Willie Kent Dies

 Willie Kent, 70, died March 2nd at his home in the Englewood neighborhood. The
cause, according to friends, was cancer. Born in 1936, in the Mississippi Delta town of Inverness, Mr. Kent worked at gas stations in Florida and Memphis, Tenn., before coming to Chicago. It was in the smoky clubs here that he would take a childhood love of music, ingrained after turning an ear toward a Helena, Ark., radio station's "King Biscuit Time" Delta blues music show, and turn it into a six-decade career
as one of the blues' most prominent bass guitarists, earning him repeated W.C. Handy Awards and countless rousing receptions. After arriving in Chicago, Mr. Kent hung out in clubs and started playing music by sitting in with a friend's band. He switched from guitar to bass when the band's bassist showed up for a gig too drunk to play, and he quickly found himself in demand, backing up Chicago blues greats such as Little Walter, Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf. In the 2002 interview Mr. Kent stressed the simplicity of what he was trying to do on the four strings of his bass. "So many people now [are] playing so much funk, it doesn't even sound like the blues," Mr. Kent told the Tribune in 2002. "I don't do a lot of solos, I don't do a lot of funk. I try play a no-nonsense sound."

Wilson Pickett Dies

 Wilson Pickett, the soul pioneer best known for the fiery hits "Mustang Sally" and "In The Midnight Hour," died of a heart attack Jan. 19th in a Reston, Va., hospital. He was 64. Pickett - known as "the Wicked Wilson Pickett" - became a star with his soulful hits in the 1960s. "In the Midnight Hour" made the top 25 on the Billboard pop charts in 1965 and "Mustang Sally" did the same the following year. Pickett was defined by his raspy voice and passionate delivery. But the Alabama-born Pickett got his start singing gospel music in church. After moving to Detroit as a teen, he joined the group the Falcons, which scored the hit "I Found a Love" with Pickett on lead vocals in 1962. He went solo a year later, and would soon find his greatest success. In 1965, he linked with legendary soul producer Jerry Wexler at the equally legendary soul label Stax Records in Memphis, and recorded one of his greatest hits, "In the Midnight Hour," for Atlantic Records. A string of hits followed, including "634-5789," "Funky Broadway" and "Mustang Sally." His sensuous soul was in sharp contrast to the genteel soul songs of his Detroit counterparts at Motown Records. As Pickett entered a new decade, he had less success on the charts, but still had a few more hits, including the song "Don't Let The Green Grass Fool You." Pickett suffered through some tough times. In 1991, he was arrested for allegedly yelling death threats while driving a car over the mayor's front lawn in Englewood, N.J., and less than a year later was charged with assaulting his girlfriend. In 1993, he was convicted of drunken driving and sentenced to a year in jail and five years' probation after hitting an 86-year-old man with his car. In 1987, he was given two years' probation and fined $1,000 for carrying a loaded shotgun in his car. Besides his induction into the Hall of Fame in 1991, he was also given the Pioneer award by the Rhythm and Blues Foundation two years later. In 1999 he released the critically acclaimed comeback "It's Harder Now."

Doug MacLeod Fans Organize Grass Roots Effort To Win Blues Award

 Fans of acoustic blues legend Doug MacLeod have launched a "grass roots"
effort to support his nomination for two Blues Music Awards in 2006. The Blues Music Award (formerly known as the WC Handy Award), presented by The
Blues Foundation (www.blues.org), is the most prestigious award in Blues music. Mr. MacLeod has been nominated in two categories: "Acoustic Artist of the Year" and "Song of the Year" for "Dubb's Talkin' Politician Blues". A new web site ­ dubbheads.com ­ has been created to promote The Blues Foundation and organize the voting drive for Mr. MacLeod. "He's the real thing. Doug has been bringing us passionate blues storytelling and incredible acoustic guitar work for years now. We figured it was high time more people knew about him" said Phil Matuzic, one of the movement's organizers and self-confessed "DubbHead". Membership in DubbHeads is free to all blues fans. A free DubbHeads t-shirt will be given to the first 50 people to join The Blues Foundation and cast their vote.

