Jazz, blues and Tin Pan Alley artist Leon Redbone has died. The death was confirmed by his family and the following announcement on his website:
It is with heavy hearts we announce that early this morning, May 30th 2019, Leon Redbone crossed the delta for that beautiful shore at the age of 127. He departed our world with his guitar, his trusty companion Rover, and a simple tip of his hat. He’s interested to see what Blind Blake, Emmett, and Jelly Roll have been up to in his absence, and has plans for a rousing sing along number with Sári Barabás. An eternity of pouring through texts in the Library of Ashurbanipal will be a welcome repose, perhaps followed by a shot or two of whiskey with Lee Morse, and some long overdue discussions with his favorite Uncle, Suppiluliuma I of the Hittites. To his fans, friends, and loving family who have already been missing him so in this realm he says, ”Oh behave yourselves. Thank you…. and good evening everybody.”
A true musical enigma, little is known about his true identify or origins. Rebone was allegedly born in Cyprus on August 26th, 1949. According to a report in the Toronto Star he moved to Canada in the mid-1960s and changed his name via the Ontario Change of Name Act.
His first public performances were in the Toronto area, which is where Bob Dylan found him in the early 1970s. Dylan was so impressed by Redbone’s performance that he mentioned it in a Rolling Stone interview, leading that magazine to do a feature article on Redbone a year before he had a recording contract. The article described his performances as “so authentic you can hear the surface noise [of an old 78 rpm record].”
Redbone was known for his style of dress as well as his style of music. He performed in suits straight out of the vaudeville era, complete with Panama hat and dark shades. Due to his exclusiveness, it was often thought that Redbone was the alter-ego of another famous artist. Most had bets on either Andy Kaufman, or Frank Zappa, but Leon outlived them both.
His first album, On the Track, was released in 1975, and covered songs from artists including Fats Waller, Jimmie Rodgers, Hoagy Carmichael, and Lonnie Johnson. While most of his television and live performances were solo, in the studio he employed scads of musicians to make his magic. Dr. John appeared first appeared on record with Redbone on the 1981 release From Branch to Branch. In 1987 he performed “Frosty the Snowman” with the good doctor on the album Christmas Island.
In all, Leon released 16 albums, and a compilation of his earliest recordings, Long Way from Home, was released by Third Man Records in 2016.
Redbone was a semi-regular musical guest on Saturday Night Live in its early years, and appeared several times on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson during the 80s and 90s.
He performed in several commercials, was a regular guest on the PBS children’s show Between the Lions, and narrated the 2011 Emmy-winning documentary Remembering the Scranton Sirens. Redbone also performed the theme songs for the television shows Mr. Belvedere, and Harry and the Hendersons.
Arguably his most remembered tune was the duet of “Baby It’s Cold Outside,” which he performed with Zooey Deschanel over the closing credits of the 2003 film Elf.
Leon Redbone retired from music in 2015 due to health reasons, but his baritone voice and vintage style will remain with us forever.
Four-time Grammy Winner Kevin Moore, AKA Keb’ Mo’, brought his talents to the Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts this week. He is currently on tour to support his new album Oklahoma.
Keb’ Mo’ performs on May 22, 2019, in Scottsdale, Arizona. (Photo by Rick Scuteri)
You would think this intimate setting was built just for Mr. Moore. It was the perfect place to enjoy an acoustic set that knocked our socks off. The sound was spot on, and with the stadium seating you would think you were sitting on the stage. Every seat is a good seat.
Mo’, just ending a tour with Taj Mahal, was back to himself with jokes, stories and all his hits. He switched back and forth all night, swapping an acoustic guitar for a Dobro, to his Gretsch, and only after the crowd begged for it, he broke out his banjo and played “Don’t You Know.” It had the crowd wanting more.
The night continued with hit after hit, from “More Than One Way Home” to “Dangerous Mood.” He even played a couple of tunes from his new album. “Life is Beautiful,” had the crowd again, screaming for more.
About halfway through the show, Keb’ walked over to a table that was close to his chair and played the audience a record by Aretha Franklin. As “Ain’t No Way” played, he walked out to the crowd and starting shaking hands, walking up one side of the venue and back down the other. It was a sight to be seen.
Keb’ Mo’ performs on May 22, 2019, in Scottsdale, Arizona. (Photo by Rick Scuteri)
Moore closed with “A Better Man”, the crowd clapping along and giving him a standing O. With the fans begging for him to come back out he did just that. “She Just Wants to Dance” and “Ill be Your Water” were the encore that had everyone dancing. It was a great night for Keb’ Mo’ fans.
I highly recommend this show when he comes to your town, you won’t be disappointed.
Keb’ Mo’s album, Oklahoma is scheduled for release on June 14th via Concord Records.
Keb’ Mo’ performs on May 22, 2019, in Scottsdale, Arizona. (Photo by Rick Scuteri)Keb’ Mo’ performs on May 22, 2019, in Scottsdale, Arizona. (Photo by Rick Scuteri)
A melodic convergence of quantum proportions descends upon the City of Falls Church, VA on Saturday, June 8 when the powerhouse sounds of Memphis, Chicago, New Orleans and Jamaica join notable DC talent in a memorable day and night of music and festivities galore.
Sister Sparrow photo credit Shervin Lainez
The beckoning scene is the 26th Annual Tinner Hill Music Festival in charming Cherry Hill Park and includes family-friendly fun to punctuate the sizzling hot music.
Scheduled to perform – Sister Sparrow & The Dirty Birds, an electrifying seven-piece soul/rock band led by big-voiced vocalist Arleigh Kincheloe; Big Sam’s Funky Nation, delivering boisterous, high-voltage New Orleans funk, jazz and rock; The Wailers’ Julian “Junior” Marvin, a true reggae legend who performed extensively with Bob Marley and carries on “The Message of Love” and Marley music memories; Lil’ Ed and The Blues Imperials, featuring legendary and blistering Chicago blues as real, rough and rollicking as it gets; DC-area and regional groups including popular blues band Moonshine Society featuring Ron Holloway, the all-women Afro-Brazilian band Batalá Washington, rock and roll party band Convertible Jerk, and the Mason A Cappella Club.
Festival-goers will be treated to an enticing array of “villages” throughout the park, including the Artist Village showcasing painters, photographers and jewelers selling their works. Family fun is assured in the Kids’ Village, with water play, a musical petting zoo, face painting, puppy petting party, and more. The Relaxation Village lives up to its name with yoga lessons, mini-massages and inviting hammocks, while the Food Village promises succulent barbecue and other tasty fare, including kid-friendly and vegetarian options. Care for a libation to celebrate it all? The ROCK STAR Bar has it covered with beer, wine and other adult beverages.
