Tag: video

Saturday Matinee – The Tarbox Ramblers, Fred Wesley & The New JBs, and Taj Mahal w/ Gregg Allman, Chris Stapleton & Little Bigtown

The Tarbox Ramblers: “If the Rolling Stones had happened 10 years earlier, hailed from Memphis and been produced by Ike Turner, they might have sounded like The Tarbox Ramblers. The way the Ramblers lay down their backroads grit and raw hillbilly-rock jive, you’re unlikely to hear a more genuine blast of sandpaper rhythm and roots.” – The Boston Herald

Fred Wesley & The New JBs is comprised of: Fred Wesley / trombone, Gary Winters / trumpet, Phillip Whack / saxophone, Bruce Cox / drums, Dwayne Dolphin / bass, Reggie Ward / guitar and Peter Madsen / keyboards.

Taj Mahal, with Gregg Allman, Chris Stapleton and the members of Little Bigtown do the Elmore James‘ classic.

Hot days… warm nights… the rat in the garage couldn’t sleep so he left on his own. I’ll have the house to myself tomorrow night which means pizza for me and leftover steamed vegetables for the possum. Porch time tomorrow is at porch time o’clock. See you then.

Saturday Matinee – The Too Bad Jims, Albert Cummings Trio, and Lachy Doley w/ Adam Wendt & The Big Blues Orchestra

The Too Bad Jims pay tribute to R.L. Burnside (even their band name came from the title of one of his albums). Little Victor, Son Jack Jr. and Nick Simonon play a mix of North Mississippi Hill Country blues and boogie.

Albert Cummings, Warren Grant and Scot Sutherland make a great power trio, and there’s proof.

Australian musician, singer and songwriter Lachlan “Lachy” Doley, best known for playing the Hammond organ and whammy clavinet, teams up with with saxman Adam Wendt and The Big Blues Orchestra at the Blues In The World Festival, Poland, 2018. Killer cover of Junior Walker‘s 1965 hit.

Got some heat waving happening around these parts, but it’s not the three-digit kind that some of you out in cactus country have to put up with. A wet shirt, a breeze, a cooler and a porch is all I need. Stop by tomorrow and we’ll talk about crackers and barrels.

Saturday Matinee – Igor Prado Band, Davey Knowles and Gerry Joe Weise

Igor Prado Band‘s cover of  Camille Bob’s 1965 hit. These boys from Brazil play blues, R&B and west coast swing/jump, and funk. Lefthander Igor Prado leads on guitar with brother Yuri Prado on drums, Rodrigo Mantovani on acoustic bass and Denilson Martins on baritone sax. Their website igorpradoband.com was AWOL at the time of this posting.

Playing solo or with his band Back Door Slam, award-winning songwriter and guitarist Davy Knowles plays Telecaster, American Steel and mandolin to cover various genres including classic rock, blues, and folk.

Singer, songwriter, composer, pianist and guitarist Gerry Joe Weise‘ repertoire includes classical, jazz fusion and blues. He was recently named 5th best jazz guitarist in Australia, and creates land art installations as well.

Amazing. This week we saw people protesting in support of criminals, people protesting a peace summit, and people complaining about improvements in the economy, all while Governor Pantload gripes about everyone else in order to distract from his own incompetence. Pheew.

I dunno, Babs, but I do know this. I had an appointment with my onkydoc this week, and I’ve got nothing to complain about. I’ll be on the porch tomorrow taking suggestions and requests. See you there.

Saturday Matinee – Lefthand Freddy, Yates McKendree & Carl Weathersby w/ The Alex Zayas Band

Seasoned Dutch guitarist Lefthand Freddy mixed up a hot bowl of ska-flavored blues at the Nuenen Blues’m Festival.

“Born in Nashville and raised in a recording studio, multi-instrumentalist Yates McKendree grew up hearing and playing with some of Music City’s greatest musicians. […] During Yates’s teenage years, he played on and engineered dozens of recordings in his father’s (Kevin McKendree) studio, The Rock House; most notably for Delbert McClinton and John Hiatt, who told Rolling Stone Magazine, ‘Yates was our secret ingredient.’”

