News

SHEMEKIA COPELAND TO PERFORM IN AFGHANISTAN

On April 17, award-winning blues singer Shemekia Copeland will head to Afghanistan to perform for U.S. troops as part of the Bluzapalooza tour. The 14-day tour will travel to Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan and Qatar with most of the time being spent at forward operating bases within the war zone of Afghanistan. This is Copeland's second trip to the region. In 2008 she performed for troops in Iraq and Kuwait.

Copeland's latest CD, DELUXE EDITION, featuring the greatest songs from her four Alligator albums, was released on January 18.

ANDERS OSBORNE RECEIVES SEVEN OFFBEAT AWARD NOMINATIONS

Guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Anders Osborne received seven OffBeat (the magazine of Louisiana music and culture) "Best Of The Beat" Award nominations, including Artist Of The Year, Album Of The Year, and Song Of The Year. Osborne's 2010 Alligator Records CD American Patchwork has been universally praised as a major highlight of Osborne's career. OffBeat calls the CD "the living definition of great art."

Osborne received nominations in the following categories:

Artist Of The Year

Album Of The Year - American Patchwork

Best Roots Rock Artist

Best Roots Rock Album - American Patchwork

Song Of The Year - On The Road To Charlie Parker

Songwriter Of The Year

Best Guitarist

The Awards ceremony will be held in New Orleans at Generation Hall on January 28, 2011.

ANDERS OSBORNE'S MEET ME IN NEW MEXICO TO BE FEATURED ON THE ABC TELEVISION PROGRAM NO ORDINARY FAMILY ON JANUARY 4

In other Anders Osborne news, his song Meet Me In New Mexico, from American Patchwork, will be featured in the January 4 episode of the ABC television series No Ordinary Family. Paste magazine calls the CD "mind-boggingly great."

LIL' ED & THE BLUES IMPERIALS TO JAM WITH CHICAGO CUBS PITCHER JUSTIN BERG AT BUDDY GUY'S LEGENDS IN CHICAGO ON JANUARY 12, 2011

Chicago blues masters Lil' Ed and the Blue Imperials will perform at Buddy Guy's Legends on Wednesday, January 12, 2011. During the show, Chicago Cubs pitcher Justin Berg will join the band on stage and jam.

 Showtime is 9:00pm. Tickets are $15 and all proceeds from the event will benefit the Ryan and Jenny Dempster Family Foundation. The night will offer a silent auction, as well as a live auction featuring autographed guitars supplied by Sam Ash music stores.

 The event kicks off Alligator Records' 40th anniversary and the 25th anniversary of Vine Line, the monthly magazine of the Chicago Cubs -- a publication of EMI Network. Buddy Guy's Legends is located at 700 S. Wabash Avenue in Chicago.

 Lil' Ed is an authentic Chicago blues master, boasting a direct bloodline to blues history -- his uncle and musical mentor was the great Chicago slide guitarist, songwriter and recording artist J.B. Hutto. His latest Alligator CD, Full Tilt, won the 2008 Blues Music Award for Traditional Blues Album Of The Year. In May 2010, Lil' Ed appeared at The Chicago Theatre as a guest of comedian Conan O'Brien. Lil' Ed, along with The Blues Imperials, appeared on Late Night With Conan O'Brien in 2006.

Berg, 26, is a native of Antigo, Wisconsin, and is an accomplished guitar player and drummer. Originally selected by the New York Yankees in the 43rd round of the 2003 draft, he was acquired via trade in 2005. Berg made his major league debut Aug. 13, 2009, tossing two shutout innings against the Philadelphia Phillies. In 52 big-league appearances, Berg is 0-1 with a 4.15 ERA.

The Ryan and Jenny Dempster Foundation is dedicated to raising awareness of 22q11.2 Deletion (DiGeorge Syndrome/VCFS) and reaching out to families with children with the disorder and the charities that support them to help them deal with difficult situations they face each day. The foundation strives to support those charities through monetary grants, programs and increased community awareness.

