by MARIA BAINER Photos by Rebecca LeMesnager and Maria Bainer

Yes, you guessed it. Festival season is again the topic of conversation. More  topics  include news items, CD reviews, and visiting musicians. So here is what happened this summer season.

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FESTIVAL NEWS

The seventh annual East Bay Blues Revue Benefit for the East Bay Cancer Support Group was held the middle of July. The reunited Nitecry group headlined with special guests, harpist, Gary Smith, & East Bay favorite,  Alvon Johnson, formerly with the Coasters, who sang and played his guitar. Also featured was Annie Sampson and her band and the opening acoustic set with vocalist, Wiley Trass, back-porch blues guitarist, Slade Rivers, and harpist, Mark “Fenny” Fenichel.

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This year was actually the 25th annual Sonoma County Blues Festival, held every year in connection with the Sonoma County Fair, the end of July. During the seven-hour festival, six acts performed. That included: the gospel group: Kingdom Travelers; the blues vocalist belter, Lara Price; the energized blues-rock group, with singer, guitarist, Volker Strifler, who played only a teasing bit of slide guitar. Then there was the way-out, unexpected guitarist-vocalist,  James Blood Ulmer; the hot, high energy, multi-talented Ron Thompson and The Resistors; and the low-keyed, abstract, Michael Hill’s Blues Mob, who unfortunately didn’t sound much like their CDs.

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The Labor Day Weekend, the first weekend in September, had two crowd pleasers. The free Community concert in Marin City featured the rock’n’ roll group, Pride & Joy; the blues and soul chanteuse, Lady Bianca; and the soulful vocalist, Jackie Payne and the talented guitarist, Steve Edmonson and their band. This concert was presented by the Blue Monday Foundation and produced by Mark Naftalin.

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The fourth annual Art & Soul Fest was held in Oakland for three days. There were five stages of entertainment, with something to please most everyone. The City Center Blues Stage performances were presented by the Bay Area Blues Society. Saturday’s show featured The Dave Matthews Blues Band; Craig Horton Blues Band; Michael Skinner Blues Band, with Angela Davis; Big Belly Blues Band; and Alvon Johnson & His All-Stars. On Sunday: Ron Joseph & Steppin’ Stone; Birdlegg & Tightfit Blues Band; Michael John & Bottom Line Blues Band;  John Lee Hooker, Jr., and Tom Rigney and Flambeau entertained audiences. Performers on Monday were: Kathleen Cairns & Tattoo Blue; Greg Barker & Highway 61 Blues Band; Lydia Pense & Cold Blood; Caravan of All-Stars, featuring Jimmy Mamou, Billy Dunn, Teddy “Blues Master” Watson, and Willie G; and Eric Gayles.

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SAN FRANCISCO BLUES FESTIVAL DRAWS CROWDS For the 32nd year in a row, The San Francisco Blues Festival  (SFBF) entertained audiences the end of September. Again it was held in two places - downtown and at the scenic Great Meadow near Fort Mason. The Friday free Waterfront Blues Concert was an hour and a half harmonica noontime show in the financial district. This year four top-notch harp masters from the West Coast performed. Each one did his own show, and then all the players joined together for a jam as the last song. Many of the performances related to West Coast harmonica jump blues, and all used a local band called Bay Area Blues Mafia. Gary Smith is a nationally recognized legend of the instrument and is noted for his innovation and tonal playing. Paul Durkett has been playing harmonica for over 30 years, and is considered to be one of the best harp players to ever come out of the West Coast. He had a nice laid-back feel to his playing. Dave Barrett has performed with harp legends and also teaches harmonica master class workshops around the country.

Big Bones was one of the highlights of the show. He was very melodic with his chromatic harp playing and used the entire harp range for his performance. He exuded great energy, both from his baritone voice and harp playing, with all his original songs. He was dressed for the occasion with his long lime green jacket and his gold shirt, tie, and hat. He performed more in the Chicago style rather than the West Coast Jump style.

The rest of the two-day fest was in the picturesque Great Meadow with its sweeping views of the Golden Gate Bridge and bay full of ships and sailboats, with  a backdrop of hills and buildings of this great city. Keb ’Mo’, aka Kevin Moore, was headliner on Saturday’s show. He started his show with  rock music using his vocals, harp, and slide guitar. Then he transgressed into a country sound with slight blues elements. Generally, he wasn’t very bluesy. He is an excellent guitar player, writes his own material which is mainly more pop, rock, and country. Buddy Guy headlined the Sunday show. He played a high energy blues show and had great rapport with the audience. Special guest on Buddy’s show was Carlos Santana. When he wasn’t talking, he played nothing but the blues with Buddy and also had his own solos.

