Benny Turner – BT

Nola Blue Records

http://www.bennyturner.com

Ten tracks – 41 Minutes

85-year-old Benny Turner was born in Gilmer, Texas. His older brother is the famed guitarist known to the public as Freddie King. The family moved to Chicago in the 1950’s, where Freddie’s guitar work immediately caught everyone’s attention, and his fame quickly soared. Benny who could also play guitar was more content to play behind his brother on the bass, which also led to playing bass with other groups.  Benny got his first major exposure when Freddie asked him to fill in on bass for a gig when Freddie’s regular bass player was unable to play. Benny continued to play bass with Freddie at many of the Chicago blues clubs.

Benny played guitar with the gospel group, The Kindly Shepherds, and is on some of their early recordings. Benny’s life changed when he got his first taste for being on the road when he met R&B singer Dee Clark, who had the hit single, “Raindrops” in 1961. His first trip took him to New York’s Apollo Theater and continued through many of the venerated theaters of that period. His bass playing also caught the attention of Leroy Crume and Richard Gibbs of the gospel group, The Soul Stirrers. Benny was invited to join the group on their tour and became one of the first bass players in gospel music.

Benny rejoined his brother’s band after that on tours that led to playing on bills with many other major artists of the day. In 1973, while playing with Freddy at the Montreux Jazz Festival, he was invited to sit in with Memphis Slim and was recorded for an album, Memphis Slim – Very Much Alive in Montreux. Then in 1976, the unthinkable happened when Freddie died suddenly. Benny withdrew and became a recluse until Mighty Joe Young approached Benny to join his band. That arrangement lasted for eight years. He then joined the “Blues Queen of New Orleans” Marva Wright’s band for twenty years.

In 2014, he decided it was time for him to make his own music and released the album, Journey. Several more albums followed, which led to the tribute album to his brother, My Brother’s Blues, which led to a Blues Music Award nomination for Best Bass Player and nominations and awards from many other sources.  In 2017, Benny was inducted into the Chicago Blues Hall of Fame.

All of which leads to his current album, BT, which features three original songs and a selection of seven of his favorite blues songs that he quickly makes his own. The album started prior to the COVID onslaught and unrolled slowly as a result of that isolation. As a result, a vast array of performers appears on the various album cuts.

The album quickly gets things rocking with “Bump Little Susie”, written by Rudolph Toombs and attributed to Big Joe Turner. Nate Young’s piano and Charlie Burnett’s upright bass alongside Benny’s strong vocals delivers a rock and roll vibe. Benny says, “Going Down Slow” written by James Oden and first recorded by Howlin’ Wolf is one of his most requested songs in his concerts. It features the harmonica of Harrell Davenport, keyboards by Clayton Ivey, and the guitar of Will McFarlane.  The slow blues number is given a gospel feel as the song progresses. Jimmy McCracklin’s song “The Walk” describes a dance move which gets a swaying rock step into the music with Sax Gordon’s sax leading the way.

A slow ballad, “When I Call on You” was a B-side recording of Dee Clark’s 1958 song “Nobody but You”. Clearly a tribute, Benny concludes the song with the brief statement, “Man, I wish Dee could hear this.” “Born In This Time” is an obscure Muddy Waters tune originally recorded solely as the opening song for the 1975 movie, Mandingo, about the life of a slave. This is another slow ballad with gospel overtones, Benny playing both bass and banjo, and responsive backing vocals from Tiffany Pollack. Benny calls it his slave song and a reminder of his cultural roots and his ancestors’ traumatic past. Benny sings the lead and all of the harmonies on Hank Ballard’s “Finger Popping Time” with Billy Davis on guitar. Billy is the last living member of Ballard’s Midnighters and was the guitarist for the original recording. The song is actually a medley which includes Ballard’s “The Hoochi Coochi Coo”.  The covers conclude with a tribute to his friend, Mardi Gras’s Big Chief Bo Dollis, with the song “Smoke My Peace Pipe (Smoke It Right)”. Marva Wright joins Benny on vocals on the song with June Yamagishi on lead guitar, Keiko Komaki on keys and B3, and Nate Young on Clavinet.

