At the Northside Tavern in Atlanta, Georgia, last night, bartender Cory Gillen was showing off his Atlanta Thrashers tattoo as the Trashers' game with the Florida Panthers played on the TV above. The Thrashers won, 2-1, on a Rich Peverley shootout goal, just in time for the tavern's main act, the gravelly voiced, 69(?)-year-old, Beverly "Guitar" Watkins (below), "a pyrotechnic guitar maven whose searing, ballistic attacks on the guitar have become allegorical tales within the blues community." In the late 'fifties, Watkins played with the band "Dr. Feelgood, The Interns, and The Nurse," who recorded the single called, Right String But The Wrong...

06 December, 2009

Frank MacDonald also sent us a song he wrote "many years ago." "There has never been a musician I could interest in it," he writes. "Not being a singer myself, I converted into a talking blues that I entertain myself with from time to time in the car, As a old Brooklyn Dodger fan, you may enjoy it. As a Cleveland fan my chances to enjoy things have been few and far between since 1954." SANDLOT KID He lived on a park bench, reading baseball box scores And paid his way doing odd and end chores. But he loved to remember when baseball was magic, And...

13 November, 2009

[caption id="attachment_2694" align="alignwrap" width="550" caption="L to R: Bassist Fred Lavery, guitarist Dave McKeough, and old time rocker Matt Mainglewood, testing the limits of the iPhone's flashless camera. "][/caption] A decidedly graying crowd of hardcore Matt Minglewood fans packed the Royal Cape Breton Yacht Club over the weekend for the latest in Colleen MacDonald's Load of Wood music nights. Minglewood was joined by some of Cape Breton's best loved session musicians, including Fred Lavery on bass, Dave McKeough on guitar,  Ian Aker on sax, Kenny Boone on mouth harp, and James Munroe on trombone. To receive e-mail notification of these occasional (and mercifully early...

25 October, 2009

Five talented office workers with questionable taste in music: ...

17 October, 2009

One of the gems Canada acquired when it joined Newfoundland in 1949 was the then-infant Anita Best of  Merasheen Island, Placentia Bay. Anita was barely a teenager when Joey Smallwood expunged her fishing community of residents in the great and tragic resettlement. She grew up to be the greatest collector and interpreter of Newfoundland music, storytelling, and folklore of our era—a national treasure in both nations. Anita writes: Just read the comment on Roger Howse's Hendrix night at Bearly's.  Thanks for posting it.  I miss Roger's music a lot. High praise indeed....

29 September, 2009

For years, North River fiddlemaker Otis Tomas had his eye on a giant sugar maple that grew on a hillside near his home. Finally one day, he cut it down. At a Celtic Colours concert in Sydney Mines October 12, musicians from Cape Breton, Vermont, Scotland, and Ireland will play two fiddles, a guitar, a cello, and a harp, all built by Tomas using wood from the fiddle tree....

27 September, 2009

Buried in a Herald story about Dave Carroll's testimony before a passenger rights organization-sponsored hearing in Washington, lies this little nugget: Last week, for the first time since his YouTube hit went Stage 6 pandemic, Carroll inadvertently flew United Airlines—a long booked connecting flight to a gig in Chicago. As the flight prepared for takeoff, a United attendant, apparently oblivious to Carroll's musical history with the airline, chastised him for not placing his (Taylor?) guitar in an overhead bin. A nearby passenger watched in amusement. "Oh, he’s going to write a song about you," she said....

23 September, 2009

Thirty-nine years ago last night, Jimi Hendrix died in a London, England, apartment. He was 27 years old. Halifax bluesman Roger Howse honored the anniversary with an all-Hendrix third set at Bearly’s House of Blues & Ribs on Barrington Street. Contrarian friend Richard Stephenson writes: A fixture at Bearly’s over the last decade, the Roger Howse Band draws praise for the power of its music and the precision of Roger's guitar work. About 12:30 this morning, following a longer than usual break, the band returned to the stage and, without fanfare, charged headlong into a ninety-minute set featuring nine Hendrix songs....

19 September, 2009

The Plaskett boy got a nice lift today when Apple's on-line iTunes store headlined him as their featured New Music Tuesday performer. The promotion, which includes an album of 12 songs and an equal number of interview cuts, was emailed to every registered iTunes user in Canada, ...

15 September, 2009