Albert Collins, Robert Cray & Johnny Copeland "Showdown" (1985)

Buddaheads "Mumbo jumbo" (2004)

Buddaheads

BB Chung King & The Buddaheads are back on the LA scene after returning from a tour of Asia and the U.S. Taking a year and a half off, Alan Mirikitani (aka BB Chung King) established his own 24 track recording studio "Dawghouse Studios" in Burbank California.

BB's music is a mix of roots rock with a blues base. BB has always claimed blues to be his first love, but comes from a generation that loves to rock. Their first CD "Blues Had A Baby", was released in 1994 on RCA/BMB and received generous support from radio fans. If you have to categorize the music, it is somewhere between newer artists Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Blues Travelers. But make no mistake, BB Chung King & The Buddaheads are the original LA version!

BB keeps quite busy with the Buddaheads, but also finds time to write, record and produce music for other artists. BB has written songs for blues legends such as Lonnie Brooks, Tinsley Ellis and recently helped Ruth Brown receive a Grammy for her performance of his song "Too Little, Too Late". Then he produced, wrote, engineered and played on B.J. Sharp's Grammy nominated CD "Never Felt No Blues". Her CD reached number 4 in the charts in Europe, without being issued there!

You can also hear the Buddaheads paying tribute to Lowell George. Together with Eddie Money, they perform the title track to the tribute album titled "Rock and Roll Doctor" (a song which appears as a bonus track on the Buddaheads "Live Japan" CD).

"Play Hard", the third full length album, was released in Japan by Kiagan Records. Here in the US, the band is negotiating a new contract and distribution deal. To please the demand of the rest of their fans around the world, they have added some recent songs and the now re-titled, selfmanufactured limited edition CD "In The Mirror", is available and will no doubt become a collectors item.

"Go For Broke" is a breathtaking collection of Rockin' Blues and power packed ballads.
 
Buddaheads songs can also be heard in the following films:
MY COUSIN VINNY • HEAVEN & EARTH • ROBO COP II • CONTACT • BRING DOWN THE STARS • GREAT EXPECTATIONS & • CHUCK NORRIS' FOREST WARRIOR. And on the TV shows: E.R., The Young & The Restless & Melrose Place.

BB himself also had a small acting role in the movie BOYS ON THE SIDE staring Whoopi Goldberg.

Source: Buddaheads.com.

Bobby 'Blue' Bland & B. B. King "Together again... live" (1976)

Bo Diddley, Muddy Waters & Little Walter "Super Blues: join forces" (1967)

Blue Note Records

Blue Note Records is a jazz record label, established in 1939 by Alfred Lion and Max Margulis. Francis Wolff became involved shortly afterwards. It derives its name from the characteristic "blue notes" of jazz and the blues. At the end of the 1950s, and in the early 1960s, Blue Note headquarters were located in New York City, at 43 W 61st Street. At the end of the 1960s, they were moved to 1776 Broadway. The label is currently owned by the EMI Group and in 2006 was expanded to fill the role of an umbrella label group bringing together a wide variety of EMI-owned labels and imprints specializing in the growing market segment of music for adults.
Historically, Blue Note has principally been associated with the "hard bop" style of jazz (mixing bebop with other forms of music including soul, blues, rhythm and blues and gospel). Horace Silver, Jimmy Smith, Freddie Hubbard, Lee Morgan, Art Blakey, Lou Donaldson, Donald Byrd and Grant Green were among the label's leading artists, but almost all the important musicians in postwar jazz recorded for Blue Note on occasion, albeit most often only once.

EARLY YEARS

Lion first heard jazz as a young boy in Berlin. He settled in New York in 1937, and in 1939 recorded pianists Albert Ammons and Meade Lux Lewis in a one-day session in a rented studio. The Blue Note label initially consisted of Lion and Max Margulis, a communist writer who funded the project. The label's first releases were traditional "hot" jazz and boogie woogie, and the label's first hit was a performance of "Summertime" by saxophonist Sidney Bechet, which Bechet had been unable to record for the established companies. Musicians were supplied with alcoholic refreshments, and recorded in the early hours of the morning after their evening's work in clubs and bars had finished. The label soon became known for treating musicians uncommonly well - setting up recording sessions at congenial times, and allowing them to be involved in all aspects of the record's production.
Francis Wolff, a professional photographer, emigrated to the USA at the end of 1939 and soon joined forces with Lion, a childhood friend. In 1941, Lion was drafted into the army for two years. Milt Gabler at the Commodore Music Store offered storage facilities and helped keep the catalog in print, with Wolff working for him. By late 1943, the label was back in business recording musicians and supplying records to the armed forces. Willing to record artists that most other labels would consider to be uncommercial, in December 1943 the label initiated more sessions with artists such as pianist Art Hodes, trumpeter Sidney DeParis, clarinetist Edmond Hall, and the great Harlem Stride pianist James P. Johnson, who was returning to a high degree of musical activity after having largely recovered from a stroke suffered in 1940.