Benny’s three original songs complete the album. The first up is “Drunk”, a tribute to his old friend, the late Jimmy Reed.  He invokes humor into the song as he opens by proclaiming, “If You see me on the ground, don’t try to pick me up – unless you’ve got a bottle, and a sixteen-ounce cup. I want to get drunk.” Harrell Davenport returns on harmonica on the track with Bobby Gentilo on piano, Clayton Ivey on Wurlitzer and Will McFarlane and Steve Grills on guitars. Benny pulls out his guitar for the back porch instrumental blues “Sleepy Time in the Barnyard”. “Who sang It First” was actually the first song recorded for the album. The song is a tribute to the artists and their history who have played the blues over the years. He cites “In the churches and in the corn fields a seed was planted”. “You might sing it better / You might sing it worse / But just remember who sang it first.” His gospel background again comes into play on the song, and he runs through names of many of the forebearers of the blues as the song fades out.

Benny spent many years in the background of other artists. But his rise to his own solo career shows that he was learning from those with whom he performed to deliver strong performances of his own. At age 85, his voice shows no decline in the power of his recordings.  He delivers songs with a deep soul and a touch of gospel power.

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.

Catfish Keith – Shake Me Up

Fish Tail Records FTRCD0022

www.catfishkeith.com

14 songs – 51 minutes

A perennial Blues Blast Music Awards nominee for acoustic artist of the year and a frequent winner, too, Catfish Keith is a breath of fresh air in a world dominated by electric guitars. Playing solo and touring the world for almost 50 years, he’s a beloved practitioner of the songster tradition, putting his own spin on a mix of classic country blues, ragtime and gospel and dovetailing an occasional original to spice things up a bit.

It’s a winning formula that’s produced 22 previous albums along the way, during which he’s also been considered for Grammys and Blues Music Awards 27 times and frequently topped the playlists of radio stations around the globe.

A native of East Chicago, Ind., Keith’s been working out of Iowa for decades, and he’s at the top of his game here, delivering some of the sweetest picking you’ll hear this or any year on six-strings built by several of the top acoustic luthiers in the world: National Reso-Phonic, Santa Cruz Guitar, Diamond Bottlenecks, Fraulini Guitars and Ralph S. Bown.

This set was recorded and mastered by Luke Tweety at Flat Black Studios in Iowa City and co-produced by Catfish and his wife/manager, Penny Cahill, who engineered. It’s a treasure trove of tunes – some familiar standards and others unduly obscured by Father Time.

Keith eases into action with the original, “My Only Little Darlin’ One,” drawing his inspiration from first-generation bluesmen Barbecue Bob and Laughing Charlie Lincoln. It’s a song of longing for a love lost years ago, and you can feel the loss in the tension Catfish builds between his vocals and guitar runs.

The mood brightens somewhat as he launches into a take on Lottie Kimbrough’s 1928 Paramount release, “Rolling Log Blues,” despite describing someone struggling to find room and board, then takes listeners to church with an updated version of Dennis Crompton and Robert Summers’ uplifting gospel classic, “Go, I Will Send Thee.”

Rev. Gary Davis’ “Candyman/Salty Dog” finds Keith yearning for a trip to New Orleans before the original “Fuss & Fight” finds Catfish playing in open-C tuning, something he hadn’t used since his youth, and regretting past mistakes. “Sleep Baby Sleep,” the first tune recorded by country kingpin Jimmie Rodgers in 1928, revives a pleasant, yodeled lullaby before Little Hat Jones’ “Long Gone From Kentucky” follows suit. It’s a dusty treasure from Okeh in 1930 that recounts the escape of a fugitive from the long arm of the law.

Washboard Sam’s ragtime classic, “Who Pumped the Wind in My Doughnut,” delivers a little long-forgotten sexual inuendo then yields to Washington Phillips’ recollection of leaving home with the inspirational “Mother’s Last Words to Her Son” and advice to stick with Jesus through thick and thin. Blind Willie Johnson’s “Nobody’s Fault But Mine” is tune from the American songbook, but Catfish Keith’s aggressive attack on the strings truly makes it his own.

Three more classics — Mississippi John Hurt’s “My Creole Belle,” Lonnie Johnson’s “Careless Love” and Blind Blake’s “Diddy Wah Diddy” – follow before Catfish lovingly concludes the set with a reading “There Will Be a Happy Meeting,” an instrumental composed by Bahamian Joseph Spence, whose stylings were a major influence to many current-era acoustic artists, including Keith, Taj Mahal and even the Grateful Dead, too.

Sure, there’s a lot of old-time music here, but there’s a whole lot of joyful picking and fun as well. Shake Me Up is a pure delight.

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.

