DawesThe California-based band Dawes has parlayed its debut album, last fall's North Hills, into slots at this year's Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza festivals, and if you've heard the sensitive and often lovely record, you know that's probably not an easy transition.

The group's warm, nakedly emotional songs recall the 1960s and '70s -- aggressively, one could say, if aggression weren't so antithetical to them; they seem built for intimate venues. AbsolutePunk.net wrote that the album is "a collection of 11 near-flawless roots-rock offerings that drip with such a defined sense of soul, grit, and harmony [that] it feels nearly criminal to label this album contemporary." Rolling Stone named the album's "That Western Skyline" one of the 25 best songs of 2009.

Guitarist, lead vocalist, and songwriter Taylor Goldsmith is only in his mid-20s, but North Hills is full of musical maturity, patience, and confidence -- a willingness to let the work overshadow the performers.

Fang Island

The band Fang Island -- playing the former ComedySportz location in Rock Island on Monday -- is named after a place from a story in The Onion, but it would be a mistake to infer that the band is in any way a joke. There's certainly a silliness there -- guitarist Jason Bartell admitted that many songs start with "cheesy" riffs -- but it's also nakedly sincere.

Think the unapologetically adolescent approach of Weezer, or the id arena rock of Andrew W.K. as starting points. But Fang Island benefits from having few lyrics -- and because they're generally shouted by a group, they barely register. Fusing big, bright, loud guitars, strong melodies, and some prog-rock unpredictability and complexity, the band makes a joyful noise unfettered by angst. As Pitchfork noted: "What helps Fang Island steamroll past cynicism is how 'fun' isn't just an ornament for them; it's embedded in the band's musical DNA."

"I think the best way to make music is that middle line [between] ... not taking it seriously enough and taking it way too seriously ... ," Bartell said in a phone interview this week. "It comes down to honesty in some ways." The band needs to pursue its aims "in a very pure way," he added.

Here you'll find links to all the content in the official guide to the 2010 IH Mississippi Valley Blues Festival -- taking place July 2 through 4 in Davenport's LeClaire Park -- along with previous coverage of this year's performers from the River Cities' Reader.

Friday, July 2
Bandshell (Performer bios)
5 p.m.: The Kinsey Report (2008 interview)
7 p.m.: Mud Morganfield (2010 interview)
9 p.m.: Bernard Allison
11 p.m.: Lil' Ed & the Blues Imperials (2005 interview)
Tent Stage (Performer bios)
5 p.m.: Alvin "Little Pink" Anderson
6:30 p.m.: Caroline Shines
8:30 p.m.: Lurrie Bell Chicago Blues Band
10:30 p.m.: Shirley King (2010 interview)

Saturday, July 3
Bandshell (Performer bios)
1 p.m.: Steady Rollin' Blues Band
2:45 p.m.: Ana Popovi? (2010 interview)
4:30 p.m.: Zac Harmon (2010 interview)
6:15 p.m.: Vasti Jackson
8 p.m.: Quad City Symphony Orchestra
9:30 p.m. Fireworks Presented by Red, White, & Boom
10:30 p.m.: Rosie Ledet & the Zydeco Playboys
Tent Stage (Performer bios)
1:30 p.m.: Little Brother Jones
3:30 p.m.: Olga Wilhelmine with Cody Dickinson
5:30 p.m.: Little Joe McLerran
7:30 p.m.: Ruthie Foster (2010 interview)
9:30 p.m.: Billy Branch & the Sons of Blues
Free Workshops
1 p.m.: Olga Wilhelmine with Cody Dickinson
2:30 p.m.: Alvin "Little Pink" Anderson
4 p.m.: Rosie Ledet
5:30 p.m.: Billy Branch
BlueSKool
2:30 p.m.: David Berntson
3:45 p.m.: Winter Blues Academy Kids with Hal Reed & Ellis Kell
5 p.m.: Charles "Wsir" Johnson & the MLK Center Kids

