Corner Pub Still Life (2008)– Image by kenne
“The secret of a good old age is simply an honorable pact with solitude.”
. . . from One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel García Márquez
Archive for the ‘Blues’ Tag
Corner Pub Still Life 4 comments
Livin’ On Bayou Time 3 comments
Front Door To Jackson’s Grocery, Double Bayou (The Place), Texas. — Images by kenne
All-time is created equal,
but we don’t use it equally.
Some are livin’ on bayou time,
while others in a New York minute.
My time is your time,
but it is not mine to give.
You can’t give away
something that isn’t yours.
…unless you share the moment.
— kenne
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Another Blues Project Night 4 comments
Ken Harris — Image by kenne
ANOTHER BLUES PROJECT NIGHT
Next
Saturday night
back
in the Piney Woods
where
music rides
the
vapor trails
of
campfire smoke
slowly
circling above
friends
of the blues —
tossing
bottle caps
at
Ken’s beer alter
twenty
years out
the
Blues Project
seventy
years of life
for
the prince
of
the blues.
— kenne
Ken Harris has posted —
Fall Fest 2013 is fast approaching. We are looking forward to seeing you here on Oct 26, 2013.
This year for the first time we will have three acts. Henry Old School Jones will open for Guthrie Kennard and Julie Bonk.
After Guthrie, Marina Rocks will play. In 1993 for my birthday I wanted some live blues music here at our house
The Blues Broad Kathleen aka The Blues Broad (she had a blues program on KPFT) sent me to Big Roger Collins.
He played here and the Blues Project was born and we have been presenting live music here ever since.
20 years later we are doing a special night for my 70th birthday.
As usual we will BBQ some meats and will have ice tea ,water and coffee.
Bring a side dish you like to show off to share, a lawn chair, your cooler with your favorite beverage and $10 (donation 100% for the music ).
We plan on serving food around 6:30 Henry Jones with his old school blues will play after we eat.
We received rave reviews the last time he was here so we are bringing him back .
The feature act will be Guthrie Kennard with his raspy voice Americana, bluesy, roots music.
Accompanying Guthrie will be Julie Bonk on key board . We caught Guthrie’s show at the Dosie Doe Music cafe
and were so impressed that we asked him to play here at the project . We first heard Julie at Camp Stupid at the Kerrville Folk Festival in 2012 .
She was playing keyboards in a song circle, Stephanie was singing with her, Marina was also there and they were wowing everyone.
To close the night out Marina will do an intimate set and jam. She opened here last year and was an instant hit with everyone rocking the house.
Musicians are encouraged to bring their instruments to jam afterwards.
We are attaching a you tube video Guthrie and Julie did. Enjoy. It’s gonna be a bluesy, jazzy, rockin’ night at the Blues Project….
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Riding The Blues Wave Leave a comment
Riding The Blues Wave — Image by kenne
Poet Kevin Young has written about the blues:
The rise of modernism parallels the rise and reach of the blues.
This is no coincidence—after all, what critic Frederic Jameson identifies as
“the great modernist thematics of alienation,
anomie,
solitude,
social fragmentation,
and isolation,”i
could be summed up as simply having them blues.
But, as I have said elsewhere,
the blues means both a form and a feeling,
the one a cure for the other.
The blues are good-time music after all,
meant to make you tap your feet and feel,
if not better,
then at least comforted by the fact that you are in good (or deliciously bad) hands.
The blues offer company, even if only misery’s.
It is in the face of alienation and anomie that the mask,
modern and often racial, becomes necessary.
This is why the dominant mode of the modernist era is the persona—
the mask both as metaphor and means of production.
But the mask is not just T.S. Eliot‘s blackface,
Ezra Pound‘s love of Noh drama,
or Edvard Munch‘s iconic rictus of despair in The Scream,
but also the Janus mask of the blues,
which laughs and cries at the same time.
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Capturing The Moment — Blues In The East Texas Woods Leave a comment
The PorterDavis Band at Ken & Mary’s Blues Project in East Texas, October 17, 2009. — Image by kenne
PorterDavis Band at Austin’s Threadgill’s south during SXSW, 2009.
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Red, Hot 4th of July Blues 1 comment
“Red, Hot & Blues” — Image by kenne
Those red, hot and blues
Make me wanna drink and dance
To the morning light.
kenne
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Insanely — That’s The Blues By Any Other Name 2 comments
I went out to the insane asylum
And I found my baby out thereI said
“Please come back to me darlin
‘What in the world are you doin’ here?”