Ben Levin – Presents A Holiday Blues Revue

VizzTone Label Group

www.benlevinpiano.com

10 songs time – 37:07

Cincinnati-based blues pianist-singer Ben Levin has regaled us with an early Christmas present of cool Christmas blues with the help of a few guest elves. Other than Lil’ Ed and Lil’ Jimmy Reed who lend a more traditional blues slant, the rest is more reminiscent of the cool Christmas blues of Charles Brown. Various guitarists and rhythm sections are employed. Ben and his father Aron wrote eight of the ten songs.

“Candy Cane” has Lil’ Ed Williams on vocals and his ubiquitous slide guitar. Other than the title it is a straight ahead blues song rather than a Christmas song, but none-the-less a fine song also with Ben’s exuberant piano.

Charles Brown’s “It’s Christmas Time” is uncanny in Ben’s vocal having some similarity to Brown’s voice and delivery. Aron Levin, Ben’s dad plays some tasty jazzy guitar to give the song more Charles Brown flavor. He also adds great guitar on eight of the ten songs here. Ben contributes B-3 organ as well as piano. “Elf Boogie” is just as advertised, Ben’s high energy boogie woogie piano juxtaposed with his lively vocals.

Chitlin’ circuit veteran Sonny Hill lends his hushed voice to the ballad “Next Christmas”, that talks about longing for his loved one next holiday time. Ben plays electric piano on this one. Ben does a duet with the warm voiced Candice Ivory on “Christmas Mood”, with Ben on organ and Takuto Asano offering up some jazzy guitar. Santa narrates his misadventure about neglecting his better half after delivering presents throughout the world on “Forgot Mrs. Claus”.

“Regifted” laments his girl giving his Christmas gifts to another beau. He conveys the loss of his girl in the style of Charles Brown. Ben replaces piano with organ on “Skating” from the Charlie Brown cartoon soundtrack to give the classic instrumental new life. Blues singer-guitarist Lil’ Jimmy Reed handles Ben’s “Lump Of Coal”, Giving it the feel of an old Christmas blues classic. Santa laments being surrounded by tons of imposters as Ben tinkles some Professor Longhair inspired piano. At the end he spies a fake Santa dancing with the Mrs.. Bah Humbug!!!

An early delivery for your Christmas stockings in this well conceived holiday present. Ben Levin and his elves have managed to create a fresh sounding Christmas song collection. They concocted quality holiday originals as well as breathing new life into the two covers songs. This CD is sure to enhance the delight of the holiday season with its’ fanciful and sentimental tunes. And to all a good night…

Reviewer Greg “Bluesdog” Szalony hails from the New Jersey Delta.

Mojo Minefield – Watch Your Step

Self-Released

www.mojominefield.com

10 Tracks – 46 minutes

Mojo Minefield is led by Tyler Fry, a guitarist and vocalist from Kitchener, Ontario and includes Scott Carere on bass and backing vocals with Ethan “Big Geno” Meyers on drums. The group first formed in Mississippi in 2018 for a tribute to blues man Mel Brown and have been together ever since performing primarily in southern Ontario. Scott says he initially got into heavy rock music with a particular interest in Led Zeppelin, but that led him to pursue an interest in the blues, and particularly in the harder sound of the Delta Blues. In determining the name of the band, Scott says that Mojo gives a tie back to the early blues roots and the band has all kinds of mojo, which is like a minefield.

Notes from the band describe their music as “an aggressive three-piece blues rock group carrying on the power trio sound that came to be in the 60’s and 70’s. With gritty vocals and cranked up guitar tones, they dance around the line between full throttle, psychedelic garage rock and in your face blues and roots music. Kind of a Black Keys vibe, but heavier.” Scott has said that he hoping to push music back into a phase where there are truly musicians playing their own instruments instead of the electronic, artificial sound of so much of today’s popular music.

The title song opens the album with advice given by Tyler’s father “It’s a minefield out there. You better watch your step” with bit of funk with Tyler’s guitar standing out. Tyler declares that “Since You Left Me” “I Have been in a funk.” “You will be sorry pretty baby, there won’t be no second time around.” Tyler pulls out the harmonica for this song. Jonathan Knight guests on mandolin on “Quiet Little Place”, which calms the music down with a tinge of country in the mix as he seeks a place “where I won’t miss you no more”.

