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PAST PORTSMOUTH BLUES FESTIVALS
PORTSMUTH BLUES FESTIVAL -- Saturday Aug 21st 1999
The 14th Annual Portsmouth Blues Fest, was held from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. on the grounds of Strawbery Banke Museum in Portsmouth, N.H. on Saturday, Aug. 21.
THE PERFORMERS:
KOKO TAYLOR & HER BLUES MACHINE
Koko Taylor, whose career spans nearly 40 years, is still the undisputed "Queen of the Blues." She was born and raised on a sharecropper's farm in Memphis, Tennessee, and learned to sing in church and by listening to B.B. King's radio show.
As a teen-ager, she moved to Chicago and lived on the South Side, considered the cradle of Chicago Blues. She has won 14 W.C. Handy Awards (the "Grammy" of Blues music), as well as a Grammy. Five of her last six recordings have been nominated for a Grammy. Her current album is Force of Nature, and she was featured on B.B. King's Blues Summit release.
THE NIGHTHAWKS
 This is not Robert Nighthawk, but THE Nighthawks, the legendary Maryland-based band. The Nighthawks will appear hot on the heels of their new release, Still Wild. Founded 27 years ago, and with 19 releases as proof, the Nighthawks have performed with a long list of blues luminaries including Muddy Waters, Otis Rush and Big Walter Horton. Their style ranges from blues to soul to rockabilly.
BILL MORRISSEY
 Bill Morrissey, riding the wave of his current Songs of Mississippi John Hurt release, will bring his contemporary folk-style blues to the festival stage. The Grammy nominee, who grew up in New England and established his reputation as a folksinger here, has received nothing but acclaim for the new recording, which The Boston Globe has called "a quiet masterpiece."
BIG JACK JOHNSON
Big Jack Johnson was born in Clarksdale, Mississippi, the cradle of Delta Blues. Among those original and humble Blues artists who have been "rediscovered," Johnson is back from a tour of Europe. "B.B. King was my idol," Johnson has said. "... Robert Nighthawk, Sonny Boy Williamson - I played with all those guys." His current album is "All the Way Back."
RON LEVY'S WILD KINGDOM
 When Ron Levy was only 15, he was backing bluesmen like Chuck Berry and John Lee Hooker. When he comes to the festival stage with his Wild Kingdom quintet, influences from a lifetime in the blues will "mix gut-bucket R&B with jazz, soul-blues and gospel into one supremely greasy stew," says the Boston Herald. The Worcester Phoenix describes the Boston area producer/writer's B-3 organ playing as "sublime, 100 percent pure Memphis groove." Guitar, drums, trumpet and tenor sax round out Ron Levy's Wild Kingdom.
PAUL RISHELL & ANNIE RAINES
Relatively new as a duo, Paul Rishell and Annie Raines are anything butnew to the Blues. Both have played with such Blues greats as Pinetop Perkins, James Cotton and Son House. Now, with their first duo CD, I Want You To Know, they have established themselves as world-class blues artists. Rishell plays acoustic and electric guitar. Raines is considered by many to be the best female blues harmonica player on the circuit. Both are vocalists. They co-wrote five songs for their new release, which Pulse! Magazine calls, "some of the best recorded performances of the year."
PAUL GEREMIA
Paul Geremia, a veteran blues man from the Boston area, is best described by this quote from the Rhode Island Monthly: "If you want to hear the blues the way the blues began, . . .[listen to] Paul Geremia. He is that good. Many consider Geremia the most authentic interpreter of acoustic blues alive." His CD, The Devil's Music, was just released in June.
ROLL & TUMBLE
 Roll & Tumble is a relatively new acoustic blues quartet hailing from Newburyport, Massachusetts. Says piano player Curtis Jerome Haynes, "We've gone back to that fertile time when down-home blues first came to the city -- right before it went electric, before it become Chicago blues." Singer Justin Quinn also plays harmonica. Frank Corso sings and plays his National steel guitar. Jon Ross is on drums.
ED VADAS & THE FABULOUS HEAVYWEIGHTS
The 6-foot 5-inch Blues monument Ed Vadas, will lead his group, The Fabulous Heavyweights, with his powerful vocals, guitar and harmonica playing. Steve "Junior" Toutant plays bass, with Fred Hazelton on drums. Vadas writes the music and lyrics for most of the songs the Heavyweights perform, as evidenced by their 1998 album, "bluez.com."
TJ WHEELER & THE SMOKERS
A co-founder and director of the Blues Bank Collective, Thomas James "T.J." Wheeler, is a veteran blues and jazz musician, and blues educator - in 1993 the first individual to be honored with the prestigious W.C. Handy Keeping the Blues Alive in Education Award. Wheeler formed his band, The Smokers, in 1980 and they've been smokin' ever since.
The Blues Bank Collective is a W.C.Handy Award
winning blues education organization whose mission is:
To further awareness of Blues Music and its African American heritage
To show the historic context that gave birth to the Blues
To use the music as a means of positive social change
And, whenever possible, to eliminate all forms of racism, intolerance and
prejudice.
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DRAWING: B. J. Johnson (1906-1986) was a great Portsmouth bluesman and teacher, as well as an inspiration to all who knew him. Art by Steven Lee.
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PO Box 4076
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