Edmonton's Labatt Blues Festival 2001

Performer line-up and Bios

Brent Parkin Band with Rusty Reed

Paul deLay Band

Luther "Guitar Junior" Johnson

The Rusty Zinn Band 

Paul Oscher "Alone with the Blues"

Janiva Magness

Rod Piazza and The Mighty Flyers

The Rolling Fork Blues Revue featuring: 
Nappy Brown, Pinetop Perkins, Hubert Sumlin & Rusty Zinn

Bad News Blues Band

Paul Rishell & Annie Raines

Norton Buffalo and The Knockouts

Sleepy LaBeef

Dr. John

   

Brent ParkinWinnipeg native Brent Parkin has been playing the blues for over 3 decades and is quite  possibly the best electric blues guitarist in Canada. Equally at home playing his originals, the West Side Chicago sound, the cool of T Bone Walker or rocking out with a Chuck Berry cover, Brent Parkin knows how to hook an audience, and then take them along for a blues ride they won’t soon forget. Brent has worked long and hard on the Western Canadian blues circuit to earn the respect and admiration of blues fans of all stripes. 

Rusty ReedLikewise, Edmotnonian Rusty Reed has earned that respect and admiration. For the past couple of decades Rusty Reed has been honing his craft in a variety of formats, acoustic and electric, down home blues to the more esoteric. Along the way he has been fortunate enough to share the stage with blues legends such as Sunnyland  Slim, Joe Louis Walker, Bo Diddley, Solomon Burke, and a host of others. As a full time member of the Edmonton Folk Music Festival house band he works as a sideman adding his tasty fills. On our stage Rusty Reed will be front and centre with Brent Parkin, and you can bet that some musical fireworks will fill the air.

For this performance Brent and Rusty will be joined by Brent’s Edmonton band featuring Gary Bowman on keyboards. Don’t miss them as they kick things off Sunday afternoon.

 

One of the major strengths of any genre of music lies in the ability of its songwriters. Paul deLay is a clever, insightful and original songwriter who has truly brought a fresh and unique voice to the blues. Add to that the fact he is an incredibly talented harmonica player and singer and you have a man that is pushing the envelope of contemporary blues.  Paul deLay Band, sorry we don't have a larger image for you.

Paul deLay is from Portland, Oregon, and when he first heard Paul Butterfield play the electric harp, he knew he had found his path in life. Seeing the Muddy Waters band with Paul Oscher playing harp was “the coolest damn thing I ever saw”, said deLay, and from then on he was hooked. Being from the West Coast gave him intimate access to some of the finest harp players on the planet, and they helped him hone his craft. He shared the bill with Charlie Musselwhite numerous times in the late ’70s and always looked up to the late, great George “Harmonica” Smith as an influence.

Paul deLay has earned numerous rave reviews for his recordings on the Evidence Record label, including this one from Real Blues Magazine “deLay’s genius is deceiving because it’s understated and natural … He’s a one-of-a-kind national musical treasure … required listening for all who love blues. Six stars (highest rating) for a wonderful musical and personal statement that will enlighten and humble.” 

Edmonton’s Labatt Blues Festival is honoured to present the Edmonton debut of this incredible.

 

Luther Guitara Jr. JohnsonThese days when someone talks about the “West Side” sound in Chicago blues, the name that comes up more often than not is Luther “Guitar Jr.” Johnson. Originally from Itta Bena, Mississippi, Luther came north to Chicago in the mid-’50s and made his presence known. He picked up on the “West Side” sound originated by Magic Sam and Otis Rush. That style features a combination of stinging, single note leads mixed with powerful chords. The style was developed because the small bands of the day could not afford two guitar players so one player had to handle rhythm and lead duties.

Luther served a long apprenticeship with both Magic Sam and Muddy Waters, spending 1973 to 1979 as a member of the Muddy Waters Band. The group toured the U.S., Europe, Japan and Australia and Luther was given the opportunity to solo each night, giving super-charged performances that consistently thrilled audiences around the world.

 In the late ’70s Luther released his first 2 albums as a bandleader on the Black and Blue label out of France. In the States, he was the featured guitarist on three releases by the Nighthawks. After leaving the Muddy Waters band in 1980, he had releases on Alligator, Rooster and Atlantic records and took home a Grammy award for his part on the Blues Explosion album recorded at the Montreux Jazz Festival and put out in 1982.