He states, that “I got a dollar in my pocket and not a worry o my mind, you threw me out and shut the door” “Dying might be easy, but “Livin’ Ain’t That Hard”.  Tyler really lets loose on the guitar again on this one.  He then tells her that the stories she is telling are “Not Yer Tale” to tell”.  In the next song “They say it starts with a kiss, love making love like matrimonial bliss or is it all a myth” ” I know love will find you somewhere “Down the Line”.

Tyler notes that “You cannot “Change the World” if you cannot even change yourself.” with his guitar again roaring through the song. “Forget You Blues” is the story of the formation of the Mojo band as he went to Mississippi to “forget about you”.  On “Can’t You Hear Them” “calling for some help. He’s just some kid that lost his cool and never cared to follow rules. He was the victim of her crime and now he is serving all the time. Unholy sacrifice, lifetime of pain and strife, one choice that cost his life”. They conclude the album with “Ain’t One to Gamble” as Tyler declares that she “is not the one I’m searching for”.

Tyler’s vocals are strong and somewhat soulful. His lyrics are paintings from a seemingly personal level and demonstrates an expertise on the guitar that rises above the norm. Scott and Ethan also offer a solid rhythm section that adds to the total sound. This is solid blues rock. A stated above, Tyler seeks to re-create the music of the 60’s, but the band has delivered their own sound for the 21st century.

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.

While you may not be familiar with his name, unless you have seen one of the many videos featuring him on Facebook, there is no doubt that Harrell “Young Rell” Davenport is another member of an impressive group of young African-American blues artists who have a deep respect for the music. Davenport, along with Jontavious Willis, Stephen Hull, Sean “Mac” MacDonald, Dylan Triplett, Mathias Lattin, Jerron, “Blind Boy” Paxton, Buffalo Nichols, and others are bringing a new wave of enthusiasm and creativity to the music.

Davenport was drawn to music at a young age, especially once he went down the rabbit hole with the help of the Internet.

“It was everything from the history and the culture that it comes from to the way that the music sounded and how the old guys dressed and carried themselves. You know, the blues comes from not only the cotton fields, but the also the joy and the pain of the African Americans before myself. The rhythm comes from Africa, Europe, and the Native Americans. All of those things, but especially slavery and the chain gangs, all of that drew me to the music. I’ve never been on a chain gang. I hope to never have to be on one.

“My musical tastes go far beyond the boundaries of the blues world. I love everything. I write and arrange almost everything, although I’m still learning jazz, so I don’t do that yet. But I enjoy everything from blues to country to R& B to 60s soul. I love it all. For soul singers, Otis Redding is a favorite, plus a guy named Mickey Murray, who wasn’t very popular. Then there’s artists like Sam and Dave, Carla Thomas, her father Rufus Thomas, lot of those old Stax Records artists, even Little Milton, who had quite a few soul records. For blues harmonica, my favorite album is the 1972 Alligator Records release, Big Walter Horton With Carey Bell. There are a lot of harmonica players that I like, but I can attest to that record being very valuable in a sense to me.

“At first I wasn’t so attracted to the harmonica. One day I was watching a James Brown video on YouTube, and the suggested video under it was Jimmy Reed doing “You Don’t Have To Go.” I had heard some of guitarist Eddie Taylor’s stuff before, but I didn’t know that he and Jimmy Reed were connected. So I click on the video and I’m like, this is horrible.

“So I cut it off and then found another video, which is the same version, but a different up-loader. And I’m like, oh, wow, this is amazing. I just wanted a harp from hearing that video, so I went out and bought a one from the Dollar Store. I was six years old. I didn’t know it wasn’t a real harmonica. That’s where it starts, with me just listening. I didn’t know all of the stuff I know now, you know, like phrasing and timing. I just knew to listen, and that’s what I did. I learned everything by ear, which is still primarily how I learn, listening to records and sometimes watching videos, but more of listening to records.”

Initially, Davenport dug into the records that his mother and grandfather had. There was enough to keep the fire burning.

“Eventually I started to go to pawn shops and I’d ask my mom to buy some records for me. That’s how my record collecting got started. Then we bought a little turntable. Now I have about 500-600 records. It’s not the biggest collection in the world, but it’s decent size. Some of my favorite artists are Carl Weathersby, Charlie Christian, T-Bone Walker, both Sonny Boy Williamson’s, Sonny Terry, Phil Wiggins, and of course Jimmy Reed and Eddie Taylor.”

Looking for help in improving his skill set on harmonica, Davenport decided to reach out through social media in an attempt to contact one of Chicago’s finest blues harmonica players.

