Showah (Afrissippi, Tri-State Coalition, etc.) and Billy Earheart (Amazing Rhythm Aces, Hank Williams, Jr.) played keyboards. We are very honored to have the opportunity to record with such talented and respected musicians and are totally psyched about the outcome. The CD has a very unique sound and raw energetic groove and we sure hope you like it.

 

 Terry Davidson, a Columbus native, is a veteran of the heartland's music scene. He has been playing Blues and Rock & Roll around the Midwest and eastern United States for over forty years. His band, The Gears, delivers electrifying performances night after night, winning over fans from New England to Florida.

 

     Terry's love for the Blues is abundantly apparent, and at the forefront of his music. Styles and influences range from raw, blistering Texas Blues, to low down traditional Chicago Blues, to scorching high-octane Blues Rock; the end result being a ferocious, rockin' Blues blend, steeped in tradition.

 

     Over the years Terry Davidson and the Gears have released six albums. The latest album, Damnation Blues, was released to rave reviews, and has been receiving media coverage on many regional and national radio and television programs. This includes the song "Rat Rod" being featured on ESPN2's NASCAR Now, and airplay throughout North America, Europe, and Australia.

 

     Terry can be found performing regularly with the Gears throughout the United States, and can occasionally be seen in solo/duo performances as well. Terry and the Gears have performed in shows with many of the world's greatest Blues and Rock & Roll artists, including Muddy Waters, Johnny Winter, Buddy Guy, and Chuck Berry.

 

NPR - Robin Rogers is a blues singer in Charlotte, N.C. Her new album, Back in the Fire, is a hit, making its debut high on Billboard's blues chart. But music hasn't been her primary focus in recent months. Rogers has a cancerous tumor in her liver, and doctors have told her she has a year to live.

 

"Every day is different," she tells NPR's Scott Simon. "If anyone's been on chemotherapy, they know how dreadful it is."

 

This fall, some friends and musicians threw a benefit concert for her. Like a lot of musicians, she has no health insurance to cover her care in a hospice. The concert was a huge outpouring of love and support.

 

Rogers' background could have come from a blues song. She was a teenage runaway who slept in abandoned cars and abused alcohol and drugs. She says she's been sober for 20 years, and that the 12-step program that helped her as an alcoholic is helping her with her new struggle.

 

"I'm trying to come at it from all angles: spiritual and physical and mental," Rogers says. "It’s a lot for a person to be told they have a year to live. I catch myself thinking about the past and looking to the future."

 

Her husband, Tony Rogers, has been caring for her. She says he's become unemployed as a result, but that his presence has been a tremendous help.

 

"I would want no one else there," she says. "He's my everything."

 

She wrote the album before her diagnosis, and several of its songs have taken on different meanings for her since, including "The Plan" and its pointed refrain, "Everything is going as planned."

 

"It's pretty much true," Rogers says of the song. "I bought a house here in the Charlotte area 20 years ago, I got a lot of friends and I'm very blessed."

 

The singer-songwriter has experienced a surreal mix of highs and lows within the past year, but she says she's moving on to the next one stronger and wiser.

 

"I've learned that time is fleeting," she says. "You need to do everything you can do while you have a chance."

 

How do you throw a 100th birthday bash for the most influential bluesman that ever lived? If you’re Big Head Todd and The Monsters, you gather some of the greatest living blues musicians and record 100 Years of Robert Johnson (February 1, 2011 - Ryko/Big Records), a stirring new tribute album featuring 10 potent interpretations of some of the most vital and durable music of the past century.

 

 

Robert Johnson
Big Head Blues Club, as the ad hoc ensemble is calling itself, features, in addition to the Colorado-based quartet—guitarist and vocalist Todd Park Mohr, bassist Rob Squires, drummer Brian Nevins and keyboardist Jeremy Lawton—special guests, blues legends B.B. King, Hubert Sumlin, Honeyboy Edwards and Charlie Musselwhite, as well as keepers of the blues flame Ruthie Foster, Cedric Burnside and Lightnin’ Malcolm.

 

 

Recorded at the legendary Ardent Studios in Memphis, and produced by Grammy award winning blues producer Chris Goldsmith (Blind Boys of Alabama), 100 Years of Robert Johnson will be released in early 2011, and supported by a national tour (“Blues at the Crossroads: The Robert Johnson Centennial Concerts”) featuring many of the participants in the sessions. A complete list of the tour dates is included below.

