News

Queen of the Blues Koko Taylor, slide guitar master Lil' Ed Williams and his band, The Blues Imperials and West Side legend Eddy "The Chief" Clearwater all perform at the 25th Annual Chicago Blues Festival, June 5 - 8, 2008. The free festival is held at Chicago's Grant Park.

Taylor will headline the main stage on Friday, June 6. Earlier that evening, Clearwater will take the stage with his road band as well as all the players on his new CD, West Side Strut. Guests include Ronnie Baker Brooks (Lonnie's son, who produced the CD), Lonnie Brooks, Billy Branch, Otis Clay, Jimmy Johnson and others.

Lil' Ed and the Blues Imperials take the stage the following night, Saturday, June 7. Ed is currently working on a follow-up to his hugely successful 2006 CD, Rattleshake.

Singer Janiva Magness, whose debut Alligator CD WHAT LOVE WILL DO comes out on June 10, 2008, joins Bobby Rush, Billy Gibson and other blues stars in the first-ever blues tour to entertain troops in Iraq and Kuwait. The first show will be April 1 in Kuwait. There will be two shows in Baghdad’s Green Zone, and two shows in other Iraq cities not revealed for security reasons.

The band will include drummer Tony Braunagel, keyboardist David Torkanowsky, bassist Gary Davenport, and guitarist Zach Zunis. Plans for two more tours of the region are already underway, scheduled for October 2008 and January 2009. Artists for those tours will be announced at a later date.

More information can be found at www.myspace.com/bluzapalooza.

Alligator artists Marcia Ball and Guitar Shorty will perform during this year’s SxSW festival in Austin, Texas on Thursday, March 13. Ball plays the Americana Music Association Showcase at Antone’s at 1:00am (Friday morning). Guitar Shorty plays at Opal Devine’s Freehouse at 11:00pm. Guitar Shorty also plays on Wednesday, March 12 at The Yard Dog as part of the WMNF / Skipper’s Smokehouse day party at 5:30pm.

Ball’s new CD, PEACE, LOVE & BBQ, comes out on April 8. Ball recently recorded with her friend Irma Thomas on Irma’s upcoming Rounder Records CD, Simply Grand. USA Today called Ball, “A sensational, saucy singer and superb pianist….where Texas stomp-rock and Louisiana blues-swamp meet."

Guitar Shorty’s latest CD, WE THE PEOPLE, has been hailed as the best of his long, storied career. Texas Music recently said, “Give him a guitar, a stage and room to run, and Guitar Shorty will entertain you something fierce.”

Alligator recording artists Saffire-The Uppity Blues Women (Ann Rabson, Gaye Adegbalola, and Andra Faye) are the subject of a new documentary film entitled Hot Flash. The film will screen at the Bermuda International Film Festival on Wednesday, April 2 and again on Saturday, April 5. Directed by Sarah Knight and produced by Barbara Ghammashi, the film follows the storied career of the multi-racial trio of middle-aged women who abandoned their day jobs to pursue their love of the blues – and found success along the way. All three members are accomplished musicians who combine sharp original material with reinterpretations of blues classics.

Saffire has eight CDs to their credit, and are planning a new release in 2009. In addition to their large audience of blues lovers, Saffire has built a substantial following outside of the blues world, forged by their message of empowerment for women and their ribald sense of humor. Hot Flash showcases Saffire’s enthusiastic performance style and focuses on their long-time message, “You’re never too old to pursue your passions.”

Bassist/vocalist and Stray Cat Lee Rocker will appear on Woodsongs Old-Time Radio Hour on March 22. Lee will be interviewed and will perform songs from his recent Alligator CD, BLACK CAT BONE. The show will air on over 400 radio stations in the U.S. and abroad. It will also air on XM Satellite Radio 15, “The Village,” on April 13.

SINGER JANIVA MAGNESS TO PERFORM FOR U.S. TROOPS
IN KUWAIT AND IRAQ IN APRIL!