“I first met Billy Branch through Facebook. I had watched him a lot growing up, learning how to play. And so I messaged him on Facebook one day. I’m told him I was a kid, asking, can you teach me how to play some more stuff, or walk me through what I’m doing wrong. I felt like, in some cases, I was doing something wrong.

“Billy responded saying, I’ll send you my number and you can give me a text. I waited a few months, no number or anything, so I messaged him back and he sends his number. I was all ready a lesson but all I got was his phone number. So I texted back, where’s the lesson? Then he sent me a voice message of him playing this lick and said, learn this. And I’m like, how do you expect me to learn this? I mean, I learned by ear. Billy told me to listen and learn it. So I learned the lick after a few months of struggling because I didn’t know in which context to put it in. But I learned the lick and it started from there.

“It was a turnaround lick. You know, Billy has this lick that he uses pretty often. There’s a 1, 4, 5, blues, and on the 5, he’ll use that lick sometimes. I didn’t know if it was supposed to go in the beginning of the song or, or if it was supposed to go on the five. I didn’t know where to place it. I didn’t know anything much about phrasing at that point. I was 14 years old then and I just knew how to play, blow a few boogies and shuffles on the harp, but that was it at that time. I needed to learn where to put that lick in the context of a song.”

Branch isn’t the only veteran Chicago harmonica player who is providing Davenport with plenty of hard-earned wisdom and knowledge about playing harmonica in addition to schooling the youthful musician on how to conduct business in a responsible manner.

“I also met Matthew Skoller on Facebook as well. Actually, I didn’t know who he was other than being a harp player. I sent him this message just saying, would love to meet you to introduce myself some day. Then I forget all about it. Earlier this year, in January, Matthew contacted me. He explained that he was the Program Director for the Logan Center for the Arts at the University of Chicago. Matthew said he was putting together an evening of blues music with Billy Branch plus guitarists Carlos Johnson and Stephen Hull. Then he told me, I want you to open for them.

“Of course, I was excited. I asked him to call my manager. Matthew talked with my manager, and we found out some stuff . So Matthew is now my manager. He really saved me from my old manager.

“That event at the Logan Center really catapulted my career. Before then, I had only had three gigs in the span of four years. It was to the point where I wondered, what am I gonna do? I love doing this, yet I was at the verge of ending the whole thing before it started.

“While the Logan Center event was happening, Billy Branch’s wife, Ms. Rosa, she recorded my set live, and the video went viral. I started getting all of these calls, and I didn’t know what to do. I booked a few gigs myself, but couldn’t handle the pressure. I quickly realized that we need to find somebody. That’s where Matthew came in. Now I am booked for the King Biscuit Blues Festival, a solo gig at the Maxwell Street Market in Chicago, the Blues Heaven Festival in Denmark, plus the Lucerne Blues Festival in Switzerland in November.”

More than just a harmonica player, Davenport has been working on developing his talents as a vocalist and on guitar, an instrument he has been playing almost as long as the harp.

“Since I play guitar as well, the challenge is what can I do to make the rhythm on my harp as good as the rhythm I’m playing on guitar. I had to overcome the timing, first of all, getting the timing right, then the rhythm and the swing. You have to learn the song, but I’ve always been one to not like learning other people’s songs note for note. I’d rather turn it into my own interpretation, which means figuring out how to do that while at the same time doing the song a service instead of a disservice. I had to go back and learn that shuffle on “You Don’t Have To Go”. I wanted to be just like Jimmy Reed, able to do both instruments at the same time.

“I may not be the best singer, but I’ve always loved to sing. I enjoy trying to figure out other singers, how they do things with their voice. As a harmonica player, knowing how to control my wind, it’s helped tremendously with the singing. Being consistent is a big part of anything in the music business, especially learning to play and sing.

“Lately I’ve been learning more and more on piano, been playing it for three years. It can be tough to master three instruments, and I’m always writing and arranging songs. Working on all of that always gets in the way, but I love it. I strive to be very disciplined, study each instrument as much as I can. But yeah, it’s definitely hard to do. I used to practice eight hours a day for guitar and harmonica. But I recently had to stop practicing here in our apartment because of a neighbor’s complaints about the noise, which led to calls to the police. So, no practice for me currently, but when I get back to it, it’ll be 8 hours a day for guitar and harmonica. And I’ll study piano when I get the time in between.”

As a songwriter, Davenport looks for inspiration throughout his daily life.