Sam Ash is one of the leading musical instrument retailers in the country. With over 84 years in the business, Sam Ash is one of the most trusted names in the industry. Having originally started with only one little store in Brooklyn, N.Y., Sam Ash now boasts 45 megastores in 16 states.

EIGHT ALLIGATOR ARTISTS RECEIVE

 EIGHTEEN BLUES MUSIC AWARD NOMINATIONS

Charlie Musselwhite Nominated For Five; Janiva Magness For Four

On Wednesday, December 15, The Blues Foundation announced the nominees for the 2011 Blues Music Awards. Eight Alligator recording artists received a total of 18 nominations, far more than any other label. Harmonica master Charlie Musselwhite received five nods (tied with Buddy Guy for the most nominations), including Album Of The Year (for The Well) and Traditional Blues Male Artist Of The Year. Following closely behind, blues and soul singer Janiva Magness received four nominations, with nods for B.B. King Entertainer Of The Year (an honor she won in 2009), Album Of The Year (for The Devil Is An Angel Too) and Contemporary Female Artist Of The Year. Blues master James Cotton was honored with three nominations, soul/blues/gospel trio The Holmes Brothers with two, and harmonicist/vocalist Rick Estrin, dual-lead guitar band Smokin' Joe Kubek & Bnois King, guitar superstar Guitar Shorty and Keith Crossan (of The Tommy Castro Band) with one apiece.

The 32nd Annual Blues Music Awards will be presented in Memphis on May 5, 2011 at the Cook Convention Center.

Artists and nominations are as follows:

Album Of The Year - The Well

Instrumentalist Of The Year - Harmonica

Song Of The Year - Sad And Beautiful World (written by Charlie Musselwhite, from The Well)

Traditional Blues Album Of The Year - The Well

Traditional Blues Male Artist Of The Year

Album Of The Year - The Devil Is An Angel Too

B.B. King Entertainer Of The Year

Contemporary Blues Album Of The Year - The Devil Is An Angel Too

Contemporary Blues Female Artist Of The Year

Instrumentalist Of The Year - Harmonica

Traditional Blues Album Of The Year - Giant

Traditional Blues Male Artist Of The Year

Soul Blues Album Of The Year - Feed My Soul

Band Of The Year

Band Of The Year

Contemporary Blues Album Of The Year - Have Blues, Will Travel

Song Of The Year - Please Mr. President (written by David Kearney, Bruce Iglauer, and Wyzard, from Bare Knuckle)

KEITH CROSSAN (of THE TOMMY CASTRO BAND):

Best Instrumentalist - Horn

ALLIGATOR TO KICK OFF 40th ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION WITH RELEASES FROM ROOMFUL OF BLUES AND SHEMEKIA COPELAND ON JANUARY 18

WILL FOLLOW WITH SLEW OF SPECIAL CD AND VINYL RELEASES ON FEBRUARY 22

Alligator Records, the company The Washington Post calls "the premiere blues label in the United States," celebrates its 40th anniversary in 2011 beginning with the January 18 release of Hook, Line & Sinker from the kings of horn-driven swing, jump blues and early rock 'n' roll, Roomful of Blues, and Deluxe Edition, a collection of some of the finest blues, rock, soul and R&B tracks from one of the greatest blues voices of this (or any other) era, Shemekia Copeland.

At 43-years-old, New England's Roomful of Blues has been around even longer than Alligator Records. For all that time, they've celebrated the jump blues, R&B and early rock 'n' roll music of the horn-powered golden era of the late 1940s and early 1950s. Roomful don't simply recreate the famous and obscure 78s and 45s of those years. Inspired by the spirit of the groundbreaking bands of the post-World War II decade, they've breathed new life into vintage songs, infusing them with boundless energy and fiery, swinging solos and vocals. For the last two decades, Roomful has been led by Chris Vachon, one of the most underrated guitarists in the blues. For 40 years, their hard-charging horn section has been sparked by Rich Lataille on tenor and alto sax. Energizing the band on Hook, Line & Sinker is their terrific new vocalist, Phil Pemberton. Phil's performances showcase his flamboyant, multi-octave voice, fun-loving attitude and his deep understanding of the era when jumping blues bands were fronted by huge-voiced singers like Roy Brown, Wynonie Harris and Big Joe Turner. This album also gives more showcase space to Chris Vachon's tough guitar work. His version of Gatemouth Brown's Gate Walks To Board proves his talent can match that of the best string-benders. Hook, Line & Sinker is a proud addition to Roomful's glorious musical history.

