Walter Trout Live In The Studio!

One of the most influential guitarists in the world today, Walter Trout presents to BluePower listeners an exciting show which was performed live in the studio in 2002.

These performances have never been podcast before.

Watch in the next few days for a live video of one of the songs recorded on this session. A must for all guitar players!

Listen: Walter Trout Live In The Studio!

The "Real" Johnnie B. Goode....Johnnie Johnson!

Born: Jul 8, 1924 in Fairmont, WV
Died: Apr 13, 2005 in St.Louis, MO

From: AMG
By: Richard Skelly

For 28 years legendary piano player Johnnie Johnson worked as a sideman to one of rock & roll's most prominent performers, Chuck Berry. Berry joined Johnson's band, the Sir John Trio, on New Year's Eve, 1953, and afterward, Berry took over as the group's songwriter and frontman/guitar player. On the strength of a recommendation from Muddy Waters and an audition, Berry got a deal with Chess Records. Johnson's rhythmic piano playing was a key element in all of Berry's hit singles, a good number of which Johnson arranged. Although Berry has been reluctant to admit as much, Johnson is widely regarded to be the inspiration for one of Berry's biggest hits, "Johnny B. Goode." The pair's successful partnership lasted a lot longer than most rock & roll partnerships last these days.

Johnson was born July 8, 1924, in Fairmont, WV, and he began playing piano at age five, thanks to his mother, who provided the funds to purchase one and encouraged the young Johnson's interest. His parents had a good collection of 78-rpm records, including items by Bessie Smith and Ethel Waters. In his teens, he listened to the radio broadcasts of big bands, and taught himself based on what he heard from the likes of Art Tatum, Earl "Fatha" Hines, and Meade "Lux" Lewis. Johnson's goal in all of this listening and playing in his teenage years was to come up with his own distinctive style. His own somewhat ailing career got a shot in the arm with the Chuck Berry concert film, Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll, and by his involvement in Keith Richards's solo release with Richards's band, the X-Pensive Winos. He would go on to play and record with, among others, Eric Clapton, Bo Diddley, George Thorogood and Aerosmith. Despite his fear of flying, the revitalized Johnson also managed to tour the world. In 2001 Johnson was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. The pianists health had been failing for sometime and in April of 2005, at the age of 80, Johnnie Johnson passed away.

In a 1995 interview, Johnson explains his abilities with piano as his mother did, a gift from God. "I can hear something and keep it in my mind until such point as I can get to a piano, and then I'll play it...that is a gift, the ability to do that."

Johnson's albums under his own name include Blue Hand Johnnie for the St. Louis-based Pulsar label in 1988; Johnnie B. Bad in 1991 for the Elektra American Explorer label; That'll Work in 1993 for the same label and Johnnie Be Back for the New Jersey-based MusicMasters label in 1995.

Gone....But Not Forgotten....Van McCoy!

Born: Jan 6, 1944 in Washington, D.C.
Died: Jul 6, 1979 in Englewood, NJ

Although best known to the listening public at large for his lone headlining hit, the disco blockbuster "The Hustle," Van McCoy in fact enjoyed a long and remarkably prolific career behind the scenes as a songwriter and producer, piling up a series of soul hits prior to his premature death at the age of just 39. Born Van Allen Clinton McCoy on January 6, 1940, in Washington, D.C., as a child he sang with the Metropolitan Baptist Church choir, and by the age of 12 he was writing his own songs in addition to performing in local amateur shows alongside older brother, Norman Jr.

