Buddy Guy dominates Blues Music Awards

Buddy Guy was the big winner at the recent Blues Music Awards, held in Memphis, Tenn. by the Blues Foundation.

Guy, the 2010 Lifetime Achievement honoree, was the B.B. King Entertainer of the Year. In addition, he took home top honors for Album, Contemporary Blues Album, Contemporary Blues Artist and Song of the Year, which he shared with Tom Hambridge.

Guy released the critically-acclaimed recording, "Living Proof," in 2010.

Complete list of 2011 Blues Music Award winners

The Blues Foundation

Little Smokey Smothers passes away at age 71

Chicago blues guitarist and vocalist Albert Abraham "Little Smokey" Smothers, 71, died on November 20, 2010, according to Alligator Records.

Smothers, who served as a mentor to musicians including Paul Butterfield and Elvin Bishop, died of natural causes at Little Company of Mary Hospital in Chicago.

According to an Alligator news release, Smothers was born into a musical family in Tchula, Mississippi on January 2, 1939 and moved to Chicago as a teenager. His older brother, guitarist Otis "Big Smokey" Smothers became a well-known Chicago blues artist. Little Smokey took up guitar and before long was recording and performing with artists like Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter, his soul singer cousin Lee "Shot" Williams and others.

Concentrating primarily on his instrumental skills, he toured and led bands playing locally in Chicago's South Side blues clubs beginning in the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s. He partially retired to raise a family, but returned to blues in 1978. He spent most of the 1980s playing small Chicago clubs and touring occasionally as a sideman, including as lead guitarist with the Legendary Blues Band.

For more information, including funeral arrangements, visit the Alligator Records Web site.

Mississippi Blues Trail heads north to the Badger State

The Mississippi Blues Trail, a collection of important blues locations, winds its way through Mississippi, Memphis, Arkansas, Alabama and, eventually, Chicago. This weekend, the trail extends another 100 miles north to the small town of Grafton, Wisconsin, which is the home of Paramount Records.

The record label produced 78 rpm records of early blues pioneers including Charley Patton, Skip James, Son House, Ma Rainey and Blind Lemon Jefferson. According to ParamountsHome.org, more than 1,600 songs were recorded in Grafton between 1929 and 1932. Over 60 African Americans recorded their blues, spirituals, and even sermons in a "make-shift" studio of an old chair factory, opposite of the pressing plant.

The Grafton Blues Association will unveil the marker during the fifth annual Paramount Blues Festival in Grafton on Sept. 18. Grafton is about 20 miles north of Milwaukee.

The marker will be located at the former location of the Wisconsin Chair Factory, which housed the Paramount recording studio.

Delmark reissues songs from Dawkins' Leric Records

Most blues fans are very familiar with the work of blues guitar legend Jimmy Dawkins. Not everyone is aware of his work as a record producer with his own label, Leric Records. In the 1980s, the label released 45s by Tail Dragger, Queen Sylvia Embry, Little Johnny Christian and Nora Jean Wallace, to name a few.

Thanks to Delmark Records, these records are now being reissued for the first time on CD, "Jimmy Dawkins presents: The Leric Story." In addition to the artists listed above, the package also includes unissued sides by Vance Kelly and Big Mojo Elem. Dawkins contributes as a sideman, along with Johnny B. Moore, Lafayette Leake, Willie Kent, Eddie "Jewtown" Burks, Michael Coleman and Chico Banks.

New law to help Mississippi blues artists in need

The Mississippi Legislature has passed a bill that will provide help to struggling blues artists in the state, according to the Associated Press.

The legislation allows the Mississippi Blues Commission to "raise and expend grant funds to provide assistance to any blues musician in need." The bill amends the original law that created the commission.

The commission will handle the funds, which would only go to Mississippi performers. "We don't just want some guy who goes out and buys a harmonica to say, 'I'm a bluesman. Give me some money,'" said Mississippi state Sen. Billy Hewes. "We want it to go to true artists."

BusinessWeek article
 

Mississippi Blues Commission