More awards and recognition followed including a W.C. Handy Award for blues single of the year and 1997 and 1999 Grammy nominations in the Best Traditional Blues Album category.

Craig Harris of the Boston Globe said of Luther: “Johnson roars with an unrelenting, dance-inspiring, intensity … turns every tune into a hard-driving celebration.”

Those of you lucky enough to have seen Luther “Guitar Jr.” Johnson in the past know what an awe-inspiring show the man can put on. Those of you who have yet to experience his live show had better get ready to hit the dance floor flying on Friday, Aug. 24.

 

Paul Oscher grew up in Brooklyn and began playing the blues at age 12 when his uncle gave him a marine band harmonica. He was taught the rudiments of blues harmonica by Jimmy Johnson, a southern medicine show harp player. By the time he was 15, he had hooked up withPaul Oscher guitarist/singer Little Jimmy Mae and was playing professionally in soul revues at black clubs like the Baby Grand, the 521 Club, Seville Lounge and the Nitecap.

In the mid 1960s, Paul met Muddy Waters back stage at the Apollo Theatre, and in 1967 when Muddy came to New York without a harp player, Paul sat in with the band. He played two numbers and Muddy hired him on the spot. That hiring saw him following in the footsteps of other Muddy Waters harp players – Little Walter, Junior Wells, James Cotton and Big Walter Horton. He was also the first white musician in the world to become a full-time member of a black blues band of this stature. He spent the next five years in the Muddy Waters band, learning the deep blues phrasing and timing characteristic of his music today while working alongside Otis Spann, Sammy Lawhorn, Pee Wee Madison and S.P. Leary. Spann taught Paul the piano and he learned guitar by looking over the shoulders of Muddy and Sammy Lawhorn.

With more than two dozen recordings to his credit working with Muddy Waters, 11 with other blues artists and 10 under his own name, Paul Oscher is currently in the process of writing a book about his life experience with the blues.

Saturday afternoon at Edmonton’s Labatt Blues Festival, we will hear and see Paul Oscher in his Alone with the Blues show, featuring Paul on harmonica, bass harmonica, guitar, melodica, piano and slide guitar. It’s a show that has received rave reviews from blues fans, musicians, press, promoters and club owners from around the world. Don’t miss it.  

 

Each year, Edmonton’s Labatt Blues Festival tries to present artists who are not well known in the area but are guaranteed to leave an indelible impression on festival patrons. This year, we are doing it again as we bring Janiva Magness to Alberta audiences for the first time.
Janiva Magness

Based in Southern California but originally from the Detroit area, Janiva Magness has been collecting rave reviews for her work since she first burst on to the busy Los Angeles music scene. Living Blues Magazine predicted big things for her when they said, “An up-and-coming blues shouter … Watch out!”

Her concert work has taken on international proportions with appearances at the Belgium Rhythm and Blues Festival, the Lucerne International Blues Festival and a series of club and concert dates across Europe in the last two years. Recent accolades come from Soundboard Magazine as its choice for its B.B. King Award For Musical Excellence, and Arizona’s New Times Magazine handed her its Critics Choice – Blues Band of the Year Award.

Janiva is also an accomplished stage actress who just completed a successful run as the lead character in the David Geffen Theatre production of the Broadway hit It Ain’t Nothin’ But the Blues.

The influences of Etta James, Billie Holiday, Elmore James, Robert Johnson, Memphis Minnie and Koko Taylor are apparent, but with her vast performance and studio experience, Janiva Magness has developed her own unique style. Her soul, stage presence and formidable vocal power never fail to please blues fans wherever she appears.

Edmonton’s Labatt Blues Festival is pleased and proud to present Janiva Magness for the first time in Alberta on Saturday Aug. 25.  

 

Rod Piazza has been a powerful voice in the blues since forming his first band in the 1960’s. This harmonica player and bluesman formed the Mighty Flyers in the 1970’s and the group has been touring nonstop for over a decade. Their reputation as one of the hardest working bands in the business has earned them a loyal following worldwide and their shows are legendary. 

