Welcome to the July edition of BLUES JUNCTION. Before I get started with my rundown and various other musings, I would like to thank all of our long time readers who continue to be so supportive of our endeavors here at the JUNCTION.  Your words of support, as well as your word of mouth campaign constitutes, for now, the only marketing our modest little corner of the cyber world receives. It is greatly appreciated.  The worldwide grass roots support we have received is humbling.

Much of our new readership this past month may be due to my interview with Jimmie Vaughan. The outpouring of kind words as it related to this piece was overwhelming. Welcome new comers to the JUNCTION. I hope you continue to enjoy what you encounter here. In our Letters to the Editor section of the site, I “published” a few of the many correspondences I received. It was nice to hear from so many new readers, as well as from people returning to the JUNCTION.  

July is the month where each year we take a look back and discuss The Best of 2014...So Far. It is so fun to hear so much good new music. In this feature we celebrate the best of the best.

We also have a batch of ten new albums that have songs that made it onto the Jukebox at the JUNCTION. One of the things that I have noticed through the years is that great musicians seem to find one another. I suppose the opposite is true as well. I don’t know about that, although it would stand to reason. Since we are not afraid to celebrate excellence in this field of music, we come across many of the same musicians playing on several different albums that have made their way to the JUNCTION.

One of these first call musicians is pianist Fred Kaplan. He is on a very short list of the best blues pianists who stand head and shoulders above the rest. Barrelhouse Chuck and Carl “Sonny” Leyland happen to be the other two. As it turns out, Kaplan’s piano playing has been heard on several recordings that have been featured here in the past several months. His playing is all over at least a half a dozen recordings that are featured in this month’s ezine as well. Fred has been the subject of our monthly artist spotlight feature back in April of 2011 (see archives) as well as an interview feature in August of 2012 in which we discussed his outstanding CD entitled, Hold My Mule.

Fred has also been an occasional contributor to the JUNCTION; his essays can be found in our archive section. One of these, that dates back to March of 2011, is entitled The Truth is Your Reward. I put this piece back on the top shelf as it remains one of my favorites. I hope you enjoy it as well.

One of the fine albums to be released in the past several weeks is by Dave and Phil Alvin entitled Common Ground. This CD is in our Monthly Album Spotlight feature here in July.

The brothers had a CD release party at the Troubadour in West Hollywood, California, last month. Enjoy Alex Gardner’s thoughts on this great evening of music.

Another fine album that I would like to bring to your attention is from Joe Louis Walker. It is entitled The Best of the Stony Plain Years. I bring this to your attention for three reasons; 1) It is a great compilation derived from Walker’s three recent Stony Plain releases dating back to 2008, 2) It is a superior alternative to Walker’s abysmal 2014 release on Alligator Records, and 3) It is one of two CDs (Long John Baldry’s being the other)  that will be part of a new series of CDs to be released by Stony Plain as part of their “Best of...” series. Kudos to Holger Petersen and to those associated with the Stony Plain Record’s family.

From time to time we reach out to industry types who are the purveyors of this great music we enjoy. One of these is John Stedman. He is the founder and president of JSP Records out of the U.K. I am guessing that we don’t have too many readers, who don’t have at least a handful of discs from JSP’s prodigious catalogue in their libraries.  Enjoy the first part of an ongoing discussion I am having with John, where we discuss his background in the blues field and some of the music that he has helped to bring to our ears.

June was a month in which we saw several important figures in American music move on from this mortal stage.

On June 18^th we lost a true giant, Horace Silver. Born Horace Ward Martin Taveras Silva  on September 2, 1928, he was one of the most prolific recording artists in the modern jazz era. Primarily associated with the Blue Note label in the great jazz era of the late 50’s through the mid 60’s, Silver composed and recorded some of the most instantly recognized songs that were hits in their day and remain timeless classics. He was the founder of the seminal ensemble known as The Jazz Messengers. This group and his subsequent solo recordings brought straight ahead jazz to large audiences. His music, which became identified with the hard bop movement, had elements of soul, gospel, funk, Latin tinge and blues. Silver’s recording credits as both leader and sideman are as long as my arm. His original compositions have also been recorded by everyone from Ray Charles to Taj Mahal. So long to the Hard Bop Grand Pop.