The 26th Annual Tinner Hill Music Festival – previously a blues festival – celebrates and honors the African-American music legacy. In conjunction with the City of Falls Church, the festival is sponsored by the Tinner Hill Heritage Foundation, a 501c(3) non-profit organization established in 1997 to research, preserve and celebrate the early civil rights history of Northern Virginia. In addition to its music festival, the Foundation sponsors programs that resurrect the rich and vibrant past of the African-American communities of Falls Church and Northern Virginia.
Following in his daddy’s footsteps, the son of legendary country singer Willie Nelson has been using his music to speak up for a better world filled with more love, and more inner freedom.
Born and raised around the world’s greatest artists, he was taught the tricks of the song-writing trade from the likes of Bob Dylan and Kris Kristofferson, and turned to his record collection to let the blues masters do some preaching, and oh boy did he listen.
From serving as Neil Young’s guitarist with his band Promise of The Real, to penning the guitar on A Star Is Born’s Grammy award winning hit song “Shallow,” Lukas Nelson is hitting all kinds of high notes, and shows no signs of quieting down.
American Blues Scene caught up with Nelson to discuss working on A Star Is Born, how Eric Clapton inspired the guitar on “Shallow,” Promise of The Real’s new album, the key to being a great original songwriter, and more.
Chloe Richardson for American Blues Scene:
Your guitar playing is clearly very influenced by the blues. What does the blues mean to you
and how has it impacted your playing?
Lukas Nelson:
The blues is where it all started. Even with country music, which I grew up with as well, the blues came first in a way. All these old guys like Hank Williams would go to churches and hear these old blues players, and adopt that sort of style, and put their own twist to it. Hank Williams, and Bob Wills, even Johnny Cash.
I was listening to an old old Muddy Waters song called ‘Can’t Be Satisfied’ and it sounds almost exactly like ‘Folsom Prison’, you can tell where the influences are and it’s just great. It grooves. I studied blues for a long time, and pretty much only played the blues when I was first learning how to be a musician, then I branched out into other music as I felt like ‘ok, I understand this in its own way. I’ll never be able to master it but I know to keep trying and going’.
I’m a songwriter, so I like to write all different types of songs, and I felt like I had more to say than just the blues that started it, but I respect it as being the foundation of all music, at least pop music.
Great. You mentioned yesterday before your performance of A Star Is Born’s leading single
“Shallow” that Clapton was the inspiration behind the guitar parts of that song. Please tell us that story. I think that’s amazing.
I was listening to a lot of Clapton at the time we were arranging that song. Gaga and Mark Ronson and his team had written the melody and lyrics, and I came up with the riff based off Clapton’s song ‘Change The World’ that Babyface produced. It wasn’t exactly the same in any way, it’s different but it has the same sort of feel and cadence to it. There’s a walk up, it’s not the same but I felt like I wanted to do a very Clapton-esque organic feel for it. It’s nice that the song was so successful because it shows that people are really into real music.
And they don’t even realize it!
And they don’t even realize it.
Speaking of A Star Is Born. You worked as Bradley Cooper’s authenticity consultant. What did that entail? What were you teaching him?
He was asking me about his fingers and holding the guitar right, stage presence, interaction with the rest of the band which was sweet because it was my band there so I think he took some mannerisms, and became a mesh of me and many other artists that he studied.
Do you think he did a good job?
Yeah, I think he did a great job. That whole movie was really well done.
Yeah, it was. Now you taught Bradley Cooper quite a bit, but what did you learn from him
and being a part of the film?
Well I learnt that the hours of an actor are a little less desirable than that of a musician. I don’t like to wake up at four in the morning, and go to sets. I think I got the better end of the deal, as a musician I can wake up whenever I want to, go to sound check, play the show and then sleep in again. But I do find the whole industry to be fascinating and I respect Bradley, and Gaga for doing what she did and taking on that role readily, it seemed like something she was born to do as well, it was great.
Definitely. So, you and Promise of the Real are about to release a new album (Turn Off the News Build a Garden). Can you tell us about the writing process?
It’s the same sort of process I use with all of my songs that I write. I have thoughts and
epiphanies, and I consolidate them and express them in different ways. I’ve had a lot of epiphanies lately so there are some good songs out there, good questions being asked, good perspectives, I’m really proud of it.
When it comes to song writing I notice that there’s a running theme of your lovers needing
to love themselves. You seem to have a type.
I wrote ‘Love Yourself’ at the same time that I wrote ‘Find Yourself’, it’s just something I do live. I released it on a little bootleg thing that nobody ever heard at the same time that ‘Find Yourself’ was actually first released, a long time ago.
It’s funny, I’ll write songs and sometimes years and years will go by before I feel they get the attention or the right production that they deserve. But, if it’s a good song it will last forever and it can be redone in a different way and might connect in a better way. I think that’s the beauty of writing songs, they can be reinterpreted and changed and made to feel different every time.
Nice. I have one last question, obviously your father is an incredible and legendary
songwriter and musician. What has he taught you about being a songwriter? I honestly feel that you’re the writer of our generation, you write in such a beautiful, visceral way.
Wow, thank you. That’s a good question, but I grew up around a lot of different songwriters. I listened to my dad a lot, but I think a lot of great writers of any type whether you’re writing songs, or poems, or books, a good writer likes to read a lot and absorbs the best books, and because he knows what a good book feels like, he or she is able to write their own version of it based on the influences of the books they loved.
In the same way I took from my dad, and Kris Kristofferson and Bob Dylan, and Neil Young and all of these people who are a part of my life as well, they are legendary songwriters and I believe the best that ever lived. You just listen, you keep your ears open and try to absorb as much as you can, pay attention to the patterns that you see, and the different styles that each artist has and eventually you can create your own style based on it.
I think what’s most intrinsic to an original songwriter is their perspective and their ability to see something in a way that maybe is simple but hasn’t yet been expressed that way.
(Editor’s Note): Janiva Magness appeared on the cover of American Blues Scene Volume 4, Issue 1 in 2014. During an in-depth interview with Matt Marshall, Magness touched on several personal topics. In her upcoming memoirs, ‘Weeds Like Us,’ she delves deeper into the personal tragedies that she’s endured to come out as one of the top blues artists of our time. The original article is below.
Weeds Like Us is a lifetime-in-the-making memoir from the Grammy nominated, 7-time Blues Foundation BMA winner and now author Janiva Magness.
“Violence, bullying, incest, addiction and alcoholism, rape, clinical depression, parental suicide — add it all up. By the time I was a 14-year-old run-away, I felt in many ways both hypnotized and a prisoner to the past. I was always a lonely kid. I turned into a lonely adolescent, a deeply troubled teenager and an angry young woman with a lot of justifiable demons”
Beyond her true understanding of how, Magness came out the other side. Just like the old gospel song, “How I Got Over” by Clara Ward;. “My soul looks back and wonders how I got over.”
