Take a break from what you are doing and give this six pack of roadhouse blues tunes a listen; the rest of your day will go better!
Quinn Sullivan – All Around the World – Wide Awake
A young and upcoming talent mentored by Buddy Guy, Quinn moves towards the mainstream with his latest recording. The guitar licks alone make it worth a listen.
Davey Knowles – Solid Ground – What Happens Next
I just love the voice of Davy Knowles and he is also one fine blues rockin’ guitar player!
The Liberators – Waitin’ – Waitin’
The Liberators are blues rockers from the Netherlands and they are simply just BADASS!!
Tia Carrol – Ain’t Nobody Worryin’ – You Gotta Have It
Tia is from the Bay area and she lays down a soul groove to a song with a social conscience.
Veronica Lewis – Put Your Wig On Mama – You Ain’t Unlucky
Veronica is a ivory poundin’ talent from Boston with a bright bright future….TURN IT UP!
The Wildroots – Misty Morning in New Orleans – Wildroot Sessions Volume 1
This song just makes me homesick for my hometown of New Orleans. Victor Wainwright, Mark Hodgson, John Oates…..an impressive group of artists got together for the album.
Hope you enjoyed the tunes…….have a GREAT day! And if ya want to listen to more…just tune in to my 24 hour roadhouse blues stream at WRHB or catch me every Thursday from 3-5 pm EDT on http://www.bluesmusicfan.com.
Any album that starts with a Hammond B3 organ intro has my attention. One that then integrates some Big Easy style harmonica is just plain badass.The new Jason Ricci and Joe Krown collaboration, City Country City on Gulf Coast Records, starts just that way with the title cut and is infused throughout with the rhythms of a bluesy fall day in the French Quarter roamin’ down Royal Street and then perhaps eating beignets out by the mighty Mississippi in New Orleans.
Jason has long been considered one of the premier harmonica players of the blues genre and Joe Krown, an established piano and organ player in New Orleans, is also a member of the Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band. Together with monster drummer Doug Belote, they lay down a sound that reflects the city in which they all reside. In parts funky and soul infused, the recording is a very enjoyable listen.
Besides the title cut, I also enjoyed the instrumentals Down n’ Dirty, My Mama Told Me So, It Starts with Me, and Upshot. I was particularly impressed with their reinterpretation of the Bobby Gentry classic Ode to Billy Joe as a blues funk instrumental. Jason’s work on the harmonica on the song takes the tune to a whole new level.
On Badger the Witness, Jason and Joe channel Doctor John to perfection. Feel Good Funk is just that and my favorite song on the album is Down At the Juke. It’s just a perfect “down the bayou” tune reflective of some places I used to frequent while growing up and working in southern Louisiana. If you enjoy the low down blues, you won’t find much better than the trio’s rendition of Charles Brown’sDrifting Blues with Joe’s haunting organ setting just the right vibe and counterpoint to some sweet harmonica playing. Listening to Jason on this song will help you to understand why blues music lovers rave about his talent. I also enjoyed their cover of Sonny Boy Williamson’sJust a Playboy with Joe pounding those ivories.
The textures and rhythms of this album embody the city of New Orleans and are reflective of the powerhouse talents of Jason, Joe, and Doug. Though they all have busy schedules with other bands, it is my hope that they will carve out some time to tour a bit together. I think people world wide would enjoy some of their Big Easy blues.
Ricci Krown – City Country City (Gulf Coast Records 2021)
Ben Vee started out spinning songs on terrestrial radio and at nightclubs back in the 1970’s in his home state of Louisiana. After a career in the construction business, he returned to DJing in 2011. He now hosts two shows each week on http://www.bluesmusicfan.com and writes about the blues at http://www.benveeblues.com from his home in Connecticut. He also has a 24 hour stream devoted to the Roadhouse Blues… WRHB
Today is Veterans Day in the USA and I’d like to take this chance to thank the men and women from the United States and around the world that serve their nations and protect the peace. Many spend holidays away from family and do their duty on stations in remote and lonely places. Over the years, I have heard from some of them listening in to my shows from Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. To a person, they all comment on how the blues remind them of home and today it reminds me of all of YOU! Thank you for your service and listening to the songs I spin!!
