Official Website: www.zacharmon.com

tour dates

Zac Harmon is an award-winning guitarist, organist, singer, and songwriter whose distinctive style combines the best of old-school soul-blues artist with modern lyrics and themes that bring the blues into a new century. Right Man, Right Now is contemporary music that proves just how alive and relevant the blues is today.

Harmon is one of the blues’ strongest live performers, thrilling fans everywhere from Memphis to Mumbai. With Right Man, Right Now he finally brings that excitement to a brand new CD, his bluesiest ever.

His next door neighbor was a music instructor who would host friends such as Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, and Harry Belafonte in her home.  Another neighbor, Bill Farris, a blues scholar who worked with noted folklorist Alan Lomax and founded the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi, recorded a number of Delta blues artists in his home, including Skip James.

Zac started his professional career at age sixteen, playing guitar with Sam Myers, a friend of his father’s.  Two years later he was playing with Dorothy Moore, Z.Z. Hill and other well-known blues artists who were passing through on regional tours.

In the early eighties, at age 21, he moved to Los Angeles to take a real shot at the music business.   He worked as a studio musician at first and eventually established a very successful career as a songwriter and producer.   He worked on major films, television shows, and well-known national commercials, even being hired at one point by Michael Jackson as a staff writer for his publishing company.  Harmon wrote songs for the likes of Evelyn “Champagne” King, Freddie Jackson, the Whispers, K-Ci  & Jo Jo, and the O’Jays.   He also produced songs for reggae band Black Uhuru‘s Mystical Truth album, which received a Grammy nomination in 1994.

After composing and performing some blues songs for a movie score, Harmon felt compelled to pursue his longtime dream of returning to his roots and recording his first blues project.  The result was 2003’s Live at Babe & Ricky’s Inn, an electrifying testimony to Mississippi blues, which showcased the sound at its best and introduced Harmon as a true torchbearer for the “next generation of the Blues.”  In 2004, Harmon and his band, the Mid South Blues Revue, sponsored by the Southern California Blues Society, traveled to Memphis and won the Blues Foundation’s prestigious International Blues Challenge title of “Best Unsigned Band.”

His next release, in 2005, was The Blues According To Zacariah, which garnered major national airplay, including XM, Sirius and the American Blues Network.  XM listeners voted Harmon “Best New Blues Artist” in the inaugural XM Nation Awards in 2005.  In 2006, Harmon won the coveted Blues Music Award for “Best New Artist Debut” for The Blues According to Zacariah.  Later that year, he was featured in Blues Revue magazine as one of the 10 artists that “represent the future of the blues,” calling him a “latter-day Eric Clapton or Robert Cray with shades of Luther Allison and BB King.”

Addressing issues straight from today’s headlines, Zac presents them in a fresh original style built on the best blues tradition. And he has some incredibly talented musicians helping him – guests include Bobby Rush, Lucky Peterson, Anson Funderburgh and Mike Finnegan.

The Album provides definitive proof that Zac Harmon is indeed the right man to firmly establish all that blues can and should be right now in the second decade of the new millennium.

Archie Lee Hooker

Official Website: http://www.archieleehooker.com/

Built on a foundation of authenticity, passion and innovation, Archie Lee Hooker & The Coast to Coast Blues Band is a spearheading group that has established itself in the world of music. Formed by Archie Lee Hooker, the nephew of John Lee Hooker, Archie and his leading hand-picked team are
highly recognised for creating compelling, soul-enriching productions that leave their audiences wanting more.

Archie was born on Christmas Day of 1949 in Lambert, Mississippi, just 20 miles from the crossroads where Robert Johnson supposedly sold his soul to the devil.

He was the son of a sharecropper, and up until age thirteen, that was the life he was accustomed to. That all changed when he headed up north and found himself standing in the big city of Memphis, Tennessee. The paved roads and city lights felt like a new world to Archie, one that was filled with opportunities. Inspired by the Memphis music scene, it didn’t take long for Archie to begin singing with his first gospel group called “The Marvellous Five.” However, December of 1989 was when his passion for Blues started to surface. During this time, Archie lived with his uncle, John Lee (the Boogieman himself) until his death in 2001. Being surrounded by him and other committed, talented, and influencing musicians is what became the catalyst for Archie to crave sharing his own life experiences through music and leave his lasting impressions.

