Loose Blues News
Dawn Tyler Watson is joined by guitarist with guitarist Corey Diabo the Labatt Blue's Festival at Harbourfront (July 4) and Festival International du Blues Tremblant (July 15). The Dawn Tyler Blues Project plays the Ottawa Bluesfest (July 5), London
Bluesfest (July 19), Windsor Bluesfest (Jul 20), the Perth Folk Festival (July 25), and then goes south with appearances at U.S. festivals including the Kalamazoo Blues Festival on July 11 and the North Atlantic Blues Festival in Rockland, Maine.
Chicago Blues Festival Welcomed Native Blues: The Pappy Johns Band featuring Murray Porter are very happy to report that their trip to this year's Chicago Blues Festival was a great success, and opened the doors for them state-side. The band first performed on FOX-TV News in the A.M., and then played their 90-minute set at the Gibson Guitar Crossroads Stage of the Chicago Blues Festival. Emcee for the stage, Kenny Wells, Blues DJ for WSSD 88.1 FM ^ The Blues Station, couldn't say enough great things about the band, including "I'm going to run back to the studio, and get this CD on right away ^ These guys have amazing soul and blues".
Elaine Bomberry participated in a workshop panel entitled "Whose Blues?", discussing the possibility of a Native influence on the formation of the blues. The response was tremendous, particularly from musicians and educators.
While in Chicago, Elaine received news that her radio documentary series "The Aboriginal Music Experience" was selected as a finalist for the one of the world's top radio festivals, The New York Radio Festival, in the Information category Culture & the Arts. She attended the awards in New York City last month, as well as the Native American Journalist Association conference and awards in Oneida, Wisconsin.
Later in June, the Pappy Johns Band featuring Murray Porter opened for Colin Linden at Casino Regina, and performed at the Saskatchewan Jazz Festival in Saskatoon. The band is also in the final stages of their upcoming recording, tentatively entitled Full Circle, recorded at Liquid Sound with award-winning producer Alec Fraser. Look for mid-summer CD Release parties throughout southern Ontario. www.pappyjohnsband.com.
And, don't miss the 10th Anniversary of Rez Bluez at Toronto's Harbourfront Blues Festival on Sunday July 6, at 2:30 p.m, with performers The Soul Kings, The Ronnie Douglas Blues Band, and The Pappy Johns Band featuring Murray Porter with guest Jani Lauzon.
For more information, visit the new website address www.rezbluez.ca, and listen to aboriginal music on-line at www.aboriginalradio.com, or, in downtown Toronto, at 106.5 FM.
A girls night out at the Handy's: Yes, that's Loose Blues News Contributing Editor
Julie "Blues Doctor" Hill schmoozing in Memphis with
Sue Foley and Ruth Brown. (photo at right)
Blues Music Courses: Sir Sandford Fleming College's Haliburton Campus School of the Arts offers two blues-related courses as part of each summer's more than 300 arts courses. The website is www.haliburtonschoolofthearts.ca, or call (705) 457-1680.
www.careersinmusic.ca: This website would be of interest to young musicians looking for training and professional development.
Geothermal Jive: Last month, this benefit in aid of diabetes was held at the Silver Dollar Room, hosted by Tracy Morrison and Judith Brett, and featuring music by Toronto band Loco Zydeco, basic Zydeco dance step lessons, a silent auction and door prizes. Information about Team Diabetes and fundraising initiatives can be found at www.seetracyandjudithrun.com
Other stuff you missed last month: A Blues Cruise in the Kawarthas, "Boogie in the Country", featuring Diana Braithwaite & the Blues Cruise Blues Band; and the CD Release Party for Jimmy Bowskill's first recording, in Peterborough, with Alec Fraser, Jerome Godboo, Bob Vespaziani and Danny Marks, and special guests Rick Fines, Dave Mowat and George Bertok.