 

 

For Todd Park Mohr, who founded Big Head Todd and The Monsters with Squires and Nevins nearly a quarter-century ago, the project has served to re-introduce him to the iconic music of Johnson, whose songs provided many of the pioneering blues-rock bands—Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones, The Grateful Dead, Cream, Canned Heat, etc.—with some of their most popular material.

 

 

Todd Park Mohr
100 Years of Robert Johnson features several inspired takes on Johnson’s best known compositions. For Mohr and Goldsmith, the challenge in recording the tribute was to give new voice to Johnson’s music, to avoid copying the countless cover versions already extant. “In so many of the takes on Robert’s stuff, you don’t get the depth of emotion that’s in the lyrics and in Robert’s voice. That’s one thing that Chris and the band and my voice were able to bring to it. Chris had great ideas about how to represent the stuff, and all the musicians were just so good at what they did, the unique arrangements just came naturally.”

 

 

Robert Johnson’s story is the stuff of myth and legend alike, and his music has fascinated blues fans and musicians for more than seven decades. Born in Mississippi in 1911, Johnson recorded only 29 songs, all during the years 1936 and ’37. His unique guitar style and haunting vocal phrasing, and the evocative, often mysterious nature of his lyrics, made him a popular artist during his short time in the spotlight and has continued to intrigue since. A persistent tale that, as a young man, Johnson sold his soul to the Devil in order to become a more proficient musician has been attached to his biography since his untimely death at age 27—the alleged victim of a poisoning incident at the hands of the jealous husband of a woman with whom Johnson had been flirting.

 

 

A hundred years after the birth of its greatest artist, it looks like the blues itself is about to be reborn.

 

 

100 Years of Robert Johnson Track List:

 

1. Come On In My Kitchen (w. Charlie Musselwhite)
2. Ramblin' On My Mind
3. When You Got A Good Friend (w. Hubert Sumlin on guitar and Ruthie Foster)
4. Cross Road Blues (w. B.B. King)
5. Preachin' Blues
6. Kind Hearted Woman (w. Ruthie Foster)
7. If I Had Possession Over Judgement Day
8. Last Fair Deal Gone Done (w. Charlie Musselwhite)
9. All My Love Is Love In Vain (Todd solo vocal and acoustic guitar)
10. Sweet Home Chicago (just Honeyboy and Musselwhite)

 

 

Cedric Burnside plays drums on “If I Had Possession Over Judgement Day” and “Preachin Blues,” and acoustic guitar on “Ramblin On My Mind”

 

 

Lightin’ Malcolm plays electric guitar on “Ramblin on my Mind,” “Gotta Good Friend,” and “If I Had Possession Over Judgement Day” and plays acoustic guitar on “Preachin Blues” and “Kind Hearted Woman”

 

BLUES AT THE CROSSROADS: THE ROBERT JOHNSON CENTENNIAL CONCERTS tour featuring Big Head Todd and The Monsters and special guests David “Honeyboy” Edwards, Hubert Sumlin and Cedric Burnside & Lightnin’ Malcolm is as follows:

 

Jan. 28 San Francisco, CA Regency Ballroom 

Jan. 29 Costa Mesa, CA Orange County Performing Arts Center 

Jan. 30 San Diego, CA (2 shows) Anthology 

Jan. 31 Santa Barbara, CA Campbell Hall / UCSB 

Feb. 04 Austin, TX Paramount Theatre 

Feb. 05 Dallas, TX Lakewood Theatre 

Feb. 10 Ann Arbor, MI Hill Auditorium / U of M 

Feb. 11 Chicago, IL Orchestra Hall 

Feb. 12 Kansas City, MO Uptown Theatre 

Feb. 13 Meridian, MS Riley Center / MSU

Feb. 16 Chapel Hill, NC Memorial Hall / UNC Chapel Hill

Feb. 17 New Bethesda, MD The Music Center at Strathmore 

Feb. 18 Boston, MA Berklee School of Music 

Feb. 24 Ridgefield, CT Ridgefield Playhouse 

Feb. 25 Princeton, NJ McCarter Theatre 

Feb. 26 Blue Bell, PA Montgomery County Community College 

Feb. 27 New Bedford, MA Zeiterion Theater 

March 4 Milwaukee, WI Potowatomi Casino 

March 5 Omaha, NE Holland Performing Arts Center 

March 6 Minneapolis, MN Orchestra Hall 

March 8 Urbana, IL Krannert Center – Tyrone Festival Theatre

 

NPR - A hundred years ago, a collection of folk music forever re-tuned the American songbook. Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads by John A. Lomax introduced the country to the music of the American West, and helped propel the cowboy to iconic status. But a close examination of early cowboy music reveals details about some of the very first cowboys that don't fit the usual stereotypes.

