Blues in Elsewhere
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Interviews, overviews and reviews of classic and contemporary blues musicians and music.
BIG DADDY WILSON INTERVIEWED (2012): Blues sprechen here
Wilson Blount – aka Big Daddy Wilson – is certainly a bluesman with a point of difference. He may have been a Southern black kid and born in North Carolina, but he's honest enough to admit he didn't even hear the blues until he was in his Thirties and living in Germany where he'd gone to serve time in the military. And as he tells us in this candid interview, the first... more >>
Added: 11 Apr 2012
Louisiana Red and Little Victor's Juke Joint: Memphis Mojo (Ruf/Yellow Eye)
Almost an octogenerian, Louisiana Red (aka Iverson Minter) has understandably become a fixture on blues circuits. Born in Alabama and his father lynched by the Klan, he once recorded for Chess in 1949 before doing military service, and after that just kept playing the blues. It wasn't until more recent times however that he became better known, but you'd have to say that might be for... more >>
Added: 8 Feb 2012
CHAMPION JACK DUPREE REMEMBERED: Seconds out of the ring . . .
Blues pianist Champion Jack Dupree could always upset a few expectations. While his few remaining colleagues in the old blues game disavowed alcohol, Dupree told me in 1988 -- when he was approximately 80, his birth date seemed flexible – he still fancied a taste, but with a couple of crucial exceptions. "I drink cognac and beer," he said cheerily, "but I never... more >>
Added: 31 Jan 2012 
1 Comment
Savoy Brown: Voodoo Moon (Ruf/Yellow Eye)
Many years ago Pete Frame would produce books of meticulously drawn family trees of rock bands. His Sabbath Bloody Sabbath tree filled two tightly written gatefold A5 pages and traced Black Sabbath back to bands that Ronnie Dio and Bill Ward were in around '64. I don't recall ever seeing a Frame family tree for the British blues band Savoy Brown (although they did get a passing reference in... more >>
Added: 30 Jan 2012 3 Comments
Omar and the Howlers: Essential Collection (Ruf/Yellow Eye)
Out of Mississippi by way of the Lone Star State, Omar Kent Dykes is one of the tough Texas blues guitar players whose no nonsense style is perfectly complemented by his various line-ups (usually small) around his core band. This non-chronological double disc collection -- which opens with a head-down 1991 live version of his Magic Man which owes a debt to that clenched-fist macho strut of... more >>
Added: 17 Jan 2012
HOWLIN' WOLF IN LONDON, 1970: When worlds collide
One of the most beloved blues albums of the early Seventies was a super-session recorded when Howlin' Wolf went to London to work with the Stones' rhythm section of Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman, guitarist Eric Clapton, and others including Stones' pianoman Ian Stewart. And an uncredited Ringo Starr on I Ain't Superstitious. The subsequent album The London Howlin' Wolf Sessions was... more >>
Added: 11 Jan 2012 2 Comments
ERIC BIBB INTERVIEWED (2009): Born into this
You could say singer-guitarist Eric Bibb had little choice, that he was born to the musical life: his father Leon was a well-known New York folk singer; his uncle was John Lewis, the pianist in the Modern Jazz Quartet; and his godfather was the legendary singer, activist and civil rights campaigner Paul Robeson. Add in family friends like Pete Seeger and the late Odetta, advice from... more >>
Added: 6 Jan 2012
Big Daddy Wilson: Thumb a Ride (Ruf)
This big bluesman with a sometimes gentle and soulful voice has appeared at Elsewhere previously with his fine Love is the Key which featured Eric Bibb, a singer he is close in spirit to. This all acoustic outing recorded in Germany (where he has lived for many years) with his touring band (and a studio percussion player) continues his generous, gentle and inviting journey and -- as he... more >>
Added: 21 Sep 2011
JOHN MAYALL IN THE SIXTIES: And Another Man Done Gone . . .
