| | Dear John,
We're still keeping the vibes flowing for our friend Jim Glass. Reports are that he has been moved to hospice for extra care with hopes that he can begin some type of rehab. Keep doing what you do to send him your love.
Gigs are a tad skimpy this week as we endure a huge heat wave. Still lots of our favorites still out there so go see 'em.
I've been getting inquiries about Showdown which is very encouraging. You can go to www.phoenixblues.org and use last year's app form. We'll accept that until I can get the site updated. Buzz's passing is still being felt. Let's make this one the best one yet. They're all great but lets raise the bar.
You guys please feel free to send me your gig info for the week and I'll be happy to post, We have almost 2,000 subscribers so someone will read it (hopefully).
Stay cool, stay hydrated, stay safe and have a good week!
Sincerely, Jim Crawford
Phoenix Blues Society |
| | | David"Honeyboy" Edwards busking on the streets of Memphis, circa 1942. He would have celebrated his 101st birthday today. |
Honeyboy
David "Honeyboy" Edwards was born in Shaw, Mississippi. At the age of 17, he left home to travel with bluesman Big Joe Williams, beginning life as an itinerant musician, which he maintained throughout the 1930s and 1940s. "He was about 36 years old I was 17. We went to New Orleans. Joe wanted to fight me every night, so one morning when Joe was drunk in the bed, I slipped off and left him to go back to Greenwood. I was coming across a bridge where people were catching crabs in a net. They said, 'Boy can you play that guitar?' I started playing on the guitar, and they started chucking nickels and dimes at me. I said, 'I think I can make it without Joe.' I come to Memphis, and I started working with the Memphis Jug Band. He performed with the famed blues musician Robert Johnson, with whom he developed a close friendship. " My first time meeting Robert, I was 20 years old, in 1935. I had started playing pretty good with the Memphis Jug Band. I tried to catch a ride back to Greenwood. I stopped in Lake Carmen and went into a country store. Two young boys my age were sitting around talking. They said Robert and Son House are playing across the field over there, go listen. I said, 'I believe I will.' "[Soon afterwards] he disappeared, left. People were surprised by him coming back and playing in that style. [Johnson's newfound, much improved technique prompted the legend that he'd sold his soul to the devil in exchange for his ability.] Me and Robert played together all of '37 and half of '38. We used to run around in Greenwood, Mississippi. There were a lot of bootleggers around then, serving whiskey and gambling in the back [of a local juke joint]. We played music in the front." Edwards was present on the night Johnson drank the poisoned whiskey that killed him, and his story has become the definitive version of Johnson's demise. "Robert had been playing for [the juke joint owner] for about a year. What happened was Robert started going with his wife. Greenwood was a small farming town, and if it rained in the country everybody would go into town. They'd see Robert and her. [The owner] didn't want to lose his woman, so he got him out of the way. She was a pretty woman. Her hair hung down to there [pointing to his waist.] When I got there about 11 o'clock, he was getting sick. He tried to play for a while, then he said, 'I don't feel good, I'm kind of sick.' I went home that Sunday morning, and I thought he'd be all right. Tuesday, I went over to where he lived, and he was crawling around, his stomach all upset, people giving him soda water and different stuff to try to make him heave that stuff up. He passed August 16, 1938. They buried him the same day because he didn't have no insurance. Robert was crazy about whiskey and women, but he was the easiest musician I met playing the blues. I never heard him cuss or holler or want to fight like a lot of musicians. He was a nice guy. If he'd left that man's wife alone, he'd probably have lived longer." Edwards also knew and played with other leading bluesmen in the Mississippi Delta, including Charley Patton, Tommy Johnson, and Johnny Shines. He described the itinerant bluesman's life: "On Saturday, somebody like me or Robert Johnson would go into one of these little towns, play for nickels and dimes. And sometimes, you know, you could be playin' and have such a big crowd that it would block the whole street. Then the police would come around, and then I'd go to another town and where I could play at. But most of the time, they would let you play. Then sometimes the man who owned a country store would give us something like a couple of dollars to play on a Saturday afternoon. We could hitchhike, transfer from truck to truck, or if we couldn't catch one of them, we'd go to the train yard, 'cause the railroad was all through that part of the country then...we might hop a freight, go to St. Louis or Chicago. Or we might hear about where a job was paying off - a highway crew, a railroad job, a levee camp there along the river, or some place in the country where a lot of people were workin' on a farm. You could go there and play and everybody would hand you some money. I didn't have a special place then. Anywhere was home. Where I do good, I stay. When it gets bad and dull, I'm gone." The folklorist Alan Lomax recorded Edwards in Clarksdale, Mississippi, in 1942 for the Library of Congress.