Hope you get a chance to listen in today to the Ben Vee Roadhouse Blues Nooner on http://www.bluesmusicfan.com from 12-2 pm EST. We will roll out with a Faces tune featuring Rod Stewart from back in the day and then spend the rest of the show spinning some incredible new contemporary blues from artists all over the USA and around the world:Manny Fizzotti, Joe Louis Walker, Natalia M. King, Malted Milk, Bad Temper Joe, Colin James, Carolyn Wonderland, and a whole bunch more!!
ARTIST
TITLE
Country
Manny Fizzotti
Sliding Away
Italy
Faces
Three Button Hand Me Down
UK
Joe Louis Walker
Two Trains Running
USA
Son Of Dave
Gimme A Doctor
UK
Natalia M. King
Pink Houses (Feat. Elliott Murphy)
France
Mick Schafer Band
Don’t Wanna B Judged
USA
Zoom With Shawn Kellerman
Born To Sing The Blues
Canada
Jesse Roper
Does Anybody Know
Canada
P K Mayo
Truth
USA
Santana ft. Chris Stapleton
Joy
USA
Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats
I’m On Your Side
USA
Eric Gales
I Want My Crown (Feat. Joe Bonamassa)
USA
Altered Five Blues Band
All Suit, No Soul
USA
The Head Hunters Blues Band
Forty Days And Forty Nights
UK
Black Pumas
I’m Ready
USA
Manny Fizzotti
Turn Me On
Italy
Malted Milk
Let Me Ride
France
Circle Of Mud
Native Man
France
Andreas Diehlmann Band
Made It My Way
Germany
Bad Temper Joe
3rd Floor Elevator Blues
Germany
Colin James
Raging River
Canada
The Doobie Brothers
Cannonball
USA
Carolyn Wonderland
Broken Hearted Blues
USA
Phillip-Michael Scales
When They Put Me in My Grave
USA
Simon Kinny-Lewis
Just Need A Kind Hearted Woman ( Feat Robben Ford )
This year has been another great one for Roadhouse Blues releases AND they just keep comin’!!!! Here are some that might interest you…….
Out Now
Santana – Blessings and Miracles
It’s album number 26 for the band Santana and the groove nevah felt better! The band gets an assist from Chris Stapleton and Steve Winwood on a album chocked full of other guest appearances.A bluesey cover of Whiter Shade of Pale is worth the price of admission!
The Kentucky Headhunters – That’s a Fact Jack!
Southern influenced blues rock…oh yeah!
Out this week:
Gov’t Mule – Heavy Load Blues
Warren Haynes says this is the first Gov’t Mule to explicitly focus on the blues. Listen to the promo video single Make It Rain and understand why I can’t wait to get my hands on the entire recording.
Joe Louis Walker – Eclectic Electric
He started out years ago hangin’ backstage with Jimi Hendrix and released his first album in the mid eighties. I have been a big fan ever since and even got to trade shots with him one night at Black Eyed Sally’s in Hartford, CT. The album is truly an eclectic mix of blues’d up songs featuring his prowess on guitar and that distinctive voice.
Coming in December
Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Barn
When ya just want the windows to rumble to the music…..Crazy Horse will always do!
Due out in early 2022
Keb’ Mo’ – Good To Be
Tinsley Ellis – Devil May Care
Willie & the Bandits (UK) – When the World Stood Still
John Mayall – The Sun is Shining Down
John had recently announced that he would no longer tour but only perform locally in California so I was happy to hear he will put out a new album in late January 2022 featuring Marcus King, Buddy Miller, and Mike Campbell. A music icon and elder statesman of the blues; anything he cares to record I want to listen to.