Phil Elwood Dies

 Phil Elwood, one of the best friends jazz and blues ever had, died Jan. 11th of
heart failure. He was 79. Elwood covered jazz, rock, blues and comedy, the entire panorama of nightlife, for the San Francisco Examiner beginning in 1965. He continued his career at The Chronicle after the two papers merged in 2000 and retired in 2002. He was an endless fount of jazz lore, an unflagging enthusiast of the music and a world-class raconteur blessed with an extraordinary memory. He was also one of the first people to broadcast jazz on the FM dial. His weekly radio program, "Jazz Archive," began in 1952, when very few people even owned FM radios. His show continued on Berkeley's KPFA until 1996. Over the course of his distinguished career, Elwood covered anything that moved on stage. In his 2002 farewell column for The Chronicle, he noted the breadth of acts he covered in just his first weeks on the job. "I reviewed Stan Kenton one night and Lena Horne the next," Elwood wrote. "I heard Charlie Byrd at El Matador, and Tom Lehrer at the hungry i; also Art Blakey, Chico Hamilton, Denny Zeitlin. Kay Starr, the Mills Brothers, Cannonball Adderley, Joe Bushkin and bassist Vernon Alley, and Duke Ellington at Basin Street West. My first seven weeks (21 reviews or features in print) ended Aug. 31 with a Beatles show at the Cow Palace that afternoon and Judy Garland at the Circle Star Theater in San Carlos that night." After his retirement from The Chronicle, Elwood continued to write a column for the Web site Jazz West. In 2002, he received the Beacon Award from the San Francisco Jazz Festival and was the subject of a tribute concert, underwritten by See's Candies.

Blues Legend Recorded In Dallas

 Blues legend Robert Johnson's whole life is shrouded in mystery, from his alleged pact with the devil to how he died to where his body is buried. But at least one riddle -- the Dallas site of his landmark 1937 recordings -- has finally been solved. For years, historians guessed Mr. Johnson cut "Hellhound on My Trail" and other blues classics at 508 Park Ave., a three-story art deco building that still stands two blocks east of Dallas City Hall. Yet nobody knew for sure. The only person who recorded Robert Johnson, producer Don Law, died 23 years ago without ever writing
down the location of the Dallas session -- or so the experts thought. But now, San Diego blues fanatic Tom Jacobson has tracked down a long-lost 1961 letter that says 508 Park is indeed the spot where Mr. Johnson recorded 13 songs that changed the course of the blues and influenced the likes of Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin. "It's a big deal for us," says Dr. Michael Taft, head of folk
culture archives at the Library of Congress, which acquired the letter in December. "I'm not going to say the building should be a shrine. But it's a very important site because we know so little about Robert Johnson. To finally be able to say this is the building he recorded in, that's a way of bringing Robert Johnson back to life." According to a letter, 508 Park Ave. was the recording site for 13 of Robert Johnson's songs. Some theorized the site was 508 Park Ave, since that was where Don Law and Brunswick Records were based in 1937. Legend has it that everyone from Charlie Parker to Bob Wills recorded in the building, which was originally a Warner Bros. film distribution center for the movie theaters on Elm Street. So, in 1998, Mr. Jacobson -- a 57-year-old San Diego blues freak and photography expert -- traveled to Dallas to see the old building where Mr. Johnson probably recorded. Later, he went to New York City to meet Frank Driggs, who produced and wrote the liner notes for King of the Delta Blues Singers. There, in Mr. Driggs' basement, sat piles of rare recordings and documents he'd taken from Columbia Records because he said his bosses didn't care about blues history. The two men spent three days digging through the cellar before literally tripping over a stack of rare test pressings of the Robert Johnson sessions. Mr. Jacobson bought the recordings from Mr. Driggs -- as well as the 1961 letter in which Mr. Driggs asks Mr. Law to describe Robert Johnson, and Mr. Law scribbles his answers in the margins. The old yellow document confirms some of the few stories that exist about Robert Johnson -- like the night in San Antonio he asked Mr. Law for money to pay a prostitute ("She wants 50 cents and I lacks a nickel") and how he was so secretive about his guitar technique that
when other musicians watched, he played facing the wall in a corner of the room. The letter says the blues legend was paid all of $25 per song. It could also play an important role in the future of 508 Park, which has sat vacant for years in a part of downtown that's yet to see urban renewal. Glazer's, a Dallas beverage distribution firm, has owned 508 Park Ave. since the 1950s. The company has been trying
to sell it for years, to no avail, says R.L. Glazer, chairman of the board.

