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2024-03-29T11:43:46Z
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Q&A with harmonica master Chris O'Leary, ranks among the blues and roots world’s most talented unsung heroes
tag:blues.gr,2024-02-01:1982923:BlogPost:490702
2024-02-01T06:00:00.000Z
Michael Limnios Blues Network
https://blues.gr/profile/MichalisLimnios
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><em>"My hope is that younger generations will fall in love with this music much like I did ... My fear is that they’re not being exposed to Americana is big amongst younger audiences in my opinion Blues should be a bigger part of that. When you talk about American Music Blues is woven into, and provides the bedrock for everything Rock country R&B jazz etc. so if you’re talking Americana. What’s more American than Blues."…</em></span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><em>"My hope is that younger generations will fall in love with this music much like I did ... My fear is that they’re not being exposed to Americana is big amongst younger audiences in my opinion Blues should be a bigger part of that. When you talk about American Music Blues is woven into, and provides the bedrock for everything Rock country R&B jazz etc. so if you’re talking Americana. What’s more American than Blues."</em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 24pt;"><strong>Chris O'Leary: The Hard (Blues) Line</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Chris O'Leary's musical background includes duties as lead singer and front man for rock and roll hall of famer and Grammy award winner Levon Helm’s band, The Barnburners. During the 6 years that Chris and Levon played together they toured across the US and Canada lighting up stages everywhere they went. Chris has appeared on stage with: Legendary Rolling Stones sideman Bobby Keys, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Jimmy Vivino, Jeff Healy, Dan Akroyd, Albert Lee, Dave Edmunds, Dave Maxwell and the great James Cotton to name just a few. Chris has also recorded with Bill Perry and Hubert Sumlin, among others. The Chris O’Leary Band’s debut CD “Mr. Used to Be” won the 2011 Best New Artist Debut CD Blues Blast Award and was nominated for best new artist debut at the 2011 American Blues Music Awards. <b>In</b> <b>January 2024, </b><span><strong>Alligator Records released the new album of soulful vocalist, dynamic harmonica master and gifted songwriter, Chris' label debut, titled "The Hard Line".</strong></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/12292002097?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/12292002097?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-center"/></a></span></p>
<p style="text-align: right;"><span style="text-decoration: underline; font-size: 10pt;"><em>(Singer, songwriter, harmonica master Chris O'Leary / Photo <b>© </b>by Paul Natkin)</em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">O'Leary is among the blues and roots world’s most talented unsung heroes. The Marine veteran, ex-Federal police officer and former lead singer of The Barn Burners (featuring Levon Helm) has walked a hard line from his upstate New York home to stages all over the world. Between his large, athletic frame and his military-style “high and tight” haircut, O’Leary commands attention, singing his indelible original songs with pure, unadulterated soul and playing harmonica with urgent locomotive power. His keenly written songs come directly from his colorful and sometimes harrowing life experiences. </span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong><a href="https://blues.gr/profile/MichalisLimnios" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Interview by Michael Limnios</a> / Photos <b>© </b>by Paul Natkin</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline; font-size: 12pt;"><em>Special Thanks: John O'Leary & Marc Lipkin (Alligator Records)</em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>How has the Blues influenced your views of the world? What touched you from the sound of harmonica?</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">While the blues (the music itself) has touched on my world views, my life as a blues musician has definitely had an impact on how I view different people places cultures etc. Going from seeing the world as a Police Officer or US Marine to touring as a blues musician are in many regards absolutely polar opposites. As a Marine especially a combat veteran you experience places in turmoil., sometimes people and cultures at their very worst moments. As a musician I experience the exact opposite. The common joy of music is a powerful thing. The interaction between my band and I and the audiences we play blues for all over the world has given me back a little bit of optimism. It’s all about perspective this music, when it’s good is a real bridge that crosses language, cultural, racial and religious barriers. One of the most relatable aspects of blues music is its simple commonality. Everyone feels it at one point or another regardless of who you are. What touched me about Harmonica was more due to the player than the instrument itself, when I first heard James Cotton on Muddy Waters’ album Hard Again, I had never heard anyone play an instrument with that kind of brutal ferocity, even as a kid it spoke to me on a deep level, like music is supposed to do and still does. I have listened to those album tracks thousands of times, and I still go back to that record and James ‘s playing like a well of inspiration.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>How do you describe your sound and songbook? What's the balance in music between technique and soul?</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">My sound and songwriting are very eclectic while still attempting to be respectful to the tradition of the music I love. There’s a lot of New Orleans, Memphis and Chicago of course. I try to write about what I know, I’ve lived a bit of a crazy life, I look back and sometimes it seems I’ve lived twenty separate lives. Living thru it has been harrowing at times but the beauty of it is that I think it affords me with a large pallet to draw from. In my opinion technical prowess without soul is just that, soulless and honestly, I don’t find it very interesting to listen to, on the other hand simplicity can be very engaging, as long as it’s honest and played with feeling and soul. When there is a combination of both like BB, Albert Collins or Little Walter it’s pure magic! Little Walter redefined what’s technically possible on the harmonica while still playing some of the deepest blues ever recorded… That’s what it’s all about!!! <span style="text-decoration: underline; font-size: 10pt;"><em>(Chris O'Leary / Photo <b>© </b>by Paul Natkin)</em></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/12292002295?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/12292002295?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-center"/></a></span></p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline; font-size: 10pt;"><em>"What I miss most about the blues from the past is all about the Artists themselves. There will never be another Cotton, Muddy, Sonny Boy, Walter or Wolf. Like I said, if I want inspiration or music that truly moves me ... my “go to” is a record made almost 50 years ago or sometimes much older."</em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Why do you think that Alligator Records continues to generate such a devoted following?</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Alligator has maintained such a devoted following because there will always be an audience for real honest blues music, before I was a working blues musician, I was a blues fan and whether it was Hound Dog Taylor, Albert Collins, or Delbert McClinton I knew the stuff on Alligator was the real deal and the stuff I dug. After all this time, decades of great blues and all of the legendary artists that made Alligator their home, folks know what they’re gonna get when they buy an Alligator release. I picked up the latest Cash Box Kings release with the same excitement and anticipation as I had when I got a William Clarke or Carey Bell record decades ago. I knew it was going to be killer before I listened to one note, Bruce and the staff just put out good honest blues.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>What moment changed music life the most? What´s been the highlights in your life and career so far?</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Beyond hearing Hard Again when I was a kid the moment that changed everything was when Levon Helm asked me to move to New Orleans. I moved to the one of the greatest musical cities in the world and fronted the house band at Levons club on Decatur, (the subject of one of the cuts on The Hard Line) Playing music with a Legend 5 nights a week and absorbing the music and culture of NOLA it changed me in every way imaginable. Levon was a great man and I owe him everything. He was kind and hilarious, mentoring without being harsh, and generous to a fault. Before I lived in New Orleans, I was very tunnel visored as to what blues was. Playing with him and living in that great city opened my eyes as to what could be played and still remain respectful of the tradition. The other highlights include recording with the great Hubert Sumlin, afterwards touring and playing with Levon for 7 years. Also, thru Levon, I got to share the stage with my musical hero James Cotton ... Cotton plain and simple is the reason I play this music! i got to know him and had the honor of calling him my friend. Finally, a definite highlight is being signed by Alligator Records. To be on the same label as all my heroes is the fulfillment of a lifelong dream ... it’s also definitely validation for years of playing countless number of gigs, thousands of miles in the van ... etc. etc.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/12292003471?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/12292003471?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-center"/></a></span></p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline; font-size: 10pt;"><em>"My sound and songwriting are very eclectic while still attempting to be respectful to the tradition of the music I love. There’s a lot of New Orleans Memphis and Chicago of course. I try to write about what I know., I’ve lived a bit of a crazy life, I look back and sometimes it seems I’ve lived twenty separate lives." <span>(Chris O'Leary, blues and roots world’s most talented unsung heroes / Photo <b>© </b>by Paul Natkin)</span></em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>What do you miss most nowadays from the blues of the past? What are your hopes and fears for the future of?</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">What I miss most about the blues from the past is all about the Artists themselves. There will never be another Cotton, Muddy, Sonny Boy, Walter or Wolf. Like I said, if I want inspiration or music that truly moves me ... my “go to” is a record made almost 50 years ago or sometimes much older. I’m not saying there aren’t artists today that kill on every recording ...they absolutely do, it’s just that I fell in love with the music of the giants of this genre and those are impossible shoes to fill. Maybe it’s the realness. the production, the larger-than-life personalities, the rawness …there’s just something about those records. My hope is that younger generations will fall in love with this music much like I did ... My fear is that they’re not being exposed to Americana is big amongst younger audiences in my opinion Blues should be a bigger part of that. When you talk about American Music Blues is woven into, and provides the bedrock for everything Rock country R&B jazz etc. so if you’re talking Americana. What’s more American than Blues.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>What has been the hardest obstacle for you to overcome as a person and as artist and has this helped you become a better blues musician?</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">For better and worse my service in the Corps has played a large part in who I am as a man and an artist. The physical obstacles left over from old injuries and multiple surgeries have made getting older a lot more challenging in a way those physical challenges led me back to a life as a musician, in that I wasn’t able to physically perform the duties of my previous job anymore, like many other Vets, the scars left from the life I chose as a kid will follow me forever. On the other hand. I’m proud of my service and of being a Marine and thankful for the lifelong friends and many of the experiences that go along with that life, it’s a double-edged sword for sure, Like I mentioned earlier these experience form the basis of who I am now and provide me with a huge pallet to draw from as a songwriter and blues musician.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/12292007456?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/12292007456?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-center"/></a></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><em><span style="text-decoration: underline;">"As a musician the biggest lesson learned is that despite those vast differences of race culture religion and economic conditions. People are people and the joy of music is something we all share, It’s truly transcending." (New York based <span>award-winning </span>Chris O<span>'</span>Leary sings the Blues / <span>Photo <b>© </b>by Paul Natkin)</span></span></em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>What is the impact of Blues on the socio-cultural implications? How do you want the music to affect people?</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">I’m not sure if this answers the question Blues is visceral music ... it’s obviously music to be heard (like all music) but most importantly it’s music to be felt, it’s the tension of one bent note held for an impossibly long time while your ear longs for the resolution but at the same time revels in the suspense, it’s stories of desperation and joy, heartache and victory. They might be stories whose settings and characters are completely unrecognizable. Culturally and economically totally removed from the listener’s own personal experience but at its best, the twists turns and lessons learned strike home and ring true. There are universal themes that transcend, it’s a backbeat and a lowdown dirty shuffle that begs the listener to move, Not everyone is going to relate to every song I write but I just hope that something there hooks them into giving it an honest listen ... then regardless of who you are and where you’re from I think, at the very least I got a shot With some of the tunes on The Hard Line ...I Cry at Night for instance, I’m definitely trying to raise awareness. PTSD and suicide amongst our Veterans are at epidemic proportions and is an issue that absolutely needs more exposure. Without a doubt, it’s an issue that’s important and personal to me. As I see it, I have a platform so with that comes an obligation. I have to say something. It’s an uncomfortable topic but that’s half the problem. If more people know, more can be done to fund, treat and de stigmatize and then maybe a few less suicides.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>What are some of the most important life’s lessons you have learned from your experience as Marine and Musician?</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">In answering this last question, I refer back to the initial question. In the Corps there were some hard lessons learned at a pretty young age. my own mortality being first and foremost, that period of time where a young man is bullet proof, for me, was very short lived. Coming from middle class roots I was exposed to abject poverty and the human condition overseas that was jarring and left a lasting impression. To have any kind of real empathy whatsoever and fully appreciate the things I had I needed to see the world, I’m not saying everyone does, but I definitely did ... I know it’s cliché but it’s true. The worlds a big place! As a musician the biggest lesson learned is that despite those vast differences of race culture religion and economic conditions. People are people and the joy of music is something we all share, It’s truly transcending.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 24pt;"><strong><a href="https://thechrisolearyband.net/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Chris O'Leary - Home</a></strong></span></p>
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<p><span style="text-decoration: underline; font-size: 10pt;"><em>(Chris O'Leary / Photo <b>© </b>by Paul Natkin)</em></span></p>
Q&A with versatile guitarist /vocalist Levan Lomidze of The Blues Cousins, one of the Best Blues Band in Russia
tag:blues.gr,2024-01-26:1982923:BlogPost:491199
2024-01-26T13:00:00.000Z
Michael Limnios Blues Network
https://blues.gr/profile/MichalisLimnios
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span>I believe that soul always plays main role on the blues scene. Technique is very important as a method of expression thou. </span><span>I think that the blues is not just another style of music. It’s something more, wider and stronger, with ability to unite people and survive through the years."</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 24pt;"><strong>Levan Lomidze: The Man And His Blues</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span>In…</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span>I believe that soul always plays main role on the blues scene. Technique is very important as a method of expression thou. </span><span>I think that the blues is not just another style of music. It’s something more, wider and stronger, with ability to unite people and survive through the years."</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 24pt;"><strong>Levan Lomidze: The Man And His Blues</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span>In 2000 the Blues Cousins was awarded the best blues band at “Blues Sur Seine” festival in France among 57 bands from all over the globe. Few weeks later Levan Lomidze (lead guitarist and the singer) was awarded by the Moscow government for the gig –“Blues Against the Drugs”. In 2003 and 2004 the band made two big (three month) tours in USA performing more than 70 gigs and took part in 15 blues festivals in Washington, Idaho , Montana and other. </span>THE BLUES COUSINS are said to be the "Best Blues Band in Moscow, Russia." Interesting! Obviously then, there must be several other blues bands in the city. This could virtually make Moscow a city with a better blues community than many in America. The band, which has been together for many years, consists of <strong>LEVAN LOMIDZE on guitar and lead vocals, SLAVA IGNATOV on drums and background vocals, and SERGEY PATRUSHIEV on bass.</strong> "ALIVE IN THE U.S.A." was recorded live at the Sunbanks Blues Festival, in Grand Coulee, WA, during the bands second trip to America. As is the case with many foreign blues bands, playing and being recorded in the country where the blues was born was a dream come true for the BLUES COUSINS.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/12366401695?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/12366401695?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-center"/></a></span></p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline; font-size: 10pt;"><em>(Photo: Guitarist /vocalist Levan Lomidze, one of the top 10 most honored guitarists in Russian history)</em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span>The Blues Cousins explode on stage with there 12- bar blues/rock, guaranteed to blow listeners away. Considered the hottest blues act in Russia, Blues Cousins features versatile lead guitarist /vocalist Levan Lomidze (among the top 10 most honored guitarists in Russian history) playing riffs reminiscent of Carlos Santana's note-banding stile and Jimi Hendrix's tremolos. </span>Levan Lomidze says: <em>"Now I’m 60 and having huge experience behind I believe that my sound comes first from my emotional state and only after from the guitar and gear. My creative drive comes from my audience. Each gig works as a charger for my battery)."</em></span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://blues.gr/profile/MichalisLimnios" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Interview by Michael Limnios</a></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>What do you learn about yourself from the blues and what does the blues mean to you?</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The structure of the blues, such as the cord progression and scale are very simple. So, it takes big amount of talent and passion to make something interesting out of it. It’s not a kind of music you can learn at the collage. You must contribute some piece of you to become a bluesman. I would call it the wisdom of simplicity, that's what the blues means to me.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>How do you describe your sound and songbook? Where does your creative drive come from?</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Now I’m 60 and having huge experience behind I believe that my sound comes first from my emotional state and only after from the guitar and gear. My creative drive comes from my audience. Each gig works as a charger for my battery).</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>What moment changed your music life the most? What´s been the highlights in your life and career so far?</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">I was born and raised in the USSR. where blues and rock’n roll music were almost banned. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">We had really hard times to get quality Records. And when great BB KING came to Tbilisi (my hometown) in 1978 it became a miracle for me. I was a schoolboy still learning to play the guitar and after I saw mister King performing live, my priorities have changed forever.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Why do you think that the Blues music continues to generate such a devoted following in Russia?</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Russia has huge classical and folk music traditions. Russian audience is very sensitive to music. They have a very delicate taste and gratefully accepts honest and soulful performance.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/12366402081?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/12366402081?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-center"/></a></span></p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline; font-size: 10pt;"><em>"I miss expectations for the new albums from Johnny Winter, BB King, Albert Collins etc... Expectations for something new and unexpected. I hope someday new generation of blues musicians will surprise us with something very new and very dear to us." (Photo: Russian guitarist /vocalist Levan Lomidze)</em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Make an account of the case of the blues in Russia. Which is the most interesting period in local blues scene?</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The most interesting period in Russian blues scene is a summer. Time of open-air festivals attracting thousands of blues fans.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>What do you miss most nowadays from the blues of the past? What are your hopes and fears for the future of?</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">I miss expectations for the new albums from Johnny Winter, BB King, Albert Collins etc... </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Expectations for something new and unexpected. I hope someday new generation of blues musicians will surprise us with something very new and very dear to us.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>What's the balance in music between technique and soul? What is the role of Blues in today’s society?</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">I believe that soul always plays main role on the blues scene. Technique is very important as a method of expression thou. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">I think that the blues is not just another style of music. It’s something more, wider and stronger, with ability to unite people and survive through the years.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>What are some of the most important lessons you have learned from your experience in the music paths?</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">As a beginner I tried to sound like my blues idols. Then I found that it was a dead end. I was trapped, couldn’t move forward. Later I made a decision to become myself on the stage. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">We all are deferent, with deferent temper, deferent accents, deferent attitudes and this diversity is magic and beautiful I said to myself. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">And you know what?! It worked. Every weekend I become the happiest man on earth, as I enter the blues club and see my audience came to see me. Returning home can get no sleep , not because I’m tired but because I’m still hear the chorus: “Hey Hey the Blues is All Right”!</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 24pt;"><strong><a href="http://www.blues-cousins.ru/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Blues Cousins - Home</a></strong></span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/12366402487?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/12366402487?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-center"/></a></span></p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline; font-size: 10pt;"><em>(Photo: The Blues Cousins, c<span>onsidered the hottest blues act in Russia, are </span>LEVAN LOMIDZE on guitar and lead vocals, SLAVA IGNATOV on drums and background vocals, and SERGEY PATRUSHIEV on bass.)</em></span></p>
Q&A with Soul/R&B/Gospel singer Marcel Smith, a deep musical talent, his voice is seductive and alluring
tag:blues.gr,2024-01-15:1982923:BlogPost:491187
2024-01-15T17:30:00.000Z
Michael Limnios Blues Network
https://blues.gr/profile/MichalisLimnios