BEBOP

Towards the end of the war, saxophonist Ike Quebec was among those who recorded for the label. Quebec would act as a talent scout for the label until his death in 1963. Although stylistically belonging to a previous generation, he could appreciate the new bebop style of jazz, largely created by Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker.
In 1947, pianist Thelonious Monk recorded his first sessions as a leader for the label, which were also the Blue Note debut of drummer Art Blakey. Monk's recordings for Blue Note between 1947 and 1952 did not sell well, but have since come to be regarded as amongst the most important of the bebop era. Other bebop or modernist musicians who recorded for Blue Note during the late forties and early fifties were pianist Tadd Dameron, trumpeters Fats Navarro and Howard McGhee, saxophonist James Moody and pianist Bud Powell. The sessions by Powell, like those his close friend Monk recorded for the label, are commonly ranked among his best. J. J. Johnson and trumpeter Miles Davis both recorded several sessions for Blue Note between 1952 and 1954, but by then the musicians who had created bebop were starting to explore other styles.

HARD BOP AND BEYOND

In 1951 Blue Note issued their first vinyl 10" releases, and the label was soon recording new talent such as Horace Silver (who would stay with Blue Note for a quarter of a century), the Jazz Messengers (originally a collaborative group, but soon to become Art Blakey's group), Milt Jackson (as the leader of what became the Modern Jazz Quartet) and Clifford Brown. Rudy Van Gelder recorded most Blue Note releases from 1953 until the late sixties, and his often-praised engineering was, in its own way, as important and revolutionary as the music. Another important difference between Blue Note and other independent labels (for example Prestige Records, who also employed Van Gelder) was that musicians were paid for rehearsal time prior to the recording session; this helped ensure a better end result on the record. Producer Bob Porter of Prestige Records once said that "The difference between Blue Note and Prestige is two days rehearsal." Organist Jimmy Smith was signed in 1956, and performed on the label's first 12" LP album of new recordings.
The mid to late fifties saw debut recordings for Blue Note by (amongst others) Hank Mobley, Lee Morgan, Herbie Nichols, Sonny Clark, Kenny Dorham, Kenny Burrell, Jackie McLean, Donald Byrd and Lou Donaldson. Sonny Rollins recorded for the label in 1956 and 1957 and Bud Powell briefly returned. John Coltrane's Blue Train, and Cannonball Adderley's Somethin' Else (featuring Miles Davis in one of his last supporting roles) were guest appearances on the label. Blue Note was by then recording a mixture of established acts (Rollins, Adderley) and artists who in some cases had recorded before, but often produced performances for the label which by far exceeded earlier recordings in quality (Blue Train is often considered to be the first significant recording by Coltrane as a leader). Horace Silver and Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers continued to release a series of artistically and commercially successful recordings.
The early sixties saw Dexter Gordon join the label. Gordon was a saxophonist from the bebop era who had spent several years in prison for narcotic offences, and he made several albums for Blue Note over a five year period, including several at the beginning of his sojourn in Europe. Gordon also appeared on the debut album by Herbie Hancock - by the mid sixties, all four of the younger members of the Miles Davis quintet (Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter and Tony Williams) were recording for the label, and Hancock and Shorter in particular produced a succession of superb albums in a mix of styles. Carter did not actually record under his own name until the label's revival in the 1980s, but played double bass on many other musicians' sessions. Many of these also included Freddie Hubbard, a trumpeter who also recorded for the label as a leader. One of the features of the label during this period was a "family" of musicians (Hubbard, Hancock, Carter, Grant Green, Joe Henderson, Kenny Dorham, Lee Morgan, Blue Mitchell, Hank Mobley and many others) who would record as sidemen on each other's albums without necessarily being part of the leader's working group.
In 1963 Lee Morgan scored a significant hit with the title track of The Sidewinder album, and Horace Silver did the same the following year with Song for My Father. As a result, Lion was under pressure by independent distributors to come up with similar successes, with the result that many Blue Note albums of this era start with a catchy tune intended for heavy airplay in the United States.

THE AVANT GARDE

Although many of the acts on Blue Note were recording jazz for a wide audience, the label also documented some of the emerging avant-garde and free jazz players. Andrew Hill, a highly individual pianist, made many albums for the label, one featuring multi-instrumentalist Eric Dolphy. Dolphy's Out to Lunch! (featuring a celebrated cover by Reid Miles) is perhaps his most well-known album. Saxophonist Ornette Coleman released two albums recorded with a trio in a Stockholm club, and three studio albums (including The Empty Foxhole, with his ten-year-old son Denardo Coleman on drums). Pianist Cecil Taylor recorded a brace of albums for Blue Note, and saxophonist Sam Rivers, drummer Tony Williams, vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson and organist Larry Young also recorded albums which diverged from the "hard bop" style usually associated with the label. Saxophonist Jackie McLean, a stalwart of the label's hard bop output since the late 1950s, also crossed over into the avant-garde in the early 1960s, whose notable avant-garde albums included One Step Beyond and Destination Out.
Though these avant-garde records did not sell as well as some other Blue Note releases, Lion thought it was important to document new developments in jazz.