Sunday, July 4
Bandshell (Performer bios)
2 p.m.: The Jimmys
4 p.m.: The Shawn Kellerman Band
6 p.m.: Reba Russell Band
7:45 p.m.: Doris Pierre Outstanding Volunteer Awards
8 p.m.: Legendary Rhythm & Blues Revue Featuring Tommy Castro, Debbie Davies, Magic Dick, & Sista Monica (2010 interview with Tommy Castro)
Tent Stage (Performer bios)
2 p.m.: Bill Sims Jr. & Mark LaVoie
3:30 p.m.: Dave Riley & Bob Corritore
5:30 p.m.: The David Boykin Expanse
7:30 p.m.: Kim Massie (2010 interview)
9 p.m.: RiverRoad Lifetime Achievement Award Presented to Hubert Sumlin
9:30 p.m.: The Nighthawks with Hubert Sumlin
Free Workshops
1 p.m.: Dave Riley & Bob Corritore
2:30 p.m.: David Horwitz, Blues Photography
4 p.m.: Bill Sims Jr. & Mark LaVoie
5:30 p.m.: Little Brother Jones
BlueSKool
2:30 p.m.: Charles "Wsir" Johnson & the MLK Center Kids
3:45 p.m.: Winter Blues Academy Kids with Hal Reed & Ellis Kell
5 p.m.: David Berntson

President's letter

Bios of workshop and BlueSKool leaders not performing on the bandshell or tent stage

Mississippi Valley Blues Society Web site

Ticket information

Advance tickets for the 2010 IH Mississippi Valley Blues Festival are available at all IH Mississippi Valley Credit Union locations, the River Center/Adler Theater Box Office, and through Ticketmaster. The price of an advance weekend pass for the Fest is $25. Individual Fest tickets at the gate will cost $15 on Friday, July 2, and Sunday, July 4. Saturday, July 3, is a special free-admission day in association with the Red, White, & Boom celebration in Davenport.

IH Mississippi Valley Credit Union and Mississippi Valley Blues Society members can purchase individual advance Fest tickets at a discounted rate of $12.50 each only at IH Misssissippi Valley Credit Union locations.

Children 14 and under will be admitted free if accompanied by an adult with a ticket. Tickets are good for admission only on the day printed on the ticket.

Tommy Castro

At the 2010 Blues Music Awards in May, Tommy Castro and his bandmates walked away with four awards: band of the year, contemporary blues male artist, contemporary blues album (for Hard Believer), and the big one -- B.B. King Entertainer of the Year.

In a recent phone interview, Castro sounded genuinely grateful and surprised. "You need a shot in the arm," he said. "It was a big night for us." And with a charming lack of vanity, Castro offered two explanations for his four-for-four night specifically, and for his success generally.

"I got opportunities to have a career playing blues, I think, before I was really ready for it," he said. "When Blind Pig signed me [in the mid-1990s], I didn't have any songs. ... I've been learning how to do this while I was doing it. ... I think that over a period of time we've gotten a little bit better at making records."

He credited having a good band, a good producer, and good songwriter partners. "My talent might lie in surrounding myself with all the right people to help me do what I do best," he said. "I have my little thing that I do. I'm a fairly proficient songwriter, I'm a good singer, and a good guitar player. I don't think I'm great at any of those things. ... I'll take all the help I can get."

Kim Massie

"You know the saying that you got to be in the right place at the right time?" singer Kim Massie asked in a recent phone interview. "It wasn't until I came to St. Louis where it was like, 'This is the place I'm supposed to be!' Everything started to happen. One thing led to another."

Kim Massie is not a household name, even in the context of the blues. She has become an institution in the great blues and jazz city of St. Louis over the past 10 years, twice winning the Riverfront Times' female-vocalist-of-the-year award, and she's the featured artist twice a week at the blues club Beale on Broadway. Yet she rarely performs outside of her hometown -- trips to Hungary, Seattle, San Francisco, Kansas City, and Washington, D.C., but no tours. St. Louis is a place like Chicago or New Orleans where blues musicians can find enough work that they don't have to leave.

Mike and Nanci Livermore of the Mississippi Valley Blues Society's Entertainment Committee "discovered" Massie in St. Louis and were so impressed with her show that they suggested the committee get her for the 2010 festival. The committee loved her powerful, soulful singing, which STLBlues.net described as "the voice of God with growling nuances of Etta James."

Ruthie Foster

The numerous plaudits for singer/songwriter Ruthie Foster include O magazine calling her "a blues powerhouse" and Paste magazine raving, "There's no denying the power of Foster's monstrous voice," and she received a 2009 Grammy Award nomination for her CD The Truth According to Ruthie Foster -- which is about as confident a title as one could imagine.

