Your Weekly Guide to Life in Midcoast Maine

Whose got the Blues!

Reviews by Tom Von Malder

If you want to hear a rocking blues guitar, you want South Side Slim, whose first solo album, “Five Steps” (South Side, 63:11), features 13 originals among 14 tracks. South Side Slim, who also released “More Blues From the South Side” in 2000, will perform Saturday at the North Atlantic Blues Festival and then return to Rockland to play at the Time Out Pub on Monday, July 29.

Born in 1957 in Louisiana as Henry Harris, South Side Slim was raised in Oakland, Calif. He led the house band at Gainesville, Roy Gaines’ former night club, and was the featured artist with the 32-20 Band for three years (Mary Dukes who has recorded with the 32-20 Band opens Saturday’s Blues Fest lineup.)

His guitar playing is exciting in both solos and fills. On “Five Steps,” his playing often is stinging, such as the opening track, “Just a Thing” (“Monday found me crying/Tuesday found me sad”). “Junkyard Dog” has great bounce and “Road House Blues” is solid. “I Was Hooked” is softer, and he turns to more traditional blues sounds on “It Was You” (a good vocal quiver here), “Take All My Money” and the slow “5-Steps.” “Let Me Down Easy” features both sax player Bill Clark (he also sparks “I Can’t Rest”) and organist Deacon Jones, who has played with Freddie King and John Lee Hooker. Bassist Willie Briggs played on an album of Irish rocker Sinéad O’Connor.

The disc’s only cover is Magic Slim’s “That’s All I Need.”

Grade: A-

Sean Costello’s third album, “Moanin’ for Molasses” (Landslide, 44:05) finds the guitarist-vocalist offering the same familiar mix of innovative versions of obscure material and originals. Take for instance the opening title track, originally recorded by Jody Williams, on which Costello plays melodic guitar and simply moans for the vocals.

Costello, who will perform on Sunday, is backed by his road-honed touring band: Matt Wauchope on piano and organ, Melvin Zachary on bass, Terrence Prather on drums and Paul Linden on harp and piano. All but Prather sing backing vocals. The disc was released last year.

Among the other covers are very good ones of Mike Bloomfield/Nick Gravenites’ “You’re Killing My Love” (fleshed out by a horn section, “Buddy Guy’s “No Lie,” Willie Dixon’s “One Kiss” (recorded by Jimmy Rogers), James Brown’s “I Want You So Bad” (quieter but still with a good beat) and Steve-Cropper-Eddie Floyd-Isbell Alvertis’ “You Can’t Win With a Losing Hand” (instantly identifiable as a Cropper tune, with its beat, Memphis-style horns and organ, it was originally recorded by Johnny Taylor).

The 23-year-old Philadelphia-born Costello, whose February 2000 disc “Cuttin In” earned a W.C. Handy Award nomination for Best New Artist Debut, also covers J.B. Lenoir’s “Good Advice” and Otis Rush’s “It Takes Time.” The best of the four originals — two by Costello, one by Linden and one they co-wrote — is the collaboration, “You’re a Part of Me,” again featuring melodic guitar.

He has often performed with Susan Tedeschi and appeared on her “Just Won’t Burn” album. Linden and Prather both are Tedeschi band alumni.

Grade: B+

Mary Dukes is a seasoned entertainment pro, but “Introducing the Devine Ms. Mary” (South Side, 53:03), recorded with the 32-20 band and featuring fellow North Atlantic Blues Festival performer South Side Slim on four tracks, is her blues debut. Dukes will lead off the festival Saturday.

Dukes, born and raised in South Central Los Angeles, works for the city of Carson, a nearby suburb, and acts regularly in dramatic productions. She has had a career as a gospel singer and has sung backup for Marvin Gaye, Natalie Cole, M.C. Hammer, Stevie Wonder, Archie Bell and the Drells and Earth Wind and Fire, among others.

All 11 tracks on the album were written by lead and rhythm guitarist Jerry Rosen. Dukes really sinks her voice into “Too Much To Drink,” which also has Rosen soloing a lot. There is a good beat to “Nobody’s Clown.”

