There are those among us who have no choice. Through no fault of their own, they become their father’s son – the baker’s son bakes, the carpenter’s son builds and the singer’s son sings. It’s in the bones.
Consider Justin Townes Earle, the son of supreme Texas songwriter/badass Steve Earle. It’s not that Justin sounds anything like his father (he does, a little), or writes songs his father could have written (not really). Justin Townes Earle is his own man, but those bones would never have let him be anything other than his father’s son – a singer of sad songs.
He’s paid a bit of a price for that, including picking up some of his father’s bad habits (gone now, he says). He’s also picked up his father’s ability to look deep within himself and find that kernel of truth that often speaks directly to us individually. It’s also what makes Justin Towne Earle’s songwriting so compelling.
Earle recently release his fourth CD,“Nothing’s Gonna Change the Way You Feel About Me” (Bloodshot Records), that shows how the son has grown beyond the bones his father gave him. And although Justin retains some of the Earle flavor in his writing and his singing, he has grown into a stylish writer and singer of his own songs.
With its mix of folk, blues, rockabilly and Memphis soul, “Nothing’s Gonna Change the Way You Feel About Me” finds Earle quickly grown beyond his last Bloodshot release, “Harlem River Blues,” a winner from a couple of years back.
Earle’s songs are full of emotional introspection, broken hearts and troubled living. His themes are not uncommon – being tossed away by a long-time lover, finding his way out of a troubled family life (Steve was not, apparently, an easy father to have) and overcoming his own tendency toward depression and regret.
His soulful, dark loneliness reaches out and grabs at you. His images are of shadows, dark edges and a tired, frayed existence. Still, “Nothing’s Gonna Change the Way You Feel About Me” is not quite as bleak as “Harlem River Blues,” when he wished that river would close around him and drown his weary soul. But he’s still one dark motherfucker.
Pianist Jon Clearyadmits to being intimidated when he first heard New Orleans musicians at work.
As a 17-year-old guitar player from Kent, England, Cleary got a dose of the real deal during his first stay in New Orleans. He planned on a two-week visit, but it turned into two years.
He vowed right then and there that he was going to play New Orleans pianoand play it the right way.
Now after nearly three decades as a New Orleans resident, Cleary says he still talks like an Englishman but plays music with a New Orleans accent.
Toussaint funk and street rhythms in his own way. He’ll perform April 20 at Anthologyin San Diego, playing the songs from his new CD.
Toussaint covers are nothing new. The prolific New Orleans songwriter and arranger has seen his songs recorded by such strange bedfellows as Glen Campbell(“Southern Nights”),Aaron Neville(“Wrong Number”), Boz Scaggs (“What Do You Want The Girl To Do”), the Rolling Stones (“Fortune Teller”) andElvin Bishop (“I’m Gone”).
Cleary upends these songs by winnowing them down to the core, capturing their essence and then using sparse arrangements that tap into not only the innate power of the music, but their colorful shadings. The underlying funk and the percussive street rhythms of New Orleans are usually at the bottom of these songs.
“What you get with Allen Toussaint is not just great lyrics and chord progressions that are very creative,” he says. “You get a New Orleans sound unlike any other.”
“Cancer … schmancer,” is how blues singer Candye Kane summed her diagnosis earlier this year that revealed her second bout of pancreatic cancer. “I’m going to Finland.”
Only a couple of days of receiving news that her life was again in jeopardy, Kane stood up and plotted her own destiny, just as she has so many other times in her life when bleakness and inevitability harkened.
The Toughest Girl
You would think the rest of the world would notice: Candye Kane will not be denied.
Without a doubt Kane has lived a life of extraordinary resiliency. Incidents that would sideline others or haunt them as they carried on are simply trampled by Kane’s spirit. There is no need to provide a list of obstacles in her life; they have aready chronicled in her autobiographic play “The Toughest Girl Alive.”
Kane is currently wrestling with pancreatic cancer, less than four years after she was first diagnosed with it and managed to scare it off. At that time, she changed her lifestyle, lost 140 pounds and had surgery. Within weeks, she was back out singing the blues..
Shortly after the latest diagnosis, she took off for Europe to fulfill concert commitments. She’s facing some mounting medical bills and expenses that she will incur by not being able to perform after an operation, so she’s determined to work while she can.
That’s what she likes best. It is in those few hours she spends on stages revealing herself that she feels most comfortable in life. Now that is threatened again.
When singer Janiva Magness learned of Candye’s newest cancer, she immediately went into action. “We have to help her,” she said one night. “She needs us.”
With that, Magness started calling some of the biggest names in the blues to play a benefit concert to raise money for Candye. Tommy Castro said “yes,” Rick Estrin said “yes,” Debbie Davies said “yes,” Earl Thomas said “yes,” Anson Funderburgh said “yes,” Kim Wilson said “yes.” Dave Alvin said “yes, and I’ll bring my whole band.” The Beat Farmers said they would reunite for the night.
