Welcome to the October 2017 edition of BLUES JUNCTION.

This month we dedicate our feature driven, on-line, monthly magazine to the Riverside West Coast Blues Festival. This event, in only its second year, is one with which I have no formal affiliation.

However, I would love to see the event do well and continue as a new Southern California tradition. When good people, do the right things, for the right reasons…good can only come from such efforts.  This can be said of the Riverside West Coast Blues Festival.

This festival’s producers have assembled a line-up of straight, natural blues talent which is all killer and no filler, as a wise man once said. Two days of real, honest to goodness west coast blues at its finest.

No blues rockers, no classic rockers turned blues musicians for the occasion. Just blues…thank you very much.

As Charlie Lange told me some time ago, when he first got wind of this event, “Any festival that has something called a Junior Watson Day, is something in which I have to participate.” That’s right, Charlie Lange will be there with his traveling CD store. I spoke to Charlie yesterday and he told me he is bringing the good stuff.  He occasionally has to “dumb down” his inventory to accommodate a particular festival, like he did for the New Blues Festival in Long Beach on Labor Day.

This time out Charlie is bringing out the real deal, the rare and sometimes out of print CDs you can’t find anywhere else, along with his own Bluebeat music exclusives. He will, of course, have a section for festival artists which is in his regular inventory anyway. He also told me he will be bringing out his blues sub-genres, which is always a big hit with blues music lovers. So, shop till you drop. Bin divers are always welcome.

We have a poster in this month’s BLUES JUNCTION which will give any interested parties all the details.

Additionally, we have two separate interview features with two of the many festival artists who will grace the festival stage over the two-day weekend of the 14th and 15^th this month. First off is a harmonica player, vocalist and blues talent of the highest order, Billy Watson. We also have the interview I did some time back with Tommy Eliff and Mitch Dow of the Mighty Mojo Prophets.

You can find a two-part interview with Rick Estrin in the Archive section of our site. He and his Nightcats are also on the bill. One of the festival’s headliners is Rod Piazza and the Mighty Flyers. Piazza is a Riverside native who in his own way represents a one-man Riverside blues revival. Going all the way back to the late 60’s, Piazza was turning audiences on to real, straight-ahead Chicago blues in his home town of Riverside. He had strayed away through the years, but always returns to his beloved Riverside where he had taken up residence many years ago and remains an area booster.

Blues has never been popular mainstream music or the flavor of the month. In Riverside, in the late 60’s or early 70’s, this was no exception. People who have an interest in this music gravitate to one another out of a sheer desire to feel accepted, loved…or just plain normal. It is how drummer Richard Innes met Rod Piazza in Riverside almost half a century ago.

I finally caught up with Richard Innes right before his death a couple of years ago and conducted an interview, which is one that I’ll never forget. Richard made his home in what Californians call, the “Inland Empire.” If that loosely defined geographic region has a capital, it would be Riverside.

Richard Innes is in our Monthly Artist Spotlight for the month of October, as we celebrate the city of Riverside and remember the world’s greatest blues drummer.

Our Monthly Album Spotlight shines on the brand-new album by B.B. and the Blues Shacks, Reservation Blues. We also have a whole handful of brand new and soon to be released albums in our Recommended Listening feature and an editorial I hope you take the time to read entitled Talkachella.  

There it is…the October edition of BLUES JUNCTION and not one word regarding SCROTUS or the baseball post season.

I hope to see you out in Riverside. Come by the Bluebeat Music booth booth over the weekend and say hi. Yeah, Charlie is putting me to work again this weekend.

Until then, be well and be in touch.

-  David Mac