Though Archie left for France in 2011 to join Carl Wyatt & The Delta Voodoo Kings to tour Europe, he eventually chose to seek the right musicians to have on his side. He wanted a team that resembled family, chemistry, and a bond unlike any other. Once he found them, Archie founded the Archie Lee Hooker & The Coast to Coast Blues Band, which was specially named after the late John Lee’s Coast to Coast Blues Band. Since then, the crew has done nothing but thrive and impress. They released their first album called ‘Chilling’ under the French label Dixiefrog in 2018, which received a 5-star review in Rolling Stone Magazine. Fast forward to today, they have recorded a new 12 song CD called ‘Living in a Memory’, and this all-original playlist of storytelling art is set to be released through Dixiefrog worldwide on April 16th 2021.

In the end, every song and performance that Archie Lee Hooker & The Coast to Coast Blues Band creates paints an incredible picture that inevitably provokes uplifting emotional influences and invested attraction. They are entirely passionate about delivering remarkable music, and continuously provide fully authentic productions that have shaped them to become what they are today. With their immense drive and determination, it is exciting to see what they will launch next.

Bennett Matteo Band

Website: https://www.bennettmatteoband.com/

Bennett Matteo Band (BMB) is a collective of brilliant musicians led by guitarist and writer Gino Matteo and vocal powerhouse Jade Bennett.

Extremely improvisational while having their feet planted in roots music, BMB are a breath of fresh air to the music world. BMB’s experimentation and refusal to take themselves seriously has made every show an experience.

Gino Matteo is carving the spot he deserves as a “force of nature” in the roots world. Sensational guitarist, songwriter and powerfully emotional live performer, he empowered the Sugaray Rayford hit machine for nearly a decade. Gino has destroyed countless audiences here in the US and abroad with his powerful wit, gut ripping playing, and incredibly gifted musicianship.

His explosive, spontaneous, and original live show stands with the most legendary of blues players. Gino, along with the gutsy soul-power vocals of his lovely and talented wife Jade Bennett, have been heating up the blues circuit across the western US and internationally. This hard charging dream team brings a raw and soulful interpretation to roots music, moving it forward progressively and creatively.

Blackcat Zydeco – Featuring Dwight Carrier

Website: https://blackcatzydecomusic.com/

Dwight Carrier popularly known as, “The Black Cat” has become one of the most exciting Zydeco Accor-dionist of this era. He is deeply rooted in the “Carrier” family tradition, where music has always been a pas-sion and implemented into much of their families past time. He embraces both his family tradition as-well as his Cajun Creole Culture. Dwight has always had a unique style that infuses his zydeco, blues, country and R&B influences.

Growing up in the small town of Church Point, La in a time where rap music was gaining momentum, Dwight’s friends would laugh when he and his brother Joseph chose not to take that route. Initially, Joseph played the accordion while Dwight played the drums. It was after many relentless hours of practicing with his brother that Dwight grew restless. He yearned to play the accordion. It was with much practice, passion and determination that Dwight not only learned to play the accordion but was he able to play it well. He and Joseph switched instruments and it Dwight Carrier & the Zydeco Rockers was created.

In 1988, at the age of 14, Dwight recorded his ‑R&B 45 LP entitled “My Baby Left Me”, earning him local status, playing frequently on the zydeco circuit at trailrides and dance halls in and around the state of Lou-isiana. He realized that his friends were no longer laughing, but instead, were asking him to teach them to play.

In 1991, Dwight Carrier was asked to become a member of the Creole Zydeco Snap Band headed by Creole & Blues musician Warren Ceaser. He accepted the opportunity and became the groups’ accordionist. Dwight traveled with the band extensively around the world and for several years making appearances at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. On the 1995 CD entitled “The Crowd Pleaser”, Dwight released two more recordings, “Zydeco Coteau (Going Down South)” and “Zydeco Shuffle”.

After taking an extended absence from music, Dwight was able to work his way back into his music, play-ing with his uncle Zydeco Legend, Roy Carrier & the Night Rockers. He is has also had the privilege of playing with cousin Troy “Dikki Du” Carrier & the Zydeco Crew, Andre Thierry & Zydeco Magic, Hugh Robertson & Zydematics, Tony Trahan & Blue Krewe just to name a few while still being the front man for the Ro Doggs. Dwight “Black Cat” Carrier and The Ro’Doggs released their debut full length CD titled “It Ain’t My Fault” in early spring of 2009.