Shemekia Copeland, at 31, has been performing professionally for more than half of her life. She has proven herself to be a brilliant, immensely soulful blues and R&B singer. Inspired by her father, legendary Texas blues guitarist/vocalist Johnny Clyde Copeland and tempered by her youth in the tough streets of Harlem, Shemekia began singing professionally at age 16. At first she was opening shows for her father and then before long was leading her own band. She signed to Alligator when she turned 18, and cut four albums with producers Dr. John, Steve Cropper, and the team of Jimmy Vivino, songwriter John Hahn and Alligator president Bruce Iglauer. Shemekia has an amazing ability to get deep inside a lyric, whether it's the swaggering Memphis soul of Turn The Heat Up, the driving rock of It's 2 A.M., the tongue-in-cheek flirtatiousness of Stay A Little Longer, Santa or the naked intensity of Ghetto Child, her father's song that climaxes almost every live Shemekia performance. Shemekia's career has gone from peak to peak--from playing small New York clubs to headlining blues festivals, to tours across the U.S., Canada and Europe, to multiple network TV appearances, and even to opening for The Rolling Stones. Deluxe Edition brings together some of the most thrilling and joyful recordings of the first part of what is already a storied career.

On February 22 Alligator opens the vaults for the release of some very special items. A 2-CD set, The Alligator Records 40th Anniversary Collection brings together some of the greatest musical moments from Alligator's unparalled history, newly remastered by label founder Bruce Iglauer. Iglauer also remastered Showdown!, the Grammy-winning collaboration between Albert Collins, Johnny Clyde Copeland and Robert Cray. The release, coming on CD and on vinyl,  features the bonus track Something To Remember You By.

But that's not all. The three other LPs to be released the same day are Hound Dog Taylor & The HouseRockers (Alligator's very first album released in 1971. Includes  bonus track Look On Yonder's Wall), Buddy Guy & Junior Wells, Alone & Acoustic (first time on vinyl) and JJ Grey & Mofro, Georgia Warhorse (first time on vinyl).

Please stay tuned, as Alligator will be announcing many more special events as the celebration continues.

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HARMONICA MASTERS JAMES COTTON AND CHARLIE MUSSELWHITE 

RECEIVE GRAMMY AWARD NOMINATIONS

Alligator recording artists James Cotton and Charlie Musselwhite each received a Grammy Award

nomination in the Best Traditional Blues Album category (Category 66). Cotton's Giant  and

Musselwhite's The Well have been hailed by critics and fans alike as two of the very best blues CDs of 2010.

Blues Revue said Cotton "is a virtuosoof the blues. Giant is one of the best albums of the year."

Living Blues said, "The Well features full-toned Memphis-to-Chicago harp chops and is filled with soul-stirring, spiritual uplift and hard-won, life-affirming blues wisdom."

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Chicago blues guitarist and vocalist Albert Abraham "Little Smokey" Smothers, 71, died on November 20, 2010. Smothers recorded multiple albums and accompanied other famed blues men and women on records and in live performance. He was also known as a mentor to younger musicians, including Paul Butterfield and Elvin Bishop of the popular and influential 1960s blues crossover group The Paul Butterfield Blues Band. Smothers died at Little Company of Mary Hospital in Chicago of natural causes.

