Ken Kinsey Speaks

On the May 14 Beldon’s Blues Points we announced that the Kinsey Report band is coming to the D.C. area to headline the Third annual Silver Spring Blues Festival, scheduled for June 18, 2011. Since then, we’ve had a chance to talk to Kenneth Kinsey, the band’s bassist. We learned a little more about the band. We hope you do too:



BBP: Well I guess one thing that everyone wants to know is, my understanding is you guys haven’t had a CD out since Smoke and Steel, right?
Kinsey: Yeah I think Smoke and Steel came out in 1998, ’99, and we haven’t done anything label-wise. We recorded a live album up in—it’s kind of a book store/coffeehouse called Grounds for Thought. It’s located in Bowling Green, Ohio. And we recorded a live record there. It was a limited edition, I think they only pressed about 500 copies. But what was really cool about it, they did a vinyl version of the record. So it was like six tracks on vinyl—and old-fashioned vinyl LP--and also as a bonus they included a CD in the packet which had an additional—I think—three tracks. So you got like about nine or ten tracks on the CD. But it was a cool package, to go back to that to that vintage LP style, you know. And that came out…maybe about a year ago. About a year-and-a-half ago.
BBP: Wow. But you said they only made about 500 copies. So I guess availability is probably very limited, right?
Kinsey: Yeah, (the promoter), actually he does a festival every year in September called The Black Swamp Festival there in Bowling Green. And we did the festival actually last year, so yeah it was released last year. And sold close to a couple hundred at the festival that evening. And so we have some and we just sell them off the bandstand for various gigs. In fact, we may or may not have some—it depends if we have some left with us when we come to the D.C. area.
BBP: Why did you decide to do vinyl? That’s kind of an interesting concept. You had your reasons for doing it that way, right?
Kinsey: Well, the promoter, he thought that it was cool. You have quite a few bands going back to vinyl. Maybe not for the full release, but like as just a bonus or a special edition or something like that. And a lot of collectors still have their turntables hooked up and ready to go. I don’t (laughs) but we, we thought it was a cool thing to do, and actually it’s been well-received.
BBP: Okay, when are you guys coming out with a new, more general release CD?
Kinsey: We hope to get back in the studio and do something soon. The last ten years has been a really rocky, up-and-down decade for us. We lost my dad (bluesman Lester “Big Daddy” Kinsey) in 2001 and it took a lot of just getting things settled down and back on track after his passing. He was such a strong force in the family. My brother and I—Ralph—we’ve been writing material and working with a couple of other people on their projects. We did a couple of solo projects. Donald’s been working strongly—I guess they have some anniversary of Bob Marley’s coming up pretty soon, I don’t know if it’s the..
BBP: It was his death. Actually it just passed about a week ago. He died 30 years ago.
Kinsey: Right. So they’ve been doing a lot of things with that. He’s been busy doing documentaries and providing a lot of detail and background for that. So that’s been going on the past couple of years. So I think this upcoming year if we can get past some things, we’re looking to get back in the studio and come out with that Kinsey Report record.
BBP: One thing I was curious about was, when you guys were young and you were growing up, did your father tell you “Donald, you play guitar, Ken you play bass, Ralph, you play drums,” or did you kind of gravitate to those instruments on your own?
Kinsey: I think everybody initially kind of gravitated. I think with Donald, though, my dad kind of wanted him to play guitar. My dad was a guitar player and, it would take them to tell you the story. But I believe that he kind of wanted Donald to play the guitar and Donald, he was such a natural for it, that it didn’t take much pushing or anything like that. And I think Ralph, you know, most kids, I think most kids initially are drummers. They just like to beat on stuff. And I just think that Ralph kind of—he’s beating on pots and pans and the seat of chairs and stuff. There’s a ten-year difference between myself and Donald but they were playing a long time before I got involved. They started playing at an early age, doing shows, local shows around town (Gary, Indiana), and then playing in my grandfather’s church on Sundays. And then by the time they did their thing, I think Donald went off and did some stuff with Albert King and he had a band earlier than that called “White Lightening.” Then he hooked up with Bob Marley and Peter Tosh. But when he got done with all of that, by that time I had been honing my skills a little bit, when they got done with the reggae scene they formed a band out in California called the Chosen Ones. That was happening for maybe two or three years or so. But when they moved back that’s when we started the family thing and that should have been around ’82 or ’83, somewhere up in there. And by that time, I had been back at home with Dad, and we had been playing. I had been getting serious playing the bass a little bit. That’s when we put together Big Daddy Kinsey and the Kinsey Report, and Donald produced my dad’s first record and things took off from there.
BBP: Wow. How old were you when you started playing bass?
Kinsey: I was probably in my teens when my dad got my first bass. I was uh—think I might have been maybe like a freshman or a sophomore in high school when I got my first bass. And I think during the years we always had rehearsals at my dad’s house in the basement. So when different other bass players would come over and were playing with my brothers, I would, after rehearsal was over with, pick up the bass and thump around with it a little bit. Later on in high school, I started taking jazz band in high school and that’s when I really got to know the language of music and bass and stuff, and then I kind of felt like I was going to take this kind of seriously. And, like I say, during that time when they (his brothers) were out in California, my dad, some of his old blues friends started coming back around and I was hanging with them and playing bass, you know, just blues tunes. So I could kind of hang with those guys and stuff, and they came back and kind of polished me up a little bit. Like I say, during that time it was like around ’82 or ’83 and that’s when we formed Big Daddy Kinsey and the Kinsey Report.
BBP: You say “around town,” by that you mean Gary?
Kinsey: Yes, Gary Indiana, that’s where we were born and raised. The brothers, my parents were born in Mississippi.
BBP: Okay, yeah. Big Daddy Kinsey from Mississippi.
Kinsey: Actually Pleasant Grove, Mississippi was where he was born.
BBP: Down in the Delta area, right?
Kinsey: Right.
BBP: Okay. Now Donald was ten years older than you. Were you playing in bands yourself when Donald and Ralph were out doing their thing?
Kinsey: Just neighborhood bands. You know just neighborhood kids, garage band type stuff. But looking back on that, though, all that kind of stuff was a helping hand in me just getting my skills and just learning how to play with other people. But it wasn’t anything serious. Like I say my first paying gig was with my family.
BBP: What direction did your father steer you in? Well you said it started with your grandfather, you played in your grandfather’s church.
Kinsey: Well my dad….that was kind of a conflict with him coming up, because my grandparents, my grandfather number one was a Pentecostal pastor of his own church. So he came up in a church family, but then when he went off into the blues, it was always a little rift in the family for a long time. Everybody was on speaking terms, but they, my grandmamma and stuff, she always wished her grandkids would play in the church and everything. My dad, because he played the blues, that’s naturally where we progressed. But we played a little bit of everything. I mean Ralph and Donald, they grew up listening to Sly Stone, rock stuff and like I said that early Bob Marley stuff. So we kind of had a background, really, of a little bit of everything and you probably can hear that in Kinsey Report music. I mean you listen to some of the stuff and you can hear a little rock, a little reggae. Obviously everything is rooted in the blues but we kind of branch it off a little bit into everything.
BBP: Oh yeah, I can definitely hear that. So did you actually play in the church? I’m asking because of the age difference between you and Donald.
Kinsey: No, I didn’t really play in the early days of our growing up. Later on in life I would go back to the church and play a little bit. I didn’t go to church every Sunday, so but after a while I would go and play every now and then. Like I say, Ralph and Donald, when they used to be teens, I think they played. They would do Friday and Saturday nights at night clubs with my dad, then my grandmother would make them go to church on Sunday. (laughs)
BBP: That must have been kind of strange growing up. What did you take from your dad in terms of music? I mean, what were some of the lessons he taught you with that?
Kinsey: I learned more than musical from my dad. I took a sense of business and trying to be professional. I did personally from my dad. I mean I think, especially on his career I mean early in his career I hear some stories, he was a wild one at times too. But after we formed Big Daddy Kinsey and the Kinsey Report—and that’s when I really came into play—I learned just a sense of running things in a business way. This business can be, if you’re not really somewhat disciplined with the whole situation and the lifestyle, it can get out of control sometimes. And we had fun doing what we did, we enjoyed doing it, but there’s always that other flip to it where you have to be business and run it like a business. And I think I’m—that’s the one thing I hold on to today as I try to maintain that sense of business and keeping things on track. And I think I got a lot of that more from my dad, more so than even his music. He was a singer and a guitar player and I was a bass player so I didn’t really—I understood the music and I could understand how to follow but I didn’t pick up guitar licks from him or anything like that. Now lately here, the last four or five years I’ve been singing a little bit, so I go back and I listen to some of his records. I don’t know if I have any of his vocal phrasing yet or not. I guess time will tell as I keep on trying to sing.
BBP: What made you venture into that? I mean singing.
Kinsey: Well just sometime out of necessity, when things start slowing down a little bit. Just locally I have a side project that I have here at home that, in-between Kinsey Report shows, I do just local shows with my own band. So I go to some places and I see some local guys and I say “Oh man, I know I can sing as good if not better than that!” (Both laugh). I’m a bass player first, I’m not going to mess up the groove, I take pride in being able to groove. So I said “But if I can steal a couple of songs where I can sing and not mess up the groove I’m going to give it a shot.” I’ve been lucky in picking songs where I can play and groove pretty steady on.
BBP: What’s the name of your band?
Kinsey: My side project band is called Mojo Daddy.
BBP: And what style is it? Sort of like the Kinsey Report?
Kinsey: Ah we kind of dabble a little bit. It’s maybe a little bit more rootsy rock. We kind of dabble in a little bit of everything. Structure-wise, yes. Two guitars, bass, drums, sometimes we use a harmonica player, sometimes we have a keyboard player. Yeah, we might go a little rocky, maybe even a little bluesy, depending on the particular show. I have Jerry Porter on drums: that’s a veteran with Buddy Guy, Junior Wells for years. He’s currently doing some shows with James Cotton. And then I have Nick Byrd, which is also a Kinsey Report guitar player but he plays with me in Mojo Daddy.
BBP: Are you guys coming out with a CD anytime soon?
Kinsey: Mojo Daddy?
BBP: Yeah.
Kinsey: Yeah…well we came out with one in 2009, self-titled Mojo Daddy. It was basically our version of cover songs, but it did pretty well for us locally. Like I say we’re just a regional band. We’re not trying to venture out to your way or California, we just kind of stay around Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin with that, but it was well-received enough to where we can pick up some in-between shows and a few handfuls of local festivals and stuff, which is what that was meant to be. At this point right now I’m not trying to make it any major project. That’s not to say in the future it may not be, but right now, we just want to create something to keep us busy in between our major and main projects that we are with.
BBP: I see. Let me ask you something about the Kinsey Report. Like your grandparents having issues with some of the music your father was doing, did your dad not like some of the stuff that you and Donald and Ralph were doing and listening to? Sounds like you guys were listening to rock…