Only a couple of her friends couldn’t be there. They are traveling to perform their own gigs, but each figured out a way to contribute to the cause.
“We have to take care of our own,” says Castro. “The blues community is a small one and we all have to look out for each other. You never know when one of us is going to need help.”
Big Love, a benefit concert for Candye Kane, will be help April 30 at the Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach. It’s at Kane’s professional home base, the very same club she has been performing at for more than two decades.
The night will feature an all-star lineup of musicians – all friends of Kane’s who are volunteering their time and talents to help her. Kane herself won’t be there. She’s schedule for cancer surgery just three days before the concert.
General admission tickets are priced at $30 and available at the Belly Up. A handful of $100 VIP tickets still remain and are available through www.ConcertforCandye.com. Donations may also be made through that site.
Candye actually tried to talk everyone out of this. “I’m going to get treatment, have an operation and I’ll be back singing just like I did last time,” she said.
Everyone hopes that’s true, but after a lifetime of standing up and pushing the agenda of others, it’s time for her friends to do something for her. After all, The Toughest Girl Alive sometimes needs a hand, too.
Once, when times were troubled, things were changing and American culture was pushing boundaries, music and the people who made it had a nasty bite. Led by the New York folk crowd, musicians took on the establishment, banged the drums loudly and gave no quarter. The folkies led the charge, but it bled to other parts of the popular American mainstream. Even the non-mainstream was angry.
And, along with Dylan and his New York crowd, California helped lead that charge. From San Francisco to Los Angeles, pop musicians wrote songs that challenged the status quo, asked pointed questions about the way things were and generally became a pain in the ass to the established rules of life in America. Then . . . well, I guess they gave up, that or were assimilated back into the old-line mainstream.
When was the last time a song with the power to change, tunes like “For What It’s Worth” or “Break on Through” or “Chimes of Freedom,” found a place on the pop charts? Musicians turtled down and wrote tunes about kissing the girl, or bouncy dance tunes, or . . . well, whatever. They wrote about themselves, about the party or their own personal heartbreak, not about the shitty human condition.
The chitlin’ circuit was home to nearly every African-American musician making a mark on American popular culture beginning in the early 1930s. It was, and remains so to this day, a series of small clubs, juke joints and dive bars that gave black Americans a place to play, drink and, in nearly all venues, gamble. In fact, most of these clubs in the early days were secondary businesses for their owners, who often were numbers runners, bootleggers or brothel owners.
Preston Lauterbach will join T. Michael Crowell on Sunday, Aug. 21, on Offramp at 6:30 p.m. on KSDS Jazz 88.3 to chat about his "The Chitlin' Circuit and the Road to Rock 'N' Roll."
That’s not likely to surprise anyone with even the slightest knowledge of how music developed in this country. Crime has always been part of the entertainment world in America. What is surprising in Lauterbach’s book is just how deep that attachment was between these businessmen and crime. Even Al Capone has his hand in the chitlin’ circuit, but that’s quite a story unto itself.
Lauterbach’s is a book full of interwoven stories about the circuit and the men (mostly, but there were plenty of women making money in these clubs) who made the chitlin’ circuit so critical to the development of popular American music. There was Denver Ferguson in Indianapolis, who as a printer ran the numbers racket in that Indiana’s city’s “Bronzville” neighborhood and was one of the first to recognize that more money could be made through entertainment.
Who do book if you want to have an interesting and exciting blues festival?
Everybody probably has an opinion about that, but I’m one of those fortunate guys who actually gets to do it. I am producing theAimLoan.com San Diego Blues Festivaland I faced a large number of options before choosing a headliner for the Sept. 17 event.
After considering various factors – live performance, cost, ability to connect with an audience and ability to sell tickets – I wound up hiring Tommy Castro.
Now, Tommy Castro isn’t exactly a household name, but you’d be surprised the number of big-name blues artists he can run circles around. Tommy is an old-school musician, working night after night to perfect his craft, has been a road warrior for more than 15 years and is willing to take artistic challenges in his music.
Blues musicianCandye Kane has just been yanked from a blues festival in Pelham, Ala., because her past rankled some of the members of the region’s chamber of commerce.
Candye and her band had a contract to play the Shelby Blues & BBQ event Oct. 1 in the Birmingham suburb of 20,000 people. Her Piedmont Talent booking agent was then told the reason she was not being hired is because she is allegedly gay and that she once engaged in a porn modeling career.
Candye controversy
“This is the first time I have ever had a contract for a show that has been invalidated because of my past,” said Candye from an airport in Detroit en route to an apparently more enlightened Kitchener Blues Festival near Toronto.
“I am outraged that my sexual preference or my career choices are being attacked. My show is empowering and positive.”