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><em>"The impact of soul music on socio-cultural implications has been profound, contributing to the advancement of civil rights, cultural expression, musical innovation, and global cultural exchange. My hope is for Soul music to continue being a powerful force in shaping society and influencing cultural attitudes and movements."</em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 24pt;"><strong>Marcel Smith: Soul From My Soul…</strong></span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><em>"The impact of soul music on socio-cultural implications has been profound, contributing to the advancement of civil rights, cultural expression, musical innovation, and global cultural exchange. My hope is for Soul music to continue being a powerful force in shaping society and influencing cultural attitudes and movements."</em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 24pt;"><strong>Marcel Smith: Soul From My Soul</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Whenever soul dynamo Marcel Smith begins to sing, he commands the attention of anyone within earshot. There’s an obviously deep musical talent at work, but there is more importantly an authenticity and sincerity that captures people’s minds. <strong>That has never been more evident than on From My Soul (2023), his second album for Little Village Foundation.</strong> Combining soul, gospel and R&B, Smith’s voice is seductive and alluring, piquing interest with the anticipation that listeners just might find a secret and comforting message being sung expressly for them. It’s the believability factor, and Smith’s got it. From My Soul features five songs co-written by Smith and a fistful of others that he makes his own from the very get-go, including songs from the likes of Jimmy Liggins, Willie Nelson and the Bee Gees. <span style="font-size: 10pt;"><em>(<span style="text-decoration: underline;">Marcel Smith / </span></em></span><span style="text-decoration: underline; font-size: 10pt;"><em>Photo by Bob Hakins)</em></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/12358250257?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/12358250257?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-center"/></a></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Producer Christoffer “Kid” Andersen realized the intuitive power in Smith’s music when he first started working with him several years ago. Smith knows that making a connection with the audience members is what wins them over. He simply follows his intuition and passion. The approach was born of an early interest in gospel quartets. Smith learned from some of the best by studying the Soul Stirrers, the Blind Boys of Alabama, the Mighty Clouds of Joy and the Dixie Hummingbirds. Gospel veteran Willie Washington heard him singing in church as a 15-year-old and within a year invited him to join his band, the WD Gospel Singers, in 1994. Smith’s music is more about a participatory journey than a simple sound experience. His sympathetic understanding of the power of the songs story combined with impassioned vocals is an intoxicating mix that sets his performances apart.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong><a href="https://blues.gr/profile/MichalisLimnios" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Interview by Michael Limnios</a> </strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em>Special Thanks: Kevin Johnson (Proud Papa PR)</em></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>How has the Soul and Gospel music influenced your views of the world?</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Both genres significantly shaped my perspective. Growing up in the 70s and coming of age in the 80s as a child of the mid-60s, Gospel and Soul music deeply permeated my formative years. Timeless classics such as "A Change Is Gonna Come" by Sam Cooke, "What's Going On" by Marvin Gaye, "I'll Take You There" and "Respect Yourself" by the Staple Singers, "The Mighty High" by the Mighty Clouds of Joy, and "We Are the World" by U.S.A. For Africa, played a pivotal role in elevating my awareness, revealing the profound narratives woven into each song. These musical works shed light on the human experience, fostering faith, hope, and addressing themes of love, charity, and hate. While there are numerous other impactful songs, these examples from my lifetime have empowered me to empathize with the less fortunate, uplift others, advocate for change, and champion justice.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Currently you’ve one release with Little Village. How did that relationship come about? Do you have any interesting stories about the making of the new album “From My Soul"?</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The influence of the late Roy Tyler (Gospel Hummingbirds/New Direction) and Rick Estrin of the Nightcats played a pivotal role in introducing me to Jim Pugh. Aware of his remarkable career and keyboard artistry, I first met him in San Jose, California. Our paths intersected on local shows alongside Jim, Christoffer (Kid) Andersen, and Rick Estrin. This connection eventually led to my evolving relationship with Little Village, culminating in the collaborative effort on my debut solo project for Little Village, "Everybody Needs Love". <span style="text-decoration: underline; font-size: 10pt;"><em>(Marcel Smith / Photo by Bob Hakins)</em></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/12358250271?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/12358250271?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-center"/></a></span></p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline; font-size: 10pt;"><em>"Understanding the spirit, music, and the meaning of life is a deeply personal and subjective experience that can vary greatly from person to person. However, I can offer my general perspective."</em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>What moment changed your life the most?</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Losing my father on September 19, 2019, and my mother on September 30, 2021, just two years and two weeks apart, was a profound blow. I shared a deep bond with them, and as the oldest among my siblings, my parents were my greatest supporters in my musical endeavors. I used to seek their input and valued their honest feedback on my original songs, as well as when selecting songs for recordings or concerts. Their absence is deeply felt, and I long for their presence to provide me with their invaluable feedback on "From My Soul."</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>What´s been the highlights in your life and career so far?</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Watching my two adult daughters as they impressively navigate through life truly inspires me. I love them dearly. One of the greatest moments in my career was the opportunity to perform on the legendary Rhythm and Blues Cruise (#39) in October 2023. It was an incredible experience to network and share the stage with numerous talented artists and meet remarkable personalities. Additionally, the release of "From My Soul" was on the LRBC in the Mexican Riviera. This was an especially thrilling highlight for me.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>What do you miss most nowadays from the music of the past?</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">I long for the classic "flat-footed" singers of yesteryear. Whether they're smooth crooners or intense shouters, there's something special about their style. While I know that such vocalists still exist, it feels like there aren't as many these days. Samara Joy has emerged as one of my new favorites from this generation, as she exudes a Sarah Vaughn vibe while incorporating her beautifully unique style.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span><strong>What are your hopes and fears for the future of?</strong></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">I sincerely hope that genuine vocal artistry doesn't succumb to artificial computerized manipulation, as there's a certain warmth and conviction that only a true artist can bring to the forefront. </span><span style="text-decoration: underline; font-size: 10pt;"><em>(Marcel Smith / Photo by William Henderson)</em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/12358250452?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/12358250452?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-center"/></a></span></p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline; font-size: 10pt;"><em>"Throughout the years, I've come to realize that my musical journey isn't defined by chart-topping hits or widespread recognition. Instead, it revolves around conveying a meaningful message to a vibrant and diverse community, fostering a music environment that is uplifting, enjoyable, and thought provoking."</em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>If you could change one thing in the musical world and it would become a reality, what would that be?</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">I would ensure that every person, regardless of their background or financial means, has access to music education and opportunities for musical expression. Music has the power to inspire, unite, and bring joy, and by ensuring universal access to music education and resources, we can unlock the potential of countless individuals who may not otherwise have had the opportunity to explore and develop their musical talents. This could lead to a richer, more diverse musical landscape and bring the myriad benefits of music to a wider segment of the population.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>What is the impact of Soul music on the socio-cultural implications? How do you want the music to affect people?</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The impact of soul music on socio-cultural implications has been profound, contributing to the advancement of civil rights, cultural expression, musical innovation, and global cultural exchange.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">My hope is for Soul music to continue being a powerful force in shaping society and influencing cultural attitudes and movements.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>What are some of the most important lessons you have learned from your experience in the music paths?</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Throughout the years, I've come to realize that my musical journey isn't defined by chart-topping hits or widespread recognition. Instead, it revolves around conveying a meaningful message to a vibrant and diverse community, fostering a music environment that is uplifting, enjoyable, and thought provoking.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>John Coltrane said "My music is the spiritual expression of what I am...". How do you understand: spirit, music, and meaning of life? </strong> <span style="text-decoration: underline; font-size: 10pt;"><em>(Marcel Smith / Photo by Bob Cosman)</em></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/12358251069?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/12358251069?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-right"/></a>Understanding the spirit, music, and the meaning of life is a deeply personal and subjective experience that can vary greatly from person to person. However, I can offer my general perspective.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Understanding the spirit, music, and the meaning of life is a deeply individual journey that often involves introspection, exploration, and the pursuit of personal growth and fulfillment.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">It can be shaped by cultural, philosophical, and religious influences, as well as by the unique experiences and perspectives of each individual.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">As I sing, I try to connect with the audience as we are collectively in the space ushering in a musical spirit that elevates us together. As I sing, I strive to engage the audience, creating a shared experience that raises our spirits through music.</span></p>
<p></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 24pt;"><strong><a href="https://littlevillagefoundation.com/marcel-smith-from-my-soul/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Marcel Smith / Little Village Foundation</a></strong></span></p>
Q&A with multitalented Dutch artist René van Commenée, creating music, (sound) art objects, theatrical performances, and pyro technical spectacles
tag:blues.gr,2023-12-27:1982923:BlogPost:490921
2023-12-27T18:30:00.000Z
Michael Limnios Blues Network
https://blues.gr/profile/MichalisLimnios
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><em>"Art, whether it’s music, visual, dance, film; any form is important in our lives. Early humans made art already; look at the wall paintings found in caves, or the flutes that were found. I don’t think we can survive without art. There are many people who think they can, a subject more and more heard in society now rightwing politics are becoming stronger and stronger. They think it is a hobby and there should be no more funding from society…</em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><em>"Art, whether it’s music, visual, dance, film; any form is important in our lives. Early humans made art already; look at the wall paintings found in caves, or the flutes that were found. I don’t think we can survive without art. There are many people who think they can, a subject more and more heard in society now rightwing politics are becoming stronger and stronger. They think it is a hobby and there should be no more funding from society there."</em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 24pt;"><strong>René van Commenée: Keep Your Lane</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">René van Commenée is a visual Sound Artist from The Netherlands who is active creating music, (sound) art objects, theatrical performances, soundtracks for theatre, pyro technical spectacles, television and film. Under the project name Mr. Averell he creates text-based recordings and performances. Talking Elephant Records will be released the new 13-tracks album by David Jackson and René van Commenée titled <strong>‘Keep Your Lane’ which is due for release in February 2024</strong>. Album's single ‘Gateway’ was inspired by the mood invoked by a Christmas single ‘All You Wish Yourself’ by Kaprekar’s Constant, a band that David has worked with regularly. David had written a little march Coda (never used by the band) which he revisited during preparations for the full album. When he sent this to Rene he created a completely new piece. <span>René's artworks were exhibited in galleries and museums in The Netherlands and abroad. In collaboration with Dutch sound designer and master engineer Martijn Alsters he created a huge Sound Forest for the international agricultural fair ‘De Floriade’ which was playing 24/7 for 7 months.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/12336935453?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/12336935453?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-center"/></a></span></p>
<p style="text-align: right;"><span style="text-decoration: underline; font-size: 10pt;"><em>(René van Commenée / Photo © by Maarten Scherpenzee)</em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Together with his longtime companion Lieven Slabbinck he created quite some spectacles including a huge mechanical pyro orchestra for the city of Antwerp. As a composer René wrote an ensemble concert based on a self written story for the official opening of a ‘Natura 2000’ area in Belgium. The concert took place on three stages in the water holding the ensemble of classical music, tap dancer and a storyteller. Besides these “festival artworks”, René works as a musician and producer. He has released several solo CD’s and collaborated on projects of other internationally acclaimed musicians, composers like Judge Smith, Mike Garson, John Ellis, Hossam Ramzy, Sandip Bhattacharya, Willem Tanke. With David Jackson he has a longtime relationship in creating and performing music which resulted in the internationally acclaimed live-album ‘Batteries Included’. They both worked on several albums from Judge Smith and the German band ‘Unsere Zeit’. Always interested in Non-Western music he made a serious study of the Indian Tabla & Egyptian Riq. For a long time, René has been a Music Production & Technology teacher at several Art Schools and Training Centres.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong><a href="https://blues.gr/profile/MichalisLimnios" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Interview by Michael Limnios</a></strong></span></p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline; font-size: 12pt;"><em>Special Thanks: René van Commenée & Stevie Horton (Iconic Music & Media)</em></span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>How has the Music and Visual Art influenced your views of the world and the journeys you’ve taken?</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">That’s what we call an opening question, phew! Musical and Visual Art has been very important in my live from a very early age. I remember very well that at the age of about four, I DJ’ed violin concerts for the family. My parents had a gypsy record of a violin player and I wanted to listen to this over and over and I mimed being the musician. When I was a bit older, I started copying the front cover as a pencil drawing and I must have done this a hundred times. Although I didn’t grow up in an ‘artist’s family’ from my mother’s side, there is a creative connection. The famous Dutch & Paris painter Wim Oepts was her uncle. I have a nephew from my mother’s side of the family who is a painter too. Without realising, we both had works at the same art shows in Amsterdam a few times and surprisingly we met each other at the opening. I too was very lucky that my ‘grandmother’, the 2nd godmother (third mother) of my father, was a very creative woman. She painted, she played the piano, she sang and always wore artistic clothes and glasses. She lived just around the corner in Amsterdam and I just loved being there, so I went almost daily after school. She taught me drawing, painting and playing the piano and also encouraged me to look at artworks. I remember her as a vital person in my development and for the fact that art in any form became such a vital element in my own life. If you’re used to listening and watching art so closely and able to adapt what you see and hear with full concentration, it affects the way you look around you. I am very glad that I am still able to look at the world in wonder and I mean this in the positive way! Isn’t it a miracle how trees and plants grow — how honeybees are a huge and perfect collective organism! And also, how has it become possible that I can type this on a computer and send it to you! My car starts by the push of a button or turn on a key and while I am sitting just a few centimetres above the road it ‘flies’ me around from A to B in no time at all! It is sad that we have too much human generated light in the nighttime nowadays, but if you are in a dark place watch the sky and be amazed about the million stars and planets out there!</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">We live in dark difficult times, but I can tell you that this artistic way of being alive is very helpful for staying positive and for getting some relief.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/12336931062?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/12336931062?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-center"/></a></span></p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline; font-size: 10pt;"><em>"I think every artist wants to emotionally affect people. This can be in more than one way; I want to touch them deep within but also hope they just enjoy it and it makes them happy; and to drag them out of their daily routine and to take a moment to forget the cruel world outside." (Photo: <span>René van Commenée is a visual Sound Artist from The Netherlands who is active creating music, sound art objects, theatrical performances, soundtracks for theatre, pyro technical spectacles, television and film</span>)</em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>How do you describe your artwork and music philosophy? Where does your creative drive come from?</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Interesting question! For both my visual artwork and my music (and my audio artwork, which is a cumulation of the two disciplines), I think freedom is the necessary basis for creation. Freedom is necessary in a few forms to create art, whether its is audio or visual: freedom to make what you want without any restrictions: and in practice the freedom not to be disturbed by anything from real life such as daily routines like shopping — or having to pay your taxes, etc.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">I like to start with a blank canvas and just start without even a basic idea. Most interesting about the creation of art is that the work responds to you and it becomes a conversation — you act and react. If you put a line on a piece of paper the line will respond to you and if you’re open to this, the line will tell you the next step. What I say here applies to visual art and music.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">In the case of ‘Keep your Lane’, the new album with maestro David Jackson, it worked in the same way. David sent me an (old) ideas in a very basic recorded way, I responded on that by adding some things and/or changing some tracks. After sending it off to David again, he responded to that in return and slowly a piece of art was growing. And it was the same the other way around when I sent a basic piece of my own to David. At a certain stage in the process we ended up with an enormous file which included a huge amount of audio tracks. Then my task was to sort it all out, balance it or even recreate a new piece of music from it. All of this is only possible when you sit down, open yourself up to “receive” the music being played and let it talk to you. Mind you, it does take some years of experience to do this: what you are starting to hear is the cacophony of all recorded tracks and you need to be able to zoom in to certain parts and filter out the rest. The way I produce is a kind of real-time mixing to start with; while listening to what we’ve done, I start ‘playing with the mixing desk’ to hear what is developing. This way I hear what the music is telling me and which moments are important and which parts must play a key role in the piece. Then I start the real mixing process and slowly go in deeper and deeper ending up with ‘micro editing’ — which means I start working in the detail of microns of seconds. My experience is that this way of working gives a deep layered array of expression which makes it interesting to listen to the work repeatedly and always discovering new things. And while my creative drive comes from an urge to create, I really can’t without this process, my creative drive IS to make work that you can listen to over and over — or keep looking at again and again.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/12336931462?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/12336931462?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-center"/></a></span></p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline; font-size: 10pt;"><em>"To be honest I don’t miss anything. There are still very good composers and musicians out there. I believe that the artists with a unique signature, you know ‘the one of a kinds’ from the 1960s and 1970s like Hammill, Beefheart, Bowie, Fripp, Jackson (!!), Bush, etc., etc., — they might vanish but new unique artists will always come up." <span>(René van Commenée & David Jackson / Photo © by Dik Nicolai / All Rights Reserved)</span></em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Currently you’ve one release with David Jackson. How did that relationship come about?</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">As a young teenager I loved music, it was the thing I lived for and with some friends we tried to discover as many artists and bands as possible. Like my best friend Peter at that time, I had an older brother who brought in records from his friends. Many of these bands were Prog Rock (or Symphonic Rock as we called it in The Netherlands) and it aroused my interest very much. Being too young to have enough money to buy most of these albums (with great artwork too!) We copied the records to audio cassette and played them over and over on small audio-cassette players (and MONO most of the time!). This way I heard Pink Floyd’s ‘Atom Heart Mother’: I was 8 or 9 years old at that time! Believe me: I was stunned and stopped listening to children’s songs immediately (apart from listening out of politeness when my grandmother gave me a children’s choir album). But this particular event, listening in secret to the Pink Floyd album which we had stolen from my friend’s brother room, was essential to everything that happened later.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">I was just began playing the drums at that time (after I had failed to learn the piano because of being too lazy to learn music scores). Progressive Rock was not only interesting music, but the musicianship was also amazing, and I wanted to learn exactly that.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Growing older I separated out the artists and bands I liked the most and one of those was that unique British band with a Dutch name ‘Van der Graaf Generator’. (And I am still teaching them how to pronounce that properly!)</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Well, I don’t need to explain that one of the icons of the band was David Jackson. I don’t remember the exact occasion it was that we met — with him as the well-known amazing double horns player — and I as a young music lover. He seemed to be very kind and reachable, so years later I thought: “let’s do exactly that, I try to reach him!” The reason was that I had not heard of him playing for quite a while (and only as brilliant guest appearances on Hammill’s albums), so I thought of trying to get him to The Netherlands to play a solo concert. It then transpired that he was teaching for a living for a while and had even been a lorry driver! Hence the ‘silence’. I wrote him; he called me; it clicked; he came with his lovely wife Sue to Utrecht and right there the magic started. He then discovered that I played drums and percussion (professionally), so he asked me to join him! I refused, so he persuaded me to join in just part of the show then, so I couldn’t refuse. A duo was born!</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/12336949662?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/12336949662?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-center"/></a></span></p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline; font-size: 10pt;"><em>"Musical and Visual Art has been very important in my live from a very early age. I remember very well that at the age of about four, I DJ’ed violin concerts for the family. My parents had a gypsy record of a violin player and I wanted to listen to this over and over and I mimed being the musician. When I was a bit older, I started copying the front cover as a pencil drawing and I must have done this a hundred times." <span>(René van Commenée & David Jackson / Photo © by Dik Nicolai / All Rights Reserved)</span></em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Do you have any interesting stories about the making of the new album Keep Your Lane?</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">In the first place it is interesting to work with David and not the least important part is: it’s fun to work with him! We regularly have extended telephone conversations and there’s always a good laugh! I believe we understand each other very well and both want to make the best work possible — but we never ever forget that it should be fun to make music too. We want to delight both the listener and ourselves at the same time.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">For me personally the most interesting moment during the process of ‘Keep Your Lane’ was when David told me he wanted to create a re-recording of the iconic ‘Pioneers over c’. Was I was interested to do this! Ha! Of course, I was! It is something very special when you are asked to be involved with a piece of music from the time when you were a young fan of those exact same musicians who wrote and originally performed it. ‘Pioneers’ is one of those great VdGG works I loved listening too over and over when I was young, but I didn’t remember it very clearly. I decided I wanted to start with the re-creation as fresh as possible. It was necessary to re-listen to the piece, because it is complex and we needed to get the timings right. Luckily, we were able to do this quite quickly, so I could avoid listening to the original too much. Working on the piece was a great adventure and when I suggested that we needed a really good bass player for this track and proposed to ask Colin Edwin, David heartily agreed. DJ was able to get in touch with him because he knew Colin from his additions to the wonderful ‘Twinscapes album’. We were both excited that Colin agreed and jumped on board. It all worked so well that we decided to do another piece with the three of us which became ‘Pinball Potter’ — an homage to Nic Potter, the late and great bass player of VdGG and a wonderful friend to us both.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">A nice anecdote: in ‘Pioneers’ we’ve recorded a part with a cool jazz feel, I recorded piano there and decided an acoustic bass was needed there too. It took me quite a while to find out, practise and record this myself and I was very proud on the result. But when we had Colin willing to do the track’s bass lines it would have been silly to keep my part in the jazz section, so I needed to get rid of it. A very painful moment! But now we have a professional doing a superb job there, so I can live with it, ha ha.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>What do you miss most nowadays from the music of the past? What are your hopes and fears for the future of? </strong> <span style="text-decoration: underline; font-size: 10pt;"><em>(Photo: René van Commenée / <span>All Rights Reserved</span>)</em></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/12336931879?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/12336931879?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-right"/></a>To be honest I don’t miss anything. There are still very good composers and musicians out there. I believe that the artists with a unique signature, you know ‘the one of a kinds’ from the 1960s and 1970s like Hammill, Beefheart, Bowie, Fripp, Jackson (!!), Bush, etc., etc., — they might vanish but new unique artists will always come up. The only problem here is that since everybody can now easily produce music and drop it onto the Worlds Enormous Wide Web and companies just don’t support these artists anymore — they choose the big money — so it is now more and more difficult to grab attention.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">And then there is AI… each period has its developments; we must wait and see what this means for us creators, I don’t have a clue yet. When drum machines came, people thought drummers would be out of work, but it never happened, drum machines became a different instrument, AI will probably too.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>If you could change one thing in the musical world and it would become a reality, what would that be?</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Ha Ha! Easy answer I am afraid — that we should be paid a decent percentage for our hard work. Nothing has been changed since they discovered the commercial potential of rock & pop music in the 1970s. Let’s be clear: Talking Elephant Records is the fairest Record Company to get a deal with, so I am more than happy with them, but nowadays the shares from streaming businesses are extremely unbalanced. And I think many companies dealing with the copyrights aren’t quite fair either. I still have a big dispute with mine and the way they acted with a huge project I did is amazingly unfair. Can you believe it: 24/7 played music over 7 month’s and not one penny for the composer! All the money from the ‘smaller’ ones goes to the extremely popular ones; and they already earn so much!</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>What moment changed your life the most? What´s been the highlights in your life and career so far?</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">I wasn’t a very happy teenager (who is?) and wanted to leave school and home on a young age. I met a great painter (again named Peter!), a very nice and inspiring figure who offered me a room to live in his house. I did and lived a few years there which was a crucial time for the rest of my live. I watched him painting his huge Magic Realism Paintings, listened to his records mainly from the Canterbury Scene and talked and talked about Art & Music. He persuaded me to record my own music which I made possible by using Sound on Sound Technique on Tape recorders and make my own visual art. We did things with photography; we created the most amazing food and well, of course, there were some drugs around. This whole period set the pace in the right direction of what I wanted to do with my life and was so called ‘life changing’.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/12336936093?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/12336936093?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-center"/></a></span></p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline; font-size: 10pt;"><em>"For both my visual artwork and my music (and my audio artwork, which is a cumulation of the two disciplines), I think freedom is the necessary basis for creation. Freedom is necessary in a few forms to create art, whether its is audio or visual: freedom to make what you want without any restrictions: and in practice the freedom not to be disturbed by anything from real life such as daily routines like shopping — or having to pay your taxes, etc." <span>(Photo: René van Commenée / All Rights Reserved)</span></em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>What is the impact of music on the socio-cultural implications? How do you want the music to affect people?</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Art, whether it’s music, visual, dance, film; any form is important in our lives. Early humans made art already; look at the wall paintings found in caves, or the flutes that were found. I don’t think we can survive without art. There are many people who think they can, a subject more and more heard in society now rightwing politics are becoming stronger and stronger. They think it is a hobby and there should be no more funding from society there. But try imagining a society without art: this also means no music on the radio whilst doing your job! No films on your TV screen! No photographs of your family on the wall! I recently read that there are societies who don’t have a word for art because it simply is incorporated in their lives! I must research more about this, very interesting!</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">To answer your 2nd question; I think every artist wants to emotionally affect people. This can be in more than one way; I want to touch them deep within but also hope they just enjoy it and it makes them happy; and to drag them out of their daily routine and to take a moment to forget the cruel world outside. At the same time, with my Mr. Averell projects for instance, I try to find new ways of music which stimulate the listener to expand their thoughts and give them the opportunity to take the time to learn what the music is telling them and learn to listen to things they never heard before. Art can take time to be appreciated and to be loved. Love at first site is not always the best!</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>What are some of the most important lessons you have learned from your experience in the music/art paths?</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">LISTENING! And again: LISTENING! Technical virtuosity isn’t the most important thing to create good music. If for instance a piece of music asks for one cymbal hit, then this is what the percussionist should do. Clearly, the more technical skills you have the better; the best musicians are the ones who are technically excellent — but they are virtuosos too in listening — and do respect silence. For 12 years I was very serious and dedicated in studying North Indian Classical Music on the Indian Tabla. This was an absolute eye opener in understanding the art of music and rhythm in particular. And even though I don’t really play the Indian Tabla anymore (if you want to do this right, it should be the only thing you do live), but it is still the foundation of the way I think and work in music — and maybe even in my Visual Art.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">TELL A STORY!</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">To keep it with drummers/percussionists, a few examples from musicians who are amazingly good in this and my personal hero’s: Joe Morello, Ferenc Nemeth, Joey Baron, Bill Bruford, Giovanni Hidalgo, Sandip Bhattacharya to name a few.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">As stated earlier in this interview it works the same way for me — as I’m telling stories in my mixing and production work.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 24pt;"><strong><a href="https://commenee.nl/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">René van Commenée - Home</a></strong></span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/12336953664?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/12336953664?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-center"/></a></span></p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline; font-size: 10pt;"><em>(Photo: René van Commenée / <span>All Rights Reserved</span>)</em></span></p>
