Three
years ago, the Black Banjo Gathering was held in North Carolina to
celebrate "the African American heritage of the banjo, which has
not only a historic past, but also a resurgent present, and a great
future," according to the event's Web site
(http://blackbanjo.com).
Part of that future is the Carolina Chocolate Drops, an African American string trio whose members first met at the gathering. The young group - two members are in their mid-20s, and one is 31 - should help keep alive a rich tradition of the Piedmont string band.
The blues musicians of the Kinsey Report - composed of Kinsey brothers Donald on guitar, Kenneth on bass, and Ralph on percussion - haven't released a new CD since 1998's Smoke & Steel, and during a recent phone interview, Ralph states that "we don't tour as much as we want. One reason is because the venues aren't there anymore, and another reason is because we've been working on a new record for some time now, and we want to come out with something fresh."
Elvin
Bishop, who lived outside the small town of Elliott, Iowa, as a
child, attributes his connection with the blues community to his
rural upbringing. "The reason I fell in so easy with the old blues
guys," he said, "is because I knew the feeling of being out in
the country and not much going on. ... You grew up with kerosene
lamps and wood-burning stoves and shit like that."
"I
got started singing when I was five years old," Marie Knight said
in a recent phone interview. "My mother used to stand me up on the
table in the church. That's been my life, the church."
When
Tinsley Ellis first came to the Mississippi Valley Blues Festival in
1989, he was just beginning his solo career. "I just remember we
were a new band out of Georgia, got the deal with Alligator
[Records], and the blues society booked a concert there," he said.
"We started off that concert by being like, I think, one of the
first bands to play of the day, and now, here I am being the closing
act of the main stage."
Any
description of Recapturing the
Banjo feels inaccurate.
The
Great Black Music Ensemble, with almost 40 members, has long been an
avant-garde force in jazz. CDBaby.com asserted that the ensemble
brings "the excitement of new sounds and rhythms, while
incorporating the traditions of black music including funk, reggae,
bebop, swing, and more" to its music. The group is one of two bands
connected to the Association for the Advancement of Creative
Musicians (AACM), a group that has made "unparalleled contributions
to modern music," according to JazzPolice.com. Before 2005, the
ensemble was known as the AACM Big Band.
As
a young woman, Denise LaSalle began writing songs. "I thought that
I could do that. I started writing songs and writing songs," she
said in a recent phone interview. "They used to laugh at me on my
job. 'Is she crazy? What's wrong
with her? What is she doing?'
... They wanted to know, 'Writing songs for who?' I would write a
song as I think that someone would sing it. I would say, 'I'm
writing this for Jerry Butler; this is for so-and-so. This one's
for Aretha.' In my mind this is who I thought could sing those
songs."
When
Bo Diddley died on June 2, you might have heard a story about how
that name came to be.
