Cover photo © 2023 Janet Takayama

 In This Issue 

Mark Thompson has our feature interview with Joe Nosek. We have five Blues reviews for you this week including new music from Lady J Huston, Bruce Katz Band, Bob Corritore & Friends, Leigh Sloggett and Nic Clark. Scroll down and check it out!

 From The Editor’s Desk 

Hey Blues Fans,

The 2023 Blues Blast Music Awards voting starts Saturday July 1st on our website at www.bluesblastmagazine.com. Ticket sales for the Blues Blast Music Awards show on September 23rd in Peoria, IL started last Friday on the BBMA website at http://www.TheBBMAs.com.

We will start announcing the artists coming to perform next week. Another event that is part of this years awards celebration is a benefit for the Sean Costello Fund For Bipolar Research at the same venue on Friday September 22nd. More info will be announced soon so make plans for a great weekend of Blues. Watch for the announcement next week.

Wishing you health, happiness and lots of Blues music!

Bob Kieser

Since their formation over 20 years ago, the Cash Box Kings have been one of the finest traditional electric blues band in the world. Their recordings for Blind Pig Records, followed by the latest three albums on Alligator Records, have garnered the band multiple nominations for Blues Blast Music Awards as well as Blues Music Awards. Their latest release, Oscar’s Motel, is nominated for the 2023 Blues Blast award in the Traditional Blues Album category. Additionally, the band received a nomination in the Blues Band Of The Year category, while lead vocalist Oscar Wilson was nominated in the Vocalist Of The Year category.

Their first four albums were self-released on the Blue Midnight Records label, with two live albums book-ending two studio projects. The line-up during that period included Travis Koopman on guitar and Chris Boeger on upright bass. After that, the band’s line-up became more fluid, yet always featuring some of the best Chicago-style blues musicians.

From the start, Kenny “Beedy Eyes” Smith has used his mastery of the shuffle to be the rhythmic foundation on drums, appearing on all 11 albums the band has released. The other key band member is founder Joe Nosek, who shares lead vocal duties with Wilson while blowing some fine harmonica licks that build on the lessons he learned from the masters of the instrument.

The band name was offered by a friend when Nosek was trying to come up with something that captured the essence of the ensemble he envisioned.

“I needed a catchy name, and I had a buddy, Derek Taylor, who was a ethnomusicologist, working at the Smithsonian Institute. He is also a jazz  and blues critic. I said, all right, Derek, I need a good name for old school Chicago blues band. And he said, I got one for you, the Cash Box Kings. It is kind of a play on Cash Box magazine, which was sort of the Rolling Stone of R&B and blues back in the fifties and early sixties. If you were a Blues or R&B artist, you wanted your face, your name on the cover of Cash Box magazine. So Derek said, you guys should be the Cash Box Kings. I said, that sounds good. I liked the ring of it, and I think it’s served us well.”

Starting with piano lessons at the age of six, Nosek added the trumpet to his musical repertoire a few years later. Life was good until he got to high school.

“I also liked sports, and when I got to high school, I was under the false assumption that you could do both band and sports. You know, be in the high school jazz band and play sports. The first week of school, the band director told us, ok, you’ve got a car wash on Saturday and then a marching band competition on Sunday. And I said, well, no, I’ve got soccer games. And he said, you can’t do sports! So I said, why not? He said, you can’t do sports and play music. And I figured it’s going be a lot harder for me to play sports on my own, especially team sports like soccer and baseball, than it is to go out and do music on my own. So I decided that I would stick with the sports, and take up music on my own.

“So I shifted over to guitar and became an aspiring Bob Dylan and Neil Young impersonator for a bit, with my little harmonica rack. But then at some point early on, I heard Little Walter, which is when I said Bob Dylan and Neil Young are cool, but this is a whole other level. From that point, I knew I had to learn what these guys are doing on harmonica, not only Little Walter, but both Sonny Boy Williamsons, and Big Walter Horton, what they’re doing here. It was a lot different than Bob Dylan and Neil Young!

“A few years later, I got old enough where I could kind of sneak my way into Chicago Blues bars. My cousin was about five years older than me, a big blues fan, and he was good at charming bouncers to let this little, young punk into the blues bars. Then I started going down Chicago Blues fest every summer, you know, beginning of June. I’d catch  every act that I could, just running back and forth between the stages, seeing Otis Rush, the Myers brothers, Junior Wells, Jimmy Rogers, Willie Dixon, Sunnyland Slim, John Lee Hooker, all those cats. Seeing those guys play live made me realize that I needed to figure out what they were doing so I can play this music myself.”

Born in 1974 in Whitewater, WI, Nosek got bit by the blues once his family moved to Elmhurst, IL, a western suburb of Chicago, giving him much easier access to the city’s blues clubs. After graduating high school, he enrolled at the University of Wisconsin Madison for undergraduate.