Kinsey: I think he generally liked what we were doing. My dad used to always say when we would come up with a groove, when we were downstairs and we would hit a groove and he would like it, he would come to the top of the stairs and say “Hey, you all stay there. Don’t be going off and changing and going all off somewhere (laughs)!” But the key to our package back in the day with Big Daddy Kinsey and the Kinsey Report was people loved the idea of Kinsey Report coming out and doing the contemporary blues thing, if you want to call it that. My dad also carried a harmonica player with him—for years we had a couple of different guys—but the harmonica player would come out and do a couple of songs usually, and then my dad would come out. So, say we were doing a 75-minute show, Kinsey Report would come out and do maybe 20 or 30 minutes, the harmonica player would come out and do ten minutes, then my dad would come out and close out the remainder of the show. But he would do more traditional style blues, and later on he got a little funky too, but basically across the board the audience got a night full of everything. You know we got the contemporary rock stuff from Kinsey Report, the harmonica stuff…and then the traditional stuff that dad did. So that was um—I think that was our niche and our package that we were touring across the country and the world with at that time.
BBP: What made your father get a little funkier?
Kinsey: Just because, I think—for the most part we wrote everything together and I think some of the things that came out of us that we thought might befit him might have taken on a little funkier groove. And then he did two more records with the Verve label. His last two C
D’s. And I think they wanted to go a little more back to traditional. They brought in the guys who used to play with Muddy Waters: Jimmy Rogers, Pinetop Perkins, Johnny Johnson, Calvin Jones on bass, James Cotton. I think Buddy Guy actually was our special guest on some of those guests. The first record I Am the Blues was kind of more traditional little bit. We had a couple of funky grooves on there. And then the second one got a little different, we had some outside writers on that. I think just as an artist and stuff, you are who you are. But I think just as a creative side of any individual, you’re going to throw one or two curve balls out there. And he was the same way.
BBP: Your father was known around the Chicago area. That’s where you guys used to play, right?
Kinsey: Yeah, that was our home base. We lived here in Indiana but we pretty much played out of Chicago.
BBP: One thing I kind of noticed, I remember you said you guys collaborated on songs. Your dad, and I guess Donald was in there, and that’s how, I guess, there was a lot of cross-influence. Is that how the Kinsey Report writes its songs?
Kinsey: The conception of an idea may come from any one of the three of us. For example, if I’m sitting down and I’m feeling something here, most of us got portable studios in our homes. So I put a bass line down with a drum machine, and maybe hum a melody over it. And when it comes time to start putting some ideas together, I say, “Wait, I got a couple of ideas, this is what I’m humming and grooving to,” and if everybody give a nod to it, we put that in the pile to work on. And sometimes music will come from me, lyrics will come from Ralph, either/or may come from Donald. Things come from different people, and we just kind of put it there and go from there. There’s no one particular writer or anything. Like I say, one concept may come from any one of the three of us.
BBP: How do you choose your subject matter in terms of what to write about?
Kinsey: It varies. You heard me saying before, blues is life. So whatever, it doesn’t necessarily have to be current events, you know, it’s just whatever one is feeling at that time. Sometimes, some things, it’s really like just in the news and just like bothering the world and the country. Sometimes we might write on that, give our take on that. For example, with my dad’s record, Bad Situation, he had a track on that one called “No Nuclear War.” That’s when I think—it might have been—Reagan, I forget who was in office during that time, but that was the whole nuclear war thing, was in the news all of the time. So we wrote a song about that. Later on, on the Midnight Drive record, we wrote a song called “Free South Africa.” That’s when the whole apartheid thing was in the news. So, sometimes we do takes on current events. And like I say, blues is life, so whatever’s going on, you know, we can get personal with it. And then sometimes, we can just see somebody else’s problem, or happiness. Blues is not always about strife.
BBP: I remember one song you guys did, “When the Church Burned Down.”
Kinsey: Right.
BBP: I thought that was a very—I heard you guys play it at Buddy Guy’s club in Chicago…
Kinsey: Okay…
BBP: ...and it really caught my attention. I was wondering about the history behind that.
Kinsey: Well, that was another one. I forgot about that one. That was the late nineties there, I think they were burning churches down in the south and stuff, and that was just another thing that was unbelievable to see and hear, that people are still going around doing that. So that was just another one of those current events that we felt like we needed to write something about.
BBP: Right. You guys also did another one called “Code of the Streets,” on Smoke and Steel. Was that a reaction to someone you actually knew personally or was that just a song on the whole…
Kinsey: That one there came from my brother Ralph, and I don’t believe it was a personal relationship with that one. I think it was just kids—you know teenagers on the streets nowadays—and how they just view certain things, and the life for inner-city young men growing up. I think that was the inspiration for that one.
BBP: I guess you guys have a lot of songs that you’ve written and possibly even recorded that are maybe still “in the vault” so to speak.
Kinsey: Oh yeah, we got a lot of ideas that we haven’t recorded. There’s a couple of things in the vaults but there’s a lot of things that’ve been written that haven’t been recorded yet. That’s why I say once we get in the studios, it’s going to be a lot of things that are potentially going to come out. Everybody’s been putting down ideas all along. We haven’t stopped writing, we’ve just haven’t had a chance to really—right now we’re not with a label, so you got to look at how, when we want to pursue this or whatever. But once we try to work those things out, creativity-wise we have a lot of things to draw on.
BBP: You guys used to be with Alligator. What happened with that?
Kinsey: Just after that last record things just kind of got….. like I said —my dad died, just the whole thing of going with that, things just weren’t working out for a long time. So Alligator—that’s the place where we can always sit down and go back to. And when we get the material together, I think they may still be a label that we want to sit down with. We consider (Alligator founder) Bruce (Iglauer) not only just for the label, we consider him a friend. So I’m sure when that time comes we’ll be sitting back down with him.
BBP: I see. Have they made overtures to you?
Kinsey: Bruce was always open. He’s always open to listen and that’s all you can pretty much ask anybody to do is just say “hey, give an ear to it, let me know what you think.” Everything starts off with the music and once we get the ideas down, you shop it—shop it number one to the people you feel that can feel it. And then the process starts from there.
BBP: One thing I was curious about. The album that you made in Ohio, is it possible that you could maybe expand production of that?
Kinsey: It’s possible. It’s pretty much stuff that we do on the bandstand, just some standard covers that we do on the bandstand. We didn’t include any other release material or anything like that on it. It’s possible. It’s possible to widespread it. We haven’t sat down with the producer of it to discuss that. That’s an idea.
BBP: Have you as a band thought about expanding into other forms of music? Because a lot of what you play, they could play on the rock stations and if you didn’t call it blues…
Kinsey: Yeah, we’ve kind of been there, done that. We did the two records with Alligator, then we went to Point Blank/Virgin and did a couple of records. And I think once again you hear that cliché “stuck between a rock and a hard place.” Well I think during that time, because we were established as coming from Alligator, we were established with the blues community strongly. I think they (Virgin) wanted to promote the more rock side of us than the blues side. So when they started doing that, I think we kind of offended our blues fans and then the rock fans, they would listen to the total thing and say, “well, I don’t know, I hear some rock, but it’s more blues.” So we kind of ended up like, the blues stations weren’t playing our stuff because they thought we went too rock and the rock stations weren’t playing us because they thought we were still too bluesy or whatever…
BBP: Oh boy…
Kinsey: ….So we kind of lost some momentum, especially with that first record I think it was the Powerhouse record. But the second one we did, Crossing Bridges, we kind of gained back some ground a little bit with that record there. So it’s one of those things. That was a major label, major money, but I think the plan just wasn’t completely thought out. But you know that’s how it goes.
BBP: You’ve got to experiment, I guess, and see how things turn out.
Kinsey: Yeah, once again radio, you know, the kind of radio play that we were getting back during that time, I don’t know. I mean, the internet radio for now is pretty much for blues. Other than the public radio and the ten o’clock blues hour shows and stuff like that, some of the radio airplay that we were getting, college radio-different things like that, I don’t know if anybody is getting that kind of radio play right now, blues-wise and stuff, you know. It’s a new time now, and you just kind of have to get a feel for what’s going on out there and just basically get back to your base and let things go from there.
BBP: Interesting though is that I’m hearing blues in two places that I didn’t think I would. One is commercials and the other is movies…
Kinsey: Oh yeah! Yep. Yep. Yeah, commercials are—especially a lot of the old-time stuff. And a lot of times that’s what labels and publishing houses have been doing, they’ve been cataloging the music and waiting and then putting it out there and that’s a big money avenue for artists is commercials and movies and stuff. We had a couple of opportunities where we had some Kinsey Report music in a couple of TV pilots back in the—well actually from Smoke and Steel we had “This Old City” was in a—I think it was a TBS or TNT show they used to have. It didn’t last for more than maybe a season. And then “Midnight Drive” was featured in a pilot. So we’ve had a couple of our songs in some TV series.
BBP: Ken, one thing I wanted to ask you was—you play bass, Donald plays guitar, and Ralph plays drums. But what roles outside of the instruments do you each play in the band?
Kinsey: When it comes to the creativity of the music, we all put in equal—we try to. Like I said, ideas could come from any one of us. As Kinsey Report we work as a team, so we are partnered with that. Outside music, different one of us has different responsibilities. I mean for a long time I pretty much did the road manager stuff and kept the books and made sure monies was right, different things. Like I say, early on I got a sense of business from my dad, so I kind of like make sure that the business part of things is kept up to date. My brother Ralph, when it comes to our music publishing, things of that nature, he makes sure that all of that is in order, makes sure ASCAP is doing what they’re supposed to do, and/or talking with labels or whatever to say “hey, man I think this song here would be a good song for this show or whatever.” So he kind of handles that. So we each have our role outside of the music part of it, do as much as we can because right now. We haven’t had a manager in some time, so we try to do as much as we can in-house.
BBP: What you said about your dad, his death kind of throwing things out of kilter. How specifically did it do that? What changed after that?.
Kinsey: Well, my mom passed first (Christine, in 1995) and then after dad passed. He had business and property, and just like in any other normal family you just have a ton of stuff that you just kind of have to deal with. Not only business but then everybody else emotionally reacts to different things and stuff. So you just kind of have to just really put everything—with it being just the three of us being in the business it’s not like we had a sister or another brother that wasn’t in the business that could stay at home and administrate stuff. We try to handle business, stay on the road and dealing with the loss of a loved one at the same time, things just got a little loopy there, and we said “Okay, something’s got to give. Let’s slow down for a minute and handle one thing at a time and get back to doing what we do best.”
BBP: Do you have an ETA on when the new CD will come out?
Kinsey: No, I can’t tell. All I can say is that we’re constantly writing and putting down ideas. It’s just a matter of time where we come together and record it. But I can’t really put a time on it or anything. Soon as I say that…
BBP: It changes.
Founded by the D.C. Blues Society and the Silver Spring Town Center, Inc., this year’s festival will also feature The Big Boy Little Band, Jonny Grave and the Tombstones, the D.C. Blues Society Band with Stacy Brooks and Ida Campbell & the Blues. It will take place on two stages along Ellsworth Drive between Georgia Avenue and Spring Street. Admission is free.
Later that evening, the Kinseys will travel up the road to the Baltimore area perform in a show sponsored by the Baltimore Blues Society at the Rosedale American Legion, 1331 Seling Avenue, Rosedale, Maryland. The Rosedale show begins at 10 p.m.

