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2011 Blues Music Awards &

Blues Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony

(And A Little Something Special)

Memphis, Tennessee

May 4 & 5, 2011

High Waters Rising

By Don Wilcock

Eight and a half hours passed like a comet streaking across the sky. From The Gangster of Love blues/rock master Steve Miller’s tight opening salvo to a wee-wee hours Howlin’ Wolf-inspired strut by Debut Artist of The Year Matt Hill, who was literally On The Floor, time stood still. A full house of blues’ who’s who dressed to thrill saw the year in music played out by wave after wave of the genre’s top acts spilling their souls into the gathered throng.

Blues Hall of Fame inductee Denise LaSalle admonished, “I know we have a sophisticated crowd here, but don’t sit here and be cute tonight. Blues is blues!”  She pranced her way through the Sidney Simien’s “(Don’t Mess with) My Toot Toot” with lurid descriptions of her “little fuzzy muffin that always stays warm and wet.” It was enough to make Bobby Rush blush.

Buddy Guy, who walked away with five awards that night, all but stopped the show with a blistering attack on “74 Years Young” from his latest CD, Living Proof. Acting one-third his age, he should be the poster child for the AARP. He gave a vocal middle finger to troubled past relationships on “Let The Door Knob Hit Ya,” and displayed a range of guitar dynamics that went from a mosquito wing’s flutter to hard-scrabble boogie on “Hoochie Coochie Man.” He openly flaunted the time restrictions displayed on the onstage clock egging audience response with the question, “Does that mean I gotta quit?”

John Hammond had the unenviable task of following Guy and his full band with an acoustic set from stage right. Both artists have been favorites of mine for nearly a half century and to see Hammond come across with an inspiring set a day before Robert Johnson’s one-hundredth birthday in front of an audience that was still loudly buzzing over Guy’s set was the only down moment of the night.

For a genre as cathartic as blues, the venue can inspire or destroy an artist’s performance if not their career. No one clutched at this show, and several of the performers changed my opinion about them or opened my ears for the first time to talents I’d either missed or misinterpreted.

Tad Robinson may not look the part of the deeply inflected soul singer, but his delivery and his original songs suddenly elevated him in my mind to a level shared with Curtis Salgado and John Nemeth. His guitarist, Alex Schultz, played some of the most evocative and understated soul guitar I’ve ever heard. I had heard wonderful things on his Back in Style LP from Severn, but you never know how much of the sound on a soul LP is the producer and how much is the artist. Robinson is a major player!

The Karen Lovely I saw at the International Blues Challenge in February was not the Karen Lovely who commandeered the stage at the BMAs. At the IBC, she was a shadow of the woman who projected total control this time around. Performing “I’ve Had Enough” from her Still The Rain album, she had all the brassiness of a modern Big Mama Thornton, but with the finesse of a crack band and the vocal control of a veteran. She was just as effective on the title cut from that album, a slow ballad.

Janiva Magness has to be the sexiest woman over the age of 50, and her work with Casey Family Programs based on her own inspiring personal testimony for foster care is a wonderful gift to humanity. That, combined with her heart-wrenching vocals, was never more in focus than when she brought guitarist Tony Rogers on stage to play guitar on “The Plan” from his late wife Robin Rogers’ posthumous Blind Pig second album, Back in The Fire. It worked on so many levels that it left the audience breathless and in tears.

Other standout performances included a classic, energized harmonica extravaganza from Rick Estrin, who all but swallowed his harp with both hands flailing on “Too Close Together.”  Todd Park Mohr, leader of the Big Head Blues Club, offered a salute to Robert Johnson’s “Love in Vain” and showed that a national tour with blues aristocracy Hubert Sumlin and Honeyboy Edwards had its effect. Reba Russell proved that her type A delivery at last year’s King Biscuit Blues Festival was no fluke. Peter Parcek, nominated for Best New Artist of the Year, demonstrated unique guitar stylings that at times showed prickly and precise jazz-swing sting and in slower instrumentals had a lilting Les Paul approach.

The awards presentations were gathered into four groupings presented by personalities as diverse as Foghat’s Roger Earl and “Fooled Around and Fell in Love’s” Mickey Thomas. Never did tedium take over. The presentation, including video in memoriams and a Robert Johnson cartoon, moved smoothly, making it feel like the annual diary of my own experiences as editor of this publication passing before me.

As expected, those who passed last year won in their categories: Robin Rogers for Contemporary Blues Female; Pinetop Perkins and Willie “Big Eyes” Smith for Traditional Blues Album; Solomon Burke for Soul Blues Male Artist and Soul Blues Album, Nothing’s Impossible.

Buddy Guy swept five categories: Contemporary Male Blues Artist, Contemporary Blues Album for Living Proof, Song of The Year for “Living Proof” (with Tom Hambridge), Album of The Year for Living Proof; and B. B. King Entertainer of the Year. Derek Trucks thanked Buddy Guy twice for not being a candidate for the two awards Trucks took away, Instrumentalist Guitar and Band of The Year.