She’s not only still standing, she is triumphant!
**Reprinted from American Blues Scene Volume 4, Issue 1**
It was early in the afternoon during May’s Foster Care Awareness Month and celebrated blues singer Janiva Magness was in L.A., passionately chatting about the progress on her new album, Original, that would be coming in less than a month.
In something of an exciting gamble, she broke from established labels to release this album on her own record label so she could craft it to her creative vision. She wouldn’t know it for over a month, but Original was destined to be a chart-topping hit.
The album went #1 on the blues charts – more than once, and Magness is at the top of her game, headlining festivals, thrilling international audiences, and winning no less than six Blues Music Awards including Entertainer of the Year. But getting there was a long, hard, winding road – the kind of success story that could only be found in a true blueswoman.
Normally, Magness would be working to promote her new album. Instead, she’s setting aside her job to discuss foster care, an effort that rests deeply close to her heart. Janiva is the spokesperson for Foster Care Awareness Month, her success story emerging from the foster system is so bold, the chasm between her highs of today and heartbreaking lows of her childhood so compelling, that despite being the private person that she is, she lays bare her soul and tells her story.
If she can show how far she’s come from the darkness of suicide, addiction, homelessness, and depression, then maybe others in all walks of life, but especially lost children suffering their own demons, will find a ray of hope that might brighten their world. Just as importantly, she’s dedicating her time to spread the simple fact that a small act of kindness can change a life forever.
She begins to speak about her deeply traumatic childhood with a poignant sense of forlorn reminiscence, but even the memories, years later, still bring tears to her eyes. Sometimes she takes a deep breath and has to borrow a few extra seconds before she can speak. Other times her commanding voice, the celebrated instrument she’s used to achieve the highest honors in the blues world, cracks as tears well up in her green eyes.
“We had been living in Minnesota. My dad’s work transferred him from the Twin Cities to Saint Louis, and we lived there less than a year before my mom died.”
Janiva was a fourteen year old child in a town she did not know, reeling from the suicide of her mother when she ran away from home with a man in his mid-twenties. “I realized that I needed to get the hell out of that situation, and turned myself into the police. I basically made a deal with my dad. I called him up from a pay phone on Telegraph Ave in Berkley and said, ‘look. Here’s the deal: I’m not coming home.’”
Magness returned to Minnesota, where she bounced between family and distant friends. Angry and alone, she couldn’t stay anywhere very long before needing to find somewhere else. “My dad made these arrangements to stay with a friend of his who had some teenagers, and we thought that would be okay, and then she decided after a couple of months that she didn’t want me around her kids. And so, then I entered the foster care system. I was 14.”
“I was pretty lost,” she says with a factual sort of discernment that hints at just how alone her younger self truly was. “I was pretty alone in the world.”
For two years and twelve homes, Magness bounced between foster families. In that time, her father committed suicide. Some families were, according to her, really wonderful people who she couldn’t handle. And others were what she coyly described as “nightmare, Jerry Springer material.” But number twelve was the right fit.
“I ended up on this woman’s doorstep. I was sixteen. I was pregnant. I’d tried to kill myself,” one of the suicide attempts in her teens. “I ended up in the ICU for a week. I was a very sick young lady.” She returned to her sister’s house only to be told that she was ‘too messed up’ to live there, and so, Magness put every belonging she owned into a single backpack, and her sister dropped her off on the side of a highway. She made her way to the only place left that she could take shelter – and was promptly turned away in the same fashion for the same reasons.
“In other words, all the doors were closing. Boom, boom, boom, boom,” says Magness with a tense and frantic urgency in her voice, a distant reflection of the situation’s deep vulnerability. “Any sense of safety, which I didn’t ever really have very much sense of safety, at that point in my life, was unavailable to me. There was no safe house for me to be at.”
Still lost, still alone, and still terrified, it was a series of single, small acts of kindness on a Sunday, a day Janiva clearly remembers, that was the first drop that lead a long path to a small trickle, that naked its rocky way into a mighty river.
“The fact of the matter is, I think, you never know when a very simple act of human kindness is going to resonate for a child…that is going to eternally change things for that person.”
Her sister-in-law called a local youth center, where the volunteer on duty informed them that he was closing in fifteen minutes, but reluctantly agreed to stay until she arrived and help find an emergency seventy-two hour placement for the decidedly displaced Magness. He began calling down a list of names while the two waited for what seemed like an eternity as number after number on the list didn’t answer or wouldn’t agree to help.
“Phone call number seven,” unsurprisingly she still vividly remembers where it was on the list, “a woman answers the phone, listens to the volunteer, and says ‘ok. We’ve got room. Does she know how to get here?’”
“It’s that seconds and inches shit,” the blues singer explains. “I think, ‘great. I’ve got seventy two hours to figure out the rest of my life.’ But I’m good with that! Because that’s a whole lot more than what I had in front of me before then.”
The woman was a single mother with five kids, a deadbeat ex-husband who refused to pay child support, on welfare, and still working as many jobs as she could to make ends meet, the woman had little to spare. Yet when her phone rang at the end of a long weekend, she was quick to give whatever she had to a deeply troubled stranger; a young, pregnant girl (Magness late made the hard decision to put her daughter up for adoption) with little family and no home, and she invited her in. Her name was Carrie.
After forty eight hours, Carrie asked Janiva what had happened. “And I told her the truth. And at that point in my life, it was like reporting information. I wasn’t some sort of emotional basketcase. I was so detached, I was so disconnected from everything, I was so untethered that it was like, ‘bla bla bla my mom killer herself, my dad killed himself, bla bla bla,’ I was just reporting… Then it was late, and I had one more day.” And at the end of the 3rd day, Carrie made Janiva sit down with her again.
“And she said you know, honey, what happened to you was terrible. And me and the kids, we love you, and so we discussed it as a family and what I want to say to you is that if you want it to stop, it can stop right here and now. You don’t have to leave.”
With that, she had a family.
“I never left.”
When talking about it there was a point in time that became a crucial moment in beginning her journey away from a childhood wrought with devastating pain, she quickly teeters between the thought of thousands of small moments and the retrospective that the damage was simply too severe to be as simple as one point. Yet as she discusses it, she comes back, over and over, to the memory of that Sunday afternoon, and the seventy two hours that turned into a lifetime. And she may forever be defined, in many small parts, by how a small act of kindness that day ended up changing her life forever.
“When I think of roads and I think of life being a path that we travel… When you think of it in that term, with that kind of a view, it definitely had some sharp curves,” she reveals, poetically alluding to the many curves and bumps in the road to her fantastic success.
“I just had a big, fat disconnect switch and it was on. I drank a LOT of alcohol… Drank a lot of alcohol, baby. Lot of alcohol. Lot of spirits,” she lets out a nervous knowing laugh. “And, um… I took a lot of drugs. Any I could get my hands on and as it turned out, I could get my hands on a lot of drugs.” She quickly add an astute, “I know.”
