THE GREATS SITTIN' IN - CHICAGO BLUES NOW!

<body bgcolor="black" text="white" link="#f8e3c6"> <center>  <table width="432" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tr> <td><img src="great_graphics/images/cover_01.jpg" width="200" height="200"></td> <td><img src="great_graphics/images/cover_02.jpg" width="232" height="200"></td> </tr> <tr> <td><img src="great_graphics/images/cover_03.jpg" width="200" height="230"></td> <td><img src="great_graphics/images/cover_04.jpg" width="232" height="230"></td> </tr> </table>  <p><font face="Verdana" size="2"><br> </font></p> </center> <div align="left"> <p><font face="Verdana" size="2"><a name="player"></a>THE GREATS SITTIN' IN: CHICAGO BLUES NOW! is a compilation CD. It is also part of a multifaceted project. Some of the greatest Chicago blues singers/instrumentalists on the scene today were brought together with the finest rhythm sections/sidemen in Chicago blues--keeping in mind important musical compatibility considerations--for a special recording session. <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="2"> <tr> <td><img height="240" width="319" src="great_graphics/artists.gif"></td> <td><font face="Verdana" size="2">John Primer, Willie Kent, Magic Slim and Little Smokey Smothers are among those who not only make up a relatively small group of traditional Chicago artists and who are currently keeping the music alive and vital, but are among those who have helped create and shape the sound of Chicago blues as we know it now. </font></td> </tr> </table> </font></p> <p><font face="Verdana" size="2">We are privileged to have Lurrie Bell on this recording. Lurrie is unquestionably one of the greatest Chicago Blues guitarists alive today. We are also happy to introduce a wonderful singer, Mike Avery, who not only has an exceptional voice, but has special familial ties to the roots of Chicago blues.</font></p> <p><font face="Verdana" size="2"><a name="neworder"></a><a href="http://www.ccnow.com/cgi-local/cart.cgi?bluestool_1002_http://ultimatebluestool.com/" target="_blank"><img height="42" width="90" src="great_graphics/order.gif" align="top" border="0" alt="Order Sittin in with the Greats"></a></font></p> </div> <p><font face="Verdana" size="2">Order <b>THE GREATS SITTIN' IN - Chicago Blues Now!</b></font></p> <p><font face="Verdana" size="2">Web Special </font><a href="http://www.ccnow.com/cgi-local/cart.cgi?bluestool_1002_http://ultimatebluestool.com/" target="_blank"><font size="2" face="Verdana">$16.98 USD</font></a></p> <p><font face="Verdana" size="2">Order <b>THE GREATS SITTIN' IN - Chicago Blues Now!</b> AND <b>Sittin' in With the Greats - The Chicago Blues Play Along CD</b></font></p> <p><font size="2" face="Verdana">Web Special <a href="http://www.ccnow.com/cgi-local/cart.cgi?bluestool_both_http://ultimatebluestool.com/" target="_blank">$32.98 USD</a></font></p> <p><a href="graphics/ccnowsite_black_border.jpg"><font face="Verdana" size="2"><img height="58" width="147" src="graphics/ccnowsite_black_border.jpg" border="0" alt="Blues Instruction"></font></a></p> <p><a href="http://www.ccnow.com/cgi-local/cart.cgi?bluestool_shopcart_http://ultimatebluestool.com/" target="_blank"><font face="Verdana" size="2">View Cart | Checkout</font></a></p> <p><font face="Verdana" size="2"> <hr> </font></p> <p><font face="Verdana" size="2"><a name="artists"></a><b><img height="27" width="155" src="great_graphics/blues_artists_head.gif" border="0" alt="Blues Artists" align="top"></b></font></p> <p><font face="Verdana" size="2"><b>JOHN PRIMER<br> <br> </b>Native of Camden, Mississippi, John picked up his first guitar at age eight. With the daily sounds of Jimmy Reed, Muddy Waters, Elmore James and many other blues artists coming through his grandmother's tube radio, John was instantly hooked on the blues. In 1963 at the age of eighteen, he migrated to Chicago where modern electric blues was in its formative stage. John became the house guitarist at the famous Theresa's Lounge on the south side in 1974. During this period that lasted five years, he played with such originators as Sammy Lawhorn, Junior Wells, Buddy Guy, Smokey Smothers and a host of other innovators who were sculpting the sound of Chicago blues. In 1979, John joined the legendary Willie Dixon's band. The Chicago Blues All-Stars. His next gig was with the great Muddy Waters who hired John not only as a guitarist, but as an opening act. He was with Muddy until the legend's death in 1983. John then joined Magic Slim's band with whom he toured for fourteen years. In 1995, he released his major label debut. The Real Deal. He has nine solo albums to date.