Life on the road is an amazingly difficult proposition; for every megastar who has his own bus with a DVD player and a bar, there are two or three thousand musicians traveling, out of necessity, around the country while packed like sardines in vehicles you wouldn’t go to the corner store in.
The dangers of the “ordinary” blues musician’s lifestyle was borne home tragically this past April 19th, when Homer, Louisiana native and folk-funk blues pioneer Bobby Rush and his band were involved in a serious auto collision en route to the group’s next gig in Pensacola, Florida.
Apparently, the van’s driver suffered a heart attack, which caused him to lose control of the vehicle and hit a tree. Tragically, dancer Latisha Brown was killed instantly, and nine other band members were hospitalized, including Bobby, who suffered head and neck injuries. As of this writing, band members Sarah Burnett, Jimmy Thomas, and Melvin Hendrix are all still hospitalized, although all are expected to make a full recovery.
However, those musicians who are convalescing at home still need our support as well; most of the surviving members have no health coverage (sadly, this is not uncommon for musicians in any field). In addition, many of them, Bobby included, will need extensive additional surgery and physical therapy over the next few months, and Latisha Brown’s surviving children—aged 6, 4, and 2, are in need of care as well (they’ve been taken in by their grandmother, but she can only do so much).
How can you help? You can send a contribution or organize a fund-raising effort of your own; to do either, contact Beverly Tatum at (404) 373-8803, or reach her via e-mail at [email protected]. Checks may also be sent to the Bobby Rush Band Fund c/o Blues Aid, PO Box 237, Helena, AR 72342. Blues Aid is a non-profit organization created by the Sonny Boy Williamson Blues Society to help blues artists cope with healthcare, pharmaceutical, and memorial expenses. Bobby’s wife has asked that everyone please keep them in their prayers and to pray for a full recovery for all band members. The hospitalized band members are recovering in Jackson, Mississippi’s University Hospital; for updates on their status and the status of the other musicians, visit the Bobby Rush Band Update Page at http://www.tigerink.com/bobbyrush. Flowers and cards for Bobby Rush himself may be sent to Bobby’s son, Carl Ellis, at 2615 Harriotte Avenue, Jackson, MS 39209.
The Handy Awards, presented this past May 24th, mainly focus on the best of what happened in the blues world this year past. Like other awards, they also make step back and look at the big picture with their annual inductees into the Blues Hall of Fame. Like the Grammys’ Lifetime Achievement Award, or the Oscars’ Irving Thalberg honor, the annual induction ceremony serves an important purpose in grabbing those performers and performances that might have slipped through the cracks over the years. And since the Handys are a relatively new award—just 21-years-old—the Hall Of Fame is absolutely necessary in securing glory for artists that haven’t been heard of much since Reagan left office.
This year’s inductees are, in the words of the awards themselves, “a historical record of those who have made the Blues timeless through performance, documentation, and recording.” Muddy Waters’ The Complete Plantation Recordings is an invaluable document of Muddy’s original field recordings, and it was honored as such with a nod in the Classics of Blues Recordings: Album category. The single version of that award goes to Big Joe Turner’s Kansas City jump-blues monolith “Shake, Rattle, and Roll,” a founding cornerstone of rock ‘n’ roll that has unfortunately been somewhat eclipsed by Bill Haley’s bland, sanitized version. (“Your hair done up so nice”? I don’t think so.)
Performing Individuals inducted into the pantheon include Etta James, Junior Parker, and Rufus Thomas, all of whom should need no introduction to readers of this column. The equally important Non-Performer category honors Theresa Needham, who owned and operated the Chicago blues mecca known as Theresa’s for half a century, and the critic, journalist, producer, author, consultant, and sometime musician Robert Palmer, one of the blues world’s best friends who died a sadly premature death of liver failure in 1997. Rounding out the awards in the “documentation” category is Helen Dance’s Stormy Monday: The T-Bone Walker Story, which was inducted (and rightly so) as a Classic Of Blues Literature. For more info on the Blues Foundation organization, which hosts the Hall Of Fame and puts on the Handys, visit their site at www.blues.org; this column will have a full report on the Handy award winners next month.
The Big Easy Entertainment Awards may seem to some to be a fairly redundant bit of back patting in a city as small, insular and friendly as this one—if anyone is outstanding in their field, you’ve probably already seen them in person. But someone needs to pat these people on the back; the very familial feel of this town demands it. And so this year’s awards, hosted at the Hilton New Orleans Riverside on April 16, were an excellent opportunity to once again honor Eddie Bo in the R&B category, and eternal soul queen of New Orleans Irma Thomas for Best Female Performer. Most gratifying of all was the Blues Category winner: Hammond B-3 and piano wizard Joe Krown, who does quadruple duty with Gatemouth Brown, Amy and the Hank Sinatras, the acoustic Krown, Sansone, and Fohl, and his own burgeoning solo career.
Speaking of careers, Chicago blues legend Eddy “The Chief” Clearwater has a new one: restaurateur. He’s just opened his new restaurant/music club “Eddy Clearwater’s Reservation Blues” in the Wicker Park section of Chicago. It promises “an intimate old-style supper club feel and a contemporary Southwestern menu,” and also claims to “honor Clearwater’s African-American heritage through its live blues and his Native American ancestry through the Southwestern Cuisine.” He’s already called on many of his blues friends to help him out, including Carey Bell, Lonnie Brooks, and Willie Kent, and if the idea of naming your bistro after your latest, very personal album sounds a bit crass, not to worry: if the food is half as tasty as the CD sounded, he’ll do just fine.
You may very well have the munchies after listening to New Prohibition: A Musical History of Hemp, the latest Hal Willner all-star project. (Willner was the man behind the Thelonious Monk tribute album That’s The Way I Feel Now.) A revamping of a quarter-century old musical about the drug war, it features our own John Sinclair and blues legend Taj Mahal, among other fixtures in the musical firmament. For more info, visit the project’s website at www.newprohibition.com.
Now that Jazz Fest is over, and Reggae Riddums is taking center stage, you may think that there’s not much blues to be had in the city’s venues during the month of June. And sadly, you’d be right. But what IS here is special indeed: The Fabulous Thunderbirds at House Of Blues on the 1st, followed the night after by the legendary white-blues archetypes John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers on the same stage. And those of you on the Northshore will be gratified to know that Tab Benoit will unleash his swamp-blues alligators at you on the 2nd as well, at a little place called the Columbia Street Taproom in Covington. (He’ll also be in Lafayette on the 1st at Grant Street Dance Hall, if you need a double dose.)