Smothers was born into a musical family in Tchula, Mississippi on January 2, 1939 and moved to Chicago as a teenager. His older brother, guitarist Otis "Big Smokey" Smothers became a well-known Chicago blues artist. Little Smokey took up guitar and before long was recording and performing with artists like Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter, his soul singer cousin Lee "Shot" Williams and others. Little Smokey developed a smooth, jazzy, contemporary blues style, with heavy influences from B.B. and Albert King and Kenny Burrell. Concentrating primarily on his instrumental skills, he toured and led bands playing locally in Chicago's South Side blues clubs beginning in the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s. He partially retired to raise a family, but returned to blues in 1978. He spent most of the 1980s playing small Chicago clubs and touring occasionally as a sideman, including as lead guitarist with the Legendary Blues Band.

Smothers made his debut recordings as part of Mojo Buford's CHICAGO BLUES SUMMIT album. During his tenure with the Legendary Blues Band, he was featured on their album WOKE UP WITH THE BLUES.  Smothers recorded his first CD as a bandleader in 1993 with the award-winning Dutch Black Magic label release BOSSMAN!. In 1996 he recorded SECOND TIME AROUND for the German CrossCut label; the title track was a chronicle of his then-recent emergency coronary bypass surgery.  He was co-billed with his protege Elvin Bishop for his American album debut, THAT'S MY PARTNER! on Alligator Records, recorded live in San Francisco. In 2009 Bishop facilitated CHICAGO BLUES BUDDIES, a collection of their musical collaborations which also received uniformly warm reviews and provided financial and spiritual support for Smothers as his quality of life declined. 

In addition to his recording and performing career, Smothers was a featured artist in Martin Scorsese's 1993 public television series, The Blues, with a lengthy live performance sequence filmed at blues singer Koko Taylor's night club.

Smothers' relationship with The Paul Butterfield Blues Band began in the early 1960s when he first saw Butterfield playing harmonica on the sidewalk in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. He soon incorporated Butterfield into his South Side revue which also included Lee "Shot" Williams and an impressive horn section including another Smothers protege, baritone sax player Willie Henderson, who went on to become a well-known R&B horn arranger. In 1964 Smothers accompanied Butterfield on some recordings for Swedish Radio. At the Blue Flame club on 39th Street, Smothers met Elvin Bishop, an aspiring blues guitarist and a University Of Chicago scholarship student. Smothers took Bishop under his wing and taught him blues guitar fundamentals.  Bishop still remembers Smothers' motivational tactics with fondness: "He'd take me over and have them neck bones and beans goin' on the stove, and he said, 'Come here.' He'd lift up that lid and say, 'Smell this!' and I'd say, 'Oh, that smells good!' And he'd say, 'When you get this part, you can have some.'" Bishop became a core member of The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, which broke the blues through to a much wider audience outside the black community and was involved in pivotal blues landmarks including Bob Dylan's legendary and controversial amplified band performances at the Newport Folk Festival.

Along with the musical legacy of his own recordings and the noteworthy musicians he helped at a critical time, Smothers is well remembered for a quick wit, smile and laugh; a healthy quotient of humor in the delivery is one of his main influences on Bishop.  Recalling his friendly, outgoing nature, Bishop commented, "He would've gotten along with Martians."

Smothers is survived by brothers Elmore Pittman and Dennis Smothers, sisters Eliza Callahan and Alice Louise Smothers, wife Shirley Smothers, children Josetta Myers and Michael Myers, stepdaughter Karen Willis and nine grandchildren. He was preceded in death by parents Dennis Smothers and Emma Lou Smothers, brothers Otis Smothers and Howard Smothers and sister Beatrice Smothers.

Funeral information is as follows:

Tuesday, Nov. 30, A.R. Leak, 7838 S. Cottage Grove,  Chicago.
Viewing 6 PM, funeral 7 PM. 

Burial in Homewood Cemetery will be Wednesday, December 1.

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Jacksonville-based rock/blues/soul singer/guitarist/songwriter JJ Grey will appear on the nationally syndicated radio program A Prairie Home Companion on Saturday, November 13, 2010, live from The Saint Augustine Amphitheatre in St. Augustine, FL. He'll play three or four songs from his acclaimed new CD, Georgia Warhorse.