The McCoy siblings eventually partnered with high-school friends Freddy Smith and Paul Comedy in the doo wop combo the Starlighters. Serving as their lead vocalist, writer, and music director, Van masterminded the Starlighters' 1956 debut single, "The Birdland," a novelty dance record that generated enough local interest to earn them an invitation to tour the East Coast in support of drummer Vi Burnsides. As military and marital obligations forced the group to dissolve during the months to follow, McCoy entered Howard University to study psychology, but dropped out after a year to pursue a full-time career in music, relocating to Philadelphia and forming his own label, Rockin' Records. In 1959 Rockin' issued McCoy's debut solo single, "Hey Mr. DJ." While not a major hit, the record did earn the attention of Scepter Records owner Florence Greenberg, who hired him as a staff writer and A&R rep -- there he penned the 1962 hit "Stop the Music" for the Shirelles before signing on with producers Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller as a writer with their Tiger and Daisy labels. Over the next several years McCoy penned a series of hits, among them Jackie Wilson's "I Get the Sweetest Feeling," Gladys Knight & the Pips' "Giving Up," Betty Everett's "Getting Mighty Crowded," Ruby & the Romantics' "When You're Young and in Love," and -- best of all -- Barbara Lewis' celestial "Baby, I'm Yours." With then-girlfriend Kendra Spotswood, he also wrote, produced, and performed a series of pseudonymous singles, including the Pacettes' "You Don't Know Baby," Jack & Jill's "Two of a Kind," and the Fantastic Vantastics' "Gee What a Boy." (Under the name Sandi Sheldon, Spotswood also recorded the McCoy-penned stomper "You're Gonna Make Me Love You," one of the crown jewels of Britain's Northern soul club scene.)

In 1966 McCoy signed to Columbia to record a solo LP, the Mitch Miller-produced Nighttime Is a Lonely Time; the following year he formed his own short-lived label, Vando, as well as his own production company, VMP (Van McCoy Productions, natch). Beginning in 1971, McCoy began a long and fruitful collaboration with fellow songwriter and producer Charles Kipps -- together they helmed a series of sessions, including David Ruffin's acclaimed 1975 Motown comeback, Who I Am, which yielded the smash "Walk Away from Love." McCoy also arranged several hits for Philly soul legends the Stylistics, but despite his success as a writer and producer, he still sought approval as a performer. In 1972 he issued a solo LP, Soul Improvisations (later retitled From Disco to Love), but it went nowhere.

Expectations were similarly low for 1975's Avco label effort Disco Baby -- McCoy authored "The Hustle" after hearing about the dance from New York City disc jockey David Todd, and the song, written in under an hour, was the last track recorded for the album. "The Hustle" went on to top the Billboard pop charts in July 1975, also earning a Grammy, although McCoy acknowledged he felt extreme discomfort in his new and narrow role as a disco hitmaker -- a series of follow-up albums (among them The Disco Kid, 1976's The Real McCoy and Rhythms of the World, and 1979's Lonely Dancer) failed to recapture the massive popularity of "The Hustle," however, and he gradually receded back into the shadows, producing new talent including Faith, Hope & Charity. He died of a massive heart attack in Englewood, NJ, on July 6, 1979, exactly six months shy of his 40th birthday.

From: AMG
By: Jason Ankeny

"Re-Writing History Makes Liars Of Us All"

