Mike Zito’s new CD came out this week and he will be telling us about it as well as letting us hear some of the new songs from the CD Pearl River.
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You may remember that last December Mike Zito was on the show talking about his then current CD, Today. Well he’s back with an even better one. If you missed that show you may like to go back to listen to Mike talk about how he got started in music as well as songs from the Today CD. Click here to go to that show.
This week you’re going to hear a really great show. Mike talks about how he and Cyril Neville wrote the title track “Pearl River”. Every time I hear this song and look at the CD cover’s art work it’s like I’m in the deep south. The atmosphere that Mike creates in this song along with the lyrics that Cyril wrote can’t help but make you feel transported to another time in the swampy lands of the south. This is just one of many wonderful songs your going to hear on this weeks show. “Change My Ways” is a beautiful song where Mike demonstrates how in one song he can do some very beautiful guitar work then turn around and do a raw guitar solo that works just as well. Anders Osborne joins Mike for a nice acoustic duet on Anders’ “One Step At A Time” the song’s lyrics could be as much about Mike’s past life as Anders’ life. Then there is another duet but this time it is with Susan Cowsill, yes the same Susan Cowsill from The Cowsill who did “The Rain, the Park and Other Things”, and “Hair.” They do a fun song called “Shoes Blues” besides Mike’s good guitar solo, Reese Wynans plays some good piano. On the George Smith song, “All Last Night,” Mike really gets down to some tasty guitar playing. Wow, great job. Mike even does a good version of the old Sonny Boy Williamson song “Eyesight To The Blind,” which makes The Who’s version on Tommy sound like The Cowsill’s were doing it. Mike decried this as a kind of a New Orleans style version of the song. Then there are the great raw blues songs that Mike does so good, like “Dirty Blonde”, “Natural Born Lover” and “Big Mouth.” The types of songs that draw me to his concerts.

Having heard some of Mike’s older self produced records I can really see how he has grown as a guitarist, songwriter, and vocalist. Pearl River is a diverse record with heart-felt vocals as well as touching guitar work. There is something here for everyone and then some. Please buy a copy of Mike Zito’s Pearl River and don’t forget see him in concert.

Be sure to listen to the whole show, because at the very end Mike has a funny story to tell about his fellow Eclecto Groove recording artist Jason Ricci.

Songs heard in this weeks show:
Dirty Blonde
Change My Ways
Natural Born Lover
Pearl River

Buy Mike Zito CD’s at Eclecto Groove Records

Mike Zito’s Pearl River from Amazon.Com

Buy Mike Zito’s Today CD from Amazon.Com

Mike Zito’s Website

Mike Zito’s Myspace

Mike Zito’s page at Eclecto Groove Records

See other great artists on Eclecto Groove Records
Like Ana Popovic and Jason Ricci & New Blood and many others.

Thanks to Mike Zito for such a fun interview and as always thanks to Jody Best for all her help in setting everything up.
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Blues Music and Interviews
A1Blues.Com
formerly A1 Artist Spotlight. Com
by A1 Mark

On this 40th anniversary of Jimmy Dawkins’ record Fast Fingers you’ll get to hear Jimmy talk about (and songs from) the one of his monumental records.
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Jimmy was born in a cotton field in Tuchla, Mississippi on October 24, 1936. Jimmy said he was out in the cotton fields with his parents and grandparents when he was young but never actually worked in the fields. A short time later the family moved to Pascagoula, Mississippi this is where his father worked in the shipyards. His mother bought him his first guitar when he was 16 years old, but he did not get serious about playing till after he moved to Chicago in 1955. Jimmy had a job working in a box factory, but at night he’d go out to play guitar on the street corners. Some of the people he’d play with were Willie Black (bass), Left Hand Frank Craig (guitar), Eddie King (guitar) and Lester Hinton (harp). Jimmy really liked Guitar Slim a lot but made it very clear that he wanted to have his own sound and not just be a copy of another musician.

Jimmy really liked the raw bone crunching sound of what was refereed to as a West Side Chicago sound. Magic Sam helped to define that sound and was a big influence on Jimmy’s playing. Not surprisingly Jimmy also really liked Lightnin’ Hopkins whom he got to play on stage with a few times. He worked Willie Dixon, Jimmy Rogers, Otis Rush, and Carey Bell. Jimmy said that Carey was always fun to be around, and that he’d always making you laugh and have a good time. He also felt Carey Bell was the best harp player he’d ever seen. One thing I was surprised by was that Jimmy Dawkins was the one who discovered Luther Allison. Wow, what a discovery, Jimmy talks in the podcast about this.