A Prairie Home Companion, hosted by Garrison Keillor, is heard by more than four million listeners each week on some 590 public radio stations, and abroad on America One and the Armed Forces Networks in Europe and the Far East. The show is produced by Prairie Home Productions and distributed nationwide by American Public Media.

To find a station and air time in your area,

see http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/stations.

You can listen to the live audio stream from 5:00 - 7:00 PM central time by going to www.prairiehome.org. You can hear a rebroadcast of the live stream on Sunday, from 11:00 AM - 1:00 PM central time. To purchase tickets to the show, see http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/tickets/2010/1113.shtml.

Grey recently released a video for the first single from the CD, The Sweetest Thing, a duet with reggae superstar Toots Hibbert of Toots & The Maytals. Previously, he released a short documentary on the making of Georgia Warhorse.

The Sweetest Thing More Info

JJ Grey Mini Documentary

ALLIGATOR RECORDS IS TURNING 40

2011 marks the 40^th anniversary of Chicago's Alligator Records. Founded in 1971 and still owned and operated by award-winning blues visionary Bruce Iglauer, the label will kick off its year-long celebration on February 22 with the release of the two-CD retrospective, The Alligator Records 40^th Anniversary Collection. On that same day, Alligator will release four vinyl LPs: Hound Dog Taylor & The HouseRockers (Alligator's very first release), the Grammy-winning supersession featuring Albert Collins, Robert Cray and Johnny Copeland, Showdown!, Buddy Guy and Junior Wells' intimate and deeply soulful Alone And Acoustic, and the critically acclaimed 2010 release from JJ Grey & Mofro, Georgia Warhorse. The latter two titles have not previously been released on vinyl.

There will be plenty more news on this and other big 40^th Anniversary events in the days and weeks to come. Stay tuned.

ROOMFUL OF BLUES AND SHEMEKIA COPELAND TO HAVE NEW ALLIGATOR RELEASES IN 2011

On January 18, Alligator Records will release Hook, Line & Sinker, the brand new album from Rhode Island's award-winning Roomful Of Blues. Since 1967, the group's deeply rooted blend of swing, rock 'n' roll, jump, blues and soul has earned it five Grammy Award nominations and a slew of other accolades, including seven Blues Music Awards (one for Blues Band Of The Year in 2005). The band has been led since 1996 by guitarist Chris Vachon. Guitar Player says, "Vachon burns with explosive solos and a delightfully greasy sense of rhythm." Roomful of Blues has always maintained its signature sound by boasting great musicianship and a stellar horn section featuring tenor and alto saxophonist Rich Lataille, who first joined the band in 1970. Lataille's masterful playing can evoke either the fat-toned honking sax of the glory days of early rock or the cool elegance of big band swing jazz.

That same day will see the release of Deluxe Edition from powerhouse blue vocalist Shemekia Copeland. The album collects 14 of Copeland's hardest-hitting and most deeply moving songs from her four Alligator albums. Deluxe Edition contains a fold-out mini poster of Copeland and a newly written essay by Alligator president Bruce Iglauer. Songs from her 1998 debut Turn The Heat Up, the 2000 Grammy-nominated follow-up Wicked, the 2002 Dr. John-produced Talking To Strangers and the 2005 Steve Cropper-produced The Soul Truth sit side-by-side, creating the definitive overview of Copeland's irresistible music and her immense talents.

TOMMY CASTRO BAND RECEIVES 2010 BLUES BLAST MUSIC AWARD FOR BEST BLUES BAND

Guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Tommy Castro and his band were named Best Blues Band at the 2010 Blues Blast Music Awards held on October 29 at Buddy Guy's Legends in Chicago. Castro was honored with four Blues Music Awards earlier this year, including the B.B. King Entertainer Of The Year, Band Of The Year, Contemporary Blues Male Artist Of The Year and Contemporary Blues Album Of The Year for his Alligator debut CD Hard Believer. Blues Revue says, "Castro can do no wrong...soulful, heartfelt vocals and exquisite, stellar guitar. He plays an inspired blend of blues, R&B, soul and roadhouse rock."