ALICE MAE BURNSIDE, WIFE OF R.L. HAS PASSED

Juke Joint Soul blog reports that:

Alice Mae Burnside - April 26, 1932 - November 16, 2008. Beloved wife of the late R.L. Burnside passed away Sunday. She was a loving mother to 12 children and grandmother to a host of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Services will be held on Saturday at 11 a.m. at Tchulahoma Church on Hwy 4 inByhalia with a graveside service at Free Spring Cemetery in Lost Hill, MS. The family requests all flowers be sent to Rodgers Funeral Home in Coldwater; 662-622-5608.


R.L.Burnside plays Alice Mae at The Euclid Tavern in Cleveland OH Date unknown.

THE JUKE JOINT

photo from Junior Kimbrough's Juke Joint by Gregg Cooke

Essential Reading:
Juke Joint by Birney Imes

What is a juke joint anyway?

I'll tell ya what it isn't. It is not a place in Oregon or Calgary or Denver or Massachusetts. The late Junior Kimbrough had arguably the most famous juke in the world at one point. Hell, iggy stopped by. So did some 'stones. U2. And me and my wife. You drive down a two lane black top thru a steaming moonless Mississippi country night surrounded by cotton fields. Roll down the windows and hear thru the wind the bass thump. Crest the hill and come upon a a big ol' flat shack house in the middle of somewhere all lit up and surrounded by cars and folks milling about. Ya go inside and walk past the pool table and around the dancers grinding out that fatass hill country groove and there is R.L. Burnside sittin' and layin' it down with some young Kimbroughs and Burnsides. Over in the corner they got a window where you can buy a sandwich or a beer. The walls are painted with folk art renderings of Oprah and more surrounded by gold glitter frames and Christmas lights. It's loud and maybe you feel a little out of place til R.L. asks your wife to dance while you watch Kinny Kimbrough play the drums and you can't imagine a better place in the world to be.

"Juke joint (or jook joint) is the vernacular term for an informal establishment featuring music, dancing, gambling, and drinking, primarily operated by African American people in the southeastern United States. The term "juke" is believed to derive from the Gullah word joog, meaning rowdy or disorderly."

Junior's Juke Joint is my second favorite blues site. Jammed with great info on juke joints and honky tonks + pictures, maps to grave sites etc, and even recipes. If you are planning to visit the south in search of the blues check here first. If you never plan to visit but want a taste of the flavor check here, too. While yr there please buy some stuff from Junior or click on his banners. He needs the dough to keep the Bluesmobile runnin'. Check his documentary JUKE! featuring T-Model Ford and pre-FP Johnny Farmer aka Farmer John and his son. This video even at only a 1/2 hr is a must have.

THE HiSTORY OF AMERiCAN JUKE JOiNTS

NATiONAL GEOGRAPHiC ViSiTS
JUNiOR KiMBROUGH'S JUKE

Photo essay by William Albert Allard
Leslie and I were there that night but ol'Bill Allard forgot to put us on the cover!

JUKiN iN MiSSiSSiPPi
Article and listing of Mississippi jukes as of 1996

Juke Joint Festival

Gip's Place

Teddy's Juke Joint in Zachary, Louisiana

Po' Monkeys near Marigold Mississippi

Juke Joint Photo from The Library of Congress

Jimmy Duck Holmes' Blue Front Cafe

Music Maker Relief Fund Gift Giving Guide

A note from your friend Jeff Konkel at Broke and Hungry Records:

