The Church Keys at CS's Restaurant, 03-24-12

The Church Keys from Jackson, MS playing the next to last song of a massive 38 song show that lasted well over two and a half hours without a break. The location of this March 24, 2012 show was CS's Restaurant near the Millsaps College campus in Jackson. You can find a video playlist from the show at THIS LINK.

Get more info on The Church Keys at this Church Keys facebook page or The Church Keys website.

Get more info about upcoming shows at CS's Restaurant at this CS's facebook page

Guitar Virtuoso at Sneaky Beans

There was a benefit concert at Sneaky Beans Coffee Shop in Jackson, MS back in December of 2011. Thanks to a chance meeting in a local music store and a casual invitation to come play at the show, an internationally known performer did show up virtually unannounced to do a set.  His credentials are listed in the YouTube description section of the above video and you can see that by clicking on THIS YOUTUBE LINK.

I shot 7 videos and they turned out pretty good by my standards. The performer sounded great to me despite playing outdoors in near freezing weather. Of course, the videos aren't nearly as good as this musician's numerous professionally done videos that are already posted on YouTube, so it is no surprise that I wasn't given permission to make these videos public.

However, there seems to be no problem with THIS VIDEO which was shot during that chance meeting at the music store, and the 7 videos are already posted on YouTube in the "unlisted" category (meaning that the videos aren't visable on my page or displayed by a YouTube search).  Considering the very limited readership of this blog, it doesn't seem like any harm would be done by embedding the above video or providing this link to my 7 video playlist. Truthfully, I think the videos along with the story of Joe R. donating his time and talents would be a positive if these videos were made public, but that's not my call to make.

So, the few of you reading this are about the only folks in the world with a chance to see the videos.  If you don't have 23 minutes to watch the videos, I think you'll enjoy starting up the playlist and listening to the songs while you work on other computer things.  This is one very talented musician who seems to be a very nice young man.  The world will hear a lot from him in the years to come and it was certainly my pleasure to be among the crowd who heard him last December at Sneaky Beans.

2012 MS Blues Marathon: Cadillac John Nolden and Bill Abel

Cadillac John Nolden from Renova, MS and BIll Abel from Duncan, MS performing "Ride My Mule" at the 2012 MS Blues Marathon Expo in Jackson, MS (01/06/12). Playlist of all 14 videos from this show can be found at THIS LINK.

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I applaud the folks at the MS Blues Marathon for bringing some exposure to the various musicians that appear at the event from year to year. I especially appreciate the chance to hear men like Cadillac John Nolden, performers who have too often been plying their trade for decades without much in the way of public recognition.

And speaking of appreciation, I certainly appreciate the efforts of Bill Abel in performances like this. It has been my pleasure to hear Bill play solo on several occasions as well as hearing him with Cadillac John and T-Model Ford. I always enjoy his music whether he is center stage or blending in with a supporting role.

Here are a few links for Cadillac John Nolden and Bill Abel followed by the Cadillac John Nolden bio written by Scott Barretta:

Bill Abel's CD on CDBaby
Cadillac John Nolden bio from the Mississippi Folklife and Folk Artist Directory
Bill Abel on MySpace
Bio and more about Bill Abel

And here's that Cadillac John bio which can be found at the 2nd link above:


"Cadillac" John Nolden
Blues Harmonica Player & Vocalist, Renova

“Cadillac” John Nolden is a blues harmonica player, songwriter, and vocalist from Renova, Mississippi. He was born in Sunflower on April 12, 1927, one of ten children. The family worked on various plantations in the area, including one owned by the mayor of Sunflower, W.L. Patterson. Nolden, who emphasizes the value of hard work, picked and chopped cotton and plowed with mules, and recalls that his family often went to work before sunrise. As a young man he began driving a tractor on the L.E. Moore plantation near Minter City, and over the years worked in various jobs, including a brickyard in Indianola. His nickname derives from an old Cadillac he drove that continually backfired.


His father, Walter Nolden, sang gospel, and three of his uncles—“Red,” Bruce, and Mel—played guitar. Nolden didn’t take up any instruments as a young man, but was a strong vocalist, and formed a gospel group with his siblings called the Four Nolden Brothers. He sang baritone and first and second lead. He recalls as influences the Golden Gate Quartet, the Fairfield Four, and the Soproco Spiritual Singers, who performed over WWL out of New Orleans.