COVER ART

In 1956, Blue Note employed Reid Miles, an artist who worked for Esquire magazine. The cover art produced by Miles, often featuring Wolff's photographs of musicians in the studio, was as influential in the world of graphic design as the music within would be in the world of jazz. Under Miles, Blue Note was known for their striking and unusual album cover designs. Miles' graphical design was distinguished by its tinted black and white photographs, creative use of sans-serif typefaces, and restricted color palette (often black and white with a single color), and frequent use of solid rectangular bands of color or white, influenced by the Bauhaus school of design.
Though Miles' work is closely associated with Blue Note, and has earned iconic status and frequent homage, Miles was only a casual jazz fan, according to Richard Cook; Blue Note gave him several copies of each of the many dozens of albums he designed, but Miles gave most to friends or sold them to second-hand record shops. A few mid-fifties album covers featured drawings by an as-yet-little-known Andy Warhol.

LION AND WOLFF RETIRE
Blue Note was acquired by Liberty Records in 1965 and Lion, who had difficulties working within a larger organisation, retired in 1967. Reid Miles' association with the label ended around this time. For a few years most albums were produced by Wolff or pianist Duke Pearson, who had filled Ike Quebec's role in 1963, but Wolff died in 1971 and Pearson left in the same year. George Butler was now responsible for the label, but despite some good albums, the commercial viability of jazz was in question, and more borderline and outright commercial records were made (often by artists who had previously recorded "straight" jazz for the label - Bobby Hutcherson, Lou Donaldson, Donald Byrd, Grant Green, Horace Silver).

REISSUES & NEW ALBUMS

EMI purchased United Artists Records in 1979, which had absorbed Liberty Records in 1969, and phased out the Blue Note label which lay dormant until 1985, when it was relaunched as part of EMI Manhattan Records, both for re-issues and new recordings. Some artists previously associated with Blue Note, such as McCoy Tyner made new recordings, while younger musicians such as Joe Lovano, John Scofield, Greg Osby, Jason Moran and arranger / composer Bob Belden have established notable reputations through their Blue Note albums. The label has also found great commercial success with the vocalist Norah Jones, and released new albums by established artists on the fringes of jazz such as Van Morrison, Al Green, Anita Baker and newcomer Amos Lee, sometimes referred to as the 'male Norah Jones'. Two of the leading trumpeters of the 1980s Jazz Resurgence, Wynton Marsalis and Terence Blanchard signed with the label in 2003.
Blue Note has also pursued an active reissue program in recent years. Bruce Lundvall was appointed to oversee the label at the time of the revival and Michael Cuscuna has since worked as freelance advisor and reissue producer. Some of Blue Note's output has appeared in CD Box sets issued by Mosaic Records (also involving Cuscuna), and there has been a series of reissues of older material, much of it in the "RVG series", remastered by Rudy Van Gelder. Blue Note Records became the flagship jazz label for Capitol Jazz and Classics and was the parent label for the Capitol Jazz, Pacific Jazz, Roulette and other labels within Capitol's holdings which possessed a jazz line.
In 2006, EMI expanded Blue Note to create the Blue Note Label Group by moving its Narada group of labels to New York to join with Blue Note, centralizing EMI's approach to music for the adult market segment. The labels newly under the Blue Note umbrella are Angel Records, EMI Classics and Virgin Classics (classical music), Narada Productions (contemporary jazz and world-influenced music, including exclusively licensed sub-label Real World Records), Back Porch Records (folk and Americana), Higher Octave Records (New Age music), and Mosaic Records (devoted exclusively to reissuing jazz recordings in limited-edition boxed sets). As of June 2007, Bruce Lundvall, founder of Manhattan Records, continued as President/CEO of the Blue Note Label Group, at the time reporting directly to Eric Nicoli, then Chief Executive Officer of EMI Group.
In 2008, The Blue Note 7, a jazz septet, were formed in honor of the 70th anniversary of Blue Note Records. The group recorded an album in 2008, entitled Mosaic, which was released in 2009 on Blue Note Records/EMI, and toured the United States in promotion of the album from January until April 2009. The group consists of Peter Bernstein (guitar), Bill Charlap (piano), Ravi Coltrane (tenor saxophone), Lewis Nash (drums), Nicholas Payton (trumpet), Peter Washington (bass), and Steve Wilson (alto saxophone, flute). The group plays the music of Blue Note Records from various artists, with arrangements by members of the band and Renee Rosnes.
Hip-hop producer Madlib recorded Shades of Blue in 2003 as a tribute to Blue Note. The album features samples recorded by the label throughout.