<br> <b><br> LITTLE SMOKEY SMOTHERS<br> <br> </b>LITTLE SMOKEY SMOTHERS, originally from Tchula Mississippi, made his way to Chicago as a young teenager where his older brother Smokey Smothers was already an established blues musician on the club scene. He loved the sound of blues music and spent some of his time learning to play a harmonica that he would pull out of his pocket only when nobody was around. But it wasn't until he picked up his first guitar at sixteen that he knew what he wanted to do with his life. Still underage, Smokey would get to see his brother play by sneaking into the clubs where none of the club owners knew his name, but he was Smokey's little brother. They dubbed him Little Smokey, and he has had that name ever since.<br> <br> Smokey's first teacher was a young man who lived across the street form him named Magic Sam. At sixteen, Smokey spent hours at Sam's house practicing his guitar with his good friend. At seventeen, he landed his first gig. A year lager , the great Howlin' Wolf asked him to join his band. Smokey held down the guitar seat with Wolf for two years and he then went on to play with the legendary bluesman Earl Hooker with whom he worked for several years. At twenty-three, he started his own band which quickly became popular and was the first Chicago Blues band to use a full horn section. As Smokey put it, "up to that point Otis Rush and Wolf carried but one horn with them. I brought in the full section, including trumpet and Willie Henderson on baritone...." His high energy shows included his performance of a number of exciting acrobatic moves with his guitar on stage. In the 1960s, Smokey mentored both Paul Butterfield and Elvin Bishop of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. Elvin Bishop continues to credit Little Smokey with his mentoring of the band and his importance in the blues surge of the 1960s for white audiences. Smokey has recorded several CDs under his own name, and in his latest effort, he teamed up with Elvin Bishop for a live recording. <b><br> <br> WILLIE KENT<br> <br> </b>Born in Inverness, Sunflower County, Mississippi, in 1936, Willie lived with his family in a sharecropper's shack. He was devoted to the church where he sang in the gospel choir when he was nine years old. Willie grew up hearing Elmore James, Sonny Boy Williamson, Big Bill Broonzy, Johnny Shines, Louis Jordan and others everyday on radio's "King Biscuit Hour." There was a roadhouse not far up the road called The Harlem Inn where the underage Kent got to hear regulars Ike Turner, Jake Brenston, Little Milton, Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters. At sixteen he followed the blues and the jobs to Chicago where he learned to play from the masters such as Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Littler Walter, Junior Parker, Jimmy Rogers, Magic Sam and others. Leading his own band both on the road and in the studio, Willie has established himself as one of the greatest singers in blues today.<br> <br> <b>MAGIC SLIM<br> <br> </b>Magic Slim was born Morris Holt on August 7, 1937 in Grenada, Mississippi and began in music as a piano player. After losing one of his fingers in a farming accident, he switched to guitar. In 1955 he moved to Chicago and played bass in this friend Magic Sam's band. It was Sam who dubbed him Magic Slim. During his time in Chicago, Slim had absorbed the sounds and styles of the city's great bluesmen. Besides Magic Sam, Slim was strongly influenced by Muddy Waters, Freddie King and Otis Rush. After moving back to Mississippi and working on his guitar skills, Slim came back to Chicago determined to make a name for himself. He found a gig as lead guitarist with a south side band called Mr. Pitiful and the Teardrops. When the band's singer left the group, Slim took over the as lead vocalist. He recorded his first 45 RPM in 1966, won a strong following in the clubs and eventually took over Hound Dog Taylor's house gig at Florence's Lounge. His guitar playing, both aggressive and raw, along with his roaring gruff vocals, gives Slim a distinctive and powerful style all his own. His rhythm driven, tough sound has established him as one of the most original bluesmen on the scene.<br> <br> <b>MIKE AVERY<br> <br> </b>When your mother plays nothin' but the blues in the house, your cousin is blues titan Magic Sam, and you grow up in the same building with him on the west side of Chicago, you have little choice but to be firmly rooted in the blues. As a teenager, Mike remembers all the backyard barbecue parties that Sam hosted. "man, he loved to barbecue. He used to have them all the time. And I remember all kind of blues musicians and singers like Otis Clay, Tyrone Davis, Betty Wright used to come around. Sam would cook and play blues on the back porch every chance he could. You could smell the barbecue clear down the street and all way at the end of the alley..."