South Side Slim plays lead guitar and Joss Trossman on four middle tracks. South Side Slim adds a “dirtier” guitar sound on “Worried Blues,” while “Mississippi Mister” has more of a shuffle feel. Trossman’s harmonica glows on “I Tried.”

Throughout the album, Dukes is in fine vocal form. She is a good reason to get to the festival from the very beginning.

Grade: B+

It has been nearly four years between albums seven and eight for Little Charlie and the Nightcats, but “That’s Big!” (Alligator, 59:50) is finally here, and just in time for the super-cool, jazzy, blues quartet’s Saturday appearance at the North Atlantic Blues Festival.

As always, the group — Little Charlie Baty on guitar, Rick Estrin on harmonica and vocals, and new rhythm section of Frankie Randall on electric and acoustic bass, and Joe Ventittelli on drums — covers a wide variety of sounds and styles, from the jive beat of the harmonica-driven “Weekend Off” to the breezy “Coastin’ Hank” to the swinging instrumental “Bayview Jump.” The latter is one of two Baty originals.

Estrin, who likes “songs that tell stories,” wrote 10 of the 14 tracks. Estrin, then a harmonica player, and Baty met in the early 1970s while Baty, ho hails from Sacramento, was at University of California at Berkeley. The band’s typical humor surfaces in the jump-blues number “Money Must Think I’m Dead (#2).” The slow blues number, “I’ll Bet I Never Cross Your Mind,” is full of regret. Rusty Zinn is the guest vocalist on “It Better Get Better” (“or I got to be gone”) and plays the second guitar solo on “Bluto’s Back.”

With Estrin already an accomplished harp player, Baty switched to guitar full time and they formed a blues band. The results, many would agree, have been phenomenal, with Baty touted as one of the best in the business.

Grade: B+

Jimmie Vaughan, a founding member of The Fabulous Thunderbirds in the mid-Seventies and brother to the late, great blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan, won the Grammy Award for Best Traditional Blues Album Feb. 27. The album, “Do You Get the Blues?” (Artemis, 54:51), was released in September and is his third solo disc after leaving the Thunderbirds.

Overall, there is a loose, less produced feel in the Texan’s Artemis debut. The instrumental “Dirty Girl” features writer Bill Willis on Hammond B-3. Thunderbirds co-founder Lou Ann Barton sings on several of the strongest tracks, including “Out of the Shadows,” “Power of Love” and the shouter “In the Middle of the Night.” The latter also includes the rhythm section from Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Double Trouble — Tommy Shannon and Chris Layton.

At the time he had been making the album, Vaughan had been listening a lot to Sarah Vaughan (no relation) and decided he wanted “to make a romantic blues album.” That combination of jazz and R&B surfaces in “Don’t Let the Sun Set.” George Rains’ solid drumming highlights the syncopated soul of “Let Me In.”

Vaughan offers a more stinging guitar style on “Without You,” co-written and featuring his guitarist son, Tyrone Vaughan, while Jimmie Vaughan plays acoustic slide guitar and guest James Cotton joins in on harmonica on “The Deep End.”

Grade: A

Deborah Coleman is a shining light among blues singers and is a rare female blues artist who also plays a mean guitar. She will play Sunday at the North Atlantic Blues Festival.

Released in May 2001, “Livin’ on Love” (Blind Pig, 43:02), her fourth album, earned her her fourth nomination in a row for a W.C. Handy Award. Last year she won the Orville Gibson Award in the category of Best Blues Guitarist, Female.

The Portsmouth, Va. native was raised in a military family. Her father played piano, two brothers played guitar and a sister plays guitar and keyboards. She picked up the guitar at age eight. By the time she was 15, she was playing with a series of rock and R&B bands and had switched from bass to lead guitar, after hearing Jimi Hendrix’s recordings. Her other guitar influences include Buddy Guy, Freddie King, Albert Collins and Larry Carlton.