“But the music has been a tremendous healing force for me. Because it tethered me.”
Quick to recognize the impact of her circumstances mad in her personal growth, Janiva doesn’t dwell on the past. “I needed that. Thank God for that because I’m quite sure that all of that saved me. And the music held me and the music made me in the moments I can experience… I mean, I’m 14 dude. Imagine that kid finding her way, on a Tuesday night in December, into a club in Minneapolis and happening to stumble upon an Otis Rush show…”
It was the acclaimed, Grammy-winning Chicago blues master playing one of his his legendary sets (Janiva reverently calls it ‘devastating’) on a a cold weeknight that sparked an endless fire in the soul of a fourteen year old girl with a fake ID.
“Let me tell you something,” the timbre of her voice was quickly changed from a slow, heavy recollection to a fervent forcefulness as she talks about her earliest days in the blues. “Those experiences were game changers for me, because in those moments I was completely consumed. It was like being engulfed in flames, and I was happy to be there. In that experience of Otis Rush playing live, it tethered me. I didn’t even really understand what was happening; all I knew was that whatever the fuck just happened, I had to have more of that. I started to chase that experience.”
And more she did. Immediately after Otis Rush, she stumbled upon B.B. King.
“You know the famous pictures of him in a plaid suit? I saw him in that suit.” Pride drips from her memories of seeing B.B. King as a young girl – not because she would eventually go on to win the highest honor for a blues artist, an award named after the king himself, B.B. King Entertainer of the Year. That, she says, as “hallucinogenic.” She talks with uninhibited gratification about her B.B. King experience because she had the honor of seeing the king live and in his prime (and plaid suit), and he changed her life. It’s a feeling blues fans across the country can altogether too well relate to.
It took four tumultuous years for the future blues star to finally try singing, and only then, because she decided that she owed herself on final experience before she died. At nineteen, Janiva had enough of the weight of life’s cruelties; and she’d had enough of the darkness in her world. “I was in a pretty bad depression and I knew that I wasn’t going to live much longer. I knew that I wasn’t. I knew I was going to take my own life. I knew that too.”
“Some small voice in me said, ‘you know you want to sing. You know how it makes you feel to sing along with your records, so you’re just an asshole if you don’t try… You’re gonna have died and you’re not even going to have tried.’” She says that was how she talked to herself in those days. Feeling, as she poignantly put it, “less than zero.”
So to satisfy her inner voice, she looked in area music magazines for wanted singers, and the sound of Big Band Swing came calling. “A sixteen piece band… John Stafford was the drummer and he was one of those ‘in love with Gene Krupa, Buddy Rich’ kind of guys.”
She auditioned for the gig and sand a song that she’ll never forget, a Buddy Rich and Ella Johnson number called “Since I Fell for You.” She earned the gig.
“And I couldn’t fuckin’ believe it. I couldn’t fuckin’ believe it. And it went like that, you know what I mean? In other words, there it is again. The music took me and went ‘nope, you’re not done,’ and it pulled me back in.”
The music saved her life, and in turn, she dedicated her life to the music. As she described that pivotal moment, “It pulled me back into life. It tethered me.” Her stint in the big band started the young singer with a new drive and a renewed lease on life, and would set her on a career path that would produce, to date, eleven albums, twenty two Blues Music Award nominations, and an impressive six wins.
It’s little wonder that her 2012 twice Blues Music Award nominated album was autobiographically named Stronger For It. It’s even more inspiring that her song, “I Won’t Cry,” won Song of the Year. Her potent lyrics have more than a touch of self-reflection, which churns out a soul-bearing, deeply personal message that fans far and wide, of different cultures and languages, have been able to effortlessly relate to. Magness has been given the unique ability to distill her incredible lows and highs into a music that truly speaks to the human condition. As she puts it, “I have a PhD in makin’ lemonade,” she says with her tongue in her cheek before pausing for personal reflection. “I really do.”
She may not cry when she gets cut and bleeds, but when she wins a BMA for Entertainer of the Year, and honor that, as a woman, is only shared by the blues legend Koko Taylor, the bets are off. “I’m still crying about it. I’m not making that up. Every time someone brings it up or I have to talk about it, which is wonderful, I still cry about it because I don’t know if anybody can really fully understand what that meant to me. It was transcendent… to be standing there knowing that i saw him the first time when I was fourteen…”
“It’s a glorious life… to go from that,” she says, pushing her dark past below her and standing triumphantly and truly humbled, “to being able to stand on a stage and hear B.B. King call my name…He called my name.”
But she doesn’t feel her story is exclusively her own. Instead, Janiva works every day as an ambassador for Foster Care Awareness, laying her story out to show the young, at-risk children she speaks to that it doesn’t always have to be that hard, that there is hope. And perhaps just as importantly, that a small, seemingly simple act of kindness towards a person in need can forever alter their life. She’s living proof. “To bring it back to the idea of foster care, the point to all of that is that you never know who you’re going to stand up for. You don’t know knjow who that kid’s gonna be. You don’t. I was a hot mess. I promise.”
“That’s like a series of miracles. It started with Carrie.” Carrie passed away two year ago, but her simple act of kindness, something that seemed so small at the time, continues to have deeply positive and life changing effects that reverberate to this day.
When Carrie first came to see Janiva perform, “as who I am today, in other words, so much healing,” she says with a relieved sense of relection, she approached the singer after the show. “Well dear,” she said grinning. “I didn’t know you could do that.” Janiva didn’t either, “and we had a moment. It was both of us basically saying, ‘holy shit!’”
Janiva calls her greatest accomplishment simply living, and not dying. “I have a beautiful life. It’s not perfect. That doesn’t mean I don’t struggle, because I do. But it’s completely changed me. And I haven’t been in that closet for years.” From tears of a nightmare childhood that nearly took her life to tears of joy, Magness has achieved victories that many could only dream about.
“I thought for sure it was the end of the story,” she says about that harrowing time years ago. “I thought it was always going to be that hard. That I was always going to be depressed, that I was always going to suffer post-traumatic stress disorder, every day.”
“I thought that was the end of the story. It’s not the end of the story.”
** End of print article **
The release date for Weeds Like Us by Janiva Magness is June 25th, however, exclusive first editions and downloadable e-books can be pre-ordered now.
On May 24th, the Stray Cats released 40 –their first new album in 26 years on the heels of three singles they’ve recently issued from the album: “Cat Fight (Over A Dog Like Me),” “Rock It Off” and “Cry Danger.”