Bob Koester the founder of Delmark Records remembers Jimmy Dawkins coming into the Jazz Record Mart (Bob’s record store) shopping for records, and Jimmy would tell them where all the blues shows would be that week. One night Bob said he went to a concert Jimmy had told him about, and there was Jimmy on stage. Jimmy had never told Bob he played guitar, or that it was his band he should see. Later Magic Sam formally introduced the two of them. Bob signed Jimmy to Delmark Records, it only took two days in September of 1968 to make a record that people are still praising, forty years later. Fast Fingers was the beginning of a wonderful career for a great blues artist. The guitar playing is outstanding with a tuff blues sound similar to Albert King, and at other times it has the flow of B.B. King, and still at other times it’s pure Jimmy Dawkins. The band on this record is first class. Its not just Jimmy’s playing that sells you on this record, it’s everyone. Keyboardist Lafayette Leake is little known but was still a mainstay at Chess Records. Willie Dixon often used Lafayette on records he was producing for Chess records. A few of the artists he recorded with were a very young Chuck Berry, Sonny Boy Williamson, Howlin’ Wolf, Junior Wells, Otis Rush, Little Walter, Buddy Guy, and Koko Taylor. On rhythm guitar you hear Mighty Joe Young, the man that backed artists like Billy Boy Arnold, Jimmy Rogers, and Tyrone Davis. Most people will add a harp player to widen their sound, but here you get a real sax player. Not just any sax player, but the talented Eddie Shaw. Eddie was jamming with Ike Turner at 14, then Muddy Waters ask him to join his band. A few years later he joined Howlin’ Wolf’s band. The sax, like the keyboards, is in the background. Always keeping the song going while giving Jimmy the opportunity to play his guitar and play it he does. This is a very guitar oriented recording of original blues tunes. A record that any serious blues lover needs in their collection.

Delmark Records has sweetened the CD even more by adding two previously unreleased tracks. Both are as good, and one is even better than some original tracks. If you don’t have this CD, don’t wait another forty years. Get it now and start enjoying Jimmy Dawkin’s Fast Fingers.

Songs in the show:
It Serves Me Right to Suffer
I Finally Learned a Lesson
You Got to Keep on Trying
Little Angel Child
Back Home Blues

Jimmy Dawkins Website

Jimmy Dawkin’s MySpace

Buy Jimmy Dawkins’ CD from Jazz Record Mart

Buy Jimmy Dawkins’ CD from Amazon.Com

Delmark Records

Delmark Records MySpace

Thanks to Kevin Johnson over at Delmark Records for all his help in putting this together.

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Blues Music and Interviews
A1Blues.Com
formerly A1 Artist Spotlight. Com
by A1 Mark

This week you will hear an interview with British blues rock artist Innes Sibun, as well as some outstanding tracks from his CD Tail Dragger.
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In this week’s show, Innes Sibun talks about growing up in Great Britain listening to the old blues artists like B.B. and Freddie King and how that got him interested in playing the guitar. Later he found Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, and more of the heavier blues rock. Wait till you hear Innes explain the similarities between John Lee Hooker and The Sex Pistols. Later Innes played in some jazz bands with some older musicians that took him under their wings. This, he said, really helped him learn to think on his feet, since they played in a lot of odd keys for a guitar player. Innes loved to play guitar so much that he would play in almost any kind of band, as long he could learn from it.

After some punk and reggae bands he started a band called Innes Sibun and the Blues Explosion. This band put out a record that was produced by Mike Varnon called That’s What The Blues Can Do. This led to the band playing a lot of blues festivals and backing up US bands. In 1993 Innes got to be one of the guitarists for Robert Plant’s touring band.
You will hear him talk about some of the cool things he got to do with Robert as well as the time he met Jimmy Page.

Innes Sibun has put out over a half dozen records since 1995, with the latest one being Tail Dragger. If you were ever a Rory Gallagher fan then you’re in for a real treat. It’s raw British blues rock and a lot of guitar soloing. Even Innes voice has that raw sound of Rory Gallagher. Tail Dragger kicks off with an Otis Rush song, “It Takes Time,” but the band takes no time in this fun, fast paced version. For every note Otis played on his version, Innes must be playing two. A keyboard is added, creating a fuller sound. “I Don’t Get Fooled By Tears” follows it with more fast paced blues rock and good rough vocals. The next song slows things down with a nice acoustic guitar, as well as good slide guitar. Innes said “Southbound Train” is a country blues song that came about one day just sitting in a circle with the band playing. He plays mandolin while Tim plays a kind of barrelhouse style piano. It took a little getting used to after all the electric blues, but now I find it a real treat to hear. On “Don’t Stop Believing” Innes also shows his talent for good lyrics. “Someone Like You,” “I Want You Back,” and “Sweet Disposition” are some of the other high points on this record. At one time I thought the masterpiece of Tail Dragger was the Deadric Malone classic “As the Years Go Passing By”. However, as I’ve gotten to know the other songs more and it has some real competition. “As The Years Go Passing By” is the longest song at 6:29, and you can’t help but wish it went on even longer. Innes’s guitar phrasing, along with his emotional vocals, really makes this a must have song.