Q&A with legendary musician/visual artist Lee Oskar, world-renowned for his iconic role as a pioneer of funk/jazz music
tag:blues.gr,2023-07-20:1982923:BlogPost:490321
2023-07-20T08:30:00.000Z
Michael Limnios Blues Network
https://blues.gr/profile/MichalisLimnios
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><em>"I hope that any art form speaks for itself. With music, because it’s such a universal language that touches and moves people all over the world, for all the ages of time, I hope that people can experience the music purely. I know that music can open people’s eyes and open people’s hearts to all kinds of racial and socio-cultural implications and realizations, so I would hope for the best in humanity in this way."…</em></span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><em>"I hope that any art form speaks for itself. With music, because it’s such a universal language that touches and moves people all over the world, for all the ages of time, I hope that people can experience the music purely. I know that music can open people’s eyes and open people’s hearts to all kinds of racial and socio-cultural implications and realizations, so I would hope for the best in humanity in this way."</em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 24pt;"><strong>Lee Oskar: Music, Art & Dreams We Share</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Internationally renowned harmonica virtuoso, composer, producer, manufacturer and visual artist LEE OSKAR will release his latest album, SHE SAID MAHALO on September 15, 2023 through his record label, Dreams We Share TM, a subsidiary of Lee Oskar Productions.</strong> She Said Mahalo was composed, produced, and illustrated by Lee Oskar, recorded and mixed by Brandon Busch, and mastered by Robert Rice. Presented as a DigiPack CD and album, She Said Mahalo features package layout and design by Dmitri Antos, liner notes by Keri Oskar and original artwork by Lee Oskar. The ten-track album of Lee Oskar’s original compositions includes rich instrumentations featuring Oskar’s signature harmonica and many other outstanding musicians. His 2022 album, Never Forget's nine largely instrumental tunes are sequenced like a soundtrack. The son of a holocaust survivor, Never Forget is Oskar's musical memoir - Passages Through Music - telling his journey, his and his family's story -- but also humanity's story. Danish born Lee Oskar is a world-renowned harmonica virtuoso, composer, producer, visual artist, musical explorer and manufacturer of Lee Oskar Harmonicas. Oskar shares his signature music with loyal fans around the globe, featuring new arrangements, innovative compositions and well-loved hits.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/12157431289?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/12157431289?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-center"/></a></span></p>
<p style="text-align: right;"><span style="text-decoration: underline; font-size: 10pt;"><em>(Lee Oskar / <span>Photo © by Michael Weintrob)</span></em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">In Oskar’s iconic role as a founding member and lead harmonica player for the pioneer funk/jazz band, WAR, Lee and his colleagues composed and recorded such hits as “Low Rider,” “Spill the Wine,” “Cisco Kid,” “The World is a Ghetto” and many other arrangements that gained them international renown for over three decades (1969-1993). Oskar and his original band mates continue performing today as the LowRider Band. Lee also performs his individual compositions locally and around the world with some of the most outstanding musicians selected from the Pacific Northwest as Lee Oskar & Friends. Over his lifetime, Lee Oskar has been dedicated to spreading his love of harmonica playing and music with people all around the world. As a harmonica manufacturer since 1983, he created an exclusive harmonica system designed for music lovers of all kinds, levels, genres and styles. Lee considers the harmonica to be a natural instrument for music lovers of all ages, backgrounds, skill levels, and musical tastes. So, it has been a pleasure for Lee to provide Lee Oskar Harmonicas to Playing for Change students and aspiring musicians and share a mutual commitment to unite people through the universal language of music.</span></p>
<p></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong><a href="http://blues.gr/profile/MichalisLimnios" target="_self">Interview by Michael Limnios</a> </strong><em>Special Thanks: Lee Oskar & Leipziger/KL Productions</em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>How has music and art (general) influenced your views of the world and the journeys you’ve taken?</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><em><strong>Lee Oskar:</strong></em> For me, as both a musical and visual artist, I see the world and the journeys that I have taken through the lens of an artist. These colors my views of everything! Whatever I am experiencing in life and the world around me, my creative nature processes it and turns it into an art form, whether it’s through my compositions and performances, or my paintings, or even my producing of other talents.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Where does your creative drive come from? What characterizes your music and visual art philosophy?</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><em><strong>Lee Oskar:</strong></em> My creative drive is part of my DNA… I was born this way and have fostered my creativity since I was a young child through artistic expression. My music and visual art philosophies revolve around being aware, attuned and attentive to the world around me and within me, to be as much in the moment and in touch with my own thoughts and feelings, which in turn drives my artistic expression. My art is my memoir.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/9894656454?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/9894656454?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-center"/></a></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><em><u>"I hope the message of my music is that we, as humans, have so much in common that goes far beyond our differences, and we can find peace through music, the universal language that bonds humanity together. If I could change one thing in the world it would be that everyone could find their niche in life, and something that they love to do. I think this would lead to lasting peace among people if people had internal peace." (Various photos by Lee Oskar's life and</u> <u>career</u><u> / <span>© </span>Lee Oskar's archive)</u></em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>How do you think that you have grown as an artist since you first started and what has remained the same?</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span><strong><em>Lee Oskar: </em></strong></span>What has stayed the same over all these years is that I always put my heart and soul into my music and artistic expressions. My pure love for the music has always remained a constant.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">What has changed comes out of my personal growth as an artist: my musical reflexes have further developed, and I’ve grown musically in so many different territories. I’ve evolved as I have explored.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">On the business side, I have come a long, long way in that I am now much more control of my destiny and my business than I was when under professional management in the WAR days. I can now be completely involved in my business creatively speaking and from both the business and artistic perspectives, this is ideal for me. I’m involved in my own destiny and I love what I do.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>What moment changed your music life the most? </strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span><strong><em>Lee Oskar: </em></strong></span>The moment that changed my music life the most was when I got in with Eric Burdon and WAR. The culture of WAR was a perfect fit for me. We had a form, but that form changed in the moment. This is very much in sync with how I play music. So when I was a young man to have connected with a superstar like Eric Burdon who allowed me to play the way I naturally play—it was heaven.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span><strong>What’s the balance in music between technique skills and soul/emotions?</strong></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span><strong><em>Lee Oskar: </em></strong></span>As for the balance in music between technical skills and soul/emotions, in my music, my emotions have to be upfront and I have to trust my reflexes. Because I always play in the moment, It’s not going to work if I am thinking. The logic will get in the way of the music. Surely, my playing is supported in the background by technical skills and the thinking side, but the soul/emotions are in the driver’s seat. It’s the opposite business-wise, with my emotions and soul side taking a back seat to my integrity, logic and rationality.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/12157434657?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/12157434657?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-center"/></a></span></p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline; font-size: 10pt;"><em>"The moment that changed my music life the most was when I got in with Eric Burdon and WAR. The culture of WAR was a perfect fit for me. We had a form, but that form changed in the moment. This is very much in sync with how I play music. So when I was a young man to have connected with a superstar like Eric Burdon who allowed me to play the way I naturally play—it was heaven." (Photos: <span>original artworks</span> <span>© </span>by Lee Oskar / "<span>She Said Mahalo" album/booklet was illustrated by Lee Oskar, 2023</span>)</em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Your new album titled "She Said Mahalo". Tell me a few things about it? What do you love most from this forthcoming album?</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span><strong><em>Lee Oskar: </em></strong></span>She Said Mahalo is extension of a phase of musical compositions that I have always done naturally—based on positive energy with upbeat melodies and hook lines. It felt particularly good to come up with She Said Mahalo after my recent release of Never Forget—my musical memoir—which took me to a very deep and much heavier place. She Said Mahalo truly represents a release of feel-good, happy energy that also brings in the richness of this stage of my life.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>40th Anniversary of Lee Oskar Harmonicas. Why do you think that Lee Oskar Harmonicas continues to generate such a devoted following?</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong><em>Lee Oskar: </em></strong>We began by making the right product being made the right way in the first place forty years ago, and we are still making the same high-quality product! Our products have stood the test of time, which is due to more than one hundred years of experience and manufacturing excellence of Tombo Manufacturing as a factory, paired with my vision and understanding to make a great harmonica. This has been a perfect collaboration made of Tombo’s expertise and guidance and my ambitions, excitement and perspective. People all over the world choose Lee Oskar Harmonicas for their superb quality, consistency and excellence.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">As artists, we absorb and see things within us and in the world around us, and it’s our responsibility to express it. So when I am creating, composing or playing music, or painting, it’s something bigger than what I can take credit for—representing my spirit, my soul and my heart. I see myself as a vehicle to share what’s inside with the world outside of me.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/12157433879?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/12157433879?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-center"/></a></span></p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline; font-size: 10pt;"><em>"As for the balance in music between technical skills and soul/emotions, in my music, my emotions have to be upfront and I have to trust my reflexes. Because I always play in the moment, It’s not going to work if I am thinking. The logic will get in the way of the music. Surely, my playing is supported in the background by technical skills and the thinking side, but the soul/emotions are in the driver’s seat. It’s the opposite business-wise, with my emotions and soul side taking a back seat to my integrity, logic and rationality." <span>(Photo: Harmonica virtuoso, composer, producer, manufacturer and visual artist, Lee Oskar)</span></em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Which meetings have been the most important experiences? What was the best advice anyone ever gave you?</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong><em>Lee Oskar:</em></strong> I have been very fortunate over my lifetime to have had amazing experiences that have helped define and shape me professionally and personally. Though there are many, one that stands out in particular is a meeting with the former manager, Steve Gold, who said something powerful to me that has stuck with me through all these years. He said, “You only earn what you know how to claim.” It sounds like a very simple concept, but it is actually quite profound. Through my journey as an artist, I have also grown and evolved as an entrepreneur and business leader and this idea has been of great meaning to me as I built my many different businesses under the umbrella of Lee Oskar Enterprises.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Another memorable moment in my career was when I was touring with WAR, and Ray Charles was the opening act for us at Shea Stadium in New York. Yes, that’s right, he opened for us, which blew my mind as Ray Charles was such an icon to me and to the world. At the time, I was quite young and “green” or naive. When I heard his performance, I was completely shocked by how terrible the sound system was, and naturally felt awful for him and concerned for all of us in WAR. My wife at the time gave excellent advice and encouragement to me by reminding me to not make the fans suffer, and to give my all despite the inadequate sound. Later, after the show, I saw the promoter George Wein along with Ray Charles and his people, along with the WAR management, and bluntly said that the sound system “sucked.” I think people were a little taken aback by my brashness (and honesty) especially in front of Wein, but I felt vindicated when he answered back, “You know, the kid is right!”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">I have another story from back in the ‘70s, a time when we had quite a huge fan base all around the world, including Mexico. We had a sold-out show in a big bull arena there, and when we arrived, we discovered that the promoter had run away with the money. There were thousands and thousands of fans waiting to hear us play and no sound system. Someone offered to bring a small sound system, that was like the kind you’d hear in a hotel lounge, so the show went on. The fans still went wild even with such an inferior sound system, but these days that could never happen as music lovers are far more sophisticated in terms of the quality of how music should sound. The big lesson here for me professionally was to always check the credibility of the business people involved, confirm and verify every detail.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/9894779086?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/9894779086?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-center"/></a></span></p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline; font-size: 10pt;"><em>"As for hopes and dreams, I am hopeful that my new record label, Dreams We Share, will continue to expand and touch people all over the world with my original music as well as the music from extraordinarily talented musicians who I have the honor of producing, such as Takahiro Miyazaki, David Rotundo, and Moses Concas." (Lee Oskar performing with WAR, 1970 / Photo © by Michael Parrish)</em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Are there any memories from gigs, jams, open acts and studio sessions which you’d like to share with us?</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><em><strong>Lee Oskar:</strong></em> I’ve been so lucky to have had such rich and memorable experiences throughout my musical career covering more than five decades.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">One highlight I’d like to share was when we (Eric Burdon and WAR) played Ronnie Scotts in London, which was known for being a hard-core jazz club where giants like Coltrane and Miles Davis had played, and typically, they’d sneer at Rock N’ Roll, or fusion, or anything but pure jazz. However, we played there 3-4 nights and Melody Maker magazine called us the “best live band ever heard.” So while we were there, Jimi Hendrix came in one night to hear us and—incredibly enough— he sat in to play with us. So sadly, he died the next day.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Someone in the audience was recording the show on reel-to-reel tape, which was confiscated by our management. However, years after this history-making show, someone somehow had access to the masters and made a copy of the show, and we later learned that at some point, there were cassettes floating around. Of course, the sound quality of those bootleg recordings was awful. But years later, someone else gave me two CD’s of this show, Jimi Hendrix’s farewell performance with Eric Burdon and WAR, Sept. 16, 1970.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Another important highlight happened more recently, involving the legendary fusion drummer, Billy Cobham. I was so honored when he invited me a few years ago to join him as a guest coach at his Billy Cobham Art of the Rhythm Section Retreat, which brought together accomplished rhythm section musicians from all over the world. I especially appreciated the fact that someone of his stature appreciated what I stand for musically, that is, being completely immersed in the moment and playing in the pocket. It was a thrill to be a part of this program and share my love for the magic of collaboration, chemistry and concentrating deeply on the music itself with like-minded artists.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">On a final note, I am honored to be a part of Playing for Change, an amazing global organization that inspires and connects the world through the unifying power of music. I’m proud to be a featured artist on Playing for Change’s “Songs Around the World” album and the “Listen to the Music” project in collaboration with musicians from around the world. In addition, through my company, Lee Oskar Harmonicas, we have created a special limited edition line of harmonica products exclusively available through Playing for Change to help support artists and musical education around the world.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/9894656277?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/9894656277?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-center"/></a></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><em><u>"For me, as both a musical and visual artist, I see the world and the journeys that I have taken through the lens of an artist. These colors my views of everything! Whatever I am experiencing in life and the world around me, my creative nature processes it and turns it into an art form, whether it’s through my compositions and performances, or my paintings, or even my producing of other talents." (Photo: Lee Oskar with his</u> <u>parents</u><u> and brother Rolf, 1976)</u></em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Your previous 2022 album "Never Forget" was a very interesting project. Tell me a few things about it?</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><em><strong>Lee Oskar:</strong></em> The messages here and the theme were the critical elements. I thought in every composition that the melodies and the meanings, as well as the playing, was designed to reinforce that underlying point that we're taking you on a trip and it's a trip designed to make you never forget the horrors of the Holocaust. In many ways I see this as my ultimate statement. For all my life the things my mother told me about that experience have remained with me. It's something I wanted to make certain is never forgotten and in many ways that's always been on my mind and always been a driving force in my work, those memories… All people, no matter their backgrounds, have much more in common than the things that make them different. I want to make music that inspires and unites people, that says we can achieve things together and that it's really time to think more about what we can accomplish working with each other rather than focusing so much on what separates and makes us different.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>What do you miss most nowadays from the music of past? What are your hopes and fears for the future of?</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><em><strong>Lee Oskar:</strong></em> What I miss the most these days from the music of the past is what I perceive to be a drifting away from the spontaneous thrill of the music itself—the chemistry, the musical camaraderie, the improvisation that comes when you are so immersed in the music. These days there is more of an emphasis on having everything buttoned up in a neat professional, highly rehearsed and produced package with a commercial perspective at the forefront… and while that certainly has its time and place, it sometimes seems to take the place of the more freewheeling, spontaneous joy of the music which is where the true genius can lie.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">As for my fears, I am concerned that because society and culture have become even more politicized than it used to be—we’re in extreme times now— people may not be able to separate the music itself from the personal identity of the artist who created it. Turning this fear into a hope, I hope that people will experience the music or the art purely, at the deepest level, without allowing their feelings about the identity of the creator to influence how they experience the music or art. I also deeply hope that the universal language of music will one day bring peace to the world.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">As for hopes and dreams, I am hopeful that my new record label, Dreams We Share, will continue to expand and touch people all over the world with my original music as well as the music from extraordinarily talented musicians who I have the honor of producing, such as Takahiro Miyazaki, David Rotundo, and Moses Concas.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/12157443879?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/12157443879?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-center"/></a></span></p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline; font-size: 10pt;"><em>"More broadly speaking, the most important lessons that I’ve learned in my journey through life are to be true to yourself, to be and to create in the moment, to know your strengths and surround yourself with good people who will support you and create synergy with you, and most of all, to live and experience each moment fully." (Lee Oskar / Photo © by Michael Weintrob)</em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>What do you hope is the message of your music? If you could change one thing in the world, what would that be?</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong><em>Lee Oskar:</em></strong> I hope the message of my music is that we, as humans, have so much in common that goes far beyond our differences, and we can find peace through music, the universal language that bonds humanity together.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">If I could change one thing in the world it would be that everyone could find their niche in life, and something that they love to do. I think this would lead to lasting peace among people if people had internal peace.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>What are some of the most important lessons you have learned from your experience in the music paths?</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><em><strong>Lee Oskar:</strong></em> I’ve learned so much through every step of the way along my musical paths. Musically speaking, I think it’s important to get away from categories, which should be reserved for marketing people and librarians. I say this because my music, from my WAR days and beyond to include my latest project, Never Forget, encompasses music that defies categorization, and touches on so many different genres and styles that appeal to all kinds of people who may consider themselves to be diehard fans of a certain single type. More broadly speaking, the most important lessons that I’ve learned in my journey through life are to be true to yourself, to be and to create in the moment, to know your strengths and surround yourself with good people who will support you and create synergy with you, and most of all, to live and experience each moment fully.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>What is the impact of music on the racial and socio-cultural implications? How do you want to affect people?</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Lee Oskar:</strong> I hope that any art form speaks for itself. With music, because it’s such a universal language that touches and moves people all over the world, for all the ages of time, I hope that people can experience the music purely. I know that music can open people’s eyes and open people’s hearts to all kinds of racial and socio-cultural implications and realizations, so I would hope for the best in humanity in this way. I deeply hope that people are affected positively by my music, and want to learn more, question more, feel more, understand more. My new project, “Never Forget” is a perfect opportunity to give people a chance to understand world history and my personal history at a much deeper level, and discover their own feelings about tragedy, loss, pain, suffering, family, atrocities against humanity, and hope for tomorrow.</span></p>
