Published: 9/2/2009
Editor's note: This is the complete transcript of an interview that appeared in the paper edition of Metro Times in an abridged form. Unlike a lot of musical royalty, Irma Thomas never called herself the "Soul Queen of New Orleans." That title was given to her by the citizens of one of th...[MORE]
Published: 8/12/2009
The song, pressed on the local Wheel City label, is one of the most obscure in the history of recorded Detroit soul music. Yet when the band breaks into its intro, the packed house of testifying dancers erupts, and when Melvin Davis sings that first line, they're right there with him. They know ever...[MORE]
By W. Kim Heron
Published: 7/22/2009
"Well, a young man, he ain't got nothing in the world these days." Or so a young man named Mose Allison sang in his backcountry half-sung, half-spoken twang in a New York studio in 1957, inaugurating a singular recording career. The song, then just "Blue Blues," on an album that ...[MORE]
Published: 4/29/2009
Awwww! We're a nation of apologists all right, saying exactly what's on our minds one minute and then furiously backpedaling the next because someone's feelings got hurt. Foobah! Etta James still has every right to be pissed, getting passed over to perform her signature song, "At Last," at Pre...[MORE]
By Don Waller
Published: 4/29/2009
"When I was a kid, we moved about every three years, so it kind of prepared me for the life of a touring musician."So says Bobby Murray, who finally settled down — at least in a sense — in Detroit more than a decade ago, although he's not as well-known as many other prominent local...[MORE]
By Vic Doucette
Published: 12/31/2008
A sure sign of the calendar's fresh start is the 15th annual Anti-Freeze Blues Festival, always held the first weekend of January at the Magic Bag in Ferndale. This year's lineup promises two great shows to help bring in 2009. Friday's big draw is the Siegel-Schwall Band of Chicago, which has c...[MORE]
Published: 10/1/2008
Every picture tells a story," some dude sang ages ago. That's certainly the case with Little Sonny Willis, the "new king of the blues harmonica" and one of Detroit's most unsung musical legends, who's documented damn near every facet of his life with photographs while, by association, also documenti...[MORE]
Published: 8/27/2008
CHAPTER 1 All Gabriels know who they are and where they came from; they know Gabriel tradition and they are proud of the Gabriel name. We are teaching our children about who we are and where we came from so that they can be a part of the tradition and can keep the ball rolling. —Anth...[MORE]
Published: 4/30/2008
Cetan Clawson has an incredibly positive and powerful energy in person.The just-turned-20-year-old musician, who made his live debut in the sixth grade, has made a name for himself locally in the last two years by gigging constantly and displaying a guitar virtuosity and an onstage showmanship...[MORE]
By W. Kim Heron
Published: 4/16/2008
There's been a major movement in jazz to mine the pop of the '60s and later for new songs to play alongside such standard fare as "All the Things You Are" and "Take the A Train." And there's been a minor movement to dig into old-as-the-hills tunes, from Robert Johnson's blues to ...[MORE]
Published: 9/26/2007
With its overgrown weeds, bushes and trees, the corner of St. Aubin and Frederick in Detroit could be rural Mississippi. Particularly on a Sunday evening when raw blues and billowing barbeque smoke from the grills of John's Carpet House fills the air. "Do y'all have a bass player with you?" ask...[MORE]
Published: 1/17/2007
Although many an obit opined how James Brown got his second wind after he appeared in The Blues Brothers, few — if any — mentioned just how marginalized his mainstream career had actually become by that point. Building on the heady heights of the ’60s, Soul Brother No. 1 released a steady stream of...[MORE]
By W. Kim Heron
Published: 1/10/2007
Metro Times: We keep looking at Motown from different perspectives. There’s the "Berry Gordy’s production line" angle. The "ambitious stars" angle. The "background musicians" angle. Now your book is putting the focus on the lyrics. Herb Jordan: When I spoke with Smokey...[MORE]
By Doug Coombe
Published: 10/18/2006
Detroit soul singing booty-magnet and Virgin recording artist Dwele had just been handed the keys to his killer new split-level ranch in Southfield when he had to hit the road to support saxophonist Boney James on a promo tour (Dwele appears on James’ new album). He returned home a couple of w...[MORE]
By Bret McCabe
Published: 10/18/2006
To any one of the many people who bought Justin Timberlake’s FutureSex/LoveSounds (Jive) in the last month: Sorry. Not because you did — please, spend your money any way you see fit — but because nobody adequately warned you about one song on it, and some of the young and feckle...[MORE]