 

In the 1940s, a radio show made for the Library of Congress recorded Lomax talking about his earliest memories of cowboys. The pioneer folklorist had seen firsthand the great trail drives after the Civil War.

 

"I couldn't have been more than 4 years old when I first heard a cowboy yodel and sing to his cattle. I was sleeping in my father's cabin in Texas," Lomax said. "As the cowboys drove the cattle along, they sang, called and yodeled to them. ... They made up songs about trail life."

 

But just who were these cowboys that Lomax saw? Where did they come from? These questions intrigue Mike Searles, a professor of history at Augusta State University in Georgia.

 

"There's a popular notion that when you're talking about the cowboy, you're exclusively talking about white cowboys, which of course is not true," Searles says. "Black men were involved in being cowboys very early in the history of our country."

 

No one is sure how many African-Americans worked as cowboys in the trail drives, but estimates run as high as 1 in 4.

 

"In southeast Texas, you had a large number of blacks who were slaves and had been doing cow work. When freedom comes, it would be just as natural for them to begin to do that work," Searles says, adding that there was demand for cowboys. "They gained a degree of respect and independence."

 

The trail drives were a unique moment in history that brought together a diverse lot of men, including freed slaves and confederate war veterans. And, while some cowboy crews were segregated, photographs of others show black and white men working side by side in what Searles calls "range equality."

 

"In that environment, you want to have pretty good relations," he says. "Because that person could elect to help you or not help you in a dangerous situation."

 

By the early 1900s, America was changing. People were moving to cities, and John Lomax decided he was in a race against time to preserve the voices of these early cowboys. Back then, it was radical to think that the creative contributions of common working people had value. Regardless, he starting sending out queries to newspapers, wrote hundreds of letters and lectured far and wide, asking people to contribute in his quest to collect cowboy songs. He occasionally visited cowboy haunts.

 

"In 1909, I went to the Cattlemen's Convention in Fort Worth, Texas," Lomax said in the 1940s. "One night, I found myself in the backroom of the White Elephant Saloon. I carried with me a small Edison recording machine that used wax cylinders. Instead of a microphone, I used a big horn, which the cowboys usually refused to sing into."

 

Don Edwards, a respected traditional cowboy singer, got his start at the same White Elephant in Fort Worth.

 

"You know, he had a lot of moxie to come in," Edwards says. "Bunch of cowboys and, you know, 'Sing!' Couldn't you just imagine that? They're all sittin' here drinkin' and talkin', and when he'd come in, plop that thing on the table, they'd scatter."

 

Edwards plays many of the songs first popularized by Lomax in his cowboy song collection. The first edition of Lomax's book contained 112 songs and a forward by Theodore Roosevelt. In his notes, Lomax credits the spirit of the ancient Anglo-Saxon ballad for informing the cowboy song. But when Edwards hears some of these songs, he says it's not ballads he's hearing.

 

"You take a song like, 'I'm a poor lonesome cowboy, I'm a poor lonesome cowboy, I'm a poor lonesome cowboy, I'm a long long way from my home.' Is that a blues form? It's the earliest blues form there is -- three lines and a tag line," Edwards says.

 

Edwards traces this blues connection to a place where cultures mixed.

 

"If you go down to deep south Texas where this music was really born, on that coastal bend down there, you had white cowboys, black cowboys and Mexican vaqueros -- who were very musical people," Edwards says. "And so the white guys learned a lot of that stuff, and that's why a lot of that stuff sounded like the blues."

 

Roger Renwick, a ballad scholar from the University of Texas who has written extensively on the connection between old-world and new-world ballads, agrees.

