After five tours of the UK and Europe, two releases vying for Grammy nominations, four albums and hundreds of sold out shows, The Hitman Blues Band is releasing what they feel is their most exciting album yet, Blues Enough.

Beginning with the title track, the CD jumps right into the heat with call and response action: “Is it blues enough for ya?” Followed by a tribute to the late, great Sam “The Bluzman” Taylor, the beat stays happy with beer soaked advice to go “Fishing Where The Fish Are.” The double entendre “Backhand Drive” gives way to the raw emotion of “Every Piece Of Me,” a real crowd favorite. The flat tire shuffle of “Everything You Do” picks up the smiles again, followed by “Streets Of Downtown,” a visit with street people familiar to far too many of us. The swing influenced “Life’s Too Short” gets your blood pumping, then the band declares a change of attitude: from now on, they’ll hang out with a “Better Class Of Bums.” The wistful song of loss, “Deaf, Dumb & Blind,” leads into the boastful finale, “Tough Street.”

Featuring the well regarded quartet of the Hitman Blues Band, this album shows off their new three piece horn section along with special guest appearances by Neil Alexander on harp and backup vocalists Victoria Anyah and Joanna Alexander. 

Listen to "Every Piece Of Me"

Click for more info

SIMI VALLEY CAJUN & BLUES MUSIC FESTIVAL

PERFORMER SPOTLIGHT: JANIVA MAGNESS BAND

"One of the most fiery and original vocalists in contemporary blues and soul…. Thoughtful, inventive and almost unerringly on the money." – MOJO

Janiva Magness is among the premier blues and R&B singers in the world today. Her voice possesses an earthy, raw honesty born from her life experience. A charismatic performer known for her electrifying live shows, Magness is a gutsy and dynamic musical powerhouse. She received the coveted 2009 Blues Music Award for B.B. King Entertainer Of The Year (she is only the second woman to ever win this award, Koko Taylor being the first). She also won Contemporary Blues Female Artist Of The Year, an honor she also received in 2006 and 2007. She has received a total of seventeen Blues Music Award nominations, including one for 2012’s Contemporary Blues Female Artist Of The Year. USA Today declared, “Magness is a blues star,” and The Philadelphia Inquirer said, “Magness sings superbly, with a scorching intensity.”

EVENT INFO:

The 24th Annual Simi Valley Cajun & Blues Music Festival will be held on Saturday and Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, May 25th & 26th, 2013. 2013 promises to continue our tradition of bringing fans a full weekend of nonstop award-winning entertainment, more food choices than you can sample in two days, and activities to keep kids of all ages entertained too.

The Cajun & Zydeco Stage will showcase continuous music each day featuring the best Cajun, Creole and Zydeco music acts.

The Blues Stage will feature some of the most talented and renowned blues and roots acts in the world both Saturday and Sunday.



Both stages feature lots of viewing space plus large dance floors. In addition, this family friendly event has a giant kids area featuring bouncers, rock walls, specialty acts, crafts and talent shows. There are also food booths and many crafts and merchandise booths.

Tickets available now at: www.cajun-blues.com

"THANKS TO NOMINATORS AND FANS" SAYS 2013

"BEST NEW ARTIST DEBUT" NOMINEE, 24 HOUR BLUES

24 Hour Blues has been nominated by the Blues Foundation for a 2013 "Best New Artist Debut Album" Blues Music Award.

A veteran of the late Calvin Owens’ Blues Orchestra, this first-time album from Charles “CD” Davis is smokin’ hot and along with the diner motif and accompanying menu describing each song, features something for everyone.

"Davis and the crew hit the big-blues‐band mark with originals and a couple of classics. Davis can wail on the guitar and finger-pick deep blues but it's full-on, soulfully arranged brass and guitar-driven songs … show the essence, the power and the pull of big-band blues. Here's to several more hours of Davis' blues.”

– Jim Beal Jr, San Antonio Express-News and Third Coast Radio

Awesome vocals and strong instrumental solos have propelled this album to be aired around the world. 

Listen here...  More info at www.blueshouserecords.com

3-8-13

BLUE, THAT YOU CANT BE IN BYRON BAY,

AUSTRALIA THIS YEAR?

Stress Less... Celebrate Byron Bay Bluesfest’s 25th anniversary

Down Under in 2014!