“My first year there I was thinking about being a music major. So I had to take a composition class. It was baroque choral composition, like Bach counterpoint and choral. I walk into the classroom. There’s only about 15 people in it. I looked at the professor and thought, man, that guy looks like Jim Schwall, the guitarist for the Siegel-Schwall Blues Band.

“I turned to the kid next to me and I said, hey, I think that’s Jim Schwall. And this 18 year old kid looks at me, saying, who the hell is Jim Schwall? Sure enough, it was Jim Schwall, who was working on his PhD in classical music composition. I wasn’t any good at baroque choral music. I’d turn in my compositions, and he would take his red and mark it all up, then tell me to see him during office hours.

“He’d start picking apart my composition, saying you used the diminished fifth here. It should have been a regular fifth. And then I’d say, what was it like seeing Howling Wolf back then? And he’d started talking about the Wolf, and it would usually devolve into him telling me stories of the good old days in Chicago. Then at some point he said, wait, wait, we are getting off track here.

“That class definitely made me decide that I did not want to be a music major, and indirectly pushed me back into doing my own thing with music. Jim would let me get up on stage from time to time when he’d play in town. And then I met the great harp player West Side Andy Linderman, and Clyde Stubblefield, who was James Brown’s drummer for many years. I couldn’t believe that Clyde Stubblefield was living in Madison.

“I knew he was funky drummer and here he was, playing in a club every Monday night. Eventually he and Andy would let me get up on stage and play with with them. Those are the two guys I kind of cut my teeth with. I also met James Earl Tate, a great bluesman who ran a blues jam here in Madison, and still does for the last 40 years. Tate was childhood best friends with Luther Allison.

“Luther lived in Paris at that time. But he would come to the States every summer to tour, but he would spend his down time with Tate so they could go fishing. And Luther would come down to Tate’s Blues Jam in this tiny club. Luther was real good to me. The times that I did play with him, he gave me guidance, told me what it would take to be a professional blues musician and make a name for myself. And he said, “you’ve got to stick with this, kid, because I know you can make it. I’m telling you right now, I don’t say that to everybody”. And that was some of the biggest words of encouragement I ever received.”

A few years later, Nosek’s band was opening on a show with Mississippi Heat, who had Kenny Smith on drums. They had met several times in Chicago, but that evening the conversation got serious.

“I told Kenny that I really want to start an old school Chicago-style blues band playing music  like the old Chess Records stuff. He thought that was a cool idea, saying that he loved that stuff but he only got to play it with his dad, drummer Willie “Big Eyes” Smith and his buddies, and they’re all in their seventies, eighties, and nineties. Kenny wanted to play with some younger cats. This was around 2001. A couple months later, I decided to start my own band with Kenny and some like-minded guys in Madison to do what we could do to keep the old school traditional style blues going.”

That same night, another friend of Smith’s approached Nosek to say that he could tell the harmonica player had an affinity for the traditional sounds, but his current band tended to fall into a more modern, blues-rock approach. He introduced his buddy “White Lightning,” who turned out to be Travis Koopman, a plumber by day and a fine blues guitar player.

“When I met Travis, I asked him who his favorite guitar players were. He answered Son House, Luther Tucker, and the Myers brothers. I thought, all right, this guy obviously knows his stuff. So our original bass player, Chris Boeger, and I were playing in this country Delta blues band, fronted by Catfish Stevenson, doing a weekly gig. Catfish went on a motorcycle trip, it broke down, and he called to tell me he couldn’t do our show, that we needed to cover it.

“Needing a guitar player, I decided to call White Lightning. When he showed up with his amp and his guitar, I asked him if he knew “Juke,” the Little Walter classic. Yes. Do you know “Money, Marbles, and Chalk”? Yes. Do you know “Rollin’ and Tumblin’”? Yes. Three hours later I was like, man, where’s this guy been the last 10 years? We asked Travis if he wanted to join the band, which he agreed to on the spot.”

Another local musician, Todd Cambio, joined the new band on rhythm guitar and bass. He was a roommate of guitarist Joel Paterson, who would enter the story further down the road.

“It was like a dream to find more of the guys who had a similar vision. I think about six months into the band’s existence, we recorded a live album. It was only our fourth or fifth show, we didn’t rehearse, just they rolled the tape and we ended up releasing it as an album. It helped us get us on the map. A famous European blues critic, Andre Hobus with Soul Bag Magazine, bought a copy of that album when we were playing illegally on a street corner during the 2002 Chicago Blues fest. He got it before the cops kicked us out of the park. He ended up writing a great review which lead to us getting calls from Europe to do our first overseas tour.”

The band suffered a loss when Cambio decided to follow another of his passions, building guitars He started his own company, Fraulini Guitars, with an exquisite line-up of handcrafted instruments. But the hand of fate provided help.

“Right around that time, we met Billy Flynn. He started playing some gigs with us and, of course, was a perfect fit. He got a kick out of working with us young kids, reminding him of himself 20 years earlier. He remains our main guitar player, and produced our second album, Black Nigh Fallin’.”