Nolden and his siblings performed throughout the region and had a radio show on a station on Greenwood during the mid-1940s. Riley (later B.B.) King’s quartet, The Famous St. John's Gospel Singers, performed over the same station. Other local groups included the Big Four from Belzoni and the Happy Band Quartet from Sunflower.


The group eventually broke up when one brother died and two others left the area. Nolden later sang for 8-9 years with the gospel group the Four Stars out of Sunflower [not to be confused with a group of the same name from Clarksdale, which featured Early Wright].


Nolden also played blues together with his brother Jesse James Nolden, a guitarist, on the streets of Sunflower and occasionally at house parties and jukes. He was reluctant to play the latter because of the threat of violence. Jesse James later moved to Jackson, where he lives today. Other blues musicians who played on the streets of Sunflower included Riley King, then a resident of nearby Indianola, and Charlie Booker, a Sunflower native and Leland-based bluesman who recorded for Modern Records and Sun Records.


Nolden listened religiously to Sonny Boy Williamson II’s daily lunchtime radio show King Biscuit Time, over KFFA in Helena, Arkansas, as well as on Saturdays [Sonny Boy recorded a show in Belzoni that was broadcast later out of Greenville and Yazoo City; Charlie Booker also had a local radio show sponsored by a tire company.] Nolden saw many local performances by Sonny Boy’s band, and also has strong memories of Robert Nighthawk.


After his brother left the area and the Four Stars disbanded, Nolden stopped performing except for occasional solos at church. Around 1970 he was inspired to take up the blues again to help alleviate the pain he felt after his wife abruptly left him. “She even took the curtains from the windows,” he recalls. He bought a harmonica from the Simmons drug store in Cleveland and “went to hummin’ a little then... I just couldn’t hardly hold it back.”


During the ‘70s and ’80s Nolden performed some on the streets of Sunflower, but otherwise played mostly around the home. In the ‘90s he performed locally with a band that included guitarist Monroe Jones, and appeared under his own name at the Delta Blues Festival and the Sunflower River Blues & Gospel Festival. In 2000 Jones introduced Nolden to his current partner, guitarist Bill Abel from Belzoni. They have played regularly at venues in the area, as well as at the King Biscuit Blues Festival, the Sunflower River Blues & Gospel Festival, the Highway 61 Blues Festival, and the Yazoo Blues Festival. In 2000 they released the CD Crazy About You, which contains five originals from Nolden in a vintage style, and in 2005 they traveled to perform for a blues society in Pennsylvania.


-Scott Barretta

2012 Mississippi Blues Marathon: Terry "Harmonica" Bean

Terry "Harmonica" Bean of Pontotoc, MS performing "I Wonder Who" at the 2012 MS Blues Marathon Expo in Jackson, MS (01/06/12). The playlist for the 15 videos from this set can be found by clicking on THIS LINK.

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Here are some links for Terry "Harmonica" Bean and then a cut-and-paste of the bio found on the Mississippi Folklife & Folk Artist Directory:

Harmonica Bean bio from Mississippi Folklife & Folk Artist Directory
Harmonica Bean on Cat Head website
Harmonica Bean music on CDBaby website

Here's that bio written by Scott Barretta:

Terry "Harmonica" Bean
Blues Musician, Pontotoc

Terry “Harmonica” Bean is still relatively young, but has decades of experience with the blues. A lifelong resident of Pontotoc, Bean first heard downhome blues at home. His father Eddie Bean, a native of Bruce, sang and played blues guitar and prior to Terry’s birth traveled with an electric blues band.


For many years Eddie Bean, who died in 1985, hosted informal music and gambling gatherings at the family’s house on “Bean Hill” in west Pontotoc. He also worked as a sharecropper, enlisting Terry and other of his fourteen children to pick cotton in the surrounding fields.


Terry began playing guitar and harmonica as a child, and eventually his father began featuring him at the home gatherings and taking him along to other house parties. Although Terry was a “natural,” he stopped playing around the time he was twelve because several of his brothers were jealous of the attention he received. Today his brother Jimmy plays bass in church and occasionally in Terry’s blues band, while brother Jerry Lee sings gospel as well as lead vocals in the Pontotoc-based Legends of the Blues.


