Blues GRAMMY Nominees Announced

 The National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences has announced its GRAMMY Award nominees for the Best Traditional Blues Album and Best Contemporary Blues Album of 2000. The 43nd Annual GRAMMY Awards Show will take place at the Staples Center in Los Angeles on Feb. 21. To view the complete list of nominees click here.

 "Pop" Staples Dies

 Roebuck "Pops" Staples, patriarch of the gospel and rhythm-and-blues group the Staple Singers, died Tuesday. He was 84. He and his group gained fame in the 1960s by singing music that urged social and religious change. He was known for both his songwriting and his guitar playing, in which he fused gospel with the blues.

Tommy Bankhead Dies

 Tommy Bankhead, for more than 50 years a premier messenger of the blues in St. Louis, died Dec. 16, 2000 of respiratory failure. He was 69. From his mid-teens to early adulthood, Mr. Bankhead developed musically under the tutelage of and association with Sonny Boy Williamson, Bobby Bland, Joe Willie Wilkins, Howling Wolf, Raymond Hill, Boyd Gilmore and others. He moved to St. Louis in 1949. In the 1950s and 1960s, Mr. Bankhead was recognized as a major figure on the St. Louis blues scene along with Albert King, Ike Turner, James DeShay, Little Milton and Oliver Sain. Mr. Bankhead's recording credits, while limited, included a 1983 album called Please Mr. Foreman, and in 1999 he released Message To St. Louis on the Fedora label.

Johnnie Johnson Sues Chuck Berry Over Royalties

 Musician and songwriter Johnnie Johnson has filed a multi-count lawsuit against Berry, alleging he has neglected to ever pay Johnson for what he claims are significant contributions to Berry's career. Johnson's lawsuit, filed Wednesday (Nov. 29) in St. Louis Federal District Court, asks for "Johnson's rightful share of monies realized from numerous Johnson/Berry-composed songs, for which Johnson never received proper credit or royalties," according to court papers. Johnson alleges in the suit, which otherwise seeks unspecified damages, that he helped Berry create a new musical genre by assisting in the composition of such rock standards as "Roll Over Beethoven," "No Particular Place To Go," "Rock and Roll Music," "Sweet Little Sixteen," and many more.

Little Mack Simmons Dies

  Malcolm "Little Mack" Simmons passed away on Tuesday October 24th at his home in Chicago of cancer. Harmonica Player Little Mack Simmons was a stalwart of the Chicago blues scene cutting sides for numerous local labels in the 50's and 60's like Bea & Baby, CJ, Chess, Palos and others. In the 70's and early 80's he released sides under his own P.M. Simmons label. During the 80's Simmons disappeared off the scene making a comeback in the 90's with a pair of fine records for the Electro-Fi label. Simmons had been playing regularly at Rosa's Blues Lounge in Chicago until recently.

Supreme Court Backs Musicians

  The Supreme Court refused to free a record company from having to pay damages to a group of Texas blues musicians for unauthorized use of their names and photographs. In the early 1990s, Roy C. Ames, a music producer specializing in Texas blues, licensed Collectibles Records of Ardmore, Pa., to sell recordings by a group of Houston-area blues musicians and to use their names and photographs. After a trial, the musicians were awarded $1,800 from Collectibles for copyright infringement and $27,000 for misuse of their names and likenesses. Ames, who was not involved in Tuesday's appeal, was ordered to pay $122,500. The musicians include Leonard Brown, Walter Price, Pete Mayes, James Nelson and Joe Hughes.

Saunders King Dies

  Blues guitarist Saunders Samuel King, whose 1942 hit "S.K. Blues" brought him instant fame died at his Oakland home September 7th at age 91. While most fans may think first of T-Bone Walker as the first electric bluesman, Mr. King's first electrified recording predates Walker's debut on that instrument. Mr. King retired from professional music in 1961 and returned to the church of his youth.

R.H. Harris Dies

  R.H. Harris, a gospel pioneer and the last surviving member of the original Soul Stirrers, died September 3rd. He was 84. Harris joined the group in 1931, two months before the band changed its name to the Five Soul Stirrers.

Sam Charters Donates Archives

  Sam and Ann Charters will donate a huge collection of recordings, sheet music, photos, field notes and more to the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center at the University of Connecticut in October. A conference to celebrate the
donation included performances by Cephas & Wiggins and Otis Rush. A press release can be found at: http://www.news.uconn.edu/rel00114.htm

Jimmie Vaughan Plays At Republican Convention

  Blues guitarist Jimmie Vaughan and his Tilt-A-Whirl Band performed in Philadelphia at the Republican National Convention. Vaughan took the stage at First Union Center on Tuesday evening, Aug. 1. "When it comes to rhythm and blues, it doesn't get much better than Jimmie Vaughan," said Gov. Bush, "and I'm honored to have him play at the Republican convention."

Tennessee Street Named For Al Green

  City officials have renamed the street in front of singer Al Green's church in his honor. Memphis honored the 54-year-old rhythm and blues singer Sunday by renaming a stretch of Hale Road to Rev. Al Green Road. Hundreds of family, friends, fans and city officials were on hand for the dedication at Green's Full Gospel Tabernacle Church. Green, 54, has been pastor of the church since 1976.

Cub Koda Dies

  Cub Koda passed away from complications arising from kidney dialysis on July 1, 2000. He was best known as the leader of Brownsville Station and composer of their hit "Smokin' in the Boys Room." Throughout the '80s and '90s, Koda continued to divide his time equally between touring, recording, and writing. 1993 saw the twin release of Smokin' in the Boy's Room: The Best of Brownsville Station on Rhino and Welcome to My Job, a retrospective of his non-Brownsville material on Blue Wave, followed a year later by Abba Dabba Dabba: A Bananza of Hits on Schoolkids' Records. He released his last record, Noise Monkey's, for J-Bird Records in 2000.

Bobby Forte Dies

  Bobby Forté, whose barking, big-toned tenor sax was featured on many classic Bobby "Blue" Bland and B.B. King records died June 11, 2000 at Highland Hospital in Oakland. Forté was a tenor saxophonist famous among fellow musicians and dedicated fans for his brilliant solos on such Bobby Bland hits as "Cry, Cry, Cry," "I Pity the Fool," "Don’t Cry No More," and "Turn on Your Love Light" and on the B.B. King albums Blues Is King and Lucille.

Robert Johnson Estate Settled by Court

  Bluesman Robert Johnson's royalties will go to a retired gravel truck driver whose mother had a fling with the musician in 1931, the Mississippi Supreme Court has ruled. As the sole heir, the Crystal Springs man is entitled to about $1 million from royalties from record sales. Claud Johnson's mother, the late Virgie Jane Smith Cain, had identified the singer as his father in a 1992 deposition. Her childhood friend, Eula Mae Williams, testified in a 1998 non-jury trial that she watched the couple have sex in 1931. Claud Johnson was born nine months later. The court dismissed complaints about the lack of DNA evidence by two other distant Johnson relatives. The proof "would be nigh impossible to obtain since Johnson's grave site is unknown. As far as we know, Johnson is buried down by the highway side, so "his old evil spirit can get a Greyhound bus and ride,'' Supreme Court Justice Mike Mills wrote, quoting a line about the blues guitarist.