[Afrissippi Story] [Tate's Vintage Gallery]

Adieu Champagne Charlie: Tributes were flowing on the maplepost and mapleblue-l listserves following news of the passing of Thom Roberts, aka Champagne Charlie, who passed away on April 4^th. Nonie Crete wrote: "(he was) the real deal when it came to the blues. He once told me that he’d met Rev Gary Davis as a boy and learned a great deal from him. Just before a planned tour with Carlos Del Junco he fell ill and went to the hospital where he was put on blood thinners which caused a major stroke that should have left him unable to do very much because of the side of the brain it affected. He amazed doctors by walking, talking and regaining the use of his hand. He said it was because he played guitar that the other side of his brain responded for the one that was affected. Jay Linden wrote: “Colin and I (and the rest of the family) go back a *very* long time with Thom, sitting around our family home, joking and playing songs until late at night back when Colin was a young teen, I was a college kid and Thom was somewhere in his upper mid-20s, I guess. I figure he and Colin both learned a lot from each other, but mostly, Thom was a friend.”

Congratulations to Chris Murphy: Saxman Chris Murphy who’s honking tenor sax drives the Maple Blues Band as well as the Jack de Keyzer Band and several other units has been honoured in his home town of London with the 2008 Jack Richardson Music Award for Blues for his work with his London outfit, The Village Blues Band. The six-piece band has been performing on Sundays at the Wortley Road House in London for the past 3 years. They are getting set to release a live CD in the coming months. In addition to Chris, the members of the band are some of London’s busiest musicians: Ted Leonard, lead vocals and guitar, who has toured and recorded with the The Maple Blues Band, Johnny Max Band, Pork Belly Futures, Paul Reddick and the Sidemen (Ted was a long-time member of the Juno award-winning band Fathead); Ryan Spong lead vocals and bass (also tours and records with the Chris Chown Band and Pleasure Shop); Ted Peacock on drums (also leads his own band Soul Bender and has toured and recorded with Big Daddy G); Marty Verweel, Trumpet who has also been the leader of the band Soul Sausage for the past 30 years and Troy Neeb, tenor and alto saxophones who also performs with the jazz group Floating Point. For more information on The Jack Richardson Music Awards visit www.jrma.ca. For further information on Chris Murphy and The Village Blues Band go to www.chrismurphysax.com

Graham Guest makes a trek to TO to sit in with his Legendary Miles Johnson co-conspirator Raoul Bhaneja (left) at Little Italy's hottest jazz venue, Olivia's at 53 where Raoul has been bringing a bit of blues every Sunday night with an all-star line-up of guests. For this occasion, Raoul and Graham will play Friday, May 2 as well as two sets for Sunday brunch and an evening show on May 4. Raoul will also be part of Brian Blain's Motherless Monday Blues Concert at Dominion on Queen on Monday May 12th

OCFF Deadlines: The OCFF Songs From the Heart (SFTH) songwriting competition application deadline has been EXTENDED until Friday, May 16th, 2008 in order to ensure that any Ontario artists interested in entering may take advantage of this invaluable opportunity. The OCFF SFTH awards celebrate top Ontario songwriters in nine categories including Blues and Grand prize winners receive the Galaxie Rising Stars Award of the CBC. (i. e. $$$) For full details about the categories, prizes and application process, visit www.ocff.ca

The OCFF will continue to accept applications for Official Showcases until Friday, May 9th, 2008. An OCFF Official Showcase is a rare chance to connect with influential music industry members all in one place, and each year OCFF showcases directly result in major leaps forward in the careers of folk and roots music artists. The 22nd annual OCFF Conference will be held Oct 23-26, 2008 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The OCFF Conference is where Canada’s professionals involved in all aspects of folk, roots, world, and traditional music come together to share experience and advice, innovative ideas, latest trends, and great music all day and all night long. The Conference features speakers, seminars, roundtable discussions, informal meetings, a gala dinner, Official Showcases, and late-night jam sessions. It is an essential forum for fostering musicians’ careers, addressing the needs of festivals and music presenters, and connecting organizations, musicians, artistic directors, promoters, managers, agents, media representatives and many others who contribute to the health and vitality of Canada’s multicultural folk and roots music community.