Then the little girl raised up her head
Tears was streamin’ down from her eyes
And these are the things
That the little girl said
“When your love has ceased to be(Lord have mercy)
There’s no other place for me(Mmm mmm)
If you don’t hold me in your arms(Oh child oh child)
I’d rather be here from now on”
“Some people have it halfway fare
Without your love I ain’t nowhere”
“Oh I can’t eat and I can’t sleep(Oh child oh child)
Lord I can’t even live in peace(Mmm mmm)
Please take me baby for your slave(Oh oh)
And save me from that early grave”
“Some people have it halfway fare
Without your love I ain’t nowhere”
And then sorrow struck my heart
Tears began to stream down from my eyes
The only woman that I ever loved in all my life
Out here in a place in a condition like this
And I began to thinkin’ about
What my mama told me when
I was a little boy
She told me when
I couldn’t help myself
To get down on my knees and pray
Then I fell down on my knees
And these are the words that I said
“Save me save me save me, babe
Save me save me save me, dear
Whoa, I don’t know just how I made it
But I’m so glad our love is here
But I’m so glad our love is here
But I’m so glad our love is here”
— Willie Dixon
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Happy 420 Day 1 comment
Yesterday was 420 Day and with a posting on the Houston Blues Society’s Facebook page by Guy Schwartz (The New Jack Hippies), it brought back memories of Houston’s Rhythm Room.
Tommie Lee Bradley, Guy Schwartz & The New Jack Hippies at The Rhythm Room,– Image by kenne March 8, 2003
The Rhythm Room
There was a place
Somewhere near downtown
Always rock’n
Embracing the sound
Echoing in time
Without an hour clock.
Down in old H-town.
More than a room,
The grandest of joints
Rhythm was its fame
So no need to point
For people all knew
Blues was its claim
Down in old H-town.
The Room now gone
Replaced by many
So to the sound
Losing out to money
Rhythm in the blues
Forever to be found
Down in old H-town.
kenne
(First Posted Jun 13, 2010)
The following images were taken March 2003 at one of KPFT‘s Joe’s Roadhouse live shows from the Rhythm Room; followed by the Guy Schwartz and The New Jack Hippies video, “Roll My Own.”
kenne
Joe Montes Introducing Guy Schwartz and The New Jack Hippies
Guy Schwartz and The New Jack Hippies
Tommy Lee Bradley & Guy Schwartz
Guy Schwartz & The New Jack Hippies
Gloria (Soul Queen of Texas) Edwards & Guy Schwartz
Gloria (Queen of Soul) Edwards & Guy Schwartz
Trudy Lynn & The New Jack Hippies
Trudy Lynn & Guy Schwartz
Guy Schwartz – I Roll My Own (weed music video)
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Capturing The Moment — Blues At Sunset 5 comments
Images by kenne
When we are home on Saturday evening, we watch the sun gone down and listen to Marty Kool’s “Blues Review” on KXCI — one of my favorite ways to enjoy life. This short video will give you a feel for what I’m writing about. You will also notice the running water sound coming from the fountain on the patio — another sound I love. If you are curious, the music in the background is Andy Poxon doing “Please Come Home.”
kenne
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Blue Dicks Painting Leave a comment
Image by kenne
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The Billy Blues Smokesax Sculpture 3 comments
Texas Johnny Brown at Billy Blues (1999) — Image by kenne
Back in the 90’s one of the best blues venues was Billy Blues on Richmond avenue in Houston. We weren’t wild about the food, but the beer and music was super.
The Billy Blues Bar and Grill opened in 1993, closing it’s doors in 2001. One of the things Billy Blues was also known for was the iconic 63-foot saxophone sculpture; made of a random mix of materials including a Volkswagen Bug, surfboard and several beer kegs, which stood outside the blues club. Several attempts were made to sell sculpture, but removal costs didn’t attract a buyer.
