Tag: Saturday Matinee

Saturday Matinee – Clarence Gatemouth Brown w/ Canned Heat, Joe Louis Walker, and Kim Simmonds / Savoy Brown

Clarence Gatemouth Brown, backed by Canned Heat, one of the greatest blues revival bands ever.  Gatemouth Brown was a rare talent, played multiple styles, and if you told him a 10 penny nail was a musical instrument, he could play it.

Joe Louis Walker has recorded with Ike Turner, Bonnie Raitt, Taj Mahal, and Steve Cropper. Per Billboard, his style “blows all over the map…gutbucket blues, joyous gospel, Rolling Stones-style rock crunch, and aching R&B. Walker’s guitar playing is fine and fierce.”

Welsh guitarist Kim Simmonds (1947-2022) was the founder, primary songwriter and sole constant member of the British blues rock band Savoy Brown. Very underrated band.

Fires are still burning in the west, Arctic temperatures in the east, and we’ve got a whip-cracker in DC. Very interesting year so far, and if this keeps up 2025 is going to be in rehab by March. Keep your eyes open, your heads down, and we’ll see you tomorrow for porchtime.

Saturday Matinee – HeavyDrunk, Nuno Mindelis & 19-Twenty

HeavyDrunk: “Sippi Dupree was my bus driver when I was a kid. He helped me through an emotional crisis when I was in 3rd grade, and became my friend. He disappeared the next year. This is his story.”

Nuno Mindelis (aka “The Beast from Brazil”) is an Angolan-born Brazilian blues guitarist and singer-songwriter. (His website’s bonky, gotta scroll down.) This song is sung in Kimbundo dialect according to the Utoobage notes, Google Translate says it’s Zaptotec, and it seems to be about bears.

19 Twenty is a roots blues / rock / punk band from Australia with a sizeable fan base who know all the words to Tramp Stamp.

Fires are still burning in California, people are still recovering from Hurricane Helene in North Carolina, news of just about everything is breaking hourly, and I hope 2025 stops dicking around and shows at least some respect. Meanwhile, I’ll be on the porch talking to dogs, see you at half past whenever you show up.

Saturday Matinee – Rick Estrin & The Nightcats, Toronzo Cannon & The Chicago Way, and The Scotty Bratcher Band

Rick Estrin and The Nightcats: “Rick Estrin sings and writes songs like the brightest wiseguy in all bluesland and blows harmonica as if he learned at the knee of Little Walter.” – DownBeat magazine

Chicago bluesman Toronzo Cannon didn’t pick up a guitar until he was 22, but he picked it up fast:
“Gary Clark, Jr. declared, ‘Toronzo is a beast. He lights the room up,’ and Joe Bonamassa rightly pronounced, ‘Toronzo’s a great guitar player, excellent vocalist and an amazing personality.’ ”

Scotty Bratcher covers Albert King’s Feel Like Breakin’ Up Somebody’s Home. Bratcher was introduced to the guitar while still in the single digits of age, and was already making a name for himself before he had a driver’s license. He’s going to be around for a while.

The tragedy of the California fires has been the news of the week, but don’t forget the people who are still recovering from the ravages of hurricane Helene while coping with winter weather. For many, it’s going to be years before things get back to normal.

I’ll be on the porch if you need me.

Saturday Matinee – Justin Johnson, Too Slim & The Taildraggers, and Otis Clay

Master of the 3-string electric shovel, Justin Johnson slides on anything.

Too Slim & The Taildraggers go slidin’ all over the two lane. The award-winning trio has had six albums peak in the top 10 of the Billboard Top Blues Albums. Members currently consist of Tim “Too Slim” Langford (lead vocals, guitar), Robert Kearnes (bass, vocals) and Jeffrey “Shakey” Fowlkes (drums).

Gospel, soul and blues singer Otis Clay (1942-2016):
Gospel would remain Otis’ primary focus. After arriving in Chicago during the mid-1950s, he joined the Golden Jubilaires, then hooked up with Charles Bridges’ Famous Blue Jay Singers in 1960. “Here we are singing acappella, and we’re singing in elementary schools, high schools, hotels and colleges and things like that. We were known as variety singers, or we were billed as (performing) ‘Old Negro Spirituals and Plantation Melodies.’ ”

Nice to have 2024 behind us, but 2025 better settle its ass right down pronto or I’m getting out The Belt. Have a great weekend, we’ll weigh down the porch tomorrow, noonish o’clock.

Saturday Matinee – Snooks Eaglin, Latvian Blues Band & Clutch

Snooks Eaglin took Wilson Pickett’s Memphis classic down to N’awlins.
[h/t hotfox63.com]

In 2008, Latvian Blues Band became the first European-based group invited to perform in the Chicago Blues Festival. From Riga, Latvia, members include Jānis ‘Bux’ Bukovskis (guitar, vocals), Jonatans Rācenājs (guitar), Rolands ‘Rolx’ Saulietis (drums, backing vocals), Reinis Ozoliņš (bass), Nauris Strežs (trombone) and Artis Ločmelis (sax).

Clutch picks it up, throws it to the floor and kicks it square in the crackerbockles. From their 2007 album From Beale Street to Oblivion.