Eric Gales – Crown
This will be an interesting album. Eric collaborated with Joe Bonamassa on the recording and if the first single I Want My Crown is any indication it will be pretty badass.
For those of you who haven’t heard of Zac Harmon, he is an award winning bluesman who comfortably resides in the Robert Cray wing of the contemporary blues. In 2006, he won the Blues Music Foundation award for Best New Artist for his album The Blues According To Zacariah. In the years since six more albums have followed including the new recording Long As I Got My Guitar.
Zac has a voice and a guitar style that can best be described as ‘chillin with the soul blues’. His songs on the new album are in parts upbeat, funky, pensive, spiritual, and socially aware. He even ventures “down the bayou” a bit with the delightful accordion accompanied Crying Shame. Zac was born in Jackson Mississippi to parents who schooled him in music. His mother played piano and his father, the first black pharmacist in Mississippi, played harmonica. His dad tended to the needs of Muddy Waters, B.B. King, Albert King, Ike & Tina Turner, and Little Milton at times and all those combined influences have made Zac Harmon one of the great blues & soul men of the roadhouse blues.
Now based in Texas, Zac worked with the renown music producer, Jim Gaines, who most notably produced Stevie Ray Vaughan, Santana, and Journey, to create the soulful music magic on this recording. Backing Zac on most of the tracks are the Rays consisting of Bob Trenchard (bass), Richy Puga (drums), Johnny McGhee (guitars), Dan Ferguson (keyboards and accordion) and backing vocals by SueAnn Carwell and Corey Lacey.
My favorite recording on the album is the title cut, Long As I Got My Guitar. Over the years, I have heard guitar players time and again talk about having survived their days payin’ their blues dues and facing the brutal choice of pawning their guitar for money to pay bills. Zac captures that melancholy experience with some exquisite guitar licks and real world lyrics. I also loved the guitar work on the socially conscious Waiting to Be Free. Another favorite of mine on the recording is People Been Talking which is soul blues at its very finest.
Over the last 18 months all of us have dealt with enforced periods of isolation as a result of the pandemic. It has given most of us a new appreciation of family and friends and, in Zac’s case, he says it gave him the realization that “as long as I have my guitar, all is good with my soul”. All I can add to that is that just listening to Zac sing and play on this new recording had a nice calming effect on my soul best exemplified by his song, Soul Land. Give it and the rest of the songs on this album a listen as you chill to some mighty fine soul blues.
Zac Harmon – Long As I Have My Guitar (2021 Catfood Records)
Ben Vee started out spinning songs on terrestrial radio and at nightclubs back in the 1970’s in his home state of Louisiana. After a career in the construction business, he returned to DJing in 2011. He now hosts two shows each week on http://www.bluesmusicfan.com and writes about the blues at http://www.benveeblues.com from his home in Connecticut. He also has a 24 hour stream devoted to the Roadhouse Blues… WRHB
Hope you get time to tune in for today’s Roadhouse Blues Rock show (Nov 4th) from 3-5 pm EDT on http://www.bluesmusicfan.com. I have some new tunes from Joe Bonamassa, Danny Bryant, Jessie Lee & the Alchemists, Davy Knowles, and Jamie Lynn Vessels as well as an archive block featuring Johnny & Edgar Winter, Taste (early Rory Gallagher), Fleetwood Mac, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and Alvin Lee.
Every life is an open road. It’s a lyric from the title cut for Colin James‘ 20th album which was released this week. In Colin’ case, the certainty and direction of his musical journey was cemented when fate intervened back in the 1980’s in his hometown of Regina, Saskatchewan. A late no show and a desperate last minute search for an opening act for Stevie Ray Vaughan led to Colin. After the show, Stevie told him , “I’m opening doors for you….walk through them!”.And that he did!!