“I try to take ideas from phone conversations as well as things as they happen to me. TV shows are another source of ideas. I could be sitting down, watching a show and one of the characters might say something that appeals to me. I’ll pause the show, go write it down and start working on a song. It’s as easy as that. I try to arrange stuff first, then write the song.

“I might have a melody in my head already. I’ll work out the chords on piano and play them. Then I’ll figure out the guitar parts. Once that’s done, I’ll go through some of the stuff that I’ve written down, searching for phrases that fit the music. I have a song called “The World Don’t Deserve Your Smile.” I got that from Matthew. We were on the phone and he was saying something about something. When he made that statement, I wrote it down. Later on, I had a melody in my head from something else. I found Matthew’s words in my notes and it just fit. It all depends on what comes first because sometimes it’ll only just be like eight bars of a song that’ll come to me, so I’ll just have to wait until the melody pops up.”

Young Rell has been hard at work on a recording project, with Skoller helping to guide things along. Some of the recent issues in his personal life could have set him back, but Davenport has already developed a resilient nature that should serve him well as his musical career unfolds.

“We’re doing a GoFundMe campaign to help finance the album, and to allow my mother and I to find a better living space where I can practice daily. We’ve got to finish the mixing, mastering and some editing for the album. The big cost is studio time. We’ve got just about everything recorded. There might be some stuff that I might have to go back and redo. I think it’s coming along just fine.

“It’s a solo project. It’s just me on harp, guitar and vocals. We did have Kenny Smith come by and put some percussion on a song or two. He’s a genius. On one song, we were trying to find a certain sound. We explained it to Kenny, then he used his car keys and a rocks glass to get the exact sound we were looking for. We recorded six originals that I wrote and, there will be four covers. One tune is “Have A Good Time” from the Big Walter – Carey Bell album.

“At first, I didn’t know what to do. We recorded five songs in Chicago the first time, and we thought that was good, When I went back up a few weeks ago and recorded, Matthew said, okay, we’re going to scrap all that stuff that’s in the can. It might get used later. But this stuff you’re singing now has so much more depth, and it’s only been six months.

“We’re not sure yet if I am going to release the album myself or, with Matthew’s help, I may shop it around to some of the blues record labels. We’re still figuring that out. I’m open to any possibilities. I don’t know how many companies would be interested because I’m very big on owning my work. I’ve had my own publishing company since I was 13 years old. It may be that most record labels will shy away from picking up a record from a young guy like me without getting anything in return, like the rights to publishing of my original songs.”

(For more information on Harrell Davenport’s GoFundMe campaign, please go here:    https://www.gofundme.com/f/Youngrellblues )

For those who wonder if it is possible for a teenager to have enough life experiences to have a deep connection to the blues, Davenport has a ready response.

“We were living in Leland, Mississippi, which is where I started playing. We had moved from Vicksburg. When I got to the public school there, I started getting bullied the first day in. I’m the new kid, nobody knows me. I walk into the classroom, wearing a pair of shoes from Walmart, and this kid blurts that out in front of the whole class. From there I guess I was fresh meat, and the one they were going pick on.

“One day I brought a 78 RPM record,” High and Lonesome” by Jimmy Reed, for show and tell. We did the show and tell thingy, and then it was time to go to lunch. I put the 78 back in my backpack, and when we came back from lunch, the record was on the floor, broken into pieces. That particular record was the only memory I had of my grandfather. He had just passed before we moved. So that was really hurtful. Then other stuff started happening. I switched classes, and these kids in the new class were supposed to be in like the 6th grade, but were in the 3rd grade. They were bigger than me and I would get jumped every other day, which was traumatizing.

“My teacher had been telling me, you should bring your grades up. They were up at first, and then the whole jumping stuff started happening. She insisted that I try to bring my grades up. So I did that. A few weeks later, I was talking to her in class about my grades. She was saying that she was proud of me. And this other teacher, who wasn’t our teacher, came into the classroom, telling everybody to shut up and sit down.

“But she wasn’t my teacher, so I wasn’t paying her any attention. My teacher had called me up to her desk, so I stayed up there. This other teacher said, everybody shut up and sit down. I’m still talking to my teacher. My teacher didn’t tell me to sit down. So, you know, I didn’t sit. The other teacher comes up to me yelling, are you deaf or are you dumb? Or are you both?