Adding Flynn to the line-up certainly raised the band’s profile in the blues community, given the high regard his work has received over the years. But it took one more twist of fate to bring another key member into the picture.

“Oscar Wilson was living on the South side of Chicago with his family. Around 2005, he moved them to Janesville, WI, in an effort to escape the violence and drug dealing. It was tough because he had lived there his entire life, but he wanted his daughters to have a better life. Several years later, they graduated high school and moved right back to Chicago. Then Oscar lost his wife to cancer. He was alone in Janesville, of all places.

“One night he ended up at a blues jam at the local VFW, hosted by Travis and James Earl Tate. Oscar introduced himself to Travis, stating he played some harmonica and guitar in addition to singing. So Travis invited him up on stage. After a couple of songs, Travis’s eyes got real big. He knew I needed to meet Oscar. Travis asked him if he was a professional musician. Oscar replied no, but I grew up around the blues, and I love to play this stuff. When Travis asked him what his dream was, Oscar said it was to play on stage at Buddy Guy’s Legends.

“Travis told him, you are in luck, we have a gig there next week. And I am going to get you on it. The night of the show, Oscar showed up in a tangerine colored suit. I had never met him. He got on stage, we shook hands, I asked him what he wanted to do. He said a Muddy Waters song, one by B.B. King, and whatever the third one was. He sang three songs, the crowd went crazy, and he got three standing ovations. I’m standing there going, I think we are going to have to find a place for this guy in the band. And the rest is history.”

Things were really coming together for the band. But just before they started working on their fifth album, Koopman had a medical emergency that left him in a desperate situation.

“Travis was a self-employed plumber. He got real sick, and was hospitalized for ten days. He walked out with a $30,000 medical bill that he couldn’t pay. He needed health insurance, but at that time, with a pre-existing condition, good luck. Then the insurance company and the hospital started coming after him, threatening to take away his guitars and car. He was in a hard spot. He ended up moving to the Cayman Islands where he could get health insurance and steady work as a plumber. It hit us pretty hard as he was a founding member and a musical soulmate to me.”

When he first arrived in Madison, Nosek got to spend some time with Joel Paterson before the guitarist moved to Chicago, where he was a member of the Four Charms along with bass man Jimmy Sutton.

“With Travis gone, it was hard to find another guitar player that fit with our sound. Billy Flynn was playing as many gigs as he could, but he was on the road quite a bit, in demand from artists like Kim Wilson. I don’t quite remember how it happened, but once Joel started playing with us, it quickly became a real good fit. Both of them were I-94 Blues, which we released on Blue Bella Records, owned by Nick Moss. That was also the first album that the late Barrelhouse Chuck Goering played piano on. I’m really proud of it to this day. I think it’s one of the best recordings we ever made. And it was instrumental in getting us to where we are now.”

One day out of the blue, Nosek got a phone call from Jerry Del Giudice, one of the founders of Blind Pig Records. He had bought a copy of I-94 Blues, loved it, and told a stunned Nosek that it was one of his favorite blues albums of the last decade. And he wanted to talk about the Cash Box Kings joining his label. It was a surreal moment that had Nosek wondering if this was some kind of prank. But the offer was real, leading to a three record deal.

“It was a well established, well respected, visible blues label with a great track record. They believed in what we did creatively and musically. Jerry always gave us complete creative control and believed in our vision musically. He also liked the fact that it was young kids playing old school Chicago blues, but then we’d branch off into what we call Blues-abilly, which is a hybrid between the Sun Records blue sides and the Sun Records country and rockabilly sides. Our first album with them, Holler and Stomp, really gave us a shot in the arm and kind of brought us to new level of visibility in the blues world. It put us on the map as far as some of the major US festivals.”

Nosek graduated college with a degree in English linguistics. His plan pre-CBKs was to graduate, then go back to Chicago to teach high school English, doing music on the side. After he stumbled into several Linguistic courses in his final year,  he discovered that he really liked them, and had him pondering graduate school.

“I did get into Graduate School, and began teaching classes as a second language. Sometimes I would think about doing music full-time. But my Mom kept begging me to finish, telling me to get the degree, then go play music to your heart’s content. But the degree is what is going to get you health insurance. So I stayed, got the degree, and played music at the same time.

“I kept on teaching, jamming my foot further into the door, trying to be indispensable in my department. Eventually I was able to land myself a full-time gig there. And that led into a permanent position. And I’ve been very fortunate to be able to do two things that I’m passionate about. One is teach English and now, I teach people how to teach English. I have been doing that work for over 20 years.”

In 2015, just as their third album, Holding Court, came out on Blind Pig, Del Guidice and his partner, Edward Chmelewski, made the decision to sell their label to the Orchard Group. With the advent of Napster, I-Tunes, and downloading, the record business was in turmoil. But in appreciation of the work the Cash Box Kings had done, Del Guidice offered to put in a good word for the band with several labels. One of them was a main competitor, Alligator Records.

