Welcome to the September edition of BLUES JUNCTION. It has been a very busy month around here on the left edge of the North American Continent as evidenced by the sheer amount of content we have for our readers.

We are also celebrating the unofficial end of summer which means it is Labor Day weekend. It is on this weekend I can’t help but to think back to those glorious days of the Long Beach Blues Festival. With that in mind I pulled from our voluminous archives a photo essay that might jog some happy memories from our readers who attended and/or played at that event through its thirty year run.

So it was with great joy that on this Labor Day 2015, I spent the day with some of the same people who I first met at the Long Beach Blues Festival nearly twenty years ago. It was absolutely wonderful to be in their company and to share world class blues in the San Pedro neighborhood of Los Angeles on this past Monday, September 7^th.

A jam packed standing room only crowd came out to a large neighborhood saloon near the docks of the L.A. Harbor to hear one of the most revered blues bands in the world, B.B. and the Blues Shacks. After more than 25 years and countless albums, the band still plays with vitality and as if they have something to prove. The band that hails from Hildesheim, Germany, had just landed at LAX not too many hours earlier and proved that if nothing else, they have the stamina to put on a high energy show despite the rigors of traveling half way across the world. Led by the brothers Andreas (guitar) and Michael (vocals and harmonica) Arlt, B.B. and the Blues Shacks will be playing various dates across the state over the next several days.

Part way through their set they were joined on stage by Austin, Texas, based songwriter and vocalist, Jai Malano. Malano, a relative newcomer, has in a very short time become an in demand performer on the International blues scene. She has spent much of 2015 traveling the world sharing her prodigious musical gifts. It was great to catch up with her again as she, like B.B. and the Blues Shacks, continues to make California a home away from home.

The Southern California based, Lil’ A & the Allnighters opened the show and did a fine job warming up the audience. They were joined on stage by guest vocalist Abby Maharaj. She is a Tennessee transplant who is a promising newcomer to the West Coast scene. French ex-pat, harmonica man Chef Denis Depoirte got up and played as did Till Seidel, a guitarist also from Hildesheim, who is traveling with his fellow German blues musicians.

So at one point blues musicians from Los Angeles, California, to Chattanooga, Tennessee,  along with ambassadors from Germany and France were all speaking the universal language of the blues. It seemed entirely appropriate that this amalgamation would take place a short stroll from one of the largest international ports in the world. Meanwhile on this Labor Day in this working class, blue color neighborhood, America’s greatest export, it’s music, was being played with soul, verve and style.

In the absence of the biggest blues festival on the West Coast, The Long Beach Blues Festival and the oldest, The San Francisco Blues Festival, one man has stepped up to the plate and is providing a first class festival experience here in September. His name is Michael Kinsman and he is again the producer of this year’s San Diego Blues Festival. It is an important and exciting event which is taking place on the 26^th and 27^th of September. As is tradition, the festival is a benefit for the San Diego Food Bank. Check that out as I share some of my thoughts on this wonderful, annual event. Additionally we provided a link to the festival website for more details.

One of the headliners of the 2015 San Diego Blues Festival is the multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and producer, Booker T Jones. I thought it might be fun to examine where it all began for the eternally youthful Jones. Our Re-Visited feature takes a look back at the 1962 album Green Onions where Booker T and the MGs first made history by sharing the blues with a large crossover audience.

Booker T and the MGs were part of the core house band at the Stax label in the 1960’s. As many of our readers are keenly aware, one of the handful of musicians that made those famous, and now legendary, recordings with some of the most illustrious and revered vocalists in the history of deep Southern soul and blues is Joe Arnold. Up until just a couple of years ago he had been virtually expunged from the otherwise fairly well documented history of this music. The interview I conducted with this talented saxophone man changed that. After a lengthy absence Joe Arnold returned to the concert stage earlier this summer. You can read about that experience in a piece called, Joe Arnold: Coming Home.

Additionally, I pulled from our archives the interview from 2013 entitled Joe Arnold: Out of the Shadows. It is the story of a man, told in his own words, who has recorded and played on stage with  everybody from Albert King to Bobby “Blue” Bland and from Otis Redding to Otis Rush.

Our Monthly Artist Spotlight this month shines on a songwriter and pianist who most of our readers have heard of at one time or another, even if he might not be a household name. He is Anthony Geraci. He has a brand new album coming out on October 16^th on Delta Groove Music. I hope you enjoy an in-depth interview with this highly accomplished musician.

