Category: Blues

Yesterday Janiva Magness celebrated her 57th birthday. If you do not Janiva is a blues superstar. She was named the Blues Foundation’s B.B. King Entertainer of the Year in 2009, becoming only the second woman, after Koko Taylor, to be so honored. She was also named the Contemporary Blues Female Artist of the Year in that same year! She had won that award in both 2006 and 2007. In 2012 she was nominated for that award again. All ototal since 2006, she has had 22 similar nominations! This year she won the 2013 Blues music Award: for Contemporary Artist of the Year again and her song “I won’t Cry” was song of the Year!! Read More

So today was a blues day. A blues day inside and a white snowy day outside, as we here in the northeast were hit with another snowstorm! s]Since it was a blues day, the latest release from Tinsley Ellis Midnight Blue was the album of the day. After listening and thinking about Tinsley I was trying to fix when I first discovered his music. I have his 1992 release Trouble Time and his 1994 release Storm Warning both on cassette, and I may have bought them at Tunes in the late 1990s. Not that it really matters, the important thing is that I’ve known and loved this great guitarist for a while now, and I’d put Midnight Blue right up there with his best work, which almost says is his 2004 release The Hard Way  Anyway for those of you who don’t know Tinsley…. Read More

So let’s make this a Blues Thursday, we’re almost to the weekend, even though that means that I have to work Friday and Saturday nights, I do have off on Sunday for the NFL Conference finals!!  I don’t have much time to write now so I’ll just give you a taste of what I’m going to listen to this afternoon! First up will be the new release from Vincent Hayes The Grind. Hayes is an award-winning blues man from Michigan. I really liked his earlier release the Reclamation. So I’m looking forward to The Grind. Read More

So yesterday as I was exploring and writing about the Blues Music Award Nominees for Blues Rock Album of the year one of the albums  on the sidebar of the website, caught my attention.because I thought it was very tastefully done….. So I went over to Spotify and found the album,road worn and ragged.by Jeff Jensen, When I looked at the track list, I saw that Brandon Santini and Victor Wainwright played on several of the tracks, now, not only are those two favorites of mine, but they are nominated for 2013 Blues Music Awards! Brandon is nominated for Contemporary Blues Album of the Year for his album  This Time Another Year (which wrote about briefly back in March) and as harmonica player of the year! While Victor Wainwright is nominated for the Pinetop Perkins Piano Player award! Now Victor I found about a year earlier in July of 2012 and several of his albums are now in my library!! Anyway all of this made it a no brainer that I was going to listen to the album and when I did I was not disappointed in the least! This is one really,really fine album!! On his biography page of his website the title reads JEFF JENSEN – PRODUCER, COMPOSER, BLUES GUITARIST and I do believe that he excels at all three jobs!! While Jeff has been playing guitar since the age of 11 and had his first gigs at the age of 19 and then fronted a blues band that played throughout Southern California, it wasn’t until after he returned from the International Blues Challenge in 2004 a member of the Blues Foundation the he was driven to form his own band. Since then the Jeff Jensen Band has released two albums “Self-Titled” and I’m Coming Home  both of the albums have been well received and made it on to the Roots Music Report Charts and the Lining Blues Charts!  The band also performed at the International Blues Challenge in 2005, 2006, and 2007! In 2011 he moved to Memphis and has spent the last two years as Brandon Santini’s guitarist and music director and together they have recorded three albums!!Man, I’m tired of just reading about all that work that has lead up to his latest release road worn and ragged, so I guess that the title of the album is very fitting!! So check it out Here’s what some folks are saying about the album: “(Road Worn and Ragged) is certainly one of the blues highlights of 2013” — Ben Bonin (No Depression) “Road Worn and Ragged enhances the listener with raw connections to a spectacular variety of blues styles on this recording. Extreme creative talents flow with diversity in vocals, lyrics and fresh instrumentation. ” — Mississippi Blues Club “Jensen delivers fluid leads and solos that meld into the rhythms and soars with melodic intent.” — Dave Ruthenbuerg (Living Blues) Read More here So let’s go “into the night hours” with Jeff performing “Raggedy Ann” from the album!! Read More