The ever prolific Popa Chubby returns with a new CD of hard-hitting rock 'n' roll. This follows his two disc tribute to Jimi Hendrix, Electric Chubbyland. Says Popa, "I found myself on this record mostly thanks to playing the Hendrix stuff. People young, old, rich, poor…they just want to rock." The disc is balls-out Blues/Rock played with reckless abandon, no apologies, visceral and heavy, with a few surprises thrown in - such as the theme from "The Godfather" and the spacy and evocative "Woman In My Bed Dub," a reggae tune as thick with smoke as a Kingston club."I have gotten back to why I started playing music to begin with," says the New York guitarist. The excitement and the feeling of raw power. All I can tell you is you need rock and roll in your soul and I am the man in control. The Blues are alive and well and Rock and Roll will never die! Are you ready to rock?" 

"Popa Chubby continues to be a prolific purveyor of rockin' blues music. His latest release shows a lot of influence from his recent Hendrix tribute work but also purveys his sense of humor, menace, and love of the music that ensure his personality never gets lost. It's an illustration of how Chubby continues to grow and put out good records every year." - Vintage Guitar

"The ambitious performances, the good-timing rock songs, the searing guitar solos, and the willingness to experiment all suggest youth and embrace freedom. With all this excitement coming across in a convincing, fist-pumping fashion, Deliveries After Dark is a very loud success."- AllMusic.com

"This disc reaffirms Chubby's well-deserved status as an extraordinary guitarist. Playing with the same fluid ease as Carlos Santana but with a blues rather than Latin foundation, Chubby cranks his amp up to 11 and lays down riff after riff of guitar driven sonic nirvana." - Jazz & Blues Report

http://www.popachubby.com/

 "Guitar Language"  was released in 2007 by Dallas Records.
Produced by  Croatian  Niksa Bratos (Manu Katche, Tony Levin, Pino Palladino) This CD blends pop-rock with blues & jazz, combining acoustic and electric guitars with violin and piano.  It contains 9 instrumentals and one vocal track (Latin rock tune "Big Girl" featuring  Ricardo Luque) and features some of the finest musicians in Croatia. 
 
It ranges from  the fast, yet  bluesy opening song "The Buzz", to pop oriented songs like "Remember" and "Secret", as well as the jazzy  "Same Sky".

 By comparison to other similar projects , this CD is not just about fast playing guitar - instead, it is more about great songs, soulful playing and  great melodies

September 13, 2008 is the date for the grand opening of the B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center. the B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center in B.B.’s hometown. Indianola (Mississippi) sits squarely in the middle of the Mississippi Delta, the land that gave birth to American music.


The B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center
He started life as Riley B. King in one of America's most impoverished places, the Mississippi Delta. He had little but the dream in his heart and a destiny that would take him around the world. Now he's an international music icon, and Blues aficionados from all over the planet want to hear more and know more about B.B. King.

That's what's going to happen. With the building of the B.B. King Museum in King's hometown of Indianola, Mississippi, the artifacts from his 60-year career will be on permanent display.

In B.B. King's eyes, however, something far more important will take place within the walls of the museum: It's called the Delta Interpretive Center. And it may be the bridge from abject hopelessness to lives of fulfillment for Delta youth, many of whom have few expectations beyond poverty, unemployment and untimely deaths.
 
 
The Delta Interpretive Center
The B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center will offer Delta young people hope.  Proposed educational, cultural and character development programming will take the form of classes, mentoring, interactive exhibits and B.B. King could not find in the Mississippi of his youth.

In addition, the stories of the Delta, from its history to its music, social mores, race relations, literature and legends, adversities and successes will be examined in one interpretive setting. Since all these elements came together to produce the Blues and Bluesmen, the B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center will be a repository for the ingredients that brewed America’s root music.

Tunica Convention and Visitors Bureau executive director Webster Franklin is gambling that a plan to create a “gateway” blues museum on the site of the existing visitors center and CVB offices will win funding from the Mississippi Department of Transportation through its Transportation Enhancement Grant program.

Franklin has in hand a verbal commitment from Harrah’s to donate its $350,000 blues collection, formerly housed in Horseshoe Casino’s now-defunct Bluesville Museum, for the project.

“The Bluesville artifacts have been in storage since the museum closed,” Franklin said. “I hated for that collection to leave Tunica County.”

From that starting point, Franklin began working with Horsheshoe parent company Harrah's to use the collection as the basis for a new Highway 61 “Gateway to the Blues Visitor Center” just south of the Tunica-DeSoto county line.

