This past May was a positively glorious month for the BLUES JUNCTION Productions family, as yours truly and our wonderful contributors attended one absolutely outstanding musical performance after another. If you will excuse this coastal resident a beach metaphor, it always seems these great shows come in waves. It was great seeing so many of my friends out there having fun, listening to blues in the warm California sun.  

That fun began as chrome bumpers and chromatic harmonicas came together at the Orange County Marketplace on the second weekend of May in Costa Mesa. It was a weekend that featured four bands a day for two days. It was a kind of a mini blues festival to get fans in shape for the gigantic Doheny Blues festival the following weekend. For me sunscreen application practice and comfortable footwear trial runs were the order of the day.

The Memphis Kings who are made up of San Pedro Slim on vocals and harmonica, guitarist Tommy Harkenrider and the rhythm section of bassist Kenny Huff and Ron Felton on drums opened the weekend of music. Some other very fine artists including Lil’ “A” & The Allnighters, Whiteboy James and the Blues Express, Brophy Dale and Gino Matteo played before an appreciative and enthusiastic audience. The family friendly festival is sponsored in part by the Orange County food bank. They accepted canned food items as an entrance fee to get into the event.

The May edition of the World Class Blues in the O.C. concert series at the world famous Tiki Bar took place a few days later. The show featured the Swedish based band Trickbag and special guest Rick Holmstrom as well as a very special surprise guest. Enjoy a photo essay by Chris Corbett.

We also we have words and pictures that examine the massive Doheny Blues Festival which took place the following weekend. There are two separate summaries and photo essays, one each for Day 1 and Day 2 of this event. Photographers Alex Gardner, Chris Corbett and Mike Lovato cover the huge festival and its three stages. The festival that takes place at the idyllic Doheny State Beach Park every year in Dana Point, California, celebrated its 15^th anniversary by announcing its first complete two day advance sell out. Congratulations to Rich Sherman and Omega Events for a job well done.

A week later and a 100 miles further on up the road, The Simi Valley Cajun and Blues Festival took place over the Memorial Day weekend. Enjoy a photo essay from Alex, Chris and Mike from this festival put on by Delta Groove Music. This event’s blues stage was all killer and no filler all weekend long. Congratulations are also in order to Randy Chortkoff and his Delta Groove Music for growing this festival into a relatively new but absolutely spectacular Memorial Day weekend tradition.

The festival’s host hotel was the site of another two day (or evening) event. The festival’s official after parties were held in that facilities’ Arena Sports Grill & Bar. The concerts were produced by Art Martel’s Straight Up Blues Productions. BLUES JUNCTION Productions was proud to sponsor these shows along with Rip Cat Records. The concerts that took place were tantamount to a festival in a night club. Enjoy a photo essay from Alex, Chris, Mike and our newest contributor, Leslie Hagins.

I wrote about why the blues festival season is so important to so many of us in an essay entitled, Our Blues Family.

For those of you who are into the whole Blues Music Awards fandango that also took place in May. We have a look at those festivities through the talented lens of Mike Lovato.

June marks the return our European correspondent, Erwin Bosman. Our resident historian from Brussels returns after a two month hiatus and he contributed another fine essay entitled, From Lash to Cash.

This month’s monthly artist spotlight shines on a San Diego based vocalist and harmonica player Karl Cabbage and his band Red Lotus Revue. They just released their debut, long playing CD, Fourteen Stories and it is a good one. I hope you enjoy an interview with the engaging and recently engaged Karl Cabbage.

As always we have ten songs from ten albums on the Jukebox at the JUNCTION that come from some brand new albums and selections from CDs from artists that are featured in this month’s ezine.

One of the great stories over the past several weeks is the re-emergence on the blues scene of the internationally renowned singer, producer, harmonica player and flautist Lynwood Slim. I saw Slim just last week at a very rare performance by The Hollywood Blue Flames. As many of you are aware Slim has been out of commission for two years as he has been suffering from a variety of severe health problems.

Our readers are familiar with The Blue Flames as vocalist, singer, harmonica player, principal songwriter and producer Al Blake has been featured in this ezine twice over the past several months. The band’s outstanding keyboard player Fred Kaplan has been featured in this ezine as well and is an ongoing contributor to BLUES JUNCTION. Kaplan, as well as the band’s guitarist, Junior Watson both have outstanding new albums that were released a couple of weeks ago. While a performance by this band, which also includes world renowned bassist Larry Taylor and drummer Richard Innes, is always worthy of some “ink”, I intentionally left my note pad and camera at home as I wanted to simply absorb every note in this very rare performance that took place in the 130 person capacity Marine Room Tavern in Laguna Beach, California. I’m glad I did. It might just have been the best pure blues show I heard all month. The capacity standing room only crowd, as well as the throng that gathered on the sidewalk out front can attest, these incredibly talented musicians represent blues at its very finest. 

Part way through the 90 minute performance, Al Blake yielded the stage to Lynwood Slim. Slim received a standing ovation and acknowledged that Blake had been a big influence to the development of his harmonica sound. He went on to share with the crowd his great affection for the time he spent on stage and in the studio at various times in his career with the other members of this band. It was the third time in as many weeks that I was privileged to hear Slim live from the stage. He also did a two song guest spot with the Swedish band, Trickbag at the Tiki Bar in Costa Mesa and again at the Doheny Blues Festival.    

Lynwood Slim will make his headlining return to the concert stage on Sunday, June 24^th, at the Tiki Bar in Costa Mesa, California. As a mid-month bonus supplement to this ezine we will have a feature and an interview with the king of west coast cool. Stay tuned and as always be well and be in touch.

- David Mac