Several groups were represented. The Mannish Boys were eight musicians from Los Angeles which represented some of the best performers currently on that scene. They put on a stellar show which reflected a strong Texas influence. A special treat was Randy Chortkoff, the founder of the group, who opened the set with two fabulous harp numbers. The lineup included: vocalists, Finis Tasby and Mickey Champion; guitarists, Kid Ramos and Frank “Paris Slim” Goldwasser; and pianest, Leon Blue, who was unable to be there, so Steve Lucky sat in. Several others were also in the group: harpist,  Johnny Dyer; drummer, June Core; and bassist, Ronnie James. Two musicians were particularly impressive.  Charismatic Champion, who is 82, had a strong, high-pitched voice. Dyer blew and sang classic blues with Delta roots.



The Fat Possum Juke Joint Caravan’s Mississippi hill country blues transformed the festival into a juke in the delta for 45 minutes. Featured  musicans were guitarist, T-Model Ford, aka Tommy Lee Miles; vocalist, Paul "Wine" Jones; drummer, Spam, and Cedric Burnside. This group were featured in a lengthly article in “The New Yorker” magazine. They are one of the top groups for rugged, unpolished, Delta blues.

The British Blues All-Stars consisted of guitarist-singer, Long John Baldry; guitarist-vocalist, Kim Simmonds; guitarist, Rod Price and pianest, Bob Hall, who all played the blues in the sixties. Spotlights went to the dapper-looking Baldry, who was one of the first British musicians to perform blues in England and to boogie woogie master Hall. The importance of these and other British Blues All-Stars was that they re-introduced this American art form to America and the world in the mid to late 1960s. The movement was called the British invasion of blues-rock. At that time, blues in America had almost become a footnote to the folk revival.

There was a variety of blues at the festival. On Saturday, Johnny Nitro & The Doorslammers, a San Francisco-based group, opened with a high energy, solid danceable, blues set. Guitarist-vocalist, Nitro has a tough note-biting guitar technique and a rough-delivered vocal style. His wife played sax in his band and sang a few songs. Guitarist-vocalist, Big J.C. Smith, whose influences run the gamut from T-Bone Walker to pure Delta-driven blues, played a good acoustic set of mainly traditional blues. His electric guitar had a mellow, acoustic feel and he had gruff vocals.

Vocalist, Jackie Payne and guitarist, Steve Edmonson were audience pleasers. Their set was bluesy with a rock swing and the horn section of a sax and trumpet sounded great.  They recently played at a Swedish blues festival. Payne has a great classic R&B and soul voice that has been labeled as Stax meets Chess. Vocalist, Bobby Rush, now 71, made his second SFBF appearance and most of the crowd got the tongue in cheek chitlin circuit humor and sexy verbal repertoire and enjoyed their R&B set.  His two show girls were a big focus with their  body movements and four costume changes. Marcia Ball kept the crowd moving with her singing and her raucous-based New Orleans boogie and Texas roadhouse R&B and blues-driven honky tonk piano. A former Texan, and now locally- based, Angela Strehli, joined Marcia for two songs.

Sunday’s show drew a larger audience. Steve Lucky Blues Revue opened the show. They played in the style of the 50s jump blues. Pianest, Steve Lucky learned boogie-woogie piano from Roosevelt Sykes and Pinetop Perkins. The guitarist, Miss Carmen Getit, played in the T-Bone Walker tradition. John Lee Hooker, Jr., son of John Lee Hooker, has developed his own style with a style that resembles more of a R&B and soul-blues school, plus heavy influences of modern blues. He did end his set with “Boom Boom” as a tribute to his dad. Gail "Mojo" Muldrow was the lead singer and guitarist for the Johnny Otis Band for years. She is an incredibly gifted guitarist and vocalist. Her tight band backed up Sugar Pie DeSanto. The 68-year-old Pie got down on the stage, flipped, flew like a plane and gave a great performance for which she got a standing ovation.

The Siegel-Schwall Band was formed in Chicago in the mid 1960s, and still is a popular group with the audience. Corky Siegel, harmonica player and vocalist, played his heart out, as it were, and did two harp solos that were absolute show stealers, and  got a standing ovation for his bluesy harp playing. Jim Schwall played acoustic guitar  and sang some good blues, in the vein of Jimmy Reed and Muddy Waters. Sam Lay, one of the greatest virtuoso drummers in blues history, played drums. Bassist, Rollo Radford, has appeared on seven of the fourteen albums of the group. Master harpist and vocalist, Charlie Musselwhite, played a wonderful, high-energy blues set. His very tight band included Kirk Fletcher and Kid Andersen, two monster guitarists with impeccable tone. This group was the only one to do an encore.

All in all, it was a great weekend with lots of exciting musical highlights. Thanks to Tom Mazzolini for producing such a good show.

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