In 2014 Australia’s premier blues and roots music festival will celebrate its 25th birthday. Held annually at Easter time in Australia’s most eastern town of Byron Bay, Bluesfest brings together the world’s biggest names in blues, roots, soul, gospel, R&B and rock over one blissful long weekend.

This year’s annual event (March 28-April 1) is headlined by a staggering line-up of musical giants; Paul Simon, Robert Plant, Santana, Ben Harper, Iggy & The Stooges, Charlie Musselwhite, Mavis Staples, Taj Mahal, Steve Miller Band, Chris Isaak, Bonnie Raitt, Jimmy Cliff & Robert Cray. Alt-rockers Wilco, Jason Mraz, Manu Chao, Counting Crows & Rufus Wainwright are among the lineup’s contemporary breed, making the event a veritable smorgasbord for music lovers of all persuasions.

With this caliber of lineup at the 24th Bluesfest, the mind boggles to imagine who will visit Australian shores to grace Byron Bay Bluesfest’s stages for their 25th anniversary?

Down Under Answers are here to ensure you can experience Byron Bay at its most vibrant during the 25th anniversary Bluesfest. Here’s how: Visit www.duatravel.com or call 800-788-6685 for details.

About Bluesfest:

- A multi-award winning all age’s event that takes place at the Tyagarah Tee Tree Farm nestled on 120 hectares, 11 kilometres north of Byron Bay.

- The Tea Tree Farm is fully operational most of the year and turns into a Bluesfest site a few weeks before, during and after Easter Festival weekend.

- The perfect place to hold the Festival, it allows 17,500 Festival visitors per day and 6,500 campers over the entire weekend.

- Bluesfest organizers are committed to the principles of environmental sustainability and they actively pursue opportunities to implement these principles in the management of the festival. Peter Noble quotes: "We always try to find "green" solutions for every situation and with the purchase of land; Bluesfest is dedicated to the ongoing challenge of climate change issues with the intention to keep developing the area and the festival as sustainable as possible.

3-8-13

SCHOOL TESTS FEATURES W.C. HANDY

Rich Gordon of Sunday Morning Blues on WKGL-FM 96.7 The Eagle in Rockford, IL, reported something very cool to the Blues Foundation. Rich says, "My wife is a teacher. Today she showed me a section of the current ACT Explore-05A test. This test is used all over the country. Passage III covers Humanities. This passage is adapted from Music Fell on Alabama by C.S. Fuqua (2006 by C.S.Fuqua). There are six paragraphs and ten multiple choice questions based on info about Willam Christopher Handy.

CALLING ALL STATION MANAGERS & BLUES DEEJAY'S

The 11th Annual Blues Festival Guide magazine will once again feature a special section that has listings of radio stations and Internet radio stations that feature blues. The purposes of this Blue Radio Page compilation are many: record companies can send you product for airplay, bands can send demos, promoters can contact DJs about upcoming events, and fans can tune in to your show. Plus you get a free website listing as well as a magazine mailed to you!

The cost of the listing is only $60! To be included in our radio listings, just click on this link, complete the order form as directed and submit payment.

Deadline for the submission of your order with payment is March 15, 2013. Please contact us with any further questions at irene@bluesfestivalguide.com or 775-337-8626.

Thank you!  Your friends at the Blues Festival Guide

www.BluesFestivalGuide.com

"BORN IN CHICAGO" SETS SXSW PREMIERE ...BIG SCREEN BLUES BRINGS TOGETHER RACES, GENERATIONS

Born In Chicago is a soulful documentary film that chronicles a uniquely musical passing of the torch. It’s the story of first generation blues performers who had made their way to Chicago from the Mississippi Delta and their ardent and unexpected followers – young white, middle class kids who followed this evocative music to smoky clubs deep in Chicago’s ghettos. There, against all odds, they were encouraged by the greats who had became their musical mentors and learned the art of the blues at the feet the masters, going on to make the music their own. Passed down from musician to musician, the Chicago blues transcended the color lines of the 1960s as young, white Chicago musicians apprenticed themselves to legends such as Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf.

Born In Chicago, five years in the making, will premiere at this year’s SXSW Music Festival with the debut screening set for Wednesday, March 13 at 2:00 PM at Austin’s Paramount Theater. Two additional SXSW screenings of Born In Chicago -- on Thursday, March 14 at 9:15 PM at SXSatellite/Alamo Village and on Friday, March 15 at 5:00 PM at Alamo Ritz -- have also been scheduled. The Friday screening will be preceded by a panel discussion at the Convention Center, starting at 3:30 PM, with participation by some of the film’s principals along with questions from the audience at 3:30 PM at the Convention Center.

