Blues Harp

Bill Homans, aka Watermelon Slim, and James Johnson — better known as Super Chikan — are a couple of blues legends. Slim plays guitar as if his life depended on it, blows a mean harp, and possesses a raw, scratchy voice that sounds like it’s lived through a couple of lives already. Chikan plays his own custom-built guitars and has one of those voices too. When the two of them team up to release a blues album, you’d expect it to be incendiery, a masterclass in blues showmanship and roots. You’d be right.Okisippie Blues, named after Slim’s Oklahoma roots and Chikan’s Mississippi background, just might be the blues album of the year……

This fabulous blues duo has existed for more than 20 years. The harp and guitar has been a traditional format in the blues history, and they are giving you the best of what they consider is the best of the acoustic blues tradition. Their music goes back to the 1920’s, 30’s and 40’s. The Jumper and Moe play in different styles like the Mississippi slide or harp style, or the sweet Piedmont way of guitar picking. We can find memories of Blind Blake, Mississippi John Hurt, Bo Carter, Leadbelly, Lightning Hopkins, Blind Willie McTell, Bukka White, Muddy Waters, Little Walter, BB King, Mississippi Sheiks, The Memphis Jug Band, Robert Johnson, and many more of the oldtimers in their music.

Artie White serves up another serving of first rate soul-blues on the this 1997 Waldoxy release, Home Tonight. Material or production wise, this is a typical Malaco/Waldoxy set, with a tight band of guitarists, Big Mike Griffin and Williams Andrew Thomas, bassist David Hood, keyboard whiz Clayton Ivey and drummer and co-producer Paul H. Lee. Add the Muscle Shoals Horns on the uptempo soulful opening number, when Artie tells his woman not to worry because "Your Man Is Home Tonight." It's followed by two straight-forward slow blues, "Somebody's Fool," and a terrific new Travis Haddix authored song, "Man of the House," where Artie tells his woman he's in a bad mood this morning and he just doesn't give a damn, with Big Mike taking a nice stinging solo…

You don't have to be a bluesman to be known for your harmonica playing - Stevie Wonder has taken his share of memorable harmonica solos, and the distinctive Toots Thielemans (who is arguably the Stan Getz of the harmonica) has demonstrated that a harmonica player can handle the most sophisticated of jazz. That said, no musical idiom has given listeners more first-class harmonica players than the blues. From the Mississippi Delta and the bayous of Louisiana to Chicago's South Side, the harmonica has long been the blues' most famous wind instrument. Spanning 1950-1999, This Is the Blues Harmonica gives listeners an appealing taste of some of the harmonica soloists (many of them singers) to whom Delmark has had access over the years. At its best, this compilation is excellent - and at its worst, it is at least decent…

Soundtrack to the Paramount Pictures film "Romancing the Blue Stone," a wild story about a group of blues enthusiasts and a blue diamond. Hiding behind the band, called "Chi-Town Hustlers" in the film, the "sons of Blues" to Billy Branch (harp) and Carl Weathersby (guitar). Excellent Chicago blues.– by Amazon