‘That started a prolonged back & forth conversation with Bruce Iglauer. I had met him, but didn’t know much about him. He always seemed like the Wizard of Oz, the mystic figure behind the scenes at this big blues label. I certainly had plenty of Alligator records in my library. Those first Hound Dog Taylor records are some of my favorite blues albums ever recorded. Bruce and Dick Shurman know more about Chicago blues than just about anyone I know.

“It took awhile for both of us to get comfortable signing a deal. He and his staff have been wonderful to work with, and he has been really good about respecting our autonomy as a band, in addition to supporting the songs about social and political issues Oscar and I choose to write about. That was one of the reasons that he was initially attracted to the band. His encouragement has meant a lot, because we are willing to stick our neck out and raise our voice about things that needed to be addressed in society.”

Being on Alligator gave the band’s profile another boost. Their second release on the label, Hail To The Kings, had the band’s fortunes on an upswing, with plenty of festival offers in hand. And then the pandemic hit.

“We all got knocked back to square one, especially Oscar. The rest of us have jobs while Billy still has plenty of work. I’d love to get Oscar and the rest of the guys all of the respect and notoriety I think they deserve. I going to keep pushing, but I’ll never take any of this for granted. My wife and kids have always supported me, as have my fellow band members. We are thankful for the blues fans, the Djs, writers, and publications like Blues Blast that help promote the music, because it sure ain’t Top 40!

Asked about his approach as a harmonica player, and as a bandleader, Nosek clearly favors a team approach.

“You have to take the ensemble approach. Everyone’s got their own little piece of the puzzle. And to make that sound right, everyone’s got to be staying in their lane, listening to each other, complimenting each other. When it’s time for you to step up and do your thing, you step up and do your thing, and then you go right back in your lane and you don’t overplay. You don’t step on people’s toes.

“When you listen to someone like Little Walter on his instrumental records, it is all about him. They were showcase pieces. I think some of my favorite sides that Walter ever recorded were when he was backing Muddy Waters or Jimmy Rogers, just playing the right thing at the right time. I have heard Sonny Boy Williamson II do solos where he played three notes, and those three notes mean more to me, touch me in a more profound way then some guy who gets on stage and play’s a thousand notes. It’s not about how many notes you play. It is playing the right note, at the right time.

“But at the end of the day, what I learned is the most important lesson was just to listen, and be a team member. Another was from Jerry Portnoy, who was Muddy’s harmonica player for a spell. I was at a club to hear Kim Wilson with a killer band. I think he had Billy Flynn and Nick Moss on guitar, Gene Taylor on piano, and Dave Myers on bass. It seemed like everybody was there, Pinetop Perkins, Billy Boy Arnold, just hanging out. I was about 20 years old.

“Kim was playing through a vintage amplifier. Jerry was standing next to me, so I said, Mr. Portnoy, what kind of amp is Kim playing through. Jerry looked at me as earnest as he could and said, kid, it doesn’t matter what amp it is, or what microphone he is using. He could be playing through a Fisher Price microphone, and Kim Wilson is still going to make it sound good. Do you know why? Because he has tone.

“That was a real eye opener for me. After some years of trying to learn the licks, I began to spend my time trying to get that tone. And I am still working on it. You can spend all the money you want on the gear, but if you don’t have the tone, don’t know how to play the right note at the right time, and understand when to sit back and be quiet, it will sound lousy. There may be a thousand harp players out there that are better than me. I take pride in not playing any bullshit. I get up on stage and try to play something tasteful, something that fits, and that adds to what the rest of the band is playing. At the end of the day, that’s my goal.”

Blues Blast Magazine Senior writer Mark Thompson lives in Florida, where he is enjoying the sun and retirement. He is the past President of the Board of Directors for the Suncoast Blues Society and a former member of the Board of Directors for the Blues Foundation. Music has been a huge part of his life for the past fifty years – just ask his wife!

Lady J Huston – Groove Me Baby Album

Earwig Music/UniSun Productions EWR-4980

www.ladyjhuston.com

12 songs – 47 minutes

Sometimes, the greatest entertainers are right in front of you but still remain out of sight. That’s the case for Lady J Huston, who finally makes her debut as a recording artist after a career that began in the ‘70s and includes a long run with Albert King and other top talents. The nine funky originals and three covers in this stellar set are certain to launch her into the stratosphere where she belongs.

Born Joyce Ann Huston in St. Louis and the daughter of gospel, blues and jazz legend Loyce Huston, Lady J grew up singing and dancing. Her first taste of the bright lights came early when she started playing trumpet behind Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame keyboard player Johnnie Johnson. At age 18, she started traveling the world in King’s band, as lead horn player then section leader before a long stint as his musical director and opening act while maintaining her position as the only female member of his organization.

