For this special, budget-priced collection, Popa Chubby hand-picked sixteen of the hottest fan favorites from his ten Blind Pig releases over the past decade.    This electrifying selection showcases not only his hard-charging fire and brimstone, but also Popa's engaging storytelling, versatility and distinctive fusing of differing genres and styles such as old school R&B, rap, funk, outlaw country, melodic rock, and blues. 

Popa Chubby first come to prominence with his breakout early 90's hit "Sweet Goddess of Love and Beer" from the Tom Dowd produced Booty And The Beast album.  Since then the prolific guitarist and songwriter has released ten CDs and a live performance DVD for Blind Pig.

Popa's highly creative fusion of rock 'n' roll with traditional blues and R&B styles led Billboard to say, "If Muddy Waters was a modern blues artist, then Popa Chubby is a post-modern bluesman."  And the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette summed it up well with the comment, "Popa Chubby is a blues rocker whose take-no-prisoners blues rock screams with the defiance of the best scorched-earth rock 'n' roll filtered through his bluesy id." 

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Michael John Ahern (MJ) is a West Coast singer/songwriter/guitarist who Ben Fong-Torres, former senior editor and writer for Rolling Stone described as "a walking, talking, singing, picking, shredding embodiment of Americana in every sense of those words". With an unmistakable style, MJ offers an exceptional voice that is silky smooth and rooted in Americana, Blues and Rock. His music has been described as "pure", "down-to-earth" and "real". MJ is an Emmy nominated Northern California ASCAP songwriter and musical producer whose original songs continue to be heard around the world on country and Americana radio.

 

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The Blues Foundation is only 187 members away from hitting our 2010 goal of 4000 current members.  If each person whose membership expired in the past two months would renew, we would pass our goal.  If each person whose membership expired over the past year would renew, we would well pass the 5000 member mark!

 

You can watch the progress of our efforts on the thermometer on our website.  With your support, we can make the mercury explode out of the top of that thermometer by year’s end!!!

 

Please help The Blues Foundation reach our goal by the end of the year by renewing your membership today.   We appreciate your support at any membership level…remember, memberships begin at the very low cost of $25 and are tax-deductible to the fullest extent of the law!

 

Hope you have a safe and happy Holiday Season!

 

Your friends at The Blues Foundation

 

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Scientists have suggested that spending five minutes a day listening to birdsong may help beat the winter blues.

 

The National Trust has compiled recordings of birdsong to remind those fed up with the cold and dark that spring is around the corner. Naturalists also believe it may have health benefits.

 

 

Peter Brash, an ecologist at the National Trust, said birdsong "gives a warm glow" and could be "beneficial to our well-being, reports the Telegraph.

 

Less birdsong is heard in winter as most birds are more interested in finding food. But some, such as the bad-tempered robin, are still belting out songs to protect territory

 

Today's winter solstice is the shortest day of the year and, combined with the ongoing weather misery, many people will be suffering from pre-Christmas gloom.

 

Rhythm of life: John Bowker with a selection of his African drums at his home in Co Clare.Photograph: Eamon Ward 

 

It sounds hippy-dippy, but joining a drum circle is a great way to release tension – and learn a thing or two about African rhythms, writes FIONOLA MEREDITH

 

IT DOESN’T GET any more elemental than this: sitting in a circle of people and beating out a complex web of rhythms on a simple African hand drum. Cynics may scoff at the peace-and-love hippy vibe, but drumming aficionados know better. It’s no coincidence that drum circles are soaring in popularity, with sessions springing up in Dublin, Wicklow, Galway, Limerick and Belfast.

 

Drumming allows people to shrug off what leading Irish drum circle facilitator John Bowker calls “the grey of the modern world”, reconnect with the sparkle of life, and lose themselves in a surprisingly powerful communal experience. As Mickey Hart, drummer with The Grateful Dead, points out, the drum circle gets people “in tune with each other and themselves”.

