James Luther Dickinson, 1941-2009

Legendary Memphis musician and producer Jim Dickinson passed away yesterday in his sleep, while recovering from a recent heart surgery. During his colorful half-century career, he was a highly-touted session player for Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin, Ry Cooder, and the Rolling Stones; and as a producer he worked with artists ranging from Screamin' Jay Hawkins and Jason & the Scorchers to such groundbreaking rock acts as the Replacements and Big Star. He was the patriarch of a musical family which includes his two sons, Cody and Luther of the North Mississippi Allstars. He was one of thew few people whose work was followed by blues and indie rock enthusiasts alike, as in, "It's a Jim Dickinson [band/album/project]. Of course I'm gonna check it out." He was prolific as ever during his final years, cranking out a handful of good albums this decade while producing a bunch and he had just started a new rock band in Memphis this year. Just last week, a benefit concert led by John Hiatt was done in Memphis to help defray his medical bills. Jim was 67 and his wife said he went in peace.

We Don't Care

about Michael Vick, American Idol, the Mentalist, the lady with eight babies (well, we do feel bad for her and hope the blues club in her town does a fundraiser for her), we also don't care about Sarah Palin or the new Harry Potter movie (we're not six), nor do we care about how Michael Jackson's estate/debt/etc. gets sliced up. We're just blogging tonight to remind you we're still vertical. Check out these marvelous news items from the last couple days:

BOB DYLAN PROFILED IN NEW JERSEY
from CNN: How does it feel? To be on your own? A complete unknown? Bob Dylan might know.
A police officer questioning Bob Dylan recognized his name but wasn't sure it was him.

The rock legend was stopped in July by police in Long Branch, New Jersey, who were responding to a call about a suspicious person roaming the neighborhood, police said.

According to Long Branch Police Department Sgt. Michael Ahart, Dylan had been peering into a window of a house that was for sale, which prompted a neighbor to call the police on July 23.

One of two responding officers, Officer Kristie Buble, 24, approached Dylan and asked him for his name.

"She recognized the name, she just really didn't believe it was Bob Dylan," Ahart told CNN. "He was soaking wet because it was raining and he was wearing a hood."

So Buble asked the musician for identification, but he had none.

Buble and her partner, Officer Derrick Meyers, 24, then asked Dylan, 68, to accompany them to where his tour buses were parked. Once they arrived, Dylan showed them identification.

"Dylan was really cool about the whole incident," Ahart said. He said he asked the singer why he had been walking in the rain and was told, "I just felt like going for a walk."

Dylan, who is on a national tour with musicians Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp, was in Long Branch on the Jersey shore prior to his performance at a baseball stadium in nearby Lakewood.

JOAN BAEZ DIFFUSES PROTESTERS OUTSIDE HER CONCERT... BY GOING OUTSIDE AND TALKING TO THEM
This is an awesome story, best told by the link below which is the account of someone who was there. Click Here For The Story

We like Dylan and we like Joan. Dylan, by the way, has released what so far sounds like the Album Of The Year. It's a delightfully dirty, slow-groove, blues masterpiece.

That's all for now. We'll be barkin' atcha again soon.

Koko Taylor, 1928-2009

"QUEEN OF THE BLUES" KOKO TAYLOR
1928 - 2009
From kokotaylor.com

Grammy Award-winning blues legend Koko Taylor, 80, died on June 3, 2009 in her hometown of Chicago, IL, as a result of complications following her May 19 surgery to correct a gastrointestinal bleed. On May 7, 2009, the critically acclaimed Taylor, known worldwide as the "Queen of the Blues," won her 29th Blues Music Award (for Traditional Female Blues Artist Of The Year), making her the recipient of more Blues Music Awards than any other artist. In 2004 she received the NEA National Heritage Fellowship Award, which is among the highest honors given to an American artist. Her most recent CD, 2007's Old School, was nominated for a Grammy (eight of her nine Alligator albums were Grammy-nominated). She won a Grammy in 1984 for her guest appearance on the compilation album Blues Explosion on Atlantic.

Born Cora Walton on a sharecropper's farm just outside Memphis, TN, on September 28, 1928, Koko, nicknamed for her love of chocolate, fell in love with music at an early age. Inspired by gospel music and WDIA blues disc jockeys B.B. King and Rufus Thomas, Taylor began belting the blues with her five brothers and sisters, accompanying themselves on their homemade instruments. In 1952, Taylor and her soon-to-be-husband, the late Robert "Pops" Taylor, traveled to Chicago with nothing but, in Koko's words, "thirty-five cents and a box of Ritz Crackers."

In Chicago, "Pops" worked for a packing company, and Koko cleaned houses. Together they frequented the city's blues clubs nightly. Encouraged by her husband, Koko began to sit in with the city's top blues bands, and soon she was in demand as a guest artist. One evening in 1962 Koko was approached by arranger/composer Willie Dixon. Overwhelmed by Koko's performance, Dixon landed Koko a Chess Records recording contract, where he produced her several singles, two albums and penned her million-selling 1965 hit "Wang Dang Doodle," which would become Taylor's signature song.