 

"Especially in the case of songs which are more elliptical," Renwick says. "They don't tell a story as the European ballads tend to do. They don't tend to be as detailed -- who, what, where, when."

 

Renwick says that while many cowboy songs are derived from British folk songs, some take a different direction.

 

"Indeed, some scholars have called this a distinct African-American genre of the blues ballad, because it synthesizes the more emotional blues approach," Renwick says. "And we suddenly see some influence like that on some of the cowboy songs."

 

Lomax did credit some songs as coming from African-American cowboys -- notably the famous "Goodbye Old Paint" -- although he never recorded a black man playing it.

 

"When you first listen to the song," Lomax says, "the lyrics -- you think it doesn't make any sense. And then, before you know it, you're seeing this wonderful movie in your mind of visions, and you can feel it."

 

Franklin Willis is the great grandson of Charley Willis, a former slave who rode the Wyoming trail during the 1870s.

 

"He had a knack for singing. He had a gift, if you will," Franklin says. "His voice was real soothing to the cattle, and this is why they wanted him to participate in these big cattle drives, because he would sing to them and just make them relax.

 

Willis heard these stories passed down by his family. But there are no recordings of his great-grandfather, or even of his father, who was also a singing cowboy. Lomax's old recordings pay homage to the larger experience of those early cowboys working out in the heat and cold for a dollar a day. Out of that hard reality was born the iconic cowboy. That's why, for Augusta State University's Mike Searles, the face and music of the West need to be represented accurately.

 

"Many people see the West as the birthplace of America," he says. "If they only see it as the birthplace of white America, it means basically that all other people are interlopers -- they're not part of the core of what makes an American. But if they understand that African-Americans were cowboys, even Native Americans were cowboys, Mexicans were cowboys, that it really opens the door for us to think about America as a multiethnic, multiracial place. Not just in the last decade or century, but from the very beginning."

 

Next week the Blues Foundation will annouce its Blues Music Award nominees.  The time period for CDs being considered is Nov 1st, 2009 thru October 31, 2010.

 

The above list compiled by our friends at Radio Submit (the experts on radio play) were kind enough to summarize and rank the CDs getting the most airplay during the time period being considered for a BMA nomination.

 

Enjoy!

The Mahindra Group today announced the launch of the first season of the Mahindra Blues Festival.  The festival, a first in India, will bring international Blues superstars like Buddy Guy, Jonny Lang, Shemekia Copeland, and Matt Schofield to Mumbai. The festival will also feature home grown talent like Soulmate from Shillong, Saturday Night Blues band from Kolkata and The Luke Kenny Mojo Jukebox. The two-day weekend festival will be held on February 5-6, 2011 at the Mehboob Studio, Mumbai. As a prelude to the festival, promotional gigs will be held at Blue Frog, Mumbai, with prominent Indian Blues bands.

 

Speaking at the Corporate Headquarters of Mahindra Group, Mr. Anand Mahindra, Vice Chairman and Managing Director, Mahindra Group, said, “The Blues, an American art form, ironically doesn’t get as much attention as it deserves in the country of its origin, and indeed, around the world. We would like the Mahindra Blues Festival to give this genre of music an overseas platform in the way that Montreux has done for Jazz”.

 

The Mahindra Blues Festival will play out at the iconic and retro Mehboob studio on February 5th and 6th, 2011. The studio will be designed specifically to create a Blues-like atmosphere, with three separate stages for multiple concerts and sessions with the artistes.

 

The build-up to the festival will see renowned Indian Blues bands like The Beet Root Blues Band featuring Pratish Motwani & Milind Deora on December 21, 2010 and The Luke Kenny Mojo Jukebox on January 11, 2011 both at Blue Frog.

 

Buddy Guy, a five-time Grammy winner, is the definitive Blues artiste and has been a key influence on popular rock and Blues artistes like Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan.  Jonny Lang, the Grammy winning, former prodigy instrumentalist, topped the Billboard New Artist chart with his first album at age 15, and stands now as a mature creative force having created five beautiful chart-topping albums.  Shemekia Copeland is already a force to be reckoned with in the Blues. She’s shared the stage with such luminaries as Buddy Guy, B.B. King, Taj Mahal and John Mayer. Heir to the rich tradition of soul-drenched divas like Ruth Brown, Etta James and Koko Taylor, Copeland’s shot at the eventual title of Queen of the Blues is pretty clear. By some standards, she may already be there. Matt Schofield's prowess as a Blues guitarist has taken his band to twelve countries; seen him playing with iconic guitarists like Robben Ford; and brought him high praise in the Penguin Book of Blues Recordings as one of only two living British artists in recording history to gain a maximum four-star rating.

