New Englander Mark T. Small’s lightning fast guitar picking skills are on display on the all-acoustic Smokin’ Blues. Small, whose background includes a stint in the 1980s with the Indiana-based “newgrass” band called The Brown County Band and a dozen years as leader of Chicago-style electric blues band The Lonesome Strangers, has managed to fuse the extraordinary dexterity required […]
Damon Fowler – Sounds of Home
Damon Fowler’s music captures his Southern roots as well as any up-and-coming artist today. A native of Brandon, Florida, Fowler’s sound encompasses swampy soul, blues, country and a measure of rockabilly. For his sixth and latest solo album, Sounds of Home, Fowler enlisted prominent Louisiana blues-rocker Tab Benoit to help produce a tasty helping of […]
Macy Blackman & The Mighty Fines – I Didn’t Want To Do It
Macy Blackman’s piano playing is a treat for those who enjoy swampy, down home boogie-woogie. His new album, I Didn’t Want To Do It, takes a page from Dr. John’s playbook, featuring spirited New Orleans style boogie-woogie piano – but without the trippier side of the Dr. John experience. Originally from Wilmington, Delaware, Blackman did […]
Eric Bibb – Jericho Road
Eric Bibb is one of the elite handful of African-American blues musicians who have built on the legacy of the great post-World War II generation of bluesmen who brought the music form from the back woods of the Mississippi Delta to the streets of Chicago and beyond. About a decade younger than Taj Mahal, who […]
Johnny Rawls – Remembering O.V.
Soul blues is a form of blues that, as its name implies, fuses soul music with traditional blues music. It is a form of blues that was pioneered by African-American musicians in the South. Among the music form’s early champions were the late Bobby “Blue” Bland and Z.Z. HIll. Although a number of prominent blues musicians, such […]
Samantha Fish – Black Wind Howlin’
Samantha Fish is a precocious young guitarist and singer with the wind – the howlin’ black wind – at her back. At 24, the Kansas City native already has a Blues Music Award under her belt for Best New Artist Debut for her 2011 album Runaway. Along with British blues-rocker Dani Wilde and Otis Taylor’s […]
Shawn Holt and the Teardrops – Daddy Told Me
Keeping it in the family, Shawn Holt, son of the late blues icon Magic Slim, is the latest of a number of sons of famous fathers to try to break into the music industry. Holt took over as front man for his father’s band earlier this year when Magic Slim was hospitalized hours before opening […]
MonkeyJunk – All Frequencies
In those odd moments when you’re craving funk, I mean, the lost art of funk seventies style, with the rhythm and beat that make you want to groove, MonkeyJunk can fill that prescription. The Ottawa, Canada-based trio of Steve Marriner, Tony D and Matt Sobb are called blues rockers, but their latest release, All Frequencies, […]
North Mississippi Allstars – World Boogie Is Coming
North Mississippi Allstars has been tearing it up for 17 years. From their studio recordings, with their unique blend of traditional roots and edgy rock, to their thundering live performances, featuring drumlines and bizarre instrumentation from electric washboards to cigar box guitars and a stringed instrument made from a coffee can on a stick, the […]
David Bromberg – Only Slightly Mad
Music enthusiasts at the 2013 Philadelphia Folk Festival got to see some great moments. They got to see Fairport Convention folker Richard Thompson rock out as if making a statement that he can shred with the most aggressive electric guitar slingers in the land. They also got to see a young ukelele virtuoso from Hawaii, Jake […]