Ron Dziubla (pronounced joo-bluh) originally put out the album Nasty Habit in 2011. Its official “label” release came in January of 2012 on Rip Cat Records. Our readers are familiar with Ron’s music, as tracks from this fine all instrumental CD have made their way onto our jukebox in the past. Ron was featured as part of a live performance last month on Conan O’Brien’s show backing up Los Straitjackets on the broadcast. He is also familiar to readers and fans of BLUES JUNCTION Productions as Ron has made numerous appearances at the World Famous Tiki Bar over the past two years. The song Lemon Drop Martini is still one of my favorites from this fine album. Mia Muse plays the enchantress on this particular number.

Kevin Selfe’s Delta Groove Music debut, Long Walk Home will be released on February 19th. It is a solid, self-assured outing that  has already created a buzz in the biz. The vocalist and guitar player wrote all of the album’s eleven tunes. The Seattle based musician has put together a stellar band with bassist Alan Markel and drummer Jimi Bott. Guests also include pianist Gene Taylor. On the album’s second track, Mama Didn’t Raise No Fool, Selfe shares the spotlight with harmonica great Mitch Kashmar and Doug James on baritone, who is one of the most respected sax players of our generation.

Doug James and Sax Gordon recorded a great self titled album back in February and March, 2005 at Duke Robillard’s Mood Room in Pawtucket Rhode Island. It is now available through Blue Beat Music. This record has been a favorite of mine since I bought it off the bandstand from Doug while he was on the road with Duke Robillard in 2006. These two sax giants assembled a great band for this session which includes Duke’s guitar on three tracks. This all instrumental album captures that big tone honking, post war R&B, swing and smoky blues ballad sound as well as any contemporary recording in recent memory. This album features twelve originals that sound like they could have come right off the bandstand of a Kansas City nightclub in the early fifties. I chose the hard driving Sax Gordon original, Wombat Boogie.

Sax Gordon’s brand new release takes the tenor sax great in a whole other direction. The album is a tribute to the “show” in showbiz. The album was conceived to sound like a live performance but in the studio. The album appropriately enough is entitled, Showtime and has a vintage rock & roll feel to it as opposed to the R&B, swing and jump blues idioms that are so often explored and what most audiences are conditioned to expect from saxophone based blues albums. I lit up yet another instrumental entitled, The Way It Is. It should also be noted that Junior Watson is featured on this brand new release.

The Red Wagons’ self produced album, Jumpin’ with Friends was several years in the making and finally released to very limited distribution on October 2, 2012. I just got my hands on the CD a few weeks ago and every selection from this great disc has made its way onto the BLUES JUNCTION jukebox at various times in the month of January. One of the founding members of the band, pianist Marco Meucci is the subject of an interview that appears in this month’s ezine.  This Italian group has that little, big band sound and is in that sense a kind of Roman version of Roomful of Blues. Guests on this record include Sugar Ray Norcia, Lynwood Slim, Igor Prado, Mitch Woods as well as the two artists who appear on four of the album’s sixteen tracks, Junior Watson and Sax Gordon. I chose a heretofore obscure number by lefty Bates entitled, Chicago Cha Cha featuring Watson and Sax Gordon.

Junior Watson’s Live from Outer Space is the third release on the Blue Beat Music label. The album was recorded live at the 2007 Torre Alfina Blues Festival. Watson is backed by one of this month’s featured artists The Red Wagons. This is the first live Junior Watson album of his career and, in my view, the best representation of his musical sensibility. It is an album that is virtually impossible not to enjoy. Most of the tracks on this CD have been staples of Watson’s live sets for years. I selected one of my favorite slow blues tunes of all times and yet another instrumental, Blues After Hours. My jukebox has dozens of versions of this tune that include many variations and permutations of this simply sublime classic including several renditions by Pee Wee Crayton himself. This take is my current favorite of this instrumental standard. That is saying a lot.