ALLIGATOR PREPARES LABEL DEBUTS FROM SMOKIN’ JOE KUBEK & BNOIS KING AND EDDY “THE CHIEF” CLEARWATER!

Alligator Records has set a March 4 street date for BLOOD BROTHERS from Texas roadhouse rockers Smokin’ Joe Kubek & Bnois King, and WEST SIDE STRUT from legendary Chicago blues master (and Grammy Award nominee) Eddy “The Chief” Clearwater. For almost 20 years, the red-hot Texas blues of Smokin’ Joe Kubek and Bnois King has been thrilling music fans all around the world. Clearwater is an intense, flamboyant blues-rocking showman, and one of the masters of West Side blues. Both Kubek & King and Clearwater signed with Alligator late in 2007.

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Dallas, Dallas, TX-based guitarist Smokin’ Joe Kubek’s raucous roadhouse fretwork is expertly complimented by the equally fiery guitar and soulful vocals of Bnois King. With nearly 20 years together and literally thousands of live performances under their collective belt, the two create a one-two punch of raw, tough, blues-rock filled with intensity and purpose.

BLOOD BROTHERS, produced by Kubek and Alligator president Bruce Iglauer, features 14 rocking blues songs (13 originals) filled with Kubek’s larger-than-life fretwork and King’s smoky vocals and economical, tasty guitar playing. Recorded with Kubek and King’s road-honed band, the album captures all of their legendary live energy and highlights the seemingly telepathic interplay between the musicians.

Kubek was born in Grove City, PA in 1956 but grew up in Irving, TX. He was leading his own bands and gigging all around Dallas clubs when he was only 14. Bowled over by the blues a short time after first hearing Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck, Kubek soon discovered the music of Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf and other early masters. By the time he was 19, he was backing many famous players in the area, including legend Freddie King.

Kubek worked with R&B singer Al “TNT” Braggs and made a host of new friends, including Albert King, Stevie Ray Vaughan (with whom Kubek became close), B.B. King and many other blues icons. In 1989, Kubek met guitarist/vocalist Bnois King at a Monday night Dallas jam session. The two became fast friends, and melded their seemingly divergent styles – Kubek a rocking and fierce picker and slider, King a jazz-inflected chorder (who could also solo with flaming electricity) – into one of the most potent guitar combinations the Southwest had ever produced.

King was born in Delhi, LA in 1943. He was inspired to play guitar by his high school music teacher. Before long, Bnois was playing blues cover songs with a local band. On his own, he traveled through Texas, Oklahoma and Colorado, finding local bands to gig with and also performing with carnival tent show combos. King made his way to Dallas in 1979, gigging with jazz bands until he hooked up with Kubek 10 years later.

Calling themselves The Smokin’ Joe Kubek Band Featuring Bnois King, they signed with Bullseye Blues and released their debut CD, Stepping Out Texas Style, in 1991. The band immediately grew out of Texas and began touring nationally. After a successful series of Bullseye releases, they joined Blind Pig Records in 2003. As their popularity continued to build on the strength of their music and the energy of their live shows, Kubek and King started playing over 150 dates per year all across the United States, Canada and Europe.  With BLOOD BROTHERS and a massive tour planned, the band will gig from coast to coast, bringing their no-holds-barred brand of soul-charged Texas rockin’ blues to old fans and newcomers night after night.

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Between his slashing left-handed guitar work, his room-filling vocals, and his self-defined “rock-a-blues” style (a forceful mix of blues, rock, rockabilly, country and gospel), Eddy Clearwater is among the very finest practitioners of the West Side Chicago blues performing today. The blues world recognized his talent by giving him the Blues Music Award for Contemporary Blues – Male Artist of the Year in 2001. His last release, 2003’s Rock ‘N’ Roll City, was nominated for a Grammy Award. Now he’s back with his very first Alligator CD, the aptly titled WEST SIDE STRUT.