 

The Mahindra Group has had a long history of giving back to the communities it operates in. In addition to a wide array of CSR programs, the Group has been consistently supporting programs in Arts and Culture. The Mahindra Excellence in Theatre Awards (META) celebrated its fifth anniversary this year. META showcases and honours indigenous talent from remote areas of India in New Delhi each year.

 

The Mahindra Blues Festival is an International Festival and commences at a time when the Mahindra Group is becoming increasingly global.  The choice of Mumbai as the venue for the festival is fitting as not only is it where the Mahindra Group is headquartered, but also because it’s a truly international city. The festival promises to make an instant connect with the citizens of Mumbai – who experience exaggerated amounts of struggle, strife and success and take all this on with a smile on their face and a song on their lips!

 

The tickets to the Mahindra Blues Festival will be available shortly at www.bookmyshow.com, Rhythm House and there is also a home delivery service  (39895050). More information regarding the festival is available on www.mahindrablues.com/. This festival is organized by Oranjuice Entertaiment.

 

TUNICA, Miss. (AP) - The second phase of a blues museum project will begin within two weeks when a train depot built in the 1800s is moved about 13 miles from Dundee to Tunica.

 

The depot will be moved to the site of the Tunica Convention and Visitors Center on U.S. 61, and construction is slated to begin in the spring or early summer on the $2 million Gateway to the Blues Visitor Center and Museum, according to the Commercial Appeal.

 

The rustic depot will become the new visitor center and entrance to the blues museum, and is part of Tunica's effort to give visitors a sense that they are in the birthplace of the blues.

 

"The culture and heritage of the Delta is something we need to be marketing," said Webster Franklin, president and CEO of the Tunica Convention and Visitors Bureau.

 

"The role the blues have played in American music has been significant, and we are transforming our visitor center and opening the museum to appeal to blues enthusiasts by giving them an authentic experience when they visit the area," said Franklin.

 

The first phase of the project, which is now complete, was preparing the site.

 

The 1,250-square-foot Illinois Central Railroad train depot was donated by Son and Janet Hood of Dundee, Franklin said.

 

The train depot will house the visitor center and the museum gift shop. From the depot, visitors can head to the 4,000-square-foot blues museum that will be built behind the depot.

 

Franklin said planning for the new visitor center and blues museum began two years ago when he asked Harrah's Casino for its $350,000 blues collection.

 

"When Harrah's purchased the Horseshoe and remodeled, they took out their blues and legend hall of fame museum," Franklin said. "I approached them and asked them to work with me to develop a plan to keep these artifacts intact in Tunica County, and the blues museum idea was born."

 

Grant funds totaling $1.9 million from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Mississippi Department of Transportation will pay for the Gateway to the Blues project.

 

The Tunica County Board of Supervisors and the visitors bureau are also helping to fund the project, Franklin said.

 

Scott Blake, a museum designer-master planner with Design 500 in Memphis, has been hired to design all phases of the project.

 

Blake said the porch of the train depot will be used as a stage for blues concerts.

 

The museum and visitor center are slated to open in the fall of 2011.

 

The International House of Blues Foundation-Boston Blues SchoolHouse is back in session through May with programs taking place on select weekday mornings at House of Blues-Boston (15 Lansdowne St., Boston).

 

IHOBF’s Blues SchoolHouse transforms the House of Blues venue into a multimedia classroom where fifth- to 12th-grade students and their teachers explore aspects of American history and culture through blues music, blues-inspired music and traditions of related folk art.

 

Program components include:

 

· A live musical presentation tracing the history of blues music from its roots in African musical traditions through its emergence and evolution as a unique American musical form and its influence on other contemporary music forms;

 

· A visual arts workshop featuring an art tour/presentation of works from the House of Blues art collection and a related hands-on art activity;

 

· A 120-page classroom guide provided in a CD format;

 

· Teacher workshops that support participants in preparing for the program.