<p></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"><strong><a href="https://dreamsweshare.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dreams We Share - Home</a> <a href="https://leeoskar.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Lee Oskar Harmonicas</a></strong></span></p>
<p></p>
<p><span><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/12157443690?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/12157443690?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-center"/></a></span></p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline; font-size: 10pt;"><em>(Photo: Lee Oskar with various artworks from his art exhipition, Nashville TN 2022)</em></span></p>
Q&A with veteran British Blues powerful guitarist Mick Clarke, part of the British blues boom of the late 1960s
tag:blues.gr,2023-02-22:1982923:BlogPost:488907
2023-02-22T08:30:00.000Z
Michael Limnios Blues Network
https://blues.gr/profile/MichalisLimnios
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><em>"The balance between technique and soul? That's easy really - you have to have the technique in order to express the soul. First learn to play your instrument. Then forget how to play it and just let your soul come through. Easy to say - hard to do. I manage it occasionally."</em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 24pt;"><strong>Mick Clarke: The Man And His Blues</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>British Blues guitarist Mick…</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><em>"The balance between technique and soul? That's easy really - you have to have the technique in order to express the soul. First learn to play your instrument. Then forget how to play it and just let your soul come through. Easy to say - hard to do. I manage it occasionally."</em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 24pt;"><strong>Mick Clarke: The Man And His Blues</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>British Blues guitarist Mick Clarke released his new 6 track EP 'The Blues, Man, The Blues' (2023) online by Rockfold Records, a few months after the previous album "Telegram". </strong></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Since the early 80s Mick and his band have toured regularly in Europe, Asia and the USA - praised for his fiery "straight from the wood" guitar sound, Mick is the winner of the Artist Aloud Awards "Best International Act". Recent tours have included Italy, India, Bosnia and an appearance at Sweden Rock Festival in 2018. <span>Mick began his career with KILLING FLOOR part of the British blues boom of the late 1960s. The band backed Texas bluesman Freddie King and toured with legends Howlin' Wolf, Otis Spann and Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup. </span><span>In the mid 70s Mick co-formed SALT with British singer Stevie Smith, a powerful blues-rock act who were a big hit in the UK playing regularly at London's Marquee Club and other top venues. The band played at the Reading Festival and also opened for Muddy Waters at his first major London concert. In 1978 the band morphed into RAMROD with ex Rory Gallagher Band members Lou Martin and Rod De'Ath, touring in Ireland and again playing extensively in London, opening for Muddy at his Rainbow Theatre concert. <span style="text-decoration: underline; font-size: 10pt;"><em>(Mick Clarke / Photo <b>© </b>by Alvito Falcon, Simply the Blues)</em></span></span></span></p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10971277072?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10971277072?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-center"/></a></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">THE MICK CLARKE BAND originally started working around the London area in the early 80s, but quickly received offers of work from mainland Europe and the United States. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Mick's first solo album "Looking For Trouble" came out on the Italian label "Appaloosa" in the early 80s and sold well. More albums quickly followed on Appaloosa and then the German label "Taxim" and Mick's US label "Burnside". Recent releases have been on the "Rockfold" label, recorded by Mick at his own Rockfold Studio in Surrey, England. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The Mick Clarke Band has appeared on numerous festivals with artists such as Rory Gallagher, Johnny Winter and Joe Bonamassa. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">In the U.S.A. Mick has appeared with artists such as Johnny Winter, Canned Heat, Foghat and C.J.Chenier. The Southern California Blues Society called him "One of the finest blues players to come out of England". Mick has released twenty two solo albums so far. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Now 72 years old Mick continues to record and release music from his own studio. Fifty seven years from his first gig Mick continues to rock the blues.</span></p>
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<p><a href="https://blues.gr/profiles/profile/show?id=MichalisLimnios&" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Interview by Michael Limnios</strong></span></a></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Currently you’ve release titled 'The Blues, Man, The Blues', How did that relationship with the blues come about?</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The title comes from a Hound Dog Taylor album, where he shouts, 'I got it'. Some-one calls out 'what you got'? The answer comes back... 'the blues, man'. Kind of obvious but it made me laugh... it stuck in my head and grew an extra couple of words, so I thought it would be a fun title for a blues E.P. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The <span>'The Blues, Man, The Blues'<strong> </strong></span>E.P. came about because I had a lot of material already recorded which hadn't gone on to my last full album, 'Telegram', but I wanted to make the most of the tracks. Some were about a year old, like 'I Asked For Water' but when I listened back to it I thought it was well worth releasing. The most recent recording was JB Lenoir's 'I Sing Um the Way I Feel'. I saw that someone had done a whole album of Lenoir's songs, but this was one that they'd missed, so I thought 'Ah ha... my chance!' </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">As to how my relationship with the blues started? Well, it was way back when I was a kid listening to the records that my elder brother Derek brought home - Elvis, Lonnie Donnegan. The B Sides would often be a blues and I took to the sound. Loved them bent notes!</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>How has the Blues influenced your views of the world? What was the best music advice anyone ever gave you?</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">That's kind of impossible to answer, because the blues has been there almost right from the start. As I said, even when I was a kid I was listening to things like 'Delia Gone'… that was the B Side of a pop single by Acker Bilk, the Trad Jazz man. So, it's always been a part of me. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">I suppose blues suits some people's personalities, that touch of melancholy, something that goes a bit deeper, where others just don't get it. They just want something to dance to or sing along with. Good for them, but if you have a feeling for the blues then there's no substitute.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Does it affect my view of the world? I try not to think about the world too much! I'll leave that to the practical people who build bridges and invent medicines etc... I'll just stick to what I can do and play my guitar. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">And music advice... well it's nothing original, but I think any really successful artist will tell you - make the music that you enjoy yourself. Don't try to follow trends - you'll always be one step behind.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10971278060?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10971278060?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-center"/></a></span></p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline; font-size: 10pt;"><em>"Well, that time when we were discovering the blues in the 60s can never be recreated. It was really hard to hear or buy blues records, so every track was special. But here we are in 2023 - a different world with a million blues tracks at our fingertips. Still, I am encouraged that there is a lot of young talent playing the blues - that seems to be healthier than ever. You can't replicate the past, but I think the future is secure." (Mick Clarke, 2015 / Photo <b>© </b>by David Cooper)</em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>How do you describe your sound and music philosophy? What's the balance in music between technique and soul?</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Deep questions! Well, I've been playing guitar for... 60 years? So, in that time both sound and philosophy have changed a bit, although thinking about it not that much. Soundwise I started by listening to the beat group guitarists - all that twanging. But the moment I heard the Gibson / Marshall combination of players such as Clapton, Green and Beck... especially Beck... that was it. Accept no substitute. Except they all had Les Pauls and I couldn't afford one. A Les Paul cost £400 in 1968, and I earned about £6 a week from my office job. Eventually I ended up with my Gibson SG, 'Gnasher' which has been my stage guitar ever since.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Philosophy... well we always tried to find an original approach to the music. There were bands, back in the 60s, who set out to copy the original blues records as closely as possible, but my band Killing Floor were the opposite. We'd say, OK, here's the song, what can we do with it? Put a new riff in... how about a key change... some arrangements... And I'm quite proud of that, even if it didn't always work out that great. I still hear records now - big artists - copying the originals note for note, and I think 'why bother? It's already been done'. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">These days I'm mainly just recording stuff from my home studio, so it's a bit different from being on the road with a band. But it means I'm free to record whatever takes my fancy... might be a 60s pop song - a 200 year old English folk song... anything. But it is always, always rooted in the blues, and blues guitar, because that's what I am.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The balance between technique and soul? That's easy really - you have to have the technique in order to express the soul. First learn to play your instrument. Then forget how to play it and just let your soul come through. Easy to say - hard to do. I manage it occasionally.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10971279891?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10971279891?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-center"/></a></span></p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline; font-size: 10pt;"><em>"I don't want the music to do anything. It's a bit like when Bob Dylan was asked…"where are you taking it next?" "Taking what?" he replied. Answer: "The whole pop youth culture". What?! Bob really didn't want the whole future of pop youth culture on his shoulders. So, it's not quite the same, but I really don't want people to be affected one way or the other. It's up to them. But if they can find something in the blues to enjoy, then it will always be there for them." (Photo: Freddie King with Killing Floor, London 1969)</em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Are there any memories from the late great bluesmen Freddie King, Howlin' Wolf, Otis Spann and Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup which you’d like to share with us?</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Are there? Many. We were young, eager to learn, didn't drink or do drugs or any of that, so we really soaked up the experience of working with these guys, and I can remember quite a lot. Particularly Freddie King, of course, because I did a total of about fifty gigs with him. The main thing I learned was his total professionalism. His whole day was all about that 45 minutes on stage - he put everything in to it. And during that 45 minutes it was the audience who mattered. He didn't take his eyes off them for a moment - holding them enthralled. That's charisma.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Howlin’ Wolf seemed a little fearsome at the time, but I'm sure he wasn't. I would have loved to have had a grown-up conversation with him, but I was, 19? And he was about 50 or something, and he was Howlin' Wolf. What did I have to say? His performances were great of course - the first time I saw him he crawled on stage on all fours. That's a show!</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Spann was completely different - really easy going with a couple of women in tow and a bottle of scotch in his pocket. A short life but a merry one. One night we went to a party and he and our pianist Lou Martin both played some stuff on an old piano. Spann, of course, was brilliant, but he also appreciated Lou's playing.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">And Arthur Crudup... kind of difficult to communicate... he was from a different world. Although he did tell our singer, Bill, that he'd never got paid for the Presley hits. I was disappointed that he didn't want the whole band, just the drummer, but at least I got to watch the set, so that was a privilege.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>What do you miss most nowadays from the music of the past? What are your hopes and fears for the future of?</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Well, that time when we were discovering the blues in the 60s can never be recreated. It was really hard to hear or buy blues records, so every track was special. But here we are in 2023 - a different world with a million blues tracks at our fingertips. Still, I am encouraged that there is a lot of young talent playing the blues - that seems to be healthier than ever. You can't replicate the past, but I think the future is secure.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10971278073?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10971278073?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-center"/></a></span></p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline; font-size: 10pt;"><em>"Never assume anything. Like never assume that you have a tour because you've had a letter from a barber's son in Bavaria. Never assume that someone's put your guitar in the van, when in fact it's still in the cupboard back home! Never assume that there's a P.A. system at the gig, just because your agent told you on the phone that there was one. Double check everything and check again. And it'll still be wrong sometimes." (Mick Clarke, Mumbai India 2014 / Photo <b>© </b>by Alvito Falcon, <span>Simply the Blues</span>)</em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>What were the reasons that made the UK in 1960s to be the center of Blues Rock researches and experiments?</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">I don't know. But I suppose there had been a tradition of British groups playing blues and rock'n'roll going back to Lonnie Donnegan, Marty Wilde, Cliff Richard. That mix of rock 'n' roll and rhythm 'n' blues turned into the beat group era - The Beatles, Stones, Animals, Yardbirds. and that eventually lead to Cream, Zeppelin etc. We were building on what had gone before, and in the late 60s it just exploded.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">I think we were quite insulated from the rest of the world... I would go out and see Jeff Beck Band, Savoy Brown, Fleetwood Mac... but I really didn't know what was going on in New Orleans or L.A. So, we just cooked up our own kind of rock'n'roll blues. We also had Marshall amps, which gave our music a whole different feel from the Fenders that most American bands were using.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>What has made you laugh and what touched you from the "KILLING FLOOR & British blues boom area"?</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Well, it was an insane time. I look back and laugh at how stupid we were! I remember driving all the way up to Norwich from London ... a long journey on the rubbish roads as they were then... only to get to the gig and find the band Slade sitting there on their amps having a sound check. But they had a contract and guess what? We didn't. So, home we came.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Worse than that... I got a letter offering us a tour of Germany. So off we went in the van, all the way down to Bavaria having adventures all the way. We get there and the address is a barber's shop. The letter had been written by the barber's son... 'Roland! Come down here please'. Roland turns white when he sees Killing Floor in his dad's shop... 'Oh sorry I couldn't get you any gigs'! Of course it was really our fault, (mine) for not checking everything out properly. So we ended up staying at a hippy commune while he found a few emergency gigs for us. Madness. And that kind of thing happened quite a lot! </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">What touched me? Not much. It was a really difficult time generally. But there were some gigs where we packed the place out and they loved us, so that made it all worthwhile. At the Blues Loft in High Wycombe, they stomped so hard for an encore that we brought down the plaster in the pub below. My mum got that in our local paper - my publicist!</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10971277900?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10971277900?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-center"/></a></span></p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline; font-size: 10pt;"><em>"Well, I've been playing guitar for... 60 years? So, in that time both sound and philosophy have changed a bit, although thinking about it not that much. Soundwise I started by listening to the beat group guitarists - all that twanging. But the moment I heard the Gibson / Marshall combination of players such as Clapton, Green and Beck... especially Beck... that was it. Accept no substitute. Except they all had Les Pauls and I couldn't afford one. A Les Paul cost £400 in 1968, and I earned about £6 a week from my office job. Eventually I ended up with my Gibson SG, 'Gnasher' which has been my stage guitar ever since." (Photo: Mick Clarke with Killing Floors, first promo shoot 1968 / <b>© </b>Courtesy of Stuart McDonald)</em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>What is the impact of Blues on the socio-cultural implications? How do you want the music to affect people?</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Well, I suppose it's always been a counter to the pop music or trendy rock music of the time. If you look back at the charts of the late 60s you might see a Cream album between Engelbert Humperdinck and Bert Kaempfert. Or Roxy Music… something like that. So, it was there to keep you grounded, if you could open your ears to it.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Your second question... I don't want the music to do anything. It's a bit like when Bob Dylan was asked…"where are you taking it next?" "Taking what?" he replied. Answer: "The whole pop youth culture". What?! Bob really didn't want the whole future of pop youth culture on his shoulders. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">So, it's not quite the same, but I really don't want people to be affected one way or the other. It's up to them. But if they can find something in the blues to enjoy, then it will always be there for them.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>What are some of the most important lessons you have learned from your experience in the music paths?</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Never assume anything. Like never assume that you have a tour because you've had a letter from a barber's son in Bavaria. Never assume that someone's put your guitar in the van, when in fact it's still in the cupboard back home! Never assume that there's a P.A. system at the gig, just because your agent told you on the phone that there was one. Double check everything and check again. And it'll still be wrong sometimes.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Use earplugs. You can get good ones now for musicians... we never had anything and I got tinnitus back in 1992, after the first 25 years or so on the road. I've learned how to live with it, but it's not recommended. No excuse now for not protecting your ears. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Enjoy it. Enjoy the ride. Even the bad times are good. It will stop one day. So, enjoy all of it - the good the bad and the terrible. And keep rockin!</span></p>
<p></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 24pt;"><strong><a href="https://www.mickclarke.com/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Mick Clarke - Home</a></strong></span></p>
<p></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10971278675?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10971278675?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-center"/></a></span></p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline; font-size: 10pt;"><em>(Photo: Mick Clarke)</em></span></p>
Rest In Paradise, Johnny Winter -- friends and collaborators remember moments from the late bluesman
tag:blues.gr,2014-07-18:1982923:BlogPost:207070
2014-07-18T12:00:00.000Z
Michael Limnios Blues Network
https://blues.gr/profile/MichalisLimnios
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font-size-5" style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;"><b>John Dawson Winter III (February 23, 1944 – July 16, 2014)</b></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font-size-7" style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino; color: #ff0000;"><b>Rest in Paradise…</b></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;" class="font-size-5"><b>John Dawson Winter III (February 23, 1944 – July 16, 2014)</b></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino; color: #ff0000;" class="font-size-7"><b>Rest in Paradise</b></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino; color: #ff0000;" class="font-size-7"><b><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2219863059?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2219863059?profile=original" width="670" class="align-center"/></a></b></span></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;" class="font-size-4">Johnny Winter has been a guitar hero without equal. Johnny has always been one of the most respected singers and guitar players in rock and the clear link between British blues-rock and American Southern rock. Throughout the ’70s and ’80s, Johnny was the unofficial torch-bearer for the blues, championing and aiding the careers of his idols like Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker. He was/is the definitive “blues man” !</span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;" class="font-size-4">Friends and collaborators remember moments from the late bluesman, Johnny Winter - quotes from <a href="http://blues.gr/profile/MichalisLimnios" target="_self">Interviews by Michael Limnios</a></span></p>
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<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino; color: #ff0000;" class="font-size-4"><b>Jason Ricci</b></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;" class="font-size-4">Recording with Johnny Winter was amazing, meeting him and talking about dope and life and recovery and Pat Ramsey etc…was crazy…</span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;" class="font-size-4">Just meeting Johnny and swapping stories about Pat and all the dumb shit I've done was cool. Johnny is telepathic, he sees right through your bullshit, theres no use lying with that guy, he knows, he's one of the most amazing people I have ever met!</span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-size: 14pt; color: #ff0000; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">Paul Nelson</b></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;" class="font-size-4">A blues icon.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino; color: #ff0000;" class="font-size-4"><b>Jon Paris</b></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;" class="font-size-4">Well, there was the night I first met Johnny at a Louisiana Red gig here in New York City, and the three of us jammed together until 4 in the morning! The time Johnny invited me to play a special homecoming show with him down in Beaumont, Texas. I got to stay with him and his wonderful parents…</span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino; color: #ff0000;" class="font-size-4"><b>Jay Willie</b></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;" class="font-size-4">I always smiled when I saw that Firebird reverse headstock coming out from behind the stage before a show. I always liked it when his brother Edgar would join Johnny. I think they are both extremely talented and together it was always a great experience.</span></p>
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<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino; color: #ff0000;" class="font-size-4"><b>Richard Cagle</b></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;" class="font-size-4">When I was a teenager living in Houston, I saw Johnny Winter for the very 1st time at a small club called Love Street Light Circus by the Buffalo Bayou in downtown Houston… I’ve been hooked every since!</span></p>
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<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino; color: #ff0000;" class="font-size-4"><b>Bobby T Torello</b></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;" class="font-size-4">With Johnny Winter there are so many great memories that there is not enough paper to write on. One memorable moment was when I was his target for bow and arrow practice. We were at the Circle Kay Ranch in Bogalusa, La and we were up all night and target practicing with bow and arrows. Johnny’s eyesight was poor and wanted a target so I told him since you can’t see I will run around and be your target. It was about 7:00 am and he never hit me.</span> </p>
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<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino; color: #ff0000;" class="font-size-4"><b>Dov Hammer</b></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;" class="font-size-4">During the sound check I sang "little by Little" (a song by one of my idols, Junior Wells) and when we came off stage Johnny Winter said to me "You sounded great – you sounded just like Junior Wells up there…" – that was a great compliment, from a legendary musician.</span></p>
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<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino; color: #ff0000;" class="font-size-4"><b>Ken Saydak</b></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;" class="font-size-4">Johnny loved to watch movies on the tour bus. One night, after a gig, we were all feeling pretty good and we were watching Rock Around The Clock with Alan Freed, an early rock’n’roll film. Johnny was making comments all through the film. It was hilarious.</span></p>
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<p style="text-align: center;"><strong><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino; color: #ff0000;">Tim "Too Slim" Langford</span></strong></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;" class="font-size-4">I remember seeing Johnny Winter live many times as a teenager and then we got to do a tour with him about 2008 and he was super nice.</span></p>
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<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #ff0000;"><strong><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;" class="font-size-4">Chris Watson</span></strong></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;" class="font-size-4">Playing shows with Johnny Winter was something I'll never forget. He was one of my father's favorites that I can remember listening to even before I started playing guitar. I was deeply saddened to learn of his recent passing. He will surely be missed.</span></p>
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<p style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-size: 14pt; color: #ff0000; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">Andy Watts</b></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;" class="font-size-4">Hanging out with Johnny Winter backstage an afternoon before our show was a great privilege, especially as he blessed my old Les Paul with some serious Mojo playing the real Mississippi stuff....All of the Top Blues Cats I have performed with left an impact and it’s been a blessing to play the Blues with them....</span></p>
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<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino; color: #ff0000;" class="font-size-4"><b>Howard Glazer</b></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;" class="font-size-4">To start with warming up for Johnny Winter was a total gas! He's always been one of my favorite guitar players. At the time he had James Montgomery playing harp in his band. James is from the Detroit area and I had done a gig with James about 6 months earlier. So after the show James took me to meet Johnny I shook his hand and said "Johnny it's great to meet you, you’ve always been one of my favorite guitarists". He looked at me and said "I heard you, you're pretty good yourself". Needless to say I was honored! We ended up hanging out in the dressing room talking guitar and sharing stories for about an hour or more.</span></p>