Greetings, friends. I'm doing a little volunteering on behalf of the Music Maker Relief Foundation. As many of you know, Music Maker is a true force for good in the blues world. The nonprofit organization provides much needed financial support to traditional blues artists throughout much of the southern United States. Their subsidiary, Music Maker Records, is responsible for some of the finest traditional blues albums of the last 15 years.With the holiday season now upon us, the Music Maker Relief Foundation is launching a Holiday Gift-Giving Campaign. Details are below. I hope some of you will continue participating in this great program. You can check of some gifts from your holiday list while helping to preserve the music we all love. Thanks for your consideration!MUSIC MAKER RELIEF FOUNDATION LAUNCHES HOLIDAY GIFT-GIVING CAMPAIGNProgram aims to connect music lovers to raw, forgotten world of American roots music while benefiting the artists who create it (HILLSBOROUGH, NC) – In recent weeks, economic woes have finally spread from Wall Street to Main Street. Yet for many traditional blues and roots artists, hard times are nothing new. Many live at or below the poverty line, struggling to cover even basic living expenses. To help address the dire needs of these musicians, the Music Maker Relief Foundation has launched the Music Maker Holiday Gift-Giving Campaign at www.musicmaker.org. Through this campaign, individuals can purchase select packages of Music Maker products as gifts for their blues-and-roots-loving friends and family, while at the same time benefiting the very artists responsible for the music.A portion of every dollar spent on the Music Maker Holiday Gift-Giving Campaign goes directly to artists in needs. Most of the artists served by the foundation are at least 65 years old and have an average income of $8,000. Funds raised by the foundation are used to support the artists’ basic needs, including housing, utilities, transportation, food and medical expenses. Additionally, the foundation supports musical development of artists through grants and services aimed at professional development and career advancement.“The blues are spiritual – a tradition that¹s been passed down from generation to generation,” said Music Maker’s founder Tim Duffy. “Music Maker’s aim is to preserve the musical integrity of the artists who have contributed so much to the blues yet never received recognition because they were never recorded. Our mission is to support these artists and deliver their message to the world.”The Music Maker Relief Foundation’s holiday gift giving campaign offers four basic packages at price points to match all pocketbooks: $20, $45, $75 and $145. By participating in the Music Maker Gift-Giving Campaign, both the giver and recipient will receive a one-year subscription to the quarterly Music Maker Rag. Contents of various gift packages are as follows: $20 – Package includes Heritage, the latest CD from the Carolina Chocolate Drops, a group of young African-American stringband musicians playing in the fiddle and banjo tradition of the Carolina Piedmont region.$45 – Package includes the aforementioned Carolina Chocolate Drops CD and a copy of Last & Lost Survivors, a two-CD multi-artist compilation featuring more than two-and-a-half hours of music. Artists include Guitar Gabriel, Captain Luke, Cool John Ferguson, Pura Fé, John Dee Holeman, Etta Baker, Cora Mae Bryant, Drink Small, Cootie Stark and many more. $75 – Package includes all of the above-listed items, as well as a copy of Music Makers: Portraits and Songs, a beautiful hardcover book charting the remarkable story of Music Maker through words and pictures. The book profiles 70 musicians and includes 160 black & white photos over the course of its 208 pages. Included with the book is a companion CD featuring 23 tracks by Music Maker artists.$145 - Package includes all of the above listed items. In addition, recipients will receive membership in the Givin’ It Back Record Club, which includes a new Music Maker CD every three months for a year.To learn more about the Music Maker Relief Foundation or to sign up for the holiday gift giving campaign, visit the organization online at www.musicmaker.org.

MiSSiSSiPPi GABE CARTER

!!UPDATE!!
Download a live set (MP3) of Mississippi Gabe Carter on Northwest University's WNUR right HERE!

At twenty-six Chicago's Mississippi Gabe Carter packs a fully strapped gang of flavour for a cat rockin' it solo. Heavily influenced by the raw-boned hard lonesome Bentonia Mississippi sound of Jack Owens as well as Juke Joint proprietor (and Broke and Hungry recording artist) Jimmy Duck Holmes and the legendary Skip James. Carter deftly picks like the masters of that unique southern delta area but his sound is also infused with the dark trancy reverb drenched vibe of North Mississippi. Mississippi Gabe Carter brings it with a depth of insight, understanding, and skills uncommon in blues music today.


Mississippi Gabe Carter's CD Midnight Dream is available via CDbaby.

What follows is an interview with Mississippi Gabe Carter:

When did you make your first trip to Mississippi in search of the music you were listening to? How old were you? Who were you hoping to find and did you find them? Did you have any contacts there before you went or did you just decide to go and see what happens?

I WAS ABOUT 20 YEARS OLD WHEN I FINALLY MADE IT DOWN THERE THE FIRST TIME. I HAD NO REAL IDEA WHERE I WAS GOING, EXCEPT THAT I WAS GOING TO MAKE IT TO BENTONIA. I MADE IT TO MEMPHIS ON MY FIRST DAY DRIVING AND JUST SLEPT THERE OVERNIGHT. I WOKE UP THE NEXT DAY, AND THE PLACE SEEMED KIND OF BORING; SO I KEPT GOING UNTIL I GOT TO CLARKSDALE. I HAD NO IDEA WHAT THE HELL WAS IN CLARKSDALE OR WHAT WAS HAPPENING THERE. BUT I STOPPED BY A LITTLE PLACE CALLED "CLUB 2000". SOMEONE DOWN THE ROAD TOLD ME THAT "THERE AIN'T BEEN WHITE PEOPLE IN THERE FOR 500 YEARS". BUT I DECIDED TO GO ANYWAY. WELL, THERE HAPPENED TO BE A GOOD PARTY THERE THAT NIGHT. I ENDED UP PLAYING MY GUITAR WITH A BASS PLAYER BY THE NAME OF MOOKIE WHO KNEW RIGHT AWAY THAT I WAS A FAN OF JACK OWENS BECAUSE, HE SAID, THAT HE GREW UP IN BENTONIA.