Terry turned his attention instead to baseball, and was a star pitcher on American Legion league teams and his high school team, which he led to the state championship in 1980. Equally adept with both hands, Terry pitched five no-hitters and attracted scouts from several professional teams.


A professional career in baseball was curtailed, however, when Terry was injured in a motorcycle accident and he lost his competitive edge. Nevertheless, he continued to play semi-pro ball in his ‘20s until he was involved in another automotive accident.


Terry decided to “get serious” about the blues in 1988 after visiting the Delta Blues Festival in Greenville. He went there to see Robert Junior Lockwood, who played with Terry’s idol, harmonica legend Little Walter, but inadvertently fell in with the Greenville blues scene.


Every weekend for three years Terry traveled to Greenville and its environs to play harmonica with James "T-Model" Ford as well as Asie Payton at various juke joints. He also played across the Delta with artists including Lonnie Pitchford.


Back home he formed a band, and began playing guitar himself after becoming frustrated with teaching others his ideal sound. Following the lead of Arkansas bluesman John Weston, he started using a harmonica rack and performing as a one-man band, stomping his feet for percussion.


Since the mid-‘80s Terry has worked full-time at a furniture factory in Pontotoc, but he has maintained a busy performance schedule as both a solo artist and with the Terry Harmonica Bean Blues Band. He has performed at festivals across Mississippi as well as in Alabama, Arkansas, Missouri, and Tennessee, and regularly works at clubs across the region. Since 2002 he has released six self-produced CDs that document both his band and solo performances.


Terry is consciously dedicated to “keeping alive” older styles of blues. “What’s stimulating to me,” he says, “is people hearing the blues played like they used to hear it.”


-Scott Barretta

2012 Mississippi Blues Marathon: Virgil Brawley Videos

Virgil Brawley performing "Darkness on the Delta" at the 2012 MS Blues Marathon Expo in Jackson, MS (01/06/12). The playlist with 13 videos from this set can be found by clicking THIS LINK.

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Links for Virgil:

Reverbnation site for Virgil Brawley/The Juvenators
MySpace for Virgil Brawley/The Juvenators
Virgil's "Bottle Tree" CD on the CDBaby website

And speaking of Virgil's CD "Bottle Tree", here's a review of that album which originally appeared at THIS LINK:

From The Book of Juv

Put on your rubber boots because Virgil Brawley's gonna drag us deep into the Mississippi Delta mud with his first solo release, Bottle Tree, and prepare for a soulful and spiritual trip with each step. Most of Brawley's musical output has been with his band, The Juvenators, and those who have followed the ol' blog here know of my history with them and just might have read my review of Mojo Burning. This release is for the most part an acoustic outing featuring the fine blues writing, singing, and guitar playing of Brawley, with additional instrumentation sprinkled among the eleven songs here (eight originals).

As he has on his three Juvenator discs, Brawley writes lyrics which have deep roots in personal experience and observation, and they always have a solid story line. Mojo Burning recounted a fire that took out all of his musical equipment and prized possessions and the Juvenators served it up on a blues dirged platter. On Bottle Tree, Brawley's reflections on life include painting his white house blue, searching for solid ground, looking for Little Susie, and thanking his cat for allowing him to share her home with him.

Along the way, he gets real spiritual a time or two, such as with his take on the biblical story of St. Peter in Fish Tales, that includes some nice acoustic finger picking from Steve Chester in support (he chimes in on couple of other tunes as well). Brawley's vocals have always had a world weary quality that fits the blues so well, and when that ol' spirit is moving him, then the mud gets deep. Walking Through Eden and Lightnin' Hopkins' Needed Time keeps that old time religion rolling with the former employing some sweet slide from Chis Gill's National Triolian Resophonic guitar and some slick sliding way deep in the well from Brawley's Dobro on the latter. The first is a ghostly, dreamy search for redemption and the second a shout out to Jesus to let him know that his time is needed--now.

Brawley proves that he can slip and slide on the strings pretty darn good on quite a few cuts on Bottle Tree, including on the title cut which is about spirits of a couple of different types. Seems that a bottle tree's creative purpose is to ward off evil spirits, so he adds a few of his own bottles after draining off the spirits and hopes that those dead soldiers don't become the death of him. Tyler Bridge and Ted Gainey's bass and drums add to the atmosphere here and on other tunes as well. Brawley's slide keeps Tampa Red's (who was no slouch on slide) traditional Delta Woman Blues, well, traditional and puts a light pin on Sweet Josephine, which never explicitly states that it's about a cat, but it sure sounds like a few that I have known. Hell, Virgil might have a monkey for all I know. Regardless, though, it is a tale well told.