Yet during our recent phone interview, the Austin, Texas-based musician admits that power and confidence were by no means inherent traits.

"I knew early on that I wanted to be in music doing something," says Foster of her professional goals, "but being a singer out front was not my idea of what I wanted to do. I wanted to be support. For anyone. I was kind of shy, so I didn't really see myself doing what I'm doing now.

"So yeah, I wanted to be in music, but to this capacity?" she continues. "I just kind of learned how to be out in front of people and how to entertain. You know, you just keep saying 'yes,' and all these opportunities come up."

Zac Harmon

Growing up in Jackson, Mississippi, in the 1960s and '70s, guitarist and vocalist Zac Harmon says, "The thing about the blues is that it wasn't something you heard and said, 'Oh, I like that.' It was part of the culture, so when I started playing, it was only natural that that's what I played.

"Blues was like air," he adds. "And if you breathed, you was gonna get it."

With JazzNow.com lauding his "soulful vocals and breathtaking showmanship" and the Edmonton Sun describing him as "the closest the blues gets to a heavy-metal star," it's clear that Zac Harmon got it good ... even if it did take a while for people to realize it. Following two decades as a Los Angeles-based studio musician, writer, and producer, Harmon released his first solo CD -- Live at Babe & Ricky's Inn -- in 2002, and four years later, at age 49, received the Blues Music Award for best new blues artist.

"It's kind of funny," says the musician, during our recent interview, of his relatively late emergence in the blues spotlight. "Folks sometimes say, 'Oh, wow -- he's an overnight success!' But overnight in the music business can sometimes be 20 years."

Ana Popović

It might seem strange for a European to be born into the blues, but that was the case for Ana Popović.

"This is the only thing that I remember as far as music growing up in Serbia," said the Belgrade-born singer, songwriter, and guitarist in a recent phone interview. "We never listened to Serbian music, and basically none of the European stuff ... ."

The blues came both from albums -- "I learned a lot of English from the records," she said, and "I sang those songs way before I could imagine and understand what they were talking about" -- and home jam sessions led by her father. (She eventually wormed her way into those sessions because she learned slide guitar.)

Her first concert (at age 13) was Tina Turner, and one can hear the vocal influence in the fiery defiance and soul of "Wrong Woman," from her 2009 album Blind for Love. Pair that with the subdued, quiet confidence of the same record's "More Real," and it's evident that this is an artist capable of nearly boundless blues. It's overstating her skills, but think Turner paired with Stevie Ray Vaughan and you'll get some sense of this woman's multifaceted attack.

Shirley King"I started gravitating toward the blues in about 1969," says 60-year-old vocalist Shirley King. "What happened was I'd moved to Chicago from California -- I'd been staying with my dad and came back to stay with my mom -- and I was supposed to be getting married to a boyfriend I'd been liking ever since I was small. So I pretty much followed him here to Chicago to get married ... and he decided he'd had a change of mind, and wanted to marry my girlfriend.

"So I think that must've pushed me over to the blues!" exclaims King, with a deep laugh, during our recent phone interview. "Because, man, I got it then!"

Did she ever. For nearly 20 years now, the Chicago-based King has been a staple at area blues clubs; a popular touring artist who has performed in Canada, Italy, France, and even Iceland; and a darling of blues fans and critics, with Prevue magazine describing her as "a musical gem" and the Web site MNBlues.com lauding, "King sings with passion, energy, and power."

But what's surprising about King's reminiscence is that she didn't get the blues before that heartbreak of her youth, considering that her dad is the King of the Blues himself -- B.B. King.

Mud Morganfield

Mud Morganfield has this to say about being the son of Muddy Waters, who also sired (in a less literal way) Chicago blues: "It's a curse, and then sometimes it's a blessing. Because people begin to compare you."

Don't feel too sorry for Morganfield, though. His career is built on re-creating the Muddy Waters sound, and he's almost begging for the comparison.

"I wanted to represent my dad's music, and what he stood for," Morganfield said in a recent phone interview. "It came natural to me. ... People think maybe I was somewhere in the basement studying it, and listening to recordings. You can't get that close with that. I do what I do because I'm his son. That's just all there is to it."

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