 

Teachers select either the musical presentation or the visual arts workshop for their students. Each component is approximately two hours in length and offered on select weekday mornings from October through May.

 

The Blues SchoolHouse program is also available for adult groups. Blues SchoolHouse Programming is offered at no cost to student and teacher groups from the Boston Public Schools and for a fee to others.

 

For further information, contact IHOBF-Boston Program Manager Jenny Nardone via e-mail at ihobfboston@livenation.com, by phone at 617-960-8380 or visit the programming area of the IHOBF website at www.ihobf.org/.

 

Live musical performance/presentation dates are 10-11:30 a.m. on Dec. 7, 14; Feb. 1, 8, 15; March 1, 22, 29; April 5, 12; May 3, 10, 17, 24, 31.

 

Include your band or business in the celebration of our 10,000th Friend on our Facebook site: Blues Festival Guide

 

In just under one year, we have almost reached 10,000 friends and we want to celebrate by giving that lucky person that signs up as #10,000 a goody bag full of blues-related gifts.

 

We are going to continue this Promotion for six months including asking blues-related trivia questions and awarding the winner a prize.

 

Steph Bravo is our Social Network Editor. She will be letting all 10,000 blues friends about you and your product. Free advertising for you!

 

Steph will make an exciting display/promo on our Facebook announcing the winner and repost it often so it remains on top so that your brand is seen again and again.

 

To participate, please send up to six units (CD, t-shirt, poster etc.) to:

 

RBA Publishing Inc/Blues Festival Guide
P.O. Box 5065
Reno, NV 89513

 

Shipping:
3020 Markridge Drive
Reno, NV 89509

 

Also, please send your logo to Stephanie DJStephB@aol.com as a jpeg attachment and let her know what you are shipping so she can match up your logo with your product.

 

---

HATTIESBURG, MS (WDAM) - The Shed BBQ & Blues Joint in downtown Hattiesburg is holding a toy drive raffle to benefit the South Mississippi Children's Center.

 

The center provides emergency shelter for children 9 to 17 years of age who have been abused or neglected and also homeless and runaway children.

 

The drive began Monday and will continue through Thursday, December 23.

 

Anyone who donates a toy or at least a dollar at the restaurant will be entered in a raffle with the winner getting a 14 pound Shed smoked turkey, cornbread dressing, and a gift basket full of Shed gear.

 

Donated items should not be wrapped, in sanitary condition, and in good working order.

 

Besides toys, the center's wish list includes socks, underwear, clothes, shoes, light colored towels and gift cards to local stores.

The Shed is located at 126 Mobile Street. For information on the drive contact Abby at 601-408-9038.

 

The University of Arkansas - Fort Smith now has a donated collection of more than 1,700 blues CDs catalogued and ready for student and community use. 

 

Wilma Cunningham of Fort Smith, director of Boreham Library, said the collection had originally belonged to the late Jim McCormick, also known as “Chef Eddy” on Fort Smith radio. McCormick worked for KLSZ Radio and played blues music, often giving information about the artists and their music. 

 

Cunningham said the collection was given to UA Fort Smith by McCormick’s family and that the collection was so extensive that it took the library staff two or three months to catalog it and get it ready for shelving. 

 

“I’m so pleased that the gift will allow us to share the many blues titles and artists with our students, faculty, staff and community users of our library,” she said. “It’s a wonderful donation. I think Jim would be pleased to know that others will be listening to his collection for many years to come.” 

 

Cunningham said having this collection will mean that UA Fort Smith has one of the best blues collections in the South. Dr. Henry Rinne of Fort Smith, dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, also applauded the collection. 

 

“As a university, our library should become an archive for special collections, such as Chef Eddy’s blues CDs,” said Rinne. “It will provide countless research opportunities for our students and faculty as well as becoming known throughout the country as a repository for blues music.” 

 

Rinne said having a major blues festival in Fort Smith combined with “a very strong” music program at UA Fort Smith makes the university a natural fit for housing the collection. 

 

Dr. Keith Fudge of Van Buren, associate professor of English, cited the importance of the donation. 

 

“Any time an entire collection can be preserved it opens up so many possibilities for study of what was produced during a particular era, or in this case, within a specific genre,” said Fudge. 

 

He said the gift also represents a tremendous opportunity for UA Fort Smith to further its efforts in a cultural studies direction and gives students and regional scholars the chance to find resources that they may use in their research.

