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Several musicians slated to perform at the Tampa Bay Blues Festival have music in their blood.
By GINA VIVINETTO, Times Pop Music Critic
© St. Petersburg Times, published April 4, 2002
The lineup at this year's Tampa Bay Blues Festival could be used to prove that blues music is a family affair. Check out how many acts have members who are offspring of famous players: Lucky Peterson, Bernard Allison, Shemekia Copeland, even those Dickinson boys in North Mississippi Allstars have a famous pappy. So what if he's a studio producer?
Lineage may come into play here, but the real talent lies in these acts' respect for roots. With all sorts of variations on the many incarnations of the blues -- Chicago blues, Delta blues, swamp, boogie woogie -- this year's festival is another exciting one, featuring:
SEAN CHAMBERS -- 3:30 p.m.
A favorite on the local circuit for his fiery guitar riffs and big voice, Sean Chambers is a graduate of Plant High School in Tampa. His CD Strong Temptation won him good reviews in national magazines likeMusician and Guitar World.
Benoit's roots are in South Louisiana, where the food is hot and the blues joints are down and dirty. Benoit, 34, plays a sultry blend of Cajun blues rock that's catchy enough to snag the ears of television producers. Benoit's tunes have been heard on Northern Exposure, Melrose Place, even Baywatch. Known for not rehearsing, Benoit puts on a fiery live show filled with spontaneity.
For 10 years the Tommy Castro Band has been delighting folks in San Francisco with its soulful blues rock. A dynamo guitar player, Castro is full of charisma onstage. The songwriting is impeccable, and it pays off: the band's Right as Rain and Live at Fillmore both topped Billboard's blues charts. The latest, Guilty of Love, features a guest vocal by the late, great John Lee Hooker on the title track.
Brothers Cody and Luther Dickinson, sons of legendary Memphis studio whiz Jim Dickinson, and their buddy, bassist Chris Chew, have been tearing up the blues rock scene with North Mississippi Allstars. The Dickinsons used to be punk rockers before the brothers returned to their musical roots: post-Stax Memphis and blues. The trio blended all those sounds on their dynamite debut, the Grammy-nominated Shake Hands With Shorty, fusing traditional hill country blues lyrics and blues melodies with fierce rock. The followup 51 Phantom, recently released, is gritty but not short on grooves, and it, too, is making critics drool.
DAMON FOWLER -- noon
A big favorite among Tampa Bay area blues fans, the Damon Fowler Group serves up a yummy blend of R&B, Southern rock and Delta blues. Its latest release, Roots and Branches, is full of the young Fowler's originals and shows off his impressive range on the guitar and the group's solid ensemble playing.
Burks, 44, comes from a long line of blues players, and it shows. His feisty guitar -- check out Burks wailing on his signature V-shaped six string -- comes from years of his dad paying him a dollar for each song young Michael learned front to back. Last year's Make It Rain is Burks all grown up. It's filled with his tempestuous style, similar to his idol Albert King's, but even more aggressive.
At age 8, Sean Costello wowed his predominantly African-American grade school on Dr. Martin Luther King day with his rousing rendition of the "I Have a Dream" speech. Since then, the blues guitarist, now 22, has continued to dazzle with his unique interpretations and fresh style of Chicago blues and Southern R&B. Folks in the media, and not just a few fans, have noted that Costello happens to have a "face like an extra on Beverly Hills 90210." Don't let Costello's pretty mug fool you; his guitar playing isn't dainty.
A native of Baton Rouge, Neal knows a thing or two about voodoo, alligators, gumbo and swamp blues. The 44-year old guitarist has blues in his blood: His dad is singer and harp blower Raful Neal, and brothers Frederick and Darnell play keyboards and bass, respectively, in his band. Blues legends such as Slim Harpo hung out at the Neal house when Kenny was a boy. The story goes it was Harpo who handed 3-year-old Kenny a harmonica, instead of a pacifier, to stop his crying.
Shemekia Copeland, 22, is the daughter of late legendary guitarist Johnny Copeland. The Harlem native has a big, big voice in the vein of Koko Taylor and Etta James, boisterous and packed with raw emotion. Copeland can take it from a whisper to a growl and back again and you won't even know what hit you. Her personality, too, is vibrant and, like the best blues ladies, she is riveting onstage.
After three decades playing together, you figure Little Feat puts on a mean live show. Formed in Los Angeles in 1969, the band plays Southern fried blues rock, but with the kind of skewed sensibility you'd expect from an act whose creators were once in Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention. Leader Lowell George died on tour in 1979, but the band forged on with some gaps here and there. Little Feat still plays yummy Dixie-inflected boogie woogie rock, big on rollicking keyboards, slide guitar, trumpet and percussion.
BACKTRACK BLUES BAND -- 1 p.m.
A force on the local scene for more than two decades, the Backtrack Blues Band has played with some of the biggest names in the blues, including B.B. King, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Buddy Guy, Albert Collins, Koko Taylor, Allman Brothers Band, Delbert McClinton and Anson Funderburgh. The lineup features original members Sonny Charles (harp and lead vocals), Gary Babich (drums), Scott Hunter (bass), Spider Ingram (lead and slide guitar and vocals) and Dean Germain (Hammond B-3).
Why isn't 49-year-old Nulisch more popular? The Dallas-born harmonica player has amazing chops, and he's one heck of a soulful singer. Nulisch's stellar I Like It That Way is full of hot R&B tunes -- several of them clever originals -- that have Stax written all over them. (The disc made Pulse's Top 10 of 2000.) As a Texas teen, Nulisch smashed the skins in a band with a kid called Stevie Ray Vaughan. Nowadays, when not working on his own music, he sings on tour with the legendary James Cotton.
Son of James Peterson, guitarist Lucky, 54, was literally born in a blues club in Buffalo, N.Y. The younger Peterson was called a child prodigy for his guitar chops. At age 6 he scored a hit with 1-2-3-4. (Maybe you caught him on The Ed Sullivan Show?) Now that he's an adult, he still continues to amaze, working with all the blues greats and recording his own music, a fun blend of funk, jazz and the blues. Peterson had another minor hit with Time, a funky collaboration with spacey Parliament bassist Bootsy Collins.
Son of late legend Luther Allison, expatriate guitarist Bernard Allison makes his contemporary blues eclectic with elements of funk and rock. Allison, 36, now based in Paris, says the musical hybrid is the result of growing up with eight brothers and sisters and hearing all their musical favorites from gospel to jazz, R&B, soul and dad's traditional 12-bar blues. In his ever-present black hat, Allison looks as stylish as his playing sounds.
Ike Turner at 70 could teach the whippersnappers about banging the piano, picking out notes on a guitar and singing his head off while onstage. Turner's never been known to hog the spotlight -- he's always been the "organizer" of his acts, keeping in the background while a flashier front person, say his ex-wife Tina, got all the attention. But in recent years, Turner has become something of an onstage phenomenon. Last year's Here & Now, his first solo album in two decades, finds Turner belting out the boogie woogie rock, even redoing the classic Rocket 88, the tune Turner played piano on back in 1951, and the one with which, depending on who you ask, he created rock 'n' roll.