Beldon's Blues Points May 14-update

This is going to be a quickie. The May 20, 2011 Duke Robillard concert scheduled for Second Story Blues in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania has been cancelled due to poor ticket sales. Hard to understand. The guy has skills, as you can see from this video......

Beldon's Blues Points May 14, 2011

I can’t believe it. The Kinsey Report, one of my favorite bands, is coming to D.C.
Guitarist Donald Kinsey and his brothers, bassist Kenneth and drummer Ralph, will play the Third Annual Silver Spring Festival, scheduled for the afternoon of Saturday, June 18. The Gary, Indiana-based, Chicago-styled group leads a line-up that includes many D.C. based entertainers, among them The Big Boy Little Band, Jonny Grave and the Tombstones, the D.C. Blues Society Band with Stacy Brooks, and Ida Campbell & the Blues. That evening, the Kinseys will travel to Baltimore to do a show for the Baltimore Blues Society.
I heard about the Kinsey Report in 2006 (I think) while living in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Brought in by the Lehigh Valley Blues Network, they played a show in nearby Easton. Some kind of previous engagement made me miss the concert, but I ended up really liking the band’s rock-edged form of blues after hearing it played over the radio beforehand.
Luckily I had another chance to see them when I traveled to Chicago a few months later to catch the Chicago Blues Festival. The Kinseys were at Buddy Guy’s Legends one night, and blew me away, particularly with “When the Church Burned Down,” their song inspired by a rash of arson fires breaking out at black churches during the 1990’s. After the show, the band hawked copies of Smoke and Steel, their 1998 album with Alligator Records, and I bought a copy. When I finally played it I found another gem, "Code of the Streets," a slow burner about a young man’s life of drug-dealing, murder and prison. The heart of the song is a long, hard-wrought, riveting, almost painful guitar solo from Donald.
I saw them two more times after that: one in Chicago, where I caught them at Rosa’s, another blues club, while attending the blues festival another year; and the other at Philadelphia’s Warmdaddy’s, where I remember picking Kenneth’s brain for bass-playing tips.



As I followed the band more and more, I learned they have a pretty cool history. Their father, the late Mississippi-born Lester “Big Daddy” Kinsey, was known for his slide guitar and harmonica work. During the late 1960’s, father and sons toured as Big Daddy Kinsey and his Fabulous Sons, a band which broke up in the early 1970’s.
An accomplished guitarist by the time he was 13, Donald went on to play rhythm for Albert King. Donald left King's band in 1975 to form the heavy metal group White Lightening with Ralph and bassist Busta "Cherry" Jones. The group produced a self-titled record for Island Records.
Later, at an Island Records reception in New York, Donald Bob Marley, who introduced him to another reggae legend, Peter Tosh. Tosh invited the guitarist to sit in on the album Legalize It,later enlisting him for a tour.
After a year with Tosh, Donald received a call from Marley, who asked him to overdub some guitar parts for the album Rastaman Vibration. Their collaboration blossomed in 1976 when Donald moved to Jamaica to tour with Marley. The guitarist even appeared on Marley’s live album, Babylon By Bus. But the union fell victim to Jamaica’s tumultuous politics of the period when Donald was almost killed during a 1976 assassination attempt on Marley. Donald left the band afterwards.
After a brief stint with the Staple Singers, Donald once again joined Tosh who in 1978 toured with the Rolling Stones. When the tour ended in California, Donald decided to stay there. He brought brother Ralph and a friend, guitarist Ron Prince, out there where they all formed the “The Chosen Ones,” a reggae/blues/funk/rock band.
The Chosen Ones went to Gary and in 1981 recorded a record for Faulty Products, an independent record label. Donald then returned to Tosh, touring Europe and Africa and playing on the Mama Africa album. Donald arranged and co-produced a version of "Johnny B.Goode" for the album.
The Kinsey Report was formed in 1984 when Donald, Kenny, Ralph and Prince joined Big Daddy Kinsey to form Big Daddy Kinsey and the Kinsey Report. In 1985 the Kinsey Report backed Big Daddy Kinsey for his debut album, Bad Situation, which Donald produced.
Bruce Iglauer, president of Alligator Records, brought his friend, guitarist Roy Buchanan, to hear the Kinseys live. Iglauer eventually offered the band a full record deal which led to the release of 1988’s Edge of the City. The band followed up that album in 1989 with Midnight Drive.
The Kinseys then released two albums for Pointblank, a subsidiary of Virgin Records specializing in blues: Powerhouse (1991) and Crossing Bridges (1994. The group then returned to Alligator for Smoke and Steel.
The Silver Spring Blues Festival will take place on two stages on Ellsworth Drive between Georgia Avenue and Spring Street. Admission is free.
The Baltimore Blues Society Show featuring the group will begin at 10 p.m. at the Rosedale American Legion, 1331 Seling Avenue, Rosedale, Maryland.

OTHER EVENTS

On Wednesday, May 18, 2011 guitarist Linwood Taylor will join Nadine Rae & the Allstars to play Proud Mary's Restaurant, 13600 King Charles Terrace, Ft. Washington, Maryland. The All-Stars include Barry Brady on keyboards, Charles "Red" Adkins on bass and Andy Hamburger on drums.
On Thursday, May 19, Nadine Rae and the Allstars will play The Austin Grill, 2002 Annapolis Mall Blvd., Annapolis, MD. The group will perform from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. For further information, call the restaurant at 410-571-6688 or check out its website at 410-571-6688.
On May 19, 2011 the D.C. Blues Society is bringing Biscuit Miller to Surf Club Live. Miller is a veteran bluesman who played bass for Lonnie Baker Brooks for 10 years and the Anthony Gomes Band for five. Surf Club Live is located at 4711 Kenilworth Avenue, Hyattsville, MD. Tickets are $10 for D.C. Blues Society members, $13 for non-members. The show begins at 8 p.m.
On May 20, 2011 guitarist Duke Robillard appears at 2nd Story Blues, 102 W. Fourth Street, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
Eddie Shaw and the Wolf Gang play Chef Mac’s Cajun and Creole Restaurant in Baltimore on May 28. Chef Mac’s is located at 4709 Harford Road and can be reached by telephone at 410-319-6227. Eddie Shaw once played with Muddy Waters. If you want to know more about the Wolf Gang, check out our September, 2009 interview with bassist Lafayette “Shorty” Gilbert. It’s long, but chock full of interesting stuff about the Wolf Gang and other musicians. Believe me, Shorty's worked with a lot of people, and there will be names you recognize.
The D.C. Blues Society will host a jam Sunday, June 5 at American Legion Post 41, 905 Sligo Avenue, Silver Spring. The jam will take place from 4-8 p.m.

