On stage, Perry earned a reputation as a mesmerizing performer who plays with passion and excitement. Perry's rousing, crowd-pleasing performance at the Bishopstock Blues Festival in England in 1999 sparked the interest of Blind Pig Records and eventually led to a recording contract. The first album for Blind Pig, Fire It Up, was co-produced by Jimmy Vivino of "The Conan O'Brien Show" and released in 2001. His next CD for Blind Pig, Crazy Kind Of Life, was released in October 2002. Perry and co-producer Vivino wrote all the songs, with the exception of the Rolling Stones chestnut "No Expectations," on which special guest Richie Havens interprets one of the best blues tunes ever to come out of the rock idiom. Billboard called it, "An exceptional outing for guitarist/vocalist Bill Perry. He has definitely hit his stride as a solo artist."
Bill Perry's newest release, Don't Know Nothin' About Love, finds him reunited with producer extraordinaire Popa Chubby. Bill tears it up on a program consisting of eight new originals and three covers, including a rock-the-house version of "Hello Josephine." Once again, producer and artist have collaborated to craft a splendid showcase for Bill's incendiary guitar playing and songwriting prowess. Bill notes that "working with Chubby has really let me come into my own as a recording artist; the guy's a genius in the studio whose enthusiasm gets everybody going."
This 1974 release has King using his upside-down Flying V to slash a blues path through the Memphis Horns, the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, and the dawn-of-disco funk rhythm players. He half-sings with one eye on B. B. King and Bobby Bland and the other fixed on hot-buttered soul crooner Isaac Hayes. "Crosscut Saw" best captures the album title, with the leader and astounding drummer, Al Jackson, charbroiling a song the two had soul basted back in the mid 1960s with Booker T. Jones.
Step forward the eighth set in Ace's mid-price series of vintage B.B. King recordings based on his albums released on the Crown label. Between 1957 and 1963, the Bihari brothers' dime store label released 12 albums, comprised of singles from their RPM and Kent labels, tracks from the vaults, plus dedicated album sessions. Despite the "cheap and cheerful" production values, the B.B. King Crown albums became collectors' items due to the high quality of B.B.'s recordings and the eye-catching artwork. The LPs were a discographical headache until Ace was able to unravel the details.
The best-realized of their classic albums, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour was also the last of the group's albums for almost a decade to be done under reasonably happy and satisfying circumstances – for the last time with this lineup, they went into the studio with a reasonably full song bag and a lot of ambition and brought both as far as time would allow, across close to four months (interrupted by a tour of the United States right in the middle)…
An acclaimed singer/songwriter whose literate work flirted with everything from acoustic folk to rockabilly to straight-ahead country, John Prine was born October 10, 1946, in Maywood, IL. Raised by parents firmly rooted in their rural Kentucky background, at age 14 Prine began learning to play the guitar from his older brother while taking inspiration from his grandfather, who had played with Merle Travis. After a two-year tenure in the U.S. Army, Prine became a fixture on the Chicago folk music scene in the late '60s, befriending another young performer named Steve Goodman…