WEST SIDE STRUT, produced by young hotshot guitarist Ronnie Baker Brooks (son of the legendary bluesman Lonnie Brooks), is an energized mix of West Side blues and old school rock injected with a tough, up-to-the-minute contemporary edge. Featuring some of Eddy’s hottest playing ever recorded, the CD burns with his stinging guitar and rough-and-ready vocals. Guests include Eddy’s old friends Lonnie Brooks, Jimmy Johnson, Billy Branch and Otis Clay as well as Ronnie Baker Brooks himself, playing some scintillating guitar parts.

Born Edward Harrington on January 10, 1935 in Macon, MS, Eddy and his family moved to Birmingham, AL in 1948. With music from blues to gospel to country & western surrounding him from an early age, Eddy taught himself to play guitar (left-handed and upside down), and began performing with various gospel groups, including the legendary Five Blind Boys of Alabama. After moving to Chicago in 1950, Eddy stayed with an uncle and took a job as a dishwasher, saving as much as he could from his $37 a week salary. His first music jobs were with gospel groups playing in local churches. Through his uncle’s contacts, Eddy met many of Chicago’s blues stars. He fell deeper under the spell of the blues, and under the wing of blues star Magic Sam, who would become one of Eddy’s closest friends and teachers.

By 1953, as Guitar Eddy, he was making a strong name for himself, working the South and West Side bars regularly. After hearing Chuck Berry in 1957, Eddy added that rock and roll element to his already searing blues style, creating a unique sound that defines him to this day. He recorded his first single, Hill Billy Blues, for his uncle’s Atomic H label under the name Clear Waters in 1958 (his manager at the time, drummer Jump Jackson, came up with the name as a play on Muddy Waters).

The name Clear Waters morphed into Eddy Clearwater and Eddy worked the local circuit steadily throughout the 1950s, 1960s and into the 1970s, finding huge success in the 1970s among the North Side college crowd who responded to his individual brand of blues, his rock and roll spirit and his high energy stage show.

His first full-length LP, 1980’s The Chief, was the initial release on Chicago’s Rooster Blues label. Recording numerous albums for various labels during the 1980s and 1990s, Eddy’s star continued to rise. His 2003 CD Rock ‘N’ Roll City paired him up with the surf-rocking Mexican wrestling-masked group, Los Straitjackets. The album was nominated for a Grammy Award and earned Eddy a multitude of new fans.

Now, with WEST SIDE STRUT, Eddy has made the very best album of his life. He loves to perform and can usually be found tearing it up somewhere around the world on any given night. He’s played everywhere from Russia, Turkey, and Romania to Brazil and Alaska. He’ll hit the road hard in support of the CD, strutting his slicing guitar licks, his rock-fueled blues, rockabilly, country and gospel gumbo and his uninhibited live show to fans ready for a taste of the real West Side Chicago blues, played by a master at the very peak of his abilities.

ERIC LINDELL TO PERFORMS ON LATE NIGHT WITH CONAN O'BRIEN ON FRIDAY, FEBRURARY 8

Guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Eric Lindell made his national television debut with a performance on NBC television's Late Night With Conan O'Brien on Friday, February 8. Eric and his band sang Lay Back Down, the first single from their new Alligator CD, LOW ON CASH, RICH IN LOVE.  

Since the January 14, 2008 release of LOW ON CASH, RICH IN LOVE, Lindell has received massive amounts of radio airplay and critical praise, with features and reviews running in USA Today, Harp, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Relix, and many other national and regional publications.

The Chicago Sun-Times calls Eric, "A tremendous raw talent. 'Low On Cash, Rich In Love' is a mature album by a singer-songwriter with a fully realized musical vision. It's not a great stretch to liken Lindell to Van Morrison in his proficiency for crafting classic neosoul sounds. Lindell writes from the heart with the life experience of a Charles Bukowski and the poet's soul of the Belfast Cowboy himself."

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QUEEN OF THE BLUES KOKO TAYLOR TO PERFORM LIVE AT
GRAMMY AWARDS PRE-TELECAST SHOW