Dave Alvin’s phone rang. “Your brother’s dead,” the voice said on the other end. “I was in California,” Dave says in the present day, remembering that phone call. “And he was in Spain. It was like 45 minutes to an hour of darkness until I got another phone call saying, ‘He’s in a coma; […]
Blues
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The Son also rises
A four-day festival celebrates the life and legacy of blues legend Eddie “Son” House The story of bluesman Eddie “Son” House — who once called Rochester home — is that of a 20th-century Moses. House spent years wandering the desert of obscurity, leading others into a promised land of recognition and cultural popularity that he […]
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Beautiful blues
On his 1968 album “Underground,” Thelonious Monk has an exquisite tune called “Ugly Beauty” that celebrates the artist and his penchant for the cooperative dichotomy of fluid space and dissonance. Kansas City blues guitarist Samantha Fish embodies this celebration as this beautiful young lady plays some ugly blues. Now before you come after me with […]
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Harp attack
I wouldn’t call it so much a smirk but more of an all-knowing impish smile that always seems pasted on Charlie Musselwhite’s mug. And between gregarious grins, the legendary bluesman still blows away at the electric harmonica — the Mississippi saxophone, the tin sandwich. Whatever you want to call it, Musslewhite is one of its […]
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Greener Grass Band
Rochester’s Greener Grass band rocks steady and rolls easy. It effortlessly blends elements of reggae, country, and blues, and swirls it into a heady blend of bonafied barroom rock ‘n’ roll. The music takes on a laid back casual tack despite its serious groove. It’s a flipped routine as if the music is playing the […]
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Genesee Johnny & The River Rats
John Sacheli has always wanted to be Genesee Johnny. He’s bopped around Rochester for the past 15 years in various bands — most notably the song-centric group, The Spirit of Ontario — but the man’s resume reads more like a detour until Sacheli began to play the blues. The Spirit of Ontario went down in […]
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Big Rib BBQ and Blues Fest
BBQ and the blues are salaciously synonymous in my sordid life. Both share a plethora of adjectives like smoky and juicy and hot, and indulging in both at the same time seems only natural. Sure, the Lilac Fest has the sweet smell of flowers and the Jazz Fest marks my favorite week on Earth each […]
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George Thorogood
You wanna survive in showbiz? Wanna last in this rock ‘n’ roll racket? Just listen to blues rocker George Thorogood. Eat your greens. Get some Z’s. “I have never underestimated the value of a good night’s sleep,” Thorogood says. “I asked Chuck Berry once, I said, ‘Chuck, if there’s one thing that’s the bottom line […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
“Pump Boys and Dinettes”
Lightweight musical revues generally have short lives, but “Pump Boys and Dinettes” has proved surprisingly hardy. First produced in the early 1980’s as the off-est of Off Broadway shows, it eventually moved to the Big Street and ran for a year and a half. Thirty years later it is still going strong. Geva put on […]
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MUSIC FEATURE: Cold Sweat
There’s plenty of presentation and protocol in this live-music racket that threatens to upend the whole affair. There are plenty of bands that don’t put the music first, concentrating instead on the biz, buzz, and baubles. Then there’s a quartet like Rochester’s Cold Sweat, a straight-up, straight-ahead blues band. Sure, there are detours into Latin […]
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Nikki Hill
All hyperbole aside, St. Louis-based soul shouter Nikki Hill is one of the best roots-rock singers I have ever seen. And I’ve seen quite a few. And I’m not just talking about the stars of now, but of all time. I rate her up there with Wanda Jackson, Barbara Pittman, Etta James, and Ruth Brown. […]
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The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
A reminder of a time when rock ‘n’ roll was nothing more than a raw, primal wail, the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion came back in 2012 with “Meat and Bone,” the band’s first album in eight years. Formed in 1991 in New York City out of the ashes of Pussy Galore, The Blues Explosion — […]