Huston spent 25 years in Las Vegas, where she reigned as the city’s queen of the blues while fronting her own band, the Fireballs, opening for dozens of major touring acts when not headlining top showrooms, festivals and more, before returning to St. Louis in 2018.

A fiery, in-your-face alto who accompanies herself on trumpet, flugelhorn and synthesizer on this one, Lady J hit the street running after her arrival. In addition to touring major clubs in the Midwest, she’s also produced the Albert King Alumni Tribute Show, which debuted at the Missouri History Museum, and is hard at work on a documentary about King and the group that will include behind-the-scenes stories about one of the most influential and highly demanding artists of his generation.

Recorded in the Gateway City, the first 11 tracks here were captured at The Midi Room, JBG Audio, Blue Lotus and Red Pill Recording, while the closing number comes from a live set at The Factory showroom. The moveable feast of backing musicians includes Darryl Bassett, Jason Cooper, Ashton Channing Proctor and Paul Niehaus IV (guitar), Jocelyn Rugaber and Wade Long (keys), Ben Shafer and M. Lew Winer III (sax), and Charles Smotherson Jr., Gerald “Pocket King” Warren, James Gugle and Sterling Lloyd (percussion), and Frank Dunbar (bass).

They’re augmented by Anna C. Allen, Adrea Rohlehr, Bwayne Smotherson and Rosetta Y. Blaine on backing vocals, and the 14-piece Jazz Edge Orchestra lead by Thomas Moore sits in on one cut.

A horn flourish opens “Your Call” before the band launches into an unhurried shuffle and Huston expresses her frustration about being alone as she patiently awaits a phone call from her man. Her anticipation is highlighted by a tasty Shafer solo and the expansion of the 12-bar arrangement to include additional horn runs. When they do hook up in “Mean Stud Lover’s Blues,” he makes her toes “curl down in my shoes.” In his case, apparently, he’s “mean” in only the best possible way in the bedroom.

“I Want a Man Like That,” a tune penned by Miles Davis’ keyboard player Chick Finney, swings from the hip to follow as it reinforces the message before the action slows dramatically for the ballad “Tearing Me Apart.” Written about a reunion following a breakup, Lady J remains unhappy because she knows the guy’s going to go back to his wife at the end of the night and realizing she can’t even put up a fight. A cover of “Born Under a Bad Sign” – penned by Booker T. Jones and William Bell and a monster hit for Albert – gets a refreshing update before “Corona, You Make Me Sick,” Huston’s tongue-in-cheek complaint about the pandemic.

Jazz Edge Orchestra joins the action for “Hide-Away” – not the Freddie King classic, but a melismatic burner about the need for a safe space for Lady J to recover from her lover leaving for another, unworthy woman who’s loaded with cash. The mood brightens from the opening notes of the title tune, “Groove Me Baby,” which celebrates continuous longing for the new man at her side.

A second-line beat fuels “Messin’ Around in Da Bayou,” which honors Huston’s Las Vegas drummer, Jimmy Prima, the nephew of New Orleans-born trumpet legend Louie Prima, before the singer updates and breathes new life into the jazzy “500 Pounds Good Gizzay,” a sassy, sexually-charged number written by her mother. A stop-time, mostly instrumental reprise of “Mean Stud Lover’s Blues” follows before Lady J puts her own unhurried, smoky spin on the Etta James classic, “At Last,” singing it to honor newlyweds who were dancing to it in front of a live audience.

This is big-band blues at its best, and Lady J Huston definitely deserves her place in the spotlight. Pick up this one. You won’t be disappointed!

Blues Blast Magazine Senior writer Marty Gunther has lived a blessed life. Now based out of Mason, Ohio, his first experience with live music came at the feet of the first generation of blues legends at the Newport Folk Festivals in the 1960s. A former member of the Chicago blues community, he’s a professional journalist and blues harmonica player who co-founded the Nucklebusters, one of the hardest working bands in South Florida.

Bruce Katz Band – Connections

Dancing Rooster Records

www.brucekatzband.com

11 songs – 56 minutes

Bruce Katz is a musician’s musician, having played with a veritable Who’s Who’s of modern musicians over the course of his storied career, including being the long-time keyboardist for Greg Allman and various Allman “family bands” as well as releasing a series of impressive solo albums.

Connections contains 10 original tracks (plus a cover of Jessie Mae Robinson’s “Sneakin’ Around” that some listeners may recognise from Delbert McClinton’s cover) that lovingly explore Katz’s primary musical influences, and it’s all here: blues, soul, jazz-rock, jam band, New Orleans R’n’B and blues-rock. The album kicks off with the ferocious instrumental boogie of “Right Here, Right Now”, highlighting both Katz’s wonderful boogie woogie skills but also Aaron Lieberman’s raw and dirty guitar. Lieberman and Liviu Pop (drums) are the newest members of the Bruce Katz Band and they bring with them an intensity and drive that clearly has brought out the best in Katz himself.

