Talkin' Blues

Kansas City native Samantha Fish said her hometown was a great playground for learning her craft. “There’s such a steep tradition there. It’s a great jazz and blues town, and a jam scene,” said Fish. “You could go out every night and play with some incredible, top-notch blues players.”

2017 has been the year of musical reunions in Bloomington-Normal. In April, The Something Brothers, Mojo Stew, and The Mechanics convened at The Castle Theater in an encore for the ages. Marc Boon’s R&B big band Hip Pocket followed suit a few weeks later. August 27, the four-member straight-up blues band The Blue Aces join the reunion tour.

The music world has had many romantic couples; the most famous include Sonny & Cher and Ike & Tina Turner. It’s probably not the best comparison to San Francisco based blues artists Cathy Lemons and Phil Berkowitz. Not that they’re not making great music, but the chemistry isn’t, well ... tempestuous.

George Thorogood & the Destroyers have been ripping through blues classics for four decades. Their ferocious recorded takes on "Move It On Over," "One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer," and of course "Bad To The Bone" are classic rock radio staples. Thorogood live shows are more akin to rock parties. So Thorogood's new solo, acoustic album is quite a left turn for someone enamored with the house-rockin' sound of Hound Dog Taylor. Why this record, and why now?

Joel Da Silva came to blues in the Chicago bars he worked in as a teenage bar-back. That’s where he bumped into legends including Junior Wells, Magic Slim, A.C. Reed and Rod Piazza. Well, he didn’t just “bump” into the them; he would pick them up at the airport and deliver them to their hotel. “Or I would get them barbeque or whatever they wanted,” said Da Silva.

Matthew Curry is in a groove. Oh he was in a groove three years ago opening for legendary names including The Doobie Brothers, Steve Miller, and Peter Frampton. It's just that ... that sort of exposure isn't supposed to happen right out of high school. "It almost happened a bit backwards," said Curry, referring to his career path. "I think most people start with the club circuit and build and build and then hope to be on some of the tours we had the honor to be on."

A female in her early 30's embracing honky-tonk? A music that peaked decades ago? Sarah Shook has answered the query many times. "I had a very strange upbringing as far a music goes," explained Shook via phone from her North Carolina home. "I was certainly not exposed to a lot of the pop music that was popular in my age group, then and now."

A conversation with country-folk-rocker Robert Earl Keen is easy and enjoyable. He'll "go on forever" about many topics, including his music, how he lobbies Congress on behalf of musicians, and his friends Lyle Lovett and Joe Ely. But he was especially animated this day talking about children and classical music in his home state of Texas.

Thornetta Davis is known as "Detroit's Queen of the Blues." Her childhood was anything but royal. "My mom raised four girls with the help of my grandmother," said Davis. "It was an upbringing of turmoil .... my father was an alcoholic and quite violent. When my mother got out of that situation, that's when I feel I started to live."

The line " I just want to make music and friends/Been that way since I was 12 years old " is from "Music and Friends" off Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band's recent "So Delicious" album. Hearing the words fed back to Josh"Reverend" Peyton elicits a smile from the trio's founder.

As a teen phenom growing up in a city many consider the Mecca of blues and soul music, Eric Gales didn't quite understand what he was absorbing. "Growing up in Memphis had an impact on me in ways I didn't realize until later in life," said Gales. "It was a big part of growing up there. A lot of blues and other styles were there. And now it's grown into a whole lot of other styles. I am very proud to have come from Memphis, but there are many other styles attributed to the city."

WGLT picked up a coveted "Keeping The Blues Alive" award presented by the Blues Foundation in Memphis, Tennessee. GLT Morning Edition host and Music Director Jon Norton accepted the award for the station during the KBA awards luncheon February 3 at the Doubletree Hotel in Memphis. The ceremony coincided with the annual week-long "International Blues Challenge," where musicians from around the world compete for cash, prizes, and industry recognition.

"Hurricane" Ruth LeMaster came to music through her parents. Her father was a trumpet player who fell under the spell of all kinds of music, including Dixieland, blues, jazz, big band, R&B and bluegrass. As a young girl she absorbed that music, as well as the different sounds from the Friday night jam sessions along the Illinois river during the summers in her hometown of Beardstown, Illinois.

Rocking through what is now album 10 in a 30 year career with the legendary Alligator Records, Lil' Ed & the Blues Imperials show no sign of slowing down. Though not as nimble as when he regularly performed back bends and toe walks, the energy and crunching houserockin' blues Lil' Ed Williams and his bandmates generate is as authentic as their late label mate Hound Dog Taylor. Reflecting on those three decades of recording and performing, Williams said he has lived his dream. “The funny thing about it, when I was walking around praying to the good Lord above saying what I wanted out of life, which was a wife and family, and a nice house to live in, I never asked for too much. We start asking and we get greedy, you know. And here it is: 19 (years of marriage) and 30 years later, I pretty much got what I asked for,” said Williams.

Danielle Nicole said flying solo after 15 years with her sibling band "Trampled Underfoot" had her a bit nervous. But when critical raves and a Blues Blast Music Award for her debut album "Wolf Den" rolled in, she said it was validating. "There was a lot of skepticism when "Trampled Underfoot" broke up and we went our separate ways. Our fans said we were so great together and wondered how we're going to do this apart. So it was pretty cool to be well received and to especially be nominated at all. And then to receive the award was just awesome," said Nicole.

Pierre Lacocque is especially geeked about Mississippi Heat's just released album "Cab Driving Man." But to be fair, he was especially geeked about the band's last recording, 2014's "Warning Shot."

“Big Head Todd and the Monsters” built an audience for their rock/alt/pop/jam sound over 30+ years of touring, even landing a few songs and albums on Billboard magazine’s music charts. But blues music has always been near and dear to band leader Todd Mohr, even if straight-up blues songs haven’t been part of their recorded output. “I’m a lifetime blues lover. I fell in love with John Lee Hooker when I was 13 years old” said Mohr. “I just built my life around blues and rhythm and blues music … it had more ‘deep turn after deep turn’ and it ended up where we’re now doing meaningful things within the genre, and I’m really proud of that.” On their current trip across the country, the band is billing itself as “Big Head Blues Club & Friends.” Those friends include Larry “Mud” Morganfield and Ronnie Baker Brooks, sons of Chicago blues legends Muddy Waters and Lonnie Brooks respectively. Longtime Chicago vocalist/songwriter/harmonica man Billy Branch is also part of Mohr's "friends." Big

When Chess Records co-founder Phil Chess died October 18 at age 95, it was another opportunity to wax nostalgic about a fertile era of independent U.S. record companies. From the early 1950’s through the late 1960’s, the Chicago based blues label and its peer independents Atlantic, Sun, and Stax Records, produced and sold millions of recordings of some of America’s greatest roots music.

Beth Hart is teasing fans ahead of the release of her new album with the iTunes and Spotify release of the title track. "Fire On The Floor" is another smoldering blues ballad, a style that has become her calling card. "Fire On The Floor" might be even more intense than her 2012 Kennedy Center Awards performance of "I'd Rather Go Blind" with Jeff Beck. When asked for a preview of other songs on her upcoming album, Hart said she took a different approach to songwriting on "Fire On The Floor."

"Georgia Songbird" E.G. Kight talks with GLT's Jon Norton.