Welcome to the August edition of BLUES JUNCTION. As always we have a whole host of features. Before we get started with this month’s line up I wanted to give a big hearty THANK YOU to all of our loyal readers and welcome the new folks who just arrived at the JUNCTION last month. Our readership continues to grow at an extraordinary rate. Not only was the July edition the most read ezine in our history, it came during what has been a traditionally slow month. Vacations and the summer festival season cuts into our readership slightly in July, so the mere fact that we shattered the previous record for readership was particularly gratifying. 

Thanks also for all the feedback and correspondences I received over the past month. As promised I bring back this month (by popular demand) a feature I dropped a few months back, which is our Letters to the Editor feature. In the past you folks have said so many nice things it seemed to me a little self serving to share these lovely thoughts with a large audience. The reason I brought this feature back was I wanted to share alternate points of views to the editorial I wrote that appeared in the July edition. Well my plan backfired as the editorial was universally well received. Thanks to all of you who took the time to read it.  I got a kick out of all the response this piece received on Facebook. Thanks also to all who shared this missive.

We also received a tremendous outpouring of interest on the Joe Arnold interview. That was very gratifying as well. Many of those correspondences are published and no doubt be well received in Biloxi, Mississippi, where Joe reads his BLUES JUNCTION. Many people have asked me what kind of reaction and fall out came from this interview. I am very happy to report that it has been “republished” on several notable websites including the very comprehensive un-official Stax website out of Paris. The article has also been “republished” on the official website of the Stax Museum in Memphis.

Joe is enjoying a new chapter in his life as a result of this piece and a renewed interest in his musical contributions has taken place all over the world.  Even many Southern soul music aficionados either hadn’t been aware of Joe, didn’t know his current whereabouts or even if he was still alive. I am very glad to report Joe is very much alive and doing well. We have remained in close contact. He continues to make home recordings and very much wants to get into a real studio again to make music. With his impressive resume I wouldn’t be surprised if he gets tapped on the shoulder to do a guest spot on a future recording very soon. For those who haven’t read this interview I left it on the top shelf and this interview is part of our August edition to BLUES JUNCTION.

Our August Monthly Artist Spotlight shines on an emerging musician who is forty years younger than Joe Arnold. Her name is Nikki Hill. Enjoy a conversation I had with Nikki that took place while she was on a tour that has taken her all over the country.

Nikki will be appearing at the San Diego Blues Festival which takes place on September 7^th in that city’s beautiful Embarcadero Park. This festival is a fundraiser for the San Diego Food Bank. I encourage our readers to check out the tab that reads the 2013 San Diego Blues Festival. BLUES JUNCTION Productions is proud to again participate in this very special annual event.

For twenty six years the Oregon Food Bank has been the benefactor of the Portland Waterfront Blues Festival. Enjoy a feature on this festival which took place this past July. Cindi Bernhardt shares her experience at this event and her words are accompanied by the fine photography of Mike Lovato.

Parisian Nico Duportal has a marvelous new album out he recorded with his band The Rhythm Dudes. I caught up with Nico this past month. Enjoy a conversation I had with this very talented guitarist, songwriter, band leader and vocalist.

On July 1^st, just as we were going on line last month, the news came from Houston, Texas, that the man known as Texas Johnny Brown had passed away. The very soulful singer and guitarist was one of my favorites and someone I had the privilege of hearing in performance a handful of times a few decades ago. Brown’s fellow Houstonian James Nagel is a blues impresario from the Bayou City and was kind enough to share with our readers some brief thoughts on the very recent passing of John Riley Brown. His thoughts appeared in the July edition of our ezine. This month he shares with our readers a more in-depth feature on his friend which he wrote back in 1998.

This past June we lost an extremely talented, influential and successful blues musician whose career began in Houston, Texas, Little Willie Littlefield. Like so many ex-pats from the Lone Star State, Littlefield moved to California where the pianist, vocalist and songwriter’s career continued to flourish. Bob Corritore was kind enough to share with our readers his thoughts on the passing of this woefully underappreciated talent. In the very revisionist, geo-centric blues world in which we live, it is important to consider that if Littlefield’s career took place in Chicago or Memphis, he wouldn’t have been relegated to the footnotes of history. 

It has been a thrill to hear some great new recordings that have been released in the past several weeks. Ten songs from ten new CDs have been loaded into the Jukebox at the JUNCTION. We even have a couple of very interesting bonus tracks to which we would like to also direct your attention. It is a privilege to be able to listen to so much wonderful, fresh and exciting music steeped in decades old American musical traditions.

Our home page this month features some original artwork by a David Kiefer. David is a long time Southern California based musician who is known by the moniker San Pedro Slim. David is an in demand vocalist and harp man who fronts his own band the Memphis Kings. He also performed with the Mighty Mojo Prophets at the massive Portland Waterfront Blues festival this past month. You can learn more about San Pedro Slim and his art work by checking out the links page on our site.

Thanks to all who participated in this edition of the ezine and thanks again to all of our readers. Corresponding with so many of you this past month has been a lot of fun. Be well and be in touch.

- David Mac