Song Of The Day by Eric Berman – “Take A Giant Step” by Taj Mahal There is no rhyme or reason as to how I come up with the songs I choose to write about every day. They usually spring out of something I’ve been listening to or something I’ve read. So, if you regularly follow this column, you’ll get a pretty good idea of some of the stuff I listen to on a daily basis. For instance, today’s Song Of The Day came about after reading a review of the first of three Rolling Stones concerts in Chicago this week. Now, I’m not planning on attending any of their shows here as I believe they’ve not only totally...

  34th Annual Blues Music Award Winners Last Night the 34th annual Blues Music Award winners were announced at a ceremony at  Cook Convention Center in Memphis, Tennessee. We have the nominees and winners listed below. —————————————————————————————————————————————– Acoustic Album **Not Alone – Ann Rabson w/ Bob Margolin** -** winners listed first** Billy Boy Arnold Sings Big Bill Broonzy – Billy Boy Arnold Blues on Solid Ground – John Primer Deeper In The Well – Eric Bibb Talking Guitar – Paul Rishell Acoustic Artist **Eric Bibb** Carolina Chocolate Drops Doug MacLeod Harrison Kennedy Paul Rishell Album of the Year **Show of Strength – Michael Burks** And Still I Rise – Heritage Blues Orchestra Double Dynamite – The Mannish Boys Son of...

  Song Of The Day by Eric Berman – “When My Man Comes Home” by Brittany Howard and Ruby Amanfu Yesterday I wrote about a single from Jack White’s Third Man Record label by Gibby Haynes of The Butthole Surfers. The record was a recent release in Third Man’s “Blue Series” of 45rpm releases. Over the past few years, Third Man has released interesting one-off singles by the likes of Beck, Tom Jones, Stephen Colbert, Jeff The Brotherhood, Wanda Jackson, Chris Thile & Michael Davis, Laura Marling and Insane Clown Posse in the “Blue Series.” Typically the records are produced by Jack White and are recorded very quickly during stop offs at the Third Man headquarters by artists passing...

  Jimmy Vaughan has been forced to cancel at least one upcoming show after suffering a heart attack last week. The canceled show was to he held February 16th, at the Mahindra Blues Festival in Mumbia, India. The festival made a statement on their website: “Jimmie Vaughan was admitted to Pomona Hospital Medical Center on January 23rd, 2013 with an acute myocardial infraction (heart attack). He had a coronary angioplasty and stent placement. He is still in the hospital but recovering and has been advised by his cardiologist to rest at home for a month.” The next shows on his itinary March 22 at the Granada Theater in Dallas, Delta Downs, Vinton, LA,April 10th and Sellersville Theater in Sellersville, Pa...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#798 in the Series) is Johnnie Johnson, Johnnie B. Bad On New Year’s Eve 1953, history was made when Check Berry walked on stage for the first time with the Sir John Trio creating an embryonic musical moment pairing up Johnnie Johnson, the Grand Poobah of the Piano, with arguably the greatest guitar player of all time, creating a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup worthy blending of scorching three chord guitar rock with boogie woogie piano blues. Using the same “If Lee Harvey Oswald was never born would John F. Kennedy still be alive?” progression of thought, it would be relatively safe, albeit futile, to assume that had Chuck Berry not walked on...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#739 in the Series) is JT Coldfire, Always and Never  (Crazy Sun Publishing) The first thing that hits you between the ears when you play the first song from the new JT Coldfire album, Always and Never,  is the finely crafted Chuck Berry Inspired “Get it on (In the Back of the Bar)”, a song that grabs your ears and staples them to the speaker. The second thing you quickly realize in listening to the whiskey soaked vocals and the somewhat bawdry lyrics, is that in Coldfire, you are in the process of being introduced to a pure and genuine “diamond in the rough” musical find, who adds some much needed “hair...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#737 in the Series) is The 44s, Americana  (Rip Cat Records) Not since Rickey Henderson has there been a better lead-off batter than “Hanging Tree,” the opening track from the new 44s’ Album, Americana, recently released on Rip Cat Records.  The song, “Hanging Tree,” tears into it loud and proud, and shares the same DNA with the ZZ Top classic, “La Grange.” The in-your-face guitar riffs, courtesy of Johnny Main, also the lead vocalist, and the dirty blues harmonica blasts of Tex “The Weeping Willow” Nakamura set the blueprint quite nicely, and provide an appealing first impression of this excellent record for the listener, many of whom are experiencing this band for...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#728 in the Series) is The Shadows of Knight, Gloria There’s this great moment during the final encore of Rickie Lee Jones’ “Live at Red Rocks”: she and band are midway through an improvised-sounding reading of Van Morrison’s composition “Gloria” that, to these ears anyway bears as much homage to the Shadows of Knight as Morrison’s Them…and while the band vamps those three indelible chords, she tells the audience, “I was 12 when this song came out and I have never forgotten.  I will never forget!  That’s why I will never get old!”  And I’m like: how true that is! The Shadow’s “Gloria” debuted on the WLS Silver Dollar Survey in mid-February,...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#719 in the Series) is The Siegel-Schwall Band, The Siegel- Schwall Band  It seems like a contradiction in terms to use words like “joyous” and “blues” in the same sentence but this is a brilliant set of tunes that demands it.  Sad to say I never got to hear these guys live.  These sounds have seen me through ecstatic times and provided solace through some of the most grievous. It’s billed as a studio album but at least the first and last songs are obviously live recordings.  In any event, this is such a tight band I gotta believe everything else here was recorded essentially live and whole, without the benefit of...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#613 in the Series) is Bobby “Blue” Bland, Two Steps From the Blues Released in 1961, the Bobby “Blue” Bland masterpiece, Two Steps From the Blues is generally considered to be a classic in the blues genre and a must-have disc on your own personal desert island.  While this recording is not an original “album” in the strictest sense of the word since in keeping with a common practice of the day it is actually a compilation of singles, it is a perfect, soulful, bluesy, passion-filled representation of an iconic bluesman at the absolute peak of his powers. Not your prototypical blues artist, Bobby doesn’t play an instrument like Buddy Guy or...