The album is primarily instrumental, with all the musicians contributing fully, although Katz’s Hammond B3 and piano are front and centre, with Katz also adding Hammond organ bass on eight of the tracks. Shaun Oakley (grandson of original Allman Brothers bassist, Berry Oakley) plays bass on three songs.

While the majority of the solos are taken by Katz and Lieberman, the funky “Where’s My Wallet’s” even contains a short drum solo, in keeping with its Wired-era Jeff Beck sound (although to be fair, many of Pop’s fills in the rest of the song are outstanding). The hard funk rock of “Down Below” also has hints of Beck, but more from his Beck-Bogart-Appice period. Lieberman’s soul-fuelled voice perfectly complements Katz’s organ on tracks such as the swampy Louisiana pop of “Nighttime Stroll” or “Sneakin’ Around” (which features an outstanding solo from Katz).

These boys are monster musicians. There is a lightness and joy to tracks like “Morning On Basin Street” and “The Dream” that belies the casual yet technical ferocity of the players, with subtle rhythmic changes implemented and unexpected musical directions followed. The manner is which Katz and Lieberman play off each other each on “Gary’s Jam” benefits from repeated listening. It is obvious that everyone in the band is listening closely to what everyone else is playing and responding accordingly. The result is a genuinely musical conversation.

Connections was recorded at the legendary Capricorn Studios in Macon, Georgia, which was Ground Zero for Southern Rock in the 1970s, and it was an inspired choice by Katz. This album channels that open-minded era’s approach to music. Katz produced the album with Legare Robertson, and it was recorded, mixed and mastered by Rob Evans and together they have done a great job in capturing a raucous, live and yet wholly modern sound.

This isn’t a straight blues album by any means, but if you like to hear fabulous musicians enjoying themselves with well-written songs that give the the space to stretch out and probe different ideas and approaches, you will find a lot to enjoy on Connections.

Reviewer Rhys “Lightnin'” Williams plays guitar in a blues band based in Cambridge, England. He also has a day gig as a lawyer.

Bob Corritore & Friends – High Rise Blues

Vizztone Label Group

http://www.bobcorritore.com

14 Tracks – 59 minutes

Chicago transplant Bob Corritore moved to Phoenix, Arizona in 1981 where he opened a legendary blues club called the Rhythm Room. He booked many of the top name blues artists over the years and recorded their performances for posterity. In recent years he has released a large number of those recordings under the umbrella name of “Bob Corritore’s From The Vault“. The series started in 2007 and now contains 25 releases. “High Rise Blues” is the latest in the series and his third release in 2023 following “The World In A Jug” with Jimi “Primetime” Smith and a collection of female blues artists titled “Women in Blues Showcase“. Bob’s harmonica is always a feature of every recording, but his guests are out front on every song.

“High Rise Blues” focuses on the blues musicians from Chicago. According to the liner notes, the songs were from recordings dating back to 1992 and as recently as 2022. Many of the artists represented are now deceased. Bob has delivered some classic songs never before released that herald many of those greats, as well as some current artists that are the epitome of the current Chicago sound. Forty-four major musicians and Bob Corritore play on the fourteen songs represented on the album. Unfortunately, there is no indication of when each track was recorded. It would be interesting to know.

Jimmy Rogers kicks off the album with the rocking shuffle “Last Time” he first recorded in 1953. Corritore’s harmonica offers some great fills against Roger’s smooth vocals and guitar work. S.E. Wilis also plays piano, Chico Chism is on drums, and Bruce Lopez on bass.

Next up is the stinging guitar and vocals by Magic Slim on “Buddy Buddy Friends” addressing those who only want to become your friends when you have money in your pocket noting that “I don’t trust nobody that wants money”. Andre Howard adds bass and B.J. Jons plays drums on this one with rhythm guitar from Jon McDonald.

The title song “High Rise Blues” features Chico Chism on vocals and drums with Luther Tucker on guitar. Chico advises that “You better leave these married women alone. One day her husband will be at home.” If you don’t “you can end up looking down the barrel of a .44 magnum. Adam Moraga plays bass and Johnny Rapp plays rhythm guitar.

Koko Taylor joyfully presents her classic song “Twenty-Nine Ways” with Corritore wailing on the harp. Bob Margolin and Little Frank Krakowski provides guitar with Bob Stroger on bass and Willie “Big Eyes” Smith on drums.

Manuel Arrington tells a talking story of a sexual nature playing off a not too subtle use of the names of “Candy Bars” concluding the story with a result of the action when she gave birth to Baby Ruth. Jon Atkinson and Danny Michel play guitar, Troy Sandow on bass, and Marty Dodson plays drums.

Next up, Eddie Tayor, Jr.  plays guitar and sings that “I don’t want no woman whose hair is not hanging in my eyes.” on “Short Haired Woman”, which criticizes the use of wigs. Illinois Slim provides rhythm guitar, Bob Stroger on bass and Brian Fahey on drums.