Just got a breather from the Christmas festivities, and here comes the New Year barrelling down the tracks. I’m not ready for it, but I’ve had just about enough of 2024. Porchtime? Whenever o’clock.

Saturday Matinee – Keb’ Mo’, The Mavericks, Skatune Network, & Gwen Stefani / No Doubt

Keb’ Mo’ breaks it down and throws it back.

The Mavericks are Raúl Malo / vocals, guitar; Paul Deakin / drums; Jerry Dale McFadden / keyboards, vocals; Eddie Perez / guitar. Early jump blues piano style that morphed into ska.

One man ska band JER / Skatune Network covers Otis Redding‘s cover of Charles Brown‘s 1947 hit. The guy’s amazing.

In 2003, Gwen Stefani & No Doubt spread the Oi of the season with their cover of the Vandals.

Lemme see. Christmas Eve isn’t until Tuesday, so I still have tomorrow’s porch time to make a list and check it twice, and Monday for shopping. No sweat. Stop by tomorrow and we’ll compare lists.

Saturday Matinee – Linda Teränen / RelaxTrio, The Nick Moss Band, and Shakura S’Aida

The girl pounds bass. Finnish band RelaxTrio is (was?)
Linda Teränen (Vocals & double bass)
Oskari Nieminen (Vocals & guitar)
Vilho Voutilainen (Drums & backing vocals)

The Nick Moss Band gives a tribute to the late great Hubert Sumlin in fine Chicago style.

Great smoker by Shakura S’Aida, backed by Donna Grantis (guitar), Lance Anderson (B3), Roger Williams (bass) and Tony Rabalao (drums).

While posting this, an internest outage almost forced me to watch television. Fortunately it came back just in time so I could announce that tomorrow’s porch time shall commence promptly at whenever o’clock. See you then.

Saturday Matinee – Jesse Welles, The Anthony Paul Soul Orchestra w/ Willy Jordan, Curtis Salgado, and Vanessa Collier

Born and raised in Ozark, Arkansas, Jesse Welles began his career around 2012, performing as Jeh Sea Wells. “It’s obvious that Wells will always be comfortable in some dirty rock and roll kitchen where, as he says in one song, ‘everyone’s kinda ugly in that way that looks pretty.'” – NPR

60s-70s soul sounds from San Francisco: The Anthony Paul Soul Orchestra (APSO) features Willy Jordan.

R&B soul singer Curtis Salgado won the  Blues Music Awards’ Soul Blues Male Artist Of The Year two years in a row (2021 & 2022). Salgado was the inspiration behind John Belushi’s creation of the Blues Brothers characters in the late 1970s. They met in Eugene, Oregon, and became friends while Belushi was filming the movie Animal House [Wiki].

Nice Louisiana dixiefunk. Vanessa Collier fronts an 11 piece band that includes Laura Chavez (guitar), Doug Woolverton (trumpet) and Mark Earley (sax).

Gonna take my hatchet and get a Christmas tree tomorrow. Not gonna cut it, I just get a better price with a hatchet in my hand. Don’t know why, I just do. In the meantime, help yourselves to the porch and I’ll be back soon enough.

Saturday Matinee – Béla Fleck & the Flecktones, BIG DEZ, Joe Louis Walker, and Jackie Venson

Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, featuring Victor Wooten on fretless bass, his brother Roy “Futureman” Wooten on Drumitar. Alto saxman  Jeff Coffin joined the trio in 1996.

Nice laid back groove. BIG DEZ was formed in 1996 by Phil “Big Dez” Fernandez (guitar) and Bala Pradal (keyboards). They spent most of their time rehearsing in a cabin in the suburbs of Paris, and after adding Lamine Guerfi (bass) Archibald Ligonnière (drums), graduated to the bar scene, then moved on to the big time. [More here.]

Joe Louis Walker, a Blues Hall of Fame inductee and six-time Blues Music Award winner, NPR described him as “a legendary boundary-pushing icon of modern blues.”

Jackie Venson: “Singer-songwriter Jackie Venson’s version of the blues – with its R&B, psychedelic rock – has invigorated Austin’s music scene with its refreshingly electric sound.” — Rolling Stone

Dang. It’s almost December already. Porch time has been scheduled for whenenever you get here. See you tomorrow.

Saturday Matinee – The Walkers Blues Band, Ronnie Earl & the Broadcasters, Thorbjørn Risager & The Black Tornado

The Walkers Blues Band cover Slim Harpo’s Te Ni Nee Ni Nu. I couldn’t find details about the group other than they made their debut in 2015 at the Festival Internacional de Blues de Asunción, Paraguay.

Ronnie Earl and the Broadcasters need no introduction. Fun fact: Ronnie Earl (aka Ronald Horvath) was born in Queens, NY, and holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Education & Special Education from Boston University.

Since their beginnings as a Copenhagen bar band, Thorbjørn Risager & The Black Tornado have been dubbed Denmark’s premier roots-rockers. The septet has performed in Scandinavia, Europe, Canada, the US and Asia for the past twenty years.

Thanksgiving is just around the corner and right after that comes the best part: leftovers. The porch shall open promptly at noonish tomorrow for weather observation. Be there.