Stuff you can still catch: The CD release of the first disc by Bill King's Rockit 88 Band, entitled Too Much Fun, July 17 at RD's. The Guitar Workshop returns this year with blues icon Robben Ford as one of the instructors among other luminaries of the guitar scene. The course takes place at Appleby College in Oakville from July 20 to 25. For info call 905-785-7087
Swinging Musicians: The Southside Shuffle Golf Tourney will be held August 5 at Lions Head. $150 includes green fees, dinner, prizes, and live music.
Newmarket Jam Night Moved: The Thursday Night Jam in Newmarket has moved to Sharks in Oak Ridges, 13311 Yonge Street.
The First Annual Orangeville Blues & Jazz Festival: This new fest last month was considered a great success, and a second year is planned. Photos are available at www.webhome.idirect.com/~larryk.
Still Standin': This was the title of the 100th Birthday Bash celebrations for the Windsor Hotel in Winnipeg, Manitoba last month, which featured numerous blues acts across several nights and afternoons, including Big Dave McLean, Dave Mowatt, Brent Parkin, Lou Pride, Jason Nowicki, Mel Reimer, and Tracy K. An outdoor concert was also held, the "Beer Garden and Harley-Davidson Show & Shine", with proceeds to the Winnipeg Harvest. The Windsor Hotel ("nothing but the blues") celebrated 100 years at 187 Garry Street in Winnipeg.
Dauphin Manitoba Blues Radio: A new blues radio show is on the air at 730 CKDM in Dauphin, Manitoba. Morning drive host Jeff Jeffries is hosting and producing on Sunday nights. To support this new Canadian Blues show, forward CDs (and a bio or web site link) for showcase play. Contact Jeff Jeffries at stay-tuned@mts.net.
The East Coast Blues Society: This new society has been active with events, including last month's "Savin the Blues and Membership Drive", featuring Shirley Jackson and Her Good Rockin' Daddys, Joe Murphy and the Waterstreet Blues Band, and numerous special guests. www.eastcoastblues.ca.
Jay McShann: Although born in 1916, this Kansas City jazz and blues pioneer is still going strong, performing this summer at the Montreal Jazz Festival, the North Sea Jazz Festival in Holland (July 11), and the Monterey Jazz Festival in California (September 21), where he'll also do a public interview with Clint Eastwood, who has already filmed a piano duet with him for his movie to be seen as part of the Year of the Blues TV series on the PBS Network in the fall. Jay's latest recording for Stony Plain, Goin' To Kansas City, is scheduled for release later this year.
Edgar Winter Joins Blues Idol Contest: Music legend Edgar Winter has signed on to the advisory board of Blues Idol and will participate in this year's Blues Idol Contest as a celebrity judge, actively assisting in the selection of this year's competition winner, as well as performing at the Blues Idol finals scheduled for December of this year. "It is an honor and a privilege to have Edgar as a part of Blues Idol," stated Blues Idol President Marino De Silva. "Edgar has done so much to propagate the Blues as a genre and I am looking forward to having him add his touch to Blues Idol." Edgar will receive the "Larry Cohn Blues Idol Lifetime Achievement Award" at the finals. Winter will also contribute a track to the Blues Idol compilation CD, which will also feature other stars, and will benefit the House of Blues Foundation, and the Angels On Earth `Music for Healing' Foundation. More celebrity judges and performers are yet to be added.
Chris Flory: This swing guitarist makes a Stony Plain debut with the release Blues In My Heart, trading solos with Duke Robillard, and featuring special guests Sugar Ray Norcia on vocals and Scott Hamilton on tenor sax.
Year of the Blues books: The University Press of Mississippi is tuned up for the Year of the Blues with the re-issue of the classic photography book "Juke Joint" by Birney Imes. Other great Year of the Blues Books are also available at www.upress.state.ms.us/blues.
Harmonica Slim - Blues player leaves a legacy - By Mike Osegueda, The Fresno Bee (May 24, 2003): Harmonica Slim always had a story to tell. Even with death at his door, he couldn't leave without one more. He left a story of what happens to an old bluesman when he sings his last song.
