Bad Dog Blues Radio

Hosting a weekly radio show and and putting out this monthly website gives us at Bad Dog Blues a pretty good idea what's going on in in the blues world. We started the Bad Dog Blues website at the beginning of 1999 and have been doing these yearly wrap ups each year since. So how does 2003 stack up to previous years? Well 2003 was dubbed the Year of the Blues with the centerpiece being Martin Scorsese's much hyped film series on PBS. There was also the 13-part The Blues - Radio Series hosted by Keb' Mo' plus several other high profile blues events. At least from a visibility stand point the blues has certainly received more notice than as long as I can remember. I have no doubt that many will discover the blues through these efforts although it's hard to say if there will be any long lasting effects. Since Bad Dog Blues is a radio show our focus will be on the year's most notable recordings. The records mentioned below are only based on promos we've received for airplay in the past year and it should be noted that there are many import labels that don't service us (although that doesn't stop us from buying them!).

Let's take a look at some of the year's top releases: hands down one of the best was by little known (at least outside of Houston) Lil' Joe Washington who released "Houston Guitar Blues" a blisteringly tough set of Texas blues that prompted more interest among our listeners than any record I can remember. Other standouts included Big Easy legend Deacon John's terrific "Jump Blues" an amazing homage to classic New Orleans music, Johnny B. Moore's raw, soul drenched "Rockin' In The Same Old Boat", a fabulous record by the team of Barry Levenson & Johnny Dyer on "Hard Times Won", a stunning old school soul record from Charles Walker on "Number By Heart", the return of Texas legend Long John Hunter after five years on the stellar "One Foot In Texas" and perhaps the year's best comeback record in Howard Tate's fine "Rediscovered" his first in thirty years. There were only two artists who made our list last year that made it again: Tab Benoit who's excellent "Sea Saint Sessions" was not quite as good as last year's "Wetlands" and Travis Haddix's "Company is Coming" another killer on his own Wann-Sonn label. Once again it was the smaller labels who issued some of the year's best records including veteran soul-blues man Roy "C" who's "Slippin & Slidin" was a knockout on the Three Gems label, veteran L.A. singer Mickey Champion's "What You Want" on Tondef, Teeny Tucker's "First Class Woman" on Hot Rod and Cootie Stark's "Raw Sugar" on the Music Maker imprint.

A number of blues veterans are still releasing good music including fine records most notably Roomful of Blues' Alligator debut "That's Right!" and Bobby Bland's "Blues At Midnight" the best records by both in some time. Also putting out fine new records were Bobby Rush, James Harman, Snooky Pryor, Delbert McClinton, Artie "Bluesboy" White, Jimmy Burns, Piney Brown and Detroit Junior.

There were a number of new faces with excellent debuts from traditional minded guitarists Mark Lemhouse on his "Lonesome Radio" and Nathan James' "This Road Is Mine", hotshot guitarist Enrico Crivellaro's "Key To My Kingdom", and scorching classic Chicago blues from Nora Jean Bruso on her "Sings The Blues." There were also fine sophomore releases from Floyd Lee, Kirk Fletcher and Gene Taylor. Last year saw a number of excellent records by Rochester artists and while it was quite on the recording front, Rochester blues received a huge boost with a feature in Living Blues magazine with lengthy articles on Joe and Chris Beard plus features on John Cole and the legendary Son House who called Rochester his own for over thirty years.

Other very good new records worth mentioning include: "Chocolate to The Bone" by Guy Davis, "Blues singer" by Buddy Guy, "Lookin For Trouble" by Kim Wilson, Dr. John's "All By Hisself", Robert Belfour's "Pushin' My Luck", the soundtrack for "Last of the Mississippi Jukes", Duke Robillard's "Exalted Lover,"

Reissue/Historical Recordings

As far as the hosts of Bad Dog Blues are concerned the year's best reissue was Sony's 2-CD "Muddy Mississippi Waters Live" a reissue of the great 1979 live date plus an entire second CD of previously unreleased live material every bit as exciting as the original. Muddy was re-energized at this point in his career and is absolutely captivating on this set.