  

“The collection also holds significant value in our efforts in the promotion of undergraduate research, and we are fortunate that the family thought of us,” said Fudge. 

 

Fudge went on to add that Rinne contacted him right away when the donation possibility came up because Rinne knew of Fudge’s interest in blues music. 

 

“I attended grad school at the University of Mississippi, where there is a significant blues archive, including the collection of B.B. King,” said Fudge. “I had also worked with the Center for the Study of Southern Culture on some other projects, so Dr. Rinne knew that I would have an interest in this collection.” 

 

Fudge added that the range of artists within the collection is “tremendous” and even includes some promo CDs from artists. Fudge believes this could turn out to be even more valuable. 

 

“Promos or demo recordings are significant because there aren’t a lot of them produced, so if you have a demo of an artist who then goes on to make a significant name in his or her field, you have a pretty valuable piece of history,” said Fudge. 

 

The CDs cover the music of legendary performers, including Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, John Lee Hooker and Bessie Smith, as well as modern performers such as Keb Mo, Robert Cray, R.L. Burnside, Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks. The time period for the recordings ranges from the 1930s to present day. 

 

The CDs will be housed in the audiovisual collection at Boreham Library and are available for checkout. 

 

McCormick, who died in 2007, had amassed the collection over his entire life, according to Dan and Paula Udouj. Paula is McCormick’s sister. 

 

“As the family of the late Jim ‘Chef Eddy’ McCormick, we feel honored with the opportunity to donate a small piece of his legacy to the UA Fort Smith library,” said Paula Udouj. “Jim loved the community, and the community loved Jim.” 

 

The family believes that Boreham Library was the “obvious choice” in making a decision on a place to preserve McCormick’s music collection. 

 

“Jim attended the school when it was simply known as a community college,” said Paula. “He received a degree from the school and once presented a blues enrichment series on campus.” 

 

The family called Jim “an encyclopedia of blues music.” 

 

“Utilizing the library will allow us to continue doing what Jim desired deeply — to educate and promote blues music in the local community,” Paula said. 

 

In addition to the CDs, the gift also included posters, photographs and books, which Cunningham said would be displayed at a later time.

 

The 2011 International Blues Challenge will be the 27th year of Blues musicians from around the world competing for cash, prizes, and industry recognition.

 

The Blues Foundation will present the 27th International Blues Challenge February 1-5, 2011 in Memphis, TN. The world's largest gathering of Blues acts represents an international search by The Blues Foundation and its Affiliated Organizations for the Blues Band and Solo/Duo Blues Act ready to take their act to the international stage.

 

In 2010, 110 bands and 80 solo/duo acts entered, filling the clubs up and down Beale Street for the semi-finals on Thursday and Friday and the finals at the Orpheum Theater on Saturday. We will have at least that many in 2011.

 

The 27th year of the International Blues Challenge will once again include a youth showcase for those under the age of 21. Smokin' Bluz of Charlotte, NC has signed on again as the Presenting Sponsor. The 27^th IBC will include an afternoon (Friday, February 4, 2011) of talented young people showcasing their talents for record labels, media, festivals, managers, talent buyers and the fans.

 

The week of events will once again kick off Tuesday night with a Meet & Greet hosted by the Beale Street Merchants Association at the New Daisy Theater, followed by the FedEx International Showcase. In addition to the evening Blues competition, the days are filled with seminars and workshops and topped off in a moving Saturday morning brunch in which the Blues community will honor its own with the prestigious Keeping the Blues Alive (KBA) awards that honor the men and women, who have made significant contributions to the Blues music world, in 20 categories such as journalism, literature and photography and to the best clubs and festivals, as well as managers, promoters and producers.

 

Media Sponsors include Beale Street Caravan, Big City Rhythm and Blues, Blues Festival Guide, Blues Revue, Downtowner, House of Blues Radio Hour, Living Blues, Memphis Flyer, Memphis Music Magazine and WREG-TV.

 

The 27th International Blues Challenge is sponsored by ArtsMemphis, bandVillage, Beale Street Merchants Association, Budweiser and its local distributor, D.Canale Beverages, FedEx, Gibson, Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise, Memphis Convention and Visitors Bureau, Smokin' Bluz, T. Clifton Art, Tennessee Arts Commission, and the Tennessee Film, Entertainment and Music Commission.