Harmonica Slim was what he was known as in the blues world. Slim is what some friends called him. Richard Riley Riggins was the name his mama gave him. He died May 4 after a heart attack. He was 82. What happened after his death is just as mysterious as Mr. Riggins' life.
The day after he died, many on the local blues scene were mulling the loss. The problem was Mr. Riggins' wife had died three years before, and no one knew of any other family in the area, except a possible cousin. So while blues people close to Mr. Riggins pondered what to do, his body lay at University Medical Center for almost three weeks.
A few years back, with his health declining, Mr. Riggins had used an electric wheelchair. His caregiver, Ramona Davis, located Mr. Riggins' daughter, Mattie Hill, 60, a resident of Mount Clemens, Michigan, about two weeks after his death. He had three children, from three women, living in three different parts of the country. Hill was the only one still alive.
Though she had infrequent contact with her father over the years, she packed up her things and came to Fresno with her daughters. When Hill arrived in Fresno, she said she found Mr. Riggins' apartment had been forced open. His television was missing, a $1,100 oxygen machine was gone and a lot of his important paperwork, like his recording contracts, had disappeared. Hill filed a police report. That left her with the task of arranging a funeral in a town she had visited only a few times.
She turned to Chester Riggins, pastor at Saint Rest Baptist. He and Mr. Riggins had called each other "cousin," but neither knew for sure whether they were related. The two met years ago, saw they had the same last name and called themselves cousins.
"This has just been a total mess," Hill says. "Trying to do all these things, and I feel so bad about all this because it took so long for me to find out." But the mess fits Mr. Riggins' pattern of unbelievable stories about his life that friends and acquaintances recall.
There's one about how he found his first harmonica when he was 9. It was in a mudhole back in Mississippi, like it was left right there for him. He took it home to his mother. She boiled it clean, and he began playing. Another favorite is how he knew a young Elvis Presley in Tupelo, Mississippi, and once, when The King was misbehaving, he got a spanking, courtesy of Mr. Riggins. Then there's the story about how he once played in a gospel group with Sam Cooke and Ray Charles.
"That whole storytelling is really a part of the blues," says Chris Millar, a longtime friend, who works for Fedora Records and signed Mr. Riggins to the label. "You can kind of reinvent yourself in that music, create a new sort of persona, and Slim was the epitome of that. Even though he may have stretched the truth a little bit, it was a great story and it had meaning."
"I always thought he was one of the most original and unique blues performers," says Tom Mazzolini, producer of the San Francisco Blues Festival, where Harmonica Slim played a number of times. "He was the old school. He was the real thing. There's not a lot of that around anymore." Mazzolini met Mr. Riggins in the 1970s, when the latter had lived in Oakland and played blues with K.C. Douglas. Mr. Riggins had come to California from Mississippi in the 1940s and stumbled between the Bay Area and the central San Joaquin Valley ever since.
What many people remember, besides his stories, is his outgoing personality. In trips to Europe to perform, Millar says, Mr. Riggins would entertain entire airplanes full of people. "My kids love him. They think he's the funniest man alive," says Hill, Mr. Riggins' daughter, before a long pause. "Or that was alive. I hate that I didn't get a chance to spend time with him. He was a pretty good guy in his own way and right. He did the best he could with what he had." Mr. Riggins never knew how to read or write. But in recent years, he had tried to learn. "He couldn't read a menu," Millar says. "But he knew what he wanted to eat."
At 82, even though he was in a wheelchair, he still would perform. Millar had future performances scheduled for Mr. Riggins when he died. To his friends, family and acquaintances, it just goes to show that Mr. Riggins was a true bluesman. It was all he knew. The only way to stop that was death. He used to have a saying with which he would close every show, another Harmonica Slim trademark. "Like a windup rooster with a curly comb, spreading his wings and gettin' it on, Harmonica Slim is moving on."
- Julie Hill
Toronto Blues Society Copyright _ 2003