Blues Historian: John Hammer Blues News

Be sure to visit www.bluemondaymonthly.com to read our entire April issue. Pass this along to friends and tell them they can sign up for this weekly e-bluesblast right on the bottom of the first page of the website. Check out the links and support yer local blues band! Hope to see you at a LIVE show soon! Until then, Take care of each other, and we'll catch up with ya real soon!

John 'blueshammer' Hammer

Party Bus on the AM/FM

OH BOY! Since ya'll found yer way back home last week, we decided it was a good reason to throw a rollin' blues bus party with the well appointed virtual stage! Climb aboard this week on Hammered By The Blues (TWICE on Sunday on KOWZ. Noon on 1170am and 8pm on 100.9fm. Classic episodes rebroadcast on line Tues at 9am and Sat at 11am on www.boundarywatersradio.com).

We will drop down into low gear with this party bus, hit those lights and kick it with some right fancy work off Eric Lindell's 'Gulf Coast Highway'. We find ourself picking up momentum as we shift up and hit cruisin' speed with a little solid preachin' by Brother Cyril Neville off 'Brand New Blues'. At this point we loose all control as we heat this rollin' party up with Nicole Hart and some steamy fare off 'Treasure'. And just so's we provide equal heat to both sides of the sexes, John Nemeth climbs aboard and provides sizzle from 'Love Me Tonight'. Can't have no fun unless you climb aboard; jump on, jump in!

If ya gots da blues then get yer bones shakin';
We has a goood time, no posin' no fakin' ;

From our handcrank victrola we be spreadin' the news;

From blues newbies to legends we plays the who's who's.

Hammer-time!

Big Joe Blues
By Marc Miller
It was 1965 or thereabouts and my date and I were at a club in Greenwich Village in New York listening to music. The room was enormous, crowded, smoky and loud. The tables were miniscule with barely room for drinks and no room to stretch out our legs under them. Featured were two folk rock bands, flaunting their wares with mega-amplification. They were young, attractive, fashionably hip and very loud. Sandwiched in between the two sets, perhaps as an afterthought, was the bluesman Big Joe Williams (not to be confused with the jazz and rhythm and blues singer Joe Williams who sang with Count Basie). He looked terrible. He had a big bulbous aneuristic protrusion bulging out of his forehead. He was equipped with a beat up old acoustic guitar which I think had nine strings and sundry homemade attachments and a wire hanger contraption around his neck fashioned to hold a kazoo while keeping his hands free to play the guitar. Needless to say, he was a big letdown after the folk rockers. My date and I exchanged pained looks in empathy for what was being done this Delta blues man who was ruefully out of place. After three or four songs the unseen announcer came on the p. a. system and said, "Lets have a big hand for Big Joe Williams, ladies and gentlemen; thank you Big Joe". But Big Joe wasn't finished. He hadn't given up on the audience and he ignored the announcer. He continued his set and after each song the announcer came over the p. a. and tried to politely but firmly get Big Joe off the stage. Big Joe was having none of it and he continued his set with his nine-string acoustic and his kazoo. Long about the sixth or seventh song he got into his groove and started to wail with raggedy slide guitar riffs, powerful voice, as well as intense percussion on the guitar and its various accoutrements. By the end of the set he had that audience of jaded '60's rockers on their feet cheering and applauding vociferously. Our initial pity for him was replaced by wondrous respect. He knew he had it in him to move that audience and he knew that thousands of watts and hundreds of decibels do not change one iota the basic power of a song. Big Joe Williams died on December 17th, 1982. He was inducted into the W. C. Handy Blues Hall of Fame on October 4th, 1992. His accomplishments as a singer, song writer and musician are considerable, but to me he will always be the man who won over an unlikely apathetic audience of rockers with uncompromising Delta blues.

-Marc Miller is a New York born folk-blues and ragtime-blues singer and guitarist who now lives on Kibbutz Afiq in the Golan Heights, overlooking the Sea of Gallilee.

YOUR 7 DAY BLUES FORECAST

Twin Cities and Minnesota

Wed 1-Mick Sterling/Lifetime Fitness; DT Mpls

-Tom Hunter/SRO; Anoka
Thu 2-Scott Holt/Shaws; Mpls

-Davina & the Vagabonds/Narrows; Navarre

-Randy McAllister/Famous Dave's; Mpls
Fri 3-Memphis & the Meantimes/Narrows; Navarre

-Davina & the Vagabonds/Dakota Jazz Club; Mpls

-Cool Disposition/Schuller's; Golden Valley

-Lamont Cranston/Floyd's; Victoria

-Good Time Willy/Neumann's; St Paul

-Cadillac Kolstad & the Flats/Clubhouse Jager; Mpls

-Everett Smithson/Macho Nacho; Rochester