Brian Setzer (guitar, vocals), Lee Rocker (bass, vocals) and Slim Jim Phantom (drums, vocals) – original founding members of the iconic and acclaimed American Rockabilly trio – are celebrating their 40th anniversary in 2019 with 40 and a tour that’s hitting the U.S. and Europe (*see tour dates below). The album was released by Surfdog Records and distributed by BMG (CD, vinyl, digital) in the US, and Mascot Label Group in Europe.
The all revved up and red-hot Stray Cats recorded 40 at Blackbird Studios in Nashville in late 2018 following their first North American shows in 10 years, with four concerts including sold-out headlining shows in Las Vegas and Pacific Amphitheatre in Costa Mesa, CA before wildly enthusiastic audiences. Still buzzing from the thrill of playing together again and the crowd response, they went into the studio with producer Peter Collins (Rush, Bon Jovi, The Brian Setzer Orchestra) and engineer Vance Powell (Jack White, Chris Stapleton, Arctic Monkeys). There are a dozen original songs that comprise the album.
“Forty years ago, us three teenagers started a little band to play a musical style that had long since passed, and most folks had never heard of, this Rockabilly music. Forty years later we stand together and still get that same thrill and exhilaration from the music. That feeling is what makes the fireworks go off and the sparks fly. It makes the world go around.” – Brian Setzer
“Making a new Stray Cats album for 2019 in Nashville seems like the exact right thing, right time, right place, and right band for the gig! We have an album’s worth of new songs that are classic rockabilly while keeping the music and style current and fresh, like always. In other words…A Stray Cats album.” –Slim Jim Phantom
“They say history repeats itself and I now know that’s true. 40 years after Brian, Jim and I formed the Stray Cats, we are back! I’m so excited to be in the studio with my brothers. I can tell you that this will be the best Stray Cats album we have ever made. The time is right, the songs are great and we’re ready to rock.” –Lee Rocker
Robert Mugge photo credit Star Press photographer Chris Bergin
Robert Mugge is an American documentary film maker. He has focused primarily on films about music and musicians. He’s done several movies on the Blues. Deep Blues, a 1991 film narrated by Arkansas music writer Robert Palmer, features performances by Mississippi masters R.L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough. Mugge said that a major point of Deep Blues was that pockets of authentic Mississippi blues were alive and well. But by 1999, when he made Hellhounds on My Trail: The Afterlife of Robert Johnson, “I started to sense (Mississippi blues) was beginning to die. A lot of performers were dying, and jukes were closing down.”
That concern prompted him in 2003 to make Last of the Mississippi Jukes. While it’s full of high-powered performances by Alvin Youngblood Hart, Chris Thomas King, Vasti Jackson, Bobby Rush, and Patrice Moncell; it’s ultimately a sad film. Mugge has made documentaries about bluegrass, reggae, and Hawaiian music and has done films centered on Rubén Blades, Sonny Rollins, Robert Johnson, and Gil Scott-Heron. In 1984’s Gospel According to Al Green, Mugge became the first interviewer to get the soul singer to open up about a terrible night in which a spurned girlfriend threw a pot of boiling grits on him.
Brant Buckley:
What’s your favorite Blues Documentary that you have filmed and why?
Robert Mugge:
I have made many kinds of films other than Blues. For years I intended to do something on Mississippi Blues. Although I was born in Chicago where my father was getting his Doctorate of Sociology from the University of Chicago, I have southern roots. He was doing his dissertation on Black migration. We moved to Atlanta where he taught at a Black University. I also lived in Washington D.C. and Raleigh, North Carolina. We moved to Silver Spring, Maryland outside of D.C. where I grew up. Washington D.C. aside from the Federal Government is largely a Black city. My mother was from Birmingham, Alabama and my father grew up in Tampa, Florida. Both of them had deep southern roots even though they were heavy into the Civil Rights Movement.
I’ve always had interest in the south. After making the Al Green film, I became more interested in doing a film on southern Blues. I was especially interested in Mississippi Blues. Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics grew up in Northern England. He had a cousin in Memphis and he would receive records, blue jeans, and other southern related things. After he became successful with the Eurythmics, he wanted to give back. He decided he wanted to do a film on Mississippi Blues. He contacted music writer Robert Palmer and Robert said, “If you get Robert Mugge to direct it, I will work with you.” Although I have made many Blues films, “Deep Blues” is still my favorite. People know me for this film over any other. It had a theatrical release and played at Sundance and The Lincoln Center in New York. It’s been all over the world. It captured very important artists who were not around for much longer after the film released. R.L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough, Big Jack Johnson, Jack Owens, Bud Spires, Lonnie Pitchford, and Jesse Mae Hemphill are all dead. If you think about it almost everyone in that film is now dead with the exception of Dave Stewart. If you don’t capture certain things fast enough, they’re gone. I’m proud the film helped these Blues artists receive national attention and record for Fat Possum Records.
I also love my following films: “Pride and Joy: The Story of Alligator Records,” “Hellhounds on my Trail: The Afterlife of Robert Johnson,” “Last of the Mississippi Jukes,” and “Deep Sea Blues.” I did a couple Zydeco films which are related to Blues. My 2015 film, “Zydeco Crossroads: A Tale of Two Cities,” was funded by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage. Ever since I made Deep Blues, the Blues genre has been involved in all of my musical films.
Robert Mugge and Jack Owens in Bentonia, MS during the 1990 shooting of DEEP BLUES. Photographer: Axel Küstner.
What film projects are you currently working on?
I’ve recently presented a number of my music films at screenings. Over the last few years, I have remastered many of my old films. I’ve released around 22 new home video releases via MVD (Music Video Distributor). A few weeks ago I was in Montreal overseeing the remaster of my 1991 film “Deep Blues.” Dave Stewart of The Eurythmics originally funded the film and made a few appearances in it. He agreed to remaster the film and wants to relaunch it in the near future. I remastered it in Montreal and he slightly remastered the soundtrack. We are talking to distributors about getting it back out. I was just in Baltimore at a film festival presenting my 35 year old film on Al Green. It’s amazing how some of my films continue to be in demand for screenings around the world. It’s weird that my early films are getting screened most widely.
When you do something for a long period of time there are periods when you are tapped into funders and there are periods when you aren’t. Since relocating to the Midwest to teach, I’ve lost some of my connections with funding sources. I am in another rebuilding faze. Several years ago, I filmed 3 days’ worth of interviews with Steve Bell. He was a correspondent at ABC News and the original anchor for “Good Morning America.” He covered: The Newark riots, the shooting of George Wallace, the attempted shooting of Gerald Ford, Watergate, the 1968 Chicago Convention, and the assassinations of John F Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Robert Kennedy. He was a professor emeritus of telecommunications at Ball State University. I met him at Ball State and I ended up becoming the 5th person to take that position. We hit it off and he kept telling me these incredible stories. I decided I had to document them. My wife and I spent 3-4 months organizing his one hundred best stories and spent 3 longs days filming them. I then took his 22 best stories and made them into a 2 hour film. At the end of this month, I am applying for a $200,000 completion grant.
