Your Blues Internet Magazine

from IllinoisBlues.com

January 16, 2008           

http://www.alligator.com/

If you love the Blues you already know that Bruce Iglauer is a Blues icon. His Alligator Records is the 900 lb gorilla of Blues record companies. With a catalog of over 200 titles, Alligator Records is the largest independent Blues record label in the world. If you want to expand your Blues CD collection this is a good place to start.

CLICK HERE to read how Mr. Iglauer went from a young man hooked by the Blues when he first heard the great Mississippi Fred McDowell to the planet's Blues record mogul.

For more Blues links  CLICK HERE to visit the IllinoisBlues.com Links Page

If you know of a COOL Blues link, please send it to

SWEET HOME CHICAGO - (France)

 http://perso.orange.fr/shc/

This site is in French! Not really a live streaming station but a one hour Blues radio program that you can listen to anytime via a stream. They talk in French. They play some great Blues. Click Here to listen to the most recent show.

Check out other great Blues Music Streams Click HERE

 Other IMPORTANT News   Help Save the music! CLICK HERE to Keep Blues Radio Alive!

James “Skyy Dobro” Walker , noted Blues writer and Blues Blast contributor reviews a CD by Popa Chubby - Electric Chubbyland Volumes 1 & 2

Popa Chubby
Electric Chubbyland Volumes 1 & 2

Blind Pig Records
www.popachubby.com

By James “Skyy Dobro” Walker

Volume 1: 12 songs; 64:38 minutes; Meritable
Volume 2: 10 songs; 67:11 minutes; Meritable

New York City native Ted “Popa Chubby” Horowitz claims that playing the “Hendrix stuff” made him self conscious, but it did get him back to why he started playing music in the first place – the excitement and the raw power.

Jimi Hendrix expanded the limits of electric rock guitar more than anyone before or since. Hendrix was a master at squeezing all manner of sonics from his instrument, often with early wah-wah pedals and innovative amplification experiments that produced incredible feedback and space-time distortion. But, as you may recall, not everyone liked the over-the-top guitar excess of Jimi Hendrix, and to be honest, some of what he played, especially live, was terrible. Some of this project equals both extremes.

So, why Play Hendrix? “Good Question” said Popa. “In 1996 a Dutch promoter [created] a Jimi Hendrix music festival. Over the next several years I was slammed with fan requests to play and record Hendrix. In 2005, the blues and rock thing came together like never before. In 2006, I decided to record the project at a club in Middletown, New York. Electric Chubbyland was born. From the start it was a record for the people. Requested by the fans and played live to make sure that special spark of energy... came through. I love playing Hendrix with my own spin. Loud and proud for all the people!” 

Those Popa Chubby fans to which he refers will undoubtedly enjoy these CDs the most; Jimi fans next, and after that is unclear. But, do not dismiss Chubby without a listen. Certain I was not going to like him, I saw him live at the 2006 Mississippi Valley Blues Festival. Popa Chubby turned my head around with his deft guitar playing. About as wide as he was tall, Horowitz played a first for me, “Keep On The Sunny Side” arranged as a scorching Rock and Roll number.

Born Ted Horowitz, in 1990 the “Popa Chubby” Band was born. The name was taken from an impromptu jam with Bernie Worrell of Parliament-Funkadelic. “He was singing a song called 'Popa Chubby' and he pointed at me.” The name captured the essence of what his music has come to represent. “Popa Chubby basically means to get excited [and/or sexually aroused]. The core of my music is about excitement. I think music should make people feel alive.”

Some of the Hendrix songs will bring back good memories as Chubby re-creates Jimi’s power trio with AJ Pappas on bass and Chris Reddan on drums. He even throws down a couple of Blues numbers, “Catfish Blues” and a slow burning “Red House,” amid classics like “Manic Depression” and “The Wind Cries Mary.”

If you are not at all familiar with Popa Chubby, but you are now curious enough to give a listen, I would recommend starting with, rather than Electric Chubbyland, Booty and The Beast. This Tom Dowd engineered/produced album was released in 1994, and the single, “Sweet Goddess Of Love and Beer,” soon swept the country and became a summer radio hit coast to coast in 1995.

For other reviews and interviews on our website CLICK HERE.

IllinoisBlues.com also features a  book review by Blues Songwriter, Musician, DJ and Journalist, Ben Cox.

Can’t Be Satisfied: The Life & Times of Muddy Waters
by Robert Gordon

320 Pages

Memphis musicologist Robert Gordon undertook the gargantuan task of recreating a legend that would belittle even the most researched and most knowledgeable. How can one simply recreate a man who single-handedly brought the world the electric blues and defined Chicago blues in the fifties? In all honesty, you really can’t. Gordon, however, realistically does put the argument to the test and has raised the bar for any biographies of blues legends to come after it.

Spending years of gleaning information from interviews, reviews, and music history and then taking on the task of gathering information from his contemporaries and family; Gordon adds a human element to the blues legend that had never hitherto been captured. Reading like a narrative textbook with citation after citation and quote after quote, the reader may be encumbered and stumble along the way as far as readability is concerned. However, Gordon does well to depict a strong motif that was a reality in the blues world, a man and musician who leads a dual life. Gordon, through the eyes of both close friend and family (illegitimate or otherwise), does well to show McKinely Morganfield the hard worker and the provider and Muddy Waters the partying adulterer. Gordon also does well to depict the master-worker Waters translated from the Stovall Plantation to the studios of Chess Records. The biography subsequently upset the Chess Family, but Gordon minces no words when it comes to Waters’ recording career.

The Notes section at the back of the book gives a very good scope of the Waters discography and recommended listening. It also provides the subsequent list of resources Gordon put to use and provides a definitive “To-Read” list for any would-be blues historian. There are also some fine pictures located in the middle of the book that shed some light on both the origins and puts the infamous name with a face.

Gordon only falls short, in what a grammar school teacher would say is the breadth of the subject. He does well in what he covers, but there are some obvious parts missing and skewed, maybe sugar-coated a little too much. Yet, giving Gordon the benefit of the doubt, the book is an extravagant introduction for those who don’t know the blues world or Muddy Waters well. By placing Waters in his place and time throughout the book, Gordon helps those who were around when he was alive to remember the place and time and the impact he had on the world of music. For those of us who didn’t have the privilege of being around when Waters was still the living myth, it opens the eyes and ears when one of his iconic songs comes on our CD player or one of his protégés strike into a cover or lifts a riff here and there. And for those who don’t know the blues at all, this would be the perfect cultural, musicological, and anthropological place to start.
 

Reverend Raven

New CD

 "BIG BEE"

Rev Raven- Guitar, Vocals
Benny Rickun- Harmonica
P.T. Pedersen - Bass guitar
Spencer Panosh - Drums

http://www.myspace.com/reverendraven

To hear some song samples or purchase this CD now - CLICK HERE

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Advertise in the Blues Blast in 2008!

Hey Blues fans,

The new year starts us all planning what to do with our vacation time come the warmer Blues season. Why not plan on a Blues trip to see some live Blues at a festival near your vacation destination?

Also with the new year, Blues festival promoters and Blues societies begin work planning a great 2008 Blues season for all. Festival committees are hard at work booking Blues performers, planning their advertising budgets and getting ready to put on the next great Blues show.

For those of you doing the planning for these great Blues events, remember that the Blues Blast & IllinoisBlues.com's website are great ways to promote ANY Blues event or product. In fact we believe we just might have THE best Blues advertising vehicle anywhere to promote YOUR event!

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