After Chess Records was sold, Taylor found a home with the Chicago's Alligator Records in 1975 and released the Grammy-nominated I Got What It Takes. She recorded eight more albums for Alligator between 1978 and 2007, received seven more Grammy nominations and made numerous guest appearances on various albums and tribute recordings. Koko appeared in the films Wild At Heart, Mercury Rising and Blues Brothers 2000. She performed on Late Night With David Letterman, Late Night With Conan O'Brien, CBS-TV's This Morning, National Public Radio's All Things Considered, CBS-TV's Early Edition, and numerous regional television programs.

Over the course of her 40-plus-year career, Taylor received every award the blues world has to offer. On March 3, 1993, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley honored Taylor with a "Legend Of The Year" Award and declared "Koko Taylor Day" throughout Chicago. In 1997, she was inducted into the Blues Foundation's Hall of Fame. A year later, Chicago Magazine named her "Chicagoan Of The Year" and, in 1999, Taylor received the Blues Foundation's Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2009 Taylor performed in Washington, D.C. at The Kennedy Center Honors honoring Morgan Freeman.

Koko Taylor was one of very few women who found success in the male-dominated blues world. She took her music from the tiny clubs of Chicago's South Side to concert halls and major festivals all over the world. She shared stages with every major blues star, including Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, B.B. King, Junior Wells and Buddy Guy as well as rock icons Robert Plant and Jimmy Page.
Taylor's final performance was on May 7, 2009 in Memphis at the Blues Music Awards, where she sang "Wang Dang Doodle" after receiving her award for Traditional Blues Female Artist Of The Year.

Survivors include Taylor's husband Hays Harris, daughter Joyce Threatt, son-in-law Lee Threatt, grandchildren Lee, Jr. and Wendy, and three great-grandchildren.

Funeral arrangements will be announced.

Note from Highway 99:
Koko was 80, her death was not tragic but it's sad. We saw her many times in Chicago. Super nice lady who deserved all her success and then some. Unlike too many artists and musicians, she really appreciated her audience and always made time to talk with fans, laid many hugs and kisses on many of those who approached her to sign a record or CD. She was also an active philanthropist. We met her a few times, in non-public situations where if she wasn't the person fans knew from the clubs and festivals, her true personality would bleed through. Her true personality was just slightly less energetic but at least as warm and engaging. If the world was full of people like Koko, many of the world's problems would not exist. RIP, good woman.
- Eric and Ed Maloney, Highway 99 Blues Club, Seattle

Moreland & Arbuckle, Gravel Road

Staying on our ongoing theme of 21st Century Blues... on Friday night, we had a fine bill of entertainment that warmed our hearts. Moreland & Arbuckle, the tirelessly touring trio from Kansas, brought their tasteful, vintage sound. To open the show, the Seattle-based Gravel Road made their Highway 99 debut and delivered a compelling brand of dark blues, a style which delightfully marries the traditional sounds of the Mississippi low country with a minimalist rock sensibility. As we've said, Blues, like any genre, can be a lot of things. Like fans of any art form, we long for the old masters, the pioneers who made it possible for all who followed. But we also embrace the present and enjoy those who are doing it now, honoring the forefathers (and foremothers) while bringing their own contemporary elements to the party. And that's what Friday was all about. As we think of comparisons to other genres, we love rock & roll originators like Ike Turner and Jerry Lee Lewis, and we also love modern artists on the charts today like Green Day and Kings of Leon. Speaking of good music, we've got to wrap this entry up because the Crossroads Band's I-5 Harmonica Houseparty is blowing the roof off the joint at the moment. Do you know any roof guys who work Saturday nights? (pictured above, Moreland & Arbuckle; video below, Gravel Road closes their set by paying tribute to R.L. Burnside)

21st Century Blues

You could poll 100 people on the matter of "what is the Blues?" and you'd probably get 100 different answers. Most of them would probably be right in various ways. To some, if it ain't acoustic and recorded south of the Mason-Dixon Line, it might be bluesy but it ain't the Blues. Some prefer the post-WWII electric stuff (Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Bo Diddley) and regard the earlier stuff as anything from "early country" to "folk blues." Some prefer the Blues of the Classic Rock Era, Mike Bloomfield, the Paul Butterfield Band, the J. Geils Band, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin... Then there are those who only know the stuff which made commercial radio in the 80s: George Thorogood & the Destroyers, Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble, and a Pacific Northwest treasure named Robert Cray. There are many destination points in between those, but you know what we mean. It's all a matter of taste and it's all Blues.