By: Peter Ferrara


Because I do a "live" radio show called "Just For Fun" at WHAY (98.3FM) on Saturday nights from 8pm to 10pm, I only caught the very tail end of the fireworks display in downtown Stearns, Kentucky.
Still, I saw enough to know that it was a magnificent show. As I watched in awe as colors flashed and shells exploded across the night sky, it set me to thinking about why we hold this annual orgy of pyrotechnics. What are we doing this for?
When Francis Scott Key wrote a poem called "Defense of Fort M'(c)Henry" on the morning of September 14, 1814, he had no idea that it would become "The Star Spangled Banner," our national anthem. A lawyer, Key had been sent to secure the release of a friend from a British warship in Chesapeake Bay. He watched all night as the British ship attacked Fort McHenry and when morning came and the American flag still flew over the beleaguered fort, Key was moved to write of "the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air." His poem was published in the Baltimore Patriot, and later set to the music of an English drinking song "To Anacreon In Heaven." Key's creation became our national anthem in 1931. It is that battle in the War of 1812 that we are "re-enacting" when we shoot off our fireworks on Independence Day-- July 4th.
This July 4th has had special significance for those of us living in McCreary County. In a narrow decision, the United States Supreme Court has handed down a ruling which has mightily upset a good many of our fellow citizens. The Court has ruled that hanging the Ten Commandments in our Courthouse violates the U.S. Constitution. The Court reasoned that the Ten Commandments was hung there in order to advance the idea that America is a Christian nation. While Christianity has and continues to play a vital role in our country, we are no more a Christian nation than we are a Jewish or Muslim one. This doesn't mean we are being told to turn our backs on Christ, The New Testament, or the Bible as a whole. What it means is that this great country was not founded on any single religion or set of religious principles. We are "one nation, under God," and not "one nation, under Jesus." If we fail to accept this pillar upon which this country was founded, we fail in our duty as American citizens. In a democracy like ours, when our highest court does something you don't like, you don't "pick up your marbles and go home." You best serve this nation by trying to understand the thinking that went into the decision with which you disagree.
You will hear a lot of people in the days and weeks ahead posturing and pontificating about this Supreme Court decision, but the law of the land is what keeps us free and what defines us as Americans. The Founding Fathers recognized this from the very inception of this country. On that first Independence Day, July 4th, 1776, a handful of the best and brightest generation of leaders and thinkers this country has ever produced put their own lives at risk and wrote a document proclaiming our liberty from the British Crown. When they did, all they had going for them was their belief in the cause of freedom. They were squaring off against the "superpower" of their day, and had no reason to believe their enterprise would succeed. That it did succeed, and that it has survived for 229 years under the U.S. Constitution (okay, 216 years if you date it from 1789) is a testament both to their wisdom and the "consent of the governed," which is all of us as Americans. Democracy isn't perfect. It's messy. It's just better than all other forms of government. Our leaders tell us it's why we're in Iraq, and we sure as heck better make it work at home if we're to have any chance of helping others make it work around the world.
Take out a one dollar bill and look on the back of it. Above the "ONE" are the words "In God We Trust". On either side is the Great Seal of the United States. The front of the seal, called the obverse, shows the bald eagle, our national symbol. Benjamin Franklin favored the turkey, but lost that argument. Above the eagle are thirteen stars, representing the original American colonies which became our first states. Holding the olive branch of peace in one claw, the eagle holds thirteen arrows in the other, symbolizing our nation's strength. There are thirteen stripes on the shield. The founding fathers, particularly one named Charles Thompson who designed the final version of the seal, did not fear the number thirteen.
To the left of "ONE" is the reverse of the Great Seal. This shows an unfinished pyramid with (you guessed it) thirteen "strata," or steps, indicating that America is a work in progress. Above the pyramid floats the all-seeing eye of Providence, with the Latin words "Annuit Coeptis" on either side. This translates into "Providence has Favored Our Undertaking," which acknowledges how often our revolutionary origin was saved from disaster by a benevolent God.
Below are the words "Novus Ordo Seclorum," signifying a "New Order of the Ages." We celebrate that new order every day as we live in freedom and equality under our Constitution, as best as we are able to achieve it.
So before we fall prey to those who wish to re-write our history and replace God with Jesus in our rule of law, I ask that we honor the sacrifice of all who have and currently are risking everything to keep us free. Trust that the Founding Fathers knew what they were doing when they established the United States of America under a secular government. We face real enemies around the world who would destroy us and this country if they could. This is not a time for us to seize upon what divides us. If we stand united, we will fulfill the destiny that those who created this country had in mind. If we don't, may God have mercy upon us all. Our history is great. Don't re-write it-- and may God continue to bless America! Happy Birthday, Uncle Sam!

Written By: Peter Ferrara
Peter Ferrara has written and produced for NBC; was a writer for Johnny Carson; has produced numerous major television shows and....has been my friend for what seems like eternity. BluePower wishes Peter and his lovely wife Phyllis a "sparkling" Fourth of July.

Gone....But Not Forgotten...."Mississippi" Fred McDowell!

"MISSISSIPPI" FRED MCDOWELL was born and grew up in Rossville, Tennessee (pop. 291), a small farming community just east of Memphis and just north of the Mississippi border. The "Mississippi" designation came later in life, after he moved down to Como, Mississippi (pop. 1,391), about 40 miles south of Memphis on the 51 Highway, in his late thirties. McDowell was born about 1904 or 1905, and worked most of his life as a farm laborer, mill worker, and tractor driver. He played music at country dances and juke joints, though as he says, "I wasn't making money from music... sometimes they'd pay me, and sometimes they wouldn't." In his late 50s he was 'discovered' and recorded by folklorists Shirley Collins and Alan Lomax, who wrote:

"Fred was surprised when I admired his music sufficiently to visit him for several evenings and record everything he knew. In true country fashion he kept telling me that he couldn't play nearly as well as other men he knew. In my estimation he is simply a modest man, for in him the great tradition of the blues runs pure and deep."

