Friday, November 09, 2007

Zuzu Bollin- Rebecca

















Farewell, Marchel.

At the pinnacle of the last great blues revival, Zuzu Bollin's Texas Bluesman was my favorite album. The core band on the 1989 session was the Juke Jumpers, an incredible bar band popular on the I-35 circuit from San Antonio to Minneapolis. But the final CD version also featured roots music stars like Duke Robillard, Doug Sahm and David "Fathead" Newman alongside Texas favorites including Doyle Bramhall, Hash Brown and Marchel Ivery. Ivery, a talented but largely overlooked Texas tenor, died eleven days ago. He was 69. (News tip to my friend BGO.) The Dallas Blues Society produced a fine documentary on Bollin. An Ivery solo begins at the 3:10 mark in this 2005 video.

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I watched much of the Latin Grammys last night. While I'm not his biggest fan, the night's best performance was by Pepe Aguilar. It's not up on YouTube yet, but the audience's response was not unlike the frenzied reaction in this insane footage. Forget what I said last week about Bobby Rush; this might be the best live music video ever. Aguilar just owns it.

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Have you physically handled Garth Brooks' new product? Ultimate Hits is really impressive. Its two CDs and DVD are contained spool-style in a single jewel case. It can be easily had for well under $20.00. The music industry as we know it would survive if more superstar artists followed his lead.

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Kansas City Click: Mary McCaslin plays a house concert Friday.

Chiara Quartet dares to enter the Brick on Saturday.

Come Sunday, Regina Spektor graduates to the Uptown.

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