Baton Rouge Blues Society

The Baton Rouge Blues Society meets every first Thursday of the month @ Phil Brady’s, 4848 Government St. Baton Rouge, LA 70806; (225) 927-3786.
Map.

Upcoming Meetings (all start at 8pm):
Thursday, July 8th
Thursday, August 5th
Thursday, September 2
Thursday, October 7
Thursday, November 4
Friday, November 2

After the meeting, stay for the World Famous Blues Jam!

See You There!!!

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May 3, 2010
Bamboula 2000: We Got It Goin’ Oon (Independent)
Mary Lasseigne: Mary Jane & the Brain Surgeon (Threadhead Records)
Tim Laughlin’s New Orleans All-Stars: New Orleans Classics (Classic Jazz Records)
D.L. Menard: Happy Go Lucky (Swallow Records)
Tom Paines: Rites of Man (Threadhead Records)
Coco Robicheaux: Revelator (Spiritland Records)
Amanda Shaw: Good Southern Girl (Poorman Mayfield Music Group)
Sweet Jones: Le Grande Soiree (Independent)

May 04, 2010
Cyril Neville: The Essential Cyril Neville 1994-2007 (MC Records)

May 18, 2010
Susan Cowsill: Lighthouse (Threadhead Records)
Andrew Duhon & the Lonesome Crows: Dreaming When You Leave (Independent)
Mary Lasseigne: Mary Jane & the Brain Surgeon (Threadhead Records)
Troy Turner: Whole Lotta Blues (Evidence)

The Baton Rouge Blues Society has created a radio station on Pandora. Check it out and send us feedback on new artists to add to the station.

In the large stable of blues talent that Crowley, LA producer Jay Miller recorded for the Nashville-based Excello label, no one enjoyed more mainstream success than Slim Harpo. Just a shade behind Lightnin’ Slim in local popularity, Harpo played both guitar and neck-rack harmonica in a more down-home approximation of Jimmy Reed, with a few discernible, and distinctive, differences. Slim’s music was certainly more laid-back than Reed’s, if such a notion was possible. But the rhythm was insistent and overall, Harpo was more adaptable than Reed or most other bluesmen. His material not only made the national charts, but also proved to be quite adaptable for white artists on both sides of the Atlantic, including the Rolling Stones, Yardbirds, Kinks, Dave Edmunds with Love Sculpture, Van Morrison with Them, Sun rockabilly Warren Smith, Hank Williams, Jr. and the Fabulous Thunderbirds.

A people pleasing club entertainer, he certainly wasn’t above working rock & roll rhythms into his music, along with hard-stressed, country & western vocal inflections. Several of his best tunes were co-written with his wife Lovelle and show a fine hand for song construction, appearing to have arrived at the studio pretty well-formed. His harmonica playing was driving and straightforward, full of surprising melodicism, while his vocals were perhaps best described by writer Peter Guralnick as “if a black country and western singer or a white rhythm and blues singer were attempting to impersonate a member of the opposite genre.” And here perhaps was Harpo’s true genius, and what has allowed his music to have a wider currency. By the time his first single became a Southern jukebox favorite, his songs being were adapted and played by White musicians left and right. Here was good-time Saturday night blues that could be sung by elements of the Caucasian persuasion with a straight face. Nothing resembling the emotional investment of a Howlin’ Wolf or a Muddy Waters was required; it all came natural and easy, and its influence has stood the test of time.

He was born James Moore just outside of Baton Rouge, LA. After his parents died, he dropped out of school to work every juke joint, street corner, picnic and house rent party that came his way. By this time he had acquired the alias of Harmonica Slim, which he used until his first record was released. It was fellow bluesman Lightnin’ Slim who first steered him to local record man J.D. Miller. The producer used him as accompanist to Hopkins on a half dozen sides before recording him on his own. When it came time to release his first single (“I’m a King Bee”), Miller informed him that there was another Harmonica Slim recording on the West Coast, and a new name was needed before the record could come out. Moore’s wife took the slang word for harmonica, added an ‘o’ to the end of it, and a new stage name was the result, one that would stay with Slim Harpo the rest of his career.