 

A former rock musician, Bowker looks every inch the tribal shaman, flowing grey locks and all. He’s fizzing with passion about the healing power of the drum (“the perfect tool for non-verbal communication”) and its ability to bring people together. “I’m into wildness,” he says. “Chaos can happen at any minute – it’s all about taking a risk.”

 

It’s easy to see how Bowker can get otherwise reserved people to cast off their inhibitions, crying, laughing and generally unleashing their inner creative spirit.

 

Bowker was one of the first people to introduce the African hand drum to Ireland when he arrived in 1990. “I was an economic refugee from Thatcher’s Britain, and I moved to the countryside near Ennis in Co Clare with my then two-year-old daughter. I had been a singer and guitarist in a rock band, but I was disillusioned with the music industry. I was interested in the mystical side of the music, but that had disappeared – it had all gone corporate. When I came to Ireland, I started doing a few drum workshops at my daughter’s school, and the whole thing just snowballed from there.”

 

Together with his team at Tribal Spirit Drumming, Bowker travels all over Ireland facilitating workshops and drumming events. “The supermarket/motorway/TV culture can easily make us think there is no magic in the world,” says Bowker. “But drumming gives us access to that magic again. Traditional indigenous cultures across the planet know that music is a major tool in keeping people healthy, nudging them from a mundane to a magical setting.”

 

“Nudge” is one of Bowker’s favourite words, and you can see why: it sums up his persuasive yet non-authoritarian style. A drumming session usually starts with participants trying out a few West African rhythms, perhaps from Senegal, Gambia or Ghana, before choosing one to take forward and explore. Why especially West African drumming patterns? Apparently they have the best ones, the sort with a “particularly earthy weave”, according to Bowker.

 

“The rhythms are like maps that we follow. Some are really powerful celebration rhythms – they’re easy, accessible, exciting. Others are healing, or meditative, or calming.”

 

Once a rhythm has been chosen, the group is encouraged to “take it to the max”. The resulting experience is cacophonous and exhilarating.

 

“Almost everyone has great innate understanding of rhythm,” says Bowker. “But one woman, who was physically challenged, couldn’t hit the drum on time. So we gave her permission to drum out of time. She walloped those drums, she really gave it some welly, and we all felt the joy. It doesn’t have to be perfect.”

 

And neither is performance the point; the drum circle is an end in itself. “It’s about making music in a setting: the village making music for the village.”

 

Yet just because a drum circle is inherently democratic, open to all, doesn’t mean that it’s dumbed down.

 

“A drum circle can be just as powerful as a rock band, but it can also be very sophisticated,” says Bowker. “Sometimes a rhythm is so complicated that it can be very hard to hear the pulse. I’ve had experienced musicians come to sessions and get completely lost. Some rhythms start on the beat, some on the third beat, some on the quarter beat. It’s quite mind-bending.”

 

Anet Moore, from Galway, says she was hooked after one session with John 12 years ago. “Really it’s about empowering people. The focus is not just on the drumming – it’s on community, too, and ecological issues, and celebrating the Celtic calendar using traditions from all over the world. The music ties us all together and strengthens the community: it’s a way of navigating this wonky world we live in.”

 

Drumming is very much a female-led phenomenon: Bowker estimates 70 to 80 per cent of participants are women. In fact, some drumming circles are female-only groups, such as Chidambaram in Belfast. Nora Greer has been a member since its inception in 1998. “The name comes from a Sanskrit word, which literally means ‘the cave of the heart’,” says Greer. It refers to the first sound a foetus hears in the womb. “In the beginning, I couldn’t imagine that you could make tunes with the drums,” says Greer. “But you do hear the notes in your head; sometimes, you could almost hum the tune.”

 

Chidambaram recently led drumming workshops with female refugees and asylum seekers, and Greer says that it was a powerful way to connect with the women. “Drumming is an international language – it crosses all boundaries.”

 

 

 

 

 

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.