Sam Lay plays the drums and asks, “Honey Where You Going?”. His woman is “fine and the one for me”. Johnny Rapp again shows up on guitar with Chris James on rhythm and Patrick Rynn on bass.

The still very much alive John Primer has worked with many of the blues greats in his career, including Muddy Waters, Magic Slim and Willie Dixon. He has been nominated for a Grammy award and continues to present some of the top selling and award-winning blues albums including this year’s Hard Times. John’s guitar blends excellently with Corritore’s harmonica as John wants to know “Why Are You So Mean to Me”. Sid Morrow adds piano, Kedar Roy on bass, and June Core on drums fills out this combo.

Pinetop Perkins plays his usual fine piano and identifies himself as “Grinder Man”. Chris James is on guitar with Patrick Rynn on bass and Brian Fahey on drums. Corritore’s harmonica again wails on this one.

Bo Diddley rocks out on “Little Girl”, as he asks, “Can I go home with you?” “You look so fine.” Tom Mahon plays piano with Paul Thomas on bass and Johnny Rapp adding rhythm.

John Brim’s deep voice and guitar drive a “Hard Pill to Swallow” when he came back home from the army and heard his woman had a new baby amid stories of her running around while he was gone. Henry Gray is again on piano with Johnny Rapp on guitar and Paul Thomas on bass.

Willie “Big Eyes” Smith plays drums and declares “She’s Alright” with Billy Flynn and Johnny Rapp on guitar, Calvin “Fuzz” Jones on bass.

Eddy Clearwater provides the vocals and guitar as he says I would “Sail A Ship” “way across the desert sand, if I could be your man” with Bob Riedy on piano. Chris James adds guitar with Patrick Rynn on bass and Jon Hiller on drums.

The album ends with Lil Ed Williams on guitar and provides a smooth blues notifying that she was “Caught in the Act”. “It hurt me so bad when I saw you coming out of that bar last night. If he was not such a big boy, I would have had to start a fight”.  Johnny Rapp on rhythm guitar and Paul Thomas on bass complete this line-up.

As cited at the beginning of this review, Corritore does an excellent job with the release of every album in his series. This album is certainly an epitome of his efforts. His harp is constantly strong but never dominating. This album should definitely be on your list if you love the blues coming from Chicago or if you just have an appreciation for the fine work that Bob does with all of these albums. Great work, Mr. Corritore, and I hope you keep them coming.

Writer John Sacksteder is a retired civil engineer in Louisville, Kentucky who has a lifelong love of music, particularly the blues. He is currently the Editor of the Kentuckiana Blues Society’s monthly newsletter.

Leigh Sloggett – Wait For The Change

Self Released

www.luckyleigh.com

11 tracks/47 minutes

Leigh Sloggett is an Australian bluesman who loved the blues but turned to a life in art until his thirties when in 2006 he released his first album. He’s been performing for 19 years now and has this album, his fourth release, featuring three bandmates. The songs are all originals except for two, a Memphis Minnie cut and a rework of a Leroy Carr tune.

Chris Riseley is on double bass and is the longest standing member of his band, going back to Sloggett’s duo days. Len Oldman is on drums and Patrick Evans is on violin and mandolin. All three prvide some backing vocal duties here and there. Sloggett handles the lead vocals, and the acoustic, electric, acoustic lap slide, electric lap steel and high strung guitars. Nine of the tracks were recorded live.

The album begins with the title track. It has a good groove going for it as Sloggett sings with a breathy grittiness. Sl0ggett reworks Leroy Carr’s “How Long” into a driving, slow and dark blues. Haunting slide work is featured here. “Helping The Vegies grow” is a bouncy, lilting mid tempo blues with acoustic guitar that is fun.

“Fragile” follows,  a thumping and throbbing cut with his lap steel giving guitar the listener chills. The folky “Fast Train” is next with Leigh on acoustic guitar. “Shinjuku Bound” is the next track, a pensive cut with nice finger picking.

The instrumental “Switchback” is a slower to mid tempo piece with some cool guitar work. “Damn You Wind” is another etherial track with violin featured to once again support the haunting tones. The beat throbs and Leigh’s vocals are metered and downtrodden. “Compassionate Deficit” follows that, a slower story telling cut with driving guitar with slick guitar.

“Moonshine” is the full –up cover; we have acoustic lap steel and other guitar  making this a good adaptation of the original. Sloggett concludes with “Brand New Suit,” a cut about all the uses for his suit. Violin once again helps set the tone for this as Sloggett gives another dark and haunting performance, suggesting the suit can be used for weddings, funerals and eventually get buried in it.

The album is certainly not upbeat. Sloggett delivers eleven performance filled with darker emotions and almost ghostly feelings. He is adept at his guitar work and his songs are quite interesting. His vocal style helps deliver the darker feeling of his cuts. It’s quite the interesting album and worth a listen if you want something a little off the straight and narrow path.

