Welcome to the June edition of BLUES JUNCTION.  The blues festival season is now in full swing and one of the largest, and now oldest, events of this kind takes place right here in Southern California and that is the Doheny Blues Festival. As always, I have some musings on the doings at Doheny. Additionally we have a photo essay that comes courtesy of our readers who attended the festival and participated in our first ever amateur photo contest. The best photographs were selected for inclusion in this feature. The winner of the random drawing for the $50.00 gift certificate at Bluebeat Music can be found in that article as well.

With this festival in mind we also have queued up in our Jukebox at the JUNCTION a dozen songs from as many albums by musicians who performed at this year’s festival.

One of the bands that performed at the festival’s main stage was the Mannish Boys. Their album which will be released on June 17^th, by Delta Groove Music is my favorite offering to date from this band’s seven CD discography. The CD entitled, Wrapped Up and Ready sits in the June Monthly Album Spotlight.

Our June Monthly Artist Spotlight shines on a man who is celebrating 50 years as a professional guitar player. He is doing this summer what he has always done and that is to take his guitar and a great band on the road. His name is Jimmie Vaughan and he will kick off a tour that will take him all over the world starting with dates right here in Southern California. He is also participating in a very special exhibition that should be of interest to our readers. This will take place at the Grammy Museum in downtown Los Angeles. It starts June 12^th and will run for several months. I thought the timing was right for a long overdue interview with Jimmie Vaughan.

On June 21^st we will celebrate the first day of summer and with that in mind I am pulling out of moth balls an old piece called, Summertime Blues, where I discuss one of the most iconic songs in American musical history, Summertime.

During my conversation with Jimmie Vaughan last week, which rambles all over the place, something of course that is fairly predictable if it is conversation in which I am involved, we touched upon a great many themes, not the least of which was our love of the instrumental music, which was so popular in the late 50’s and early 60’s. Music was so much more regionalized in those days, so instrumental music for me didn’t include Freddy King, Bob Wills and Albert Collins to the extent it did for someone who grew up in Texas. What it did include is surf music. With that in my mind, another missive has been unearthed to be shared with you this month and that is the somewhat autobiographical piece called, A Blues Man in a Tourist Town.

So there you have it, a piece that was written for a Broadway musical and a missive on surf music. I am sure to have my blues street cred called into question.

I hope the fact that I named my dog after Rosco Gordon counts for something. Speaking of which, I know many of you have expressed concerns over his recent health issues. Thanks for all the well wishes and for your concern. He did finally have a bowel movement, but not until after I sang a song to him by his namesake. “I don’t want much. I just want a little poop. A teeny little poop...” He looked at me as if to say, “Shut the hell up. Not only am I constipated, but I have to listen to you sing. Get Jimmie back on the phone, he kills that song.”

With this in mind if you haven’t by now cancelled your subscription, I vow to go on another decade long streak where the words “bowel movement” do not appear in the pages of BLUES JUNCTION.

In the meantime be well and be in touch.

-  David Mac