He keeps that light touch sliding on his lament of lost tradition on Eudora's Jitney. The tune has a country flavor to it, and Brawley channels John Prine's vocal timbre on this metaphor about growing a bit long in the tooth and watching the world change for the worse. The song is about the Jitney-Jungle grocery store chain that had its birth in Jackson, Mississippi and spread out across the South, until Winn-Dixie bought out most of them. Eudora Welty made frequent trips to Jitney #14 on Fortification street in the Belhaven distict of Jackson, and her writings made it as famous as she. It's a McDade's Market now, and as Brawley writes, it may still have #14 above the entrance, but it just.."ain't Eudora's Jitney anymore".

There is a touch of Brawley's electric guitar on White House Blue, about making his disatifaction obvious, to everyone who drives past, by getting out the ol' paint brush. Jimmy Jarrat shines when given the greenlight to throw down some nice piano licks, and he does the same on the only other electric blues affair, Solid Ground on which Brawley wonders if he'll ever find again. His minor key single string work is understated, but effective--the way it's supposed to be.

Bottle Tree has captured the essence of the Delta in the writing, singing, and picking of Virgil Brawley, so get those rubber boots out--or maybe some hip waders, because he's gonna take you deep out in it before its over. Look for his stuff here:
cdbaby and at The Juvenators cdbaby site.

2012 Mississippi Blues Marathon: Jimmy "Duck" Holmes Videos

Jimmy "Duck" Holmes from Bentonia, MS performing "Rock Me, Mama" at the 2012 MS Blues Marathon Expo in Jackson, MS (01/06/12). A 9 video playlist from this show can be found at THIS LINK. The playlists are a great way to listen to Jackson, MS music even if you don't have time to actually watch the videos.

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Here are some links for Jimmy "Duck" Holmes followed by a bio from one of the links:

Purchase Jimmy "Duck" Holmes CDs
Jimmy "Duck" Holmes on MySpace
Jimmy "Duck" Holmes on facebook
Mississippi Folklife and Folk Artist page for Jimmy "Duck" Holmes

Below is a cut-and-paste from the last link, a piece written by Scott Barretta:

Jimmy "Duck" Holmes is the proprietor of one of the oldest juke joints in Mississippi, the Blue Front in Bentonia. In the mid-2000s he began performing blues actively after many years of performing casually, and has already garnered several awards and many accolades. He is a practitioner and conscious advocate of a distinctive blues style from his hometown whose most famous proponent was blues pioneer Skip James.


Holmes was born to sharecroppers Carey and Mary Holmes in 1947, the year before they opened the Blue Front Café. He was one of ten children and his parents also raised four children of Mary’s deceased sister. The children all grew up partially at the Blue Front, which served hot meals, sold groceries, housed a barbershop, and sold bootleg corn liquor to both its African American customers and to whites who would buy it out of the café’s back door. With the money they earned from the café and harvesting cotton, the Holmes sent most of their children to college.


During the segregation era the Blue Front was subject most of the time to a 10:00 pm curfew, but during the cotton harvest it stayed open 24 hours a day to accommodate workers processing cotton. Another segregation-era restriction was that the café could not serve Coca-Cola, which was reserved for whites. They instead sold brands such as Nehi but began selling Coca-Cola after the end of official segregation.


Musical performances at the café have historically been mostly informal, and notable out-of-towners who played there included James "Son" Thomas and Sonny Boy Williamson II. It also hosted musicians who played in what has been called the "Bentonia School" of the blues, which is characterized by distinctive tunings (E-Minor and open D-Minor), the use of falsetto, dark lyrical themes, and an overall eerie" quality.


The most famous artist from Bentonia who played in this style was Nehemiah "Skip" James (1902-1969). James learned to play guitar from local musicians including Henry Stuckey, who was never recorded, and also learned to play the piano. He recorded on both instruments for Paramount Records in 1931, resulting in influential songs including "Devil Got My Woman", "Hard Time Killing Floor", and "22-20 Blues", which Robert Johnson recorded as "32-20 Blues". After his "rediscovery" in the 1960s, James recorded several albums and performed on the folk circuit, introducing his seemingly idiosyncratic style to a new generation.