I’m also writing a book. I just finished my third rewrite for the publisher who is interested. It’s a book about the original Robert Mugge; my great grandfather who came to this country from Germany in 1870 as a 17 year old. It will be called “Saloon Man: A German Immigrant Battles the Limits of Liberty 1870-1915.” He was called the Saloon Magnet of Southern Florida because he owned 20 saloons. He owned a distillery, a wholesale liquor business, and hotels. He was very controversial. He owned a liquor businesses during Prohibition and Temperance. He was in the segregated Deep South and insisted on working with African Americans. He would take out saloon licenses in his name and turn them over to African American managers who then hired African American staff. This greatly aggravated the Jim Crow South especially white southern Americans who were Civil War Confederate Veterans. He was constantly at odds with the police. He would take out newspaper ads attacking the police as being totally corrupt. He was a very colorful and successful character. I am hoping my latest re write will satisfy the publisher so we can get it out.
In your film Gospel According To Al Green, while Al was in the studio you captured a beautiful red background. How did you achieve this and what is the significance of the color?
I made the film right after his traumatic hot grits incident. A girlfriend asked him to marry her and he wasn’t interested. She threw hot grits on him and badly scalded him giving him third degree burns. She shot and killed herself. This was the last straw that led to him abandoning popular music. He bought a church in Memphis and committed himself to only Gospel music. I came in with the backing of Britain’s Channel 4 television and I made the film “Gospel According to Al Green”. It was heavily centered on what he was doing at the time and his previous career. As a popular artist he inspired romantic thoughts in female fans. He would throw red roses to the crowd during his concerts and it made me think about the color red. I knew we were going to be discussing a lot of the recent torment in his life. Ingmar Bergman’s wonderful film “Cries and Whispers” dealt with torment of the soul. I read in an interview that he used red in the film because he considered red to be the color of the human soul. Since I was dealing with various types of soul and soul music, I thought I’d use this motif.
It happened naturally when we filmed the concert. There was a lot of red around especially red flowers on tables. When we filmed in his recording studio in Memphis, he finally gave me an interview. After we filmed a staged rehearsal I convinced him to do the song “Let’s Stay Together” and he turned to me and said, “So you wanna do that interview now?” I needed a little time to set up. Erich Roland my director of photography put a red light bulb in the light on the side and used some red filters on his own lights. It gave us a red look. I asked Erich to give me a film noir concert look. I wanted deep shadows. This is something he’s very good at. Somebody is half in the light and half in shadows and it suggests a certain emotion of upheaval and mystery. Adding the red was the final touch.
Robert Mugge and Al Green at the 1985 theatrical world premiere of GOSPEL ACCORDING TO AL GREEN at the Coolidge Corner Moviehouse in Brookline, MA. Photographer: Justin Freed.
How are magical moments captured on film when people know they are being filmed? Can you give specific examples?
Sometimes magical moments happen on their own and sometimes you have to set the stage so that if magic is going to happen there’s fertile ground for it to happen. I never work from scripts. I always make pages and pages of notes about what we could do when making a particular film. I often say I have enough notes to make 10 different films on the same subject. Once we get out there you need to be ready when the magic happens.
Magic can be positive and magic can even be negative. When I made “Saxophone Colossus” with Sonny Rollins we had already filmed him in concert in Tokyo, Japan doing his world premiere of his concerto for saxophone and orchestra. That was Sonny branching out and trying something totally different. He improvised throughout on his own themes the orchestra was playing. We wanted to get him with a more traditional jazz ensemble. We originally were going to film him on a boat sailing around New York City. I found out the cruise was at night and there weren’t any lights. They didn’t have sufficient power for our lights or camera batteries. We decided to film at Opus 40 in upstate New York on a sculpted rock quarry. He had the coating changed on his saxophone and it changed the tone of the instrument. When he got up to play he would play a vowel and out came consonants. Being a brilliant artist, he could build something around it. He was doing a brilliant concert but he was getting frustrated. Finally, he was doing solo improvising onstage and it was getting to him more and more. He jumped off the six foot ledge to stop it. It’s like he was having a musical nervous breakdown. He broke the heel of his right foot and fell back and just laid there. We were really concerned that he seriously injured himself. I ran to the other side to find out if he was o.k. Suddenly, he lifted the injured foot on top of the other and started playing as he was lying there. It’s a magical moment that was legendary in the jazz community before the film was released. We made it part of the film. He asked me to not use the music as they continued to play because his musicians were so upset they started playing the wrong changes. It still sounded great but he could hear what was wrong. That was a magical moment with positive and negative connotations. It was a situation that we were ready for.
Also, my wife and I produced “New Orleans Music in Exile.” Diana Zelman is my wife and she’s been my producing partner since 2005. We were shooting musicians down in New Orleans after hurricane Katrina. We filmed 2 months after the hurricane hit and everything was desolate including the following cities: Houston, Austin, Memphis, and Lafayette. You could see the desperation and sadness on the musician’s faces when they gave us interviews or performed for us.
Going in with every artist you need to know where they come from, the kind of music they play, and the personality they have. Knowing this sets the stage for various possibilities.
Are there any Bluesmen you are itching to film and make a new documentary on?
I am always happy to work with my buddy Vasti Jackson. He has been in more of my films than anybody else. I forgot to mention I made a Blues film on my buddy Ted Drozdowski about his Midwestern tour with his earlier band Scissormen. I am so happy to see new young talent coming around like “Kingfish” out of Clarksdale. He is only 20 now and my wife and I saw him 3 years ago while we were in Cleveland Mississippi for the Grammy Museum opening. He knocked our socks off. He seems to be getting better and better. I would love to work with Tedeschi Trucks band. I almost worked with Derek Trucks a decade ago. Some projects get funded and others don’t. I just saw them perform on Jimmy Kimmel and they were tremendous.
Robert Mugge, Irma Thomas, and Morgan Freeman during the 2004 filming of BLUES DIVAS in Clarksdale, MS. Photographer: Dick Waterman.
What else do you want to accomplish?
I want my book to get published. I look forward to the re-release and the relaunching of “Deep Blues.” I hope it will have the same amount of success it had the first time around. There are more music films I want to make. I need to figure out where funding is going to come from.
One of the things that has often happened throughout my career is that I hook up with corporate funders like BMG Video, Sony, Britain’s Channel 4 Television, and Starz. Often there is synchronicity that happens when you hook up with the right funder at the right time. If the company is in need of programming and your interests are in sync, you are able to get a few projects out of them. When a company sets a new goal, I’m able to get several projects out of them before they suddenly realize they are spending too much money. That happened with Channel 4, BMG Videos, and Starz. When corporate goals change and they decide they’ve built up enough of a program library, they will put someone in charge who’s a care taker and doesn’t spend much money. As an independent producer you are always looking for the next wave to ride. Inevitably, the wave runs out. I am looking for the next wave I can ride.