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<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino; color: #ff0000;" class="font-size-4"><b>JP Blues</b></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;" class="font-size-4">I will always be amazed from the gig at Brookhaven Amphitheater when Johnny Winter was sitting down in a chair making his guitar scream. I couldn’t believe all the energy he possessed in his fingers.</span></p>
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<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino; color: #ff0000;" class="font-size-4"><b>Rusty Wright</b></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;" class="font-size-4">Johnny Winter was also a very shy quiet sort. I met him backstage and it was a nice chat but he's also getting frail.</span></p>
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<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino; color: #ff0000;" class="font-size-4"><b>Chris “Big Papa” Thayer</b></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;" class="font-size-4">I think that got a little mixed up in translation. I only met him the once, but I definitely think I got “schooled” when I did. We went onstage and felt really good about ourselves. We really served up a solid set and sat back a little overconfident. When Johnny went onstage, he had to be helped up to his seat. He’s practically blind now. I thought to myself, “Wow, how is he going to follow the set we just played? He looks so frail.” Then he plugged in and just lit the place up. He was incredible, and completely buried us. I learned that you have to always respect the older players. They may look like they have lost a little something over the years, but they will definitely kick your ass, and you won’t even know what hit you.</span></p>
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<p style="text-align: center;"><strong><span style="font-family: georgia, palatino;" class="font-size-7"><a href="http://www.johnnywinter.net/" target="_blank">Johnny Winter - official website</a></span></strong></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong><span style="font-family: georgia, palatino;" class="font-size-7"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2219863219?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2219863219?profile=original" width="680" class="align-center"/></a></span></strong></p>
Elias Zaikos of Blues Wire talks about Blues Gang, Sotiris Zisis, Champion Jack Dupree & his experience from European festivals
tag:blues.gr,2011-10-24:1982923:BlogPost:117804
2011-10-24T09:30:00.000Z
Michael Limnios Blues Network
https://blues.gr/profile/MichalisLimnios
<p class="style10"><span class="font-size-4" style="color: #000000; font-family: 'andale mono', times;"><em>"We're all under the same sky, fighting hard...brothers."</em></span></p>
<p class="style10"><span class="font-size-7" style="color: #ff0000;"><strong><span style="font-family: 'andale mono', times;">Blues Wire: Greek Blues Brothers</span></strong></span></p>
<p class="style10"><strong><span class="font-size-4" style="font-family: andale mono,times;">According to everybody who has ever…</span></strong></p>
<p class="style10"><span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'andale mono', times;" class="font-size-4"><em>"We're all under the same sky, fighting hard...brothers."</em></span></p>
<p class="style10"><span class="font-size-7" style="color: #ff0000;"><strong><span style="font-family: 'andale mono', times;">Blues Wire: Greek Blues Brothers</span></strong></span></p>
<p class="style10"><strong><span class="font-size-4" style="font-family: andale mono,times;">According to everybody who has ever witnessed a <span class="font-size-6">Blues Wire</span> gig this band is one of Europe's best kept blues secrets and they should finally get the chance to be known to blues lovers around the world.</span></strong></p>
<p class="style10"><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;"><strong>The Blues Wire</strong> story began in 1983 when <strong><span class="font-size-4">Sotiris Zisis</span> (bass) and <span class="font-size-4">Elias Zaikos</span> <a href="http://www.blueswire.gr/zaikos.htm"></a> formed Blues Gang</strong> (who renamed themselves as Blues Wire in 1985), the very first blues band in Greece that tried to capture the original sounds of blues legends like Muddy Waters, Howling Wolf and T-Bone Walker. They recorded the first blues album ever to be made by Greek musicians, at a time when it was really difficult to play music without obvious roots in Greek culture, let alone get a record deal for it. Back then, playing the blues not only could make someone almost an outcast, but it also meant dealing with shady characters and going through hard times. The only ways for a blues band to go through these times was to be tough, determined and stay true to the spirit that moved them in the first place.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: andale mono,times;" class="font-size-3"><strong><span class="font-size-5">Elias Zaikos</span> was born in 1960 in Thessaloniki , Greece , where he is permanently based.</strong> During his early teen years, he showed relatively little interest in music and listened mainly to Greek traditional and popular songs. Sometime around 1976, he was introduced to soul and to rock and roll music. Little by little he got so involved with music that being a listener just wasn't enough. A friend of local rock musicians, he followed them on to their gigs and got a first hand knowledge of the pleasures - but also the difficulties - that are all part of a musician's lifestyle. He soon found out what it really means to express oneself through an instrument.</span></p>
<p class="style10"><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;">In the early eighties, Elias Zaikos founded Blues Wire (or Blues Gang, as they were initially named). In 1983 the band recorded the first blues album in Greece , which paved the way for a long series of successful albums that followed. Performing an average of two hundred nights every year in a small country like Greece is an achievement indeed, but Blues Wire have done just that, confirming thus the band's hard work and also its enduring popularity. <strong>All these years, Blues Wire have been constantly active in countless jam sessions, backing and supporting famed bluespeople, like Katie Webster, John Hammond, Albert King, Otis Rush, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Larry Garner, Carey Bell and many others: They were all amazed by the authority and style of these Greek blues players. Europe was the obvious next step for E.Z. and Blues Wire.</strong></span></p>
<p class="style10"><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;"><strong><br/></strong></span></p>
<p class="style10"><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;"><strong><a target="_self" href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2219684069?profile=original"><img width="750" class="align-center" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2219684069?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750"/></a><br/></strong></span></p>
<p class="style10"><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;">Blues Wire has provided the foundation of the Greek blues scene and the main inspiration for many younger musicians. For five years they were the house band at Pararlama, the first and most famous blues club in Greece .</span></p>
<p class="style10"><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;">After a career spanning more than twenty years, Blues Wire are now busier than ever. Spanning yet another mark in their long career, their last studio album showcases a more varied, elaborate and eclectic sound. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'andale mono', times;">Blues Wire may have moved on to another level but their essence remains intact. Alias Zaikos talks about the band, Greek blues scene, and his experience on the Blues road...</span></p>
<p class="style10"> </p>
<p class="style10"><span class="font-size-4"><strong><a href="http://blues.gr/profile/MichalisLimnios" target="_self">Interview by Michael Limnios</a></strong></span></p>
<p class="style10"> </p>
<p><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;"><strong><i>When was your first desire to become involved in the blues music?</i></strong></span><br/> <span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;">As soon as I got caught by the sounds and atmosphere of the genre. Somehow I knew I had to play this music as well as write my own songs.</span></p>
<p><br/> <span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;"><em><strong>Which was the best moment of your career and which was the worst?</strong></em></span> <span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;"><strong><i> </i></strong></span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;">Well, many good ones, very few that felt somehow bitter...I guess the chance to meet some very important figures of the genre stands out.</span></p>
<p><br/> <span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;"><strong><i>You must have met a lot of the famous bluesmen. Which one impressed you most and why?</i></strong></span><br/> <span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;">Almost everybody. Blues people are nice and interesting in general, some exceptions just confirm this rule. Blues artists have their own ways, sound and manners; each one has something unique and useful to offer.</span></p>
<p><br/> <span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;"><strong><i>Which of the people you have worked with had a positive impact on you?</i></strong></span><br/> <span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;">Again, almost all of them. I feel blessed to have played with such great artists. There's always something good even at times you feel down or upset.</span></p>
<p><br/> <span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;"><strong><i>What are the similarities and the differences between the blues music and the Rembetiko one (also known as the “Greek Blues”)?</i></strong></span><br/> <span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;">These are true folk music forms, all of them around the globe share some characteristics such as simplicity, raw power, humor, humanism, communicability and many more.</span></p>
<p><br/> <span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;"><strong><i>You have helped many young artists who wanted to play the blues. Some of them consider you as their mentor. In what ways have they expressed their gratitude to you?</i></strong></span><br/> <span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;">By keep on playing the blues, thank you all!</span><br/> <br/> <span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;"><strong><i><a target="_self" href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2219684164?profile=original"><img class="align-left" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2219684164?profile=original" width="365"/></a>How was your relationship with the other blues bands in</i><i> </i><i>Greece</i><i>?</i></strong></span><br/> <span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;">We're all under the same sky, fighting hard...brothers.</span><br/> <br/> <span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;"><strong><i>Do you have a message for your Greek fans?</i></strong></span><br/> <span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;">Fans know, that's why they love the blues, I just wanna thank 'em for supporting local bands.</span></p>
<p><br/> <span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;"><strong><i>Which musician has influenced you most?</i></strong></span><br/> <span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;">Far too many loved ones to pick just one...sorry!</span><br/> <span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;"><strong><i> </i></strong></span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;"><strong><i>What does your first band “the Blues Gang” mean to you?</i></strong></span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;">The intro of the song of my career, and as you know, every part of a song must be important.</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;"><strong><i>Do you think that the younger generations are interested in the blues?</i></strong></span><br/> <span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;">I think they have always been , cos sooner or later they wanna know the roots of music they listen to, and, when you're digging deeper, you will find the blues.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;"><strong><i>Tell me a little bit about your acoustic project.</i></strong></span><br/> <span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;">In the beginning, I was haunted by the magic of the old country blues players, Skip James, Robert Johnson, Son House, you know, all them mythical figures...I never forget this passion, the acoustic project is my chance to try to taste some of the old blues school greatness and to let my listeners know about another sonic landscape of the idiom, somehow away from loudness and electricity.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;"><strong><i>Do the blues songs that you play come from your personal life experiences?</i></strong></span><br/> <span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;">Some do, some don't. I fish in a lot of different places for inspiration, either inside or out there. But at any rate, I need to feel the song, that's very important for me.</span><br/> </p>
<p><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;"><strong><i>Which has the most interesting period in your life been and why?</i></strong></span><br/> <span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;">Now, I'm in a constant search, so, every new minute, hour, day is what gives me strength, howling: you're still here man, do something! Everything has some kind of logic, you can't always be creative or significant, you have to love and respect every part of you, same for all periods of your existence.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;"><strong><i>How do you wish to be remembered?</i></strong><i><br/></i></span> <span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;">I don't really care, those who would like to know about me, listening to my music will be enough.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;"><strong><i>What mistake of the Greek blues scene, would you wish to correct?</i></strong></span><br/> <span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;">Man, mistakes are something that i like! Why in the world I would like to correct something I can't even name or analyze?</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;"><strong><i>You have been <a href="http://blues.gr/photo/big-time-sarah-blues-wire?context=user" target="_self">traveling all around Greece</a>. What is the impression that you get regarding the popularity of the blues as a music genre in this country?</i></strong></span><br/> <span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;">Simple people feel and love simple music. They don't have to understand the lyrics or be familiar with the history of the songs, they just understand that this music is true, and comes straight from the heart. In general they like it, but media people are snobs so sales and gigs suffer from this. Oh well...</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;"><strong><i>Have you toured</i><i> </i><i>Europe</i><i> </i><i>a lot? What is your experience from the European Blues Festivals?</i></strong></span><br/> <span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;">We used to travel a lot, later years not so much...I believe we have to put a new album out and start again in a more regular basis. I have to say that audiences in EU always treated the band so nice, it's breathtaking man...I feel proud and honored indeed.</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;"><strong><i>What made you fall in love with the blues music?</i></strong></span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;">You can't explain love with terms of logic. Emotions and reasoning are two different things. It simply happened. You know, the blues grabs you like Godzilla got the blond girl!</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;"><strong><i>Which historical personalities of the blues would you wish to have met?</i></strong></span><br/> <span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;">Almost everybody...but I love to meet people who love the blues anyhow, have a beer or something with them and talk about it, that feels nice.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;"><strong><i><a target="_self" href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2219684253?profile=original"><img class="align-left" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2219684253?profile=original" width="250"/></a>What do you miss most from the Blues Gang years?</i></strong></span><br/> <span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;">Enthusiasm, ignorance of any risk. When you're 20, you feel like being on top of the world, you feel immortal.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;"><strong><i>What do you miss most from the Parlarama years?</i></strong></span><br/> <span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;">Well, suppose the company feeling...everybody had an important part in the story, bartenders, the band, guys at the door, we were a bunch of friends living a hard but pleasant life, sharing most things, loving and respecting each other...and the blues was there, anytime, anyhow, no matter what, covering all souls with a positive and creative spirit.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;"><strong><i>To which person would you wish to dedicate a song of yours?</i></strong></span><br/> <span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;">Allow me to pick an old Percy Mayfield song, this goes to politicians around the globe, title is: "You're in for a big surprise"!</span><br/> <br/> <span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;"><strong><i>Do you have a favorite blues song?</i></strong></span><br/> <span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;">Not really, from time to time maybe a lil' something stays in my mind and sooths me until a new one shows up. Ain't life a good'un?</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;"><strong><i>Tell me about the beginning of Blues Wire. How did you get together and where did it start?</i></strong></span><br/> <span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;">Sotiris and I shared the same passion for music, at one time we thought we needed to express our hearts’ emotions through an instrument. Started playing together simple blues songs, Jimmy Reed, Elmore James and things, then we found a drummer and we kept a rolling. We were friends in our hometown Thessaloniki, in the beginning we 're playing at basements with dirt cheap instruments and loaned amps, we didn't care, it was just the music and our dreams.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;"><strong><i>You've worked with Sotiris Zisis for over twenty years. How has it been working with him? What is his contribution to your songwriting?</i></strong></span><br/> <span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;">Ha, just like a married couple! Ups and downs, fights, frustrations and triumphs! No DVC yet! I write the songs, then we work together to shape' em to our common taste. Listen to this: no Blues Wire would exist if Sotiris hadn’t been the man he is.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;"><strong><i>How important is the venue for a performing musician? How does that contribute to his overall success?</i></strong></span><br/> <span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;">Let me put it this way...the worst venue can't beat an inspiring act from a dedicated musician. But, the slickest club can't make a poor artist sound good...</span><br/> <br/> <br/> <span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;"><strong><i>What musicians/songwriters have influenced you most as a songwriter?</i></strong></span><br/> <span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;">Many of course, guitarists, pianists, sax players, singers from Rn'R, blues, rock, you name it...I will say one name though, a huge influence in blues songwriting, that's Willie Dixon, he penned so many classics it's scary...</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><a target="_self" href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2219684329?profile=original"><img class="align-center" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2219684329?profile=original" width="561"/></a></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;"><strong><i>Who are some of your favorite blues musicians of today?</i></strong></span><br/> <span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;">Alvin Hart, Junior Watson, Kim Wilson, Jimmie Vaughan, Mavis Staples, Rick Holmstrom, Keb Mo, Janiva Magness, Levon Helm, Ronnie Earl, Gregg Allman, John Hammond, Ruthie Foster, Los Lobos, Big George Jackson, Delbert McClinton, Angela Strehli...</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;"><strong><i>How do you think that you friendship with Katie Webster has influenced your career?</i></strong></span><br/> <span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;">Katie made us better people...she was so kind and positive, how can we forget her……...</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;"><strong><i>How has the music business changed over the years since you first started?</i></strong></span><br/> <span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;">Aw, man, we were chasing vinyl albums and Teles, now, internet, digital toys, mp3s, mobile phones, applications...I get dizzy. It is a nice thing for young generations, I can handle them myself up to a point, but the old school recording studios are hard to find I'm afraid, managers want you to be the new Lady Gaga or something, or, I’m just getting old! .</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;"><strong><i>Do you think you’re getting better as you’re getting older?</i></strong></span><br/> <span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;">Yes I do, as a matter of fact I would quit if I stopped believing this every single day!</span><br/> <span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;"><i><br/></i></span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;"><i><strong>Elias, how do you feel now, when you see younger musicians playing the blues?</strong></i></span><br/> <span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;">I feel good man! Proud sometimes and definitely optimistic.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;"><strong><i>What do you feel is the key to your success as a musician?</i></strong><i><br/></i></span> <span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;">We can talk for hours attempting to define success...I feel just very lucky to play my music, I 'm true and honest in what I do, I guess that’s it..</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;"><strong><i>You have a lot of guitars. Tell us about your favorite ones.</i></strong></span><br/> <span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;">Errr, actually I don't... anymore...used to, these days I have about 3-4 electrics and a couple of acoustics...but I exchange them at a regular basis, you know, buy one, taste it a bit, then sell it to try something different...ain't rich, man, sometimes I wish I could keep some of the special ones, but... If I had to keep just one guitar though, this would be a Telecaster.</span><br/> <span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;"><i><br/> <strong><a target="_self" href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2219684293?profile=original"><img class="align-left" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2219684293?profile=original" width="300"/></a>Would you mind telling me your most vivid memory of Champion Jack Dupree?</strong></i></span><br/> <span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;">Hey, what a guy! Now, here's a good one. In Budapest, early in the morning, Champion drinks brandy and smokes a cigar. Rest of our young white fellas drinking coffee trying to wake up...someone asks the old man: Champion, how come you're drinking booze and smoking at breakfast time? Ain't you afraid? Then, Champion pauses for some secs, finally spoke...I see people eating greens and things, go to the gym, running on the beach, keeping a fine form and...all of a sudden, they drop dead, just like that...well...I 'm gonna die of something!!! Ain't that cool or what?</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;"><strong><i>What should people expect from you at a show?</i></strong></span><br/> <span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;">Better come to check me in person!</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;"><strong><i>Do you think that your music comes from the heart, the brain or the soul?</i></strong></span><br/> <span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: andale mono,times;">Mmmm, that's a good question...I guess music comes from anywhere, you don't say the same things all the time. Sometimes you gotta trust your instincts, other times you need to use knowledge or experience, then again you might use different things to create a unique mix. That's art I guess...</span></p>
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<p> </p>
<p><span class="font-size-7"><strong><a href="http://www.blueswire.gr/" target="_blank">Blues Wire's website</a></strong></span><span class="font-size-4"><span class="font-size-7"><strong> </strong></span><strong><span class="font-size-7"> </span> </strong><strong><a href="http://blues.gr/profile/eliaszaikos" target="_self"><br/></a></strong></span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-4"><strong><br/></strong></span></p>
<p></p>
<p class="style10"> </p>
An Interview with Greek Blues Guru Dimitris Epikouris: Blame It All on The Blues
tag:blues.gr,2011-10-16:1982923:BlogPost:115754
2011-10-16T17:30:00.000Z
Michael Limnios Blues Network
https://blues.gr/profile/MichalisLimnios
<p><span class="font-size-7" style="font-family: georgia,palatino;"><strong>Sitting in "The Garden” of Blues</strong></span></p>
<p><em><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: georgia,palatino;">Dimitris Epikouris is the author of the books “Blame It All on The Blues” & “Fifteen Raindrops In An Ocean of Blues Tales” and for more than two decades, has been quietly accumulating a collection of rare guitars.…</span></em></p>
<p></p>
<p><span class="font-size-7" style="font-family: georgia,palatino;"><strong>Sitting in "The Garden” of Blues</strong></span></p>
<p><em><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: georgia,palatino;">Dimitris Epikouris is the author of the books “Blame It All on The Blues” & “Fifteen Raindrops In An Ocean of Blues Tales” and for more than two decades, has been quietly accumulating a collection of rare guitars.</span></em></p>
<p><em><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: georgia,palatino;">He’s also an admirer of Epicureanism. For Epicurus, the purpose of philosophy was to attain the happy, tranquil life, characterized by ataraxia - peace and freedom from fear - and aponia - the absence of pain - and by living a self-sufficient life surrounded by friends. </span><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: georgia,palatino;">The school of Greek philosopher, called "The Garden," was based in Epicurus' home and garden.</span></em></p>
<p><em><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family: georgia,palatino;">The pure bluesman and author, talks about his book, the blues in Greece, Hound Dog Taylor, Chicago, Jack Kerouac, and his boozing with buddies.</span></em></p>
<p><span class="font-size-4"><strong><br/></strong></span></p>
<p><strong><span style="font-family: courier new,courier;"><a target="_self" href="http://blues.gr/profile/MichalisLimnios">Interview by Michael Limnios</a></span></strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font-size-4" style="font-family: georgia,palatino;">How did the idea of the book “Blame it all on the Blues” come about?</span></p>
<p>The book depicts certain thoughts and emotions that emerged when I returned to Greece from the US, after ten years of absence. I experienced a strong culture shock and I realized that the average Greek is a very confused individual regarding his religious and sociopolitical views. He may think of himself as being European or the descendant of the ancient Greeks but in reality, I am afraid, this is not the case. So, having some firsthand experience with the camouflaged conservatism of modern Greeks, I decided to sketch out their idiosyncrasy and depict their true mentality. That’s how the book came about.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font-size-4" style="font-family: georgia,palatino;">How does the blues music come out of the book’s pages?</span></p>
<p>I use the blues music as a vehicle to help me explore the microcosm of the Modern Greek society and its taboos. There are quite a few reasons that led me to do this. The first is that this particular music genre has extremely effective, soul searching elements that can be used as tools to penetrate the abyss of human existence and help us see what we, as humans, are made of. The second reason is my personal passion for this particular kind of music. I strongly believe that the blues is not just any kind of music that some people around the globe enjoy. It is an ideology, a kind of philosophy that enables us to see life as it is. I can think of many other reasons but it will take a lot of space.</p>
<p> <a target="_self" href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2219685515?profile=original"><img width="300" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2219685515?profile=RESIZE_320x320" class="align-left" width="300"/></a></p>