LEGACY

Many Blue Note albums are considered among the finest in all of jazz. In the awarding of special crowns for the Ninth Edition of the Penguin Guide to Jazz, eight out of 80 total are Blue Notes. In the same guide, out of its 213 recordings given status of "core collection," 27 are on the Blue Note label.
There has been much sampling of classic Blue Note tracks by both hip hop artists and for mashing projects. In 1993, the group Us3 designed the entirety of its debut album upon samples from classic Blue Note records. In 2003, hip hop producer Madlib released "Shades of Blue: Madlib Invades Blue Note," a collection of his remixes and interpretations of Blue Note music. Pete Rock, J. Dilla, and DJ Spinna have likewise been involved in similar projects. In 2004, Burning Vision Entertainment created the video for Helicopter Girl's 'Angel City' using the art from numerous Blue Note LP sleeves to startling effect. In 2008, hip hop producer Questlove of The Roots compiled "Droppin' Science: Greatest Samples from the Blue Note Lab," a collection of original Blue Note recordings sampled by modern-day hip hop artists such as Dr. Dre and A Tribe Called Quest.

Source: Wikipedia.

Aeroblus

O Aeroblus é um lendário power trio que reuniu os músicos argentinos Pappo Napolitano e Alejandro Medina (Manal, Billy Bond y La Pesada) ao baterista brasileiro Rolando Castello Júnior (Patrulha do Espaço). Considerado o maior power trio sulamericano, o grupo surgiu quando Pappo e Medina, que estavam morando em um sítio na cidade de Campo Limpo Paulista, convidaram Júnior para fazer um som.
A química foi tão forte que os três resolveram levar o grupo adiante, mudando-se para Buenos Aires, onde gravaram o seu primeiro e único álbum, batizado com o nome da banda. Musicalmente, o disco é mais pesado do que Pappo vinha desenvolvendo com o seu Pappo´s Blues, com ótimos riffs e solos inspirados de Pappo, além da quebradeira da cozinha formada por Júnior e Medina. Destaque para as faixas "Vamos a Buscar la Luz", "Completamente Nervioso", a instrumental "Arboles Difusores" (ótima performance de Júnior, mostrando o porque de ser considerado um dos melhores bateristas da América Latina), o hard blues "Vendriamos a Buscar", a também instrumental "Sofisticuatro" e o encerramento com a pesadíssima "Buen Tiempo". Dentro da obra de Pappo, o Aeroblus é extremamente importante, pois marca a transição entre o hard e o blues rock do Pappo´s Blues e o heavy metal do Riff, grupo que o músico formaria nos anos 1980.
A versão em original em vinil é extremamente difícil de ser encontrada, mas vale dizer que a gravadora Universal relançou o álbum em formato em CD em 2006, em uma bela embalagem digipack.
Source: Moo.pt.

Adriana Deffenti "Adriana Deffenti" (2006)

Adriana Deffenti "Peças de pessoas" (2002)

Adriana Deffenti

ADRIANA DEFFENTI is a singer and instrumentist from Porto Alegre, Brazil. Her music results from a mixture of pop, rock, blues, MPB (Brazilian Popular Music), opera, Argentinean folklore, jazz, samba and flamenco.

Source: Adriana Deffenti.com.

Blues Story, 30 volumes collection (1998)

For those who want to learn or know a little of what is "the" blues.

The Slide Guitar "Bottles, knives & steel" (2008)

Rip Lee faz show no Santander Cultural - Porto Alegre

The son of famed bluesman Snooky Pryor, Richard covers 5 of his father's songs on his 1998 debut, Pitch a Boogie Woogie. Though his harpwork is often similar to his father's, but as revivalists go -- Richard still maintains his day job of 20+ years, as a carpenter for Southern Illinois University at Carbondale to focus on the blues -- he's fairly innovative. "His own compositions," Chicago Reader critic David Whiteis says, "show even more promise: on the driving shuffle 'Thank You Baby' he coaxes everything from wobbly ululations to raw shrieks from his instrument, and 'Push a Lot of Lovin', a roguish sermon on the finer points of two-timing, is a swampy back woods lope." 

Source: Center Stage Chicago.com.

Blindside Blues Band

At the ripe old age of 17 Mike Onesko left his native Fairview Park Ohio for the greener pastures of San Francisco with just $60 and his guitar he hitchhiked his way across country till he arrived in S.F. Upon arrival he formed a power trio called Sundog and started exploring his musical journey playing long jams and heavy sabbath type riffs. Next was Steelwind a five piece outfit with keyboards, That featured John Warmouth on drums and Walker Kaeck(I Think I,m in Love) o vocals. They Headlined at Kezar Stadium just three years after Led Zeppelin played there! The Kwik and Three Man Army were next and they opened for many acts such as Robin Trower, Montrose, Nazareth, Great White, Mitch Ryder, Clarence Clemons, Mike was discovered in the clubs of Marin County California by Shrapnel records President Mike Varney! They formed the Blindside Blues Band with Scott Johnson on guitar,and Jeff Martin on drums and Gregg Chaisson on bass guitar. They put out three records with this lineup.Although Gregg played on the records he never did any live shows with the band! That duty was filled admirably by Kier Staeheli. The last Shrapnel lineup for the Blindside Blues Band was Mike Onesko, Mike Varney, Aysnley Dunbar, James Lomenzo.Mike produced  and played on Cream of The Crop a
tribute to Cream where he produced and performed with Pat Travers, Leslie West Tim Bogert, Rick Derrigner, Glenn Hughes, Neal Schon, and many more! Mike went on to Comet Records in Italy to record many great records such as Mike Onesko's Guitar Army,Smokehouse Sessions, Live At The Torrita Blues Festival, Italy, and Voodoo Crossing and Gypsy Blood both hendrix tributes.Recently, Mike and The Blindside Blues Band just completed their new release with the help of many friends! Davey Pattison, Mike Varney, Derek Reeve, Barry Prior, Jeff Martin is back in the fold!