<br> <br> Already a singer in his teens, Mike would soak up as much as he could from his cousin, Magic Sam. In the middle seventies, Mike started singing at the Majestic Lounge on 14th and Pulaski with house blues bands, Scotty And the Rib Tips and Johnny B. Moore. He remembers, "it was something, man, back then The Majestic was the after-gig joint. A lot of musicians would go there after their shows and just hang out. People like Lee Shot Williams, Mac Thompson, Johnny Dollar, Mary Lane. It was like a big family. That's how deep the vibe was. That was a tough area, but it was safe there and nobody played the star, they all just dug being together. Yeah, like a family. It was cool. I don't see as much of that anymore. Sadly, it's a tire shop now, I think." It is easy to understand how growing up so close to such R&B and soul singers as Otis Clay and Tyrone Davis could lead Mike down the path to R&B and soul music where he focused much of his career. "I'm not on the blues circuit, but that's where my roots are. I couldn't deny if I wanted to. Giving me a good blues tune to sing is like taking me back home."<br> <b><br> LURRIE BELL<br> <br> </b>Born in 1958, son of blues harmonicist Carey Bell, Lurrie picked up his father's guitar at age six and taught himself to play. He was clearly gifted beyond most. In addition to that, he grew up with many of the Chicago blues legends around him. Eddie Taylor, Big Walter Horton, Eddie C. Campbell, Eddie Clearwater (his cousin), Lovie Lee, Sunnyland Slim, Jimmy Dawkins and many more were frequent visitors to his house. They all helped to shape and school him in the blues, but none as much as his father's long time employer Muddy Waters.<br> <br> By seventeen, Lurrie was playing on stage with Willie Dixon. Not only was Lurrie quickly recognized as an exceptionally gifted guitarist and musician, but his knowledge of different blues styles, his soulfulness and musical maturity brought write-ups in publications such as Rolling Stone and The New York Times. At a time when most other young blues guitarists, both black and white, were favoring the rock-blues "guitar hero" style, made popular by the likes of Johnny Winter and Stevie Ray Vaughn, Lurrie's playing has always followed more in the traditional style of such blues greats as B.B. King, Otis Rush, Magic Sam and Eddie Taylor. For Lurrie, it has never been about how many notes he could play or how fast he could play them. Rather, it's always been about the music, and more specifically, about the blues. Above all, whatever style or flavor Lurrie chooses to draw from, it is his own sound that comes out.<br> <br> At nineteen, Lurrie went tout on the road with Koko Taylor. His next gig was a founding member of Son of the Blues with Freddie Dixon and Billy Branch. He has also played and recorded extensively and his with his father over the years. Lurrie has a prolific recording career both as a sideman and under his own name. </font></p> <p><font face="Verdana" size="2"> <hr> </font></p> <p><font face="Verdana" size="2"><b><a name="tracks"></a><img height="27" width="196" src="great_graphics/track_info_head.gif" align="top"></b></font></p> <p><font face="Verdana" size="2">The material on this CD ranges from the traditional Chicago blues of the postwar period to its more modern, present-day style. Accompanying Willie Kent, Little Smokey Smothers and Magic Slim on the more traditional songs, "That's All Right," "Old Blue Ribbon," "Got My Mojo Working," "Rough Dried Woman," "A Man and his Blues," and "Sweet Home Chicago" are Al "Get Down" Brown on bass, Tim "Awesome" Austin on drums, James Wheeler and Larry Skoller on guitar and Johnny Iguana on piano. Chicago harmonica veteran Matthew Skoller lends his mastery of the style to "That's All Right," "Sweet Home Chicago" and "Every time You Leave Me." On "A Man and his Blues" Willie Kent replaces Al Brown on bass.<br> <br> Backing Mike Avery's soulful vocal performance for the modern tunes, "The Thrill is Gone," "It's My Own Fault" and "If you Love Me Like You Say" are Johnny B. Gayden on bass, Ray "Killer" Allison on drums, Michael Coleman on guitar and Roosevelt "Mad Hatter" Purifoy on keyboards. Primer's own "Every Time You Leave Me" features John on vocals and guitar with Johnny B. Gayden, Tim Austin and Roosevelt Purifoy rounding out the band.<br> <br> We are also privileged to have Chicago blues guitar great, Lurrie Bell on this recording. He is heard on "The Thrill is Gone," "It's My Own Fault, "If You Love Me Like You Say," "Got My Mojo Working, "A Man and his Blues" and "Rough Dried Woman." (Slim gives over the lead guitar duties to Lurrie.) His amazing guitar work on these songs is further proof that he is one of the most gifted blues guitarists alive today. </font></p> <p><font face="Verdana" size="2">Produced by Larry Skoller<br> Recorded at Scientific Studios,Chicago, IL<br> Mixed by Blaise Barton and Larry Skoller<br> Mastered by Blaise Barton<br> Photography: Paul Natkin<br> Design by Kate Hoddinott<br> </font></p> <center> <p><a href="mailto:info@ultimatebluestool.com"><font face="Verdana" size="2">©2002 THE GREATS SITTIN' IN, All Rights Reserved</font></a></p> <p><a href="hogwarts.html"><font face="Verdana" size="2">Contact</font></a></center> </body>