Like virtually all great blues musicians, Geraci is also a great student of the genre. In the case of Anthony Geraci, he actually taught a class for several years entitled, The History of Blues Music at Johnson State College in Vermont. I thought Geraci’s visit to the JUNCTION this month would be an opportune time to resurrect our semi-monthly Essential Listening feature. Here Geraci selects a dozen albums that were important to his development as a musician and that should be essential entries in into any blues library.

There is lots of new and exciting music of the highest caliber being made all over the world and a band that has been around for 21 years, Trickbag, has a brand new album out entitled, Candyville.  Candyville is the subject of our Monthly Album Spotlight.

We also have full album reviews on two other outstanding, soon to be released CDs. One of which comes by way of a man very familiar to our readers and blues fans everywhere entitled, The Acoustic Blues & Roots of Duke Robillard. This September 25^th release on Stony Plain Records is something very special.

The other CD of particular note was recorded about 3,000 miles away from Duke’s home base of Rhode Island and that comes by way of the California based songwriter, harmonica player, guitarist and vocalist Andy Santana. Like Anthony Geraci, this October 16, 2015, release is also on Delta Groove Music.  

Additionally we have ten brand new and soon to be released CDs that should be of interest to our readers. You can read about these in the Recommended Listening portion of our site.

I am going to break precedent here and do something I have never done and that is let our readers in on a preview of coming attractions. I have conducted an important interview with Jim Pugh. Most of us are familiar with Jim as being the keyboard player in the Robert Cray Band for the past 25 years.

Now after all these years, Jim has decided to swing the spotlight onto other musicians who may not otherwise have a chance to be heard. His Little Village Foundation has already made an impact and I want to share Jim’s story and that of this exciting endeavor with our readers. I also didn’t want to have this feature compete with all the content in this month’s edition of our ezine as I believe it is an extremely worthwhile enterprise which deserves all the attention and support we can direct their way. Look for that interview with Jim Pugh as a mid-month supplement and that feature will also stay in the spotlight throughout the month of October.

I know full well that the much of the appeal we have for our little corner of the cyber world comes from the fact we are different. It is not by accident we have never joined a blues society (Munchkin Land) and are not members of their over lord, The Blues Foundation (OZ, The Great and Powerful).

It is not by accident that we turn down advertising dollars by the bands you see splashed on the pages of virtually every other blues journal. Those are the same advertisers (excuse me artists) who suddenly, out of the blue, end up being nominated for some award or end up being the subject of a fluff piece in one of the many “publications” who use people’s lack of understanding of this illusionary music to perpetuate their own enterprise and to elevate their own social profile.   

For five years BLUES JUNCTION has not wavered from our commitment to this music and the musicians who make it. We haven’t engaged in the kind of blatant corruption that has become the hallmark of the modern blues world. We haven’t touted the mediocre as being something more than it is. We haven’t tried to re-define the genre out of existence to suit our own lack of understanding of blues music. We do not take the time or trouble to write about the lowest common denominator form of music which is a bastardized, childish, watered down form called blues-rock.

Like I said, we are different and for that we have become a safe haven for those many discerning blues fans out there who had all but given up on this music. We are also a trusted place for musicians who know a review of their CD has meaning and it will not sit beside a review of an inferior product because the bass player in that band once went out with my ex-girlfriend’s, former yoga instructor’s therapist.

BLUES JUNCTON has been a labor of love. That love and the intensive nature of this endeavor has led to some obvious sacrifices on our part of which many of our readers and friends are well aware. Having discussed this with many of you out there for some time, I have come to the conclusion that it is time to finally take your advice and ask that our readers become vested in BLUES JUNCTION.  

That is a very David Mac (long winded) way of saying, if you enjoy what you are reading here at the JUNCTION we are offering you the opportunity to click on our PayPal button at the bottom of some of the articles and make a modest donation to our cause.   

Thanks always for all of the kind words of support and encouragement that I receive from so many of you on an ongoing basis. It truly means a lot. Welcome to all of our new readers who have met up with the rest of us here at the JUNCTION over the past few months. Most of all, thanks in advance for your financial support.

As always, I look forward to hearing from you on this topic or anything else you read (or don’t read) in BLUES JUNCTION. I hope to see you at the San Diego Blues Festival. In the meantime, be well and be in touch.

- David Mac