Now here’s music writer and harmonica player Bob Corritore with news on the Blues Music Awards (formerly the Handy Awards).

Friday May 6, 2011

• Last night at the BMAs in Memphis, Tennessee Bob Corritore & Friends / Harmonica Blues picked up the win as Historical Blues Album of the year. Bob would like to congratulate all award winners in all categories. Bob would also like to thank the Blues Foundation for this great honor. Bob Corritore and Randy Chortkoff were presented the award by actor Jason Lee of My Name Is Earl. Bob would like to thank Delta Groove Records, DJs, writers, publicists, and everyone who believed in, and got behind Bob's efforts. More news to follow on the BMAs as Bob is traveling to Europe now to perform at the Moulin Blues Festival, and then a week of touring. This collaborative effort featured so many wonderful musicians, representing many traditions of the blues, all who also take part in this win. The following is a list of the 2011 Blues Music Award winners:
Acoustic Album of the Year
Last Train to Bluesville
The Nighthawks

Acoustic Artist of the Year
John Hammond

Album of the Year
Living Proof
Buddy Guy

B.B. King Entertainer of the Year
Buddy Guy

Band of the Year
The Derek Trucks Band

Best New Artist Debut
On the Floor
Matt Hill

Contemporary Blues Album of the Year
Living Proof
Buddy Guy

Contemporary Blues Female Artist of the Year
Robin Rogers

Contemporary Blues Male Artist of the Year
Buddy Guy

DVD
Ruf Records
Songs from the Road
(Luther Allison)

Historical Album of the Year
Delta Groove
Harmonica Blues
(Bob Corritore & Friends)

Instrumentalist-Bass
Bob Stroger

Instrumentalist-Drums
Cedric Burnside

Instrumentalist-Guitar
Derek Trucks

Instrumentalist-Harmonica
Charlie Musselwhite

Instrumentalist-Horn
Eddie Shaw

Instrumentalist-Other
Sonny Rhodes (Lap Steel Guitar)

Koko Taylor Award
Ruthie Foster

Pinetop Perkins Piano Player
Dr. John

Rock Blues Album of the Year
Live! In Chicago
Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band featuring Hubert Sumlin, Willie "Big Eyes" Smith, Bryan Lee and Buddy Flett

Song of the Year
"Living Proof"
Tom Hambridge/Buddy Guy

Soul Blues Album of the Year
Nothing's Impossible
Solomon Burke

Soul Blues Female Artist of the Year
Irma Thomas

Soul Blues Male Artist of the Year
Solomon Burke

Traditional Blues Album of the Year
Joined At the Hip
Pinetop Perkins & Willie "Big Eyes" Smith

Traditional Blues Male Artist of the Year
Charlie Musselwhite

We have information on hotel/ticket package deals for the upcoming Daytona Beach Blues Festival. Sounds like a great place to listen to music. Here's the link:

http://www.annualdaytonabluesfestival.com/

Anyone wishing to place an event on Beldon's Blues Point should contact us at beldonsbluespoint@yahoo.com

On the Move! Andrew "Jr. Boy" Jones

Guitarist/singer Andrew “Jr. Boy” Jones had an enviable start as a musician. Growing up in Dallas, he was exposed to music through his mother, Gladys, a one-time singer and a family friend, Adolphus Sneed, a saxophonist.
By 16, he was playing for Freddie King, who introduced him to many of the well-known musicians of the day: B .B. King, Bobby Bland and Clarence Carter, among others.
Now 62, Jones has over the years built up a resume that includes turns with prominent musicians such as rhythm and blues singer Johnnie Taylor, harmonica player and bandleader Charlie Musselwhite, lap steel guitarist Sonny Rhodes and the late boogie-woogie pianist Katie Webster. He has made his mark on the tradition of Texas blues reflected in the music of King, Stevie Ray and Jimmie Vaughan and David “Guitar Shorty” Kearney. Over the years, he has maintained an eclectic personal blues style by keeping an open ear to other genres such as rhythm and blues, rock and jazz.
Playing with a legend like King as a teen-ager helped clear the way for the collaborations and wide musical exposure that has made Jones the musician he is today. In 1973, Jones again joined King’s band, which toured with rock groups such as Rare Earth, the Marshall Tucker Band, Grand Funk Railroad and Tower of Power.
In the 1980’s Jones backed up Taylor and in 1987 ventured to the West Coast, where he formed the group “Silent Partners” with bassist Russell Jackson and drummer Tony Coleman, both of B.B. King fame. In 1988, the three joined Webster to record her Swamp Boogie Queen album with Alligator Records.
His collaboration with Musselwhite came after the two worked together on a Sonny Rhodes album in 1989.
Jones reportedly had been planning to return to Texas and cut demos, but Musselwhite convinced him he would receive more exposure joining his band. From the early to mid-1990’s, Jones recorded three albums with Musselwhite: Ace of Harps, Signature, and In My Time. In 1995, the band won a W.C. Handy Award for Best Band.
Returning to Dallas in 1996, Jones recorded I Need Time, his first album for the British-based jazz and blues label J.S.P. Records. J.S.P. licensed the record to Bullseye Blues, a subsidiary of the U.S. company Rounder Records, known for its work with George Thorogood and the Destroyers.
In 1998 Jones was nominated for a Handy award as Best New Blues Artist after recording the album Watch What You Say for Rounder.
Jones released his third album, Mr. Domestic, in 2001 under his own label, Galexc Records. He recorded his fourth album and first live CD Jr. Boy Live in 2005.
He signed with Electro-Fi Records to release his fifth album, Gettin’ Real, in 2009.
Beldon’s Blues Point caught up with Jones during a concert he performed at Washington, D.C.’s Madam’s Organ in April. The video we recorded of him for the interview is not the best visually. But Andrew’s band kicks ass. And you ain’t gonna hear that show anywhere else…
BBP: What are your tour plans?
Jones: Actually we’re just now starting to get to touring pretty strong after three months of not touring and it looks like spring on into the summer will be quite busy.
BBP: Where are you heading? Which cities?
Jones: The next tour we’ll be hitting the West Coast, San Francisco and parts of California, Seattle up in Canada, Calgary, Alberta and then we have festivals all over…we’re going to Ottawa and do that festival and one in Dubois, Pennsylvania, it’s a nice festival and those people are like, family. It’s going to be really good.
BBP: I talked to a lot of musicians and there seems to be a feeling that live music is sort of dying out, that people don’t want to support it and that kind of thing. Do you feel that’s true?
Jones: Well, it sort of like seems like the whole scheme of things is to kill the arts, but I think when you bring the quality and bring what people want to hear, you know it’s gotta survive. It’s just a part of American fiber and I don’t think it’s going anywhere.
BBP: Can you tell me how your music has changed since you were about 16 and first joined an R and B band?
Jones: It’s more the influence of a lot of stuff that I’ve learned through the years and from my predecessors Albert King and Albert Collins and especially Freddie King. And implemented it with some of the more modern style and also my feeling, you know, so I’m putting a lot of me into some of this music that my predecessors came about.
BBP: What did you take most from Freddie King? You did two separate stints with him.
Jones: What I got from him is try to have power. You can’t match..it’s hard to match his power. And some of his playing, his style which I didn’t try to copy or anything, it’s just from hearing, whatever you’re hearing coming up is a part of who you are also. So it’s just the essence of his style, you’ll hear a little of him in me as well as some other people like Cornell Dupree—I grew up listening to him—and a few other local great players.
BBP: Freddie King, you were very young when you played with him. You were sixteen when you started, around 16 I guess? What was the relationship like back then with you and him? Did he take you under his wing more or less?
Jones: Well he kind of without me evening noticing because all of the people that I met, the Who’s Who of the Blues, I met through Freddie and for some reason he had me around to meet them. People like Willie Dixon, I met Muddy Waters through Freddie, he introduced me. And B.B. King. The first time I met B.B. was through Freddie King. And a lot of the Who’s Who of the Blues I met through Freddie and not just because I was hanging around. It was because he introduced me. So I guess you could say he took me under his wing, somewhat.
BBP: I know you were in a band with a couple of B.B. sidemen?
Jones: Russell Jackson (bass) and Tony Coleman. Yeah we had the Silent Partners together and that was before Mel Brown joined them and they did the album but we recorded with Katy for Alligator, the Swamp Boogie Queen album. And we had a real fruitful stint on the West Coast because we were like recording with everybody you know: Sonny Rhodes, Little Frankie Lee, and whoever else wanted to use the three of us in the sessions, so. We had a lot of success in California, as well as across the country.
BBP: What’s your take on Sonny Rhodes? He kind of has an interesting approach to music…
Jones: He’s unique and I guess that’s what makes a star, is when you don’t sound like anyone else. I mean there can only be one Sonny, there can only be one Freddie King. A lot of people try to copy, but Albert Collins told me something a long time ago. I told him I stole a lick of his, he said, “That’s alright, boy, when you do it, it ain’t going to sound like me, it’s going to be YOU, putting YOU into it. So I’m a believer of that. If you’re really feeling what you’re playing, it’s going to be your heart in it.
BBP: I know you did a stint with Charlie Musselwhite as well. What was that like?.
Jones: Well it was..Charlie and I, we were…it was like, I don’t want to say the beginning, starting over, but he gave me a lot of exposure and a lot of leeway as far as writing with him and stuff like that and I toured more extensively than I did with anyone. I mean all around the world, we toured. He was very interesting, especially exposing me to the harmonica like he did, and he’s a great talent. It’s proven. I mean he’s still here today doing it strong and even stronger than when I joined him.

