Monday 16 March 2009

STAR BLUES on 15th March 2009 at 22:00

I was lucky enough to have plenty of new releases on last night's show: the fine new set from J J Cale gave us the title track with some help from old friend Eric Clapton and the new one from Ruthie Foster did us proud on a slow blues based around Robben Ford's guesting guitar skills. She is a relatively new name who is old school and come up the hard way through live work. There's a survey of Aretha Franklin's influences and inspirations now out on Ace and I chose a fiery piece by Big Maybelle from her days on Savoy as an example of the fare on offer; and in a fortnight RCA will be doing a 4-cd set of Elvis Presley's gospel performances, for us he did "Run On" last night and it is worth remembering that Presley never got a Grammy award for Pop, Rock'n'Roll or Country despite dozens of nominations - he only had the silverware for his gospel songs.

Axel Zwingenberger is a fabulous boogie-woogie pianist (as well as having quite the best name possible for his copious talents) and he graced a Jack Dupree go at a Tampa Red classic for the first of my Piano Blues - the other was by the much missed Katie Webster who's "Two Fisted Mama" is being reactivated by Alligator. Other featured artists no longer with us included Stevie Ray Vaughn and Albert King who gave a duel guitar version of Vaughn's "Pride and Joy" to start the show.

Some government boffin has decided that a tax on chocolate is needed because we can't be trusted to eat it in sensible quantities and I bore this in mind when dedicating Tim Hain's "Death By Chocolate" to early-bird Caroline who starts work behind the scenes at 5 each weekday morning. I'm busy preparing a playlist for the Easter Sunday special on the Sixties British Blues boom and I am amazed at the world events going on at the same time, from Nixon to Woodstock, Concorde to BBC1 in colour, Monty Python and Oh Calcutta... There was also time for classic sides by Led Zeppelin, Fleetwood Mac, the Rolling Stones, Cream and so on - the challenge is going to be doing it all justice within two hours. I'll have a couple of things for folk's Mums and more new bits and bobs on this upcoming show on Sunday at ten on FM and on-line, I'll be pleased to enjoy your company. Until then take care of yourself and take care of those that take care of you

Gary Blue

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