Dwight is one of the few Zydeco musicians with the ability to travel to a city, pick up a band of local musi-cians and produce a sound equivalent to that of artist working together for years. The ability to do this, al-lows him the ­flexibility to perform in places that may otherwise, not be economically feasible and still able to share traditional zydeco along with treating people to a great time. Dwight is a party band leader and his shows have been rated high energy fun. “The Black Cat”, is not the typical zydeco artist as, he draws from a wide variety of influences bringing it all home to the most exciting danceable night you’ll ever experi-ence! He looks forward to playing that “Old Thyme Zydeco”, with just an accordion and a rubboard.

Dwight has been able to share his musical talents all over the world including places such as; Italy, Sicily, Paris France, Central America and many parts of Canada. His influences include everyone from Clifton Chenier to James Brown with a little old time Zydeco and R&B for good measure. The “Black Cat” has recently returned from a nationwide tour with 2013 Grammy Nominated Artist, Andre Thierry. He has also performed with; “The Red Rocker” (Sammy Hagar), former bass/guitarist for James Brown “Robert Wat-son” and world class musician, Bobbie (Spider) Webb to name a few.

Cassie Taylor

Official Website: cassietaylor.bandcamp.com

CURRENTLY ACCEPTING FESTIVAL OFFERS ONLY

Tour Dates

Cassie Taylor was born in 1986 in Boulder, Colorado, where she was raised by her parents Carol Ellen Bjork and blues musician Otis Taylor. She has one younger sister. Despite being born during a period when her father was on hiatus from the music industry, he did expose her to blues music and teach her piano when she was young. She only became aware of his previous career around age 8 or 9. At around age 12 she began playing electric bass, impressing her father with a rendition of “Hey Joe.”

When Taylor was 16 her father asked her to tour as the bassist in his band. Since his usual bassist Kenny Passarelli had a conflicting schedule she joined his summer tour, playing for twenty dollars per gig. According to Taylor, her father didn’t build her up as a prodigy, but rather “I think I was just cheap child labor. Plus, he knew I wasn’t going to get drunk on the road or go missing. Some people have the fear of God in them. I had the fear of Otis.”

She toured multiple countries with the band, picking up vocals and keyboards as well. She went on to appear in eight of his albums, including lending bass and vocals to his 2007 album Definition of a Circle. She is also on the Board of Directors for the Blues Foundation.

Crystal Thomas

Website:  CrystalThomasBlues.com

Crystal Thomas is big and she’s bluesy, and she’s raw. She can grind a note and use it any way she wants to. After all, she grew up listening to Muddy and Jimmy Reed and Johnnie Taylor and rapped a little, too. Raw and gritty music is in her blood.

And she loves her musical life. Crystal sang before she talked. She sings in her car at red lights. And she belts it out in church, in juke joints, and around the world in Japan, Spain and Hong Kong wowing the crowds. This woman’s voice makes you glad you are alive even if your girlfriend dumped you.

Ask Crystal about where she came from. She’ll lean back and smile and tell you about growing up in Mansfield, Louisiana in the deep country. She remembers her favorite hog turned into supper. Mostly, she remembers playing DJ while her family played cards and learning the trombone in fifth grade because her brother had given up on it and her mom didn’t want to pay for another instrument.

Having Crystal step out front with a super-star band that includes Lucky Peterson on keys, he allows her to lean into the mic and sing with abandon. Lucky has played with everyone. Otis Rush, Etta James, Bobby Bland. Brothers Johnny and Jason Moeller offer up guitar and drums – Johnny finding time between tours with the Thunderbirds and Jason with the cred that comes from backing artists from the Thunderbirds to Jewel Brown and Little Joe Washington. Bass player extraordinaire, Chuck Rainey, starts the list with Aretha, Fats Domino, Barbara Streisand, and quite literally hundreds more. Crystal takes full advantage of the grooves they lay down and even plays a little trombone here. Something she did working with Johnnie Taylor just before he passed on. Johnnie didn’t know she sang until near the end. He’d decided to take her to Malaco to record but ran out of time. Thankfully, Dialtone finally made that record. Hallelujah!

Scott M. Bock
Living Blues Magazine

Eden Brent

Official Website: edenbrent.com

Nicknamed “Little Boogaloo” by her Mississippi mentor Boogaloo Ames, Eden Brent is much more than her signature boogie-woogie piano and juke-joint blues holler. She is a celebrated songwriter and dynamic performer, with numerous nominations and awards including eleven Blues Music Award nominations since 2009 and three BMA trophies. Her most recent Yellow Dog Records album, Jigsaw Heart was nominated for BMA Acoustic Album of the Year, continuing a streak of nominations for her last three albums.