Born In Chicago includes both performance and interview footage, vintage and current including on screen appearances from by Elvin Bishop, Michael Bloomfield, Eric Burdon, Paul Butterfield, Marshall Chess, Bob Dylan, Barry Goldberg, Nick Gravenites, Buddy Guy, B.B. King, Sam Lay, Harvey Mandel, Steve Miller, Charlie Musselwhite, Keith Richards, Jim Schwall, Corky Siegel, Hubert Sumlin and Jack White.

The Chicago Blues Reunion, Goldberg, Gravenites, Mandel and Siegel’s touring group is presented as the latter day embodiment of the “bluesquake” movement that dates back to the 1960s. Gravenites, in fact, wrote the song from which the film’s title is derived. “Born In Chicago”* was recorded by The Paul Butterfield Blues band and included on their debut album in 1965 and is emblematic of the melding of the black blues tradition with rock ‘n’ roll that the film’s subtext. The Butterfield Band’s Mike Bloomfield, with whom Goldberg worked backing Bob Dylan as well as with their own band The Electric Flag, is seen as one of the prime exemplars of the white musicians who were smitten with the blues and set out, despite prejudice and the potential for physical harm, to seek it at its source.

STAND UP GUYS FEATURES SOME STAND UP TUNES

So, though I personally could not find anything to report music wise from any Oscar nominees or winners, I did find a movie just released with something of bluesy merit. Although the soundtrack to the recently released Al Pacino/Christopher Walken movie Stand Up Guys features "two new and really bad Jon Bon Jovi acoustic numbers (probably inserted on the album with a crowbar to pacify some label exec)," reports Rev. Keith A.Gordon at About.com Blues, "the producers were definitely going for a retro R&B vibe and included some cool music on the disc.

Alongside songs from throwback artists like Sharon Jones & the Daptones (pictured at rt) and Charles Bradley you'll find classic tunes from Muddy Waters, Elvin Bishop, and Sam & Dave. Gary Clark, Jr. makes an appearance on the Stand Up Guys soundtrack, and there are a few odd tracks from obscure artists, but otherwise it's not a bad way for a newcomer to be introduced to some fine R&B and blues. There isn't anything on the album that the hardcore blues fan doesn't have two (or three) versions of, but then again, they're not selling it to us, are they?" 

But there's always a convert in the wings...

LEGENDARY RHYTHM & BLUES CRUISE

...ADVENTURE OF A LIFETIME

on Holland America ms Maasdam.

Fort Lauderdale to Key West, New Orleans & Progreso, MX.

SOLD OUT ~ JOIN WAIT LIST!

Jan. 19 ~ 26, 2014 Eastern Caribbean

Ft. Lauderdale, FL to St. Barths, St. Thomas / St. John & Turks and Caicos

Bands announced in March!

See www.BluesCruise.com or (816) 753-7979

for reservations & info

You HAVE to experience this at least once in your lifetime! 

Attention Blues Fans: Be a Part of Blues History

For the past 15 months, The Blues Foundation has asked blues fans to help Raise the Roof! Many of you have responded generously. As a result, the Campaign for the Blues Hall of Fame has secured pledges and donations of over $1.5 million dollars. By September, the final plans and drawings will be ready and construction can begin. But construction will begin only if those blues fans who have not yet pledged do so in the next six months.

Be a part of blues history. Don’t stand on the sidelines. Do what you can. Be as generous as you can be. Let us complete this dream now. Let us have a Grand Opening with B.B. King and Bobby “Blue” Bland with cutting the ribbon!

1. Make a multi-year pledge or donation online 

2. Mail a check to:

The Blues Foundation, 421 So. Main, Memphis, TN 38104-4464.

3. Make a one-time donation by calling 901.527.2583.

For detailed information call or e-mail Jay Sieleman, President & CEO, The Blues Foundation: 901.527.2583 ext. 12 or jay@blues.org

No effort is too small or unappreciated!

If not us, who? If not now, when?

You too can get involved. Email us: Info@BluesFestivalGuide.com

to get logos and links for your website or Facebook.outh

Video of The Week

T-Bone Walker - Live in UK circa 1966

(shoutout to Bob Corritore for turning us on to this video... enjoy!)