Source: Mike Onesko Band.com

Blind Boy Fuller "Remastered 1935-38" (2004)

Blind Boy Fuller

Blind Boy Fuller (born Fulton Allen) (July 10, 1907 – February 13, 1941) was an American blues guitarist and vocalist. He was one of the most popular of the recorded Piedmont blues artists with rural Black Americans, a group that also included Blind Blake, Josh White, and Buddy Moss.
LIFE AND CAREER

Fulton Allen was born in Wadesboro, North Carolina, United States, to Calvin Allen and Mary Jane Walker. He was one of a family of 10 children, but after his mother's death he moved with his father to Rockingham. As a boy he learned to play the guitar and also learned from older singers the field hollers, country rags, and traditional songs and blues popular in poor, rural areas.
He married Cora Allen young and worked as a labourer, but began to lose his eyesight in his mid-teens. According to researcher Bruce Bastin, "While he was living in Rockingham he began to have trouble with his eyes. He went to see a doctor in Charlotte who allegedly told him that he had ulcers behind his eyes, the original damage having been caused by some form of snow-blindness." However, there is an alternative story that he was blinded by an ex-girlfriend who threw chemicals in his face.
By 1928 he was completely blind, and turned to whatever employment he could find as a singer and entertainer, often playing in the streets. By studying the records of country blues players like Blind Blake and the "live" playing of Gary Davis, Allen became a formidable guitarist, and played on street corners and at house parties in Winston-Salem, NC, Danville, VA, and then Durham, North Carolina. In Durham, playing around the tobacco warehouses, he developed a local following which included guitarists Floyd Council and Richard Trice, as well as harmonica player Saunders Terrell, better known as Sonny Terry, and washboard player/guitarist George Washington.
In 1935, Burlington record store manager and talent scout James Baxter Long secured him a recording session with the American Recording Company (ARC). Allen, Davis and Washington recorded several tracks in New York City, including the traditional "Rag, Mama, Rag". To promote the material, Long decided to rename Allen as "Blind Boy Fuller", and also named Washington Bull City Red.
Over the next five years Fuller made over 120 sides, and his recordings appeared on several labels. His style of singing was rough and direct, and his lyrics explicit and uninhibited as he drew from every aspect of his experience as an underprivileged, blind Black person on the streets—pawnshops, jailhouses, sickness, death—with an honesty that lacked sentimentality. Although he was not sophisticated, his artistry as a folk singer lay in the honesty and integrity of his self-expression. His songs contained desire, love, jealousy, disappointment, menace and humor.
In April 1936, Fuller recorded ten solo performances, and also recorded with guitarist Floyd Council. The following year, after auditioning for J. Mayo Williams, he recorded for the Decca label, but then reverted to ARC. Later in 1937, he made his first recordings with Sonny Terry. In 1938 Fuller, who was described as having a fiery temper, was imprisoned for shooting a pistol at his wife, wounding her in the leg, causing him to miss out on John Hammond's "From Spirituals to Swing" concert in NYC that year. While Fuller was eventually released, it was Sonny Terry who went in his stead, the beginning of a long "folk music" career. Fuller's last two recording sessions took place in New York City during 1940.
Fuller's repertoire included a number of popular double entendre "hokum" songs such as "I Want Some Of Your Pie", "Truckin' My Blues Away" (the origin of the phrase "keep on truckin'"), and "Get Your Yas Yas Out" (adapted as "Get Your Ya-Yas Out" for the origin of a later Rolling Stones album title), together with the autobiographical "Big House Bound" dedicated to his time spent in jail. Though much of his material was culled from traditional folk and blues numbers, he possessed a formidable finger-picking guitar style. He played a steel National resonator guitar. He was criticised by some as a derivative musician, but his ability to fuse together elements of other traditional and contemporary songs and reformulate them into his own performances, attracted a broad audience. He was an expressive vocalist and a masterful guitar player, best remembered for his uptempo ragtime hits including "Step It Up and Go". At the same time he was capable of deeper material, and his versions of "Lost Lover Blues", "Rattlesnakin' Daddy" and "Mamie" are as deep as most Delta blues. Because of his popularity, he may have been overexposed on records, yet most of his songs remained close to tradition and much of his repertoire and style is kept alive by other Piedmont artists to this day.

DEATH

Fuller underwent a suprapubic cystostomy in July 1940 (probably an outcome of excessive drinking) but continued to require medical treatment. He died at his home in Durham, North Carolina on February 13, 1941 at 5:00 PM of pyemia due to an infected bladder, GI tract and perineum, plus kidney failure.
He was so popular when he died that his protégé Brownie McGhee recorded "The Death of Blind Boy Fuller" for the Okeh label, and then reluctantly began a short lived career as Blind Boy Fuller No. 2 so that Columbia Records could cash in on his popularity.