“I do have a hearing problem, so I kind of got offended by that. But I continued to talk to my teacher. Then the other teacher grabs some duct tape and wraps it around my mouth and my nose. You know, the gray duct tape. The class is laughing at me and she’s pushing and shoving me. This was right before Christmas, before they let out for the break. I didn’t tell anybody. I went to the bathroom and took the tape off. Then I took a puff of my inhaler and washed off the gray stuff that was still on my face.

“Some time later. my mom went to go get her hair done, and it just so happens that the lady who was doing my mom’s hair was the mother of the janitor who worked for the school. She told my mom what had happened to me. Once my mom found out, she went to the school and took me out. That was when I started being home-schooled while jumping in-between a few different private schools. Those experiences were how my PTSD thing started. I wouldn’t wish that on anybody. I make it sound good in how I just told you the story, but it was horrible.”

“The thing with the blues is it’s not about your age. I’ve been through stuff just like a person who is 60 years old. I don’t claim to know it all, and I haven’t seen everything that the world has to offer. At the same time, there’s a lot of stuff that people don’t know about what’s happened to me. That all ties into why I do it, how I do it, and the way I do it. It feels really good because I know that other young teenagers see what I’m doing, and what other young blues musicians out here are doing. Hopefully it can draw some more young people to the blues.”

Visit Darrell’s website to see where he is playing next: https://youngrell.com/

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!

This video is Harrell “Young Rell” Davenport. Click on the image to view the video

Nothing in Rambling – Live at Bush Hall

Self Release – 2024

www.nothinginrambling.com

8 tracks; 29 minutes

Live at Bush Hall (2024), Sister Suzie and Andy Twyman’s debut together, delivers a high spirited performance reflecting a genuine love and appreciation for early Delta Blues music. The duo take strength and pride in their simplicity, relying on Suzie’s soulful, deep ranging vocals, and Twyman’s core guitar work and vocal accompaniment.

As the liner notes aptly describe, it was a “special night” at Bush Hall in London, during the April 20, live recorded show – with “the warmth of the crowd” and the “spirit of the early blues singers in the air.”

Above all, the show served as a love testament to the music of Lizzie Douglas, better known by her stage name Memphis Minnie. Five of the eight tracks performed were written by Douglas.

“Nothing in Rambling” opens up the album with a low key delta blues guitar strum as Suzie sings “Everywhere I been, the people’s all the same. There ain’t nothing in rambling.” Beautiful acoustic guitar with solid rhythm back up a world weary image, describing traversing the globe and being shot at by police. Suzie’s voice is soft and smooth, but powerful, while Twyman’s guitar-playing is skillful, confident, and unpretentious.

Sister Suzie choose several songs that highlighted Memphis Minnie’s role as an early feminist icon. Introducing Minnie’s song “Keep on Going”, Suzie proudly shares that it is a “sexual liberation song” Twyman delivers floral, cyclical guitar playing, with excellent, skillful solos in the middle. The track manages to be high energy, yet peaceful. Suzie croons “You keep on going, honey til I change my mind… When I had you baby, you know you wouldn’t treat me right. Now you keep on going til I change my mind.”

“Kissing in the Dark”, another Douglas tune describes “kissing in the dark, baby that’s my birth mark”, with snappy, confident vocals. The guitar comes out free-flowing, loose, but crisp – not unlike a seductive romantic partner. The woman in the song calls for her lover to “come kiss me in the dark. Baby, be my birth mark”, with a birth mark being an innuendo for an STI.

Sister Suzie’s voice rings out as an unadorned acapella in the group’s cover of Blind Willie Johnson’s “Soul of a Man”. Her vocals wash over the listener raw, naked, and soulful, like the voice of body in anguish, looking for the answers to the questions of the soul. A simple percussive beat threads the song, like a heart beat, while Suzie cries out “Won’t somebody tell me? Answer if you can. Won’t somebody tell me what is the soul of a man?” A guttural, spiritual, tour de fource, this track is entrancing and irresistible. It is both probing and vulnerable- one of the best tracks on the LP.

Twyman joins Suzie for vocal harmony on “12 Gates to the City”, bearing a moody acoustic blues guitar intro on the Reverend Gary Davis original. The track drifts towards country and Americana as Twyman and Suzie sing of a beautiful, heavenly city, and Twyamn plays recursive, twangy guitar.

Twyman’s virtuosity on guitar shines across on “Stranger Blues”, a track that kicks off with deep, low-tone, resonating guitar notes and a funky blues beat. Suzie sings “I just rolled in your town. I am a stranger here… everyone dogs me around” and Twyman provides gnarly solos in the middle, his fingers dancing along the fretboard, creating a wild, bluesy atmosphere.

