Welcome to the August, 2022, edition of BLUES JUNCTION.

For many of us who grew up in Southern California it felt like we lost a member of our immediate family last week. The passing of Vin Scully hit fans very hard. He broadcast on radio and television Dodgers baseball games from 1950-2016. Like so many baseball fans of my age, the sound of Vinny’s voice was a constant pleasant memory of growing up with the radio. Scully painted word pictures so vividly we felt like we were actually at the ballpark. As kids we fell asleep to the dulcet tones of his broadcasts with transistor radios under our pillow.  

That sound, that voice, those stories never lost their luster and stayed with us through the 2016 baseball season, when he was 88 years old. Vincent Edward Scully passed away on Tuesday, 8/2/22. I was watching the Dodgers and Giants in San Francisco that evening when the news broke.

I remember going to a Dodger game with my dad in 1966. We got to the park early. When we sat down, I wanted to know where I could see Vin Scully. My dad pointed to the press box. I was surprised to see that Vin Scully had red hair. That very familiar (and familial) colored, neatly trimmed and combed coiffure was pointed to the front of the booth. I asked my dad what he was doing. His answer was, “working.” Scully was hunched over a pile of notes, newspapers, press clippings and a media guide. He was making his own notes, circling certain items and underlining others. I also couldn’t help to notice that he was doing all of this with his left hand. Being a lefty myself I had a new hero that I could now say that I had actually have seen in person…and in color. A half hour or so later I got to watch another lefty go to work, Sandy Koufax. He pitched 13 innings and struck out 16 in a Dodger extra inning victory that night. It was a great evening to be left-handed.  

In the spring of 2016, Scully announced his retirement. I used that opportunity to share with our readers some thoughts on the greatest of all-time. Vinny sits in our Monthly Artist Spotlight here in August of 2022.

Our Monthly Album Spotlight shines on the brand-new album by The Phantom Blues Band entitled, Blues For Breakfast. Curtis Salgado guests on a couple of tracks on Blues For Breakfast and will be joining the Phantom Blues Band at this year’s installment of the San Diego Blues Festival

The San Diego Blues Festival will again take place at San Diego’s Embarcadero Marina Park on September 10, 2022. I say this without reservation and I have said it before, the San Diego Blues Festival always provides a first-rate experience. Producer Michael Kinsman and his veteran crew provide exceptional sound and staging to go along with a picture postcard like setting where the festival takes place.

Once again, the benefactors of this wonderful event are the good folks at The Jacobs and Cushman San Diego Food Bank. The Food Bank distributed more than 63 million pounds of food through direct distribution and in partnership with more than 500 community organizations (social service agencies, churches, senior centers, military agencies) last year.

Each month, the Food Bank provides service to 500,000 food-insecure people in San Diego County.  That includes 2,800 low-income kids at elementary schools who get a backpack of food each weekend and each month 8,400 low-income seniors receive a 40 pound box of food. The San Diego Food Bank also serves thousands of military personnel and their dependents each year.

This year I will be traveling down to San Diego on Amtrack’s Surf Liner from California’s Central Coast. This long relaxing trip will give me a chance to catch up on some reading when I’m not staring out the window at some of the most spectacular scenery this wonderful country has to offer. On the way back, I will no doubt use the time by writing about my festival experience. In between, I look forward to reuniting with my San Diego blues family and many of our readers. I also look forward to meeting new friends and sharing new musical adventures at the 2022 edition of the San Diego Blues Festival.

It doesn’t get much better than spending the day listening to great music, with friends having fun under the California sun and doing it in of service our fellow man.

Here in the August, 2022, edition of BLUES JUNCTION we invite you to enjoy an interview with Jim Pugh. In it, he discusses his Little Village Foundation and his long career in music. The Little Village Foundation has emerged over the past few years as a major player in the blues business, such as it is. Their business model lends itself to this largely misunderstood, yet vital American music.

Little Village Foundation has just released the long awaited and highly anticipated album by Silent Partners entitled Changing Times. Here the partners, who are anything but silent, deliver a highly personal set of music about music. This release feels like a cool blast of water from a fire hydrant on a hot summer day.

This band is led by the singing drummer or is it the drumming singer, Tony “TC” Coleman. My interview with Coleman from a few years ago was the most discussed interview ever in BLUES JUNCTION. It remains the most read piece in in the history of our ezine. To coincide with the release of this album it’s featured again this month.

In December of 2019, I “published” a piece entitled The Top 200 Blues Albums of the Past 20 Years. As everyone loves lists, it wasn’t a surprise that this rather comprehensive look back at the best recordings from 2000-2019 garnered a lot of attention. Then the unthinkable happened.

Who among us knew we were about to enter one of the darkest chapters in American history? This time we weren’t alone. The entire world also suffered from the worst public health crisis in 100 years. The Covid-19 pandemic is still with us to some degree but science, medicine, good old fashioned American ingenuity, and global cooperation has got this novel virus on the run…or so it would appear. We’ll keep our fingers crossed.

The past two and half years or so have been devastating for some and just plain inconvenient for others, but our blues community is nothing if not resilient and adaptable. Those qualities were necessary for the survival of this quintessential American music. With this in mind I thought I’ll give you another list, The Top 25 Blues Albums of the Pandemic Era.   

The only reason I am not attending the Eastside Kings Festival in Austin, Texas, is that it lands on the same weekend as the San Diego Blues Festival. If you are in that part of the country or even if you’re not, Eddie Stout’s Eastside Kings Festival is worthy of your attention. Like Jim Pugh, Eddie Stout is an individual who has done right by blues music. You are welcome to check out an interview I conducted with Eddie a few years ago. That can be found in the Archives section of our site.

Getting back to Vin Scully just for a moment. I have several stories that relate to this American icon including meeting him over coffee in San Francisco in 2004, but the first time seeing him made an impression on me. In the subsequent years attending Dodger games, I always took a moment before every game to catch a glimpse at Vinny. He was always doing homework and the preparation that went into making it look easy for 66 years. That smooth seamless delivery, the impeccable timing and rhythm doesn’t just happen, any more than a blues band hitting on all cylinders just happens. It takes a lot of work.

Ray Charles described his broadcasts as being musical. Like the music of Ray Charles, baseball can be a very beautiful thing. Thanks to Vin Scully I fell in love with this game. Thanks to Vin Scully, Ray could see a baseball game.

Be well and be in touch.

-David Mac