BURIAL LOCATION

Blind Boy Fuller's final resting place is Grove Hill Cemetery, located on private property in Durham, North Carolina. State records indicate that this was once an official cemetery, and Fuller's interment is recorded. The only remaining headstone is that of Mary Caston Langey. The funeral arrangements were handled by McLaurin Funeral Home of Durham, North Carolina, and the burial took place on February 15, 1941.
Blind Boy Fuller has been recognized on two different plaques in the City of Durham. The North Carolina Division of Archives and History plaque is located a few miles north of Fuller's gravesite, along Fayetteville St. in Durham. The City of Durham officially recognized Fuller on July 16, 2001, and the commemorating plaque is located along the American Tobacco Trail, adjacent to the property where Fuller's unmarked grave is located (several hundred feet east of Fayetteville St.).

Source: Wikipedia.

Blind Willie McTell & Curley Weaver "The post-war years 1949-50" (1991)

Curley Weaver

Curley Weaver was one of Atlanta’s most beloved bluesmen and, for decades, Blind Willie McTell’s close friend. He was an exceptionally skilled guitar soloist, with a slide and without, and recorded many records on his own and as a sideman to Blind Willie McTell, Fred McMullen, Buddy Moss, Ruth Willis, and others.  He was also an essential part of two of the best string bands of prewar blues, the Georgia Cotton Pickers and Georgia Browns.

Born on March 25, 1906, Curley James Weaver was raised around Walnut Grove, Georgia. He was childhood friends with Robert and Charlie Hicks, who would make records as Barbecue Bob and Laughing Charlie Lincoln. Weaver’s mother, Savannah “Dip” Weaver, played guitar and taught the three youngsters frailing techniques and open-G tuning. After the Hicks brothers moved to Atlanta, Weaver played house parties and dances with Eddie Mapp, a gifted young harmonica player who excelled at everything from slow, mournful blues to rollicking train imitations.
In 1925 Weaver and Mapp moved to Atlanta, where the Hicks brothers, who’d yet to record, befriended them. With his easygoing personality and knack for accompanying others, Weaver became a favorite among local musicians. Their associate Buddy Moss told Blues Unlimited magazine, “I think people liked Curley best. Curley was a guy, he could really raise behind you and he could take up the slack. You didn’t have to wait for him.” Weaver’s daughter, Cora Mae, was born in May 1926 and spent her childhood in Walnut Grove.
Barbecue Bob arranged for Weaver to record his first 78s for Columbia Records in October 1928. Played without a slide, his first recording, “Sweet Petunia,” was a cover of a song Lucille Bogan had recorded in 1927. Vocally, his performance resembled country musician Jimmie Rodgers, who was enormously popular at the time. The record’s flip side, “No No Blues,” was pure Curley Weaver, with snapping bass strings, driving strums, and the light, wavering slide sound that would become the most distinctive aspect of his guitar style. As his slider reached its notes, Weaver would often give it a short, rapid shake to create a propulsive, wobbling sound. He achieved superb sonic balance between bass and treble, probably using his bare thumb on the bass strings while plucking slid notes with his index, middle, and ring fingers. Few other guitarists played slide this way, and by the mid 1930s this sound had pretty much vanished from the blues. But Weaver was far more than a one-lick wonder with the slider.
Curley Weaver, Eddie Mapp, and guitarists Guy Lumpkin and Slim Barton travelled to Long Island City, New York, in May 1929 to record for the QRS label. A single Weaver 78 resulted from the session – “Dirty Deal Blues,” performed alone, backed with “It’s the Best Stuff Yet” with Mapp on harmonica. During these sessions, Mapp would cut his only records as a leader. He had sole credit for the harmonica train song “Riding the Blinds.” On the flip side, he accompanied Guy Lumpkin on “Decatur Street Drag,” which showcased terrific boogie guitar lines. The harmonica ace also cut five sides credited to Slim Barton & Eddie Mapp, including instrumental covers of “Careless Love” and the Tampa Red-Georgia Tom Dorsey hit “It’s Tight Like That.” Among the musicians at the QRS sessions, only Curley Weaver would record again. Lumpkin and Barton faded from view, and Eddie Mapp was murdered two years later on a seedy Atlanta street corner.
Curley Weaver teamed with Barbecue Bob and Buddy Moss on his next releases. In one of the great prewar blues sessions, the trio recorded in Atlanta’s Campbell Hotel in December 1930 as the Georgia Cotton Pickers. Weaver played brilliant, sparking slide through all four of their songs: “I’m on My Way Down Home,” the Blind Blake-inspired “Diddle-Da-Diddle,” “She Looks So Good,” and “She’s Coming Back Some Cold Rainy Day,” set to the familiar “I’m Sitting on Top of the World” melody. Barbecue Bob played guitar alongside Weaver at this session, while Moss blew hamonica. High-water marks of prewar string-band blues recordings, these would be Barbecue Bob’s final sides.
In October 1931, Weaver accompanied his friend Blind Willie McTell on record for the first time. On “Low Rider’s Blues,” Weaver soloed with a slider as McTell shouted encouragement. The duo also backed Atlanta-based blues singer Ruth Willis on her OKeh releases “Low Down Blues” and “Merciful Blues.” Two days later, Weaver recorded a pair of outstanding vocal duets with Clarence Moore, “Baby Boogie Woogie” and “Wild Cat Kitten.” On these tracks his once-wavering slide style was replaced with dead-on intonation worthy of Tampa Red. A prime researcher of early Georgia blues, Peter Lowry wrote me letter explaining that Weaver had altered his playing style in the early 1930s, switching “from the ‘country’ frailing style he’d learned from Dip to the fingerpicked ‘Piedmont’ style that swept over the Southeast during the late 1920s and early ’30s. This is likely the result of his moving permanently to Atlanta, with the change in audience from Newton County to a broader urban one. Additionally, meeting up with folks like Moss, McTell, and McMullen, plus the impact of phonograph records on player and audience no doubt had an impact. You give the people what they want!”
Weaver played exceptional slide at the marathon January 1933 American Record Company sessions held in New York City with Buddy Moss, Fred McMullen, and Ruth Willis. On January 16th, his first day as leader, he re-cut “No No Blues,” revisiting the idiosyncratic slide style he’d used five years earlier on the original version and doing a lovely falsetto chorus. The next day, he covered a song he’d played as part of the Georgia Cotton Pickers, “Some Cold Rainy Day,” with Ruth Willis adding vocal harmonies. Issued by Banner, Melotone, Oriole, Perfect, and Romeo, this song was credited “Curley Weaver and Ruth Willis.” On the final days of sessions, January 19th, Weaver recorded “Tippin’ Tom” b/w “Birmingham Gambler” under his own name, and then joined Fred McMullen and Buddy Moss to record as the Georgia Browns.
Like the Georgia Cotton Pickers 78s, the Georgia Browns records are fabulous samples of string-band juke music. The goodtime instrumentals “Tampa Strut” and “Decatur Street 81” displayed the guitarists’ unstoppable rhythmic feel and bottleneck finesse, as well as Moss’ mournful harmonica solos. “Next Door Man” featured Weaver playing in standard tuning while McMullen bottlenecked in open G. McMullen sang “Joker Man Blues” and “Next Door Man,” which came out on Vocalion credited to “Jim Miller.” McMullen, who was a regular at the 81 Theater and may have been from Macon, also fronted on several tracks during the 1933 sessions; his “Wait and Listen” bears a similarity to Tommy Johnson’s “Big Road Blues.” On “Rolling Mama,” McMullen and Weaver soloed simultaneously with fingers and slide. In the Perfect label’s publicity photos taken around this time, Curley Weaver held an oddly shaped Kay-Kraft archtop model that had been introduced in 1930, while McMullen held a standard roundhole acoustic. (The fact that Weaver, Moss, and Josh White are all seen holding a Kay archtop in their publicity photos suggests that the guitar may have been a photographer’s prop.) The January 1933 sessions would mark the end of Fred McMullen’s recording career.