Another major figure who left us was Bobby Womack. He is associated with the soul music field. He passed away on June 27^th. He was 70 years old at the time of his death. He might be best known for his original compositions which were recorded by a long list of musicians including the Rolling Stones, Janis Joplin, Sly and the Family Stone, The Neville Brothers and dozens of other famous acts. He was also an accomplished studio guitarist. I remember Bobby best as one of the greatest soul singers of his generation. He had absolutely perfect phrasing. He mixed that with just the right amount of gospel sensibility and secular swagger. There are very few who could deliver the goods like Bobby Womack.

Lee McBee might not be a household name like Horace Silver or Bobby Womack, but after all he was a blues man; that kind of comes with the territory.  McBee was a vocalist and harp player of the highest order. He died of a heart attack after swimming with his wife at a local pool in Lawrence, Kansas.  He was born in Kansas City, Missouri, on March 23, 1951. He first came to prominence in the late 80’s when after relocating to Dallas, Texas, he became the front man, singer and harp player with Mike Morgan and the Crawl. He replaced Darrell Nulisch in that band. The Crawl became a popular regional act and put out some excellent albums on the New Orleans based Black Top Records label. Lee’s calling card was his soulful vocals and equally passionate harp playing. He seemed to possess a deep understanding of the blues vernacular.

McBee started up his own band called Lee McBee and the Passions. The Passions morphed into Lee McBee and the Confessors. In 2009, Lee McBee was inducted into the Kansas Music Hall of Fame. He had relocated back to the mid-west some time ago and was residing in Lawrence at the time of his death.

Songwriter and session guitarist Mabon Lewis “Teenie” Hodges passed away on June 22^nd. He was 68 at the time of his death. The longtime Memphis based musician is famous for his work at Willie Mitchell’s Hi Studios. His most famous contributions came as a result of his work with Al Green. He played guitar and co-wrote, along with Green, several big hits which helped launch the singer to international stardom. Take Me to the River and Love and Happiness are but two of Green’s biggest hits and have been recorded by many others as well.

Teenie Hodges also played guitar on the late 60’s instrumental Soul Trippin’ on the Wand label by Joe Arnold. Last July, sax man Joe Arnold was the subject of a BLUES JUNCTION interview. Since that interview was “published” I don’t go too many days without someone asking, ‘How is Joe doing?’ I am happy to report he is doing well. We continue to be in contact with a great deal of regularity. I have been in touch with Joe this month as not only did he work with Teenie Hodges, but he also did a session with Bobby Womack at Rick Hall’s Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama.

Much has changed and much has stayed the same for Joe. In recent months I have screened the documentary film about the music of Muscle Shoals.  Joe played on some of the most iconic recordings that helped put that Alabama town on the map. However, just like the Stax film entitled “Respect Yourself,” Joe is pictured in the film playing alongside other musicians whose contributions were discussed, but again no mention of Joe.

He is one of only a handful of players from Muscle Shoals, and Stax for that matter, who are still alive, but, Bono and Keith Richards, whose relationship with the Fame and Muscle Shoals Sound recording studios are tangential at best, are heard from ad nauseam.  As Joe put it, “I guess having slow motion shots of Rick Hall riding a tractor on his farm gives people a better sense of what happened in the studio than talking to the musicians who worked there.”

I spoke to Joe just this afternoon and I asked him what has changed for him. He said in the past year since the interview came out he has been in touch with people from all over the world who have remained fans of 60’s era Southern soul music. He said his playing is better than ever. He has gotten himself in better physical shape.  He has fielded offers to play with various musicians who would be thrilled to play with a man who went from all but forgotten figure to musical legend. He has reconnected with the handful of surviving members of the Stax family with whom he had been estranged for all these years. Joe will be traveling to Memphis this month and re-connecting with that family as well as his own. He told me since reading the interview his own family has a greater understanding as to what it was all about. They now, for the first time, truly appreciate his musical legacy. He told me today he looks forward to visiting with his mother in Memphis as she is in remarkable health at the age of 97.

The BLUES JUNCTION interview with Joe Arnold has been re-posted and re-published all over the world including on the Official Stax Records website in Memphis and that label’s very comprehensive un-official site in Paris.  For me, this interview remains one of the most gratifying experiences in my life. With that in mind it is with great pride and pleasure that I announce that the July Monthly Artist Spotlight shines on Joe Arnold.

For our new readers who haven’t read this piece yet, I hope you enjoy it. I look forward to hearing from you on this and anything else you find in the “pages” of BLUES JUNCTION. Until then be well and be in touch.

-   David Mac