When veteran British bluesman John Mayall played the Civic in Auckland in 2010, the concert was both disappointing and crowd-pleasing. Disappointing because, although professionally executed, it failed to really take flight. Crowd-pleasing because he played his hits. The joke, of course, is Mayall has never had hits and at 77 it seems increasingly unlikely he ever will. But he did... more >>
Added: 13 Sep 2011
Duke Robillard: Passport to the Blues (Stony Plain)
Multiple award winner Robillard founded Roomful of Blues in the late Sixties, was in the Fabulous Thunderbirds and has been playing for more than four decades, and shows no signs of slowing with this fist-tight collection of (mostly) originals. He's toured with Tom Waits (an influence on the gritty Hong Kong Suit, and whose Make It Rain gets covered) and nods to Willie Dixon on Rhode... more >>
Added: 22 Aug 2011
Rory Block: Shake 'Em on Down (Stony Plain)
Singer-guitarist Rory Block learned directly from Mississippi John Hurt, Son House, Bukka White and others and here – through originals and retooled covers – acknowledges the great innovator Mississippi Fred McDowell who (despite singing I Do Not Play No Rock'n'Roll) influenced blues-rock musicians like the young Stones, and tutored Bonnie Raitt. Block met him at a formative... more >>
Added: 7 Aug 2011 1 Comment
Joe Louis Walker's Blues Conspiracy: Live on the Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise (Stony Plain)
That this was recorded on a Caribbean cruise might tell you all you need about its crowd-pleasing nature. But Walker's guests (guitarists Johnny Winter, Tab Benoit and Duke Robillard, Watermelon Slim on harmonica among them) get away serious six-string savagery and down low dirty vocals. Yes, crowd-pleasing – but songs like A Poor Man's Plea with Kenny Neal turn the cruise ship... more >>
Added: 20 Jul 2011
Tab Benoit: Medicine (Telarc)
Soulful blues with a dark bayou twist is Tab Benoit's musical style, but he also locates lyrics in this world, whether it be a relationship going to hell (“We've been fighting over nothing”) or the Louisiana environment on the same path (“Whatcha gonna tell the children/trees/spirits when the heart of the bayou bleeds”). A great band (Ivan Neville on Hammond,... more >>
Added: 4 Jul 2011
Watermelon Slim and Super Chicken: Okiesippi Blues (NorthernBlues)
In Clarksdale, Mississippi I saw a singer/guitarist who called himself Howl N Mudd, which was certainly a man covering his bases. (That story is here.) The juke joint he played in was very popular (be sure to read that piece of graffiti I quote) and recently Elsewhere reviewed a DVD of Watermelon Slim whiuch was filmed there. Slim has a great backstory -- more interesting than his DVD... more >>
Added: 28 Jun 2011
Tedeschi Trucks Band: Revelator (Masterworks)
Anyone who caught the husband and wife team of Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi in New Zealand recently were perhaps familiar with guitarist Trucks' impressive Allman Brothers/Eric Clapton pedigree, but she came as something of a surprise to most. Looking like what Americans call a "soccer mom", the slight Tedeschi could sing like Bonnie Raitt and sometimes edged as close to... more >>
Added: 13 Jun 2011 1 Comment
Howlin' Wolf: The Howlin' Wolf Album (Set on Down)
One of the assertions on the cover of this album – released in 69, reissued after a long absence – isn't true. Bluesman Howlin' Wolf had been an “early adopter” of electric guitar. What is true is he didn't care for this album (“dog shit” was his considered judgment) which had him being made over in line with the post-Hendrix psychedelic music of the... more >>
Added: 12 Jun 2011
TRAVELLING RIVERSIDE BLUES: Robert Johnson, the blues and Clarksdale, Mississippi
The intersection of highways 61 and 49 near Clarksdale in northwest Mississippi doesn't look particularly special: there's a car yard, a service station, a couple of kids listlessly kicking a ball outside Abe's barbecue shop . . . Just the usual stuff. The only thing to distinguish it from hundreds of other such intersections in the state is the odd looking monument-cum-sculpture thing at... more >>
Added: 25 Apr 2011 2 Comments
DEREK TRUCKS INTERVIEWED (2009): Allman and Clapton, but his own man
For someone yet to hit 30, the Jacksonville, Florida-based singer-guitarist Derek Trucks has achieved a lot. But then, he was almost born to it. His uncle is drummer Butch Trucks of the Allman Brothers Band; he was named after Eric Clapton’s pseudonym in Derek and the Dominos; and these days he is married to acclaimed blues singer Susan Tedeschi. Those factors alone don’t... more >>
Added: 10 Apr 2011 2 Comments
ALLIGATOR RECORDS 1971 - 2011: Four decades of brittle and often brilliant blues
In his excellent book More Miles Than Money, subtitled “journeys through American music”, the expat London-based writer Garth Cartwright meets Bruce Iglauer who founded the Alligator blues label in Chicago which became that city's most important label after Chess went belly-up in 1975. As Cartwright notes, the label was home to exceptional talents like the earthy bellower... more >>
Added: 28 Mar 2011
GREGG ALLMAN INTERVIEWED (2010): The Road Goes On Forever
Scroll down the Wikipedia entry for Gregg Allman and two things will surprise: first how brief it is for a musician who has lived such a full, creative and often dangerously self-abusive life. And second the interestingly inexact sentence which reads, “Allman has been married at least six times . . .” By the time he was 30, keyboard player and guitarist Allman –... more >>
Added: 28 Feb 2011