Surprise wins included Bob Corritore & Friends for Historical Album for  Harmonica Blues (up against Luther Allison and Junior Wells!) and The Nighthawks for acoustic album for Last Train to Bluesville. That LP was recorded in the Sirius/XM studios and wasn’t originally meant to be released, but the sessions went so well that put it out. See my interview with Mark Wenner, founder of the Nighthawks on this week’s Blues Beat page.

In the “well deserved” category are John Hammond, Acoustic Artist; Ruthie Foster, Koko Taylor Award; Eddie Shaw, Instrumentalist Horn; Charlie Musselwhite for Traditional Blues Male Artist and Instrumentalist Harmonica; Cedric Burnside for Instrumentalist Drums, Bob Stroger for Instrumentalist Bass, Irma Thomas for Soul Blues Female Artist; and, Dr. John for Pinetop Perkins Piano Player. (I personally was hoping for a tie on this one with David Maxwell.)

On the night before the Blues Music Awards Gay Adegbalola installed Alberta Hunter into the Blues Hall of Fame like a Pentacostal minister testifying. “Guitarists have Stevie Ray Vaughan. I have Alberta Hunter. Pianists have Otis Spann. I have Alberta Hunter.” She went on with a litany of artists who inspired other artists and concluded that Alberta Hunter was her all inclusive mentor.

As a child, Hunter’s nickname was “Pig.” The principal of her school molested her. She was a closet lesbian. She started performing in a whorehouse as a teenager and ended up playing the White House.

As Adegbalola went through these hard-core credentials, she stopped and requested a glass of water. “I’m nervous,” she said, and John Hammond handed her his glass.

She quoted Hunter: “I’m a firm believer in the God. I just don’t believe in sitting in church” and “If you don’t know the last line, there’s no use in singing the first.” She was a 1920′s diva who made a singing comeback in 1977 at the age of eighty-two, and she became a practical nurse in her sixties.

Dick Waterman inducted Skip James with a story about Tony Bennett going to Frank Sinatra for advice on how to last in this business. Sinatra told him to stick with the great songs. The great songs will last. Skip James’ “Hard Time Killin’ Floor Blues” is a great song, summarized Waterman.

Steve Johnson, grandson of Robert Johnson, accepted a plaque the induction of “Love in Vain” with some flowery words of acceptance then said, “How do we feel about this award? We are just tickled.”

Bruce Bromberg of HighTone Records gave a rambling history lesson about producing albums, admitting he never made much money, even with Robert Cray’s first releases, but he urged, “If you wanna make records, just do it.”

Robert Cray thanked his parents for playing great records.

John Hammond credited Hoyt Axton for helping him get his first gig and he quoted Pop Staples as saying, “I don’t know how you got that sound, but don’t stop!”

The Mississippi River rises in Memphis this week swollen over its banks, but it cannot drown the memories of an event that should inspire us all to keep on keeping on for the blues.

Don Wilcock is the editor-in-chief of BluesWax. He can be reached by commenting below. If you like this show review, please click on “Like” at the top of the page.

Editor’s note: Below is Contributing Editor Stacy Jeffress’s open letter to the late Robin Rogers concerning her presence at the BMAs. 

Dear Robin,

It wasn’t until I was sitting there at the Blues Music Awards with two tables full of your family and friends that it hit me: you really have departed Planet Earth. Sitting next to your devoted husband Tony and looking at the “Remembering Robin Rogers” tribute in the BMA program, my heart finally caught on to what my head had known for some time. You had shuffled off this mortal coil for the juke joint in the sky. It had only been abstract theory for me to that point, but Tony at the BMAs without you? Irrefutable proof that you were gone.

Your friends were smart to bring a box of tissues; let me tell you we had plenty of need for them. You know, Robin, how every year there is a moving video montage of the blues brethren who left us in the past year? It really knocked us for a loop when this year’s RIP presentation, lovingly crafted by Mako Funasaka, started with a video of you which Tony had never seen. And the soundtrack used throughout the montage was your song “Moan.” Did you have a hand in that, Angel Robin? You brought us together to celebrate your life one more time.

Tony had a trick up his sleeve, too. After making up a lame excuse for carrying his guitar around, he surprised us when he joined Janiva Magness on stage as she performed your magnificent number “The Plan” in your honor. Then came the moment we’d been anticipating all these months: the BMA for Best Contemporary Female Artist. You had stellar competition in Janiva Magness, Candye Kane, Karen Lovely, and Shemekia Copeland, but it was your name called as the winner.

You would have been so proud of how Tony held it together long enough to deliver a lovely acceptance speech on your behalf and even remembered to thank the other nominees for encouraging their fans to vote for you. Your generous nature has inspired us all, Dear Robin.

Now Tony can finally get your headstone engraved with the title you earned with your years of hard work: “BMA Winner.” The best title I ever received was when you called me your friend.

Love,

Stacy