Candye opened a public debate on this when she posted news of the festival cancellation – and the reasons behind it – on her Facebook page on Aug. 6. That posting has resulted in more than 100 notes of support from friends and fans, including the marketing director of a music magazine and record company president.
For the record, Candye Kane describes herself as both heterosexual and bisexual. And, while she doesn’t deny her past working in the sex industry, that occurred long before she became and internationally acclaimed musical artist with 11 albums to her credit.
Yet, the Greater Shelby County Chamber of Commerce rescinded the contract offer after learning of Candye’s background during an Internet search. Candye has been playing festivals and club gigs for two decades throughout the United States and Europe for two decades without ever having run across this attitude.
Meanwhile, the head of the Shelby Chamber said her organization has never had any contact with Piedmont Talent and denied that there was ever any verbal or written contract for Candye’s services. Jennifer Trammell, president of the chamber, told Frogger Dogger that there were no comments about Candye’s background as well. She said agents from the Magic City Blues Society had recommended Candye as a performer.
So what does a weary bluesman do after three decades of one-night gigs on the road?
If you are Anson Funderburgh you retreat to your home outside Dallas in 2005, take care of your sick friend and devote nearly every waking hour to caring for your two young children.
“I kind of became Mr. Mom,” Anson says. “I just kind of geared it down.”
Mr. Mom, with a guitar
Anson developed a reputation as one of the most tasteful of blues guitar players, a master of nuances that others wished they could achieve but rarely did. Anson Funderburgh & the Rocketsalso featured the seminal bluesman Sam Myers and were a top draw wherever they played in the United States and Europe.
But after six years, Anson still is reluctant to stray too far away from his home in McKinney, Texas.
That makes all the more impressive that Scottie Blinn, proprieter of the Rock Academy of San Diego, has lured Anson out for two guitar workshops on June 11.
Anson is excited because he knows there are too many generic guitar players in the blues and wants to encourage people to tap into their talents.
When he was 10 or 11, got his first guitar from a co-worker of his mother’s and it came with a box of .45s.
Pianist Joshua White (left) and Mike Wofford meet over music
When the student can nearly match the mentor in style and originality, magic in music is made. That happened this week in La Jolla when Mike Wofford sat down with Joshua White over two pianos in front of house of about 100 at the AthenaeumMusic & Arts Library.
Wofford is a pianist with few peers. A longtime mainstay on the California and San Diego scene, he has a beautifully subtle touch on the keyboard, genteel but definitely no wussy. Now into his 70s, Wofford is beginning to wind down a career that has made him one of the West Coast’s favorite sidemen for players like guitarist Kenny Burrell and sax giant Benny Golson.
Joshua White is approaching 30, a newbie compared to Wofford, who has taken the youngster somewhat under his wing. White’s approach is different than Wofford’s, his style more percussive, his rhythms angular and punchy. He is only beginning to take flight. And there, in a small room filled with folding chairs and a standing-room-only crowd, the sublime beauty of Wofford met the Monkish bounce of Joshua White.
Congratulations to Georgia Myers for winning two free tickets to the Aaron Neville show on May 31 at the Belly Up. Check back for other Froggerdogger ticket giveaways.
Frogger Dogger is giving away two free tickets to An Evening With Aaron Neville at the Belly Up on May 31. To win, all you have to do is sign up on Frogger Dogger’s Fan Page on Facebook. Just click the “Like” button, then e-mail us your name at tickets@froggerdogger.com. We’ll notify the winners on May 27 and they’ll be on the Belly Up guest list.
Every now and then, Mother Nature pulls some nasty tricks on Louisiana. Fortunately, Louisiana is populated by some of the heartiest souls around and if that’s not enough, Aaron Neville has their backside.
Guardian angel
The New Orleans native, Neville looks like a dockworker, but when he starts to singing, he sounds like a guardian angel who will make everything better. It’s a magical quality he possesses – that voice unlike any other – and he shares it generously.
The latest insult to Louisiana is that waters from rains and snowpacks from the north are streaming into its countryside because government officials opened up the levee gates in a bid stem the force of the Mighty Mississippi’s roll into Baton Rouge and New Orleans again.
The river rose all day, the river rose all night / Some people got lostin the flood, some people got away alright / The river had busted through clear down to Plaquemines / Six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline
Neville’s singing won’t drain the bayous and small towns of the floods spewing through Louisiana, but he will demonstrate to the displaced that life will go on and that it can be as beautiful as his song.
If you don’t believe it, catch Neville at the Belly Up on Tuesday, May 31. He’ll be packing magic.
There are those among us who have no choice. Through no fault of their own, they become their father’s son – the baker’s son bakes, the carpenter’s son builds and the singer’s son sings. It’s in the bones.
With its mix of folk, blues, rockabilly and Memphis soul, “Nothing’s Gonna Change the Way You Feel About Me” finds Earle quickly grown beyond his last Bloodshot release, “Harlem River Blues,” a winner from a couple of years back.
