A Jazzy, Proggy, New Age Safari

Today is the birthday of two  blues – W.C”s the first is W.C. Handy the “father of the blues” from Wikipedia….. William Christopher Handy (November 16, 1873 – March 28, 1958) was a blues composer and musician.[1] He was widely known as the “Father of the Blues”. Handy remains among the most influential of American songwriters. Though he was one of many musicians who played the distinctively American form of music known as the blues, he is credited with giving it its contemporary form. While Handy was not the first to publish music in the blues form, he took the blues from a regional music style with a limited audience…

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The harmonica amazes me. Such a simple little instrument yet in the hands of a master it’s one of the most expressive of all musical instruments. One of those masters Carey Bell was born on this day in 1936! For those of you who are unfortunate enough not to know Carey here’s some background from Wikipedia: Carey Bell (November 14, 1936 – May 6, 2007)[1] was an American blues musician, who played the harmonica in the Chicago blues style. Born Carey Bell Harrington in the blues-fertile state of Mississippi, Bell played harmonica (harp) and bass for other blues musicians during…

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So on Sunday as I was doing some errands before the Eagles game I listened to a couple of new blues albums the first was Jeff Strahan‘s latest Monkey Around and Five Finger Discount from Soulstack. I enjoyed both  albums! Let’s start with Jeff Strahan first. From his website…… “Strahan is a fiery Texas spirit, a killer guitar player & piano pounder and singer, as wild as the high plains from which he hails, and as cool as the hill country where he lives. He’s as real & strong as lightning, I swear, and I love being around him, to…

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So this morning when I was researching Greg Lake I was listening to his latest album Songs of a Lifetime. One of the songs was of course “From the Beginning” somehow during the search and listening I came across a version of the song from the band Glass Harp that appears on their album Glass Harp Strings Attached Live with the Youngstown Symphony Orchestra. Track seven on the album is a nice cover of the song “John the Revelator” Later in the morning I was looking for some new music on the Roots Music Report charts. One of the names on the Roots…

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