Songwriter Jerry William Dies

 Lou Rawls, the velvet-voiced singer and longtime community activist who started as a choir boy and went on to record such classic tunes as "You'll Never Find Another Love Like Mine," died Jan. 6th of cancer. He was 72. Rawls' trademark was his smooth, four-octave voice – the "silkiest chops in the singing game," Frank Sinatra once said. Rawls' used it in a wide variety of genres, including commercials. For millions of television viewers and radio listeners, Rawls was the familiar voice that said, "When you've said Budweiser, you've said it all.". A longtime community activist, Rawls played a major role in the 1980s United Negro College Fund telethons that raised more than $200 million. In the '60s he often visited schools, playgrounds and community centers. Rawls was raised on the South Side of Chicago by his grandmother, who shared her love of gospel with him. Rawls also was influenced by doo-wop and harmonized with his high school classmate Sam Cooke. The two friends joined groups such as the Teenage Kings of Harmony. When he moved to Los Angeles in the 1950s, Rawls was recruited for the Chosen Gospel Singers, then moved on to The Pilgrim Travelers. He enlisted in 1955 as a paratrooper in the Army's 82nd Airborne Division. Sgt. Rawls rejoined The Pilgrim Travelers three years later. Rawls performed with Dick Clark at the Hollywood Bowl in 1959. Late that year, Rawls was singing for $10 a night plus pizza at Pandora's Box in Los Angeles when he was spotted by Capitol Records producer Nick Venet, who invited him to audition. He was signed by the label soon after. The album "Stormy Monday," recorded in 1962 with the Les McCann Trio, was the first of Rawls' 52 albums. That same year, he collaborated on Cooke's hit "Bring It On Home to Me." In 1966, Rawls' "Love Is a Hurtin' Thing" topped the charts and earned Rawls his first two Grammy nominations, and he opened for The Beatles in Cincinnati. During that period, Rawls began delivering hip monologues about life and love on the songs "World of Trouble" and "Tobacco Road," each more than seven minutes long. Some called them "pre-rap." His "raps" were so popular that 1967's "Dead End Street" won him his first Grammy for best R&B vocal performance. The singer won three Grammys in a career that spanned nearly five decades and included the hits "Your Good Thing (Is About to End)," "Natural Man" and "Lady Love." He released his most recent album, "Seasons 4 U," in 1998 on his own label, Rawls & Brokaw Records. But his main legacy is "You'll Never Find," recorded after Rawls signed with Gamble and Huff, architects of the classic "Philadelphia Sound." Rawls also appeared in 18 movies, including "Leaving Las Vegas" and "Blues Brothers 2000," and 16 television series, including "Fantasy Island" and "The Fall Guy." Rawls was diagnosed with lung cancer in December 2004 and brain cancer in May 2005.

Songwriter Jerry William Dies

 Jerry Lynn Williams, the little-known writer of such songs as Eric Clapton's
"Running on Faith," Bonnie Raitt's "Real Man" and B.B. King's "Standing on the
Edge of Love," died Nov. 25. He was 57. In 1989, five of his songs - "Pretending," "Anything for Your Love," "Running on Faith," "No Alibis" and "Breaking Point" - were included on Clapton's "Journeyman" album. The same year, his "Real Man" and "I Will Not Be Denied" were on Raitt's "Nick of Time," which won three Grammy Awards. Williams also contributed five songs to King's 1992 album, "King of the Blues," and wrote Clint Black's "The Hard Way" and Delbert McClinton's signature song, "Givin' It Up for Your Love." Williams made four blues-rock albums of his own, but none of them sold well. A maverick, Williams spent nearly four decades bouncing between Los Angeles, where he wrote, recorded and performed, and Texas and Oklahoma, where he ranched. The songwriter was recommended to Clapton in 1984 when the singer needed material for what is regarded as his comeback album, "Behind the Sun." Williams wrote the album's "See What Love Can Do," "Something's Happening" and "Forever Man."

2006 Blues Music Awards Nominations Announced

 On May 11, 2006 the Blues scene will usher in a new era, the Blues Music Awards, formerly the W.C. Handy Awards. This year's nominees have been announced along with a few category changes for the annual bash in Memphis. For more details visit the Blues Foundation Website.

Grammy Award Blues Nominations Announced

 The Grammys have announced this years nominations for the two Blues categories, Best Traditional and Best Contemporary Blues albums. Bonnie Raitt is nominated in the Best Female Pop Vocal Performance category, Delbert McClinton for Best Male Country Vocal Performance, and Keb Mo is nominated in the Best Country Song as a composer for the Dixie Chicks. Alan Lomax's Library of Congress recordings are nominated twice.

2006 Keeping The Blues Alive Recipients Announced

 Twenty individuals and organizations that have made significant contributions to Blues music will be honored with The Blues Foundation's 2006 Keeping The Blues Alive (KBA) Award during a recognition brunch Saturday, January 28, 2006, in Memphis, Tennessee. The KBA ceremony will be part of the International Blues Challenge (IBC) weekend of events that will feature the semifinals and finals of the 22nd IBC competition as well as seminars, presentations, and receptions for Blues societies, fans, and professionals. For the complete list of Recipients click here.

2005 ARSC Awards Announced

 ARSC is pleased to announce the winners of the 2005 ARSC Awards for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research. Begun in 1991, the awards are presented to authors and publishers of books, articles, liner notes, and monographs, to recognize outstanding published research in the field of recorded sound. In giving these awards, ARSC recognizes outstanding contributions, encourages high standards, and promotes awareness of superior works. A maximum of two awards is presented annually in each category -- one for best history and one for best discography. Certificates of Merit are presented to runners-up of exceptionally high quality. The 2005 Awards for Excellence honor works published in 2004. For the complete list of finalists click here.