Category: Americana

So, I was on the No Depression website the other day and on the sidebar was an advertisement for a new CD  Flood by Moreland and Arbuckle, it looked interesting so I headed over to emusic.com and searched for the CD and found it and downloaded several of the songs and all I can say is WOW! Mississippi Delta Blues at its finest! The trio consists of leaders Aaron Moreland on guitars, Dustin Arbuckle on harp and vocals and drummer Brad Horner. You can read the band’s bio at their website. While they are from Wichita, Kansas they live in the Mississippi delta in spirit. Their songs and playing are great! Moreland plays Telecaster and Les Paul guitars and a Cigar Box guitar consisting of four strings, one of which goes to a bass amp and the other three to a guitar amp. This guitar really adds to the great original sound of the group. Dustin Arbuckle’s vocals are top notch but his harp playing is extraordinary and would make his heroes Little Walter and Sonny Boy Williamson proud. His playing takes the band to another level for me. Read More

So I started Wednesday thinking about the blues musician I was going to listen to and choose Corey Stevens. A couple of weeks ago I had downloaded Corey Stevens  new live CD called Myth Live. Actually a two disc CD/DVD of a concert at a new state of the art venue the Myth in Maplewood Minnesota. The album is a good mix of some of the tracks from his early albums which are the two I have Blue Drops of Rain and The Road to Zen. On the CD he plays both of the these title tracks.  They have always been my two favorites. There is one track on the CD  “Another Pretty Face” from his most recent CD Albertville, which is an album of covers of Albert King songs. I listened to that album today and thought it was really good. There are also some tracks from Bring on the Blues Stevens 2003 release. I listened to that CD briefly today and enjoyed it also. Stevens sounds a lot like Stevie Ray Vaughan and actually started out playing Vaughan covers but he can play guitar and that’s that counts. His band consists of Mark Johnson on bass, Jim Stark on guitar, Norm Stiffen on drums, Melody Gilbert background vocals and percussion and Paul Testa on Hammond organ. Testa is outstanding on the Myth Live CD. All in all it was a good two days listening to a good blues musician and his bandmates and if you’ve never heard Stevens give him a try! Check out the videos on the left sidebar! Read More

So last night I was browsing through a list of new folk releases on Dirty Linen Magazine and one title jumped out  Crawlin’ – by Marc Benno and the Nightcrawlers featuring Stevie Ray Vaughan. Well, some of you oldsters may remember a duo called Asylum Choir, who put out a couple of albums in the 70’s. The duo was Marc Benno and Leon Russell. I haven’t listened to that album in forever, but will listen tonight  and report back. Anyway, I went to emusic.com ( a site I dearly love) and found the Marc Benno album and downloaded five tracks and listened this morning, pretty good and I will report with my comments on Asylum Choir. Read More