The connection of blues legend Son House to the Clack train station, long gone from a site not a half mile from the CVB offices, gave rise to an idea for another component of the plan and led to an avenue for funding the estimated $1.7 million project.

Franklin hopes to move the old Dundee railroad depot north, to become the welcome area of the revanped Visitors Center. The rustic depot is 800-900 square feet, with two offices at one end. That space could easily house kiosks and brochure racks, as well as a welcome desk, where tourists could purchase admission to the Gateway to the Blues museum.

Franklin said other blues venues had been supportive of his idea, seeing it as an opportunity to add to the growing roster of blues offerings in the Mississippi Delta.

"From the county perspective...this is the best opportunity to begin to merge Mississippi blues and casino visitors."

Stevie Ray Vaughan's name made the list of 10 possible new names for a road in Dallas, Texas.

Dallas officials want a more glamorous name for the gritty boulevard as they go forward with the Trinity River project, their ambitious plan to transform the river area into a major civic attraction with a downtown park, lakes, trails, greenbelts, canoeing, horseback riding and, it is hoped, upscale commercial development on and near Industrial.

The City Council's Trinity River committee will meet next Tuesday to select three finalists from the 10 names. Dallas residents will then have a chance to vote online (or by mail or phone) for their favorite among those three. The City Council hopes to adopt a new name by June 25.

In a twist on the recent string of sex tapes of Hollywood’s young stars, Vivid Entertainment plans to release what it says is a film from the vaults of classic rock: a sex film supposedly of Jimi Hendrix.

The film shows a naked man who resembles Hendrix, the guitar legend who died in 1970, wearing a bandanna in his Afro, having sex with two brunettes in a dimly lighted bedroom. His full face appears on screen for only a few seconds, with his eyes closed. In other portions there are flashes of his profile. But his hands, bedecked with rings, roam large on the screen at times. The film has no audio.

Vivid, a large maker of pornographic movies that is releasing the film this week, has created a 45-minute DVD, called “Jimi Hendrix the Sex Tape,” that combines 11 minutes of sex footage with a retrospective of Hendrix’s career in the 1960s (but with none of his music included). The company, which has also released tapes of Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee, Kim Kardashian and others, will sell it for $39.95 in stores and over the Internet, and will also offer the film for downloading.

But the identity of the man in the film, which has circulated among Hendrix aficionados for years, is fiercely disputed by experts and former associates. And the DVD arrives on the heels of a string of hoaxes involving star look-alikes and one other dead superstar. Internet news reports recently cast doubt on the claims of a New York collectibles dealer who said he brokered the sale of an explicit Marilyn Monroe film.

The marketing of the intimate moments of dead stars adds a strange new dimension to the surge of voyeuristic entertainment that has swept Hollywood, where sex tapes can be considered a means to stoke or revive careers. It indicates how far people will go — and how far legends may fall — as audiences clamor for unvarnished details of celebrity life.

Vivid Entertainment said that after an extensive inquiry led by private detective agencies, it stands by the Hendrix film as the real thing. “I believe that we did our due diligence, and as a result of that clearly believe that it’s him,” said Steven Hirsch, Vivid’s co-chairman. “If they said that it wasn’t him, I would never have put it out.”

Mr. Hirsch said he became convinced that the tape was authentic after tracking down the man who shot it with an eight-millimeter camera; they reached a monetary agreement “for his approval for us to distribute this.” But Mr. Hirsch and his lawyers declined to say how the man was located or to put a reporter in touch with him, saying they were bound by a confidentiality agreement signed at the man’s insistence. No one was able to identify the women in the film, Mr. Hirsch added.

According to the sex-film distributor Howie Klein, who sold the tape to Vivid, the film surfaced when a collector discovered a tin labeled “Black Man” in a box of rock memorabilia bought at an unidentified auction in London. Upon recognizing Hendrix, Mr. Klein said, the collector decided to sell the tape. It was offered on eBay, apparently unsuccessfully, more than a year ago, although it is not clear if the same collector was involved.

The collector approached Mr. Klein in July but insisted that his identity not be disclosed, Mr. Klein said. He declined to say how much he paid for the tape but indicated it was less than $50,000. Mr. Klein sold the tape to Vivid, he said, because the company had the resources to handle it better than he could.

The DVD includes commentary from two women who met Hendrix and say they believe the tape is real: Pamela Des Barres, the author of “I’m With the Band: Confessions of a Groupie” (1987), and Cynthia Albritton, better known as Cynthia Plaster Caster. Ms. Albritton is known for doing plaster casts of the genitals of rock stars, including Hendrix in 1968. (Mr. Hirsch said both women were paid for their contributions to the video but declined to be more specific.)

