Blues
on Tour
Ike Turner is part of the "Blues On Tour" extravaganza Thursday April 29, 7:30pm at the Hummingbird Centre. Tickets: $85.50, $72.50, $55.50 at the Hummingbird Centre box office, all Ticketmaster outlets, or call 416 872-2262 to charge by phone.
The hype on the Blues On Tour concert that's set for Toronto's Hummingbird Centre on April 29 makes a pretty bold claim. Says the official press release:
"It's the ultimate journey through the blues experience - a major concert with more than a dozen of the finest blues musicians on the American roots music scene today."
People in Toronto with long memories can recall glory days at the Rockpile with B.B., Freddie, and Albert King on one bill; there are blues festivals with stellar lineups, but this show bids fair to exceed them in musical power. Certainly it would be difficult to believe that there has ever been such a distinguished lineup in a single blues concert before.
The Toronto and London concerts are part of a multi-city North American tour that will take audiences on a journey from the acoustic birth of the blues in the Mississippi Delta, on to Memphis, where it first hit the radio airwaves, and then into Chicago when the music became electrified and helped give birth to rock and roll.
Here's the lineup: Ruth Brown and Chris Thomas King as hosts, Alvin Youngblood Hart, Robert Jr. Lockwood, Lil' Ed, Ike Turner, Bobby Rush, Howard Tate and Little Milton.
Walter Wolfman Washington and The Roadmasters is one of two "house bands" who will accompany some of the cast. The other group is the Muddy Waters Blues Band, fronted by Duke Robillard and featuring veteran sidemen Calvin "Fuzz" Jones on bass, Willie "Big Eyes" Smith on drums, Jerry Portnoy (harmonica) and Bob Margolin on guitar.
The Blues On Tour show, which will also play the John Labatt Theatre Centre in London, Ontario on Wednesday April 28, the night before the Hummingbird Centre performance, not only features many blues giants, but will pay tribute to many who have gone before - among them Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson and Howlin' Wolf.
Using giant screens and film footage - as well as two stage sets - the show tells the story of the blues, and its emergence from the rural south to the bars, clubs and concert halls of urban cities around the world. As the press release has it, this is an event that will make blues history it itself.
The artists on the show have made plenty of blues history of their own.
Ruth Brown's collection of classic blues hits kept the fledgling Atlantic label alive in the '50s as tunes like "Mama Her Treats Your Daughter Mean," "Mambo Baby" and "Teardrops in My Eyes" hit the charts. Her tribute album of Bessie Smith material linked her work to the classic blues tradition of the decades before hers. Her last visit to Toronto saw her on a bill with Charles Brown and Bonnie Raitt, who has used her popular fame to support lesser-known blues artists of distinction.
Chris Thomas King's fame stems for his major role in the astonishingly successful movie O Brother Where Art Thou and the multi-million selling soundtrack CD and the successful Down From the Mountain tour that followed. In the movie, King - the son of Baton Rouge, Louisiana bluesman and club owner Tabby King - made a stunning impression not only with his acting, but with his version of a classic Skip James song.
Many of the other artists have appeared rarely (if ever) in Toronto - Little Milton (Campbell), one of the south's best-known soul singers, appeared at Harbourfront many years ago, but has not been back since. Bobby Rush, prominently featured in one of the better episodes in Martin Scorese's blues series, works primarily on the chitlin' circuit south of the Mason Dixon line; the last time he was in Canada he appeared at the Ottawa Blues Festival.
And the legendary Ike Turner has not appeared in Toronto since the mid '70s, when the Ike & Tina Turner Revue broke up and the stars went their separate ways. In recent years, Turner has sorted out the personal and drug problems that plagued him, has made two excellent and well-reviewed solo albums, and is performing regularly and in top form. This is the man that made what is often called "the first rock and roll record" - Jackie Brenston's 1951 "Rocket 88" - and is also the man who discovered Howlin' Wolf, and produced Wolf's first records.
Robert Jr. Lockwood is one of the last two bluesmen alive who ran with Robert Johnson in his heyday (Honeyboy Edwards is the other), and he is a superb link to the master.
Of the other cast members, there is great interest in the appearance of Howard Tate, a great singer who has returned to the spotlight after a 30-year absence. Lil' Ed, of course, is a crowd-pleasing blues character, while Alvin Youngblood Hart is one of the best of the young black artists who have returned to the past to illuminate their take on the blues today.
The Blues on Tour show adds up to a powerful postscript to the 2003 celebrations of "The Year of the Blues," and proves that America's great roots music is as powerful, and as vital, as ever.