Born in Mississippi but raised in Chicago, Carl Weathersby was a teenager when his father’s friend became his tutor. That man was Albert King. Weathersby played rhythm guitar in King’s band before joining up with Billy Branch & The Sons Of the Blues, aka The SOBs. Weathersby passed away in 2024 at the age of 71.

The Alex Zayas Band: Zayas’ website is down / defunct, so his story is a bit tricky to find. He was born in Barcelona and has been on tour for about 30 years playing classic blues and blues rock; his band often backs other big-name blues performers.

With everything else going on in the world, the biggest news story this week involves fluorescent phalli and women’s basketball. At least the MSM seems to be reporting on it honestly and without obvious bias, and that’s a bit of fresh air.
Speaking of fresh air, stop by tomorrow at porch time and guess what the neighborhood skunk did to the neighbor’s little yappy dog.

Saturday Matinee – Flaco Jiménez, Big George Brock & Dan Patlansky

Flaco Jiménez (1939-2025) began playing the bajo sexto at the age of seven with his father, Santiago Jiménez Sr., a pioneer of conjunto music. He later adopted the accordion after being influenced by his father as well as zydeco musician Clifton Chenier.

Big George Brock was born in Grenada, Mississippi on May 16, 1932. By the time he was eight, he was working as a sharecropper picking cotton. He moved to Mattson, Mississippin, while in his teens, met and performed with Muddy Waters. In the late 1940s he moved to Walls, Mississippi where Howlin’ Wolf hired him as a roadie and sideman, and while in Walls he jammed with Memphis Minnie at house parties.

Dan Patlansky was voted the #4 Best Guitarist in the world and (besides Joe Bonamassa!) remains the only artist in the world with two worldwide No. 1, and two worldwide No. 2 Best Blues Rock Albums as voted by Blues Rock Review USA.

Got a lotta stuff to think about getting around to planning to do one of these days, but not tomorrow because I’ve got an appointment on the porch around porch time. See you there.

Saturday Matinee – Emmaline, The Teskey Brothers & Toby Lee

 “Quite Like Me” is a diss track that I wrote to my friend’s EX-boyfriend. Now, I don’t write diss tracks often, but this guy was the absolute worst, folks — and that’s putting it in the nicest way possible!”
Vocalist, violinist and songwriter Emmaline has won much recognition for her jazz / torch song recordings and performances both on stage and on screen. I think this is one of the prettiest f-u songs I’ve ever heard. [h/t Octo.]

Josh Teskey (vocals, rhythm guitar) and Sam Teskey (lead guitar) formed The Tesky Brothers in 2008.  Based in Melbourne, Australia, they faithfully resurrect the sounds of 1960s/70s soul.

Born in Oxfordshire England in 2005, Toby Lee played Zack Mooneyham in the New London Theatre production of School of Rock the Musical in 2016 and was named UK Young Blues Artist of the Year in 2018. Since then he’s shared the stage with the likes of Buddy Guy, Billy Gibbons, Peter Frampton, Slash, Joe Bonamassa, and Jools Holland, and has a number one record to boot.

We didn’t have any junebugs this year, but the julybugs made a good show. I found some barfed up catfood next to the trash bin, and the neighbor got a new roof and a Solatube. I was informed that the word picnic is racist for some made-up reason, and tomorrow is porch time. See you around  half past whenever.

Saturday Matinee – Shinyribs, 19-Twenty & Wee Willie Walker

Based in Austin, Texas, and fronted by Kevin “Shinyribs” Russel,
Shinyribs “defies genres as a sonic melting pot of Texas Blues, New Orleans R&B funk, horn- driven Memphis Soul, country twang, border music, big band swing, and roots-rock.”

