Monday, July 20, 2009

Christian music news: Raucous crowd enjoys thrills at Western Maryland Blues Fest


“Somebody scream,” Lil’ Ed urged hundreds of music fans Friday night, but there was no need. They already were raucous, pumped full of electric blues flying from his slide guitar.
A few minutes earlier, Lil’ Ed — Ed Williams of Chicago — had ratcheted up the thrill level by stepping down from the back of the stage and wading through the crowd, playing all the while.
He got up close with dozens of hard-core Western Maryland Blues Festers, the ones dancing and hollering and waving their arms with unbridled glee.
No one, though, seemed to be having a better time than the frontman for Lil’ Ed and The Blues Imperials. If he wasn’t grinning, he was laughing, and it seemed to be contagious.
“He’s fantastic,” said Linda Overstreet of Silver Spring, Md. “There’s nothing like seeing a performer who’s having a ball.”
Lil’ Ed’s band gave way to Friday’s headline act, Jimmy Thackery and the Drivers, capping Day 2 of the four-day Blues Fest.
The festival continues today in the city’s central parking lot off North Potomac Street, then Sunday at City Park.
Williams kept smiling and laughing as he signed autographs after his set.
“I like what I do,” he said.
Asked about the enthusiastic Hagerstown crowd, he said, “I love them. They’re wonderful — tremendously wonderful.”
For Beverly Wilson of Hollywood, in southern Maryland, the admiration was mutual.
Wilson and her husband, Steve, had front-row seats, but were on their feet a lot. Beverly Wilson was part of the crush that surrounded Lil’ Ed as he passed by with his guitar.
“He makes you happy,” she said later. “The blues makes you happy.”
Marie Messick got right up to Lil’ Ed for several seconds and grooved with him, face to face.
That left her giddy. She shared the fun with her friend, Nancy Borne.
Messick said the Blues Fest has established itself as a tradition in her life, even though this only was her second time attending.
Messick, who is from California, got to know her husband, Dennis, who is from Martinsburg, W.Va., online. They met in person in Georgia. A few months later, in April 2008, they got married.
They treated last year’s Blues Fest as an extension of their wedding.
“This is like a reception with people you don’t know,” Marie Messick said.
This year, they shared the party with Borne, who used to live in New Orleans.
“This is like a little bit of home for me,” Borne said.
Marie Messick said she was ready to top last year’s feat of dancing for five straight hours.
Friday also was a day for the regulars, who go from blues festival to blues festival and become friends along the way.
That group includes Jeff Jackson of Columbia, Md., and Bob Lubbehusen of Annandale, Va., who got Lil’ Ed to pose for pictures with them after he played.
Jackson said the fan group’s last stop was the Chesapeake Bay Blues Festival on May 16 and 17.
Jackson complimented Hagerstown’s event as a nice venue with good acts, good food and good drinks.
Overstreet said she was depressed when she missed last year’s blues fest because of other things going on in her life.
“I hear blues and my body wants to move,” she said.

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Friday, July 17, 2009

Christian music news: Blues Music Awards honor best of genre

Latest christian music: Magness scored the Contemporary Blues Female Artist honor in addition to being named the B.B. King Entertainer of the Year.
King received the Traditional Blues Male Artist of the Year award and his 2008 release, "One Kind Favor," was named Traditional Blues Album of the Year.
In the acoustic categories, Eden Brent was a big winner with awards for Acoustic Artist of the Year and Acoustic Album of the Year for "Mississippi Number One."
Band of the Year honors went to Lil' Ed & the Blues Imperials and Best New Artist Debut accolades went to Cedric Burnside & Lightnin' Malcolm.
Other BMA winners included Jeff Healey (Rock Blues Album), Etta James (Soul Blues Female Artist), Bobby Rush (Soul Blues Artist) and Koko Taylor (Traditional Blues Female Artist).
Taylor made a surprise appearance during the seven-hour show to perform with The Mannish Boys, who went into the evening with the largest number of BMA nominees--six.
B.B. King also made an unscheduled appearance, performing with Curtis Salgado before presenting his namesake award to Magness.

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Monday, July 13, 2009

Christian music news: Lil' Ed and the Blues Imperials at Red Miles Blues Festival

Latest christian music: The spot-checking of artistic influences was abundant in the music that Chicago guitarist Lil' Ed Williams summoned to close the inaugural Red Mile Blues Festival. The syncopated groove to Housekeeping Job was coated with Peter Green-style Brit blues, and Woman, Take a Bow suggested Carlos Santana with a melodic hook that sounded — improbable as this might seem — like a light-funk interpretation of the 1973 Edgar Winter instrumental hit Frankenstein. But the lightning electric-blues jolt of Hound Dog Taylor, Elmore James and Williams' esteemed uncle, J. B. Hutto, really fueled the performance. When Williams leaned heavily into the roadhouse cheer of those elders during the sly blues shuffles Pride and Joy (not the Stevie Ray Vaughan tune of the same name) and Take Out Some Insurance, or the densely patterned grind of Hold That Train, the Blues Imperials summoned a roaring juke-joint fire. The music sounded like the work of an honest-to-goodness blues band instead of the usual tired blues outfit siphoning rock 'n' roll for cheap, accessible thrills. Especially impressive was how keen, clean and mean Williams' slow blues excursions sounded. Even the semi-novelty tune Check My Baby's Oil, with all its cheesy lyrical innuendo, sounded quietly urgent. Like the entire show, this slice of underplayed Chicago blues served with playful menace sounded very sweet indeed.
Uncle Woody Sullender at Land of Tomorrow: The brittle passages at the core of this brief 40-minute set by Brooklyn banjoist Sullender possessed a stark, ancient air that seemed to predate bluegrass. Of course, this was in no way a traditional music program. Pedal effects and laptop-guided electronic enhancements created progressive, often otherworldly harmony. At times, the electric accents rose like voices in another room. Or mounting waves of static chatter. Or chimed bells at a dance. Or chattering insects. Or a lone, chirping bird. None of this made the performance seem like a novelty act, though. What was continually absorbing was how the natural timbre of the banjo would dissolve even as the electronics would continue to react against — or, more often than not, harmonize with — the tense strums and plucks pronounced on the strings. On Violence of Volk, especially, the electronics entered like a squall that rode shotgun to Sullender's more agitated playing. Of course, the real ingenuity of this music came not from the rise or fade of the electronics but with the cunning Sullender displayed as a soloist. On Where the Flowers on the River's Green Margin May Blow, the effects took a breather so he could experiment with the banjo's given tone and temperament. At times contemplative, at others exquisitely giddy, Sullender's music was just as progressive when surrounded by pure acoustic solitude as it was when all the dizzy electric gremlins crashed the party.

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Monday, July 6, 2009

Christian music news: Lil' Ed And The Blues Imperials

Latest christian music: Lil’ Ed Williams and his long-standing band The Blues Imperials crank their native Chicago blues just a notch over the top, making it as party-ready as any good up-tempo soul act. In addition to those giddy slide-guitar leads, Lil’ Ed tends to look a bit more flamboyant than your average bluesman, especially when decked out in red Chuck Taylors and one of his flashy fez hats. The titles of his Alligator Records releases stretching back to the ’80s tend to reflect this ecstatic quality—Roughhousin’, Get Wild, and last year’s Full Tilt—and with this band, revving up the blues is just another route to the genre’s richness.

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