<p><span class="font-size-4" style="font-family: georgia,palatino;">When did your love for collecting guitars come about?</span></p>
<p>Oh Mike, man, you have just pulled at my heart’s strings. I have had a passion for guitars as long as I can remember myself. Unfortunately, my dad didn’t want me to go to a music school and learn how to play the guitar. He was afraid that I would quit school. When I was fifteen years old, I asked him to buy me a guitar and send me to a music school but he refused. I kept insisting so one day he got so mad that he started chasing me around the living room table. Being unable to catch me, he grabbed a heavy marble ashtray and threw it at my feet. Luckily, I jumped and didn’t end up with a broken leg or an ankle. After that incident, I said to myself: “When I get my own job and make some money, I will buy many guitars.” I did. I have 26 guitars and my kids love them. My son, who goes to a music school, is very proud of them and doesn’t want anybody to even touch them. Unfortunately, I never learned how to play the guitar. Just a few chords, that’s all.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font-size-4" style="font-family: georgia,palatino;">How experiential can the blues be in Greece?</span></p>
<p>Believe it or not, I am one of the greatest supporters of the Greek Blues scene. I strongly believe that we have one of the best blues scenes in Europe. It seems that the Greek people, who discover the blues, never let it go. That is why I am so passionately determined to help the Greek bands reach a wider audience. Nevertheless, I am not the first to make such an attempt. Our common friend, <strong>Nicolas Carelos</strong>, was the first who tried to make the blues music popular in Greece. He owns the oldest blues club in Athens. Thirty long years of endless efforts! That guy is the oldest blues father figure in the country. I think we owe him a lot.</p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<p><span class="font-size-4" style="font-family: georgia,palatino;">What is the story behind the title of book?</span></p>
<p><a target="_self" href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2219685426?profile=original"><img width="300" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2219685426?profile=RESIZE_320x320" class="align-right" width="300"/></a>Panagiotes Gekas, a young Greek language school owner is dying of cancer and he chooses to spend the remaining of his time with his nephews who have inherited his guitars and his passion for the blues music. He narrates his life and how it relates to the blues music.</p>
<p>Panagiotes begins narrating the story of his life starting from his childhood years. His dad Mr. Theophilos Gekas, is a sweet professor of religion and his mom, Julia, a high-school linguistics instructor. Panagiotes’ grandparents from his mother’s side are awful people. His granddad, Panagiotes Leventopoulos is an authoritarian, religious freak who behaves as the absolute ruler of the family and has the habit of belittling everyone while having a strong Oedipus complex for his daughter. He hates Theophilos and continuously gets involved in the family’s finances as well as the upbringing of their children.</p>
<p>One day, little Panagiotes discovers some old blues LPs and begins to play them. His mother, who catches him doing so, gets very upset and orders him never to play that kind of music in the house again. She later on tells her father about her son’s “discovery” and Leventopoulos rushes into the house, gets the blues LPs and throws them into the garbage can right outside the house. When he leaves, little Panagiotes jumps inside the garbage can and gets them back. With the help of a friend of his and a music teacher, he begins learning a lot about the history of the blues music. He ends up falling in love with it.</p>
<p>Little Panagiotes also discovers an old picture inside one album cover. In the picture, there is a man who holds a guitar and embraces his mother Julia. The phrase: “I hope we will be together forever. Tasos Mentes” is written on the back of the picture. Little Panagiotes, keeps asking his parents and the rest of the relatives about that “strange” man Tasos Mentes who was embracing his mother in the picture. Initially, his mom and dad panic. They don’t know what to say to him and they feed him lies. They tell him for example that Tasos Mentes was a cousin of his mom somewhere in the US. Little Panagiotes doesn’t buy their lies and that aggravates his granddad very much.</p>
<p>The years go passing by and little Panagiotes’ passion for the blues music makes him learn English and become a university student studying English literature at the University of Athens.</p>
<p>The years are rough. There is the military Junta in Greece, freedom of expression and other civil rights are suppressed. The lack of democracy and freedom makes little Panagiotes appreciate the blues music even more. He has come to the conclusion that if all the people had been exposed to blues music, there wouldn’t be any exploitation and any wars.</p>
<p>While at the university, he meets some friends and he forms a blues band. His friends introduce them to Christos a much older guy, a former harmonica player of an old Greek Blues Band called “THE BLUES ADDICTS” and the owner of a small record store in Monastiraki. Panagiotis visits him quite often and learns about his former band.</p>
<p>Christos narrates to Panagiotis the story of his former band and begins talking about the members of that band which was quite famous many years ago. Suddenly, little Panagiotes almost faints when he hears from Christos that the band leader of the BLUES ADDICTS was a guy called Tasos Mentes, the strange man who was embracing his mom in the picture!</p>
<p>Little Panagiotes keeps visiting Christos to find out more about that mysterious man.</p>
<p>What he ends up finding out is that Tasos Mentes was a Greek musician who had studied in America, had gotten very deeply into the blues music and when returned to Greece, he formed a blues band that had a very promising career. Another member of the band was an old black piano player and a former postman who was a friend of Tasos in the States. Tasos had helped that guy overcome his alcohol problems. The black guy considered Tasos as his son, followed him to Greece and became the piano player of the “BLUES ADDICTS”.</p>
<p>It was when the “BLUES ADDICTS” had started getting significant recognition from many record labels that Tasos met a girl called Julia (Little Panagiotes’ mother) and fell in love with her. Julia and Tasos wanted to get married but Panagiotes Leventopoulos (the granddad) had some serious objections. He wanted his daughter to marry someone he could manipulate. However, Tasos wasn’t that kind of guy. There was a big fight between the two. Tasos expected Julia to stand by his side but that never happened. She was a scared little girl brought up in an old fashioned, conservative Greek and fanatically religious family, which used to spend their summer vacations in monasteries. She had no personality of her own. She was finally forced by her dad to abandon Tasos and marry an old childhood friend that she knew from the monasteries, Theophilos Gekas.</p>
<p>Rumors had it that she was 2 months pregnant when she abandoned Tasos. Tasos committed suicide by jumping off an apartment building. The death of Tasos caused the disbanding of the “BLUES ADDICTS”.</p>
<p>Little Panagiotes, also learns that Tasos had a brother Spyros Mentes who was a famous doctor now retired and isolated in the island of Syros. He pays him a visit and brings him as a gift some old tapes from his brother’s music. After the initial shock, Spyros Mentes explains to little Panagiotes what he thought that had happened. At the end, Spyros Mentes gives the guitars of Tasos to little Panagiotes as a gift from his “dad could be”.</p>
<p>It is not clear if little Panagiotes is the son of Tasos. The author chose to leave that unclear and let the readers wonder although it really doesn’t seem to be an issue here.</p>
<p>Surely, this just a small synopsis and the dialogues as well as certain events that are in the book are not described here because it would take many pages.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font-size-4" style="font-family: georgia,palatino;">How do you wish your book to be remembered?</span></p>
<p>As an attempt to rediscover our lost human disposition. As an attempt to cross-examine ourselves and what we keep inside of us that we may not be aware of.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font-size-4" style="font-family: georgia,palatino;">Do you think old blues figures like Robert Johnson, Bukka White, Lightnin' Hopkins are pulled out of your book?</span></p>
<p>They are all present not only in the book but in my life as well. They are part of me and everybody else who is a passionate lover of this music. The reason is very simple. They were real people!</p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font-size-4" style="font-family: georgia,palatino;">Is there a part of the book that you like most?</span></p>
<p>Well, It would have been better if a book reader had answered that question. Anyway, I think that I attempt to discover the reason why some people who were revolutionaries in their youth, who fought against the social taboos and dreamed of a better and more liberated world, ended up being miserable bureaucrats, authority addicts and corporate cogs with an endless and incurable addiction for power, publicity and money. I believe that the reason is that they haven’t listened to enough blues music in their lives. If they had let the blues music grow on them, they wouldn’t have been transformed into what they are today.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font-size-4" style="font-family: georgia,palatino;">How and where did you get the inspiration to write that book?</span></p>
<p>I did it by observing people and by recording their social behavior.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font-size-4" style="font-family: georgia,palatino;">What musicians have influenced you most as a writer?</span></p>
<p>I wouldn’t say that certain musicians have influenced me in terms of writing that book or the other 3 that followed the first. As I said before, I draw my influences, by observing social phenomena, the way people behave, think and form their mentality. The blues music is the vehicle I use to record my observations.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font-size-4" style="font-family: georgia,palatino;">Who were your mentors in writing?</span></p>
<p>I hope I won’t disappoint you but not being a professional writer, a “schooled” author, in other words, I have no particular influences. My writing is simple and it reflects the stimuli I get by observing people. I am a simple guy, I live a simple life, I have no hopes, no dreams and no visions. I am a very down to earth person who believes that friendship is the greatest thing in life. Our “grandfather” <a target="_blank" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicurus">Epicurus, the Hellenistic philosopher</a> (that’s where my pen-name is derived from) said that “friendship is a matter of the utmost importance: it contributes, more than anything else to the good and pleasant life. It is also the cohesive force that makes society and human cohabitation possible at all”.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font-size-4" style="font-family: georgia,palatino;">When was your first desire to become involved in the blues?</span></p>
<p>If being “involved in the blues” means doing the best you can to help people discover it, I began “being involved” when my students exhibited an interest in learning more about it. Concerning myself, I must have been around fifteen years old when I “met” the blues for the first time. I had an English teacher from Chicago, Illinois who gave me some LPs to listen to. Her name was <strong>Marialena Giamilis</strong>, a Greek American who ended up teaching English, here in Greece. Hound Dog Taylor, Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Big Mama Thornton, Muddy Waters and Koko Taylor. When I played them, I became an addict, a blues addict and I remain one up until to this very day.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font-size-4" style="font-family: georgia,palatino;">Is “blues” a way of life?</span></p>
<p>Absolutely and that is because it is real. <strong>Albert King</strong> once said that <em>“If you don’t dig the blues, you got a hole in your soul.”</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font-size-4" style="font-family: georgia,palatino;">Is there any similarity between the blues in Chicago and the blues in Athens?</span></p>
<p>There is an enormous difference. Chicago is a big place. Very recently, a good friend of mine, a young Greek American, <strong>Spyridon Alexopoulos</strong> who was born and raised in Chicago, plays the guitar and sings the blues with his amazing, jaw dropping voice, came over to visit his roots and spend some time with me and a few of my blues friends and musicians. The blues is still alive and kicking in the States especially in the Chicago area. The oldest blues club in Chicago, the <strong>Kingston’s Mine</strong> has been renovated and keeps hosting the biggest names in the blues world. However, here, in Athens there are only a few clubs that play the blues and that’s sad because there some many talented blues musicians around who desperately need a “home” to play their music.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><a target="_self" href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2219685801?profile=original"><img width="235" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2219685801?profile=RESIZE_320x320" class="align-left" width="235"/></a></p>
<p><span class="font-size-4" style="font-family: georgia,palatino;">How is your relationship with the Greek blues bands?</span></p>
<p>I love and admire all of them, both the “old timers” and the new generation bands, which, by the way, are very promising although they have “big shoes to fill”. Unfortunately, playing the blues in Greece especially in the middle of a non-ending financial crisis that has devastated the people, isn’t what I would call “the best career prospect”.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font-size-4" style="font-family: georgia,palatino;">Which musician would you rather be?</span></p>
<p>Well, since I am a story teller myself, I would choose <a target="_self" href="http://blues.gr/profiles/blogs/an-interview-with-the-master-of-original-acoustic-blues-doug">Doug McLeod</a>, a great blues musician and a superb story teller.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font-size-4" style="font-family: georgia,palatino;">Does the media help the blues?</span></p>
<p>In a country like Greece, I am pretty sure that most of the media people are unaware of what the blues is all about.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font-size-4" style="font-family: georgia,palatino;">I wonder if you could tell me a few things about blues.gr</span></p>
<p>I think that <a href="http://blues.gr/profile/rousso" target="_self">Yannis</a> Roussochatzakis is a go getter. He created something out of nothing which is very important. The site could be the real home of the blues if some people get together and work hard for that purpose. The site has tremendous prospects but it needs determined people to make it shine.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font-size-4" style="font-family: georgia,palatino;">What was the first gig you went to?</span></p>
<p>I saw <strong>Mighty Joe Young</strong> at a club called “<strong>Hangar 9</strong>” at Carbondale, Southern Illinois. I must have been around 19 years old.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font-size-4" style="font-family: georgia,palatino;">What was the last record or book you bought?</span></p>
<p>The album <a target="_self" href="http://blues.gr/profiles/blogs/an-interview-with-the-master-of-original-acoustic-blues-doug">“Brand New Eyes” by Doug McLeod</a>. The “long black train” is one of my favorite songs. Now, about books. I usually buy history books but I haven’t bought one in a long time.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font-size-4" style="font-family: georgia,palatino;">What advice would you give to Sonny Boy Williamson?</span></p>
<p>I would accuse him of not trying hard enough to convince Robert Johnson not to drink from that pre-opened whisky bottle that contained poison and cost him his life……… (that’s a joke of course)</p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font-size-4" style="font-family: georgia,palatino;">What would you say to Jack Kerouac?</span></p>
<p>I would thank him for his book <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Road" target="_blank">“On the Road</a>”. I would advise every youngster to read this particular book if he wants to understand what life is about and how thin the line is between sanity and insanity.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font-size-4" style="font-family: georgia,palatino;">What would you like to ask Peter Green?</span></p>
<p>He is one of my favorites. I would ask him how it feels to be so successful and famous in such a short period of time. I guess, he would reply that it isn’t something easy to handle (judging from his personal experience and its consequences).</p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font-size-4" style="font-family: georgia,palatino;">What do you think of Batis (rembetiko musician)?</span></p>
<p>I think he is a great guy. I recall reading an interview of him saying that he isn’t afraid of death. What an Epicurean approach to life!</p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font-size-4" style="font-family: georgia,palatino;">What mistakes of the Greek blues scene would you want to correct?</span></p>
<p>Who am I to undertake such a task? Besides, I am just a blues lover and that’s all. I think there much wiser people around who can really make things work better for all the people in the Greek blues community.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><a target="_self" href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2219686038?profile=original"><img width="600" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2219686038?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" class="align-center" width="600"/></a></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font-size-4" style="font-family: georgia,palatino;">Give one wish for the blues</span></p>
<p>To become more popular and to receive the publicity it deserves.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font-size-4" style="font-family: georgia,palatino;">Is there anything that you miss from the 60’s -‘70s ?</span></p>
<p>The spirit of revolution.</p>
<p> <b> </b></p>
<p><span class="font-size-4" style="font-family: georgia,palatino;">What are the things that you miss most from your years in Chicago?</span></p>
<p>The rich blues scene.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font-size-4" style="font-family: georgia,palatino;">Which things do you prefer doing in your free time?</span></p>
<p>Spending time with my two kids and my blues friends. I have a very dear friend, his name is <strong>Bill Zacharichev</strong>. Besides being a superb guitarist and a blues lover, he is my alter ego, a true friend in Epicurean terms. He is the guy who helps me organize various blues events here in Greece.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><b><a target="_self" href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2219688504?profile=original"><img width="300" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2219688504?profile=RESIZE_320x320" class="align-left" width="300"/></a></b><span class="font-size-4" style="font-family: georgia,palatino;">Which historical blues personalities would you like to meet and booze together?</span></p>
<p>Sorry, I’ll pass on that. I would rather booze with my blues friends who are to me historical personalities, indeed. <a href="http://blues.gr/profiles/blogs/elias-zaikos-of-blues-wire-interview" target="_self">Elias (Zaikos)</a>, <a href="http://blues.gr/profiles/blogs/q-amp-a-with-greek-blues-guitarist-nick-dounoussis" target="_self">Nick (Dounoussis)</a>, <a href="http://blues.gr/profile/DimitrisIoannou?xg_source=activity" target="_self">Dimitris</a> (Ioannou) and <a href="http://www.google.gr/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&sqi=2&ved=0CBkQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblues.gr%2Fxn%2Fdetail%2F1982923%3APhoto%3A5724%3Fxg_source%3Dactivity&rct=j&q=stelios%20zafeiriou%20blues.gr&ei=tBacTr-nDYnP4QSJ-NSrBw&usg=AFQjCNEthMKAWCPhfKu4JiBrQPc4sBy0-A&cad=rja" target="_blank">Stelios</a> (Zafeiriou), <a href="http://blues.gr/profiles/blogs/paul-karapiperis-of-small-blues-trap-talks-about-greek-blues" target="_self">Paul (karapiperis)</a>, <a href="http://blues.gr/profile/billmarkos" target="_self">Bill</a> (Markos) and <a href="http://blues.gr/profile/TUBESCREAMERS" target="_self">Alexandros</a> (Antoniades), <a href="http://blues.gr/profiles/blogs/greek-blues-scene-q-amp-a-with-theodore-alexiou-of-boogie-sinners" target="_self">Thodoris (Alexiou)</a>, <a href="http://www.google.gr/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&sqi=2&ved=0CBkQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblues.gr%2Fprofile%2Fioannis%3Fxg_source%3Dactivity&rct=j&q=yiannis%20pachidis%20blues.gr&ei=OBGcTufzI7TS4QSdnrimBA&usg=AFQjCNEHJJcmyw4tyX4ZEXhs8Qjyp_eDHw&cad=rja" target="_blank">Yannis</a> (Pachidis), <a href="http://blues.gr/profile/dimitriosdoulgeridis" target="_self">Dimitris</a> (Doulgeridis), <a href="http://www.google.gr/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&sqi=2&ved=0CBkQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblues.gr%2Fprofile%2FPanosDaras&rct=j&q=panagiotis%20daras%20blues.gr&ei=lRGcTuqFMq754QT3hfCYBA&usg=AFQjCNHl9yUJ_vJ6T7oX-4UpxQvqw4q98w&cad=rja" target="_blank">Panagiotes</a> (Daras), Sotiris (Zisis), <a href="http://www.google.gr/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&sqi=2&ved=0CBkQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblues.gr%2Fprofile%2FSmallBluesTrap&rct=j&q=lefteris%20besios%20blues.gr&ei=NhacTtGTDobi4QS5saz0Cg&usg=AFQjCNEktBz34POccEGNZZesfAR2_kdABQ&cad=rja" target="_blank">Lefteris</a> (Besios), <a href="http://www.smallbluestrap.gr/bio/bio.html" target="_blank">Stathis</a> (Evangeliou), Andreas (Kastanakis), <a href="http://blues.gr/profile/Tasos" target="_self">Tasos</a> (Dritsos), <a href="http://www.google.gr/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=2&sqi=2&ved=0CCQQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblues.gr%2Fprofile%2FPaulXenos&rct=j&q=paul%20xenos%20blues.gr&ei=LRKcTreZN6b14QSEouicBA&usg=AFQjCNGBsKcLvzhwcnnydrhdC44orYUmaw&cad=rja" target="_blank">Paul</a> Xenos and so many other wonderful musicians but most of all, wonderful people.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font-size-4" style="font-family: georgia,palatino;">Do you agree Rembetiko is the “Greek Blues”?</span></p>
<p>Both reflect social dramas and represent people who had been left out or rather cast out by society. Both deal with human emotions and life’s ups and downs. I would say that they share the same social perspective and background. In terms of music, however, they are different.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font-size-4" style="font-family: georgia,palatino;">What does Ηound Dog Τaylor’s phrase: “Ι couldn’t΄t play shit but Ι made it sound good” mean to you?</span></p>
<p>Well, the way I see it is this: If somebody wants to play the blues, he doesn’t need a high end guitar, a superb amp and one hundred different guitar pedals. The blues music is simple and it comes straight from the heart. Hound Dog’s gear was bought from SEARS, an American department store that sells cheap household items. In addition, the blues music can’t be played well by the “Berkeley school” gymnasts. It needs people who are “buried alive in the blues” to play it right. The blues veteran <strong>Jimmy Thackery</strong> said once that <em>“The blues is the easiest kind of music that can be played badly and the most difficult one to be played well.” </em></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font-size-4" style="font-family: georgia,palatino;">To which person would you like to send a copy of your book?</span></p>
<p>I wish I could send it to everyone interested in reading it but I have no copies of my own besides the two ones I have kept for my kids.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font-size-4" style="font-family: georgia,palatino;">Would you prefer your kids to be rock or blues fans?</span></p>
<p>Blues fans for sure.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font-size-4" style="font-family: georgia,palatino;">Who some of your favorite blues musicians of today are and how has the blues music business changed over the years?</span></p>
<p>I admire <strong>Buddy Guy</strong> who keeps making wonderful music besides his old age. I also like <strong>Bryan Lee</strong> very much. His two live albums (Live at Old Absinth House-Friday & Saturday) constitute the epitomy of the blues to me. I don’t think I can tell you much about the blues music business since it is not related to my line of business which is teaching foreign languages. In the States, there is definitely a blues music market. Here in Greece, it is mission impossible.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><a target="_self" href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2219688712?profile=original"><img width="600" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2219688712?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" class="align-center" width="600"/></a> </p>
<p> </p>
Blues Cargo at We7
tag:blues.gr,2010-03-01:1982923:BlogPost:44790
2010-03-01T16:05:02.000Z
Yannis Rousochatzakis
https://blues.gr/profile/rousso
I just discovered Blues Cargo are listed on We7. Any other Greek Bands out there? I will keep looking and let you know. Would be nice to find more and more Greek Blues Bands in music streaming services like We7 and Spotify. If these sound all too strange for you just ask me for basic guidance.<br />
<br />
Here is Blues Cargo's Delayed Delivery on We7:<br />
<br />
<div id="we7widget"><a href="http://www.we7.com/album/Delayed-Delivery?albumId=369787">Free music - Delayed Delivery</a></div>
I just discovered Blues Cargo are listed on We7. Any other Greek Bands out there? I will keep looking and let you know. Would be nice to find more and more Greek Blues Bands in music streaming services like We7 and Spotify. If these sound all too strange for you just ask me for basic guidance.<br />
<br />
Here is Blues Cargo's Delayed Delivery on We7:<br />
<br />
<div id="we7widget"><a href="http://www.we7.com/album/Delayed-Delivery?albumId=369787">Free music - Delayed Delivery</a></div>
Small change in Latest Activiy
tag:blues.gr,2009-09-15:1982923:BlogPost:30967
2009-09-15T10:54:16.000Z
Yannis Rousochatzakis
https://blues.gr/profile/rousso
To prevent automatic spreading of spam entries from our Latest Activity feed to Facebook and Twitter, I decided to temporarily disable comment announcements in the Latest Activity stream until we figure out a way of filtering potential unwanted entries in other ways.<br />
<br />
Although we had not so many spam attacks so far in Blues.Gr, spam always follows large groups of people and we are going to have to deal with this anyway. The policy is simple: Spammers are instantly banned from Blues.Gr and all…
To prevent automatic spreading of spam entries from our Latest Activity feed to Facebook and Twitter, I decided to temporarily disable comment announcements in the Latest Activity stream until we figure out a way of filtering potential unwanted entries in other ways.<br />
<br />
Although we had not so many spam attacks so far in Blues.Gr, spam always follows large groups of people and we are going to have to deal with this anyway. The policy is simple: Spammers are instantly banned from Blues.Gr and all their content is automatically deleted as soon as they are discovered. So there is going to be some unavoidable annoyance from time to time by spammers, but the site's content and service is always going to be protected and cleaned up quickly after any such attacks.<br />
<br />
Keep the Blues Alive<br />
Yannis
How Blues.Gr is linked to Facebook.
tag:blues.gr,2009-07-31:1982923:BlogPost:28771
2009-07-31T12:56:40.000Z
Yannis Rousochatzakis
https://blues.gr/profile/rousso
Blues.Gr, as many of you already know, maintains a <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/BluesGr/6426137971" target="_blank">Facebook Page</a>.<br />
<br />
Our Facebook Page is used to keep people on Facebook updated with whatever happens on Blues.Gr.<br />
<br />
To do that we use a little Facebook Application I recently wrote (<a href="http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=45439413586" target="_blank">RSS Graffiti</a>) which monitors activities on Blues.Gr and publishes them as News Stories in our…
Blues.Gr, as many of you already know, maintains a <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/BluesGr/6426137971" target="_blank">Facebook Page</a>.<br />
<br />
Our Facebook Page is used to keep people on Facebook updated with whatever happens on Blues.Gr.<br />
<br />
To do that we use a little Facebook Application I recently wrote (<a href="http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=45439413586" target="_blank">RSS Graffiti</a>) which monitors activities on Blues.Gr and publishes them as News Stories in our Facebook Page. From there these news stories get automatically forwarded by Facebook to the News Stream of all the Facebook users that are Fans of our Facebook Page.<br />
<br />
What this means for you is:<br />
<br />
<b>Every time you publish an Event in Blues.Gr, people will automatiaclly learn about it in Facebook</b>. Even if they are not members of our site here or don't visit this site as often as they visit their Facebook account.<br />
<br />
The same is true for most activities you have here like adding a photo or a video, posting a blog or replying on a forum.