“I’m 100 percent sure it’s him,” Ms. Albritton, 61, said in an interview from her home in Chicago. “The facial bone structure is the same. The eyebrows and the mustache are true to the style he was wearing in 1970.”

But Kathy Etchingham, 60, one of Hendrix’s steady girlfriends during the ’60s, said via e-mail after viewing still photos from the film at the request of a reporter: “It is not him. His face is too broad and nose and nostrils too wide for Jimi. Also the hair is too low on the forehead.”

“He would never have allowed anyone to see that,” she said in a telephone interview. “In private he was very shy and would cover up.”

The film has also been dismissed by Hendrix collectors and historians. One expert said that the rings the man in the film is wearing do not resemble any he had seen in years of studying pictures and film of Hendrix. Charles R. Cross, author of the Hendrix biography “Room Full of Mirrors” (Hyperion, 2005), encountered the film during his book research. “It doesn’t add up to Jimi,” he said.

As a fan, he said, he felt the film was “horrible to watch,” as he thinks the man appears to be on drugs or heavily intoxicated. “I don’t want that to be what I think about when I think about Jimi Hendrix,” he said.

A spokesman for the Hendrix estate declined to comment.

Mr. Hirsch said he did not worry about a backlash from ardent fans of Hendrix, who died of drug-related causes at 27.

He said there was “a very, very small percentage who worship him in such a way that they just want to visualize and remember him onstage.” But, he added, “There are many, many more casual Jimi Hendrix fans who certainly will be curious to see the other side.”

Mr. Hirsch, however, played down the notion that he or fans would be interested in a stream of posthumous sex tapes from celebrities. “There are only about five real icons,” he said, including Hendrix, Monroe and Elvis Presley. “If I had Frank Sinatra, that would do awesome. J. F. K. would do great. I don’t know if, other than that, there are a lot of dead people that it would make sense to put out.”

With filming has just recently concluded, this timely road movie will explore the thriving underbelly of a dying American art form in the land where it began – Mississippi.

Planned as a weeklong journey through the birthplace of the blues, M for Mississippi seeks to capture the proverbial “real deal” in its home where it is most comfortable and authentic – the jukes, the front yards, the cotton fields. More than just a collection of concert performances, the film will collect the sounds, the images and the feel of both the performers and their native landscape – an environment essential to their livelihoods and inseparable from their art.

Cultivating the fertile ground between such landmark theatrical travelogues as Buena Vista Social Club and Deep Blues, M for Mississippi aims to appeal to more than just the average blues fan. By showcasing such a fascinating foreign land so close to home, the filmmakers hope to inspire countless others to make their own road trips down Mississippi’s blue highways.

"M for Mississippi" is a joint production by Broke and Hungry Records, and Cat Head, Delta Blues & Folkart Inc. For more information and the view the trailer visit
http://www.mformississippi.com/index.html

On May 16th, singing legend Dorothy Moore presents a concert to benefit Habitat for Humanity Metro Jackson (Mississippi) at Belhaven College Center for the Arts.

Harmonica/song writer Scott Albert Johnson will open the show. Proceeds go to build a house for a Jackson family.

For information go to www.habitatjackson.org or call 601-353-6060. 

You might also win a five night cruise for two! 

Again, that's www.habitatjackson.org.

SET TIMES JUST ANNOUNCED!
Jason Ricci & New Blood
(12:00am-1:00am)
Mike Zito with special guest
Teresa James
(10:45pm-11:45pm)
The Mannish Boys
with special guests Phillip Walker,
Lynwood Slim, Debbie Davies, Mikey Jr.,
and The Soul of John Black
(7:30-10:30pm)
Jackie Payne Steve Edmonson Band
(6:15pm-7:15pm)
The Insomniacs
(5:15pm-6:00pm)
Los Fabulocos featuring Kid Ramos
(4:15pm-5:00pm)
Big Pete Pearson &
The Rhythm Room All-Stars
Dave Riley & Bob Corritore
and Tomcat Courtney
with special guest Marco Pandolfi
and Tony Braunagel
(3:00pm-4:00pm)
Bill Sims, Jr. & Mark Lavoie
(2:40pm-3:00pm)
Lionel Young
(2:20pm-2:40pm)
Jim Hanft
 (2:00pm-2:20pm)

A new museum is opening June 2 at the site of the 1969 Woodstock concert.