In the mid-‘60s musicologist David Evans travelled to Bentonia to conduct research, and found that other artists shared James’ style, notably Jack Owens (1904-1997), who ran a juke joint in Bentonia for many years, and Cornelius Bright. Evans’ field recordings of Owens were released on the 1971 Testament album It Must Have Been the Devil, and in subsequent decades Owens, together with his partner, blind harmonica player Bud Spires, performed at various festivals and was often visited at home by blues pilgrims.


Holmes, who never met Skip James, studied the music of Owens, learning songs including "Cherry Ball", "Hard Times", "I’d Rather Be the Devil", but didn’t perform very actively until relatively recently. He promoted blues through the founding in 1972 of the Bentonia Blues Festival, which took place annually until the mid-‘90s and was revived in 2006. He took over the Blue Front in 1970 after the death of his father, and beginning in the ‘80s the café became a popular destination for blues tourists, including annual visits by busloads of Japanese fans. In 1995 a commercial for Levi’s 501 jeans was filmed there.


Various blues researchers including Alan Lomax recorded Holmes beginning at least in the ‘70s, but until recently his only vocal appearance on record was one song, "Devil’s Blues", that he performed together with Cornelius Bright and which appeared on the Austrian Wolf label compilation album Giants of Country Blues Volume 2. In 2006 the St. Louis-based record label Broke & Hungry released Holmes’ debut CD Back to Bentonia. He was joined on the record by Spires and drummer Sam Carr, and in addition to some originals songs, Holmes also covered the Bentonia standards "Hard Times" and "I’d Rather Be the Devil".


The CD was well received, and garnered several Living Blues Awards and to multiple festival bookings, including the Chicago Blues Festival and the Arkansas Blues and Heritage Festival. Holmes, who normally works as an educator, has traditionally been a somewhat reluctant performer, but has enjoyed the opportunity to share his music and talk about the Bentonia tradition. "You don’t get nervous when you’re doing your hobby," he says of performing.


In 2007 Broke and Hungry released a second CD, Done Got Tired of Tryin’, which followed a similar formula, and included James’ "Cherry Ball". The CD was nominated for a 2008 Blues Music Award for Acoustic Album of the Year, and National Public Radio listed it as one of the "Top 10 Blues Albums" of the year. Holmes also received national publicity in August 2007 when a Mississippi Blues Trail historic marker was dedicated in honor of the Blue Front Café.


Other members of Holmes’ family who are involved in the blues include his brother John and cousin Otha, who both sing and play guitar, and his sister Mary Alice Towner, who started a blues and gospel festival in Marks, Mississippi in 2000.


-Scott Barretta

Waypoint CD Release Show at Sneaky Beans (12/16/11)

Waypoint performing at their CD Release show held at Sneaky Beans Coffee Shop in Jackson, MS (12/16/11). Members of this Jackson/Hattiesburg MS band are: Justin Moreira, Cody Bass, Travis Bass, and Salar Almakky.

Waypoint was the last band on this cold December evening, following up Chasing Edom of Brandon, MS and Slowriter from Atlanta. Considering the weather, this was a good crowd and they certainly seemed to be into the music. I don't know too much about this band other than the info that can be found at the following links:

Waypoint videos from the CD release show
Waypoint on Bandcamp
Waypoint on facebook

Chasing Edom at Sneaky Beans in Jackson, MS (12/16/11)

Chasing Edom from Brandon, MS performing "Bluebird Lullaby" at Sneaky Beans Coffee Shop in Jackson, MS (12/16/11). Band members are: Aaron Thomas, Brennan White, and Will Jacob.

I hadn't heard of "Chasing Edom" prior to this show, but the odds are good that I haven't heard of the majority of bands in the Jackson Metro area. There are a lot of good bands in the area and an amazing number of touring bands who stop over in Jackson each year. We need to find a way to get more support for all of these musicians but there seems to be no easy solution to that problem.

Here's a link to the 10 videos from Chasing Edom's set and a link to their facebook page:

Chasing Edom playlist from Sneaky Beans show (12/16/11)
Chasing Edom on facebook