SO WHEN I FINALLY GOT TO BENTONIA, I MET UP WITH DUCK HOLMES. DUCK IS THE OWNER OF THE BLUE FRONT CAFE, WHICH IS THE ONLY CLUB IN BENTONIA. I KNEW THAT DUCK PLAYED AND THAT HE LEARNED A LOT FROM OWENS. DUCK AND I BECAME FRIENDS OVER THE TIME THAT I SPENT IN BENTONIA ON THAT TRIP, AND HE TAUGHT ME QUITE A BIT THAT HE LEARNED FROM OWENS AND ALSO INTRODUCED ME TO BUD SPIRES -- OWENS' HARP PLAYER. EVENTUALLY, I HAPPENED TO TELL DUCK THE STORY ABOUT CLUB 2000 IN CLARKSDALE, AND PLAYING WITH THE MAN NAMED MOOKIE. TURNED OUT MOOKIE IS DUCK'S BROTHER. IN OTHER WORDS, MISSISSIPPI IS A SMALL PLACE!

How Long had you been playing guitar at that point?

AS EARLY AS I COULD WALK AND TALK, I WAS PLAYING THE GUITAR. WHEN I WAS IN KINDERGARTEN, THE TEACHER TOLD MY PARENTS I WOULD BE THE NEXT BB KING.

Holy Smokes! Where did those skills come from? Your dad played Blues piano. Any other musicians in the tree? Did you play in rock bands or has it always been solo blues for you?

I ALWAYS PLAYED BLUES. THAT'S ALL I EVER PLAYED. I USED TO PLAY WITH THE NEIGHBOR KIDS GROWING UP. WE WOULD PLAY AROUND AT PARTIES, AND LITTLE THINGS LIKE THAT. I HAVE AN UNCLE BY THE NAME OF BEANS RICHARDSON WHO PLAYED BASS WITH ALL THE BIG JAZZ NAMES GOING WAY BACK. COLTRANE, DAVIS, SONNY STITT. HE EVEN PLAYED WITH ARETHA FRANKLIN. HE'S ON ONE OF HER ALBUMS. AND WE HAVE QUITE A FEW OTHER MUSICIANS IN THE FAMILY TOO. MY FATHER HAS 20 SIBLINGS ALL TOGETHER AND THEY'RE ALL FROM THE HOOD, SO WE GOT SOME SOUL SEEPING OUT IN SOME PLACES.

What do you think it was about that Bentonia Mississippi sound of Skip James, Jack Owens and Jimmy Duck Holmes that hooked you? For me it's that keening high lonesome sound of the vocals that just chills me. Was it that or the guitar playing or the whole thing together?

I DIDN'T KNOW WHO SKIP WAS BEFORE I HEARD JACK. BUT, HONESTLY, WHEN I HEARD JACK THE FIRST TIME; I CRIED. HE BROUGHT WATER TO MY EYES. I DON'T KNOW WHAT IT WAS EXACTLY. SINCE THEN THOUGH, SOMETIMES I HAVE FELT HAUNTED BY HIS SPIRIT. AND I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT DUCK COULD DO UNTIL I MET HIM, BUT HE CAN CATCH THAT IN YOU TOO. AND SOMETIMES, IF I'M LUCKY, I CAN DO IT TO MYSELF -- THAT'S WHEN I KNOW I JUST PLAYED ONE HELL OF A SONG.

The thing I've found most fascinating about your sound is that while you've got the Bentonia picking style going on, your voice sounds to me like a younger Junior Kimbrough. Your guitar tone and sound as well really recalls for me the late Mr. Kimbrough's sound. In fact when I first heard your stuff I thought it was some unreleased Junior. I'm reminded of the solo stuff on Kimbrough's Meet Me In The City. How important has the North Mississippi sound been to you personally and in the way that you play?