Rod PiazzaThe Mighty Flyers feature some of the elite of the blues world, each a star in his or her own right. Honey Piazza on piano gets the opportunity to showcase her considerable talents every night and her duet performances with drummer Steve Mugalian in concert consistently bring down the house. Long time bassist Bill Stuve has 2 solo records on his own and his popping bass lines hold the Flyers sound together. Guitarist Rick “L.A. Holmes” Holmstrom whose own solo cd Lookout! established him as a modern day master in the mold of T-Bone Walker and Pee Wee Crayton lights it up regularly, and bandleader Rod Piazza brings them all together with unparalleled harmonica playing and showmanship. 

Rod Piazza and the Mighty Flyers have been honoured individually and as a band with numerous W.C. Handy Awards nominations and awards over the years including Outstanding harmonica player, Outstanding piano player, Blues Band of the Year, and more including an incredible 6 nominations at the 1998 W.C. Handy Awards. They are at it again this year at the Handys with nominations as Band of the Year, Entertainers of the Year and Rod and Honey are up for awards again as Harmonica Player and Piano Player of the year.

Get ready to party with one of the best blues bands on the planet Saturday night at Edmonton’s Labatt Blues Festival.

  

Featuring Pinetop Perkins, Hubert Sumlin, Nappy Brown
 And the Rusty Zinn Band

The word “legend” is bandied about with great regularity today, but The Rolling Fork Revue includes at least two players who absolutely fit into that category.

Pinetop PerkinsPinetop Perkins was born in 1913 in the Mississippi delta at a place they call Honey Island. His first instrument was the guitar, but at the age of 13 he took up piano. “I’d listen to records by Pinetop Smith and Little Brother Montgomery,” he said in a recent interview, “and pick out, as best I could by myself, you know. Nobody taught me nothing; I just had musical talent.”


By 1943, Pinetop Perkins was making a name for himself as a piano player around dozens Pinetop Perkins of juke joints in the Delta. That same year, he met Robert Nighthawk, joined his band and started appearing on the Bright Star Flour Show on KFFA in Helena, Arkansas. Sonny Boy Williamson took note of his talents there and took him into his band for the next three years, as well as on the King Biscuit Time radio show.

Pinetop Perkins moved to Chicago in the late 1940s where he recorded for a variety of small labels and as a sideman. In 1969, he began a long association with Muddy Waters where he received the widest recognition he’s ever enjoyed.

These days, Pinetop is recording as a front man with critically acclaimed recordings on a number of labels. He was nominated for Grammy Awards in 1998 and 1999.

Hubert Sumlin was born the youngest of 13 children in November 1931 in Greenwood,Hubert Sumlin Mississippi, and grew up in Arkansas. He learned music in the Baptist church, where he and the deacon worked out arrangements. His first gig as a full-time musician was backing James Cotton when his usual guitarist couldn’t make a show. That began a lifelong friendship between the two and Cotton received permission from Sumlin’s mother to let the youngster work the local juke joints and fish frys. Of course, both men went on to become major players in the Chicago blues community, sharing time with Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters. It was Hubert’s association with Wolf that helped him make his mark in the blues world and in music history. It was 1954 when Sumlin moved to Chicago to join Wolf’s band. Wolf and Hubert changed the sound of American music and helped create rock and roll.

Hubert Sumlin is the guitar player largely responsible for the sound of many modern guitar players. Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, Jimmy Page, Bob Dylan, Frank Zappa, Bob Weir, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Jeff Beck and legions of others consider Sumlin a major influence on their playing. Songs like “The Red Rooster”, “Killing Floor”, Smokestack Lightning”, “Sittin’ on Top of The World” and “Shake For Me” are songs you may recognize from covers by ’60s rock bands such as the Yardbirds, Rolling Stones or Cream. Hubert Sumlin formulated the original music to these classics. 

Nappy BrownNappy Brown was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1929. He also began his musical career in the church, singing gospel. He made his recording debut with the Heavenly Lights on the Savoy label in the early ’50s. He then turned to R&B and blues on the Savoy label and wrote and recorded a series of songs that became hits for the white artists that later covered them. Disillusioned with battling unscrupulous label owners for unpaid record and publishing royalties, plus all the other vagaries of the business, Nappy quit music in 1962 and moved back to North Carolina. In the 1970s, he made his comeback through a series of tours in Europe where a burgeoning interest in original R&B stars of the ’50s made his first tour a rousing success. Nappy Brown began recording again in the late ’70s and has put out a series of solid albums supported by the likes of Anson Funderburgh and the Rockets and Tinsley Ellis. He is a truly great blues and R&B shouter worthy of mention in the same breath as Big Joe Turner, Jimmy Rushing and Brother Ray. 