By Doug Coombe
Published: 10/11/2006
Legendary session guitarist Dennis Coffey has probably spent more time playing in Detroit studios and clubs than you’ve spent sleeping. During his heyday in the late ’60s and early ’70s, Dennis would play as many as 18 sessions a week and do a few live gigs on top of that. His tripped-out wah-wah gu...[MORE]
By Doug Coombe
Published: 9/6/2006
Briny R&B song-and-dance man Nathaniel Mayer scaled the pop charts in 1962 — as an 18-year-old — with “Village of Love,” a single on Detroit’s now-celebrated Fortune Records. That same year, Nathaniel’s parents purchased this home on the D’s east side, a...[MORE]
Published: 1/25/2006
This week, the city of Ferndale becomes a haven for pentatonic scales and hot licks. It's the annual Ferndale Blues Festival, and it's a Detroit blues bacchanalia. But rather than flapping our gums, we figured we'd direct your attention to the truly important information: Who's playin'? Friday...[MORE]
Published: 12/28/2005
The infatuation started about 25 years ago when an insistent friend promised, “You’re really going to like this, trust me.” And even though Mike Boulan thought blues “was about some old guy sitting on a porch,” he let himself be dragged to the Royal Oak Music Theatre w...[MORE]
By Monica Price
Published: 12/14/2005
While many Detroit area musicians continue to wax poetic about the ’60s, Nick Schillace rhapsodizes about the songs of an older, darker decade. When asked about his influences, the 35-year-old guitarist, teacher and musicologist name-checks Depression-era country, blues and folk artists li...[MORE]
By Don Waller
Published: 11/9/2005
“I Can’t Help Myself.” “Reach Out I’ll Be There.” “Standing In the Shadows of Love.” “Bernadette.” “Ask the Lonely.” “Baby I Need Your Loving.” “Loving You Is Sweeter Than Ever.” “Ain’t No Woman (Like the...[MORE]
Published: 10/12/2005
“You come to realize that you don’t need a lot materialistically when you’re doing what you love,” Jill Jack says, on a beautiful fall afternoon. She’s seated on the front porch of her cozy blue house — the one with the cozy picket fence just off the highway in th...[MORE]
Published: 8/17/2005
Alberta Adams I’m On The Move — Eastlawn — 2003 Live AA — Eastlawn — 2002 Say Baby Say — Cannonball — 2000 Uncut Detroit II (compilation) — Venture — 2000 Born With the Blues — Cannonball — 1999 T.J. Fowler and his Rockin’ Jump Band (featuring Calvin Frazier) — Savoy Jazz — 1999 Women Bl...[MORE]
Published: 8/17/2005
It’s a hot, wet July afternoon at Nancy Whiskey’s, and a rich and soulful voice is bouncing off the tin ceiling inside the century-old Corktown bar. Heady blues-belter Lady T is offering up a gut-driven version of “Happy Birthday.” When she adds the “how old are you?...[MORE]
Published: 7/27/2005
It’s the 10th anniversary of Heatstock, one of summer’s most anticipated outdoor music events. The annual two-day offering of blues, booze and barbecue has kept the masses coming, and this year will be headlined by blues, rock and soul man extraordinaire, Larry McCray. The festival...[MORE]
Published: 6/15/2005
Longtime Howlin' Wolf collaborator Hubert Sumlin still plays the low-down, dirty blues. But these days, he feels good. "I'm feeling fine. I'm ready to go to work, you know," Sumlin says by phone from his Milwaukee home. "I think this summer's going to be a pretty busy period for me now." And tha...[MORE]
By Cole Haddon
Published: 6/8/2005
Born blind, Robert Bradley has lived in music since he was a kid. Not lived with, but in it. The rhythm of the world around him beat in time with his heart, carrying him from his childhood home in Alabama, where he first discovered Elvis and Chuck Berry, to Detroit in 1966, just as race and war iss...[MORE]
Published: 4/13/2005
Motor City bloozoids the Howling Diablos are such stalwarts of the Motor City music scene that it’s almost easy to take them for granted. Sure, they’ve won armloads of trophies at the Detroit Music Awards and helped give li’l Bobby Ritchie his start. But they’ve been around so long, and have been ...[MORE]
Published: 12/8/2004
Eddie Kirkland is a roadrunner, baby. The 81-year-old blues man lives much of his life behind the wheel, crisscrossing the nation in a 1978 Ford Country Squire station wagon he affectionately addresses as Bodingle. With his guitars, amp and portable P.A. riding in a roof compartment, he’s one of t...[MORE]
Published: 10/27/2004
White blues fans — which is to say white fans of blues music — come in a vast array of ideological shades. Hardcore purists, the “appreciation society” dudes, curl their lips in a patronizing sneer if it doesn’t sound like Blind Willie McTell. The upwardly mobile soccer-dad types keep the 10-disc ...[MORE]
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