Curley Weaver returned to New York City in September 1933 for a week of sessions in the company of Blind Willie McTell and Buddy Moss. McTell played second guitar on records credited to Curley Weaver and Buddy Moss, who in turn backed McTell on two-dozen gospel and blues selections. As David Evans writes in his excellent liner notes for the Columbia two-CD set The Definitive Blind Willie McTell, “Weaver’s work on second guitar, and occasionally second voice, is stunning throughout the session, whether he plays in slide style or fretting with his fingers. He is generally in a different key position or tuning from McTell and provides either a contrasting part or a more complex version of McTell’s part that cuts through the fuller sound of the 12-string. These tracks represent some of the high points in blues duet recording, ranking with the best pieces by the Beale Street Sheiks, Tommy Johnson and Charlie McCoy, or Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe.” Of the seven songs Weaver recorded under his own name, only one 78 – “Black Woman” b/w “City Cell Blues” was released. McTell’s “Don’t You See How This World Made a Change,” with Weaver adding guitar and vocals, came out on Vocalion credited to “Blind Willie and Partner.”

In 1934 Weaver and his girlfriend Cora Thomson moved in with Blind Willie and Ruth McTell at 381 Houston Street N.W. in Atlanta. The couples lived together for several years. On Saturdays, Weaver would often play with McTell at matinees at the 81 Theater. Recording executive Mayo Williams caught a performance there in 1935 and invited Weaver and the McTells to Chicago to record for Decca Records. Weaver joined McTell on “Bell Street Blues” and several other tunes, finessing quick-fingered solos behind McTell’s 12-string bass parts and rhythm. McTell, in turn, backed Weaver on a half-dozen blues as well, including a rare appearance on 6-string guitar on two of Weaver’s best records, “Tricks Ain’t Walking No More” and a cover of Buddy Moss’ “Oh Lawdy Mama.” All six of Weaver’s Chicago recordings came out on 78.