The new album is produced by Jim Gaines (Santana, Stevie Ray Vaughan) and is loaded with strengths. Six of the 11 songs are originals, the best being “Memory Love,” with her sweet vocal and fine backing vocals by Reba Russell; “Crazy”; and “Torn in Two” (“I guess Cupid met stupid/Cause my heart feels torn in two”).

Coleman seems to let out in her playing more on the covers, such as during “Heaven’s Got the Blues.” There’s solid soul on the album’s title track (again Russell is strong on backup vocals), slinky blues in “Light of Day,” a terrific version of Lowell Fulson’s “Bending Like a Willow Tree and the slow blues of “Happy When You’re Unhappy.”

Grade: A-

Those attending the North Atlantic Blues Festival are in for a treat when one of the true greats plays — harmonica player James Cotton.

Cotton recently celebrated his 35th anniversary with the James Cotton Blues Band by issuing the star-filled “35th Anniversary Jam” (Telarc, 53:09). Formed when he left Muddy Waters in the mid-Sixties, the band’s current lineup is Mike Williams on rhythm guitar, David Maxwell on piano, Noel Neal on bass and Per Hanson on drums. With Cotton’s voice a bit ravaged by a lifetime of hard use, most of the guests are vocalists, while guitarist Jimmie Vaughan, another star of this year’s blues fest’s Saturday slate, plays on three tracks.

Vaughan plays on “Rocket 88,” which features a Syl Johnson vocal; on “Hold Me Baby,” with the legendary Ronnie Hawkins on vocal; and on “Blues for the Hook,” an instrumental tribute to John Lee Hooker. Hopefully, they will share a couple of songs on stage this weekend.

The disc opens with the delightful instrumental, “The Creep,” then Koko Taylor’s on board to sing “I’ve Got a Feeling,” Lucky Peterson on “Cotton Crop Blues,” Bobby Rush on “Fatuation,” Shemekia Copeland is exceptional on “How Long Can a Fool Go Wrong?,” Kim Wilson on “River’s Invitation” (a Percy Mayfield cover) and Maria Muldaur on “All Walks of Live,” with guitar by Tab Benoit.