Thank you! BluesLINK 2008 was a huge success. With the help of dedicated volunteers, the backing of Toronto’s top blues musicians and the blues community, generous donors and supporters, we raised over $11,000 towards programs for vulnerable youth and their families across Toronto.

These funds will help support: the Inner City drop-in and resource centre for street-involved and homeless youth, Life skills and employment training. Individual, family and group counselling, parent support groups, Community outreach and leadership programs in Scarborough, Housing services, co-op living and residential treatment and Family support for youth with intellectual disabilities.

Together, we are reaching out to vulnerable youth with support and opportunities that allow them to tap their potential and make good choices for their future.

Organizer Roger Smith sends out a special thanks to Danny Marks (emcee, along with back-up from Al Webster and James Rasmusen, Gary Kendall (with Tyler Burgess, "Shakey" Dagenais, and Darren Poole), Marg Stowe’s S’Women Blues (including Stacie McGregor, Heather Morgan, Rachal Melas, Michelle Josef), Lucian Gray (plus Thomas PaxtonBeesley, Anthony Szczucho-Straw-hore, and Jillian Cameron), and Glenn Foster for superb entertainment. We would also like to thank the Sorbara Group, the McBride Family, Paula Simonetta, Culinary Cravings, Ruth’s Cakes and Pastries, Jeff Healey’s Roadhouse, Seneca@YorkU Graphic Design Students, TCD Communications, Greg Yaschyshyn Photography, all our Silent Auction donors and our wonderful volunteers. Together, we are reaching out to vulnerable youth with support and opportunities that allow them to tap their potential and make good choices for their future.

Injury List: Montreal’s Kevin Mark suffered a knee injury (a torn meniscus) on March 15th that required surgery. He’s now recovering, but must wear a brace and has to use crutches. His shows have been rescheduled including some gigs with fellow Montrealer Dale Boyle. Get well soon, big guy.

Passings: While we’re covering Montreal news, we must report the passing of Sam Gesser who was the Canadian producer for Folkways in the 1950s and early-’60s and Montreal’s main impresario for roots music (before it was called that) Sam was responsible for most of the traditional Canadian folk music recordings of that era. Sam was best known as one of Canada’s premiere cultural producers for decades. He spent recent years writing plays and movie scripts. Last year he was included on the Folk Walk of Fame in Ottawa and with the first-ever Resonance Award from the Canadian Museum of Civilization, presented to him at the museum during the Canadian Folk Music Awards.

Afrissippi

The high-water mark for African/American blues fusion flows upriver to Canada.

Oxford, Mississippi-based foursome Afrissippi is creating a veritable flood of excitement amongst world-blues and roots aficionados with their remarkable coalescence of north Mississippi hill country blues and their ancestral traditions from West Africa. Featuring Senegalese griot Guelel Kumba telling stories from his Fulani people who are the largest tribal group in West Africa; R.L. Burnside apprentice Eric Deaton on guitar; Kinney Kimbrough (son of trance blues legend Junior) on drums; and bassist Justin Showah; Afrissippi represents nothing less than a complete ethnomusicological journey of the blues in a single concert. And between May 7 and May 22, blues fans from Charlottetown to Toronto will be sharing in the band’s most ambitious journey upriver yet – the Hill Country Records World Boogie 2008 which also features the pure north Mississippi stylings of the Eric Deaton Trio.

Afrissippi is touring in support of their second album “Alliance”, a follow-up to their stunning 2006 debut Fulani Journey. Alliance continues the story of Guelel Kumba, whose journey to America fortuitously led him to R.L. Burnside’s house in Oxford and a 2002 jam session with Deaton and Kimbrough. Blessed by the great master, the three began an entirely new exploration of the haunting, centuries-old sonic connections between north Mississippi and West Africa – eventually joined by current bassist and manager Showah. One of America’s great contemporary global blues explorers Corey Harris called Fulani Journey “...a high-water mark in the cultivation of the connections between American blues and its African relations.” Roots editor Ian Anderson described it as “what might have happened if Ali Farka Touré had recorded for Fat Possum.”