 

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A group of doctors known as The Attendings recorded a CD titled “Another Christmas on Call.” One hundred percent of proceeds from the CD sales will be directed to the American Cancer Society, which will in turn fund cancer treatment and research for a cure, said Misti Welch, American Cancer Society community manager of development.

 

“It makes such a difference to our organization through the proceeds,” Welch said.

 

The CD is the second of its kind. In 2004, The Attendings recorded their first CD, “Holiday Blues in Green,” resulting in a donation for more than $30,000 for the American Cancer Society.

 

“We thought it was time to do another CD,” said Dr. Richard Rosen, a surgeon who plays guitar on the CD.

 

He’s joined by Dr. Lowry Schaub, an anesthesiologist on guitar, Dr. Tom Windisch, a neuroradiologist also on guitar, Dr. Brad Snodgrass, a specialist of internal medicine on drums, and Dr. Jeff Paxton, a sports medicine specialist on bass.

 

The CD is all instrumental, except for “We Wish You a Merry Christmas,” and features a variety of musical styles.

 

“There’s classical, there’s jazz, there’s blues,” Rosen said.

 

The CD includes renditions of “What Child is This?” “Canon in D,” “Surf Christmas” and “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch.”

 

Rosen said the doctors didn’t set out to start a fundraiser. They created the first CD for fun, but weren’t sure what to do with it.

 

They decided to sell them and donate the proceeds.

 

“They’re a group of doctors, so cancer has affected them all in some way,” Welch said.

 

A MUSIC festival will still take place in Burnley next Easter — whether or not the town’s famed blues spectacular is staged.

 

Landlords of at least three regular ‘fringe’ venues are planning to promote bands over the traditional blues festival weekend.

 

And town hall bosses have not ruled out staging a showpiece event at Burnley Mechanics, if the right act can be found.

 

Question marks have been raised over the 20-year-old festival’s future, amid on-going sponsorship and funding difficulties.

 

But the likes of The Talbot, The Bridge Inn and the Coaches Horses are pressing ahead with the ‘fringe’ gathering.

 

Marco Bell, a part-ner at The Talbot, in Church Street, said: “It would be a shame to let this die off after all this time.

 

“We are definitely all agreed that we are going to put bands on over the Easter weekend, even if we have to fund it ourselves.

 

“If it is going to be down the blues route, that remains to be seen, but there will be a music festival.”

 

Council bosses have said they will work with the ven-ues to promote the fringe festival, from Good Friday to Bank Holiday Monday.

 

Coun Charlie Bullas, leisure cabinet member, said: “I am really pleased to see that local venues still wish to continue with the Fringe Festival and the council will support them to make sure that it is a success.

 

“If the right act can be found, the Mechanics' Theatre will also play its part in the 2011 Burnley Blues Festival.”

 

Council sources said either a top British act or a visiting American act would be considered.

 

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.

 

 

Don’t miss this great show!

 

The ball will feature our local Blues Challenge winners: Josh Vowell & the Rumble (band) and Cleveland Blue (solo/duo). The ball has become the official “send off” to Memphis for the International Blues Challenge.

 

Headlining the ball will be Delta Groove recording artists The Insomniacs.

 

    

 

 

It is Christmas again. Time to take the elves from the shelves and play some blues. Elwood has unwrapped some goodies for us, from Gregg Allman, George Thorogood, Graham Parker (with Nona Hendryxx), Bonnie Raitt and Charles Brown, Keb Mo, Saffire, Chuck Berry, John Lee Hooker, BB King, Clarence Carter, and Eric Clapton. Plus, great new gospel music from Mavis Staples, produced by Jeff Tweedy of Wilco. Time is running out for one of you to win a Fender Stratocaster guitar. December 31st, midnight, is the deadline – enter here. And that’s how much time you have to vote for your top ten CDs of 2010. One lucky listener will get copies of all ten.

 

 

 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
 

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