The Museum at Bethel Woods, located about 90 minutes north of New York City, will offer exhibits, personal stories, multimedia experiences and programs about the 1960s focusing on everything from music and fashion to political protest.
The original three-day festival epitomized the era's "sex, drugs and rock'n'roll" counterculture while drawing 400,000 people to hear Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Joni Mitchell, the Who and many other performers.

The Museum at Bethel Woods is part of the larger Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, an outdoor performing arts center and complex with an eclectic concert series and other events. Performers scheduled for this summer include the "True Colors" show with Cyndi Lauper and The B-52s, Ringo Starr, the New York Philharmonic, Donna Summer, The Klezmatics, the Boston Pops and many others.

Official Events for Blues Music Award Week

Tickets to the 2008 Blues Music Awards are still available online or by calling The Blues Foundation at 901.527.2583.

Wednesday, May 7

5:00pm Charter Members Dinner and Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony -- Tunica Riverpark (not open to the public)

Thursday, May 8

2008 Blues Music Awards @ Grand Casino Event Center in Tunica, MS presented by The GIBSON Foundation Shuttle service between the Veranda hotel and the Pre-party.

10:00am Silent Auction begins in the lobby of the host Verandah hotel. It will close at 3:00pm on Thursday and will be open again Friday from 10:00am until 12:30pm.

3:00pm Highway 61 Blues Trail Marker Unveiling with Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, Tunica, MS.

5:30pm -- Pre-party reception featuring the performances of the 2008 IBC winners and mingling with the nominees

7:00pm-1:00am -- Dinner, Awards and Nominee performances

Related Events

In addition, Blues fans can be assured that many additional events will be scheduled in the area on the weekend after the official Blues Foundation events. Tunica casinos are in the process of booking nominees to perform on Friday and Saturday.

Travel along the Mississippi Blues Trail. Walk where they walked. Dance where they danced. Experience the blues where they were born. Come on an unforgettable journey and follow the Mississippi Blues trail, from street corners where blues musicians played for tips to places they called home and event to their final resting places.

Point your browser to www.msbluestrail.org and start planning your authentic experience now.

Tuesday, May 6

5:00-9:00pm - The Insomniacs @ Gold Strike Casino

Wednesday, May 7

5:00-9:00pm - The Insomniacs @ Gold Strike Casino

8:00 pm - Bill "Howl-N-Madd" Perry at Ground Zero Blues Club (Clarksdale), www.groundzerobluesclub.com.

Thursday, May 8

Blues on the Links at Cottonwood's Golf Couse.  (Call Gordon from the Blues Festival Guide 1-352-422-5743)  $69 a round. T-times approximately 10 a.m. Only 7 spots still available. First come basis.

Friday, May 9

12:30-2:30 Pinetop Perkins Blues Marker Dedication, BBQ, Music by Eden Brent, Hopson's Plantation, Clarksdale.

2:00pm-2:00am - Third Annual Delta Groove Blues Revue at Ground Zero Blues Club (Clarksdale), 3rd Annual Delta Groove All-Star Blues Revue

5:00-9:00pm - David Maxwell @ Gold Strike Casino

7:30 - Terry Harmonica Bean and his Blues Band Po' Monkey's Lounge, Merigold, MS. $5 at the door

Real Country Blues in a Real Country Jook House Presented by the Delta Center for Culture and Learning and Cat Head Delta Blues and Folk Art
662-846-4311 for information

8 p.m. (doors at 7 p.m.)- Blind Raccoon presents
Moreland & Arbuckle, John-Alex Mason, with special guest Mikey Jr. & friends - Bluesberry Bakery & Café, 235 Yazoo Avenue, Clarksdale $7

8:30pm (doors open at 7:00) MíLaĴa Records Presents “Mr. Sam” at the Delta Blues Room, 220 Sunflower Ave., Clarksdale $10.00

9:00pm - Live blues at Red's juke joint (Clarksdale), www.cathead.biz. Also on Saturday.

9:00pm Kenny Wayne Shepherd with Pinetop Perkins and Bryan Lee
Grand Casino Tunica, Tunica, MS. Blues Music Award ticket holders can get a $10 discount on the $20 and $30 tickets at Ticketmaster.

9:00pm Wolfs Juke Joint Jam 2, with Hubert Sumlin, Willie "Big Eyes" Smith and Bob Margolin, Waverly Waters, West Point MS

Saturday, May 10

10:00am-6:00pm - 2nd Annual Clarksdale Caravan Music Fest, (downtown Clarksdale), www.rockmuseum.biz.