BBP: When you say he exposed you to the harmonica, did you actually pick it up and play it yourself?
Jones: No, it was just the knowledge of what the instrument was like. It’s actually an instrument and it gave me more respect for that as an instrument, and the technique. I could talk to a lot of harp players about how to cross-blow. I’ve never done it, but that’s just stuff I learned from hearing him and he explained it to me.
BBP: Where did you get the name “Junior Boy.”
Jones: I got that from my grandmother. When I was born, of course I was a junior and as soon as I was born she called me “Junior Boy.” And it stuck, that’s all I knew for a while until I got older. So that’s how that came about.
BBP: You’re from Texas. How would you characterize the Texas form of blues, and do you feel a kinship with the other guys who do it, like Smokin’ Joe Kubek, Guitar Shorty.
Jones: I would say that we all, you know, we all come from my influences and whatever’s there. Whatever that Texas thing is, we got it there first you know, before we got it any more else. Yeah, I know both of them. I know Joe, Bnois real well, Anson. I know Shorty real well even though he lives way in south Texas like. That’s like being in another country. Texas is so big. But I know quite a few slingers. Even the younger ones like Shawn Pittman and Tutu Jones. Lucky Peterson, he and I hung about about two weeks ago. We played a local gig together. Whatever that thing is it’s what you’re surrounded by and quite naturally it will be your influence.
BBP: Can you remember any times with another musician, collaboration that you did that just sticks in your mind as something that may have been a turning point or watershed moment in your career. Or something that you just enjoyed the hell out of?
Jones: It several things. At some point with Freddie I was in awe because after “Going Down” we started playing with rock bands and in the stadiums and the arenas and then with Johnnie Taylor, you know I played with him for about four or five years, that R and B soul thing and played with a huge orchestra. It was rewarding you know…and you know Musselwhite, with him at some point I could feel that power, I like to feel the power in the music. And then Katie Webster, that was another thing, she was a great talent, and my goodness, we just sat back and watched her. We just stopped playing and watched her at sound check cause she was off in her own world, her own plateau. And then Musselwhite, you know I got something from all of them. And then myself, watching my own music grow, creating it in the studio and actually I got a gift of hearing it in my head before we record it. And so much turned out the way that I like it and I think it’s really rewarding to be able to create something and see it come to fruition.

BBP: The rock edge in your music I know that you mentioned playing rock, but there definitely is from what I can hear—I might be wrong, correct me if I am—it sounds like there’s a rock edge to what you do when you play your solos.
Jones: it depends on the crowd and how hard I want to push it but it’s still the blues licks, I mean that’s what I’m playing. And I use a little musical knowledge sometimes, sometimes I get into the mode because I took it upon myself to learn that. But I’m not a jazz player. But yeah, if it will move the people and if it will move me I’m not against stretching out. I just want to make sure it will get the point across and actually I’m playing for me. If it makes me feel good, I’m alright.
BBP: You’ve done a whole lot. What do you want to do that you haven’t done yet in terms of music?
Jones: Make some money (laughs).

Beldon's Blues Points Feb. 24, 2011

Here in the D.C. area Stacy Brooks will hold her Mardi Gras party tonight from 8-12 at Surf Club Live! Anthony “Swamp Dog” Clark and his Blues All-Stars will also perform at the event, which is sponsored by the D.C. Blues Society and hosted by WPFW Radio Personality Texas Fred. Tickets are $8 for D.C. Blues Society members and $10 for non-members. Surf Club Live is located at 4711 Kenilworth Avenue in Hyattsville.



Harmonica Player Bob Corritore was kind enough to send us the following:

• RIP Tom Leavey Sept 13, 1942 - February 21, 2011. It is with great sadness that we report the passing of bassist/songwriter Tom Leavey, who is probably best known for his great work with the Mannish Boys. Tom passed away on Monday of a heart attack, at age 68. Tom was a Brooklyn native who fell in love with blues early on. While still underage, he would sneak into R&B shows at the Apollo Theater. In the late 1960's Tom would relocate to the West Coast, where he would join up with Jimmy Carl Black, of the Mothers of Invention, in a band called Geronimo Black. In the mid 1980s, Tom would relocate to Phoenix to start the LP Club, a celebrated but short lived venue that would feature national jazz & blues acts. During his time in Phoenix he would also work with Janiva Magness & The Mojomatics. By the end of the 1980s, he would move back to Los Angeles where he would collaborate with Randy Chortkoff on numerous projects, including the famed all-star group known as the Mannish Boys, and Chortkoff produced albums by King Ernest, Billy Boy Arnold, Finis Tasby, Bobby Jones, and, of course the Mannish Boys. Tom toured the world with the Mannish Boys until some health issues forced him to take a break from music over the last couple years, Tom was known as a kind, and humble person, and an excellent traditional blues bass player, as well as a great live performer who always wore wonderful suits on stage. He will be greatly missed by all who knew him.



• RIP Big Bill Collins -April 5th, 1935 to February 14, 2011. Legendary Chicago blues DJ Albert "Big Bill" Collins passed away on Feb 14th. He had a delightful after-hours blues radio show on WNIB where he would use his well-loved slogan "Big Bill Collins, down in the basement, sittin' up here on an old beat-up orange crate". His down home approach, which often included numerous dedications, and ad skits, was nothing less than pure charm. He was especially prominent in the 1970s and '80s. He also managed blues singer Bonnie Lee and others. He was frequently seen at blues events with his characteristic trench coat, passing out cards for his show.
• RIP Johnny Nitro, Birthdate unknown - February 19, 2011. Blues singer/songwriter/guitarist John "Johnny Nitro" Newton was an intregal part of the Bay Area blues scene. He is best known for being the writer of "Too Many Dirty Dishes," a song made famous by Albert Collins. He was a fine singer, guitarist, and bandleader who would often perform with many of the resident blues legends in the Bay Area. He died on Saturday, February 19th, at age 59. He passed away in his apartment, which was located above the Saloon on Grand Avenue, the club he played at for the last 25 years. Johnny will be greatly missed by the blues world.

• Blues Grammy winners! This year the Grammy Awards recognized the seasoned Chicago blues veterans in their 2 blues categories. Congratulations to Pinetop Perkins and Willie "Big Eyes" Smith who won in the Best Traditional Blues Album category for their CD Joined At The Hip on the Telarc label (a shout out to producer Michael Freeman, manager Patricia Morgan and Blue Mountain Artists for their part in this win!). Also congrats to Buddy Guy who won in the Best Contemporary Blues Album category for his CD Skin Deep (another shout out to publicist Betsie Brown for her promotional efforts). We should also mention that Mavis Staples / You Are Not Alone won Best Americana Album, Carolina Chocolate Drops / Genuine Negro Jig won Best Traditional Folk Album, and Chubby Carrier & The Bayou Swamp Band / Zydeco Junkie won Best Zydeco/Cajun Music Album!


Don't forget! If you have any items you'd like to see on Beldon's Blues Points, send them to Beldonsbluespoint@yahoo.com. We take blues news from anywhere in the world, even if we haven't been there ourselves....

