Saturday Matinee – Genya Ravan, Pat Benatar & Larkin Poe

Proto punk soul singer and producer Genya Ravan blew me away when I heard Stay With Me (1970), and check out her 1977 interview here.

Pat Benatar‘s 1991 cover of Denzil Laing & the Wrigglers‘ 1958 cover of
Wynonie Harris‘ 1951 cover of Hank Penny‘s song from 1949.

Larkin Poe gets all nasty and swampy.

You know the drill. Have a great weekend.

[Update: Fixed link to Stay With Me.]

Saturday Matinee – Smooth Hound Smith, Justin Johnson & Cam Cole

Smooth Hound Smith were an Americana duo comprised of Zack Smith and Caitlin Doyle-Smith; their sound reminds me of Dan Hicks & The Hot Licks. After ten years of performing and recording, they closed up shop during The Great Covid Lockdown.  Apparently Z.G. Smith is now back in business.

Justin Johnson‘s unusual cover of Howlin’ Wolf fits my mood.

Cam Cole, busker, bluesman, rocker, recording artist, and “the most impressive one-man band you will ever see” has a new EP out, but this one is still my favorite.

Porch time is on schedule for tomorrow, so we’ll see you there.

Saturday Matinee – A.I. Family Guy Pizza, Hot Club de Piracicaba, Jimmie Vaughan, and Robert Randolph & The Family Band

When you ask A.I. to create a Family Guy pizza commercial you get this.

Hot Club de Piracicaba performs Paganini in Django style.

Guitar great Jimmie Vaughan is still pickin’ the blues at 72.
At 04:12 he says it’s an Eddie Taylor song, but a 1952 Meteor Records 78rpm issue credits Elmore James & James Taub as the writers.

Robert Randolph and The Family Band
“In his adolescent years before being discovered by the secular community, [Randolph] was almost completely unaware of non-religious music. He went on exclaim in an interview that ‘I grew up and saw a lot of older guys playing lap steels and pedal-steel guitars in my church. I had never heard of the Allman Brothers, or even Buddy Guy or Muddy Waters.’ “ [Wiki}

And I had never heard the term sacred steel before today. Have a great weekend, see you back here tomorrow. Bring your laundry.

Saturday Matinee – Mississippi John Hurt, John Hiatt w/ The Jerry Douglas Band & Les Greene w/ The Televisionaries

Mississippi John Hurt, recording from Pete Seeger’s “Rainbow Quest” series (1965/1966) a television show devoted to folk music.

The great John Hiatt, backed by The Jerry Douglas Band, gets all sweet and swampy and stuff.

Grammy nominee and Swayzees frontman Les Greene teams up with The Televisionaries, a surf punk band from Rochester New York, and the result is.. that.

Have a great weekend, see you on the back porch tomorrow.

Saturday Matinee – The Quantum Creep (2007), G.E. Smith, Ally Venable w/ Buddy Guy, and Lonnie Brooks & Sugar Blue w/ the Nicholas Tremulis Orchestra

This is the work of  Billy Blob.
Sundance Film Festival award-winning short Bumble Beeing Part 1 – The Butterfly Effect (2002) has the back story, and Mr. Butterfly later agreed to do a Special Commentary interview.

“I started playing around the age of four, and started getting good at seven.” G.E. Smith is an unpretentious and underrated guitar player with an impressive resume, best known as the pony-tailed bandleader for The Saturday Night Live Band. The song is a cover of Robert Johnson’s 1936 recording of 32-20 Blues, which itself is a remake of Skip Jame’s 22-20 Blues.(1931).

Buddy Guy with Ally Venable (and vice versa) is a killer match up. From Venable’s studio album Real Gone (2023).

Chicago legends Lonnie Brooks and James Sugar BlueWhiting jammed with the Nicholas Tremulis Orchestra in 1999.

And that’ll do it for this installment. Have a great weekend and we’ll have a sit down on the back porch tomorrow.