Born in the heart of the Mississippi Delta in Greenville, to a family of riverboat captains and guitar pickers, Eden’s story could’ve been written by Tennessee Williams or any number of Mississippi’s colorful authors. The Greenville bridge is named for her grandfather Jesse, the Waterways Journal “Riverman of the Century”. Her father, Captain Howard, famous for his Hank Williams renditions and grand story-telling, is a bona-fide living “River Legend”, and her mother Carole was born a sharecropper but became a big band singer and fashion model, working at Chicago’s Chez Paris in the 1950’s.

A life-long piano enthusiast, Eden was surrounded by music and learned her first notes at age three. “Grandma could read and play beautifully,” Eden explains, “She taught me Middle C and my first simple tunes. I had an ear for music and was pecking out my brother’s recital piece before I was old enough to go to school.” Piano lessons were part of her education from primary school through graduation from the University of North Texas and beyond. “I always loved to play, but I hated to read and I really hated practice until I started hanging around Boogaloo. He put the music right in my hands.” She continues, “Daddy jokes he could’ve saved a lot of money on my college tuition had he introduced me to Boogaloo a few years earlier.”  The duo traveled and worked together for 16 years until Boogaloo’s death in 2002.

Eden is featured in three documentary films: Boogaloo & Eden: Sustaining the Sound; Forty Days in the Delta; 180 Degrees: Changing Lives in the Mississippi Delta, has appeared in print publications like USA Today and Garden & Gun, has been highlighted on national radio broadcasts including NPR Weekend Edition, House of Blues Radio Hour, and American Routes, and her music continues to delight both critics and live audiences alike.

Since launching her career, Eden travels the United States and abroad performing in festivals like Notodden, the Chicago Blues Festival, Cognac’s Blues Passions, and the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. She’s a frequent piano bar host aboard the Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise and  has been a special guest aboard the American Queen Steamboat, a performance that celebrated her Mississippi River heritage.

She has released four solo albums: Something Cool 2003; Mississippi Number One 2008; Ain’t Got No Troubles 2010; and Jigsaw Heart 2014, and is currently on the Yellow Dog Records label. In addition to her four solo albums, Eden recorded The Brent Sisters Party Dress with sisters Jessica and Bronwynne, also songwriters. Released in 2012, the album is a collection of songs written by their late mother, Carole Brent.

Eden lives in her hometown with her husband Bob Dowell, a musician and arranger from the U.K., and their three very naughty dogs.

Joe Krown

OFFICIAL WEBSITE: joekrown.com

Joe Krown is a resident and is based out of the city of New Orleans. He is a New Orleans styled piano and Hammond B-3 player. He has been nominated twice and won a New Orleans Big Easy Award in the Blues category in April 2001. His blues trio, Sansone, Krown & Fohl won a 2004 Big Easy Award. Joe’s third compact disc, Buckle Up, was picked #4 CD, “Best of 2000CDs” in the Times Picayune, and “Best CDs of 2000” in OffBeat magazine. Joe was also selected “Best Keyboardist, Editor’s Choice” at CitySearch.com for New Orleans. Joe’s fourth CD, Funkyard was picked #4 CD in Gambit Magazine and #15 in the Times Picayune “Best CD’s of 2002” and “Critic’s Choice Best of 2002” in Offbeat Magazine. Joe’s CD, Livin’ Large (2005) clocked in at #11 in overall sales for the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival 2005. His trio with Walter Wolfman Washington & Russell Batiste Jr. won a 2009 Offbeat Award for “Best R&B/Funk CD” (Live at the Maple Leaf) and a 2009 Big Easy Award in the “Best Rhythm & Blues Band” category.

He is currently touring all over the U.S. and the world as the organ/piano player for the award winning Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band.

Available for limited dates only.

Mike Morgan & the Crawl

Website: www.mikemorganandthecrawl.com

Mike Morgan was born in Dallas on November 30, 1959, and grew up in nearby Hillsboro, Texas. Morgan displayed an avid interest in music as a youngster, listening intently to the impassioned soul sounds of Otis Redding and Wilson Pickett on local radio stations. He received his first guitar while in the third grade, but didn’t begin to take playing seriously until he discovered Stevie Ray Vaughan’s album, Texas Flood, in 1985.