Wes Jeans Interview
tag:blues.gr,2008-08-08:1982923:BlogPost:9245
2008-08-08T09:00:00.000Z
Bill Markos
https://blues.gr/profile/billmarkos
<p><b><img alt="" height="217" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2219681304?profile=original" style="float: right; margin-left:10px;" width="170"></img></b> Μετά το θάνατο του μεγάλου Stevie Ray Vaughan πολλοί προσπάθησαν να διεκδικήσουν τον τίτλο του little Stevie. Αυτή τη στιγμή κατά τη γνώμη μου, και κατά τη γνώμη πολλών άλλων, ένας από τους ποιο ικανούς για να διεκδικήσει τον τίτλο αυτό είναι
το παιδί θαύμα όπως τον αποκαλούν στην Αμερική,o τεξανός Wes Jeans. Βαρύ<br />
αυθεντικό Texas tone και τεχνική που σπάει κοκάλα.</p>
<p><b><img alt="" height="241" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2219681327?profile=original" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px;" width="170"></img></b> Έχει συνεργαστεί με πολλούς ογκολίθους του Blues (B.B King - Eric Clapton -…</p>
<p><b><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2219681304?profile=original" alt="" width="170" height="217" style="float: right; margin-left:10px;"/></b>Μετά το θάνατο του μεγάλου Stevie Ray Vaughan πολλοί προσπάθησαν να διεκδικήσουν τον τίτλο του little Stevie. Αυτή τη στιγμή κατά τη γνώμη μου, και κατά τη γνώμη
πολλών άλλων, ένας από τους ποιο ικανούς για να διεκδικήσει τον τίτλο αυτό είναι<br />
το παιδί θαύμα όπως τον αποκαλούν στην Αμερική,o τεξανός Wes Jeans. Βαρύ<br />
αυθεντικό Texas tone και τεχνική που σπάει κοκάλα.</p>
<p><b><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2219681327?profile=original" alt="" width="170" height="241" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px;"/></b>Έχει συνεργαστεί με πολλούς ογκολίθους του Blues (B.B King - Eric Clapton - Chris
Duarte) και πολλούς άλλους. Το 2000 κυκλοφορεί το πρώτο δίσκο του με τίτλο HANDS<br />
ON και φέτος κυκλοφορεί το νέο του δίσκο με τίτλο FOREST OF THE PINES το οποίο<br />
αποσπά τις καλύτερες κριτικές. Μετά από κάποιες προσπάθειες τελικά, είχα την τιμή<br />
να πάρω μια συνέντευξη από τον κύριο Wes Jeans για τους αναγνώστες του site.</p>
<p><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2219681381?profile=original" alt="" width="170" height="154" style="float: right;margin-left:10px;"/>Περισσότερες πληροφορίες μπορείτε να βρείτε στη σελίδα του
<a href="http://www.wesjeans.com">www.wesjeans.com</a><br/>
<br/>
</p>
<br clear="all"/><hr/>
<table style="width: 100%; vertical-align: top;">
<tr><td valign="top">
<dl class="interview">
<dt><b>[BM]</b> Tell me about your first time you played guitar.</dt>
<dd><p><b>[WJ]</b> I was grounded and sent to my bedroom one summer…So I dug out an old acoustic guitar with three strings on it out of my closet and started
fooling around with it. I kept playing with it until I figured out “Sunshine<br />
Of Your love” by Cream..So I ran out of my room all excited to show my<br />
parents!! My Mom told me to get my butt back in my room…So I did. But I<br />
wasn’t bored anymore! I had stumbled onto my new passion and what would be<br />
my life’s work.</p>
</dd>
<dd>
<br />
</dd>
</dl>
</td>
<td valign="top">
</td>
<td valign="top">
<dl class="interview">
<dt><b>[BM]</b> Πες μου σχετικά με την πρώτη που έπαιξες κιθάρα.</dt>
<dd><p><b>[WJ]</b> Ένα καλοκαίρι ήμουν τιμωρία και με στείλανε στο δωμάτιο μου… Έτσι ξέθαψα μια παλιά ακουστική κιθάρα με 3 χορδές που είχα στη ντουλάπα μου
και άρχισα να ψιλοπαίζω .Συνέχισα να παίζω μέχρι που ανακάλυψα το Sunshine<br />
of your love των CREAM…Έτσι κατά ενθουσιασμένος έτρεξα από το δωμάτιο μου<br />
για να το δείξω στους γονείς μου.!!!!<br/>Η μητέρα μου είπε να τσακιστώ
πίσω στο δωμάτιο μου. …Έτσι και έκανα, αλλά δεν ήταν πια βαρετό! είχα<br />
αφοσιωθεί στο νέο μου πάθος το οποίο έγινε και το επάγγελμα της ζωής μου.</p>
</dd>
<dd>
<br />
</dd>
</dl>
</td>
</tr>
<tr><td valign="top">
<dl class="interview">
<dt><b>[BM]</b> How many members are in your band?</dt>
<dd><p><b>[WJ]</b> 3</p>
</dd>
<dd>
<br />
</dd>
</dl>
</td>
<td valign="top">
</td>
<td valign="top">
<dl class="interview">
<dt><b>[BM]</b> Από πόσα μέλη αποτελείτε η μπάντα σου?</dt>
<dd>
</dd>
<dd><p><b>[WJ]</b> 3</p>
</dd>
<dd>
<br />
</dd>
</dl>
</td>
</tr>
<tr><td valign="top">
<dl class="interview">
<dt><b>[BM]</b> How can you name the music style you play? Is it modern Texas blues?</dt>
<dd><p><b>[WJ]</b> I think so.. I have so many influences, and I am the sum of all of my influences. I have been playing “Texas Blues” for 12 years now.. I am actually
changing my format with my new album. I would call it more “Texas Rock”..Its<br />
very heavily influenced by ZZ Top and other great Texas bands.</p>
</dd>
<dd>
<br />
</dd>
</dl>
</td>
<td valign="top">
</td>
<td valign="top">
<dl class="interview">
<dt><b>[BM]</b> Πώς μπορείς να ονομάσεις το στυλ της μουσικής που παίζεις? Είναι μοντέρνο texas blues?</dt>
<dd><p><b>[WJ]</b> ‘Eτσι νομίζω..έχω πολλές επιρροές ,και είμαι το σύνολο όλων αυτών των επιρροών.<br/>Παίζω texas blues από 12 χρονών..Ουσιαστικά αλλάζω μορφή με το νέο μου δίσκο. Θα
το έλεγα πιο πολύ Texas rock. Eίμαι πολύ επηρεασμένος από τους ZZTOP και άλλες<br />
μεγάλες τεξανές μπάντες.</p>
</dd>
<dd>
<br />
</dd>
</dl>
</td>
</tr>
<tr><td valign="top">
<dl class="interview">
<dt><b>[BM]</b> What is your opinion about the European blues fans?</dt>
<dd><p><b>[WJ]</b> I haven’t had the honour of playing in Europe yet.. I have been asked several times but it has never worked out. I plan on touring Europe in late 2008
or early 2009 with my best friend Lance Lopez. He says its great! That the<br />
European fans appreciate the blues a lot more than Americans.</p>
</dd>
<dd>
<br />
</dd>
</dl>
</td>
<td valign="top">
</td>
<td valign="top">
<dl class="interview">
<dt><b>[BM]</b> Ποια είναι η γνώμη σου σχετικά με τους Ευρωπαίους οπαδούς του blues?</dt>
<dd><p><b>[WJ]</b> Δεν είχα την τιμή να παίξω στην Ευρώπη ακόμα..μου ζητήθηκε πολλές φορές αλλά τελικά δεν έκανα τίποτα. Σχεδιάζω περιοδεία στην Ευρώπη
στο τέλος του 2008 ή στις αρχές του 2009 με τον καλύτερο μου φίλο Lance<br />
Lopez.Λέει ότι είναι υπέροχο το ότι οι ευρωπαίοι<br/>οπαδοί εκτιμούν
περισσότερο τα blues από ότι οι Αμερικάνοι.</p>
</dd>
<dd>
<br />
</dd>
</dl>
</td>
</tr>
<tr><td valign="top">
<dl class="interview">
<dt><b>[BM]</b> What are your future plans?</dt>
<dd><p><b>[WJ]</b> Well right now I am recording a new CD. I am halfway done with it as of now. After its completion I plan to tour extensively in support of the record.
We have a great show booked in Moscow, Russia next summer including Wes Jeans,<br />
Lance lopez, Eric Gales, and Joe Bonamassa.. I am very excited about that show!<br />
Right now were touring the States as much as we can.</p>
</dd>
<dd>
<br />
</dd>
</dl>
</td>
<td valign="top">
</td>
<td valign="top">
<dl class="interview">
<dt><b>[BM]</b> Ποια είναι τα μελλοντικά σου σχέδια?</dt>
<dd><p><strong>[WJ]</strong> Αυτή τι στιγμή ηχογραφώ το νέο μου cd. Eίμαι περίπου στα μισά της ηχογράφησης. Μετά την ολοκλήρωση του ,σχεδιάζω
περιοδεία για την υποστήριξη του δίσκου.<br/>Έχουμε κανονίσει ένα μεγάλο
σόου στη Μόσχα το επόμενο καλοκαίρι μαζί με τους Lance lopez-Eric Gales-Joe<br />
Bonmassa. Eίμαι πολύ ενθουσιασμένος με αυτό το σόoυ.!Τώρα περιοδεύουμε στην<br />
Αμερική όσο πιο πολύ μπορούμε.</p>
</dd>
<dd>
<br />
</dd>
</dl>
</td>
</tr>
<tr><td style="height: 333px" valign="top">
<dl class="interview">
<dt><b>[BM]</b> As I can hear you made a very good record. Forest of the Pine. Tell me something about this record.</dt>
<dd><p><b>[WJ]</b> “Forest of The Pine” was a long time in the making. It’s a collection of songs that I had been working on or touring with for years as well as some new
tunes co-written with Lance Lopez. Lance produced the record and I co-produced<br />
it. Like I said before, Lance and I are best friends and he is an incredible<br />
talent! So naturally I approached him about doing a record. So he moved in with<br />
me in Marshall, Tx, and we got to work, writing, jamming, and touring together.<br />
We recorded the record in Dallas, Tx over the course of four days. It’s a<br />
mixture of Texas Blues, Funk, Rock, Psychedelic, and jam. We had the opportunity<br />
to record whatever we wanted to, so we took full advantage of that freedom. It<br />
was a great time and I am very happy with the record.</p>
</dd>
<dd>
<br />
</dd>
</dl>
</td>
<td style="height: 333px" valign="top">
</td>
<td style="height: 333px" valign="top">
<dl class="interview">
<dt><b>[BM]</b> Όπως άκουσα έχεις κάνει ένα πολύ καλό δίσκο. Forest of the Pine. Πες μου
κάτι για αυτόν τον δίσκο.!</dt>
<dd>
</dd>
<dd><p><b>[WJ]</b> To “Forest of The Pine” φτιαχνόταν για πολύ καιρό. Είναι μια συλλογή από τραγούδια τα οποία έχω δουλέψει και σε περιοδείες για χρόνια όπως επίσης και
καινούρια κομμάτια έγραψα μαζί με τον Lance Lopez. Ο Lance έκανε παραγωγή στο<br />
δίσκο και εγώ συμπαραγωγή. Όπως είπα πρίν ο Lance και εγώ είμαστε οι καλύτεροι<br />
φίλοι και είναι ένα απίστευτο ταλέντο. Έτσι φυσικά τον πλησίασα για να κάνουμε<br />
τον δίσκο. Έτσι μετακόμισε<br/>μαζί μου στο Marshall, Tx, αρχίσαμε να δουλεύουμε ,να τζαμάρουμε και να
περιοδεύουμε μαζί. Ηχογραφήσαμε το δίσκο στο Dallas, Tx.Είναι μια μίξη από Texas<br />
Blues, Funk, Rock, Psychedelic και τζαμαρίσματα. Είχαμε την ευκαιρία να<br />
ηχογραφήσουμε αυτό που θέλαμε<br/>και έτσι εκμεταλλευτήκαμε αυτό το πλεονέκτημα της ελευθέριας που είχαμε.
Περάσαμε υπέροχα και είμαι πολύ χαρούμενος για αυτό το δίσκο.</p>
</dd>
<dd>
<br />
</dd>
</dl>
</td>
</tr>
<tr><td valign="top"><dl class="interview">
<dt><b>[BM]</b> What gear do you use?</dt>
<dd>
<br />
</dd>
<dd><p><b>[WJ]</b> Well, my gear has changed many times over the years. As of now I am using a 1956 Fender Stratocaster, 1973 Les Paul Custom Black Beauty as my main guitars.</p>
<br />
<p>My amps are a 100W Voodoo V-Plex with Mills Acoustics 412 Afterburner cabinets, a Voodoo V-Plex 50 Bluesbreaker, a 1966 Fender Super Reverb with a Vibratone
Rotating Speaker.</p>
<p>My effects are a Cry Baby 565Q Wah, Roger Mayer Octavia, Hughes &amp; Kettner Rotosphere, Prescription Electronics Vibe Unit, a Jimi Hendrix Silver Fuzz Face,
Exotic AC Booster, Maxon Analog Delay, Keeley 808 Mod Plus, and a Boss OC-3.</p>
<p>I also use GHS Strings, 12-60 on my Strats, and 10-46 on my Gibsons.</p>
</dd>
<dd>
<br />
</dd>
</dl>
</td>
<td valign="top">
</td>
<td valign="top">
<dl class="interview">
<dt><b>[BM]</b> Τι εξοπλισμό χρησιμοποιείς?</dt>
<dd><p><b>[WJ]</b> Λοιπόν ο εξοπλισμός μου έχει αλλάξει πολλές φορές τα τελευταία χρόνια. Τώρα χρησιμοποιώ μια Fender Stratocaster του 56, και μια 1973 Les Paul Custom Black
Beauty σαν τις βασικές μου κιθάρες.</p>
<p>Οι ενισχυτές μου είναι ένας100W Voodoo V-Plex with Mills Acoustics 412 Afterburner cabinets, a Voodoo V-Plex 50 Bluesbreaker, a 1966 Fender Super
Reverb with a Vibratone Rotating Speaker.</p>
<p>Τα εφέ που χρησιμοποιώ είναι ένα Cry Baby 565Q Wah, Roger Mayer Octavia, Hughes &amp; Kettner Rotosphere, Prescription Electronics Vibe Unit, a Jimi Hendrix
Silver Fuzz Face, Exotic AC Booster, Maxon Analog Delay, Keeley 808 Mod Plus,<br />
και ένα Boss OC-3.</p>
</dd>
<dd>
<br />
</dd>
</dl>
</td>
</tr>
<tr><td valign="top">
<dl class="interview">
<dt><b>[BM]</b> What is your opinion about the site blues.gr and southernrock.gr?</dt>
<dd><p><b>[WJ]</b> I think there are a great sites! Im very honored to be associated with such a great tribute .</p>
</dd>
<dd>
<br />
</dd>
</dl>
</td>
<td valign="top">
</td>
<td valign="top">
<dl class="interview">
<dt><b>[BM]</b> Ποια είναι η γνώμη σου για τα sites blues.gr and southernrock.gr?</dt>
<dd><p><b>[WJ]</b> Νομίζω ότι είναι πολύ καλές σελίδες. Είναι τιμή μου που κάνατε ένα τέτοιο μεγάλο αφιέρωμα σε μένα.</p>
</dd>
<dd>
<br />
</dd>
</dl>
</td>
</tr>
<tr><td valign="top">
<dl class="interview">
<dt><b>[BM]</b> As I can see you jammed with many great guitar players. How is the feeling to jam with Buddy Guy or B.B. King?</dt>
<dd><p><b>[WJ]</b> Its great!! Almost super-natural!! Its very humbling to share the stage with such legends. I feel very fortunate to have jammed with many of my heroes.
Its gives you a goal to work towards and lets you know exactly how far you still<br />
have to go.</p>
</dd>
<dd>
<br />
</dd>
</dl>
</td>
<td valign="top">
</td>
<td valign="top">
<dl class="interview">
<dt><b>[BM]</b> Όπως έχω δει έχεις τζαμάρει με πολλούς μεγάλους κιθαρίστες. Πώς είναι η αίσθηση να τζαμάρεις με τον Buddy Guy ή τον B.B. King?</dt>
<dd><p><b>[WJ]</b> Είναι υπέροχο.!Σχεδόν υπερφυσικό. Είναι πολύ ωραίο να μοιράζεσαι τη σκηνή με τέτοιους μύθους. Νιώθω πολύ τυχερός που έχω παίξει με πολλούς από τους ήρωες μου.<br/>Σου δίνει ένα σκοπό για να κοιτάς μπροστά ,και να ξέρεις το πόσο μακριά μπορείς
να φτάσεις.</p>
</dd>
<dd>
<br />
</dd>
</dl>
</td>
</tr>
<tr><td valign="top">
<dl class="interview">
<dt><b>[BM]</b> What guitars do you prefer most? Gibsons or Fenders?</dt>
<dd><p><b>[WJ]</b> Both. It depends on my mood and what I am playing. I think they re both GREAT!</p>
</dd>
<dd>
<br />
</dd>
</dl>
</td>
<td valign="top">
</td>
<td valign="top">
<dl class="interview">
<dt><b>[BM]</b> Τι κιθάρες προτιμάς πιο πολύ? Gibsons ή Fender?</dt>
<dd><p><b>[WJ]</b> Και τις δύο. Εξαρτάτ<span lang="el" xml:lang="el">αι</span> από την διάθεση μου και από το τι παίζω.</p>
</dd>
<dd>
<br />
</dd>
</dl>
</td>
</tr>
<tr><td valign="top">
<dl class="interview">
<dt><b>[BM]</b> Is in you next plans a live concert to Greece?</dt>
<dd><p><b>[WJ]</b> I would absolutely LOVE to!</p>
</dd>
<dd>
<br />
</dd>
</dl>
</td>
<td valign="top">
</td>
<td valign="top">
<dl class="interview">
<dt><b>[BM]</b> Υπάρχει στα ερχόμενα σχέδια σου μια συναυλία στην Ελλάδα?</dt>
<dd><p><b>[WJ]</b> Θα το ήθελα πάρα πολύ.</p>
</dd>
<dd>
<br />
</dd>
</dl>
</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="top"><td>
<dl class="interview">
<dt><b>[BM]</b> What do you want to say to the new starting blues bands?</dt>
<dd><p><b>[WJ]</b> Take your time and pay attention. Don’t get stuck in a rut with just one player or style. So many kids get so into SRV that they forget that there is
Freddie King, Johnny Winter, Billy Gibbons, Albert Collins, the list goes on.<br />
Just play what makes YOU happy, not what makes others happy. You will always<br />
play better if you stick to what ya love! Thanks so much!! You’ve been great!!!!</p>
</dd>
<dd><p>- Wes</p>
</dd>
<dd>
<br />
</dd>
</dl>
</td>
<td>
</td>
<td>
<dl class="interview">
<dt><b>[BM]</b> Τι θα ήθελες να πεις στις καινούριες blues μπάντες?</dt>
<dd><p><b>[WJ]</b> Με το πάσο σας και προσοχή. Μην κολλάτε με έναν συγκεκριμένο παίχτη ή στυλ. Τόσα πολλά παιδιά το κάνουν αυτό με τον SRV αλλά να μην ξεχνάνε ότι υπάρχει
και οι Freddie King, Johnny Winter, Billy Gibbons, Albert Collins, και η λίστα<br />
συνεχίζετε. Απλώς παίξτε ότι κάνει εσάς ευτυχισμένο και όχι ότι κάνει τους<br />
άλλους. Πάντα θα παίζετε καλύτερα εάν κολλήσετε με αυτό που αγαπάτε.<br/>Ευχαριστώ τόσο πολύ. Είστε υπέροχοι.</p>
</dd>
<dd><p>- Wes</p>
</dd>
<dd>
<br />
</dd>
</dl>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<br />
<p>Βασίλης Μάρκος</p>
Lance Lopez Interview
tag:blues.gr,2008-08-30:1982923:BlogPost:9653
2008-08-30T08:00:00.000Z
Bill Markos
https://blues.gr/profile/billmarkos
<div><img alt="" height="220" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2219681331?profile=original" style="float: right" width="170"></img><p>Πρόσφατα είχα τη τιμή να πάρω μια συνέντευξη από τον τεξανό κιθαρίστα <strong>Lance Lopez</strong>.</p>
<p>Ο Lopez είναι για όσους δεν τον ξέρουν είναι ένας καταπληκτικός μουσικός και βιρτουόζος κιθαρίστας της blues-rock. Ο "άνθρωπος ορχήστρα". Στον τελευταίο του δίσκο higher ground παίζει όλα τα όργανα μόνος του και επίσης έχει κάνει και την παραγωγή.</p>
<p><span lang="el" xml:lang="el">Απολαύστε</span> τον.</p>
<hr></hr><dl class="interview">
<dt><strong>[Bill Marcos]…</strong></dt>
</dl>
</div>
<div><img height="220" alt="" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2219681331?profile=original" width="170" style="float: right"/><p>Πρόσφατα είχα τη τιμή να πάρω μια συνέντευξη από τον τεξανό κιθαρίστα <strong>Lance Lopez</strong>.</p>
<p>Ο Lopez είναι για όσους δεν τον ξέρουν είναι ένας καταπληκτικός μουσικός και βιρτουόζος κιθαρίστας της blues-rock. Ο "άνθρωπος ορχήστρα". Στον τελευταίο του δίσκο higher ground παίζει όλα τα όργανα μόνος του και επίσης έχει κάνει και την παραγωγή.</p>
<p><span lang="el" xml:lang="el">Απολαύστε</span> τον.</p>
<hr/><dl class="interview">
<dt><strong>[Bill Marcos]</strong> Hi Lance welcome to our company.</dt>
<dd><strong>[Lance Lopez]</strong> Hello and thank you for having me</dd>
<dt><strong>[ΒΜ]</strong> You are a producer-singer - guitar player - drummer - bass player and much more. What do you prefer to be from all these?</dt>
<dd><strong>[LL]</strong> Well Im a guitar player first. I play every other instrument because I feel it is very important in the writing process to be able to compose for every instrument especially being a band leader. When I teach the bass player or the drummer a particular part I know what I'm talkin about...</dd>
<dt><strong>[ΒΜ]</strong> How would you call the style of music you play? I think it is a funky Texas blues-rock or not?</dt>
<dd><strong>[LL]</strong> Oh yeah it's Blues/Rock but I try to keep it classic and modern all at the same time mixing everything together. Sometimes a little heavy sometimes a little funky<br/>whatever has the most soul and depth</dd>
<dt><strong>[ΒΜ]</strong> How many years do you play music?</dt>
<dd><strong>[LL]</strong> I've been playing since I was 8 years old and I began playing live when I was 13 or 14</dd>
<dt><img height="254" alt="" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2219681428?profile=original" width="170" style="float: right"/><strong>[ΒΜ]</strong> What gear do you use?</dt>