If Nothing in Rambling can be faulted, it is for their ambition to directly recreate the legendary blues singers like Memphis Minnie, Reverend Gary Davis, and Blind Willie Johnson. Clearly they have the passion to rejuvenate and breathe life into the early blues, and this is a respectable performance.

Fans of early Delta blues and specifically Memphis Minnie will find a refreshing and tasteful take of the old music.

On “Me and My Chauffer”, another Douglas number, Suzie’s voice reverberates with charm and soul as she sings “I can’t turn him down” and Twyman plays simple, deliberate guitar.

Haunting, delicate guitar opens up “Girlish Days”, a track about hitting the road as a 17 year old girl ; about a carefree lifestyle full of mistakes. Emotion and tension travel through Suzie’s voice as she croons “My head traveled before I get wise… I still got my girlish ways.”

In sum, Nothing in Rambling deliver a sentimental, powerful tribute to Memphis Minnie and the Delta blues. The album captures a special feeling on a special night.

Writer Jack Austin, also known by his radio DJ name, Electric Chicken (y Pollo Electrico en Espanol), is a vinyl collector, music journalist, and musician originally from Pittsburgh.

Will Jackson – Where There’s A Will There’s A Way

Self-Release – 2024

www.facebook.com/will.jackson.12

12 tracks; 57 minutes

Will Jackson is a bassist from Michigan who has had a long career as a sideman, playing with the likes of Sharrie Williams and Robert Bradley. On this album he gives us eleven original tunes, alongside one from multi-instrumentalist and producer Matt Burgie. Will does not sing, so lead vocals are taken by Lavel Jackson (on six of the tracks), Dena Pruitt, Stephanie Noel Howland, Tony Purifoy, Drew Charles Pentkowski and Dave Kellan. Will and Matt are the rhythm section throughout, Matt also covering guitar, keys and percussion at various times; other musicians involved are Drew Charles Pentkowski, James Owens and Scott Van Dell on guitar, Michael Brush and Loren Krantz on keys and Ronald Selley on harmonica.

The album opens with Drew’s slide work a perfect fit for the Southern Rock approach to the music and Tony Purifoy delivering a good vocal on “River Of Blues”, immediately followed by “R.O.B. Aftermath”, a guitar-centric instrumental jam with Drew and Matt delivering some scorching riffs that take this one into Rock territory. We then get a run of five consecutive tracks featuring Lavel’s soulful vocals, the first a travelogue song about a trip to the centre of Soul music: “Shuffling Down To Memphis wearing my Motown shoes”. Strong guitar is a feature of the album, nowhere more than in Drew’s lead work on “Cupid Made Me Stupid”, a tune with a strong rhythm and memorable chorus. The pace drops for the first time on the soulful ballad “It’s Just Love”, Lavel’s vocals nicely offset by Drew’s slide and the warm cushion of Loren’s B3 before the funky “Can’t Stand The Heat” which has three guitarists and Ronald’s harp. “Crime” completes Lavel’s five song sequence, offering his help in difficult circumstances: “And if you need me I’ll be standing there like a tree, and when you start to fall I will lift you up above everything”.

Drew takes over the vocals for “Cruisin’ With The Top Down”, an anthem to one of the great images of America: “This is America, the land of the free and I’m cruising with the top down in the land of liberty”. Changing styles, “Chasing Your Memory Through The Blues” is a slow blues which Dave Kellan handles convincingly, Drew providing some excellent slide work. Stephanie Noel Howland sings “Another Song About A Broken Heart” and Dena Pruitt is joined by Lavel on “A Little Bit Of Love”, a soulful and funky duet. The album closes with the title track, an extended instrumental, just Will on bass and Matt showing his diverse skills on drums, lead and rhythm guitar, wurlitzer and percussion.

Generally on the soulful side of rock and blues, Will and his cohorts have produced an original album that should appeal to quite a wide range of tastes.

Blues Blast Magazine Senior writer John Mitchell is a blues enthusiast based in the UK who enjoys a wide variety of blues and roots music, especially anything in the ‘soul/blues’ category. Favorites include contemporary artists such as Curtis Salgado, Tad Robinson, Albert Castiglia and Doug Deming and classic artists including Bobby Bland, Howling Wolf and the three ‘Kings’. He gets over to the States as often as he can to see live blues.