Saturday Matinee – Tokyo Groove Jyoshi, Edward Phillips & The Raunch Hands

What is hip? Tokyo Groove Jyoshi is. They’re a groove band formed in 2018 by three session musicians:
Juna Serita – Bass
Emi Kanazashi – Keyboard
Yuriko Seki – Drums
w/ Shinobu KawashimaShamisen
[h/t Feral Irishman]

Blind Boy Fuller‘s Step It Up and Go (1940) as covered by blues roots historian Edward Phillips.

New York retro-rockers The Raunch Hands were underrated and overrated at the same time. [h/t Gord S.]

Hope you have a wet weekend and we’ll check the rain gauge tomorrow.

Saturday Matinee – Biscuits & Gravy Revew, Olena Uutai, Reverend Peyton & The Terraplanes Blues Band

“It looks like vomit.”
“I’m so scared to try this.”
“It looks like a chopped up ferret.”

Born in Yakutia, Russia, Olena Uutai (Olga Podluzhnaya Uutai) pulls unearthly sounds from a  khomus, a type of jaw harp once played by tribal shamans of the far east. [h/t Pam M.]

Reverend Peyton got hold of a groovebox in 2018.

The Terraplanes Blues Band shows us yanks how to play Delta Blues.

It’s later than usual for this time of year, hope it’s still early where you are. See you tomorrow, and if I’m not here, start without me.

Saturday Matinee – Universal Everything, Felix Colgrave, Matt “Guitar” Murphy w/ Memphis Slim & Billy Stepney

Transfiguration (2020) by Universal Everything is a remaster from their 2011 original. UE is a global collective of digital artists, architects and engineers, and there’s some very cool CGI animations in their portfolio.

Donks by Felix Colgrave:
The name comes from a box of miscellaneous plastic objects my child has. Things that are not categorically blocks or figurines or anything describable. I referred to them as ‘gonks’, which was pronounced by my then-2-year-old as ‘donks’. “
[h/t Mme. Jujujive]

Matt “Guitar” Murphy, Memphis Slim & Billy Stepney on Jazz Prisma, Brussels, Belgium (1963).
Regarding Matt Murphy, one UToob commenter summed it up:
“I’ve heard many a fine guitarist mention this guy as a major influence, from Jimmy Page to fellow blues legend Freddie King. He was Howlin Wolf’s lead guitarist before Hubert Sumlin came along, and played with Ike Turner, Buddy Guy, Etta James, Chuck Berry, Sonny Boy Williamson, Otis Rush, and of course the Blues Brothers. Underrated player.”

See you tomorrow. Have a weekend. Bunk out.

Saturday Matinee – ZeFrank, Yoann & Marie Bourgeois, Little Walter (w/ Hound Dog Taylor, Dillard Crume & Odie Payne) and GA-20

ZeFrank educates because it’s what he does, behbeh.

Yoann and Marie Bourgeois – The One Who Falls
Performances presented on October 22, 2022 on the occasion of the pre-opening of Hangar Y, the new cultural and event center of the city of Meudon.

Amazing dance / performing artists [h/t Memo Of The Air].

Walter’s Blues (1967).
Little Walter – Harp
Hound Dog Taylor – Guitar
Dillard Crume – Bass
Odie Payne – Drums

Straight Outta Loveland:
GA-20 covers Hound Dog Taylor & The House Rockers. Great authentic electric blues with respect, these guys ain’t posers.

Lotsa stuff to do: stuff that I need to do, stuff that I probably oughta do, and stuff that’s a total waste of time.  Seems I’m doing a lot of the third type of stuff these days, but at least it’s fun. Have a Superbowl weekend, and we’ll be back tomorrow. For stuff.

Saturday Matinee – Glenn Marshall / Fractal Forest, The Ramones, The Brothers Comatose & Sue Foley

AI meets Mandelbrot, and the results are beautiful, serene – and distubing. Computer artistry by Glenn Marshall, based upon a 3D Appolonian fractal animation by Inigo Quilez.

Here’s a palette cleanser. The Ramones.

The Brothers Comatose crank out denim trenchcoat bluegrass.

Think premium leaded Fabulous Thunderbirds with SRV. Sue Foley is an amazing blues rocker out of Austin, Texas.

Got a lot going on these days, and even more to worry about if I really wanted to bother, so maybe I’ll just have fun instead. See you tomorrow.

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