Rusty ZinnBacking this trio of Blues greats is the Rusty Zinn band. A relatively young player, Rusty Zinn learned his craft at the feet of one of the unsung heroes of Chicago blues, Luther Tucker. With a series of fine recordings on Black Top and Alligator records, Rusty Zinn shows a proper reverence for his blues roots, mixed with his own tasty tone and soulful playing.

Edmonton’s Labatt Blues Festival is honoured to present a piece of vibrant, living, blues history as The Rolling Fork Blues Revue hits the stage as our closing act Saturday night.

The Bad News Blues Band is the pride of Tucson Arizona where they got together in the mid 90’s. After representing Arizona in the 1997 International Blues Talent Competition, this hard working 5 piece outfit has gone on to win just about every award available for blues bands in their area. In 2000 they took the TAMMIES (Local area music awards) for Blues Band of the Year, Male vocalist of the year, Electric Guitarist of the year, Bass Player of the Year, and Horn Player of the year.

The group has recorded seven albums in the short span of time that they have been together, including four on the independent ARV label. In November 1999 they began touring with respected Texas bluesman Long John Hunter. This exposure has helped them take their own high energy, rollicking brand of blues around the world. In December of last year the band finished a five-week tour of Turkey, Romania and Russia.

The Arizona Daily Star says of them, Bad News Blues Band is Tucson’s essential purveyors of electric blues. According to Elwood Blues of the House of Blues Radio Hour from the hard-hitting horns to the smoking –hot rhythm section, this band is indeed bad!

Those of you fortunate enough to be in the audience when the group played a 2 night engagement at a local watering hole this past year were treated to a world class show filled with humour, dynamics, and most of all, superlative musicianship.

Edmonton’s Labatt Blues Festival is pleased to present the Bad News Blues Band, guaranteed to get you up out of your seats and onto the dance floor to kick things off Saturday afternoon.

 

Paul Rishell has been playing and singing the blues since the 1970s. Over the years, he worked alongside blues masters Son House, Johnny Shines and Howlin’ Wolf. He is internationally recognized as a contemporary master of country blues, and his work on the electric guitar has put both critics and fans alike on notice that he cannot be pigeonholed. He released his first CD, Blues on a Holiday, on Tone Cool records in 1990 to much critical acclaim, and his original music has been used in television shows such as Friends and A&E’s Biography.

Annie Raines took up harmonica while in high school and dropped out of college to pursue her musical career. Over the years, she has played with James Cotton and Louis Meyers and recorded with Rory Block, Pinetop Perkins and Hubert Sumlin. She has been hailed as one of today’s top blues harmonica players with her authentic tone, style and soulful approach. In addition to blues harp, she plays piano, mandolin, and writes her own Paul and Annie material. 

Annie Raines met Paul Rishell during the recording of his second album, Swear to Tell the Truth, in 1993. Their chemistry was apparent from the start and Paul and Annie have been performing together ever since. Their Tone Cool CD, Moving to the Country, won the 2000 W.C. Handy Award as the Acoustic Album of the Year.

The critics have been raving about the duo for the past six years with the Boston Globe saying, “Raines is the perfect foil for Rishell. Both are sincere lovers of the older masters, and though they have chops to spare, they keep their playing straight and simple, going to the heart of the material … played with grit and soul.”

Pinetop Perkins said of Annie: “She plays so good it hurts! “ 

Edmonton’s Labatt Blues Festival is excited to bring this explosive blues combination to Alberta audiences for the first time on Sunday, Aug. 26.

 

Norton Buffalo began playing harmonica at age seven in Richmond, California. He grew up listening to the music of the ’50s and early ’60s – soul, R&B, blues, folk, big band, jazz and, ofNorton Buffalo course, rock and roll. Norton honed his talent through the turbulent ’60s, winning harmonica contests and working in soul and rock bands. These days, he is considered among the elite of harmonica players as well as one of the most versatile. Echoes of all that music he absorbed growing up can be heard in recordings today. An accomplished singer and songwriter, he learned from some of the best over the years. In that time, he has been featured as a player on more than 100 albums in all styles of music and spent 25 years in the Steve Miller Band. He has worked and recorded with Bonnie Raitt, Elvin Bishop, Commander Cody, Bob Welch, the Doobie Brothers, Kenny Loggins and, most recently, Olivia Newton John. It’s no accident that this diverse group has asked for his services. He is, simply put, one of the best harmonica players in the world today 

Over the years, Norton Buffalo has won a Grammy, been nominated for another, won two Bay Area Music Awards, the Best Blues Harmonica Player”award from the Bay Area Blues Society,

And was the Musician of the Year in the 1989 Sonoma County Art Awards. His accolades have not been limited to the North American continent, either. In 1994, along with partner Roy Rogers, he was voted Best Overseas Blues Performers by Australia’s Blues on Air Magazine.