 

The list of current blues artists that have competed in the IBC over the years is impressive indeed: Slick Ballinger, Barbara Blue, Fiona Boyes, Eden Brent, Keith Brown, Michael Burks, Sean Carney, Albert Castiglia, Tommy Castro, the late Sean Costello, Albert Cummings, Delta Moon, Larry Garner, Joey Gilmore, Diunna Greenleaf, Zac Harmon, Homemade Jamz Blues Band, Richard Johnston, Joe Moss, Jason Ricci, Robin Rogers, Matthew Skoller, Super Chikan, Patrick Sweany, Susan Tedeschi, Teeny Tucker, Watermelon Slim, the late John Weston and Michelle Wilson.

 

Email joe@blues.org if you have any questions.

 

 

Early-Bird Advertising Special!

 

Order and pay for your ad before January 15, 2011 and receive a 15% discount! (Ad/artwork isn't due until end of March).

 

 Featured Festival Section
      Full Page    $1,390    you pay $1,180    you save $210
      Half Page   $725    you pay $615    you save $110

 

  General Magazine
      Full Page   $1,735   you pay $1,475    you save $260
      Half Page   $875    you pay $745    you save $130
      1/3 Page   $640    you pay $545    you save $95
      1/4 Page    $520    you pay $440    you save $80
      1/6 Page   $360    you pay $305    you save $55
      1/8 Page   $290    you pay $245   you save $45

 

      Color add $375 for full-1/2 page ads   $375   

      you pay $320  save  $55
      Color add $225 for 1/3-1/8 page ads   $225   

      you pay $190   save $35

 

Don't miss out on a once-a-year marketing opportunity to reach blues fans around the world. Order your ad in the 9th annual BLUES FESTIVAL GUIDE magazine today.

 

100,000 copies distributed free throughout U.S. And Canada in April 2011!

Plus thousands of more blues fans will see your ad in the digital edition.

 

Contact us today:
775-337-8626
advertising@bluesfestivalguide.com

 

P. S. Festival Promoters, post your festival for free by going to
www.BluesFestivalGuide.com and click on Submit Festival and fill in the fields. Easy and free. Our site gets over a million hits per month and will drive traffic to your site.

 

ALLIGATOR TO KICK OFF 40th ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION WITH RELEASES FROM ROOMFUL OF BLUES AND SHEMEKIA COPELAND ON JANUARY 18

 

WILL FOLLOW WITH SLEW OF SPECIAL CD AND VINYL RELEASES ON FEBRUARY 22

On February 22 Alligator opens the vaults for the release of some very special items. A 2-CD set, The Alligator Records 40th Anniversary Collection brings together some of the greatest musical moments from Alligator's unparalled history, newly remastered by label founder Bruce Iglauer. Iglauer also remastered Showdown!, the Grammy-winning collaboration between Albert Collins, Johnny Clyde Copeland and Robert Cray. The release, coming on CD and on vinyl,  features the bonus track Something To Remember You By.

 

 

Straight out of San Diego, the world has a new soul diva, Missy Andersen. She will hunker in the bunker with Elwood, and spin some tunes from her self-titled debut CD. Also: Etta James for you, Aretha Franklin, Candye Kane, Freddie King, and new music from blues singer Sugaray. Bring your vote for the top ten CDs of 2010. One of you will win all ten.

 

In celebration of the release of the Crossroads Guitar Festival 2010 DVD, Rhino Records, Fender, and TheBluesMobile.com are giving away a brand new black sunburst Stratocaster guitar. Register now - the contest ends 12/31

 

 For a list of stations where you can find House of Blues Radio

 

RBA Publishing Inc is based in Reno, NV with a satellite office in Beverly Hills, Florida. We produce the annual Blues Festival Guide magazine (now in its 7th year), the top-ranking website: www.BluesFestivalGuide.com, and this weekly blues newsletter: The Blues Festival E-Guide with approximately 20,000 weekly subscribers. We look forward to your suggestions, critiques, questions, etc.

Reach the E-Guide editor, Gordon Bulcock, gordon@bluesfestivalguide.com

or contact our home office at 775-337-8626, eguide@bluesfestivalguide.com
 

back to top