The Mike Eldred Trio’s self-produced album entitled, 61/49 originally came out in 2010. Rip Cat Records released this album on January 8^th of 2013 along with the Ron Dzuibla’s CD and a rock-blues album by a singer named, Lisa Cee. However it is both the Dzuibla and Eldred records that are the favorites around here. Bassist Johnny Bazz and drummer Jerry Angel round out the trio. These tracks were recorded over a several year period towards the end of the last decade. Guests include, Ceasar Rosas, Kid Ramos, Jeff Turmes and Ike Turner. One of my favorites on this fine album is a song that sounds like an homage to Jimmy Smith’s, Back at the Chicken Shack entitled, Ms. Gayle’s Chicken House. This instrumental not only features Eldred’s spongy organ like “Magnatone” sounding rhythm work, but the great rockabilly guitar pioneer Scotty Moore  playing some very tasty lead.

Billy Watson, who stands in this month’s artist spotlight here at the JUNCTION, released his most recent album in 2011. It’s entitled, Secret 8: Blues for the Modern Frontier. On it you can find eight original tunes by one of this music’s truly interesting characters. On this record Billy not only sings and plays harp but also is featured on “Jetpack”. I urge you to check out the interview with Billy in this month’s ezine and catch the very talented singer and harmonica player at a Straight Up Blues Production on February 23^rd. Information on that gig can be found in this month’s BLUES JUNCTION. This show will also feature Junior Watson (no relation). Billy does his take on an obscure old gem from the Federal Records label, Wolf Pack, which is a Kid Thomas tune. This song has always been one of my favorites and has also been a staple of Junior Watson’s live sets for years. Junior does his take on the tune with the Red Wagons on the previously mentioned Live from Outer Space CD.

The Headcutters’ most recent album is entitled, Back to 50’s. It is a collection of mostly post war Chicago blues gems. They also released a performance DVD in which this Brazilian band performs a completely different set list than what appears on this CD. The band is made up of four childhood friends who are taking American music to their fellow Brazilians. An interview with one of the band’s vocalists and harmonica player, Joe Marhofer, appears in this month’s ezine. I chose the tune, Sad Hours. This languid Little Walter instrumental is handled with the type of reverence this beautifully sublime piece of music deserves.

Andy T – Nick Nixon Band featuring Anson Funderburgh has a new album, Drink Drank Drunk by Delta Groove Music that will be released on February 19^th. The album was produced by Funderburgh and features his guitar playing on four of the album’s twelve tracks. Guitarist Andy Talamantez, if you are not into the whole brevity thing, is now thankfully cutting us writers some slack by going with the “T” moniker. I thank him, for this marks only my two year anniversary of being able to spell Dziubla correctly. I even misspelled Funderburgh several years ago, so again Andy thank you. For this month’s Jukebox selection I am giving Nixon’s gospel soul infused vocals a rest and queue up an Andy T original instrumental which features the guitar of Anson F entitled, Dos Danos.

Little Elmore Reed Band (LERB) - This self titled release is from a group of first call Texas musicians who play under the banner of the LERB when they aren’t out on the road or in the studio with very high profile artists. The band is drummer Mark Hayes, guitarists and vocalists Mike Keller and Willie Pipkin, vocalist/harp man Dale Spalding and bassist J.P. Whitefield. This Austin based band developed kind of a cult following as an East Austin institution. For the better part of the decade, the LERB played every Monday night at T.C.’s Lounge. They can be found these days playing on Mondays at another east side imbibetorium, The White Swan. This is a very strong album that was released on September 5, 2011, but has flown so far under the radar that few have heard this CD. I just got hip to the record a few weeks ago by way of a recommendation by a trusted friend. I am having trouble keeping any of the albums eleven tracks off of the Jukebox around here. I selected the song, My Love is Here to Stay, which is a cover of a great old Sam Myers single form the 50’s.This Sammy original resurfaced again in the 80’s and was the title track from an album that constituted his first recorded collaboration with Anson Funderburgh. This LERB release represents some of the best Texas roadhouse blues I have heard in years.