I DO REALIZE THOSE SIMILARITIES. THE REASON PEOPLE HEAR THAT IS BECAUSE THERE IS ONLY ONE WAY TO PLAY BLUES GOOD. IF IT'S DONE RIGHT, THE SAME TOOLS WILL BE EMPLOYED. KIMBROUGH HAD NO OVERWHELMING INFLUENCE ON MY PLAYING. IT'S JUST THAT WE BOTH UNDERSTAND AND USE THE BASIC AND NECESSARY MATERIALS FOR BLUES. WE SOUND SIMILAR, BECAUSE ANYTHING ELSE AIN'T GOOD ENOUGH.

If possible can you explain what you consider those "tools" to be?

ANYONE PLAYING BLUES HAS TO BE ABLE TO FEEL WHAT HE IS PLAYING. IF THE PLAYER DON'T FEEL IT, NOBODY ELSE IS GOING TO FEEL IT EITHER. EVERYTIME I PLAY A SONG IT'S DIFFERENT FROM THE LAST TIME I PLAYED IT. AND I ALSO WON'T PLAY THE SAME SONG TWICE IN A ROW, BECAUSE THE SECOND TIME THERE WON'T BE ANY GAS LEFT. "FEELING IT" IN BLUES DOES NOT MEAN THAT YOU HAVE TO HAVE HAD A SHITTY LIFE. IT MEANS YOU GOT TO BE SUPRISING YOURSELF AND SUPRISING EVERYBODY ELSE AND BEING COMFORTABLE WHEN YOU'RE DOING IT.

While we're talkin' tools, it looks like you use a number of different guitars. What do you use in the way of guitars and amps?

I JUST HAVE A LOT OF OLD JUNK REALLY. MATTER OF FACT, I HAVE TO SELL SOME. SO YOU ALL LET ME KNOW IF YOU'RE INTERESTED. BUT I'VE GOT AN OLD KAY GUITAR, WHICH IS ALL OVER THAT ALBUM OF MINE, THAT DOES IT FOR ME FOR SOME REASON. I LOVE THAT GUITAR. AND I HAD A COUSIN WHO WORKED AT GUITAR CENTER WHO GOT ME A DEAL ON A FENDER BLUES DELUXE AMP, WHICH SEEMS TO BE DOING THE TRICK RIGHT NOW TOO.

Tell me about gigs. I don't see a show listing on MySpace. Due to what I consider the uniqueness of your sound...you're not exactly playing Sweet Home Chicago. Do you find it difficult to get gigs?

NO, I DON'T FIND IT HARD TO FIND GIGS. BUT I DON'T GO LOOKIN FOR THEM. IF SOMEBODY WANTS ME TO PLAY AND THEY'VE GOT MONEY TO PAY, I'LL BE THERE. THE SUMMER IS A BUSY TIME FOR ME BECAUSE I PLAY ON THE STREET ALMOST EVERYDAY AND THEN THROUGH THAT PEOPLE COMMISSION ME TO PLAY AT WHATEVER THEY HAVE LINED UP.

Speaking of gigs where is your favorite place..city...club...etc...to play?

I LIKE TO PLAY FOR BIG CROWDS. THE BIGGER, THE BETTER. ABOUT A MONTH AGO I PLAYED AT A HUGE PIG ROAST FOR ABOUT A THOUSAND PEOPLE. THAT'S WHAT I LIKE.

Besides the Bentonia boys who else do you dig? Not necessarily influences but let's say you have a five disc cd player. If I come to your house today who would you be playing?

I LIKE SOUL AND R & B MAN. THAT, TO ME, IS MY PARTY FEEL GOOD MUSIC. I LIKE ARETHA FRANKLIN, STEVIE WONDER, RAY CHARLES. SAM COOKE, OTIS REDDING, JAMES BROWN, ANITA BAKER, TINA TURNER, AND SO ON. I AM, WHAT WE CALL IN CHICAGO, A STEPPER. I GO TO STEPPERS CLUBS AND I DO SOME STEPPIN THAT MAKES THEM ALL JEALOUS.

Any players in your area folks should be aware of that they may not have heard?

IF THEY ARE INTO SOUL-BLUES, MORE CITIFIED BLUES, THEY SHOULD LISTEN TO MY FRIEND MR. LURRIE BELL. LURRIE AND I PLAYED TOGETHER FOR A LITTLE PARTY A WHILE BACK, AND HE IS ONE HELL OF A PLAYER.