Today, Illiterate Light — the musical partnership between Jeff Gorman (vocals, guitar, synth pedals) and Jake Cochran (drums, vocals) — release their new single “Carolina Lorelei.” The track precedes what will be an immense summer for the erstwhile organic farmers: They are slated to play festivals including Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza and Newport Folk Festival, as well as a series of fall dates supporting Rainbow Kitten Surprise.
“Carolina Lorelei” is a concise summation of the band’s winning, less-is-more sound: clattering drums from Cochran’s standup kit, Gorman’s loping guitar runs and the duo’s harmonious vocal interplay. All of this is bolstered by the synth tones Gorman stomps out with his feet, which provide an atmospheric color that shifts from ghostly wisps to arena-filling bass swells. Says Jeff Gorman, “Carolina Lorelei came out of a moment when I was chopping wood in a small town north of Asheville, NC. I saw my partner walking up this hill to meet me, and her simple yet radiant beauty struck me like never before. She was glowing. My sense of time completely vanished and I fell so deeply in love with her. The song, in essence, is my attempt to unpack that blissful, quasi-mystical moment.”
Illiterate Light’s swift come-up belies some humble roots, as they’ve gone from touring the mid-Atlantic on bicycle to being signed by Atlantic Records. In the meanwhile they’ve been grinding it out on the road, wowing audiences as they’ve opened for Mt. Joy, Shakey Graves and Rayland Baxter. Earlier this year, they self-released their debut Sweet Beast EP, and they are putting the finishing touches on a debut full length with Vance Powell (Jack White, Kings Of Leon, Chris Stapleton) and Adrian Olsen (Foxygen, Natalie Prass).
Tour Dates
May 23 — Harrisonburg, VA @ Golden Pony
May 24 — Richmond, VA @ Friday Cheers
June 1 — Roseland, VA @ Music in the Blue Ridge
June 7 — Norfolk, VA @ First Fridays
June 14 — Manchester, TN @ Bonnaroo Music Festival
July 27 — Newport, RI @ Newport Folk Festival
August 4 — Chicago, IL @ Lollapalooza
September 14 — Montreal, QC @ Corona Theatre*
September 20 — New Haven, CT @ College Street Music Hall*
September 22 — Bethlehem, PA @ Levitt Pavilion Steel Stacks*
September 24 — Ithaca, NY @ State Theatre*
September 25 — Detroit, MI @ Fillmore Detroit*
September 27 — Charlotte, NC @ Metro Credit Union Amphitheatre*
September 28 — Greenville, NC @ Peace Center Concert Hall*
September 30 — Orlando, FL @ House Of Blues*
October 3 — Athens, GA @ Georgia Theatre*
October 4 — Athens, GA @ Georgia Theatre* – SOLD OUT
The band billed this as “An Intimate Night with Shinedown at The Fillmore.” Then they blew the roof off. The newly built New Orleans Fillmore, less than a year old, was a great venue to watch this show. The sound, lighting, and viewing was top notch. Close to a sellout, Shinedown did not disappoint their incredible fan base on this night. From the first song to the last, fans danced, jumped around, and sang word for word with lead singer Brent Smith.
Brent Smith of Shinedown
The show started with a highly energetic rush from the boys, performing “Devil,” “Diamond Eyes,” and “Enemies.” At one point the crowd had the floor bouncing from jumping up and down. Smith, talking to the crowd, explained they were excited to be playing a different setlist than normal. Usually playing festivals, tonight would give Shinedown an opportunity to play longer and change things up a bit. The song “Kill Your Conscience,” was about halfway through the show. Eric Bass (bass player and keyboardist) started the song out by playing a bit from “Amazing Grace” on the keyboards, during which the nearly sold out crowd sang the words on cue.
The band continued rockin’ out with Zach Myers (guitarist) murdering the guitar and Barry
Kerch (drummer) pounding the drums as if he was angry and full of hate. I say that with the most respect, sir. The chemistry from the band was spot on. “.45” and “Second Chance,” two of their more popular tunes were next. This had the rowdy crowd once again dancing and jumping up and down. Myers and Smith said this was one of the better crowds they have seen in a long time, praising them a couple of times. Shinedown’s cover of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Simple Man” was played acoustically with Myers, joined only by Smith on stage.
The two played a perfect rendition of this legendary song that would have made Ronnie (Ronnie Van Zant-Lynyrd Skynyrd lead singer and song writer) proud. This might have been the highlight of the night, with the entire crowd, even bartenders and security, singing in sync. At times Smith held the microphone down and just listened and watched with the biggest smile. It was an incredible experience to have witnessed.
Zack MyersBrent SmithEric BassBarry KerchZack MyersEric BassShinedown live at the Fillmore in New OrleansBrent Smith
Shinedown continues to tour, and I highly recommend seeing these guys.
1969 marked a year that was full of both trepidation and excitement for Stax Records. Just one year before, the Memphis soul outlet ended its relationship with musical giant Atlantic Records, effectively leaving the label as an independent entity, without a music catalog (which had previously included a formidable collection of hits by Otis Redding, Carla Thomas and Sam & Dave, among others). Under the guidance of co-owner Al Bell, the label proceeded to rebuild and release an impressive collection of 27 albums and 30 singles in just a handful of months—a period known as “Soul Explosion.” The gamble paid off, and at the 1969 Stax sales summit—themed “Getting It All Together”—the label reaffirmed its place as a soul powerhouse. Craft Recordings celebrates the 50th anniversary of this prolific, make-or-break moment for Stax—and its enduring legacy—with a wide selection of physical and digital reissues. Additionally, Craft will pay tribute to the label throughout the year with a series of playlists, original content, contests and more.
Soul Explosion Summit-Attendees with Covers_Photo Credit Wayne Moore, photographer; Stax Museum of American Soul Music
The rebuilding of the Stax catalog was an immense undertaking—deemed impossible by many peers in the music industry. Ms. Deanie Parker, who was head of Stax’s publicity at the time, recalls that “Day and night, we planned marketing and sales efforts, and produced powerhouse songs. For weeks we worked 24/7—molding and refining both raw and veteran artists’ recording material. . . . We worked our way to the top of our game with the Soul Explosion created at Stax Records.” Al Bell remembers how the summit was ahead of its time: “We were multimedia before multimedia was even a thing! During that one weekend in Memphis, we had large projections on the walls the size of movie theater screens and we had video interspersed with live performances by all of our top acts: Carla Thomas, Booker T. & the MGs, William Bell, Albert King, the Bar-Kays, Isaac Hayes solo and Isaac Hayes and David Porter doing Sam & Dave songs. And the energy during that weekend was like nothing the music industry had seen before.”