The big brass was built by legendary Texas artist Bob Wade, a fixture in the 70’s Texas Cosmic Cowboy counterculture, as a special installation for Billy Blues Bar & Grill. Wade will overseeing the removal of the saxophone from its current location to the Orange Show Center for Visionary Art. This non-profit will insure the sculpture is properly preserved. — Great move!
kenne
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Martin Miglioretti, Photographer And Blues Lover, RIP 4 comments
Image by Martin Miglioretti
Blues In All Its Colors by Martin Miglioretti
Image by Martin Miglioretti
Last week I learned via Facebook that a fellow Blues lover and photographer, Martin Miglioretti pasted away in Houston at age 58.
Martin was very well-known in the Houston Blues community. In 2009 Martin began a series of poster tributes to Houston blues,
“Blues In All Its Colors.” For Martin, the blues was more than just blue; it’s a rainbow of colors. The posters borrowed from the vintage “boxing-style” posters.
Another love of Miglioretti’s was photographing classic cars. Hot Rod magazine said, “This guy takes photorealism to the extreme.”
Equally well-known in both blues and hot rod circles, Martin will be sorely missed. The Houston Blues Society’s logo was created by Martin.
Houston Blues Society Logo By Miglioretti
Martin Miglioretti, Rich DelGrosso & Sonny Boy Terry — Image by Jenny Jerome
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Houston Blues World, February 22, 2003 3 comments
Texas Johnny Brown
I. J. Gosey
Images by kenne
February 22, 2003, Blues lovers and legends in Houston gathered at Houston’s Mr. Gino’s Lounge in the memory of blues/jazz great, Kinney Abair. Now that it’s almost the 10th anniversary of Kinney’s death, I’m sharing my images of the Mr. Gino’s event. Some of the musicians in the photos are Joe ‘Guitar’ Hughes, I.J. Gosey, Ashton Savoy, Mike Stone, Pee Wee Stevens, Sonny Boy Terry and Texas Johnny Brown. Many other legends were in attendance, but not necessarily in my photos.
That evening we were also remembering AJ Murphy, who had a heart attach and passed away after giving a eulogy for his close friend, Kinney.
AJ Murphy
kenne
(To review other Blues posting on the blog, use the search function for “blues” on the home page, left column.
The Weary Blues
Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,
Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
I heard a Negro play.
Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light
He did a lazy sway. . . .
He did a lazy sway. . . .
To the tune o’ those Weary Blues.
With his ebony hands on each ivory key
He made that poor piano moan with melody.
O Blues!
Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool
He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool.
Sweet Blues!
Coming from a black man’s soul.
O Blues!
In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone
I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan—
“Ain’t got nobody in all this world,
Ain’t got nobody but ma self.
I’s gwine to quit ma frownin’
And put ma troubles on the shelf.”
Thump, thump, thump, went his foot on the floor.
He played a few chords then he sang some more—
“I got the Weary Blues
And I can’t be satisfied.
Got the Weary Blues
And can’t be satisfied—
I ain’t happy no mo’
And I wish that I had died.”
And far into the night he crooned that tune.
The stars went out and so did the moon.
The singer stopped playing and went to bed
While the Weary Blues echoed through his head.
He slept like a rock or a man that’s dead.
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Friends Of The Blues, 13 Years Out 2 comments
One of The Original Friends of The Blues Montgomery County, Charlie Parker, November, 2002 — Image by kenne
The Original Friends Of The Blues Montgomery County, November, 1999
(L-R: Kenne Turner, Charlie Parker, Dale Armet, Sweet Mama Cotton, Diunna Greenleaf, A.J. Murphy)
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Houston’s Jewel In The Blues Crown — Diunna Greenleaf 5 comments
Jonn Del Toro Richardson & Diunna Greenleaf — Image by kenne
The one thing I miss most about not living in southeast Texas is the abundance of great blues music. Over the years there, I got to see a lot of live music and get to know a lot of great musician — some who have become close friends over the years. And as I have already acknowledged in an earlier posting, I was very pleased to learn earlier this summer that Diunna Greenwood and Blue Mercy lead guitarist, Jonn Richardson were going to be heading this year’s Bisbee Blues Festival. We immediately made plans to be at the festival, but I let Diunna know that she needed to get a gig in Tucson — long story short, she was booked to perform in the Rhythm & Roots Concert Series with special guest Bob Corritore, which took place this past Friday, September 14, 2012. This video is one of several I recorded.
Embodied in this award-winning Texas blues singer, Diunna is the voice of female blues singer legends. This video is almost ten minutes long, but short of having been at the plaza, you will find it well worth the listen, especially with good speakers or ear phones.
kenne
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