I was raving about GC JR last week. This young man deserves some attention hisownself. Christone "Kingfish" Ingram plays it like it's supposed to be done. Read the interview. He's got and old soul in a young man's mind. Disregard the tech stuff if you don't play. I did.
Big Daddy D is turning 50 this week. Catch him and his band of merry men at the Steel Horse on Sunday. Always a good time.
Brian Kabala is playing around town this summer. We've known Brian since he was in middle school. He's gotten better with age. Check him out.
Blues Blast '20 will take place on March 14, 2020. Same time, same place. Working on talent.
It's a hottie out there y'all. Not much fun outdoors but catch all of our fine local players at your nearest watering hole. It's all about live music.
Have a week and hug somebody, anybody. It's a good feeling.
Sincerely,
Jim Crawford - PBS
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 KINGFISH Christone "Kingfish" Ingram may play guitar like he's on fire, but there's no hellhound on his trail. Growing up in Clarksdale, Mississippi, in the shadow of Robert Johnson's fabled crossroads, the 20-year-old guitarist was destined to find the blues. It's just that he found them in church, not in a juke joint or down a dusty Delta road. "On my mom's side of the family, all of my uncles played bass and guitar," Ingram says. "Just looking at them playing in church made me want to do it." Ingram picked up bass when he was eight years old, then switched to guitar at 12 while enrolled in the Delta Blues Museum's Arts and Education program. In the eight years since, the 20-year-old has been hailed as a prodigy, performed before stunned audiences on both sides of the Atlantic, and earned the respect and friendship of blues legends like Buddy Guy. On his debut album, Kingfish (Alligator), Ingram plays with the same intensity he brings to the stage, clutching his pick with a commanding grip while his left hand wrings the tone out of every scorching note. But anyone looking for the next B.B. King can ease on by. Ingram may be the heir apparent to the Mississippi blues tradition, but there's more than a touch of Jimi Hendrix in his playing. Even so, it's unfair to saddle him with his influences; he's quickly playing his way out of them and is intent on establishing his own style. "I'm still learning," he says. "I'm always on the search for somebody who's better than me, 'cause I can always learn and grow from others who play totally different styles from what I'm normally listening to." As Ingram prepped Kingfish for release, followed by supporting dates with Guy and Vampire Weekend, Guitar Player caught up with the guitarist to find out how the blues hooked him. You received most of your formal training at the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale. What inspired you to play? Pretty much all the regular blues stuff. I already knew who B.B. King was, but I didn't know Albert King or Freddie King. So when I first heard those guys - you know, that power and rawness - that's what made me want to go full in. How deep into theory did those lessons go? Our mentors showed us the pentatonic scale for blues, obviously, so that's pretty much how I learned. They were showing us different scales and all, but they would teach us songs as well. I picked up the Dorian stuff and Mixolydian stuff. That's what I'm doing at the moment, trying to incorporate that a whole lot more into what I'm playing. Buddy Guy guests on your first single, "Fresh Out." How did you two hook up? I opened a show for him back in 2012, and I sat in with him at the Waterfront Blues Festival [in 2015]. He took a liking to me, I think, and one day we got a call saying that he wanted to help me with a record. Matter of fact, "Fresh Out" was the song Buddy chose for me to do. When we recorded it and played it for him, he liked it and he got on it. It was really dope. Your song with Keb' Mo', "Listen," has such a different flavor from the rest of the record. It's really laid back in an Allman Brothers kind of way. I wasn't expecting that song to come out like that. Most of the album is traditional blues, but I wanted to go out of the box a little bit and have something for everybody. And that was a perfect moment, you know? Keb' actually played rhythm guitar on some of the other tracks, and he's playing slide on "Hard Times." So he had already been on the album, but the idea for me to put him on a song as a singer came maybe a month later. You played Strats early on, but now you seem to prefer Les Paul-style guitars and humbuckers. The guitar I'm playing at the moment is an LP-style guitar made by Mike Chertoff [of Chertoff Custom Guitars] in New York. It's a really powerful guitar. I can plug that straight into an amp and it just sounds massive. I got interested in LPs and humbuckers when I was into Gary Moore for a spell. I always loved that fat, distorted tone, and I felt the LP was right up my alley. For the few songs that need a trebly tone, I break out the Strat. Some nights I'll stick with the LP, and some nights I may not play it at all and use the Strat instead. What amps do you prefer these days? Pretty much Peavey, and if a Peavey isn't available, I'll use a Fender. At home I use a Peavey Delta Blues 