Jazz Articles

Billy Gibson Band: Southern Livin'

by Woodrow Wilkins
October 26, 2007

A surefire way to annoy, insult, upset or even anger a Mississippian is for some Northerner to spell the state's name in a silly chant: “Em, eye, crooked-letter, crooked-letter, eye, crooked-letter, crooked-letter, eye, humpback-humpback, eye--Mississippi. Billy Gibson and his band get away with it, partly because he's a Southerner who knows, all too well, how the chant can infuriate the locals. It doesn't hurt that he put it into a delightful song on Southern Livin'.Gibson, a fixture on ...

Charlie Wood: Lucky

by Woodrow Wilkins
October 24, 2007

Memphis has long been a hotbed of music. It was there that an unknown blues singer named Riley King would later become the biggest name in the genre: B.B. King. The city has also been home to Maurice White of Earth, Wind & Fire, Isaac Hayes, Rufus Thomas and The King: Elvis Presley. A more recent product of the city on the river is Charlie Wood, a vocalist and organist who plays old-school blues. Wood spent time ...

David Evans: Needy Time

by David King
October 8, 2007

Call him a scholar, educator, performer, singer, guitarist. David Evans is all of these and, above all else, a preservationist revered for his knowledge of the blues and a commitment to its survival. He has worked preserving the blues for the last forty-five years. He received a Grammy for best album notes for Screamin' and Hollerin' the Blues: The Worlds of Charley Patton (Snapper, 2003).

Evans was a musical partner with iconic guitarist/vocalist Alan Wilson, before the formation of Canned ...

Billy Gibson: The Billy Gibson Band

by Woodrow Wilkins
August 28, 2005

If anyone thinks the blues is a dead genre, they're badly mistaken. The Billy Gibson Band rocks from the first note of its new self-titled album. The first song, “Down Home, sets the tone early, with the bandleader on harmonica and lead vocals, singing, “Let's go down, down home, where I play the blues... on my Mississippi saxophone. Sidemen David Bowen (guitar), James Jackson (bass), and Cedric Keel (drums) lay down an impressive background rhythm. While prominent in support without ...

R.L. Burnside & The Sound Machine: Raw Electric: 1979-80

by Derek Taylor
April 12, 2002

In the intensely fickle proving ground of the music business probability of success routinely defies prognostication. This is particularly true in the realms of niche genres such as blues. A musician can struggle and toil for decades before lightning strikes thrusting him or her into the pale and often fleeting limelight that is public adulation. Bluesman R.L. Burnside is currently riding out his run near the head of pack, but it was a long and perambulating trek to the top. ...