You recorded Midnight Dream with Jean-Yves Munch. Who is he?

JEAN-YVES MUNCH IS A SOUND ENGINEER WHO TRAVELS THE WORLD MAKING DOCUMENTARIES. JEAN-YVES SAW ME PERFORM AND FOUND OUT THAT I DIDN'T HAVE ANY RECORDINGS. SO HE OFFERED TO RECORD ME AT THE STUDIO HE HAS IN THE AREA. IF IT WASN'T FOR HIS RESPECT FOR MY PLAYING, I WOULDN'T BE GETTING MY MUSIC AROUND THE WORLD NOW.

Anything else folks oughta know about you?

THEY SHOULD KNOW THAT I AM ONE HIGHLY FLAVORED MOTHER.

Mississippi Gabe Carter @ MySpace

STEAL THESE MP3s from Mississippi Gabe Carter.

Tell The World MP3

Don't You Know MP3

Let Me Have My Way MP3

Midnight Dream MP3

Mississippi Gabe Carter's CD Midnight Dream is available via CDbaby.

O' course Gigatons of Thanks go to the UKs DJ Papa Hillfunk
for turning me on to Mississippi Gabe Carter!

Reverend K.M. Williams has a blues blog!

Check

it right

HERE.

AGNOSTiC MOUNTAiN GOSPEL CHOiR

Bandcamp // CD Baby // LockBox Records


You ever see film of cotton harvests in the old days during the change from man handled mules to the machines who replaced them? Full of clank and clatter, hollerin' and dust. That film was too old, too scratchy, too shaky for a soundtrack but somehow this odd and raw, grimy four piece from Calgary, Alberta, Canada has managed to roll an international harvester combine around the last couple o' hundred years of hard roots music history to raise and buck a genre busting bale of hay and dust devils into a rockin' hoedown and barbecue of urban hollerin' deep blues, Cajun street 'grass, and booty stompin' old neu time country that'd fit that old stock footage fine.

But wait...let's get this straight...a guy named Doug T in Dry Prong Louisiana tells me about a band from Canada who, it turns out later, is popular with Seasick Steve, a superstar ex-pat-ex-hobo three stringed guitar playin' american who lives in Norway, who is pals with a UK punkass blues and hard roots DJ/Ballin' The Jack record label honcho named Joe Cushley who told me in Florida about 'em? Right. Ok.

Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir claims to be founded on the premise that they wanted to play "a kind of gospel for the unbeliever". They have succeeded.

file: somewhere's under 16HP, not too far right of The Gourds and Tom Waits and
fairly close but left of .357 String Band
ps-xtra special thanks to Dave n' Sue, Stacy D, Cushley, and Doug T!

DEEP BLUES FESTiVAL '08 REVIEW

Nice review of
Deep Blues Festival 2008
from Honest Tune Magazine HERE.

Info on Deep Blues Festival 2009
is available HERE and HERE.

Each advance ticket sold goes into the running for fabulous prizes. So far a custom made Lowebow guitar as well as a sick collection of cds from Big Legal Mess records has been given away. What's next? Get yr ticket NOW and find out!

UPDATE!
from Capo De Capi of the DBF Mr. Chris Johnson:
Hey,It's time to give away a stack of vinyl. I've got T-Model Ford, Elmo & Hez, Chris Cotton, RL Burnside, MS Fred McDowell & Johnny Woods, and Joe Callicott. We'll use the powerball drawing agin. There are 41 ticketholders so far. We'll use the first number drawn under 42 as the winning number. (In the sequence drawn, not after they are sorted numerically) The drawing is at 10pm central time tonight. Video can be found here after the drawing. ttp://www.musl.com/videos_pb.asp
If none of the five white or the red power ball is under 42, then we'll use the drawing coming up Wednesday night. Everyone's ticket number is listed on the myspace page and has been emailed to them. We'll only allow one win per ticket, so #34 Eric, winner of the lowebow August drawing and #39 Steve, winner of the CDs will be excluded. Tell everyone you know to order their tickets early to get in on these great prizes. The November Drawing will be for a complete set of the 11 posters from the 2008 festival. We have another cigar box guitar to give away in December. More great prizes to come each month. Thanks again,Chris

Awesome French Blues and Roots Blog n' Podcast

Check out

BLUE SUEDE SHOES!



Thx Uncle Gil!