A while back Innes Sibun and his band came over here to the United States to play a three-city tour. New York City, Kansas City, St Louis, back to New York City, and then back to Great Britain. I was very privileged to see his St. Louis show at BB’s Jazz, Blues, & Soups. Wow, this was one of the best shows I’ve seen this year. I saw Rory Gallagher in the late seventies and this was as close to what Rory did on stage as anyone I’ve ever seen. Four hours of intense, raw blues rock by a man who is giving it everything he possibly could. If you live in Great Britain you owe it to yourself to check out his MySpace page for his upcoming concerts. Here are just a few shows that coming up real soon (in 2009) Carlisle, Devizes, Bristol, and a Rory Gallagher tribute in Corsham.

Songs in this week’s show are:
Don’t Stop Believing
I Want You Back
Someone Like You
Sweet Disposition

Innes Sibun’s Official MySpace

Buy Innes Sibun Cd’s from Amazon.Com

Many thanks to Innes Sibun for taking time out of a very busy week to do this interview.
Hey Jackie, nice talking to you, hope all your photos turned out.

Hear the Shirley Johnson interview this week as well as songs from her
Delmark record Blues Attack.
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Shirley Johnson grew up in Norfolk Virginia where she was singing
gospel music in the church when she was only six years old. Shirley
loves gospel music and has been singing it all her life. Her family
was very religious and did not approve of secular music. This caused
a problem for Shirley when she found she also loved secular music.
Some of the artists she loved were Etta James, B.B.King, Z.Z.Hill,
Koko Taylor, Bobby “Blue” Bland and Little Milton. In the late
seventies she started singing secular music in her hometown of
Norfolk, as well as being an opening act for artist coming through
town. In 1983 Shirley moved to Chicago to pursue her love for the
blues in the city of blues. As she will explain in this show it was a
lot of work being in different bands, but when you love what you’re
doing it really makes a difference.

In 2002 Bob Koester, President of Delmark Records, released Killer
Diller. It was a wonderful blues record with good helpings of soul,
rhythm & blues, and gospel. The high light of which was her version
of a Nat Foster composition “Not For The Love Of You”. A song you
can’t just play one time, if your blues station hasn’t been
playing it you have been robbed of one of the best songs of 2002.

Shirley Johnson’s new record Blues Attack also on Delmark Records is
much in the same vain as Killer Diller was. It’s blues, soul, rhythm
& blues, and gospel, with a high emphasis on a soulful band that puts
real feelings in their playing as Shirley does in her singing.
Shirley co-wrote three of the songs on this record. Two of them were
with Maurice John Vaughn, who wrote three other songs for Shirley.
The record opens with his song “You’re Reckless” a real nice shuffle
that gets you in the mood. You’ll probably remember the Wilson
Pickett song “634-5789” from the mid-sixties. Shirley does a great
job on this up beat pop/soul song. Shirley said she has been playing
“Unchain my Heart” live now for quite awhile and has changed things
around till the song was just how she liked it. At times when she’s
using a pickup band Shirley said she always tells them “were going to
church from the beginning” another words it has a real gospel
sound to it but without the religious lyrics. Other highlights are
“Just Like That”, “Selfish Kind of Gal” and “I’m Going to Find Me a
Lover” but hey why read this when you can be listening to the show.
Let Shirley tell you all about the songs and you’ll get to hear some
of them too. Like Shirley would say if you like a lot of soul and
feeling in your blues you’ve come to the right place. Please pick up
Shirley Johnson’s Blues Attack you will be very glad you did.

If you’re lucky enough to live in, or are going to be visiting Chicago
you need to check out Shirley Johnson live at Blue Chicago.
You may also want to go by her record labels record store. Jazz
Record Mart at 27 East Illinois. It’s still the world’s largest jazz
and blues record store.

You may also like to hear my show on the history of Delmark Rercords and Jazz
Record Mart as told to me by Bob Koester the founder. You will also
hear a clip in the show of Shirley Johnson doing “Not for the Love of
You,” but remember you won’t be able to listen to it just once.
Click here to hear the show on Delmark Records.

Songs heard in today’s show:
Selfish Kind of Gal
Just Like That
You’re Reckless
Blues Attack
I’m Going to Find Me a Lover

You can always buy the CD from Jazz Record Mart

Find other great blues artist at Delmark Records

Buy Shirley Johnson Cd’s from Amazon.Com

You have to see Shirley Johnson live at Blue Chicago
She is the “Queen of Blue Chicago!”
Blue Chicago Website
She plays at the 536 N. CLARK Club there every Thursday and Sunday.
She plays at the 736 N. CLARK location once a month on Friday and Saturday

Shirley Johnson’s MySpace
Thanks to Shirley Johnson for letting me interview her.
Thanks to Kevin over at Delmark Records for all his help in setting everything up.
Thanks to Bernadette for taking the photo of Shirley last week while she was performing at Blue Chicago.
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Blues Music and Interviews
A1Blues.Com
formerly A1 Artist Spotlight.Com
by A1 Mark