In October, Norton released his newest CD, King of the Highway, on Blind Pig Records. On this disc, Norton gets back to his blues roots and it is this stellar recording that brought him to the attention of blues fans, concert promoters and festival organizers worldwide.

 The critics have always loved his work, and here are just two reviews that give an idea of how good Norton really is. The San Francisco Bay Guardian said: “ … He’s a brilliant harmonica player, a superb singer and an extraordinary showman…his rapport with both his band and the audience is something to behold.” According to Easy Rider Magazine “Norton Buffalo proceeded to blow my shit into next week with some of the hottest harmonica playing I’ve heard before or since.”

Edmonton’s Labatt Blues Festival is extremely pleased to present Norton Buffalo and the Knockouts as part of our Sunday line up.

 

Seepy LabeefSleepy LaBeef calls himself a rockabilly player and, in fact, he is cut from the same cloth as the recording artists that originated the genre in the 1950s. His music, however, encompasses much, much more. He incorporates the hard blues of Muddy Waters and Jimmy Reed, obscure country tunes by Little Jimmy Dickens and Skeets McDonald, the gospel of Sister Rosetta Tharpe, to real roots rockabilly – the kind played by his predecessors at Sun Records. In the late ’70s, before he signed withRounder Records, he was the last active Sun artist.

The thing that sets SleepyLaBeef apart are his performances. An imposing figure at six-foot-eight, plus his black Stetson, he commands the stage. He becomes totally immersed in his music, allows himself to be transported by it, and when he abandons all restraint and begins to sing with as much feeling as any human could ever hope to muster, you know that this music is still vital, compelling, dynamic and, above all, entertaining. His guitar playing is just as astonishing as his singing. He has been known to actually bend the neck of his guitar in order to slur a chord with just the right inflection. Anyone who has seen him live will attest to the fact that it is an experience that one does not easily forget.

Sleepy LaBeef, rockabilly continues not as a timepiece, but as a living music in which every night on the bandstand matters, where anything is possible.

Sunday evening at Edmonton’s Labatt Blues Festival, we invite you to make a beeline for the dance floor, and revel in the music of a true original, Sleepy LaBeef.

 

Dr. John was born Malcolm Rebennack in New Orleans in 1942. He began his career as a session guitarist and pianist during the heyday of 1950s R&B in New Orleans.  His work was featured on numerous sides recorded for Ace, Specialty, Rex and Vin.

After moving to Los Angeles in the early ’60s to work for Phil Spector, he began a solo career. His first solo album, released in 1968, saw him pioneering a fusion of R&B, psychedelia, swamp pop and blues. Gris Gris was the title of the album and it also marked the creation of his alter ego, Dr. John The Night Tripper. Through the 1970s, Dr. John cut a whole slew of successful albums under his own name and appeared as a special guest on recordings by the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and Van Morrison, to name just a few. Dr. John

Dr. John’s first Grammy came in 1989 with the release of In a Sentimental Mood, that featured his award-winning duet with Rickie Lee Jones. His next album, Goin’ Back to New Orleans, was a trip through the musical history of New Orleans played by a bevy of friends including Al Hirt and The Neville Brothers. Stylistically, this brought Dr. John back to his roots and yielded another Grammy.

His recordings through the ’90s have seen him pay tribute to the great Duke Ellington on Duke Elegant, hold court at Ronnie Scott’s club in London with the live recording Trippin’ Live, do a blues and jazz set with sax great David “Fathead” Newman and drum king Art Blakey on Bluesiana Triangle, andAnutha Zone saw him get back to the swamp again.

Dr. John, simply put, is a musical legend. Edmonton’s Labatt Blues Festival is honoured to have him close this year’s festival on Sunday night, Aug. 26.

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