News

SEVEN ALLIGATOR ARTISTS RECEIVE 13
BLUES MUSIC AWARD NOMINATIONS!

The Blues Foundation today announced the nominees for the 2007 Blues Music Awards. Seven Alligator recording artists received a total of 13 nominations. Chicago blues legend Lil’ Ed Williams and his band The Blues Imperials received a total of three nominations (including nods for the coveted Entertainer of the Year and Band of the Year awards). Guitar Shorty also picked up three nominations. Acoustic blues duo Cephas & Wiggins and Austin-based pianist Marcia Ball each received two. Eric Lindell, Shemekia Copeland, and Siegel-Schwall Band drummer Sam Lay each received one nomination. The Blues Music Awards ceremony and concert will be held May 10, 2007 at the Cook Convention Center in downtown Memphis. Alligator artists and nominations are as follows:

LIL’ ED AND THE BLUES IMPERIALS
B.B. King Entertainer of the Year (Lil’ Ed Williams)
Band of the Year (Lil’ Ed and The Blues Imperials)
Song of the year - Icicles In My Meatloaf, from Rattleshake

GUITAR SHORTY
Contemporary Blues Album of the Year:
We The People
Contemporary Blues Male Artist of the Year
Instrumentalist of the Year – Guitar

MARCIA BALL
Contemporary Blues Female Artist of the Year
Pinetop Perkins Piano Player of the Year

CEPHAS & WIGGINS
Acoustic Album of the Year:
Shoulder To Shoulder
Acoustic Artist of the Year

SHEMEKIA COPELAND
Contemporary Blues Female Artist of the Year

ERIC LINDELL
Best New Artist Debut:
Change In The Weather

SAM LAY (THE SIEGEL-SCHWALL BLUES BAND)
Instrumentalist of the Year - Drums

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ALLIGATOR RECORDS SIGNS JJ GREY & MOFRO!

“Quietly intoxicating with a stunning melodic freshness…focused, deep songs.”

--The Boston Globe

Alligator Records is pleased to announce the signing of down home roots, rock and soul artist JJ Grey & his band MOFRO. Grey’s Alligator debut, Country Ghetto will be released in February 2007. Country Ghetto (produced by Dan Prothero) features 12 original JJ Grey compositions that come right out of the Southern musical and literary tradition. While his songwriting inspirations range from Bill Withers, Van Morrison, and Dan Penn, Grey’s songs are always his own, oftentimes relating to the loss of his natural surroundings and the marginalization of the Southern culture he grew up in.

Grey, with longtime musical partner, guitarist Daryl Hance, has released two previous albums under the band name MOFRO: 2001’s Blackwater (named by Amazon.com as one of the best CDs of the decade) and 2004’s Lochloosa. From the beginning, Grey’s songs have been connected to his ancestral Florida homestead forty miles outside of Jacksonville, a landscape he writes about with passion and devotion.

Grey’s ear for detail inhabits his songs, whether it is a story passed down to him from his grandmother or the tribulations of a childhood friend. Grey’s voice delivers them with an unflinching force that makes the personal universal and paints a vivid portrait of an exact time or place with words and music. Like his songs, his rich, soulful vocals are forceful and commanding, seemingly old beyond his years. Delivered with brilliant musicianship, the result is both thought provoking and rhythmically and texturally mesmerizing.

Live, JJ Grey & MOFRO blaze their own spontaneous path, performing at festivals and concerts around the world, including jaw-dropping shows at Bonnaroo, The Austin City Limits Festival, and the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.

From gritty funk to juke joint romps, from contemplative country soul to blistering rockers, JJ Grey & MOFRO occupy a unique space in the music world. And, like the best of the great Southern novelists, JJ Grey fills his stories and songs with details that are at once vivid and personal, political and universal. The songs and the music will make you smell the cypress trees, feel the hot breeze, taste the ho-cakes, and remind you that home is where the heart is.

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MICHEAL BURKS WINS DELTA CULTURAL CENTER SONNY PAYNE AWARD FOR BLUES EXCELLENCE

Boogie-woogie blues pianist/vocalist/songwriter Marcia Ball can be seen in three national television programs currently airing. On October 14, 2006, Austin City Limits debuts The New Orleans Social Club. Featuring The Neville Brothers, Willie Tee and others, Ball sings Red Beans, and joins her close friend Irma Thomas on Look Up and Yield Not To Temptation.

She appears in Robert Mugge’s film, New Orleans Music In Exile, airing on the Starz cable television network. The film follows many New Orleans musicians after the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina. Ball is seen delivering a new keyboard to piano legend Eddie Bo, and performing two songs, including Randy Newman’s Louisiana 1927. The show originally aired in May 2006 and is still airing regularly on the network.

And, in a show filmed for PBS earlier this year, Ball joins the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in Cincinnati Pops: A Musical Celebration of America’s Rivers. She performs Way Down Yonder In New Orleans and Louisiana 1927. The program first aired on September 28, 2006.

Rhode Island's most famous blues band, Roomful of Blues, will appear live on Good Morning America on Sunday, September 24 at 8:30am eastern time. They will perform Just Keep On Rocking off of their latest Alligator CD, STANDING ROOM ONLY. The show is featuring the Taste Of Rhode Island that day, where Roomful of Blues is scheduled to perform.

BLUES SENSATION SHEMEKIA COPELAND NAMED “BLUES ARTIST OF THE YEAR” IN LIVING BLUES MAGAZINE’S READER’S POLL

Readers of Living Blues magazine’s annual Reader’s Poll voted singing sensation Shemekia Copeland as Blues Artist Of The Year (female). Copeland’s latest CD, THE SOUL TRUTH (produced by legendary guitarist Steve Cropper), was widely hailed as the strongest of her career.

In addition to her non-stop touring and performing schedule, Copeland hosts Shemekia Copeland’s Blues Show which airs on SIRIUS Satellite Radio on Saturdays from 12:00pm to 6:00pm ET on Blues channel 74.