“When I heard Stevie’s first album, that was it,” Morgan recalls. “I already knew how to play the guitar, but Stevie showed me a lot of things I didn’t know. After that, I dove headlong into playing the blues.”

As his prowess on the guitar developed, it became clear that he was not merely a Stevie knock-off, but rather an original player with a sound and style all his own. Mike moved to Dallas in 1986 and soon hooked up with experienced vocalist Darrell Nulisch (formerly with Anson Funderburgh and the Rockets) to form The Crawl (named after an old jukebox hit by guitar great, Lonnie Brooks). Darrell had a tremendous knowledge of blues and a deep collection of blues records, and he exposed Morgan to the music of the Chicago blues scene and many of its key players.

Mike Morgan and The Crawl quickly made a name for themselves as one of the best contemporary blues bands in Texas, writing original songs that were on a par with the classics they chose to cover. After Nulisch left the band in 1989, Morgan set out to find a vocalist who would fit his desire for a broader-based R&B sound. He found the perfect match in Kansas City native and blues veteran Lee McBee, whose smoky, seasoned vocals were reminiscent of the legendary 1960s soul singers Morgan listened to while growing up. The fact that McBee was also an accomplished and revered harmonica player added more fuel to The Crawl’s fire.

Mike and Lee’s collaboration proved popular with blues fans and appearances at the Benson & Hedges Blues Festival, the Dallas Blues Festival, the Atlantic City Blues Festival, and the Mississippi Valley Blues Festival soon followed. As the profile of the band continued to rise, Mike’s friend Anson Funderburgh recommended them to Blacktop Records owner Hammond Scott. Scott first saw the band at a show at The George Street Grocery in Jackson, Mississippi. He was so impressed he met with the band at their hotel immediately after the show to discuss signing with the label.

Mike Morgan and The Crawl found a national audience with the release of their debut recording, Raw & Ready, in 1990. Backed up by extensive national and international touring, Mike Morgan and The Crawl continued to amaze their fans throughout the 1990s by releasing five highly regarded albums, Mighty Fine Dancin, Full Moon Over Dallas, Ain’t Worried No More, Looky Here!, The Road, and I Like The Way You Work It. Morgan even kept a high profile during some downtime away from the band in 1994 by recording Let The Dogs Run, a highly acclaimed record that paired him with fellow Dallas guitarist Jim Suhler.

Meanwhile, praise for Morgan and the band came flooding in. Guitar World Magazine called Morgan “a genuine blues guitar hero!!”

Blues Access Magazine raved, “Mike Morgan and The Crawl crank up an irrepressible mix of fresh gritty blues and romping Stax/Volt-era soul.”

New Years’ Eve 1999 saw an end to the Morgan /McBee era of Mike Morgan and the Crawl. As Lee ventured out to do his own band back in his home state of Kansas, Morgan decided it was high time he took over as front man. After years of great frontmen such as Lee McBee, Darrell Nulisch, Chris Whynaught, and Keith Dunn, Mike was ready to take on the new challenge.

In 2000, Texas Man, Mike’s first vocal outing was released on Severn Records. Texas Man met rave reviews and was followed up in 2004 by Live in Dallas. Stronger Every Day was released by Seven Records in 2007 and had guest appearances by Lee McBee and Randy McAllister.

Mike did not tour much after 2006. While he still played local gigs and a few scattered tour appearances, he spent most of his time with his other love, motorcycles. As the sales manager of a Mesquite, TX-based motorcycle dealership, he was not able to tour often, but always found time to play and jam around DFW..

“Basically I didn’t write any new songs between 2007 and 2018,” says Morgan. “I just quit writing and I got into that work slump. I came home from work, turned on the TV, had dinner, maybe a drink, and went to bed. The difference was I got to sleep in my own bed every night and I got paid every day I worked. I didn’t have to cold call bars in far-flung places, no booking hotel rooms, and no rushing around the country trying to get to gigs on time. In comparison, a regular day job was almost a vacation.”

When that shop closed, Mike once again felt the draw of the music business. He landed a new job at another motorcycle shop but he now hopes to get out and tour again.