On the old stuff, few will argue the value and enjoyability of everyone from Robert Johnson to Son House, Magic Sam to Bessie Smith, Memphis Minnie to Big Bill Broonzy... we could yammer on for weeks about the things we love about the Blues of the 20th Century. Hell, we've got a club based on it. In this blog entry, we offer up a couple artists and labels who are, in our opinion, carrying the torch and evolving the genre into the post-2K era. And to avoid being accused of self-promotion, we'll make a point to not include artists who've played our club. So here goes:

ARTISTS:
The Black Keys - guitar-intensive blues-rock. If you dig Zeppelin and the Black Crowes, we guarantee you'll love this band. Minimal 2-4 piece arrangements, they don't try to get cute, not even when their last album was produced by Gnarls Barkley member Danger Mouse.
Rocco DeLuca & the Burden - imagine Jeff Buckley as a Blues artist. Heartfelt vocals and personal songwriting make this guy's albums a staple in your car, your mp3 player, wherever you listen to music. He's been flying below the radar but that's about to change.
Gravelroad - now we're part guilty, because this Seattle-based band is playing here w/ Moreland & Arbuckle on May 8. Gravelroad represents a new guard of Blues, fused with heavier, punk rock sensibilities. In '09, they've partnered with the legendary T-Model Ford for a road-intensive national tour.

ALBUMS:
Not the Same Old Blues Crap - the first in a series of compilations by the great Fat Possum label. They specialize in marrying traditional/older and contemporary/younger artists in ways that are awesome and more importantly, relevant. Far from gratuitous the standard "old meets new" schlock we see in other genres, this stuff is compelling and, if you fancy yourself a blues fan, necessary.

Stax Volt

Admittedly, we are not good bloggers. At least, we don't blog as often as folks who accept the term "blogger" tend to do. We're trying to get better at this, while also running a club in a rhythm-n-blues-challenged market and keeping up with all the internets (myspace, facebook, and now twitter, not to mention our own website). In this brief post, we'd just like to extol the virtues of Stax Records. We're currently digging the hell out of their nine-disc collection, The Complete Stax-Volt Singles 1959-1968. It's got all kinds of stuff you won't even find on the Best-Of compilations from the artists. If you threw a party - dinner, BBQ, nighttime, or otherwise - and only loaded this set into your jukebox of choice, you'd be a star among your friends for having such great taste in music that's sadly not been heard enough in the 21st century. Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Rufus Thomas, Booker T & the MGs, Eddie Floyd, Albert King, the Mar-Keys... If you're not feeling saucy enough to buy a nine-disc set in a retail environment, we understand. We bought it used, too. The used bins at local stores like Sonic Boom and Easy Street are the sources of many great finds. Online, we really love half.com, an ebay subsidiary where people sell used records, books, videos and such. That's all for today.


Here's a good source of

February 3, 1959

50 years ago today, "the day the music died."

So long Buddy, so long Richie, so long J.P. "Big Bopper."

And yes, the story of how Waylon Jennings gave up his seat on the plane.

Hard to believe Buddy put out all that music in such a short time. He was 22. Richie Valens was only 17. The Big Bopper was 28. Holly was living in Greenwich Village and getting involved in the burgeoning folk scene at the end of his life. This is a few years before Dylan got there. Who knows what he would have done. Rave On, sir.



From thisdayinmusic.com:

A young Bob Dylan attended the Duluth National Guard Armory show on 31st January 1959, two nights before Holly's death.

The family name was "Holley". When Buddy received his first recording contract from Decca Records in 1956, they inadvertently spelled his last name as "Holly". He kept it that way for the rest of his career.

Buddy failed his draft physical because of his poor eyesight.

Many groups from the era named themselves after insects, they did the same and choose "Crickets" as it was the only insect, which made its own "music", by chirping. (They almost named themselves the Beetles!).

Buddy had watched the John Wayne movie The Searchers. Each time that Wayne became disgruntled with something someone said, he'd mutter "That'll be the day". That catch phrase became the title of the first hit record by Buddy.

"Peggy Sue" was an actual person. Peggy Sue Gerron attended Lubbock High School and was the girlfriend and eventual wife of Jerry Allison, Buddy Holly's drummer.

Buddy Holly and the Crickets were the first all-white group to perform at New York's famed Apollo Theatre.

He was one of the first rock 'n' rollers to use overdubbing when one-track recording was the rule, and one of the first to use strings on a rock 'n' roll record.

Their tour busses kept breaking down and when they arrived in Clear Lake, Iowa to perform at the Surf Ballroom the evening of February 2, 1959, Buddy decided to charter a small plane to their next stop.

The Beechcraft Bonanza, named "Miss American Pie," took off from Mason City, at around 1:50 AM on February 3, 1959. The weather was cold and snowy. The plane crashed just after taking off. The pilot, Valens, Richardson and Holly were all killed.

Don McLean's 1971 "American Pie" is inspired by the day of the plane crash.

Rolling Stone Magazine ranked Holly No.13 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.

Paul McCartney owns the publishing rights to Holly's song catalogue.

The 1992 Nirvana video for "In Bloom" is filmed in Black and white using 1950s era television cameras and shows the band appearing in 1950s attire, (including Kurt Cobain wearing Buddy Holly style glasses) in an apparent tribute.

Weezer's self-titled debut album features the single "Buddy Holly."

On Feb 29th 1980, the glasses that Buddy Holly had been wearing when he died were discovered in a police file in Mason, Iowa after being there for over 21 years.