I was looking forward to Tuesday 9/11/01.That was the release date of the new Jimmie Vaughan album Do You Get the Blues. As the sun rose in California I quickly forgot all about purchasing and hearing a new record. Jimmie unveiled some of the songs from this record a week earlier at the Long Beach Blues Festival. The new tunes went over big with the big festival crowd. Part way through his set Jimmie traded in his customary Stratocaster for a Fender Coronado and started playing with a bottleneck slide. He introduced the big festival crowd to an original tune that would be on the soon to be released album. The song, The Deep End is a tribute to Muddy Waters. The tune features that legendary Jimmie slide which sounds eerily like Muddy. James Cotton blows harp on this tune as well.

Janiva Magness’ 2001 release is entitled, The Blues Ain’t Pretty. This album, along with her 1999 release Bad Luck Soul, just might be my two favorite Janiva albums. Since the release of this record, Southern California has lost Janiva to the world. She has recorded three successful albums for Alligator records, has won a B.B. King Entertainer of the Year award at the BMAs and has become a national touring act. Janiva still lives in the greater Los Angeles area but gone are the days when you could catch her playing locally out here several times a month. I selected the song It’s Your Voodoo Working. I don’t know if its voodoo or Janiva’s mojo, but this works on me.

John Hammond’s Wicked Grin was a record I wasn’t looking forward to hearing. John Hammond doing Tom Waits tunes sounded like a real bad idea when I first heard about this project. What do I know? This, to my great surprise, works in a big way. Hammond eschews his more familiar solo acoustic setting and operates very comfortably within the context of this great band. I chose the song Heartache and Vine from this very cool LP. A few months after the attacks of September 11, 2001, I was sitting with John Hammond outside on the patio of the old Blue Café in Long Beach, CA. The musician told of watching the attacks on the World Trade Center from his home across the Hudson River in nearby Hoboken, New Jersey. I will never forget the first hand account of Hammond discussing what it was like to see his hometown come under attack.

2001 found another native New Yorker, Brian Setzer releasing a new album. Setzer returned to a stripped down roots rock sound after fronting a big band for most of the prior decade. I chose a song from this record that is about one of Brian’s favorite west coast haunts, The Blue Café. Setzer billed himself as Brian Setzer’s 68’ Comeback Special on the album called Ignition. It is an homage to Elvis who returned, if for only a few moments, in 1968 to his Memphis blues and rockabilly roots on a television sound stage in Burbank, CA. This record and the Blue Café reminds me of how closely associated the Southern California rockabilly and blues scene were at the time. Brian and others could sit on the patio of the Blue Café equal distance from hot rods and the stage, where you might here the Paladins one night and John Hammond the next. The Blue Café isn’t around anymore.

It does not seem like ten years ago that I saw Kim Wilson and the fellas laying down some of the tracks for an upcoming live album that would be called Smokin’ Joint at the now all but defunct and certainly de funk-e-fied Café Boogaloo in Hermosa Beach, CA. Those fellas, by the way, are Kirk Fletcher on guitar, Larry Taylor on bass and Richard Innes on drums. The other half of the album was recorded at the Rhythm Room in Phoenix, AZ, which last month celebrated its 20^th anniversary. I chose the instrumental track that was recorded in Hermosa Beach that closes the album entitled The Lighthouse is Gone. It is a tribute to another musical institution just around the corner from the Café Boogaloo, which is still there in name only… but if you are fan of jazz and blues, it is gone.

Sack of Woe is the opening track of an album that was re-issued in 2001 called, The Cannonball Adderly Quintet at The Lighthouse. Adderly’s blues based alto saxophone playing is what originally caught the attention of Miles Davis. It is this blues sensibility which helped make the 1959 album Kind of Blue the most popular jazz recording of all time. A year later, Adderly took his quintet out west to make one of the many fine live recordings he made in the decade of the 60’s. Forty one years later this performance was finally re-issued on CD for the first time. Better late than never.

Etta James released an album in 2001 called Blue Gardenia. The great one Ettagises songs that were recorded by Billie Holiday. I don’t know anybody, besides Etta, who would dare take a stab at a project like this, let alone make it work. Ten years ago I saw Etta at the Strand in Redondo Beach, CA (it is now a Whole Foods Market). That night the great one dropped a couple of songs from this album into the middle of her set. She introduced them by saying, “These next two songs are for the wine and cheese crowd, but we will get back to the beer and brat crowd before the night is over.” She sang This Bitter Earth before visiting the world of Ellingtonia and singing In My Solitude. This is one of my favorite Billie Holiday tunes yet I love what Etta does with song. I know this tune is a “jazz standard” but if this isn’t blues, I don’t know what is. There is, of course, only one Billie Holiday but then let’s not forget there is also only one Etta James.

Lazy Lester’s Blues Stop Knockin’ is not only one of my favorite albums of 2001. It is one of my favorite albums of the past ten years. This album was released on Antone’s Records out of Austin, TX. Producer and guitarist Derek O’Brian brought Jimmie Vaughan into this session to play guitar. It has Lester updating some of his old Excello classics. One of my favorites from this album is Lester’s version of I’m Your Bread Maker Baby.

Johnny Moeller’s 2001 release is entitled Johnny’s Blues Aggregation. This is another fine album from another great Texas guitar player. It is also my favorite Johnny Moeller record to date. I chose the instrumental tune that is a Moeller original, Bak “N” Forth. Throughout the past ten years, Johnny has been a first call guitarist and has continued to release albums under his own name as well. Additionally he, along with Mike Keller, have been playing guitars in Kim Wilson’s ongoing musical institution, the Fabulous Thunderbirds.

By 2001, Rod Piazza and the Mighty Flyers had already become an established staple on the blues scene. This version of the band featured Rick Holmstrom on guitar and original Mighty Flyer, Big Bill Stuve on bass. The song Who Knows What’s Going On is an ode to a woman who knows what’s going on. 'Looks good coming and going/sunshine through the dress/she knows what’s showin'. This original, on the album Beyond the Source,was co-written by Rod and long time Mighty Flyer pianist Honey Piazza, who I suspect knows what’s goin’ on.