This estimation of McDowell's talent has been confirmed my many musicians and writers since, and he has been called "one of the two most important interpreters of the old country-style blues to have been newly discovered during the urban folk music 'arrival' of the [1960s]." After Alan Lomax recorded him, McDowell began playing full-time, composing new songs and refining and extending his materials, and performed at clubs, universities, the Newport Folk Festival and on European concert tours. He was a stunning master of the bottleneck guitar style, playing in open-chord country tunings. Ed Denson wrote, "Fred has a style which sounds quite modern, although it was unmistakably developed in the 1920s and '30s. It is much more like the electric 'down-home' sound of Muddy Waters or Elmore James than the older, more melodic style associated with Charlie Patton or other first-generation bluesmen." McDowell spoke about his own life in interviews [or, go to the transcription] :

"I couldn't tell you exactly the date I was born. I was born in Rossville, Tennessee... I was about 21 when I left Rossville. There I was plowing with a mule. My father was a farmer and I worked with him. We were working twelve acres, growing cotton, peas and corn. I went to Memphis from there. I just got tired of plowing. I went there to look around, and after I got there I started working the Buckeye Oil Mill, sacking corn. Yellow corn, oats, sweet peas, and all like that. They had a great big plant out there. I stayed there about three years, I think. Then I loafed around, stayed with different people, friends. I worked for the Dixon brothers hooking logs on the track.

[a dangerous lumberjacking job: cables, chains or tongs are hooked onto logs for dragging, skidding or loading -- PLP].

"Worked in Chickasaw stacking logs for barrels. Worked at the Illinois Central shop in Memphis building freight cars. All this time I was picking up guitar...

"I was just a young man when I started playing guitar. In my teens, I was. I used to go to dances. I used to sing to the music whilst others was playing. When they'd quit, I'd always grab the guitar, go to doing something with it. I was watching them pretty close to see what they were doing. My older sister-- I nearly forgot-- played a little guitar, but she didn't teach me anything. I didn't get a guitar of mine until 1941. When I was learning, when I was young, I was playing other people's guitars...The way I got my first guitar-- Mr. Taylor, a white man from Texas, he gave me a guitar. I was working in a milk dairy in White Station, near Memphis. This was right before I'd moved to Mississippi. I wasn't making money from music. Just playing around for dances and like that...

"I learned a lot from one fellow, Raymond Payne, in Rossville. He was really good. Played regular style, not bottleneck. I got that bottleneck style from my uncle. He was an old man, the first person I ever saw play with that. He didn't play with a bottleneck, though. You know this big bone you get out of a steak? Well, he done let it dry and smoothed it off and it sounded just like that bottleneck. That's the first somebody I saw play like that. This was in Rossville. I was a little bitty boy when I heard him do that, and after I learned how to play I made me one and tried it too. Started off playing with a pocketknife. I just remembered him doing it. He didn't show me. Nothing. I never could hardly learn no music by nobody trying to show me. Like, I hear you play tonight. Well, next week sometime it would come to me... what you was playing. I'd get the sound of it in my head, then I'd do it my way from what I remembered...

"I made up a lot of the songs I sing. It's like you hear a record or something or other. Well, you pick out some words out of that record that you like. You sing that and add something else onto it. It's just like if you're going to pray, and mean it, things will be in your mind. As fast as you get one word out, something else will come in there. Songs should tell the truth... When I play-- if you pay attention, what I sing the guitar sings, too. And what the guitar say, I say."

[Information and quotes from album liner notes on Milestone MSP 93003, 'Long Way From Home: The Blues of Fred McDowell', produced by Pete Welding in November 1966, and from interview with Pete Welding in Blues Unlimited #24, July-August 1965.]