Blues Harp

Recorded in August of 1998 in Baden-Baden, Germany, at Ohne Filter, the Ford Blues Band took the stage and proceeded to rock the house. The music itself is fantastic! That was the real treat here. The music. At one point I closed my eyes and lost myself in the tunes.With Patrick Ford – drums, Andy Just – harp and vocals, Volker Striffler – guitar and vocals, and Dewayne Pate – bass and vocals, the band delivers solid blues rock to an appreciative audience……

]This release is a little confusing, coming out as it does more than a year after the release of MCA-Chess' Little Walter rarities collection Blues with a Feeling, and two years after the double-CD anthology set that contains most of the best parts of this collection. Still, this disc, coupled with the two best-of volumes, and the other Walter compilations, fills in some holes that are well worth filling. Made up of songs cut between 1953 and 1959 – none of which had ever appeared on LP before the original 1974 release of this collection – the selection features Walter in his prime, playing alongside Robert Lockwood, Jr. and Louis Myers or Luther Tucker on guitar (with Muddy Waters present on slide on one indispensable track, "Rock Bottom"), mostly Willie Dixon on bass, and Fred Below on the drums, with Lafayette Leake or Otis Spann on piano.

"Wielding a nasty blues harp, a smokin' band and a gutsy, soulful rock and roll vocal style, Darrell Mansfield can go toe-to-toe with the best of them – and if you don't believe me, let your ears prove it to you with The Darrell Mansfield Ultimate Series Collection. In the annals of 'Christian rock' there aren't a whole lot of artists who can go up against the big boys from the other side of the fence and come away wiping the blood off their hands and smiling. You know what I mean – we're not talking about Bill Gaither here. Wielding a nasty blues harp, a smokin' band and a gutsy, soulful rock and roll vocal style, Darrell Mansfield can go toe-to-toe with the best of them – and if you don't believe me, let your ears prove it to you with The Darrell Mansfield Ultimate Series Collection.

Canned Heat founder and guitar great Bob Hite once described his band as "a rock band with country/blues roots" and perhaps a little less modestly, "the first and greatest boogie band ever." Canned Heat's "greatness" has always seemed to elude them by a hair, however, regardless of their versatility and devotion to the strange and wonderful mutations their music endured, particularly in the '60s. But these dudes do nothing if not persevere. Having lost their signature falsetto and lowdown harp man Alan Wilson in 1970, 1996's Canned Heat Blues Band fronts "The Bear's" third vocal replacement, Robert Lucas, who wisely doesn't pretend he can cover those cool old road-trip-on-acid songs (like "Going Up the Country") in a particularly familiar manner.

Hammond-driven Blues Band with soulful vocals, stinging guitar, stylish harp and groove drums. Dennis Newman began his professional career in music at age twelve as a drummer/singer when he formed a pop group called "The Runaways", and played local events in his hometown of Rye, New York. He later switched from drums to keyboards and founded another rock band, "The Saratoga Wrecking Crew", and performed at high school and college dances. He also took up harmonica and fronted the "Odds ‘n Ends", a rock'n'roll band gigging throughout the New York/New England area.

Here's an 18-track collection of McGhee's earliest recordings, all of it emanating from sessions held in 1940 and the following year…..

These are from the first and only recordings that brought the entire, legendary, Bell family together into the recording studio. Carey Bell is justly renowned today as the best blues harmonica man around and is of course father of all the other bells here. Not just genetically though, musically too because his style of bard, "50s" blues has been brought down to one more generation. Lurrie Bell is a stunning blues guitarist who would be a star if it was a fair world. Steve Bell is a maturing but definitely inventive blues harp player and Carey’s younger sons, Tyson and James, are a supremely powerful and well oiled rhythm section. The music on this CD defines the best of recent Chicago Blues.