Back to Being Linwood Taylor

Whenever musicians need a strong, reliable guitar, they frequently turn to the D.C. area’s Linwood Taylor.
The Virginia-based, Prince George’s County reared guitarist has guest-starred on albums by Bad Brains leader H.R. and Prince George's County, Maryland harmonica player Anthony “Swamp Dog” Clark. He has shared the stage with Johnny Winter and opened for Johnny Copeland, Albert Collins, Lonnie Mack and Rory Gallagher.
But a two-year stint with Joe Louis Walker made Taylor re-evaluate who he is as a musician. Specifically, his long-standing determination to be known for his own accomplishments—rather than for his association with other musicians—was prodded back to life in February, 2010 when Walker called him to tell him he was dropping him from his tour. “I’m like ‘really?’ I said ‘okay, whatever,’ “said Taylor, who had just soloed on Walker’s album, Blues Conspiracy: Live on the Legendary Rhythm and Blues Cruise. ”What was I going to do, you know?”
Taylor decided to focus his energies on being a bandleader, drawing from a pool of friends to staff a new--though apparently in flux--incarnation of the Linwood Taylor Band, a touring group he has helmed for decades.
"Right now I got Tommy Lepson who plays the keyboards when I can afford him," he said."I got Charles "Red" Adkins playing bass for me when I can get him. And then I got this guy Rodney Dunton playing drums with me. It's a pretty loose crew at the moment. It's who's available. It's the mercenary nature of my business right now."
In addition to performing, Taylor has started work on a new album that will ultimately consist of ten to twelve original songs. “You know we’re trying to do as many as we can and then we’re going to see which ones do well together and which ones don’t,” he said.
A bluesman who unabashedly leans toward the rock side, Taylor promises an album that will steer away somewhat from the traditional structures of the blues genre. “There’s always an element of rock because I like that guitar sound,” he said.
Born in Fort Lee, Virginia, Taylor first came to the D.C. area in 1958, when he was two years old. He took up the guitar as a youth, and, influenced by players like Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton and groups like Led Zeppelin, began playing in garage bands.
As an up-and-coming professional musician, he caught the ears of members of bands led by the D.C. area’s musical royalty: Roy Buchanan, Danny Gatton and the Nighthawks, among others. Those bands' members wanted to play with him, he said.
“The best guys in town, as soon as they found out you were hiring and doing gigs, they all gave me their numbers,” he recalled. “I mean these are guys that I would go and see them perform somewhere but they are like going, “Oh no, man, here’s my card. If you ever need somebody, call me.
”
He has already recorded three albums, all self-produced. The first, Live at Colonial Seafood, was a live recording of a show he had given at a Fredericksburg, Virginia restaurant in 1991 or 1992, he recalled. He recently started reissuing the album, which had been out of print.
He recorded his second album, Take This and Stay Out of Trouble, live in the mid-90's at various locations around the D.C. area, he said.
Recorded in a studio ten years after his second album, his third album, Make Room for the Paying Customer, started to break the ground he plans to explore with his new album, deviating from the standard structural patterns normally associated with the blues.
An informal but knowledgeable musical historian, he frequently contributes videos from a variety of blues and rock musicians to Facebook.
Taylor started his Beldon’s Blues Point interview by recalling that, when he was ten years old, an accordion salesman tried to turn him in a musical direction he just did not want to go. I figured that since we were about the same age—and grew up in the same area—the salesman might have been the same one who sold my mother an accordion for me to use. Like him, I never used it, and she has never let me forget it….
BBP: How did you get started in music? It must have been when you were like five or six years old, right?
Taylor: (laughs) Actually, I wanted to play guitar since I was about ten and I wound up starting on accordion, which I didn’t want to do, but some guy came selling them door-to-door and, you know, there you go. And sold my parents, but not me, but I went along. He said it would be easier than playing guitar. And…total salesman…of course it wasn’t. And of course I had no interest in it because it wasn’t guitar.
BBP: I think the same guy came to my house. Because I did the same thing.
Taylor: You know, it’s just one of those things. And then I got an acoustic guitar a couple of years later. And it wasn’t really what I wanted and I started playing, you know, and I started to play, and I had actually started playing left-handed and then I injured my finger playing sports. And while it was healing, I switched over and sort of fiddled around with the right-hand. And then about a year later I started playing pretty much in earnest right-handed, and haven’t looked back.
BBP: Are you naturally left-handed?
Taylor: Um, I’m mixed up. They say I’m ambidextrous but some things I do left-handed, some things I do right-handed.
BBP: How old were you when you started playing electric guitar?
Taylor: About 14 or so.
BBP: Okay. And who were you listening to back in those days? I mean what music?
Taylor: Back then, you know, I mean what really prompted me was actually seeing a video of Jimi Hendrix playing “Foxy Lady,” and I said “Oh wow, check this out.” And so obviously Hendrix, but you know Cream, Clapton, Zeppelin, you know some R and B stuff. Curtis Mayfield’s “Superfly,” that whole thing was happening at that time.
BBP: Were you more oriented towards the rock?
Taylor: Yeah, definitely the rock, because, well, let’s face it, back then R and B music, the guitar was pretty much subjugated. Given the recordings back then, it was hard to hear some of the guitar parts. I mean, they were buried in the mix and you’d hear a little chinga, chinga, chinga and that would be about it. You know, there were notable exceptions. You know, like “Soulfinger,” or the thing by the Bar-Kays, “Soulfinger” by the Bar-Kays, or “Soul Man” by Sam and Dave, or, of course, “Green Onions” by Booker T and the M.G.’s., which was a favorite group pretty much until Hendrix came out.
BBP: Do you remember the first time you played in a band that you felt was really making a dent?
Taylor: Well, the first band that I actually did that in was one of the early versions of the Linwood Taylor band. We got a gig opening for Johnny Clyde Copeland and I actually had Phil Wiggins of Cephas & Wiggins playing harp with me. And Cesar Diaz was playing guitar with me as well. Of Diaz amplifiers, who played guitar and built amplifiers for Bob Dylan, Stevie Ray Vaughan, the Rolling Stones. You name them, he’s done guitars for them, he’s done amplifiers for them.
BBP: Was this a guy from Pennsylvania? Because I remember someone was telling me about him. It might have been you.
Taylor: It was probably me. It was probably me because I’m the guitar freak and Cesar, you know, Cesar and I wound up being friends eventually. And he hipped me to a lot of different cool sounds. How to get them, and you know, the kind of things you needed to do to get a good tone, that kind of thing. It’s definitely one of the most overlooked things of many, many guitar players, even today.
BBP: They’re getting a bad tone because of the equipment they use?
Taylor: It’s mostly….I would say part of it is that. You can make almost anything sound good enough, because most of your sound is going to come from your hands. But the thing is that, if you don’t know how to set your amp and your guitar, you’re just not going to get a good sound.
BBP: Was Cesar playing in your band?
Taylor: Yeah, he actually did. And this was a little bit before—meeting him was before he actually played with me. We had already been friends, before I got my first gig as the Linwood Taylor band. And in fact, I always told him, you know, to this day I’m grateful for him making me—and I mean literally making me—call it the Linwood Taylor band.
BBP: Why are you grateful for that?
Taylor: Well that’s just it. I didn’t want to call it that. I mean, I had some guys who had many more years of experience and were way better than I was. He insisted that I call it the Linwood Taylor Band and in fact when the guy came out and said, “Well, what do you want to call it, what’s the name of your band,” and I went to call it something else, my man put his hand over my mouth and said “The Linwood Taylor Band.”
BBP: Who did you find yourself opening for during those periods?
Taylor: Let’s see, Lonnie Mack. Johnny Copeland. Rory Gallagher. A lot of guys would come through town. Those are the ones that popped into my head right away, you know.
BBP: What was Johnny Copeland like?
Taylor: Hey, to me he was great. I always enjoyed him and he was always very encouraging to me.
BBP: Did they ever show you stuff? I mean, on the guitar. Did you ever show them stuff?
Taylor: I kept my mouth shut and my eyes and ears open. And basically I kind of just did a thing where—I opened for Albert Collins too, how could I forget that, jeez—the thing was, I would just keep my eyes and ears open. My mouth shut. And I would learn something. And I would see some things and then I would try to emulate them, but I—my first inclination was to let them show me—and then I said “Nah, don’t show me. Let me try to do it on my own. And if I mess it up and don’t quite get it, that’s fine, because then it’s what I do. You know, it’s much more of me, than me trying to copy them.
Taylor then talked about how blues venues have dried up. He agreed that the economy might play a role:
Taylor: You know the economy, changing tastes, the sort of thing like, if you’re playing blues, they want you to play a certain thing. You’re not able to bring in the new people because the people who are doing the hiring, doing the talent buying, they tend to want you to play the same old, same old and it’s like, “Well gee.” The kids here, it’s like the same old, same old and they’re not as interested in that kind of a thing. So you’re fighting that battle. I will say it’s much more open than it was a few years ago.
BBP: What do you mean it’s “more open?”
Taylor: Well, I mean, I’m seeing like younger kids come up, and they’re actually being called blues, but they’re playing some things that, a few years ago, they would not have considered blues. And it’s basically what I consider simple things. Maybe they’re using a little different chord progression or a little different turn-around or a little, you know, some slight little thing, you know that to me, is like “yeah, it’s blues, it’s blues, the subject matter is blues.” But if you had done that before, you’re not considered blues. So it’s like wow, you know? I can tell you I was doing a pick-up gig behind somebody at Warmdaddy’s in Philadelphia and the manager came in on the second night. It was funny because my back was to him in the dressing room, and he said “Well, you all play some blues.” And I could see the look on everyone’s face and they’re looking at me, and I just kept a stone face until the manager left. And once he left I peeked around the corner to make sure he was gone and they looked at me like “I thought we were playing blues!” Yeah, we were, but what he was talking about was he wanted the same old, same old thing and we were doing something a little fancier that he could not relate to..the management wasn’t ready for what we were doing and I’m thinking, “Yeah, it was blues but this guy wasn’t ready for it and I tried to explain it to everyone else and it’s just like, well…”That’s where he’s coming from, but don’t be offended. It’s just that you went over his head.”
BBP: You’re working on a new album now, right?
Taylor: Right now, we’re taking all of the original songs that myself and a couple of other buddies have been able to come up with and we’re playing them. You know we’re trying to do as many as we can and then we’re going to see which ones did well together and which ones don’t. I would have to say that this is all modern blues and I say “modern blues.” But with me, it’s always…there’s always an element of rock because I like that guitar sound.
BBP: Who are some of the people that you’ve enlisted on the project?
Taylor: Um, (keyboardist) Tommy Lepson is on it, (drummer) El Toro Gamble is on it. I’m probably going to get (harmonica player Anthony) Swamp Dog (Clark) on it because I played on Swamp Dog’s album and I’m going to try to get my buddy (singer/guitarist) Memphis Gold to play on it too, because I played on his album.
BBP: Where are things now in the production? Are you self-producing?
Taylor: We’re still recording. We got a couple of things done and we’ve been listening to it and we just have to go back. I’m probably going to try a different vocal approach and the drums are going to play a different…play a little bit differently. We played very conservatively on the original track because we’re building these tracks.
BBP: You said the album will be modern blues. How would you define “modern blues?” Well you mentioned there’s a rock element to it, but would the rock element make it “modern blues?”
Taylor: When I say modern blues, think of like, if you looked into Albert King’s early 50’s kind of stuff, or mid-fifties stuff, it borders on big band swing kind of stuff. And then you hear what he did on “Born Under a Bad Sign,” you know that first thing he did on Stax, and then the next things he did where he had the Bar-Kays backing him up. It was blues, but there was definitely a funk element on those recordings. In addition to “Born Under A Bad Sign,” there was also Booker T and the M.G.’s backing him up. And the chord progressions, they weren’t in the 12-bar, which is cool. There were arrangements and that kind of thing.
BBP: So you’re looking to get away from the 1-4-5 pattern?
Taylor: Exactly. I mean I actually started to do that a little bit on Make Room for the Paying Customer. Just harder to do that. I opted for more of a sonic approach to get away from the straight thing. Then I did the harmonic approach. But this thing, I’m just going for broke. I figure, what the heck?
BBP: I looked you up on the Internet and you did this concert for the Diamond State Blues Society at some point up in Delaware and you’ve been touring with Joe Louis Walker, and I think at some point you were with Bad Brains for a while, right? Did you do something with them?