[1] Edwards recorded 15 album sides of music,[1] including his songs "Wind Howlin' Blues" and "The Army Blues".[4] He did not record commercially until 1951, when he recorded "Who May Be Your Regular Be" for Arc under the name of Mr. Honey. Edwards claimed to have written several well-known blues songs, including "Long Tall Woman Blues" and "Just Like Jesse James." His discography for the 1950s and 1960s amounts to nine songs from seven sessions. From 1974 to 1977, he recorded tracks for his first full-length LP, I've Been Around, released in 1978 by the independent Trix Records and produced by the ethnomusicologist Peter B. Lowry. Kansas City Red played for Edwards for a brief period, and Earwig recorded them in 1981, along with Sunnyland Slim and Floyd Jones, for the album "Old Friends Together for the First Time". His autobiography, The World Don't Owe Me Nothing: The Life and Times of Delta Bluesman Honeyboy Edwards, published in 1997 by the Chicago Review Press, recounts his life from childhood, his travels through the American South, and his arrival in Chicago in the early 1950s. A companion CD with the same title was released by Earwig Music. His long association with the Earwig label and with his manager manager, Michael Frank, led to several late-career albums on various independent labels from the 1980s on. He also recorded at a church turned recording studio in Salina, Kansas and released albums on the APO label. Edwards continued the rambling life he described in his autobiography, touring well into his 90s. On July 17, 2011, his manager, Michael Frank, announced that Edwards would be retiring because of ill health. Edwards died of congestive heart failure at his home on August 29, 2011, at about 3 a.m. According to events listings on the Metromix Chicago website, he had been scheduled to perform at noon that day, at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Chicago's Millennium Park. |
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| | | | Out & About Tuesday, June 28 Hans Olson, 7 p.m. EVERY TUESDAY, The Hall, Scottsdale Wed., June 29 Bad News Blues Band, Every Wed., 9:30 p.m., Chicago Bar, Tucson Thursday, June 30 M&M Duo, 7 p.m., Indigo Crow, Cave Creek Hans Olson, 6 p.m., Handlebar, Apache Junction Friday, July 1 Bad News Blues Band, 9 p.m., Rhythm Room JC & the Juke rockers, 7 p.m., Handlebar, Apache Junction Hoodoo Casters, Maverick, 9 p.m., Phoenix Sugar Thieves Trio, 8:30 p.m., All American, Scottsdale Gypsy/Uvon/Ray Ray & Friends, 7 p.m., Art Awakenings Gallery, Phoenix Blues Review Band, 5 p.m., Red, White & Boom Festival, North 48th St., Phoenix Mojo Rats, 9 p.m., Kimmyz, Glendale Saturday, July 2 Rhythm Room All Stars, 9 p.m., Rhythm Room, Phoenix JC & the Juke rockers, 7:30 p.m., Janey's, Cave Creek JPowers Band, NOON, Chaparral Pines, Payson Nina Curri w/Dan Rutland, 6 p.m., Rare Earth Pizza, Scottsdale Blues Review Band, 8 p.m., All American, Scottsdale Sunday, July 3 Big Sandy & His Fly Rite Boys, 9 p.m., Rhythm Room, Phoenix Two Flavor Blues, NOON, Copper Star, Phoenix Monday, July 4 Hans Olson, 6 p.m., Vito's, Scottsdale Rocket 88s, 6 p.m., Olive Mill, Queen Creek |
Weekly Jams
Sunday
NEW JAM Rocket 88s, 6 p.m., Saint Nick's Tavern, Phoenix
Ray Ray & BluZone, 5 p.m., Wild Willy's, Avondale
R.d. Olson JAM, 2 p.m., Sally's BBQ, Prescott
Bourbon Jack's JAM w/Kody Herring, 6 p.m., Chandler MONDAY Bam Bam & Badness Open JAM, 9 p.m., Char's, Phoenix
NEW JAM R.d. Olson Blues Band, 2 p.m., Sally's BBQ, Prescott
TUESDAY Gypsy's Bluesday Night JAM, 7 p.m. Pho Cao, Tempe Bumpin' Bud's 1st & 3rd Tuesdays JAM, 7 p.m., Marc's, Glendale WEDNESDAY NEW JAM, Sea of Love Band, 7 p.m., The Blooze, Phoenix
Rocket 88s, 7 p.m., Chopper John's, Phoenix Tool Shed JAM Party, 7 p.m., El Dorado, Scottsdale THURSDAY Tool Shed JAM Party, 7 p.m., Steel Horse Saloon, Phoenix Jolie's Place JAM w/Adrenaline, 8 p.m., Chandler Brad's Place JAM, 7 p.m., Ahwatukee (Every other Week)
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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
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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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