Grade: A

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Whose got the Blues! Reviews by Tom Von Malder If you want to hear a rocking blues guitar, you want South Side Slim, whose first solo album, “Five Steps” (South Side, 63:11), features 13 originals among 14 tracks. South Side Slim, who also released “More Blues From the South Side” in 2000, will perform Saturday at the North Atlantic Blues Festival and then return to Rockland to play at the Time Out Pub on Monday, July 29. Born in 1957 in Louisiana as Henry Harris, South Side Slim was raised in Oakland, Calif. He led the house band at Gainesville, Roy Gaines’ former night club, and was the featured artist with the 32-20 Band for three years (Mary Dukes who has recorded with the 32-20 Band opens Saturday’s Blues Fest lineup.) His guitar playing is exciting in both solos and fills. On “Five Steps,” his playing often is stinging, such as the opening track, “Just a Thing” (“Monday found me crying/Tuesday found me sad”). “Junkyard Dog” has great bounce and “Road House Blues” is solid. “I Was Hooked” is softer, and he turns to more traditional blues sounds on “It Was You” (a good vocal quiver here), “Take All My Money” and the slow “5-Steps.” “Let Me Down Easy” features both sax player Bill Clark (he also sparks “I Can’t Rest”) and organist Deacon Jones, who has played with Freddie King and John Lee Hooker. Bassist Willie Briggs played on an album of Irish rocker Sinéad O’Connor. The disc’s only cover is Magic Slim’s “That’s All I Need.” Grade: A- Sean Costello’s third album, “Moanin’ for Molasses” (Landslide, 44:05) finds the guitarist-vocalist offering the same familiar mix of innovative versions of obscure material and originals. Take for instance the opening title track, originally recorded by Jody Williams, on which Costello plays melodic guitar and simply moans for the vocals. Costello, who will perform on Sunday, is backed by his road-honed touring band: Matt Wauchope on piano and organ, Melvin Zachary on bass, Terrence Prather on drums and Paul Linden on harp and piano. All but Prather sing backing vocals. The disc was released last year. Among the other covers are very good ones of Mike Bloomfield/Nick Gravenites’ “You’re Killing My Love” (fleshed out by a horn section, “Buddy Guy’s “No Lie,” Willie Dixon’s “One Kiss” (recorded by Jimmy Rogers), James Brown’s “I Want You So Bad” (quieter but still with a good beat) and Steve-Cropper-Eddie Floyd-Isbell Alvertis’ “You Can’t Win With a Losing Hand” (instantly identifiable as a Cropper tune, with its beat, Memphis-style horns and organ, it was originally recorded by Johnny Taylor). The 23-year-old Philadelphia-born Costello, whose February 2000 disc “Cuttin In” earned a W.C. Handy Award nomination for Best New Artist Debut, also covers J.B. Lenoir’s “Good Advice” and Otis Rush’s “It Takes Time.” The best of the four originals — two by Costello, one by Linden and one they co-wrote — is the collaboration, “You’re a Part of Me,” again featuring melodic guitar. He has often performed with Susan Tedeschi and appeared on her “Just Won’t Burn” album. Linden and Prather both are Tedeschi band alumni. Grade: B+ Mary Dukes is a seasoned entertainment pro, but “Introducing the Devine Ms. Mary” (South Side, 53:03), recorded with the 32-20 band and featuring fellow North Atlantic Blues Festival performer South Side Slim on four tracks, is her blues debut. Dukes will lead off the festival Saturday. Dukes, born and raised in South Central Los Angeles, works for the city of Carson, a nearby suburb, and acts regularly in dramatic productions. She has had a career as a gospel singer and has sung backup for Marvin Gaye, Natalie Cole, M.C. Hammer, Stevie Wonder, Archie Bell and the Drells and Earth Wind and Fire, among others. All 11 tracks on the album were written by lead and rhythm guitarist Jerry Rosen. Dukes really sinks her voice into “Too Much To Drink,” which also has Rosen soloing a lot. There is a good beat to “Nobody’s Clown.” South Side Slim plays lead guitar and Joss Trossman on four middle tracks. South Side Slim adds a “dirtier” guitar sound on “Worried Blues,” while “Mississippi Mister” has more of a shuffle feel. Trossman’s harmonica glows on “I Tried.” Throughout the album, Dukes is in fine vocal form. She is a good reason to get to the festival from the very beginning. Grade: B+ It has been nearly four years between albums seven and eight for Little Charlie and the Nightcats, but “That’s Big!” (Alligator, 59:50) is finally here, and just in time for the super-cool, jazzy, blues quartet’s Saturday appearance at the North Atlantic Blues Festival. As always, the group — Little Charlie Baty on guitar, Rick Estrin on harmonica and vocals, and new rhythm section of Frankie Randall on electric and acoustic bass, and Joe Ventittelli on drums — covers a wide variety of sounds and styles, from the jive beat of the harmonica-driven “Weekend Off” to the breezy “Coastin’ Hank” to the swinging instrumental “Bayview Jump.” The latter is one of two Baty originals. Estrin, who likes “songs that tell stories,” wrote 10 of the 14 