I am driving through Ohio, heading east towards West Virginia. Slowly the flat country turns to rolling hills, hung with scraps of late afternoon mist. Etta James is blasting through the rental car stereo and life is good!
It’s been a long time since my 4.30 am wake up call in Portland, OR. Whoops…better slow down…almost hit a startled deer which is now running along the edge of the roadway. It’s dusk; the time of day I would be instinctively looking out for kangaroos if I was driving at home. Instead, I’m driving towards Jorma Kaukonen’s Fur Peace Ranch…but, enough of that. I will tell you about my Fur Peace adventures in the next blog!
Instead I want to back-track over the last few weeks...
This trip began in our ‘other’ hometown of Portland, OR; check out the photos of Sunday afternoon at Duff’s Garage. For those of you who are not hip to Portland’s scene there are some really fantastic players here - Dave Kahl (bass), Jimi Bott (drums) with special guests Suburban Slim, Jim Wallace and Lloyd Jones – that’s a great line-up! Thank you to everyone who came out to welcome me and The Preacher back... It was a really fun show, despite the fact that I was missing some gear. Somewhere between LA and PDX, the airline redirected my guitars to Beijing – yes, you read that right, that’s China – but I did get them back eventually.
Next stop: the 2009 Blues Music Awards. We took the long route to Memphis, flying from Australia to Portland and then Houston, Texas (!) where we joined ‘Live from Bluesville’ band-mate Rich DelGrosso for the 10 hour drive across to Tenessee. Suckers for punishment, eh? It was more than worth it. This years 30th anninversay Blues Music Awards (BMA’s) was one of the most enjoyable and star-studded events ever hosted by the Blues Foundation. What great people watching! Everyone gets ‘dressed’ and over cocktails in the foyer, there’s lots of mingling and legend-spotting. BB King, Koko Taylor, Bonnie Raitt, Pinetop Perkins, Marcia Ball, Taj Mahal, Maria Muldaur, IrmaThomas…seriously this is just the beginning of the special guest and nominee list!
Some highlights? Witnessing ‘The Queen’ of the Blues, Koko Taylor, belt out ‘Wang Dang Doodle’ backed by The Mannish Boys; Portland’s own Curtis Salgado, in excellent voice, singing BB King’s ‘3 O’Clock Blues’ accompanied by BB himself, Christie Healey’s touching speech on behalf of her late BMA-winning husband Jeff; hanging out with Junior Watson (a master of guitar AND tall stories!) - and getting a good hug from Hubert Sumlin at the Blues Hall of Fame Dinner.
The Hall on Fame dinner is presented the night before the BMA’s and honours significant songs, albums and artists such as this years’ inductee Taj Mahal.
A quick getaway from that event meant I was just in time for a late-night guest spot with Watermelon Slim & The Workers at the Ground Zero club just off Beale St. Incidently, the maverick Slim features on my new album ‘Blues Woman’ as a Hell-fire and brimstone Southern preacher – a role he was born to play!
Congratulations to my Yellow Dog Records label-mate Eden Brent, who beat us to the post to win BMA ‘Acoustic Album of the Year’ - and also to our own ‘Live from Bluesville’ bassist Mookie Brill who won ‘Bass Player of the Year’. Mookie wasn’t there to receive his award in person, but he wrote a poignant speech honouring the memory of his friend and musical college Sean Costello. Sadly, it wasn’t presented on the night, but Mookie would love you all to check out the Sean Costello Foundation for bi-polar research and give it your support.
That’s it for now - Fur Peace Ranch lies ahead and there will lots more stories soon… Don’t forget that my brand new album ‘Blues Woman’ is just out and should be available at my webstore in the next week or so – I am really proud of this album & can’t wait to hear what you all think!
It’s been a long time since my 4.30 am wake up call in Portland, OR. Whoops…better slow down…almost hit a startled deer which is now running along the edge of the roadway. It’s dusk; the time of day I would be instinctively looking out for kangaroos if I was driving at home. Instead, I’m driving towards Jorma Kaukonen’s Fur Peace Ranch…but, enough of that. I will tell you about my Fur Peace adventures in the next blog!
Instead I want to back-track over the last few weeks...
This trip began in our ‘other’ hometown of Portland, OR; check out the photos of Sunday afternoon at Duff’s Garage. For those of you who are not hip to Portland’s scene there are some really fantastic players here - Dave Kahl (bass), Jimi Bott (drums) with special guests Suburban Slim, Jim Wallace and Lloyd Jones – that’s a great line-up! Thank you to everyone who came out to welcome me and The Preacher back... It was a really fun show, despite the fact that I was missing some gear. Somewhere between LA and PDX, the airline redirected my guitars to Beijing – yes, you read that right, that’s China – but I did get them back eventually.
Next stop: the 2009 Blues Music Awards. We took the long route to Memphis, flying from Australia to Portland and then Houston, Texas (!) where we joined ‘Live from Bluesville’ band-mate Rich DelGrosso for the 10 hour drive across to Tenessee. Suckers for punishment, eh? It was more than worth it. This years 30th anninversay Blues Music Awards (BMA’s) was one of the most enjoyable and star-studded events ever hosted by the Blues Foundation. What great people watching! Everyone gets ‘dressed’ and over cocktails in the foyer, there’s lots of mingling and legend-spotting. BB King, Koko Taylor, Bonnie Raitt, Pinetop Perkins, Marcia Ball, Taj Mahal, Maria Muldaur, IrmaThomas…seriously this is just the beginning of the special guest and nominee list!
Some highlights? Witnessing ‘The Queen’ of the Blues, Koko Taylor, belt out ‘Wang Dang Doodle’ backed by The Mannish Boys; Portland’s own Curtis Salgado, in excellent voice, singing BB King’s ‘3 O’Clock Blues’ accompanied by BB himself, Christie Healey’s touching speech on behalf of her late BMA-winning husband Jeff; hanging out with Junior Watson (a master of guitar AND tall stories!) - and getting a good hug from Hubert Sumlin at the Blues Hall of Fame Dinner.
The Hall on Fame dinner is presented the night before the BMA’s and honours significant songs, albums and artists such as this years’ inductee Taj Mahal.
A quick getaway from that event meant I was just in time for a late-night guest spot with Watermelon Slim & The Workers at the Ground Zero club just off Beale St. Incidently, the maverick Slim features on my new album ‘Blues Woman’ as a Hell-fire and brimstone Southern preacher – a role he was born to play!
Congratulations to my Yellow Dog Records label-mate Eden Brent, who beat us to the post to win BMA ‘Acoustic Album of the Year’ - and also to our own ‘Live from Bluesville’ bassist Mookie Brill who won ‘Bass Player of the Year’. Mookie wasn’t there to receive his award in person, but he wrote a poignant speech honouring the memory of his friend and musical college Sean Costello. Sadly, it wasn’t presented on the night, but Mookie would love you all to check out the Sean Costello Foundation for bi-polar research and give it your support.
That’s it for now - Fur Peace Ranch lies ahead and there will lots more stories soon… Don’t forget that my brand new album ‘Blues Woman’ is just out and should be available at my webstore in the next week or so – I am really proud of this album & can’t wait to hear what you all think!