Bell set about building a roster that reflected the changing musical landscape—signing new artists such as the Emotions and the Soul Children; meanwhile, existing Stax artists, including the Staple Singers, were busy recording some of their biggest hits to date. Johnnie Taylor emerged as a breakout star with the single “Who’s Making Love,” the label’s first big post-Atlantic hit; while in-house songwriter and producer Isaac Hayes released his breakthrough second LP, Hot Buttered Soul, which peaked on the Billboard Top 10 and catapulted him into stardom. In Robert Gordon’s 2013 book Respect Yourself: Stax Records and the Soul Explosion, the author writes, “It was a huge and glorious effort, interweaving the grand themes of salesmanship, civic responsibility, and the recording arts.” Bell went on to declare that the industry “began to forget that we didn’t have a catalog . . . We [were now] a viable independent record company. It accelerated from that point forward.”
Craft recently kicked off the Soul Explosion campaign with three vinyl reissues exclusive for Record Store Day, held on April 13th: Albert King’s Born Under A Bad Sign, the duets collection Boy Meets Girl: Classic Stax Duets and the compilation Stax Does The Beatles. Originally released in 1967, King’s Stax debut is widely recognized as one of the most influential albums, heralding in the era of modern blues. Inducted into the GRAMMY® Hall of Fame in 1999 and included in Rolling Stone’s “500 Greatest Albums of All Time” list, this special edition marks the very first mono reissue of the title. Boy Meets Girl: Classic Stax Duets is back on vinyl for the first time to mark the 50th anniversary of its original release. This 2-LP set pairs the label’s biggest male and female stars together for a collection of engaging duets. Finally, we have the vinyl debut of Stax Does The Beatles. Originally released in 2008, this 2-LP set compiles the best Beatles covers recorded throughout the ’60s and ’70s by Stax artists.
Soul Explosion 2-LP Cover
On May 31st, soul connoisseurs can get their hands on the Soul Explosion album, back on vinyl for the first time since 1969. As part of the label’s “Made in Memphis” reissue campaign, the lacquers for the 2-LP set were cut by Memphis-based engineer Jeff Powell at Take Out Vinyl and pressed locally at Memphis Record Pressing (MRP). Soul Explosion offers a sampling of the label’s biggest hits and stars of the day, with Eddie Floyd, the Mad Lads, the Staple Singers, Albert King and more. The second disc of the set includes a selection of rare tracks, many of which are exclusive to this collection. These include the Bar-Kays’ “Hot Hips,” Ollie & The Nightingales’ “Heartache Mountain” and Eddie Floyd’s “It’s Wrong To Be Loving You.” Soul Explosion will also be released digitally for the first time and will include hi-res 96/24 and 192/24 formats. Starting today, the hit song “Who’s Making Love” by Johnnie Taylor is available as an instant grat single with all digital album pre-orders.
In June, to commemorate Black Music Month, Craft will also reissue 30 titles to digital platforms—marking the very first digital release of these albums. The titles, which will be released one per day throughout the month, include the 1971 concept album Victim Of The Joke? An Opera from acclaimed songwriter and producer David Porter; 1973’s Estelle, Myrna & Sylvia from girl-group the Sweet Inspirations (who backed such acts as Elvis Presley, Dusty Springfield and Aretha Franklin); and A Dramatic Experience, the sophomore album by R&B Music Hall of Fame inductee the Dramatics. Eleven of these titles (from the likes of the Soul Children, Johnnie Taylor and the Mad Lads) are results of the 1969 Soul Explosion sessions.
Throughout the remainder of 2019, fans can look forward to several curated playlists, contests and additional releases.
One of the most popular soul labels of all time, Stax has become synonymous with its gritty, Southern sounds. Originally known as Satellite Records, the Memphis imprint was founded in 1957 by Jim Stewart. Over the course of two decades, Stax released more than 800 singles and nearly 300 LPs, picking up eight GRAMMYS® and an Academy Award along the way. In all, Stax placed more than 167 hit songs in the Top 100 pop charts, and a staggering 243 hits in the Top 100 R&B charts.
Soul Explosion 2LP Track Listing:
LP 1 – Side 1
Johnnie Taylor “Who’s Making Love”
Jimmy Hughes “Like Everything About You”
Booker T. & The MG’s “Hang ‘Em High”
Carla Thomas “Where Do I Go”
Eddie Floyd “I’ve Never Found A Girl (To Love Me Like You Do)”
Southwest F.O.B. “Smell Of Incense”
Albert King “Cold Feet”
LP 1 – Side 2
Booker T. & The MG’s “Soul Limbo”
The Mad Lads “So Nice”
Eddie Floyd “Bring It On Home To Me”
William Bell & Judy Clay “Private Number”
The Staple Singers “Long Walk To D.C.”
Ollie & The Nightingales “I’ve Got A Sure Thing”
The Bar-Kays “Copy Kat”
LP 2 – Side 1
Booker T. & The MG’s “Soul Clap ‘69”
The Staple Singers “Hear My Call”
Johnnie Taylor “Save Your Love For Me”
Jimmy Hughes “Peeped Around Yonder’s Bend”
Carla Thomas “Book Of Love”
The Mad Lads “These Old Memories”
Southwest F.O.B. “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy”
LP 2 – Side 2
The Bar-Kays “Hot Hips”
Ollie & The Nightingales “Heartache Mountain”
Johnnie Taylor “Twenty Years From Today”
Eddie Floyd “It’s Wrong To Be Loving You”
Judy Clay “It’s Me”
Booker T. & The MG’s “Booker’s Theme”
Albert King “Left Hand Woman (Get Right With Me)”
Black Music Month Digital Releases:
Artist: Booker T. & The MGs
Album Title: Soul Limbo
Release Date: 6/1/19
Artist: Various
Album Title: Boy Meets Girl
Release Date: 6/2/19
Artist: Johnnie Taylor
Album Title: Rare Stamps
Release Date: 6/3/19
Artist: Soul Children
Album Title: Soul Children
Release Date: 6/4/19
Artist: Carla Thomas
Album Title: Memphis Queen
Release Date: 6/5/19
Artist: Ollie & The Nightingales
Album Title: Ollie & The Nightingales
Release Date: 6/6/19
Artist: Johnnie Taylor
Album Title: The Johnnie Taylor Philosophy Continues
Today, Illiterate Light — the musical partnership between Jeff Gorman (vocals, guitar, synth pedals) and Jake Cochran (drums, vocals) — release their new single “Carolina Lorelei.” The track precedes what will be an immense summer for the erstwhile organic farmers: They are slated to play festivals including Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza and Newport Folk Festival, as well as a series of fall dates supporting Rainbow Kitten Surprise.