“When the motorcycle shop shut down, I made myself start writing again,” says Morgan. “Once I got going I came up with a bunch of ideas for songs. I do plan on touring if it makes sense financially,” says Morgan. “I want to tour. I want to play. The last time we went out was a midwest tour with 12 or 13 nights in a row back in 2019. We made money on that tour, but it’s very hard to get that many dates together anymore. And that was before Covid. People think you’re just partying out on the road but it’s supposed to be WORK. If I have to sit around a hotel room for days between gigs I’d rather be at the motorcycle shop, making money every day, and sleeping in my own bed.”

In addition to his own band, Mike has been working with some of his old friends, Anson Funderburgh and Shawn Pittman, as The Texas Blues Guitar Summit. Fresh off an incredible European tour in 2022 and just signed to M.C. Records finds Mike is reinvigorated and feeling the call of music once again. His new CD on M.C. Records is expected out in September 2022. With his years of experience, knowledge, skills, and talent, we can look forward to a lot of great new music from Mike Morgan and the Crawl.

Rory Block

 
2023 Blues Music Award nominee for Acoustic Blues Album, Acoustic Blues Artist & Traditional Blues Female Artist (Koko Taylor Award)

Heralded as “a living landmark” (Berkeley Express), “a national treasure” (Guitar Extra), and “one of the greatest living acoustic blues artists” (Blues Revue), Rory Block has committed her life and her career to preserving the Delta blues tradition and bringing it to life for 21st century audiences around the world. A traditionalist and an innovator at the same time, she wields a fiery and haunting guitar and vocal style that redefines the boundaries of acoustic blues and folk. The New York Times declared: “Her playing is perfect, her singing otherworldly as she wrestles with ghosts, shadows and legends.”

Born in Princeton, NJ, Aurora “Rory” Block grew up in Manhattan a family with Bohemian leanings. Her father owned a Greenwich Village sandal shop, where musicians like Bob Dylan, Maria Muldaur and John Sebastian all made occasional appearances. The rich and diverse Village scene was a constant influence on her cultural sensibilities. She was playing guitar by age ten, and by her early teens she was sitting in on the Sunday jam sessions in Washington Square Park.

During these years, her life was touched – and profoundly changed – by personal encounters with some of the earliest and most influential Delta blues masters of the 20th century. She made frequent visits to the Bronx, where she learned her first lessons in blues and gospel music from the Reverend Gary Davis. She swapped stories and guitar licks with seminal bluesman Son House, Robert Johnson’s mentor (“He kept asking, ‘Where did she learn to play like this?’”). She visited Skip James in the hospital after his cancer surgery. She traveled to Washington, DC, to visit with Mississippi John Hurt and absorb first-hand his technique and his creativity.

“This period seemed to last forever,” Block Recalls nearly forty years later.” I now realize how lucky I was to be there, in the right place at the right time. I thought everyone knew these incredible men, these blues geniuses who wrote the book. I later realized how fleeting it was, and how even more precious.”

By the time she was in high school, her family had splintered in different directions. With nothing holding her down, she left home at 15 with her guitar and a few friends – heading for California on a trip marked by numerous detours and stops in small towns. Along he way, she picked her way through a vast catalog of country blues songs and took her first steps in developing a fingerpicking and slide guitar style that would eventually be her trademark.

She recorded an instructional record called How To Play Blues Guitar in the mid-60s (she was billed as Sunshine Kate on the original recording), but then took a decade off from music to start a family. In the mid- and late ‘70s, she made a few records that ran counter to her inherent blues instincts, and the result was frustration. “Eventually disgusted with trying to accommodate a business which never seemed to accept me or be satisfied with my efforts,” she says, “I gave up totally and went back to the blues.” The result was a record deal with the Boston-based Rounder label, which released her High Heeled Blues in 1981. Rolling Stone referred to the album as “some of the most singular and affecting country blues anyone – man or woman, black or white, old or young – has cut in recent years.”

Back in a groove that felt comfortable and fulfilling, Block threw herself headlong into an ambitious touring schedule that helped hone her technical and vocal skills to a razor’s edge, and at the same time nurture a distinctive voice as a songwriter. She stayed with Rounder for the next two decades, making records that simultaneously indulged her affinity for traditional country blues and served as a platform for her own formidable songwriting talents.

The world finally started taking notice in the early 1990s, and Block scored numerous awards throughout the decade. Her visibility overseas increased dramatically when Best Blues and Originals, fueled by the single “Lovin’ Whiskey,” went gold in parts of Europe. She brought home Blues Music Awards four years in a row – two for Traditional Blues Female Artist of the Year, and two for Best Acoustic Blues Album of the Year. Then in 1997, she won the Blues Music Award for The Lady and Mr. Johnson, a tribute to Robert Johnson, taking home Acoustic Album of the Year.