210, and I also like the Peavey Classic 50. I like using those on the road. They have this really cool clean tone, and I love that. That's why Peavey's been my first-choice, go-to amps. When it comes to Fender, just a Fender Twin or a Fender Hot Rod DeVille is fine. What do you use to get such a saturated yet clear lead tone? I'm always changing distortion pedals. I have three that I alternate between. The first one is the MXR Sugar Drive, and then I have a Keeley El Rey Dorado, which is really dope. I like really high-gain distortion pedals. What I'm using at the moment is an EWS Brute Drive. My Sugar Drive is heavy, but it's more low and clean, and the El Dorado and Brute Drive, those are just full-on high-gain and really heavy rock tones, and that's what I've been going for lately. I also use an MXR Echoplex delay with the tap tempo. If I'm soloing on a slow blues, I have this fast but almost subtle delay. Sometimes I tweak it if I'm playing a song with some chords and I need some fattening to fill in the gaps. Your tone is so thick. It sounds like you're playing .012s, but the strings look like .008s when you're bending and adding vibrato. It looks like you're playing spaghetti noodles up there. [laughs] I used to use .012s, but it got bad for my fingers. Now I use .011s. My technique was just something I worked on. I was listening to Otis Rush. Man, his vibrato is pretty. Albert King had a pretty vibrato, too. I patterned my vibrato after those guys, and that's how I figured it out. Your songs are built on a traditional blues foundation, but as soon as you step away from the mic, you play like you're on fire. What drives you? Man, just the thought of being onstage. You know, for many of us, that's our happy place - just being up there doing what I love. Being able to do it gives me the drive to go in and try to do my best. |
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GOT BLUES? If you are a Blues musician, a group, or a club that features Blues music, and would like to be listed, please send your info to info@phoenixblues.org and we'll be happy to list your event in our weekly Out & About section of the newsletter |
Moved? Changed email addresses? Please let us know of any changes in your address, email, or phone number so we can keep you informed about the Blues community in Arizona. Email us at: info@phoenixblues.org or write to: Phoenix Blues Society P.O. Box 36874 Phoenix, Arizona 85067 |
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| OUT & ABOUT
Tuesday, July 16 JC & The Rockers, 7 p.m., Fuego Bistro, Phoenix Carvin Jones, 7 p.m., Dirty Blonde, Chandler Wednesday, July 17 Tony Holiday Blues Band, 8 p.m., Rhythm Room, Phoenix Chuck Hall, 6 p.m., Corrado's, Carefree Thursday, July 18 Ray Fuller Blues Band, 8 p.m., Rhythm Room, Phoenix Chuck Hall, 6 p.m., CheezHeadz, Peoria JC & The Rockers, 7 p.m., Janey's, Cave Creek Sugar Thieves Duo, 6 p.m., Culinary Dropout, Gilbert Carvin Jones, 7 p.m., Old Ellsworth Brewery, Queen Creek Paris James, 7 p.m., St. Armand Kitchen, Chandler Eric Ramsey Hosts OPEN MIC, 6 p.m., Fatso's Pizza, Phoenix Hans Olson EVERY THURSDAY, 6 p.m., Handlebar, Apache Junction Arizona Blues Project, 8 p.m., Harold's, Cave Creek Friday, July 19 Sugar Thieves, 8 p.m., Rhythm Room, Phoenix Rocket 88s, 8 p.m., McKenzie's Midtown, Phoenix Chuck Hall, 6 p.m., Bone Haus Brewing, Fountain Hills Innocent Joe & The Hostile Witnesses, 8 p.m., Apache Junction Saturday, July 20 Rocket 88s, 8 p.m., Rhythm Room, Phoenix Big Daddy D & The Dynamites, 8 p.m., Ginger Monkey, Chandler JC & The Rockers, 7 p.m., Handlebar, Apache Junction Joe Kopicki, 6 p.m., Desert Eagle Brewing Co.- Falcon Field, Mesa Tabula Rasa Band (Brian Kabala), 7 p.m., Desert Eagle Brewing Co., Mesa Outback Blues Band, 5 p.m., Tri-City FOE, Mesa BluZone, 1 p.m., Crown King Saloon, Crown King Sunday, July 21 Three-band Showcase (Hoodoo Casters, Black Cat Bones, Caleb's Spirit), 2 p.m., Rhythm Room, Phoenix Dig Daddy D's 50 B-day, 2 p.m., Steel Horse Saloon, Phoenix Chuck Hall, 2 p.m., Windsock, Prescott BD Frank, 5:30 p.m., West Alley BBQ, Chandler Mike Eldred, 3 p.m., The Vig, Scottsdale True Flavor Blues, NOON, Copper Star, Phoenix Monday, July 15
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| Jams
Rocket 88s JAM, 4 p.m., Chopper John's, Phoenix
Bourbon Jack's JAM w/Kody Herring, 6 p.m., Chandler
JAM Hosted by The Scott O'Neal Band. Every other Thursday, Windsock, Prescott
Sir Harrison, JAM every other Sunday, The Windsock, Prescott MONDAY
Bam Bam & Badness Open JAM, 9 p.m., Char's, Phoenix
Weatherford Hotel JAM, 6:30 p.m., Flagstaff
TUESDAY
OPEN JAM Hosted by Jilly Bean & The Flipside Blues Band, 7 p.m., Steel Horse Saloon, Phoenix
JAM Sir Harrison, 9 p.m., Char's, Phoenix
Gypsy's Bluesday Night JAM, 7 p.m. Pho Cao, Tempe
Tailgaters JAM, 7 p.m., Glendale
WEDNESDAY Rocket 88s, JAM, 6 p.m., The Last Stop (Old Hideaway West), Phoenix
Tool Shed JAM Party, 6 p.m. Gabby's, Mesa
THURSDAY Tool Shed JAM Party, 7 p.m., Steel Horse Saloon, Phoenix Jolie's Place JAM w/Adrenaline, 9 p.m., Chandler
NEW JAM @ The Bench, Hosted by BluZone, 7 p.m., The Bench, Tempe
Friday
Saturday Bumpin' Bud's JAM 2nd & 4th Saturdays JAM, 6 p.m., Marc's Sports Grill |
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