5:00-9:00pm - David Riley @ Gold Strike Casino

8:00pm John Nemeth at THE RED ROOSTER. 140 LT. George Lee Ave, Memphis, TN 901-521-1092

9:00pm - Big George Brock's 76th Birthday Show at Ground Zero Blues Club (Clarksdale).

Crossroads Blues Festival in Rosedale, MS www.rosedaleblues.com.

10:00 pm Mr. Sam at the all new California Club, 310 Silver City Road, Belzoni, MS

Robin Rogers has signed a 3 record contract with Blind Pig Records. The date for her first release TREAT ME RIGHT is June 24th.  The next 2 records will be released over the next couple of years.

Robin recently took 2nd place honors from the International Songwriting Competition for her song "Color-Blind Angel". 

Once again we would like to thank all the bands that entered our Blues Artist on the Rise contest. With well over 200 entries, we had our work cut out for us. In picking this years winner, we needed to find the band that really stood out above the rest. It was not an easy task with standout bands like The Tyrone Vaughn Band, The Dennis Jones Band, Leah Tysse and many more in the mix. Our winner in the full band catagory is Lauri Morvan Band from Lakewood CA. Lauri is truly an Artist on the Rise and as you can see by her recent accomplishments, the sky is the limit. Congratulations Lauri and the band.

2008 FINALIST - International Blues Challenge live band competition
2008 FINALIST - Blues Foundation's "Best Self-Produced CD"
Laurie Morvan Band #2 in CD sales at the IBC out of all 160 acts. 
Laurie Morvan Band is the only act at the IBC to make the finals of both the live band and CD competitions.

Laurie Morvan Band hand-picked to open 2 shows for John Mayall & the Blues breakers in April 2008.
 2007 - Laurie Morvan in Guitar Player Magazine,  feature article with photos
 2007 - Laurie Morvan wins songwriting award!  Laurie Morvan's song 'Family Line' from the 'Cures What Ails Ya' CD was named Best Song at the Winery Music Awards.
 2007 - Laurie Morvan in Guitar Player Magazine,  feature article with photos.
 2007 - Laurie Morvan on cover of Southland Blues Magazine, with full feature article and photos.

REVIEWS

"Superior pop-blues" - DownBeat

"Morvan singes the strings...and struts her own stuff" – Guitar Player Magazine

"Fearless and fresh...Morvan plays with plenty of imagination..." - Vintage Guitar Magazine

"wiry, fiery solos...sweet, soaring voice...Morvan's lyrics deserve scrutiny" - Blues Revue Magazine

Laurie Morvan - lead guitar & vocals, songwriter
Pat Morvan - bass, backing vocals
Kevin Murillo - drums
Carolyn Kelley - backing vocals, percussion, flute
Lisa Grubbs - backing vocals, percussion

Discography
Cures What Ails Ya - CD (2007)
Find My Way Home - CD (2004)
Out Of The Woods - CD (1997) released under the band's former name, Backroad Shack

The Laurie Morvan Band is currently receiving airplay around the world. Locations include USA, Australia, France, England, Netherlands, Poland, Austria, Spain, Norway, Croatia, Canada, Denmark, Colombia and others.
 
http://www.lauriemorvan.com

The first ever White Lake Blues Festival (Whitehall, Michigan) will feature two of the most highly celebrated bands in West Michigan -- the Vincent Hayes Project, a Muskegon blues trio; and Tomas Esparza's Blues Experience, a Grand Rapids-based band.

And the festival will benefit a legend right out of blues history -- pianist Maceo Merriweather, also known as Big Maceo. Proceeds will go toward a project to purchase a headstone for Merriweather's grave.

The festival will take place Saturday at the Howmet Playhouse.

The goal is to have 20 acts take to the stage and to attract 10,000 to 15,000 people.

The festival received a major boost recently when the Greater Vernon Services Commission board agreed Thursday to provide Kin Race Track at no charge.

With a venue now firm, the booking of entertainers will begin.

Detroit (Michigan) Blues Society announces that due to declining economic conditions in the Metro Detroit area, they will be hosting a fundraiser to help bolster their coffers and to help them achieve their membership goals for 2008. This fundraiser will help, in large measure, to allow them in the continuing efforts toward presenting their unique musical programming to the masses. The aforementioned programming is entirely based around Blues Education and encompasses live performances, teaching, history, and the promotion of this uniquely American art form here in Detroit.


Sunday,May 25, 2008 6PM
Detroit (Michigan) Blues Society Benefit Show
6 Big Acts!
Ticket Price: $10
All proceeds benefit the Detroit Blues Society
Visit Website