<dd><strong>[LL]</strong> My live rig right now consist of a <strong>1970 Marshall Super Bass 100 head</strong> on top of a <strong>1986 20th Anniversary Marshall 4x12 B Cabinet</strong>. The second amp I have onstage is a
<strong>'65 Twin Reverb re-issue</strong> I like to blend it for clarity and reverb. I usually drive the front end of my amps with a<br />
<strong>Boss BD-2 Blues Driver</strong> modded by Robert Keeley in Edmond, Oklahoma.</dd>
<dd>I also use <strong>Browntone Electronics</strong> made by Tim Brown in Lincolnton, North Carolina. He makes two very special drive units I use one is a <strong>Hoochie Mama</strong> which is basically a high powered boost like a 808 Tubescreamer, but way more powerful and more mids. The other pedal is a <strong>Macho Man</strong> which is a real heavy duty high gain driver I use to sweeten solos or really heavy riffs with. I also switch back and forth between a
<strong>Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face</strong> and a<br />
<strong>Big Muff</strong>, I like the Russian Muffs a little better they seem more smooth.</dd>
<dd>My main guitars right now are my <strong>1965 inca silver Fender Stratocaster</strong>, My <strong>60's Aztec Gold Stratocaster</strong> built by Texas Guitar Workshop in Richardson, Texas,and a <strong>Korina Flying V</strong> copy. My sound is pretty classic Fender or Gibson Guitars and Marshall and Fender amps...</dd>
<dd>Dimebag Darrell used to tell me that using a Les Paul and a Marshall was cheating because you didn't have to work at it... you knew it would sound good!</dd>
<dt><strong>[ΒΜ]</strong> Tell me about your friend Wes Jeans .I can see that you have a good cooperation with him. Also he plays two songs in your Higher Ground album.</dt>
<dd><strong>[LL]</strong> Wes is the little brother I never had. We are from the same woods, he's from Marshall, Texas and I'm from Shreveport, Louisiana they are 35 miles apart from each other in the East Texas region called the Piney Woods which spills over into western Louisiana. Thats how we came up with the title of the CD I produced for Wes "Forest of the Pine" it is where we were born. We have been so close over the years not only as Guitarist but as friends and brothers. My kids call him Uncle Wes. We had a great time writing for "Forest of the Pine" we spent several months together on the road writing that CD we spent a majority of the time writing on Panorama Mountain in Kodak, Tennessee near Gatlinburg in the middle of the winter. There was so much snow on the grund we kept the beer in the snow in the front yard...hahaha. The rest of the record was written on the road and at his home in Marshall. We had a blast making that record, I'm still very impressed by Forest because when we made it not only did we both have the Flu we were hung over almost everyday...hahahaha..at least I know I was...hahaha.</dd>
<dd>So as soon as we finished Forest, I starting recording Higher Ground and asked Wes to play a coupla solos on there and they came great...Wes is my little brother and always will be...</dd>
<dt><strong>[ΒΜ]</strong> Do you think that Texas blues scene changed from the years of the great SRV?</dt>
<dd><strong>[LL]</strong> Oh yeah He inspired us all, and shortly after his death we had the Arc Angels which inspired another generation of us. He had such an impact on guitarist everywhere not just Texas..Just like Hendrix did. I miss Stevie. He was so powerful to watch play live and I was fortunate to see him when he was clean and sober so he was operating at full capacity, I cant put into words what it was like for me to watch SRV live, and especially jamming with BB King..pure Heaven. Here in Texas we take guitar playing very seriously. We have had a few leaders as far as Billy Gibbons and Johnny Winter. SRV continued carrying the tradition as being a leader. It is privledge and responsiblity for us Texas Guitarist to carry on that tradition.</dd>
<dt><strong>[ΒΜ]</strong> Is there any concert in your plans to Greece?</dt>
<dd><strong>[LL]</strong> I don't know yet but I would to come and play there soon</dd>
<dt><strong>[ΒΜ]</strong> What do you want to say to the new blues bands?</dt>
<dd><strong>[LL]</strong> You have to pay some dues and live thru some things to play the blues that's no secret just be careful in doing so</dd>
<dt><img height="254" alt="" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2219681557?profile=original" width="170" style="float: right"/><strong>[ΒΜ]</strong> How many members are in your band?</dt>
<dd><strong>[LL]</strong> Its a power trio right now maybe one day I will expand the band with Keys and horns</dd>
<dt><strong>[ΒΜ]</strong> Do you think that this kind of music is popular in other countries?</dt>
<dd><strong>[LL]</strong> I hope so...hahaha I always have enjoyed playing overseas because I think the appreciation for art and music is just so intense and it really inspires me whenever Im overseas</dd>
<dt><strong>[ΒΜ]</strong> What do you want to say to your Greek fans?</dt>
<dd><strong>[LL]</strong> I cant wait to see you all and thank you for your support and keep Southern Rock and Blues Rock alive</dd>
<dt><strong>[ΒΜ]</strong> Lance do you think that Internet can help music?</dt>
<dd><strong>[LL]</strong> Yes I do. I believe we will see in 20 or 30 years that the music industry will rely solely on the internet</dd>
<dt><strong>[ΒΜ]</strong> We would like to thank you very much for that conversation. Keep going like that and we want you to be sure that we are with you.</dt>
<dd><strong>[LL]</strong> Well thanks so much for your support and we look forward to seeing you...remember... First things first build a Wall of Soul to Simplify Your Vision so you can reach a higher ground...</dd>
</dl>
<p>Περισσότερες πληροφορίες μπορείτε να βρείτε στη σελίδα του <a href="http://www.myspace.com/lancelopez">www.myspace.com/lancelopez</a></p>
<p>Βασίλης Μάρκος.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzWOspuQzgc">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzWOspuQzgc</a></p>
</div>
Συναυλία Johnny Winter
tag:blues.gr,2008-05-23:1982923:BlogPost:7132
2008-05-23T08:06:29.000Z
Savvas
https://blues.gr/profile/Savvas
Συναυλία Johnny Winter και "Down & Out"<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Περιμέναμε με ανυπομονυσία την 17 Μαίου, και το ραντεβού μας ήταν στο Gagarin όπου θα εμφανιζόταν Johnny Winter(για πρώτη φορά στην Ελλάδα) και οι "Down & Out".Οι πόρτες του Gagarin είναι ακόμα κλειστές.<br />
<br />
O κόσμος έχει κάνει μια σημαντική «ουρά» και οι πόρτες ανοίγουν τελικά στις 8:40.Ο προσέλευση του κόσμου μεγαλώνει και η διάθεση γίνεται καλύτερη, βοηθώντας σε αυτό και κάποιες μπύρες.<br />
<br />
Το σκηνικό όπως ταιριάζει σε αυτές τις περιπτώσεις είναι…
Συναυλία Johnny Winter και "Down & Out"<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Περιμέναμε με ανυπομονυσία την 17 Μαίου, και το ραντεβού μας ήταν στο Gagarin όπου θα εμφανιζόταν Johnny Winter(για πρώτη φορά στην Ελλάδα) και οι "Down & Out".Οι πόρτες του Gagarin είναι ακόμα κλειστές.<br />
<br />
O κόσμος έχει κάνει μια σημαντική «ουρά» και οι πόρτες ανοίγουν τελικά στις 8:40.Ο προσέλευση του κόσμου μεγαλώνει και η διάθεση γίνεται καλύτερη, βοηθώντας σε αυτό και κάποιες μπύρες.<br />
<br />
Το σκηνικό όπως ταιριάζει σε αυτές τις περιπτώσεις είναι rock .<br />
<br />
Η ώρα περνάει και κάνουν την εμφανισή τους στις 21:30,οι "Down & Out", τρία νέα παιδιά από το Μπραχάμι με πολύ δυναμική στο παίξιμο τους. Μας χαιρετούν, και βέβαια είναι συγκινημένοι που κάνουν το ονειρό τους πραγματικότητα. Οπως και οι ίδιοι ομολογούν, επι σκηνής «που να το φανταζόμασταν ότι θα μπορούσαμε να παίζαμε support στον Johnny Winter όταν γράφαμε κομμάτια και είμαστε επηρεασμένοι από αυτόν».<br />
<br />
O κόσμος ενθουσιάζεται από το πpώτο κιόλας κομμάτι που ήταν μόνο μουσική. Ο κιθαρίστας γιώργος αλλά και τα άλλα δύο παιδιά δίνουν τον καλύτερο ευατό τους με τον μπασίστα του γκρούπ να έχει κάνει μια πολύ καλή σκηνική παρουσία.<br />
<br />
Περίπου στις 21:50 ένας ακόμα καλλιτέχνης εμφανίζεται στην σκηνή.Ο κιθαρίστας telecaster nick απο τους «Dustbowl» όπου και παίζουν όλοι μαζί ένα πολύ καλό κομμάτι, και τον κιθαρίστα να δίνει show παιξίματος.<br />
<br />
Στις 22:10 σταματούν να παίζουν οι "Down & Out", και μας αφήνουν με μια πολύ όμορφη «εικόνα» για τα παιδιά αυτά που πραγματικά αγαπούν αυτό που κάνουν.<br />
<br />
Με μια μεγάλη αναμονή έως (στις 22:45), βγαίνουν στην σκηνή ,πρώτα οι μουσικοί του Johnny Winter, και με το πρώτο instrumental κομμάτι μας απογείωσαν. Ο ντράμερ του, τον προσφωνεί και λέει να τον καλωσορίσουμε .εαν και δεν χρειάζονταν η προτροπή ολοι αμέσως φωνάζουν και τον υποδέχονται με χειροκρότημα.Σιγά σιγά εμφανίζεται στην σκηνή με το γνωστό καπέλο του και την κιθάρα του.Μας χαιρετά και αρχίζει να παίζει με τον υπέροχο δικό του τρόπο.Blues με ρυθμό άλλωτε να είναι ήρεμος και αλλωτε σε γρήγορο ρυθμό.<br />
<br />
Ο κόσμος χειροκροτά σε κάθε κομμάτι και η ώρα φθάνει γρήγορα στις 11:50 ο Johnny Winter σηκώνεται από την καρέκλα του και κάνει μερικά βήματα προς την έξοδο της σκηνής.Ο ντράμερ μας ρωτάει ένα θέλουμε να παίξει κι άλλο και βέβαια ο κοσμος τον προτρέπει να παίξει και άλλα κομμάτια. Εκείνος ανταποκρίνεται και παίζει άλλα δύο τραγούδια . Δυστυχώς η ώρα περνά και ο Johnny Winter μας αποχαιρετά στις 12:00.<br />
<br />
O κόσμος σιγά σιγά απομακρίνεται από το χώρο και η γεύση που μας μένει είναι «πολύ καλό αλλά λίγο» Όπως και οι φράση «να έπαιζε ΄περισσότερο αλλά και να ήταν όρθιος» Ας ελπίσουμε όλοι αυτοί οι μεγάλοι καλλιτέχνες να μας επισκέπτονται νωρίτερα<br />
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<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Κείμενο Σάββας Συνοδινός
Blues Festival Videos
tag:blues.gr,2008-05-16:1982923:BlogPost:6775
2008-05-16T21:08:00.000Z
Yannis Rousochatzakis
https://blues.gr/profile/rousso
Σήμερα ανέβασαν οι φίλοι <a href="http://blues.gr/xn/detail/u_17n0c77usuyqd">Texas Brothers</a> 4 videos από τα κομμάτια που έπαιξαν στο Blues Festival 2008 καθώς κι εγώ ένα ακόμη video που μου έστειλε ο <a href="http://blues.gr/xn/detail/u_38o07gpq52vik">Tony Dollar</a>. Έχουμε (έστω και ένα μήνα μετά) τα πτώτα videos από το Blues Festival κι ελπίζω όσοι φίλοι έχουν κι άλλο παρόμοιο υλικό να το μοιραστούν μαζί μας.<br />
<br />
Έχω βάλει μια λίστα με τα όλα videos που έχουν ως tag το "Blues Festival 2008"…
Σήμερα ανέβασαν οι φίλοι <a href="http://blues.gr/xn/detail/u_17n0c77usuyqd">Texas Brothers</a> 4 videos από τα κομμάτια που έπαιξαν στο Blues Festival 2008 καθώς κι εγώ ένα ακόμη video που μου έστειλε ο <a href="http://blues.gr/xn/detail/u_38o07gpq52vik">Tony Dollar</a>. Έχουμε (έστω και ένα μήνα μετά) τα πτώτα videos από το Blues Festival κι ελπίζω όσοι φίλοι έχουν κι άλλο παρόμοιο υλικό να το μοιραστούν μαζί μας.<br />
<br />
Έχω βάλει μια λίστα με τα όλα videos που έχουν ως tag το "Blues Festival 2008" <a href="http://blues.gr/BluesFestival2008">στη σελίδα του Blues Festival</a>. Μπορείτε επίσης να τα <a href="http://blues.gr/video/video/listTagged?tag=blues+festival+2008">δείτε κι εδώ</a>.
Blues on Flickr
tag:blues.gr,2008-05-16:1982923:BlogPost:6743
2008-05-16T01:11:53.000Z
Yannis Rousochatzakis
https://blues.gr/profile/rousso
Δείτε στο <a href="http://blues.gr/notes">Rambling</a> αυτή τη <a href="http://blues.gr/page/page/show?id=1982923%3APage%3A6742">νέα σελίδα</a> που μόλις πρόσθεσα με φωτογραφίες σχετικές με το Blues από όλο τον κόσμο.
Δείτε στο <a href="http://blues.gr/notes">Rambling</a> αυτή τη <a href="http://blues.gr/page/page/show?id=1982923%3APage%3A6742">νέα σελίδα</a> που μόλις πρόσθεσα με φωτογραφίες σχετικές με το Blues από όλο τον κόσμο.
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tag:blues.gr,2008-05-06:1982923:BlogPost:6258
2008-05-06T13:37:22.000Z
Yannis Rousochatzakis
https://blues.gr/profile/rousso
Θα παρατηρήσετε στο δεξί μέρος κάθε σελίδας ότι υπάρχει πλέον ένα feedback tab. Αν κάνετε click εκεί θα οδηγηθείτε σε ένα νέο εργαλείο του blues.gr το οποίο φτιάχτηκε για να συγκεντρώνει (με τρόπο συμμετοχικό και κατά το δυνατόν οργανωμένο), τις προτάσεις σας για βελτίωση του site.<br />
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Βασίζεται σε μια καινούργια υπηρεσία στο Internet που λέγεται UserVoice και βρίσκεται προς το παρόν σε beta έκδοση. Τα accounts σας δεν ισχύουν εκεί οπότε αν θέλετε να ψηφίσετε υπερ μιας ιδέας θα χρειαστεί να…
Θα παρατηρήσετε στο δεξί μέρος κάθε σελίδας ότι υπάρχει πλέον ένα feedback tab. Αν κάνετε click εκεί θα οδηγηθείτε σε ένα νέο εργαλείο του blues.gr το οποίο φτιάχτηκε για να συγκεντρώνει (με τρόπο συμμετοχικό και κατά το δυνατόν οργανωμένο), τις προτάσεις σας για βελτίωση του site.<br />
<br />
Βασίζεται σε μια καινούργια υπηρεσία στο Internet που λέγεται UserVoice και βρίσκεται προς το παρόν σε beta έκδοση. Τα accounts σας δεν ισχύουν εκεί οπότε αν θέλετε να ψηφίσετε υπερ μιας ιδέας θα χρειαστεί να φτιάξετε ένα account.<br />
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Για αρχή πρόσθεσα τις παρατηρήσεις που μου έστειλε ένα πρώην μέλλος του blues.gr που δυσαρεστήθηκε αρκετά ώστε να σβύσει το account του. Φυσικά δεν είναι δυνατόν να είμαστε όλοι ικανοποιημένοι. Για τον λόγο αυτό κάνω μια επιπλέον προσπάθεια (εκτός από τις δυνατότητες που ήδη έχουμε στο forum) να συγκεντρώσω παρατηρήσεις από τα μέλη και προτάσεις βελτίωσης του site που μπορούν να υλοποιηθούν.<br />
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Καθένας μπορεί να ψηφίσει υπάρχουσες ιδέες με τις 8 ψήφους που διαθέτει. Οπότε μην σπαταλάτε τις ψήφους σας σε ιδέες που δεν σας κινούν πραγματικά το ενδιαφέρον. Αν και όταν τελειώσουν οι 8 ψήφοι σας θα πρέπει να περιμένετε ώστε μια από τις ιδέες που ψηφίσατε να υλοποιηθεί ή να ακυρωθεί ώστε να σας επιστραφούν οι ψήφοι και να προτείνετε κάτι άλλο.<br />
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Σας ακούω κι ελπίζω να μπορέσω να ανταποκριθώ στις προσδοκίες σας...
Rambling
tag:blues.gr,2008-05-05:1982923:BlogPost:6174
2008-05-05T20:20:49.000Z
Yannis Rousochatzakis
https://blues.gr/profile/rousso
Δεν ξέρω αν το παρατηρήσατε αλλά έκανα μια μικρή ανανέωση στο Rambling χθες βράδυ. Υποστηρίζεται τώρα από την πρώτη έκδοση του Wiki. Δεν είναι ακόμα τα πράγματα όπως θα ήθελα να είναι αλλά μπορείτε πλέον να βλέπετε στην πρώτη σελίδα με μια ματιά τα θέματα που προστίθενται οι τροποποιούνται στην περιοχή αυτή.<br />
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Προς το παρόν προσθήκη η ενημέρωση στο Wiki μπορεί να κάνει μόνο ένας administrator.
Δεν ξέρω αν το παρατηρήσατε αλλά έκανα μια μικρή ανανέωση στο Rambling χθες βράδυ. Υποστηρίζεται τώρα από την πρώτη έκδοση του Wiki. Δεν είναι ακόμα τα πράγματα όπως θα ήθελα να είναι αλλά μπορείτε πλέον να βλέπετε στην πρώτη σελίδα με μια ματιά τα θέματα που προστίθενται οι τροποποιούνται στην περιοχή αυτή.<br />
<br />
Προς το παρόν προσθήκη η ενημέρωση στο Wiki μπορεί να κάνει μόνο ένας administrator.
Οι Ελληνικές Blues Μπάντες στα Ελληνικά Blogs
tag:blues.gr,2008-02-15:1982923:BlogPost:941
2008-02-15T06:33:23.000Z
Yannis Rousochatzakis
https://blues.gr/profile/rousso
<div><p>Έστησα μια νέα σελίδα στο <span lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-us">Blues.Gr</span> που κάνοντας μια αναζήτηση στο <span lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-us">Google</span> συγκεντρώνει όλα τα πρόσφατα <span lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-us">Blog Posts</span> που αναφέρονται στις "πιο
γνωστές" Ελληνικές <span lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-us">Blues</span> Μπάντες.</p>
<p>Η σελίδα βρίσκεται <a href="http://bluesgr.ning.com/page/page/show?id=1982923%3APage%3A907">εδώ</a> και ένα…</p>
</div>
<div><p>Έστησα μια νέα σελίδα στο <span lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-us">Blues.Gr</span> που κάνοντας μια αναζήτηση στο <span lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-us">Google</span> συγκεντρώνει όλα
τα πρόσφατα <span lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-us">Blog Posts</span> που αναφέρονται στις "πιο<br />
γνωστές" Ελληνικές <span lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-us">Blues</span> Μπάντες.</p>
<p>Η σελίδα βρίσκεται <a href="http://bluesgr.ning.com/page/page/show?id=1982923%3APage%3A907">εδώ</a>
και ένα <span lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-us">link</span> σε αυτήν θα<br />
μπορείτε να βρίσκετε πάντα στο <span lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-us">"<a href="http://bluesgr.ning.com/pages">Info</a>".</span></p>
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Last.fm & Blues.Gr
tag:blues.gr,2008-02-21:1982923:BlogPost:1281
2008-02-21T10:47:43.000Z
Yannis Rousochatzakis
https://blues.gr/profile/rousso
<div><p>Μόλις έφτιαξα ένα αρθράκι στο <span lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-us"><a href="http://blues.gr/pages">Info</a></span> σχετικά με τον <span lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-us">last.fm.</span></p>
<p><strong>Αν δεν ξέρετε τι είναι μην το χάσετε! <a href="http://blues.gr/page/page/show?id=1982923%3APage%3A1264">Διαβάστε σχετικά εδώ</a>...</strong></p>
<p>Αλλά ακόμα κι αν ξέρετε για τον <span lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-us">last.fm…</span></p>
</div>
<div><p>Μόλις έφτιαξα ένα αρθράκι στο <span lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-us"><a href="http://blues.gr/pages">Info</a></span> σχετικά με τον <span lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-us">last.fm.</span></p>
<p><strong>Αν δεν ξέρετε τι είναι μην το χάσετε! <a href="http://blues.gr/page/page/show?id=1982923%3APage%3A1264">Διαβάστε
σχετικά εδώ</a>...</strong></p>
<p>Αλλά ακόμα κι αν ξέρετε για τον <span lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-us">last.fm</span> <a href="http://blues.gr/page/page/show?id=1982923%3APage%3A1264">διαβάστε το</a>
για βρείτε το <span lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-us">blues.gr</span> κι εκεί...</p>
</div>