The band has been skillfully guided on its journey to the ears of appreciative audiences across the South -- and at festivals in Italy, Switzerland and Portugal -- by bassist Justin Showah through his Hill Country Record label.

“We made Fulani Journey in a bit of a hurry, at a time when we didn’t know how long Guelel would be with us in Oxford,” says Showah. “Since he decided to stay, we’ve had fine-tune our vision. What you hear on Alliance is the result of us being able to bring everyone’s ideas more cohesively into the mix, with the one-day Delta recording style maintaining that sense of spontaneous energy.”

In his review of Alliance found in the most recent issue of Living Blues, Roger Gatchet says, “Alliance feels both ancient and progressive at the same time. This album is an incredible accomplishment that should attract the attention of many award nomination committees in the months to come.”

Their debut Canadian tour touches down in Canada on Wednesday, May 7 in Saint John, New Brunswick. After stops in Charlottetown, Halifax, and Fredericton, then a swing through the northeast U.S., the caravan rolls through Montreal and Wakefield; arriving in the GTA for four days on Monday, May 19 with a workshop on griot/blues music at Trane Studio. After a stop at Hamilton’s Pepper Jack Café Wednesday, May 21, the Canadian tour’s grand finale (presented by Small World Music) will be at Hugh’s Room in Toronto Thursday, May 22. As an added bonus, The Eric Deaton Trio (with Maple Blues Award nominees for Best New Band Son Roberts Band opening) is at the Silver Dollar on Tuesday May 20.

For more information on the artists, to hear the music, and view a complete tour schedule visit: www.myspace.com/afrissippi, http://www.myspace.com/ericdeaton and http://www.hillcountryrecords.com

- Sebastian Cook

Tate's Vintage Gallery

Here is another in our ongoing series of revealing portraits of relatively obscure artists who dared to be different written by Blues aficionado and reporter Gary Tate. Gary welcomes your comments at gmtgt@yahoo.com.

Roy Brown: His “no-holds-barred” style provided the template for generations of future rockers, but his legacy is enshrined by “Good Rockin’ Tonight”, generally regarded as the first Rock’ n’ Roll song.

From 1948-1951, Roy Brown delivered 15 consecutive hits on Deluxe, including “Boogie At Midnight”, “Miss Fanny Brown” “Letter From Home”, “Cadillac Baby”, and “Laughing But Crying”. His wild, half-pleading/half-shouting style was Gospel-based, and presaged a style adopted by upcoming greats B.B. King, Bobby Bland, and Little Richard.

Early on, Brown patterned himself after his idol Bing Crosby. An appearance in Shreveport, Louisiana in 1946 featured Roy singing stuff like “Stardust” and “Blue Hawaii”. “Good Rockin’ Tonight” had actually been written for his trumpeter, Wilbur Brown (no relation). But that day Wilbur took ill, so Roy sung it. The locals went nuts!

While Wynonie Harris’ version of “Good Rockin’ Tonight” became the bigger hit, Brown the Crooner morphed into a full-throated belter with that irresistible lowdown range and power.

After his 3-year streak at Deluxe ended, King/Federal bought out Brown’s contract. Roy expected King to reimburse him for his rightful royalties. Instead he got blackballed for his trouble. The hits evaporated--and likewise the big-money gigs.

In the 1970’s Brown was doing business as a successful door-to-door encyclopedia salesman, using the moniker “Good Rockin’ Brown” to break the ice. The nostalgic angle worked like a charm, and music was assigned backburner status. Felled by a heart attack in 1981 at age 56, Brown’s love of performing might have yielded a further run of popularity with the pending 1980’s Blues revival.

- Gary Tate

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[Afrissippi Story] [Tate's Vintage Gallery]

Tate's Vintage Gallery

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