On this day in 1888 Marvin C Stone patented the drinking straw!! Stone, the son of Chester Stone, was born in Portage County, Ohio in 1842. Chester was well-known for his inventions of many machines including the cheese press and washing machines With Marvin the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. He started inventing things at an early age.
It’s amazing to me that I’ve never been a big Charlie Musselwhite fan. I love blues harp and he is certainly one of the best players of the harp around, so why?? It’s in explicable isn’t it, is it his voice or is it that there’s too much, music and too little time and somehow poor Charlie gets lost in the shuffle! Well that may have to change because last night and today I listened to one of the best blues albums of 2013 Juke Joint Chapel from Charlie and I must say at 69 years young he appears to be at the top of his game!! From Charlie’s website:
So it all started very innocently the other night, after I read in Walter Trout’s biography, that he was from Ocean City, NJ. Hey, I said to my wife, “I may be related to Walter Trout since I did have Trout relatives that lived in Atlantic City”. My Trout-Corson line goes back to the early 1800’s in the Cape May and Atlantic County area!! Anyway, my wife said that I should check out Genealogy Bank for recent obituaries. That started it – I went and looked at some obituaries and didn’t see anything and then I decided to put in the search John Trout who was my last known ancestor t o live in that area. What popped up was this article from 1863! 
Now this John Trout is my great-great grandfather Mark Trout’s brother. Well at least I think it is – my John Trout was listed as a Pilot in the 1860 census, and since there were no planes to pilot a steamboat would seem to be what he piloted.He also left two sons when he died in the same year and month as this article!! So I think it’s a pretty safe assumption that he is Mark’s brother!! Anyway, the point is it does help bring my ancestor to life – well not to life in this case, but at least a real person, who left a wife and two sons! After this find, I went on to put a variety of other names in to the Genealogy Bank search engine and I found quite a bit of new information, marriages, some deaths and otherwise interesting stuff. One of the names I put in was my maternal grandmother’s name Regars. What came up surprised me! Several newspaper articles came up about my grandmother Elva Regars It appears that she was very active in the Junior League of the Union Methodist Episcopal Church in Burlington. Here, an eleven year old Alva (Elva) is part of the musical Christmas entertainment at the Church on New Years Day! This is the same grandmother that I have memories of her giving me a sip of her beer as we sat in the dining area of the Bar on Broad Street in Beverly and the many times we had to pick her up at the Happy Bar in Beverly….. I always say it was the McCloskey’s that did in the Ashton’s!! 
Finally their was an article about a distant relative young eleven year old, Elmer Campbell {named after my 3rd great-grandfather) who had this experience……… 
I know it’s hard to read but the gist of the story is that young eleven year old Elmer was playing with his electric trains with a tumbler of auto antifreeze next to him, when he picked up one of the cars a spark ignited the fumes over the antifreeze sending flames over his clothes. At the hospital he was in serious but not critical condition! Anyway these articles and several others helped to bring my ancestors and relatives alive! In just the few hours that I’ve spent on-line, I can see that Ancestry.com, Genealogy Bank and Family Search have more databases on-line, than the last time I’ve worked on my family tree, so I guess in 2014 I have to really explore those databases and see if I can find some of my ancestors that I say were in the “Witness Protection Program” – LOL!!
Originally posted at Me,Myself,Music and Mysteries.com
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 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!!
Over the last week or so I’ve listened to the debut album from a band named Tumbletown Done with Coldness and enjoying it more with each listen. Of course this leads to the ubiquitous question: Who are these guys and where in the world do they hail from? The answer to the who is Han Uil and Aldo Adema, two skilled producers, guitarists and composers and the where is the Netherlands. Uil and Adema both were members of the band Egdon Heath and its continuation Seven Day Hunt. Uil also played with the band Antares and has released some solo works. Seven Day Hunt released their debut album File This Dream in 2008. The album was produced and mixed by Adema and well received! Both Uil and Adema left Seven Day Hunt in 2009. Adema to concentrate on production work and Uil to work on his solo career. In 2010 Han released his solo album Dark in the Light. Adema worked with Uil on the track “Memento” on the album and the two hit it off well, and the result was the birth of Tumbletown!
Today among all out celebrations of the start of a New Year we also celebrate the birthday of one of my favorites jazz artists vibraphonist Milt Jackson. (January 1, 1923 – October 9, 1999) From All About Jazz…..we read that Milt Jackson was…..