Harpo’s first record became a double-sided R&B hit, spawning numerous follow-ups on the “King Bee” theme, but even bigger was “Rainin’ in My Heart,” which made the Billboard Top 40 pop charts in the summer of 1961. It was another perfect distillation of Harpo’s across-the-board appeal, and was immediately adapted by country, cajun, and rock & roll musicians; anybody could play it and sound good doing it. In the wake of the Rolling Stones covering “I’m a King Bee” on their first album, Slim had the biggest hit of his career in 1966 with “Baby, Scratch My Back.” Harpo described it “as an attempt at rock & roll for me,” and its appearance in Billboard’s Top 20 pop charts prompted the dance-oriented follow-ups “Tip on In” and “Tee-Ni-Nee-Ni-Nu,” both R&B charters. For the first time in his career, Harpo appeared in such far-flung locales as Los Angeles and New York City. Flush with success, he contacted Lightnin’ Slim, who was now residing outside of Detroit, MI. The two reunited and formed a band, touring together as a sort of blues mini-package to appreciative White rock audiences until the end of the decade. The new year beckoned with a tour of Europe (his first ever) all firmed up, and a recording session scheduled when he arrived in London. Unexplainably, Harpo — who had never been plagued with any ailments stronger than a common cold — suddenly succumbed to a heart attack on January 31, 1970. ~ Cub Koda

Biography courtesy of All Music Guide to the Blues – Paperback – 658 pages 2nd edition (1999) Miller Freeman Books; ISBN: 0879305487 – the most comprehensive guide to great blues recordings money can buy. The online version of the All Music Guides may be found at www.allmusic.com.

Bobby Charles (born Robert Charles Guidry, Abbeville, Louisiana) was an American singer and songwriter. An ethnic Cajun, Bobby Charles grew up listening to Cajun music and the country and western music of Hank Williams. At the age of 15, he heard a performance by Fats Domino, an event that “changed my life forever,” he recalled.

Bobby Charles helped to pioneer the south Louisiana musical genre known as swamp pop. His compositions include the hits
“See You Later, Alligator,” which he initially recorded himself as “Later Alligator”, but which is best known from the cover
version by Bill Haley & His Comets; and “Walking to New Orleans”, written for Fats Domino.

Charles wrote the 1950s classic “(I Don’t Know Why I Love You) But I Do” was a hit for Clarence “Frogman” Henry and was on the soundtrack to the 1994 blockbuster Forrest Gump. His composition “Why Are People Like That?” was on the soundtrack to the 1998 movie Home Fries.

Because of his south Louisiana-influenced rhythm and blues vocal style, Charles has often been referred to as black, when in
fact he is white.

On November 26, 1976, Bobby Charles was invited to play with The Band at their farewell concert, The Last Waltz. Charles
played “Down South in New Orleans”, with the help of Dr. John and The Band. The performance of “Down South in New Orleans” was not captured on film however, and did not appear in the film based on the concert with Charles only appearing briefly in the concert’s final song, “I Shall Be Released” (he is largely blocked from view during the song). The song, sung by Bobby Charles with drummer Levon Helm and bassist Rick Danko, was recorded and later released on a box set of The Last Waltz concert performances.

He co-wrote the song “Small Town Talk” with Rick Danko of The Band. “Promises, Promises (The Truth Will Set You Free)”
was co-written with Willie Nelson.

Bobby Charles continued to compose and record (he was based out of Woodstock, New York for a time) and in the 1990s he recorded a duet of “Walking to New Orleans” with Domino.

In September 2007, The Louisiana Music Hall of Fame honored Bobby Charles for his contributions to Louisiana music
with an induction.