tracks. Estrin, then a harmonica player, and Baty met in the early 1970s while Baty, ho hails from Sacramento, was at University of California at Berkeley. The band’s typical humor surfaces in the jump-blues number “Money Must Think I’m Dead (#2).” The slow blues number, “I’ll Bet I Never Cross Your Mind,” is full of regret. Rusty Zinn is the guest vocalist on “It Better Get Better” (“or I got to be gone”) and plays the second guitar solo on “Bluto’s Back.” With Estrin already an accomplished harp player, Baty switched to guitar full time and they formed a blues band. The results, many would agree, have been phenomenal, with Baty touted as one of the best in the business. Grade: B+ Jimmie Vaughan, a founding member of The Fabulous Thunderbirds in the mid-Seventies and brother to the late, great blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan, won the Grammy Award for Best Traditional Blues Album Feb. 27. The album, “Do You Get the Blues?” (Artemis, 54:51), was released in September and is his third solo disc after leaving the Thunderbirds. Overall, there is a loose, less produced feel in the Texan’s Artemis debut. The instrumental “Dirty Girl” features writer Bill Willis on Hammond B-3. Thunderbirds co-founder Lou Ann Barton sings on several of the strongest tracks, including “Out of the Shadows,” “Power of Love” and the shouter “In the Middle of the Night.” The latter also includes the rhythm section from Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Double Trouble — Tommy Shannon and Chris Layton. At the time he had been making the album, Vaughan had been listening a lot to Sarah Vaughan (no relation) and decided he wanted “to make a romantic blues album.” That combination of jazz and R&B surfaces in “Don’t Let the Sun Set.” George Rains’ solid drumming highlights the syncopated soul of “Let Me In.” Vaughan offers a more stinging guitar style on “Without You,” co-written and featuring his guitarist son, Tyrone Vaughan, while Jimmie Vaughan plays acoustic slide guitar and guest James Cotton joins in on harmonica on “The Deep End.” Grade: A Deborah Coleman is a shining light among blues singers and is a rare female blues artist who also plays a mean guitar. She will play Sunday at the North Atlantic Blues Festival. Released in May 2001, “Livin’ on Love” (Blind Pig, 43:02), her fourth album, earned her her fourth nomination in a row for a W.C. Handy Award. Last year she won the Orville Gibson Award in the category of Best Blues Guitarist, Female. The Portsmouth, Va. native was raised in a military family. Her father played piano, two brothers played guitar and a sister plays guitar and keyboards. She picked up the guitar at age eight. By the time she was 15, she was playing with a series of rock and R&B bands and had switched from bass to lead guitar, after hearing Jimi Hendrix’s recordings. Her other guitar influences include Buddy Guy, Freddie King, Albert Collins and Larry Carlton. The new album is produced by Jim Gaines (Santana, Stevie Ray Vaughan) and is loaded with strengths. Six of the 11 songs are originals, the best being “Memory Love,” with her sweet vocal and fine backing vocals by Reba Russell; “Crazy”; and “Torn in Two” (“I guess Cupid met stupid/Cause my heart feels torn in two”). Coleman seems to let out in her playing more on the covers, such as during “Heaven’s Got the Blues.” There’s solid soul on the album’s title track (again Russell is strong on backup vocals), slinky blues in “Light of Day,” a terrific version of Lowell Fulson’s “Bending Like a Willow Tree and the slow blues of “Happy When You’re Unhappy.” Grade: A- Those attending the North Atlantic Blues Festival are in for a treat when one of the true greats plays — harmonica player James Cotton. Cotton recently celebrated his 35th anniversary with the James Cotton Blues Band by issuing the star-filled “35th Anniversary Jam” (Telarc, 53:09). Formed when he left Muddy Waters in the mid-Sixties, the band’s current lineup is Mike Williams on rhythm guitar, David Maxwell on piano, Noel Neal on bass and Per Hanson on drums. With Cotton’s voice a bit ravaged by a lifetime of hard use, most of the guests are vocalists, while guitarist Jimmie Vaughan, another star of this year’s blues fest’s Saturday slate, plays on three tracks. Vaughan plays on “Rocket 88,” which features a Syl Johnson vocal; on “Hold Me Baby,” with the legendary Ronnie Hawkins on vocal; and on “Blues for the Hook,” an instrumental tribute to John Lee Hooker. Hopefully, they will share a couple of songs on stage this weekend. The disc opens with the delightful instrumental, “The Creep,” then Koko Taylor’s on board to sing “I’ve Got a Feeling,” Lucky Peterson on “Cotton Crop Blues,” Bobby Rush on “Fatuation,” Shemekia Copeland is exceptional on “How Long Can a Fool Go Wrong?,” Kim Wilson on “River’s Invitation” (a Percy Mayfield cover) and Maria Muldaur on “All Walks of Live,” with guitar by Tab Benoit. Grade: A WE GOT THE BLUES: Get your blues on! •Returning legends, new acts • Blues reviews • Lincoln County • Waldo County • Knox County
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