Tag: Blues

Yesterday Janiva Magness celebrated her 57th birthday. If you do not Janiva is a blues superstar. She was named the Blues Foundation’s B.B. King Entertainer of the Year in 2009, becoming only the second woman, after Koko Taylor, to be so honored. She was also named the Contemporary Blues Female Artist of the Year in that same year! She had won that award in both 2006 and 2007. In 2012 she was nominated for that award again. All ototal since 2006, she has had 22 similar nominations! This year she won the 2013 Blues music Award: for Contemporary Artist of…

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So this afternoon’s soundtrack will be the new album from Kara Grainger Shiver & Sigh. Here’s some background from Amazon.com Australia native, now Los Angeles based, Kara Grainger first picked up the guitar at age 12. She started performing in the late ’90s as lead vocalist and guitarist with the successful Sydney-based blues outfit, Papa Lips. With her brother, acclaimed harmonica player Mitch Grainger, Kara and Papa Lips enjoyed a quintessentially Australian experience. Fuelled by national ABC Radio play for their two albums, “Harmony” and “High Time Now,” the band toured up and down the sun drenched beach towns of…

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So one of those early bluesman who mightily influenced blues and rock performers in the 60s  and 70s was born on December 5th! Now the year he was born that may be in question in his review at the AllMusic Guide, Cub Koda writes: A moody, bitter, and suspicious man, no one wove such a confusing web of misinformation as Sonny Boy Williamson II. Even his birth date (stated as December 5, 1899 in most reference books, but some sources claim his birth may have been in either 1897 or 1909) and real name (Aleck or Alex or Willie “Rice” — which may…

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