Taylor: Not Bad Brains, but H.R. the lead singer. I played on his first solo album. That was a long time ago, too.
BBP: How did that come about?
Taylor: I just got a call, you know? I was still working at Wheaton music and I got a call and I said “Yeah, I can be there.” So I showed up at two recording studios, which is where I recorded with Memphis Gold this past summer, last summer and I actually wound up playing a show with them, and all I can say is the reason I didn’t go on the road with them was it was simply business, you know? Some people’s business is tighter than others is all I’ve got to say.
BBP: You thought it would have been a bad decision to go on the road with them? And would that have been with the whole band or just with him?
Taylor: I wouldn’t have been with the Bad Brains, it would have been with him. His band. The gig that I did was one of those deals. It’s just like, hey, I got a call to come sit in and I’m thinking “okay, I’ll sit in for a couple of songs. I wound up playing the whole show, playing songs that I never knew, only soloed over them like six months earlier, so I’ve got my little cheat sheet. It was chaotic, it was magical, but all I can say is, the business wasn’t right. Let’s just put it this way: I’m not like guys who sit down, waiting for somebody to call, you know. I’m hustling. And back then, I was hustling even more, so, you know I had the open schedule and I did the thing, but they were expecting me to come up to New York and I’m like “you didn’t say nothing about that.” I’m like, “I’ve got gigs here.” It’s that kind of a thing, you know. I mean you don’t just—you don’t just leave people in the lurch, you know. I guess a lot of people do and that’s fine, but that stuff always comes back.
BBP: Yeah, for sure. When exactly were you guys collaborating?
Taylor: I probably recorded it back in the late eighties, ’89, and I did the gig with him in ’90. It was that long ago. I saw them when they first came out and I told H.R. This, I said “Man, I saw you up at Oddfellows in Baltimore,” and he was stunned. He said “Man! You were there at the beginning. He was blown away that I actually knew about that place and had seen him that far back.
BBP: Wow. So that struck a nerve with him.
Taylor: Yeah, it did.
BBP: You mentioned Albert Collins. You said you played behind him at some point or you toured with him?
Taylor: Uh, well, I sat in with him a few times. He kicked me some money for my performances (laughs). I figured that was good.
BBP: And Johnny Winter too? I understand you opened for him one time?
Taylor: Now that was a year ago. Oh, I forgot…I did open for him at Jack’s over here. And this past year I played with Johnny in Joe’s band. Johnny came in and sat in with Joe and I was in Joe’s band and got to play with Johnny.
BBP: Joe being….
Taylor: Joe Louis Walker
BBP: He’s done the album “Blues Conspiracy.” Oh, and that reminds me. There’s also a youtube of me with Ronnie Earl.

