Neil Jones' excellent Star Rock show set the tone for the opening of last night's show with guitar workouts from Walter Trout (for the Bluesbreakers) and Luther Allison. The pace didn't let up straight away, the baton was passed to the teenage Dani Wilde for a live performance captured during the Ruf Blues Caravan tour. The much missed JoAnn Kelly was along in short order with one of some previously unavailable (on cd) tracks now out on Manhaton. No matter which way you slice it, she was the real deal and her booklet photo bears a real resemblance to my old Sunday School teacher.
She'd have been proud of the Harold Boggs' offering "Lord Give Me Strength" in our Gospel spot, even if his Nashboro side came from 1958 (not 1966 as I mentioned) - my penance will be to bring you more round about the same time on next weeks show. Fans of piano blues had a treat with a couple of things taken from a ten-cd box set of Boogie Woogie: Sammy Price made his first appearance on Star Blues under his own name but both Albert Ammons and Pete Johnson had been round before. The piano was featured on that gospel track and we'd already had Eddie Boyd doing a sixties version of "Blue Coat Man" with Peter Green doing what Peter Green does well.
There's a nice set on Rev-Ola at the moment featuring the session work of guitarist Mickey Baker and I played one of the things he did with Larry Dale, I'll certainly return to this disc in future shows. Ace has just put out a survey of pretenders to Little Richard's throne - these are guys (and gals) pitched by various independent labels at the market left vacant by the Georgia Peach's exile from that nasty rock'n'roll on a couple of occasions - and the show had a couple of these.
Both Blues Grammy winners (BB King and Dr. John) got plays off their most recent albums and I was pleased to include an Ella Fitzgerald performance in response to a request from a regular listener. I'm finding most feedback comes during the week, probably meaning the show gets recorded for off-line playback - so you are possibly reading this without having yet heard the show? This evening I'll post the playlist to http://www.garyblue.co.uk/ and (God willing) we'll have chance to be together again at ten on Sunday night, until then take care of yourself and take care of those that take care of you
Gary Blue
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