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Imagine a record label where the heads of preeminent brass (classical), jazz, and blues labels collaborated with Beezwax Records, LLC to issue one release per year in their respective genres. Imagine a record label whose A&R vetting was guided in part by a select group of visually impaired, eclectic audiophiles tilting toward the same. Imagine a record label that limits its market exclusively to a set of prequalified subscribers who eagerly await their next Beezwax Record, and when they get it it has their name on it. Imagine a record label that dovetails seamlessly with the manufacturers of physical...

Beezwax Records was established in 1997 as a sole proprietorship dedicated to the recording and distribution of brass, jazz, and blues music. Their home base is Elkhart, Indiana, where more brass instruments have been manufactured than anywhere else in the world. When the first Beezwax Record came out on October 31, 1997, it was in CD form. It was also date stamped, serialized, embossed, personalized, and registered into a database as a way to honor the passion that exists between artist and audience. The same holds true for the tens of thousands of CDs that were shipped since that day....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NpOZMZr5iU

Neil Young and Charles Manson have a bizarrely intertwined history. The two men once shared a jam session at a time when Manson was an up and coming talent, one that had started to make waves in California and caught Young’s attention. Their paths then diverted, as Young became one of the most revered artists on the planet and Manson became the world’s most notorious cult leader. Manson would then later become the muse for Young’s track, ‘Revolution Blues’.

There’s a growing list of veteran pop and rock acts who’ve announced an end to touring — Paul Simon, Joan Baez, Elton John — and we can now add another: John Mayall. The godfather of the British blues scene, who will turn 88 next month, has announced an end to his “epic road-dog days”: “I have decided, due to the risks of the pandemic and my advancing age, that it is time for me to hang up my road shoes,” he says.

Eric Clapton was visibly intoxicated onstage at a concert in Birmingham on Aug. 5, 1976. But the message he spoke at the mike was clear. As he advocated his support for Enoch Powell, a controversial right-wing British politician well-known for his anti-immigration views, the guitarist took things even further, asking the audience if there were any foreigners present. “I don’t want you here, in the room or in my country,” Clapton said. “Listen to me, man! I think we should vote for Enoch Powell. Enoch’s our man. I think Enoch’s right, I think we should send them all back." His...

You might think that you’d do a lot to support your favorite artists, but chances are your story wouldn’t match that of Bruce Iglauer’s. When he wanted to hear an album by his favorite Chicago blues act that didn’t actually exist, he created an entire record label just to have something to put on his home stereo and to spread the word on the artist. Now, more than 350 releases later, Alligator Records will mark its 50th anniversary this month with a 3-CD label anthology 50 Years of Genuine Houserockin’ Music. It comes out on June 18, the same day...

Watching American cities burn across the map all summer long is a little dispiriting for those of us foreigners whose first acquaintance with these burgs was through American songs. I have been to St Louis a handful of times, but, if you sneak up on me unawares and yell the name at me, I'm more likely to eschew my limited personal experience and burst into a few bars of "Meet Me in St Louis" or "The Saint Louis Blues" - notwithstanding that the former renders the town exclusively as "St Louiee" and the latter does likewise in all but a...

Still got the blues.

Things went a bit sideways this week, but it's all good.

Just some blues I have been booting up lately. Enjoy. Or not.

It rained on their parade. And they didn't care. After 52 years, a little liquid sunshine wasn't going to stop the long-suffering hockey fans in St. Louis from celebrating their team's first-ever Stanley Cup win in euphoric fashion. The city’s director of special events was expecting about 500,000 people to attend Saturday’s downtown parade and rally at the Gateway Arch. Afterward, Jeremy Rutherford of The Athletic reported that city and team officials revised that estimate to “more than one million.” It was par for the course for a fanbase that had shown up in a big way as the Blues’...

In overtime, Bobby Clarke scores the game winning goal to give the Flyers their first win on Boston Garden ice since November 12, 1967 and, more importantly, send the Series to the Spectrum tied at one game each.The call by Gene Hart and Don Earle.

Legendary blues great born Albert Nelson this date in Indianola, MS. Listen to his recording of the Englishman - German - and Jew Blues, performed with Albert Brooks here.

His style amplified his emotions, clusters of sixteenth notes often played in a dark-tinged minor key that sounded both thrilling and chilling. Rush paid his rent working in a steel mill and driving a truck, among other jobs, but his music couldn’t be denied. His distinctiveness was indelibly captured on “I Can’t Quit You Baby,” his first single for Cobra Record Corp. in 1956. He cut some of his greatest tracks over the next two years with Cobra, including “My Love Will Never Die,” “Groanin’ the Blues,” “Three Times a Fool,” “Double Trouble” and “All Your Love (I Miss Loving).”...

Legendary Shack Shakers - Blood on the Blue Grass Way down south in a Kentuck' town Where all of the stubble fields grow One boy did rise with the devil in his eyes Whose heart was dark as Westfield coal Heart was dark as Westfield coal Roderick Ferrell and the Wendorf girl Knelt down upon a darkened grave He drew his dagger down and the red ran to the ground And they licked along the bloody blade Licked along the bloody blade Blood-red blood on the blue, blue grass It cries from hallowed hunting ground 'Twas the midnight curse of...

It shouldn't be a surprise, really, but still it's a bit startling to hear just how well the Rolling Stones can play the blues. Strip away the glitz, the oversized stages and the pyrotechnics, and you're left with two terrific guitarists, a frontman who can play an exuberant harp — and a drummer named Charlie Watts. No wonder Blue & Lonesome sounds so solid. Their first studio album in more than a decade has the simplest of concepts: Put the guys in a studio for three days, give them a songbook heavy on Jimmy Reed, Willie Dixon and Howlin' Wolf,...

Lovely cover of Junior Kimbrough’s Hill Country classic, “I’m In Love With You”.

Phil Chess, who co-founded the Chicago-based music label Chess, which brought American blues, soul and early rock music to an international audience and influenced generations of musicians including the Rolling Stones, died Oct. 19 at his home in Tucson. He was 95.

~Favorite Blues songs or Rock songs inspired by the Blues ~ Stevie Ray Vaughan, Texas Flood, *Video* Muddy Waters - Hoochie Coochie Man *Video*