BBP: Okay, you were tending to hang out with Stony Plain Records artists?
Taylor: Well, that’s because Joe’s on that label. Joe’s on that label, so that’s sort of the association. And a lot of those guys, you know my guess is, you know they have something to do with the Legendary Rhythm and Blues Cruise, that kind of thing.
BBP: Yeah, Yeah, Yeah. That thing that Deanna Bogart was on.
Taylor: Oh, Deanna Bogart. I know Deanna. I’ve known her for years.
BBP: Have you ever done any gigs with her?
Taylor: Yeah, in fact right after 9-11 we did some kind of benefit for the firefighters or whatever in Virginia. It was Deanna Bogart, Tom Principato and myself. We were sort of fronting this all-star band kind of thing.
BBP: What musicians do you like playing with the most?
Taylor: The ones I’m playing with at the moment (laughs). I mean, it’s kind of like, everybody’s good. You play on people’s strengths, that kind of thing. It’s just like any other thing. Some guys are good at this, some guys are good at that, depending on who’s good at what. You play to those strengths and you take it from there because that way everybody sounds good. As opposed to, you try to force somebody to do something and be what they are not, that kind of thing.
BBP: Tell me about playing with Joe Louis Walker. You’d been touring with him for a while: two years. How did that come about?
Taylor: I worked with Joe for two years. It was fine. I got to see a lot, do a lot, play a lot.
BBP: Okay, but how did you meet him? How did you hook up with Joe?
Taylor: I met Joe when he was first coming around back in the—I guess—mid, late eighties. I know I met him around ’89 or so. I’d heard about him, but I met him around ’89.
BBP: So how did the tour come together?
Taylor: Joe had been out of the country for a while about a year before I started playing with him. I guess this was ’06 or something like that. I ran into him again and I sat in with him in front of Johnny Winter up there in Delaware. Which is pretty funny. Did that. And about a year later, he asked me to join. So I did.
BBP: Tell me what it was like playing with the Legendary Rhythm and Blues Cruise. I mean, I’ve heard so much about that.
Taylor: If you can afford it and you can get on it, or you can get a gig on it, go. It’s well worth it. That’s how I would describe it.
BBP: Tell me why it’s well worth it. What happened?
Taylor: It’s about 16 hours of music. And actually, depending if you go in a piano bar it could be darn near 24 hours of music! Or at least 20 hours of music. I mean there’s something happening from late morning to just before noon all the way until well past midnight. There’s some kind of music going on. There’s different artists, you know, playing different places. There’s pro jams, I mean I got to play with Cyril Neville (from the Neville Brothers) on this one. There’s just all kinds of things that’s happening. There’s a pro and amateur jam kind of a thing. Just all kinds of stuff. You get to hang out with people, you get to talk with people and the thing is you get to hang out with people, which I thought was cool. Like Kenny Neal and his family, we see those guys, we used to see them on the road all of the time. But we very rarely got to hang out with them.
BBP: Tell me a little more about the tour with Joe.
Taylor: When I was with them, we went to Canada, Europe, and in Europe we went to France, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Greece and Denmark. Those are the places I’ve been, and it’s like multiple times in those countries.
BBP: So you say you’re back to being Linwood Taylor and back to having your own band. Where are you touring with that?
Taylor: I’m working round the region, Delaware to Southern Virginia. You know I’m basically planning to fill up the calendar until I get my C.D. completed. I really need something to pitch before I try and go…really, really, really get out there hard and heavy. It just took me a long time to set the things up, to get the situation to where I could do the recording first. If I can’t do the recording, what’s the point?
BBP: Right. And how many people are in your new band? What is your new band comprised of?
Taylor: Well, it basically depends on the economic reality. If they’re paying minimum wage, I do a trio. If they’re paying enough, I do a quartet. If they’re really paying enough, I do a quintet. I just do what I can, you know?
BBP: The trio would be bass, guitar and drums, right?
Taylor: Correct.
BBP: And what would the quartet be?
Taylor: I’d add keyboards. And if I could get a quintet, I would need a second guitar player.
BBP: Because you need someone to play rhythm…
Taylor: Well, no. Somebody that…a foil, not just rhythm. I don’t need a rhythm guitar, I need someone to play with me, you know. I mean a lot of guys—“I want a rhythm guitar player to back me up.” No, no, no. I want you to play too. In fact, I need you to play because I’m working off you as much as anything else. It’s like you’re playing because you’re different but our styles blend together type of a thing, you know? And all of my favorite blues and rock ensembles basically, they were a two-guitar type of thing.
BBP: When you go out on tour your band is going to play all original stuff? I know you said you have a strategy where you bring them in with stuff that they’re familiar with, then you take them in a different place. But what would a Linwood Taylor band show be like, out on the road?
Taylor: I would just try to be entertaining and yes, do some original in addition to some covers, you know, but my version of the covers. No point in trying to be the record because I’m not those guys!
BBP: Tell me a little bit of your philosophy about that because I remember we talked about that before.
Taylor: Well, I don’t know. It’s sort of like what I’ve learned from other guys. It’s simply that some people are able to mimic people, and I’ve always been terrible at mimicking. Maybe I didn’t work hard enough, but it’s just the kind of thing I always knew and was told you can’t be that guy. And not only can you not be that guy, on your best day and on that guy’s worst day, they’re always going to be better than you because they’re being themselves and you’re trying to be somebody else. So why try to be somebody else?
BBP: Be yourself.
Taylor: Exactly. You’ll always have more success being yourself than someone else. You can take information from somebody. You can take an idea from somebody. I mean, you know “Black Magic Woman” is something that Peter Green took from Otis Rush. And most people don’t even know that’s a Peter Green song. They think it’s Carlos Santana.
BBP: (laughs) I did. I have to admit that.
Taylor: But it’s the original Fleetwood Mac Peter Green. It used to be Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac but he took that from All Your Love I Miss Loving by Otis Rush.
BBP: Which guitar player has influenced you the most. Are there other instrumentalists besides guitar players who have influenced you?
Taylor: Well, I mean I like organ players, you know, but I would have to say, it’s definitely mostly guitar players, although I learned some things from Paul Butterfield. And then I listened to Cannonball Adderly much later afterwards but there’s all kinds of guitar players, obscure, famous, cult figures, I mean basically everyone I’ve heard. I mean Jimi Hendrix to me is probably one of the more obvious guys, but there’s more than that. There’s Jeff Beck, there’s Albert Collins, there’s Freddie King. Everyone thinks of that song “Goin’ Down” as being a Jeff Beck song. But the first person I heard play that was Freddie King. And it was a live version. So I love Muddy Waters. I even like Hound Dog Taylor.
BBP: Who do you like that’s out now? The younger guys?
Taylor: I’ve no idea. You know I like Bernard Allison and Lonnie Brooks’ kids.
BBP: Do you think guitar has changed, that blues guitar has changed since you started playing?
Taylor: Oh sure! Of course, it’s had to have changed. Like I said, there’s guys doing stuff now that they considered blues, but not too long ago they would have said that was rock!
BBP: Do you think blues music overall has changed? Do you think blues is alive? You hear all of this talk that blues is dying. Do you think blues is dying?
Taylor: I don’t think it’s dying. And most of the people who said blues is dying to me are the ones who are the reasons why it’s dying. It’s because blues is evolving in the same way every style of music that is a living, breathing form of music evolves. I mean, for instance, people said that Miles wasn’t playing jazz when Miles went electric, but no, Miles changed! He was still playing jazz, he just changed sonically. And he changed a little bit of what he was doing, and people weren’t ready for that, so they tried to say it wasn’t jazz. Well, maybe it wasn’t traditional jazz but he changed, he had to change in order to remain viable and relevant. And that’s all any longstanding artist wants to do is remain relevant. Cause what’s the point? If you’re not relevant, you’re not relevant, you know.
BBP: Can I ask you a question? Did you and Joe Louis Walker have an amicable parting? Because I sense a little tension, there…
Taylor: I will simply say that it was abrupt. I mean, it’s one of those things. I’m not mad, I’m disappointed, but I’m not mad. I don’t have time for that kind of thing.
BBP: And this is basically the time that you stepped out and Murali Coryell hooked up with him?
Taylor: Right.
BBP: Do you think it was because of the Coryell name?
Taylor: That might be part of it. But most people….I’ve heard through my informants that most people have no clue as to who Murali’s father is (he’s noted guitarist Larry Coryell). Let alone Murali, you know. I know who Murali (We have an interview with Murali in a Sept. 22, 2010 post)is. I knew who he was because he’d been out there. Like I say, I don’t worry about those kinds of things. That’s for the pundits, you know. I’m involved in playing music and doing my thing. And I learned a lot. I’m grateful for the experience, I’ll take what I’ve learned and do my thing.
BBP: Did you ever feel like you were clashing with him musically?
Taylor: No. No. In my mind we were just getting tight, but, in the end, those are questions I cannot answer. I can only go on the fact that “hey, I got somebody else.”
BBP: Huh. Wow. (Taylor laughs). It was like that. He said “I got somebody else” and that was it? He just came and told you one day?
Taylor: Preeeetty much!
BBP: Was this at a show or before a show?
Taylor: This was about three days after a show.
BBP: But was there going to be another show that day?
Taylor: No. No. No. There was a lapse, there was a three-week lapse in shows and so I came home Monday after doing a weekend with him in New England and, you know, on Thursday I got the call. I’m like, “Really?” I said “Okay, whatever.” What was I going to do, you know? And here’s the thing: nothing I could do, would have changed it. And it’s like, if you don’t want me, for whatever reason, why be there?
BBP: Did he at any point seem dissatisfied? Usually when somebody…
Taylor: No. No. Look. Those are all questions you got to ask him. This is all….I don’t know. I don’t know. Okay? And, you know, I just got the call and had to roll with it. Like that.
BBP: How critical is the new C.D. to your current plans?
Taylor: In order for me to really do what I want to do, the new CD is critical. And that’s the whole thing. It’s just that we had a lot of things hit us all at once in January and so forth so it kind of slowed us down. But we’re going to pick it up. We’re not going to take as much time with the other songs, I think. Well, I’m hoping anyway.
BBP: What kind of stuff has slowed you down?
Taylor: You know, schedules, timing, doing this, doing that, I mean we’re all playing in different bands. So we’re doing this during the week, when we’re not so busy. But even then we got different things and sometimes we can’t do something during the week because my man has other things and you know has some other projects he’s trying to squeeze out, you know recording projects. It’s just one of those things, you know.
BBP: Do you have a title for it yet?
Taylor: No. No. Usually I’m a real focused kind of a person: I get the whole thing finished, then I think of a title, know what I’m saying?
BBP: Are you working with a particular studio?
Taylor: Yeah, Tommy Lepson. He’s got a studio. And that’s the thing, he’s doing other people’s projects too.
BBP: You have a relationship with the Diamond State (Delaware) Blues Society now?
Taylor: Let’s put it this way, I met them by playing with Joe. Because they just got me to open for Devon Allman (son of Greg Allman ) and Honeytribe. That’s in March.
BBP: Do you have any advice for someone playing guitar?
Taylor: Well, in my mind, this is a very, very individualistic pursuit. So however you learn is the best way. Do it yourself. Get some books. Get an instructor. All of the above. You know, have somebody teach you. I mean, what I’m doing is the kind of thing that you learn yourself or someone teaches you because this is a—this is a folk art, and as Bobby Rush said, somebody like me has to show this to you because it’s hard to. No book is truly going to give it to you. They can give you the basic mechanics, but, I’ve got to show this to you. Because it’s a hand-me-down type of art.
BBP: Are you talking about the guitar or the blues?
Taylor: Both. I mean, you can learn to play guitar. I mean, the thing about it, you watch that old movie “Crossroads” with Ralph Macchio. It’s like, you know, he could play guitar, but could he really play some blues? That guy had to teach him. You know he had to take him to those juke joints so he could really learn something. I mean, granted, that’s a Hollywood movie. It’s stylized and all of that. I know Ry Cooder was playing his parts and Steve Vai was playing both the guitar parts showdown. But the point is somebody had to show him the real deal of what playing blues was about. I know if he kept trying to find the last Robert Johnson song, the guy told him what time it was. Do what Robert would have done. He wrote it himself. So I mean, let’s face it, I’ve been inches from Muddy Waters in the dressing room. I’ve seen Luther “Guitar” Jr. Johnson, Bob Margolin. I mean I’ve known Bob since I was a teen-ager, okay? And then I’ve seen Albert Collins, Johnny Copeland. I saw Coco Montoya and Walter Trout when they were both playing for John Mayall. So the thing is, you think about all of those guys, they’re all unique. You know they’re all totally unique in how they play. Especially a guy like Albert Collins and Albert King. They use open tunings..crazy, all kinds of stuff. So it’s a very individual thing. You just got to… you almost find your own way. And that’s how you find your own style.
BBP: You mentioned Bob Margolin. How do you know him?
Taylor: He was playing with Muddy. The college I went to Muddy Waters was playing and I met him when I was 18.
BBP: Did you ever jam with Margolin?
Taylor: I have jammed with Bob Margolin In Memphis, in fact. But I’ve known Bob since 1974. And Luther “Guitar” Junior Johnson, I’ve known him since 1974. They were both playing with Muddy Waters. That legendary ‘70’s band, I saw Matt “Guitar” Murphy, I opened for him a little later on in the early ‘80’s and I saw Matt when he was playing with James Cotton and they opened for Steve Miller, and everybody asked me who this James Cotton fellow was, and I said “Check it out. Check it out. Check it out.” And they’re like “okay.” And then, the funny thing that I remembered was that James Cotton wore the place out and then Steve Miller came on and he started—I don’t know what he thought he was doing—but he started with some stuff. Man, people started booing him! People booed and said “Bring back James Cotton.” And even Steve Miller talked about that tour. Because this was the beginning of the tour, and he’s like “This is serious.” He told me he had to break out with “Space Cowboy” by the third song to try to bring the crowd back to him. He was riding high on “Gangster of Love…..” not “Gangster of Love,” “The Joker.” He was riding high on “The Joker” then.
BBP: That was ‘70’s. I remember that song.
Taylor: And “Fly Like An Eagle” wasn’t out yet, and he was doing it almost like an Allman Brothers thing, with harmony guitar parts.
BBP: And you were there and you saw that?
Taylor: I saw that. I saw Billy Preston when the Brothers Johnson were his back-up band.


















































































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Beldon's Blues Points Feb. 12

Here is news-courtesy of guest writer and harmonica player Bob Corritore-of a death in the music world:



RIP Marvin Sease February 16, 1946 - February 8, 2011. Marvin, a well travelled "Chitlin' Circuit" performer, died Tuesday February 8th, in Vicksburg, Mississippi while battling pneumonia. He would have celebrated his 65th birthday next Wednesday. Born in Blackville, S.C., Sease began singing gospel music with a local group the Five Gospel Crowns. Marvin moved to New York in 1966 and performed with his brothers in the group Seas, before going solo. He became popular performing regularly at Brooklyn's Casablanca club in the 1970s. He recorded his first album, self-titled, in 1986 on his own Early Label. The record featured the song "Ghetto Man," a year later, when he signed with Polygram, it was expanded to include his signature song the racy "Candy Licker." Marvin Sease cut close to 20 albums for major labels although his songs were often considered too explicit for radio. His last album, "Who's Got the Power," was released in 2008.



D.C. area residents have an invitation Saturday, February 19 to "Come out & Party With" singer Nadine Rae and her posse, the Allstars, at Jo Jo's on U Street. There will be good food, good drinks and of course great music with Rae, on a definate mend from a Christmas Eve 2009 accident that severely injured her. And the Allstars--Barry Brady on keys, Sol on guitar, Andy Hamburger on drums and Mike Pryor on bass--will certainly have her back.


The event is free. Jo-Jo's is specifically located at 1516 U Street N.W., between 15th and 16th Streets N.W.

Washington, DC