MCA has slowed down a bit on their reissue program this year but still issued some fine reissues particularly the 2-CD "The London Howlin' Wolf Sessions" a 2-CD set with an entire disc of previously unreleased alternate takes/alternate mixes, a long overdue domestic collection by the brilliant Sister Rosetta Tharpe as the "Gospel of the Blues" and a 2-CD collection of all Slim Harpo's singles on the marvelous "The Excello Singles" on their Hip-O imprint. It was under the Hip-O banner that that the long awaited DVD's of "The American Folk Blues Festival 1962-1966 Vol. 1. & 2" came out, hands down the most incredible blues release of the year in any format and the crowning achievement in this much hyped Year Of The Blues.

With the Year of the Blues celebration there was a flood of reissues this year. More than 20 reissues were issued by Universal Music Enterprises/MCA and Sony Music's Columbia/Legacy including "best of" collections by: Muddy Waters, Eric Clapton, B.B. King, J.B. Lenoir, Jimi Hendrix, The Allman Brothers Band, Bessie Smith, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Son House, Keb' Mo', Taj Mahal and Robert Johnson.

Shout! Factory celebrated the Year of the Blues with their "Heroes Of The Blues" series featuring excellent "best of's" by: Ma Rainey, Rev. Gary Davis, Furry Lewis, Skip James, Mississippi Fred McDowell and Best of Son House. They also issued the DVD "Blues Story", in my opinion a much better blues film than Scorsese's series. This aired earlier on some PBS stations but seemed to have slipped under the radar. The DVD has 30 minutes of bonus footage.

EMI dug into it's vaults as part of the Year of the Blues with six CD's featuring important sides that have largely been overlooked on other collections from Fats Domino, Ike Turner, John Lee Hooker, Lightnin' Hopkins, Elmore James and B.B. King. All are rounded out with excellent notes by the prolific Bill Dahl and boast great sound.

Fat Possum continues it's important reissue series releasing the field recordings of George Mitchell including sets by R.L. Burnside, Furry Lewis plus the neglected Joe Callicott and an incredible set by Fred McDowell, the latter two making our list for the year's finest reissues.

RCA's excellent "When the Sun Goes Down" series rolls along with sets by Arthur Crudup, Blind Willie McTell and Sonny Boy Williamson featuring outstanding sound and informative notes

The year 2003 also saw the reissue of some classic pre-war and historical blues including two more installments in Yazoo's fantastic piano blues series with "The Way I Feel: The Best of Roosevelt Sykes and Lee Green" and "Down on the Levee: The Piano Blues of St. Louis Vol. 2" plus "The Best There Ever Was" an unbeatable collection of vintage country blues. Smithsonian-Folkways continues to mine their blues archives offering up "Classic Blues From Smithsonian Folkways Recordings Vol. 1 & 2." Some prime field recordings also saw the light of day including the moving "Angola Spirtuals" from Arhoolie cut at the infamous Angola Penitentiary in the late 50's and Rounder's reissue of "Blues In The Mississippi Night" featuring Big Bill Broonzy, Memphis Slim, and Sonny Boy Williamson. The Hightone label should also be singled out for their budget priced "Heritage of the Blues" series which included key titles by Jesse Mae Hemphill, Fred McDowell, Phillip Walker, R.L. Burnside, Johnny Shines and several others.

Other very good reissues/historical releases include: a pair of previously unreleased Albert King live dates in Tomato's "Live 69'" and Thirsty Ear's "Talkin Blues" from a 1978 club date, Electro-Fi's "Midnite Blues Party Vol. 2", "Primitive Piano" from The Sirens label, Sanctuary's 2-CD slab of prime Chicago blues with "Meat & Gravy From Bea & Baby", Arhoolie's "The Best of Clifton Chenier", the 2-CD vintage soul collection "Looking For My Baby!" from Sundazed and Savoy's marvelous 3-CD retrospective "Savoy Blues 1944-1994."