In 1988, Colin released his first self-titled album which contained two self-penned hits, Voodoo Thing and Five Long Years that garnered him the first of his 7 JUNO awards and a spot touring with Keith Richards. Over the ensuing years, Colin has rocked it, been credited with reviving swing music in Canada, and, with the last three albums, solidified his standings as one badass roadhouse bluesman.
The OPEN ROAD album is an impressive collection of original songs as well as covers of tunes he recalls first firing his imagination at the age of 12. It has rockin’ blues songs, traditional blues numbers, and beautiful roots tunes. Overcoming the challenges of the pandemic, Colin drew together the talents of Chris Caddell (rhythm guitar), Steve Pelletier and Norm Fisher (bassists), Simon Kendall and Jesse O’Brien (Hammond B3 organ), and Geoff Hicks (drums) to make the recording. It was mixed at the famed Abbey Roads Studios in London by producer Dave Meszaros. And the product, which includes guest appearances by Steve Marriner (harmonica) and Jerry Cook and Steve Hilliam (saxophone) is in my opinion his best overall release to date and worthy of consideration as one of the best blues recordings of 2021 world wide, not just in Canada. To give you a feel for just how good it is, I use a 5 star rating system for songs and there are 13 on the Open Road recording. My overall rating is an incredible 57 out of a possible 65. As context, my normal rating for an album I considered great would be 40 to 45! This recording is special!!
The album opens with some tasty guitar pickin’ on the Tony Joe White song As The Crow Flies. Colin then takes on challenge of covering an Albert King tune, Can’t You See What You’re Doing to Me. He follows that up with some badass lowdown blues on That’s Why I Am Crying. The fourth song Open Road was written by Colin and Craig Northey. It is insightful observation on life and the travails of a traveling musician. On the fifth tune, Change It, Colin pays tribute to his fateful meeting with Stevie Ray with a song written by Doyle Bramhall. The album also contains two songs written by Colin and Colin Linden, another of my favorite Canadian artists, Raging River and There’s a Fire. Colin cranks out a signature rockin blues tune, Leave This House, that he wrote with Tom Wilson as the seventh cut. Colin’s version of the Bob Dylan song, It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry is a showcase for his voice and some more tasty guitar licks. And he absolutely aces another Dylan tune, Down On the Bottom, that served as one of the “promo singles” released back in September. Colin also delivers a fabulous cover of the John Lee Hooker song, Bad Boy. One of my all time favorite bluesmen is Otis Rush and the recording of It Takes Time featuring some exquisite harmonica by Steve Marriner is just simply badass roadhouse blues! And to top it all off, the last song on the album is a soulful rendition of Otis Redding‘s I Love You More Than I Can Say.
I have been told that the average music lover buys a dozen or so albums a year. In what is fast becoming the new age of the single, I highly recommend that you purchase the entire recording to truly appreciate what an incredible recording this is! And in the coming months, I will be more than willing to hit the open road to see Colin James work his musical magic on stage….how about you?
Colin James – Open Road (2021 Stony Plain Records)
Ben Vee started out spinning songs on terrestrial radio and at nightclubs back in the 1970’s in his home state of Louisiana. After a career in the construction business, he returned to DJing in 2011. He now hosts two shows each week on http://www.bluesmusicfan.com and writes about the blues at http://www.benveeblues.com from his home in Connecticut. He also has a 24 hour stream devoted to the Roadhouse Blues… WRHB
During October I dealt with a bad thumb (I violated rule one of using a knife in the kitchen) and a weird issue from WordPress that prevented me posting my playlists as a table. They provided me with a work around just now…..sooooo…..join me today on http://www.bluesmusicfan.com for some badass roadhouse blues from 12-2 pm EDT!
Here is the intended playlist for today’s show:
ARTIST
TITLE
The Radio Kings
When You Got A Good Friend
Mare Edstrom
That’s Alright
Nick Vigarino & Kathi Mcdonald
Yardbird
The Nick Moss Band
Tell Me Somethin’ About Yourself (ft Michael Ledbetter)
Ben Vee Blues 