19-Twenty is a high energy roots rock/blues band who have played numerous prominent festivals and many small venues across Australia. Their recordings include collaborations with other Aussie greats like Aloe Blacc, Lachy Doley, Roshani & Hussy Hicks.

Wee Willie Walker (1941-2019) was a gospel, R&B and soul singer born in Hernando, Mississippi, raised in Memphis, Tennessee. His first release, in 1967, was a cover of the Beatles’ Ticket to Ride.

Holy crap what a week of weather – record heat, record rains, record floods. Prayers to those who suffered losses of property and especially to those who lost loved ones.

Saturday Matinee – Blues Against The Machine, The Future Shape Of Sound & Otis Rush

Blues Against The Machine is a six-man blues/jump/boogie/rock supergroup with members from Portugal, Spain, Norway, Poland and Italy. Winners of several prestigious blues awards, BATM are headliners at many blues festivals around Europe.

The Future Shape Of Sound, aka The Church of Rock & Roll, advertise themselves as a “9-piece Rock’n’Roll Gospel Spectacle”. Three of the members have a side hustle as the award-winning Soca Divettes.

From his first hit in 1956 (I Can’t Quit You Baby) Otis Rush was the sound of West Side Chicago electric blues. His vocals and playing style influenced many who followed, including Buddy Guy, Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughn (who named his band after Rush’s 1959 hit Double Trouble).

I intended to post something insightful and brilliant about the recent state of affairs but decided to save it for another time and another place.
Like tomorrow. On the porch. Be there or BL7.

Saturday Matinee – Robert Jr. Lockwood, Champion Jack Dupree w/ King Curtis, Earl Hooker & The Parlor Mob

Born in Turkey Scratch, Arkansas, Robert Jr. Lockwood was the only known blues guitarist to have been taught by the most influential bluesman ever, Robert Johnson. Lockwood became one of the top session musicians for Chess Records before launching his solo career in 1970. Although he passed away in 2006, there are still annual birthday bashes held in his name.

Champion Jack Dupree with King Curtis, backed by Cornell Dupree on guitar, Jerry Jemmott on bass and Oliver Jackson on drums. Filmed at the Montreux Jazz Festival, June 1971, two months before King Curtis’ tragic death.

Earl Zebedee Hooker, cousin of John Lee Hooker, schoolmate of Elias McDaniels (Bo Diddley), tutored by Robert Nighthawk, recorded with Pinetop Perkins for Sam Phillips’ Sun Records, Charles Brown, Brownie McGhee & Sonny Terry, Jimmy Witherspoon, and B.B. King ranked him in the top ten of his favorite guitarists.

The Parlor Mob, an alt rock trio from Asbury Park, New Jersey, takes classic rock and blends it with more recent styles, aiming for a timeless sound.

The day after Splody Day always seems so peaceful until the local yahoos wake up and find the part of the stash they’d overlooked last night. Porch time begins after I sweeps the half inch of fallout away. See you then.

Saturday Matinee – The Big Wait, Jesse Dayton, and The Hoax

A couple readies a remote Australian town for visitors who might never arrive. The pair are the sole occupants of Forrest, a former railway town that’s home to an emergency airport, which serves as an essential stop for planes needing to fill up mid-journey. More about them here.

The song featured in the short documentary is Heaven and Paradise by Don Julian and The Meadowlarks (1955).

Jesse Dayton has been around for a while, playing a mixture of Texas blues, outlaw country, and punk, while collaborating with the likes of Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Rob Zombie, John Doe, and more recently, Samantha Fish.

From Devizes, Wiltshire, England, The Hoax is/was a blues band who got a lot of attention in the 1990s. Their debut album Sound Like This was named Best British Blues Album of the Year at the British Blues Connection Awards in 1994 and they’ve recorded several more since. [Their website appears to be defunct, but they have a FB page.]

What a week. First that, then the other thing, and now we have to deal with this. We definitely need some serious porch time tomorrow, and I’ll be there when you are.