Today, after more than twenty highly acclaimed releases and five Blues Music Awards, Block is at the absolute height of her creative powers, bringing a world full of life lessons to bear on what she calls “a total celebration of my beloved instrument and best friend, the guitar.” Her newest project, titled “The Mentor Series,” is a growing collection of tribute albums to the blues masters she knew in person. Her recent release “Blues Walkin’ Like A Man/A Tribute to Son House,” will be followed by “Shake Em On Down/A Tribute to Mississippi Fred McDowell,” due out in early 2011 on the Stony Plain label.

Silent Partners

Website: https://silentpartnerstheband.com/

As young men, Tony Coleman and Russell Jackson first met in 1974 when they were in the U.S. Army. Jackson returned to Ft. Riley, KS after a 2 year stint in South Korea, when he met Tony, who happened to be looking for a bass player to start a band. In literally crossing paths on the Army bus, Tony noticed the bass on Russell’s back and shouted where to meet the next day at the Army post as he disembarked. Russell was excited and eager to jam the next day and a partnership was created. They added another Army buddy guitarist Welton Everette and the band “Solid Funk” was created and performed locally. The young musicians would often drop by Tony’s Aunt’s house in Kansas City, for it was a gathering place for the top musicians of the day who were members of the Kansas City Musician’s Association. Charlie Parker, Count Basie, John Coltrane, and many more frequented the home and of course, jams would take place.

In late 1975, Jackson and Coleman relocated to Chicago and heard through a mutual Army friend that Otis Clay was looking for a bass player and drummer. An audition was set up with Otis and his guitar player Leonard Gill and the two were hired on the spot. With money very tight, they were happy to accept Otis’s offer to sleep on the floor at the old Chess Records Studio which happened to be where Otis had his office at that time.

In 1977 Otis took them on tour to Japan where they recorded his first live album “Otis Clay Live at Touranimin Hall,” released in 1978.

When they returned from Japan, the band played at the famed Burning Spear Club on the south Side of Chicago, where Jackson/Coleman/Gill gained the reputation for being a tight and polished rhythm section. There were always heavy hitters in the club, from Diana Ross to Bobby Bland, George Clinton and the man who became their new employer in 1979, Mr. B.B. King (Coleman went on to play with Bobby Bland but joined B.B.’s band 3 years later). The band had what B.B. was looking for, a perfect blend of “old school, new school.”

After 7 years, Russell Jackson left to attend the Dick Grove School of Music, where he completed a 3 year program in 18 months. Coleman remained with B.B. while Leonard Gill settled in the Bay Area. In 1987, Coleman, Jackson and Gill reunited and formed Silent Partners. After 6 months Gill was replaced by Andrew “Jr. Boy” Jones who quickly became the renowned rhythm section touring with Katie Webster with whom they recorded “Swamp Boogie Queen” on the Alligator record label. They then toured with Charlie Musselwhite during which time Jr. Boy decided to remain with his band.

Coleman and Jackson relocated to Austin, TX and joined forces with guitarist Mel Brown, recording the Silent Partners debut album “If it’s All Night, It’s All Right” on the Antone Label. They often performed at the famous Antone’s Club and recorded a handful of other projects on the Antone label including work by Matt Guitar Murphy in ‘87 and Luther Tucker in ‘89.

In 1990, the band broke up. Mel Brown went to Toronto, where he became a staple on the scene. Tony Coleman and Russell Jackson went to Vancouver, B.C. where they joined the Powder Blues Band. In 1992, they recorded on Long John Baldry’s album “It Ain’t Easy” with Lucky Peterson.

Nearly 35 years later, Tony Coleman received a call from award winning keyboardist Jim Pugh, who had built the Little Village Foundation, a non-profit record company in Santa Barbara, Ca. With Pugh’s persuasion, Silent Partners with Tony Coleman and Russell Jackson reunited once again to record. They’re happy to welcome the newest member to Silent Partners – the man currently known as the new King Of Beale Street, guitarist/vocalist Jonathan Ellison. Jonathan was Denise LaSalle’s band leader for many years and worked with Latimore to name only a couple of his accomplishments. The new Silent Partners album “Changing Times” released in July 2022.