Blues Labels

There were a number of blues labels that deserve special mention for consistently putting out fine releases in 2003:

Most of the year's best records came from smaller labels this year although there were a a few by the more well known labels that made there way onto our end of the year lists. Among them include Alligator who who put out one of the year's finest with "That's Right" the best record by Roomful of Blues in some time and Malaco "Blues At Midnight" by Bobby "Blue" Bland is the best by him in some time. The long running Stony Plain label issued excellent records by Jay McShann and Duke Robillard, Delmark is celebrating it's 50th anniversary and put out strong records by Johnny B. Moore and Jimmy Burns and Telarc released very good records by Jimmy Thackery, Tab Benoit and Otis Taylor. Blind Pig turned in solid records by Big Bill Morganfield and Nick Curran.

The West Coast based Pacific Blues label has been sending us fine records for the past couple of years. This year was a great year for the label with excellent new records by James Harman, Jamie Wood, Nathan James, Gene Taylor plus they distributed fine records by piano man Carl Sonny Leyland and New Zealand import Darren Watson.

Once again we have to spotlight the Music Maker organization which helps older, neglected artists get back on their feet. In addition they consistently issue fine recordings by many of these lesser known artists and we've received records this year by Cootie Stark, the various artist collection "Sisters of the South" and reissue of a stellar cassette only release by Guitar Gabriel.

There's still a number of labels who specialize in delivering Southern Soul and R&B and we received some particularly strong records in this category. The best records in this department were almost exclusively on small labels like Roy "C"'s "Slippin' & Sliddin'" on Three Gems, Larome Power's debut "Somebody's Been Chasin' My Cat" on Blues Club International, Charles Walker's "Number By Heart" on Zane, Frank-O Johnson's "This Must Be A Cheating Town" and Ernie Johnson's "Squeeze It" both on Phat Sounds, Big G's "Keeping It Real" on Stone River, Clay Hammond "I Kissed Her Gone" on Desert Sounds, Sterling Williams' "My Baby's Love." Some bigger labels issued some good records in this field including a self titled disc by Dr. "Feelgood" Potts on Ecko, blue eyed soul by Darrell Nulisch on his "Times Like These" on Severn and Lavelle White's "Into The Mystic" on Antones.

Other labels worth mentioning include the always consistent Electro-Fi label with excellent new releases by Enrico Crivellaro, Harmonica Shah and Fruteland Jackson. M.C. Records is another quality label putting out an excellent record by Kim Wilson and "Shout Suster, Shout!" a marvelous multi-artist tribute to Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Rounder Records has been going strong for thirty years and celebrated with the excellent 4-CD retrospective "Box Of The Blues" plus new releases by Eddie Clearwater and Anson Funderburgh with Sam Myers.

Blues Literature

In the last few years we've see some very well researched blues books, particularly biographies, being issued and 2003 saw this trend continue. Here's a list of some notable books we've reviewed on Bad Dog Blues this year: "The Amazing Secret History Of Elmore James", "Juke Joint - Photographs", "Blues With A Feeling: The Little Walter Story", "Down In Houston: Bayou City Blues", "All Music Guide to the Blues: The Definitive Guide To The Blues", "The Devil's Son-In-Law: The Story Of Peetie Wheatstraw And His songs", "Robert Johnson: Lost And Found" and "Bessie."

Blues Obituaries

Unfortunately there have been a number of deaths in the blues world this year. 2003 has seen the following pass away: Little Hatch, Othar Turner, Earl "Beale Streeter" Forest, Hank Ballard, Earl King, Joe "Guitar" Hughes, Quinton 'Quinn' Golden, Howard "Louie Bluie'' Armstrong, Sam Phillips, Big Al Dupree, John Brim, Oliver Sain, Claude Trenier, Arthur Griswold, Henry Qualls, Al "TNT" Braggs, Clarence Butler.

Despite it being the year in blues 2003 wasn't really a banner year for blues as labels, touring blues acts and blues magazines continued to struggle. Still for those willing to sift through the year's recordings there were many gems to be found mainly on small labels and really good vintage material being issued at cut rate prices on primarily European labels. The blues needs your support more than ever so keep buying the music, going to the shows and of course checking out Bad Dog Blues!

(Most of the recordings mentioned in this article have been reviewed on the Bad Dog Blues website during the past year. Check the archive section for full length reviews)