Blues Blast Magazine Senior writer Steve Jones is president of the Crossroads Blues Society and is a long standing blues lover. He is a retired Navy commander who served his entire career in nuclear submarines. In addition to working in his civilian career since 1996, he writes for and publishes the bi-monthly newsletter for Crossroads, chairs their music festival and works with their Blues In The Schools program. He resides in Byron, IL.

Nic Clark – Everybody’s Buddy

Little Village Foundation

www.littlevillagefoundation.com

12 songs – 46 minutes

One of the feel-good stories in the blues in recent years has been the ascendancy of Nic Clark, a former teen prodigy on guitar and harmonica who’s a rising star as a songwriter, too. He hits new heights with this disc, an acoustic sophomore outing, on which he puts a unique Gen Z spin on growing up in a life of trouble while demonstrating maturity far beyond his tender years.

Now age 27 and a Mexican-American who was born and raised in Colorado, Nic’s childhood was unconventional to the extreme. After discovering the blues through a book about harmonica playing one day, Clark was playing out in bars – with his mother’s permission – at age 12, eventually sharing the stage with Billy Branch, Lazy Lester, Big Bill Morganfield and Rick Estrin & the Nightcats, which led to a long internship as a jack-of-all-trades under Kid Andersen at Greaseland Studios in California.

As a youth, Clark dealt head-on with more hardship than any youth deserves, including a life of poverty, a lifelong weight problem, struggles in the classroom and frequent truancies, caffeine addiction, loss of loved ones, car accidents and more. He reflects on his past with style and self-deprecating grace throughout this set, delivering 11 warm, intimate originals and a single cover – all of which will leave you smiling because of all the upbeat messages and positive affirmations they contain.

It’s a major departure from Love Your Life: Songs for the Whole Family, his 2021 debut, which produced by Andersen and included contributions from drummer Derrick “D’mar” Martin and bassist Jerry Jemmott and contained tunes Nic penned for both a niece and nephew and his parents and grandparents. Produced by guitar master Charlie Hunter in Greensboro, N.C., the lineup here includes Nic on harp, six-string and honeyed tenor vocals with Hunter on hybrid guitar and bass and George Sluppick on bass. Scared steel pedal guitarist DaShawn Hickman and vocalist Wendy Hickman make guest appearances.

“Laughing at the Rain” lopes slowly out of the gate to open as Clark optimistically states: “I may be livin’ on borrowed time, givin’ up my place in line, but the sun is out today…and I can’t help but smile at all the ways I lose myself.” The upbeat “It’ll Be Alright” finds Nic dispensing a little homespun advice to a friend with “a worried mind” to simply get through each day and keep up the fight despite dealing with sorrows and the feeling that the individual’s never where he wants to be.

Dealing with totaling two cars between ages 21 and 23, the infectious “Try to Understand” describes the importance of living a life of patience and compassion for yourself while moving on from troubles. It’s a tune that probably has even more meaning for the tunesmith today because – just prior to these words being written – someone rear-ended and demolished Clark’s current ride and his equipment, too. The only cover in the set — J.B. Lenoir’s “Good Advice” – celebrates a conversation with his granny and keeps the theme going before “Hurricanes” serves as a tribute to longtime pal/guitarist Gino Matteo, who also provided sage advice during Nic’s teens.

Featuring tasty fingerpicking throughout, “She’s a Fighter” honors a nutritionist friend for her valiant fight against both chronic disease and mounting medical bills and the husband who remains steadfastly at her side while the Chicago-flavored shuffle drives home the message “Don’t Count Yourself Out” before “Anxiety Blues” recounts the affects of drinking too much coffee while stranded at home at the height of the coronavirus epidemic.

One of the most moving numbers in the set, “How I Met the Blues” is a minor-key, six-minute burner on chromatic harp that Clark penned at age 11 following the sudden passing of an 13-year-old cousin on the first day of summer vacation. Primarily an instrumental, his work deep on the reeds expresses the family’s pain. The somber tone continues in “Flying Blind” – about another cousin’s troubles in school – before the upbeat “Everybody’s Buddy” – a tip of the hat to all of Nic’s friends – and “Breathe Slow” – about a friend enduring a panic attack – bring the disc to a close.

Having a bad day? Give this disc a spin. Nic Clark is a young treasure, and his upbeat attitude and positively spun tunes are guaranteed to lift your spirits and brighten your mood again.

Blues Blast Magazine Senior writer Marty Gunther has lived a blessed life. Now based out of Mason, Ohio, his first experience with live music came at the feet of the first generation of blues legends at the Newport Folk Festivals in the 1960s. A former member of the Chicago blues community, he’s a professional journalist and blues harmonica player who co-founded the Nucklebusters, one of the hardest working bands in South Florida.