Home Archive by category "Roots Music Safari" (Page 22)

Category: Roots Music Safari

The Dirty Truth – Joanne Shaw Taylor

The Dirty Truth from Joanne Shaw Taylor rocked my morning commute to Paulsboro!

On Thursday I babysat Oliver, In anticipation of the long day that lay ahead of me, I decided that some rocking blues would make a nice soundtrack for the commute. Through the years I’ve never had to worry about a commute to work. My workplace was a whole 4 minutes away from our house, 3 if you hit the lights! Any commuting I did was from the office to wherever I was digging a hole or delineating a wetland. Most of our work was in Burlington County, but occasionally those commutes were as far north as Lafayette, NJ in Sussex County or Cape May, so I’ve pretty much covered the state, not that there’s a lot to cover! Read More

Brandon Santini – Live & Extended!

Brandon Santini

Brandon Santini – Live & Extended!

I love blues harmonica! I guess it stems back to listening to guys like John Mayall, Sonny Terry, Paul Butterfield and Sonny Boy Williamson in the 70s. Over the years, the list of my favorite harp players has grown to include: James cotton, Jason Ricci, Kim Wilson, Mark Hummel, Rick Estrin and others. One player who is quickly moving up the ranks of my favorites is Memphis’ Brandon Santini!! With a sound that has been compared to Mister Cotton and Mister Butterfield, this native of the Piedmont region of North Carolina is staking his claim for inclusion among the best!! In my eyes and ears, he already is included! My first encounter with Brandon was when I picked up his 2013 release This Time Another Year which is a great album, but his latest release, Live & Extended! has topped it! Read More

More Treasures from The Princeton Record Exchange!

A Trip to the Princeton Record Exchange Yields Seven New Treasures!

So on Wednesday night, my son Nicholas and I went bargain-hunting at the Princeton Record Exchange, armed with our Christmas Gift Cards. I had a $25.00 gift card from my birthday back in October,plus my $25.00 Christmas gift card. I came home with 13 CDs and my $25.00 Christmas gift card! Six of the thirteen albums were from the Cheap Jazz album shelves and you can read about them here. Of the remaining seven, four are Alt-Country/Folk albums, two blues albums and one New Age album. Here they are: Read More

Live Albums – Here are Sixteen of My Favorites!

So this afternoon I made a run to the library, which was closed because of the massive storm that luckily missed our area, sorry Massachusetts. . The  soundtrack for the trip was  the new live blues album from Brandon Santini, Live and Extended, which is a really great and I will probably write about it tomorrow. As I listened to the album, I started thinking about my favorite live albums. Several albums like Happy Trails from Quicksilver Messenger Service, Absolutely Live from The Doors and Ten Years After’s Undead quickly came to mind. But then I thought of several others, and then still more, until I quickly had a list of 10 plus albums! So here is a short list of my favorite all-time live albums….. Read More

This Date in Music -Nov 14, 1977 – Derek Gripper is born and the Safari discovers the Music of Mali!!

Originally Posted Nov 15, 12013

Last night the tiredness of the last now three days of work caught up with me and I was unable to complete this post …….

So tonight I was reviewing the list of jazz musician birthdays on November 14th and a name that caught my attention was guitarist Derek Gripper, who was born on today’s date in 1977. I read in his biography at All About Jazz that…. Read More

This Date in Music November 13, 1946 – Ray Wylie Hubbard was born!

Ray Wylie 4On this date in 1946 on of my favorite Texas Music artist/Americana Artist Ray Wylie Hubbard was born. Now like Booker T  and :”Green Onions” in my music world Ray Wylie is usually associated with one song….. “Up Against the Wall Redneck Mother”! A song that Jerry Jeff Walker made semi-famous on his album Viva Terlingua! Here’s a little information about Ray from his biography at All Music… Read More

Exploring the Blues of Toronto Born – Anthony Gomes – Rebel Blue!!

Rebel BlueOne of the blues albums that his been in my music rotation for the last few weeks is Rebel Blue from Anthony Gomes, a seventeen track Best of album! I discovered the Toronto-born Gomes in 2012 via his album Up2Zero, at that point Gomes was 14 years and 8 albums into his career that began back in 1998. In that year Gomes formed his own band after a brief stint as a sideman with Magic Slim and the Teardrops. The band then went out and won the first annual Buddy Guy’s Legends “Best Unsigned Blues Band” competition and later that year Gomes debut CD, Blues in Technicolor was released! Read More

Today in Music – Oct 28, 1937 – A Founder of the British Blues Movement – Graham Bond was born!!

Graham BondSo on this date in 1937 another one of those musicians whose name sounded familiar, but I was unsure why, Graham Bond was born. After reading the following at Wikipedia, I was even more unsure of why I didn’t recognize the name!! He certainly influenced the career paths of several musicians who I listened to and admired over the years, not the least of which, are Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker. From Wikipedia: Read More