It would be 14 years before Curley Weaver would record again. During the ensuing years, McTell and Weaver continued to perform together in Atlanta and on the road. “They were very good friends,” Willie’s wife Kate Mctell recalled. “Willie would do most of the leading when they played together, and he was always the manager. He would always book the recordings or wherever they play at. And they would pay Willie, and then Willie would pay Curley.”

Soon after World War II broke out, Weaver journeyed back to Walnut Grove to visit his mother and daughter Cora Mae. In her January 1998 Living Blues story, Cora Mae Bryant, who also sang the blues, told David Nelson: “I’ll tell you about the time when he came down and stayed awhile with his mother. That’s when I went back to Atlanta with him. I was 16 years old. And we went up in Alman, Georgia, and he flagged the train down. He took his red handkerchief out of his pocket, and he held it up. Train kept a brakin’ down, slowed on down, and we got on the train. A lot of soldiers was on the train. And they wanted him to play the guitar, and they give him money, you know. I’ll never forget the song he started singin’: ‘I Got the Key to the Highway.’ He started singin’ that. And we went on to Atlanta and I stayed up there with him about two weeks. And that’s when I met Blind Willie McTell. It wasn’t no clubs in Atlanta nobody was playin’ in, not then, not as I know of. I went with my father down in an alley one time, he played down there. Out in somebody’s yard. And he played at a big house there on Butler Street. I never did see him play around no clubs. People were having parties at their house. Everybody gathered up and just played. They was drinkin’ their liquor there, though.”   

McTell and Weaver recorded together for the last time in May 1949. Atlanta’s black radio station announced that Regal Records was auditioning country blues guitarists, and  Blind Willie McTell and Curley Weaver answered the call. All totaled, they recorded twenty blues and gospel selections at a studio on Edgewood Avenue. Weaver recorded three selections with McTell’s support, singing with a strong voice on “Wee Midnight Hours,” “Brown Skin Woman,” and “I Keep on Drinkin’.” Several months later, Weaver recorded four songs on guitar for New York’s Sittin’ In With label. “My Baby’s Gone” b/w “Some Rainy Day” came out as the first 78, followed by “Some Rainy Day” b/w “Trixie.” These would be Curley Weaver’s last recordings.

After that, Cora Mae Bryant told David Nelson, “He stay in Atlanta mostly, but when he did come here to Almon to stay with his mother – I think it was 1950 – they was pickin’ cotton and he’d be on the cotton truck. The truck would go around to pick up a lot of peoples over there in Almon, you know, around Conyers, and come by our house. We’d get on that truck, get off that truck and go out there on the end of the field by ourself, you know, and pick cotton. I had some liquor, you know. I brought him liquor about every day. He always called me Baby. He said, ‘Baby, what you got in that sack?’ I said, ‘Yassir. You know your pint of liquor in there.’ I’d get that pint of liquor, boy, hand it to him, he’d take the top off, hand it back to me. I’d get a little sip. Put it back in his sack. Throw his sack on his back. He’d sing, ‘Your day now brownskin woman. Be mine some day.’ Folks’d get on out there then.”
Weaver continued to perform. “I followed him around up until his illness,” Cora Mae said. “We’d go to fish fries and barbecues, and we’d sing together when we get there. Just different places, parties. Conyers, Loganville, and Covington, Oxford – we be around together. It’s like people give fish fries and barbecues, they sold fish and hot dogs. Wasn’t no beer back there, you know, but plenty corn liquor. My daddy used to get to that party, everbody want to buy him some liquor, to get in the chair and play. He’d say, ‘One at a time.’ ‘Mr. Curley, play me something.’ ‘Wait a minute, wait a minute now. What you want to hear, right there? What you want to hear? All right, I’m gonna get around to y’all now.’ [Laughs.] They loved Curley Weaver. From here to Conyers, everybody around there, they know him.
“It’d be him and Buddy Moss – he’d some down some time and be with him. You get them to together, and there’s a man in Atlanta, his name was Johnny Guthrie. He never did do no recording. You get them three guitars together: oooweee! Boy, some music’s goin’ on. And you couldn’t hear nothin’ on the floor but just shoe heels, hittin’ the floor. Folks be just a dancin’, havin’ a good time. Some of ’em, you know, would act sort of naughty, but he’ll pick up his chair and his guitar and get on that corner, and say, ‘One monkey don’t stop no show.’ Keep on playin’. He look at ’em, he smile and keep a-playin’. Especially when them young women get to flirtin’ with him. He’ll smile at ’em.” Curley Weaver reportedly retired from music when his eyesight failed later in the 1950s.
He died on September 20, 1962, and was buried in a rural churchyard in Almon, Georgia. Pete Lowry paid for his original tombstone, which had “Tricks Ain’t Walking No More” etched beneath the name.

Source: Jas Obrecht Music Archive.

Blind Willie McTell "Atlanta strut" (2004)

Blind Willie McTell "The definitive Blind Willie McTell" (1994)