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The holidays are upon us! And The Soul of John Black has baked up some new treats for this holiday season, a few homemade jams, if you will. He’s mixed up his own style of blues, R&B and soul to give a new interpretation to that old holiday cheer. Take a listen and get ready to enjoy The Soul of Christmas.
An artist whose mastery has elevated her to the highest ranks of roots music, Mary Flower is celebrated for her instrumental skills and engaging vocal style. Her new Yellow Dog Records release, Misery Loves Company, finds Mary hosting some of blues and roots music’s most accomplished practitioners for a series of duets.
Calling upon the talent pool in her home town of Portland OR, Mary sat down with ten instrumentalists — and one singer — to make her most intimate record to date. Along with Mary’s dazzling guitar and unmatched lap steel, Misery Loves Company features a staggering variety of great players, from jazz pianist Dave Frishberg to multi-instrumentalist Colin Linden. It’s a testament to Mary’s ability to bring out the best in her collaborators.
Twenty-first-century soul man John “JB” Bigham blends the sounds of Stax and the space age on Good Thang, the latest from his musical alter-ego The Soul of John Black.
Good Thang explores R&B, rock, pop, and electronica, but it’s all about love: JB’s love for classic soul and blues, love of driving old-school synth-funk bass, and, most important, love for his family. At the heart of this collection of feel-good grooves are the title track and “Lil Mama’s in the Kitchen” — graceful essays on the joys of domestic bliss that capture Good Thang‘s distinctive mix of organic sounds and cutting-edge production.
Good Thang follows 2009′s Black John, which yielded the radio hit “Betty Jean,” and 2007′s The Good Girl Blues, a funky blend of classic and modern blues, soul, rock, funk and hip-hop. JB’s unique stylistic fusion has won praise from Rolling Stone, NPR and others. And he’s toured and recorded with fellow trailblazers Miles Davis, Dr. Dré, Nikka Costa, and Eminem, but his experimental roots go back to his eight years on guitar and keyboards in pioneering ska-funk-punk band Fishbone.
Here’s a heads-up on three upcoming projects we’re excited about.
Good Thang, the new disc from The Soul of John Black, is just around the corner with a June 7 release. The album explores R&B, rock, pop, and electronica, but it’s all about love: JB’s love for classic soul and blues, love of driving old-school synth-funk bass, and, most important, love for his family. Check out a “first listen” preview track below.
Mary Flower is also in the studio recording a new album of her inimitable blend of acoustic blues, folk, and ragtime, which will be available in late summer. The session sees Mary joined by a series of duet collaborators in what is shaping up to be her most intimate recording yet.
And the Asylum Street Spankers’ swan song, a CD/DVD combo entitled The Last Laugh, is in the works for a fall release. Stay tuned for a near-future post with details of the Spankers’ finale extravaganza shows next month in Austin.
Austin’s postmodern jug bandtakes a wide left turn with the world’s first agnostic gospel album. Mixing raucous old traditionals with wryly humanistic originals from co-bandleader Wammo, the all-acoustic roots mob pays homage to one of America’s seminal musical styles while staking out a theology of healthy skepticism leavened with tolerance. With special appearances from emeritus band members Guy Forsyth and Stanley Smith!
With a guitar/harmonica/bass/drums line-up, Woodbrain might be mistaken for a typical blues collective — at least until this fiery Portland, Oregon foursome begins to play, when it quickly becomes apparent they are potentially an evolutionary force in the genre. Or several genres at once.
Woodbrain’s energy is incendiary; their music deeply rooted in tradition. And yet their songwriting and improvisation pull those roots in all kinds of directions informed by the generations of Son House, Jimi Hendrix, and John Coltrane. Without sacrificing an iota of heart or soul, their sound effortlessly skirts boundaries to reach blues, rock, Americana, and jam scene listeners alike.
Blues Woman, Fiona Boyes‘ second album for Yellow Dog Records, captures the striking, original talent that allows Boyes to write, sing and play anything in the blues realm with total conviction. Its 15 songs run a rollicking trip through the contemporary blues landscape — from Chicago to Texas to Mississippi’s hill country and the Delta, all evocatively conjured by Boyes’ and producer Mark “Kaz” Kazanoff’s true-to-the-bone arrangements.
Recorded in Austin TX, with a full band including special guests Marcia Ball, Pinetop Perkins, and Watermelon Slim, Blues Woman manifests the soulful, authoritative style of this native Australian and three-time Blues Music Award nominee to full effect.
Mary Flower‘s newest studio album, Bridges, is another chapter in the acoustic guitarist’s narrative of the diversity of American roots music, deftly melding ragtime, country blues, swing, folk styles, and hot jazz through the mastery of her fingerpicked and lap-style guitar playing.
It’s also a love letter of sorts to her adoptive home town of Portland, OR — the “bridges” of the title allude to the many crossings of the Willamette River that give the city its unique character, as well as metaphorically referencing the connections to many different musical genres that give Mary’s distinctive sound its own unique character.
As Terry Currier, owner of indie-music cornerstone Music Millennium, summarizes in the album’s liner notes, “Throughout her career, Mary has brought her own roots and blues sensibility to a wide variety of genres. Bridges is a unique, only-in-Portland blend that could only have been created by the versatile Mary Flower.”
A man works long hours at the circus, cleaning up after the animals and giving enemas to constipated elephants. A friend, observing the menial nature of the work, offers to help the man find another job. The man replies, “What? And give up show biz?”
The punch line to that worn-out vaudeville joke served as the title when the Asylum Street Spankers set up shop for two weeks in January 2008 at New York’s Barrow Street Theatre to look back on their underwhelming career and complain about their place in the music world. Juicing their acclaimed live show with a double shot of theatricality, the Spankers presented a musical revue and memoir of the troupe’s fourteen year history. Featuring many of the most popular songs in their large repertoire along with tales of the ups and downs of life on the road, the show ran for fourteen performances, garnering good critical response, strong ticket sales and many free drinks for the band.
All fourteen shows were recorded, then edited to make this album.
“What? And Give Up Show Biz?” contains adult humor, including frank discussions of sexuality, drug use and/or rock and roll. It also contains four-part harmonies, blues, country, pop, jazz, rock and hip-hop songs, inventively clever arrangements, and a musical saw.
It’s been called “the freshest-sounding blues album of this new century,” “one of the year’s most ambitious and sophisticated projects,” and “one of the best listens of the year”. The Good Girl Blues, by multi-instrumentalist John “JB” Bigham, aka The Soul of John Black, is a “funky blend of blues, soul, and rock” that merges rootsy, bluesy fundamentals with modern soul, funk, and hip-hop influences.
Bigham jammed on guitar and keyboard for the pioneering rock-funk-ska band Fishbone for eight years and has toured and recorded with artists as acclaimed and diverse as Miles Davis, Eminem, and Dr. Dre’. Now he’s taking center stage with his own The Soul of John Black.
From “The Hole,” a wailing 21st century re-imagination of a 100-year-old field holler, to the old-school, uptown soul vibe of “I Got Work”, to “Slipin’ and Slidin,’” an instrumental with a mysterious backbeat highlighted by DJ Phizz Ed on turntables, Bigham’s sly, intimate vocals and unique guitar technique on acoustic, electric and slide provide the unforgettable groove.