The Blues Foundation’s annual Handy Awards nominees have been named for 2009. Check out the full list here: http://www.blues.org/bluesmusicawards/nominees.php4

I’m very pleased to note that a long-time friend of mine, Steve Guyger, has been nominated for Instrumentalist of the Year: Harmonica. What can I say except “It’s about frickin’ time!!” Steve has been a well kept secret despite having toured with the late Jimmy Rogers, among others. As far as blues harmonica goes, it doesn’t get any better than Steve and I’m delighted to see him recognized publicly.

Roots, Rock ‘n Blues

“Cadillac Records” opened today in theaters across the U.S. “Cadillac Records” is the story of Chess Records and the amazing array of blues talent who recorded for them in the 1950’s and 1960’s.

Despite taking some liberties with the facts, the film provides a good feel for the time and the lives of the musicians who made musical history at Chicago’s Chess Records. The film’s name is derived from the nickname given Chess by Muddy Waters. The notion was that anyone recording for Chess who had any degree of success would get a Cadillac sooner or later.

One of the noteworthy things about this movie is that the actors do their own singing and playing. Beyonce is excellent as Etta James. Jeffrey Wright stars as Muddy Waters, Columbus Short is Little Walter Jacobs and Mos Def plays Chuck Berry.

Reviews I’ve seen are mixed, but generally agree that the movie captures the essence of the lifestyle of these incredible blues players. Sounds like a must-see to me!

Roots, Rock ‘n Blues

Making a living playing music is a dream for a lot of amateur musicians. They watch their favorite pros and imagine themselves up there gigging. If they’re connected with the band and/or have the talent, they may get to sit in for a few tunes and grab a piece of the dream. Some actually join a band and play out locally while holding down their day jobs. Eventually, when the pressures of the job, family, and home life get too much, they put their music aside to “get back to it later.”

Does this sound familiar? I can definitely relate to it since I’ve been down that road. I tried to juggle two bands, a job, a house, four dogs and a wife, not necessarily in that order and eventually something had to give. The fact is that I got to where having a gig stopped being a thrill and started being a burden. Man, when playing music gets to be a drag, there’s something seriously wrong!

I’ve always thought I wanted to be a professional musician. I’ve played for almost 50 years now off and on. The key words there being “off and on.” I’ve come to realize that while I have the talent to be a full time musician, I don’t have the passion it takes to get there. In other words, it’s not my purpose in life to play music.

Don’t get me wrong, I love music and I love playing. I just don’t love it enough to put it as my number one priority.

I know a number of pro musicians for whom playing is their life. They could no more stop playing than stop breathing! They are truly great players because everything else is a lower priority for them.

When it comes to music, they’re living on purpose. They know they were put here to play music and doing something else with their lives simply isn’t an option, except on a temporary, as-needed basis. In other words, if the rent has to get paid, they hustle a side job for a while, but the priority is always their music.

So, you might be asking, “If they’re living on purpose, why aren’t they all super-successful?” There’s a difference between living your purpose and embracing it. In the case of the superstar musicians who are performing in front of thousands every time they play, they’ve embraced their purpose. The ones still struggling in clubs to make ends meet are still buying into the belief that you can’t make a living doing something you love to do. It’s the old “Starving Artist” myth and in some cases it’s an excuse for why they’re not more successful.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a musician or an airline pilot or an accountant. If you’re not tuned in to your purpose and committed to living your purpose, you will struggle. There are any number of reasons why people are afraid to fully commit to their purpose, too many to detail here.

The bottom line is that everybody has a purpose and everybody could be successful if they knew and embraced their purpose fully. If you’re struggling as a musician, it’s because you’re not clear on what your purpose is and/or not fully committed to it. If you’re a music fan struggling with the rest of your life, the same thing is true. The key to success in anything is to identify and commit to your unique purpose in this life.

For more on this subject and tools to help you identify and live your purpose, check out http://whatsmypurpose.com/johnsawyer.

Roots, Rock ‘n Blues

The winners of the 2008 Blues Blast Music Awards were announced Sunday November 2nd, 2008 at a Gala Blues celebration at Buddy Guy’s Legends in Chicago, IL.

The award winners are:
Best Contemporary Blues Recording - Holmes Brothers - State Of Grace
Best Traditional Blues Recording - Lurrie Bell - Lets Talk About Love
Best New Artist Debut Recording - John Németh - Magic Touch
Best Blues Song - Nick Moss - Mistakes from the Past
Best Male Artist - Buddy Guy
Best Female Artist - Koko Taylor
Best Blues Band - Magic Slim & The Teardrops
Sean Costello Rising Star Award - John Németh

Blues Blast Magazine also awarded their first ever Lifetime Achievement Award to Delta Blues Legend David ”Honeyboy” Edwards. The Lifetime Achievement Award recognizes significant contributions and a lifetime body of work in the field of Blues music.

The ceremonies included performances by Magic Slim & the Teardrops, Lurrie Bell, Matthew Skollar, Nick Moss, Gerry Hundt , John Németh, The Kilborn Alley Blues Band, Dave Riley, Bob Corritore, Eden Brent, Sugar Ray Norcia, Teeny Tucker, Gina Sicilia, Dave Gross, Tim “Too Slim” Langford and others.

The winners were chosen by the 11,000 Blues Blast magazine readers from all 50 states and more than 40 countries voting at the IllinoisBlues.com website. There was no cost or fees to be eligible to vote. These awards truly represent the Peoples Choice for the best in Blues music.

Celebrity award presenters included Eric Steiner, president of the Washington Blues Society, Linda Cain Publisher of ChicagoBluesGuide.com, Chicago Blues woman Deb Seitz, August “Lordy” Lord, owner of ChicagoBluesBeat.com , Blues Writer James “Skyy Dobro” Walker, Blues Songwriter, Musician, DJ and Journalist, Ben Cox, Matt Eimer, Promoter of the Simply The Blues Fest in Fort Madison, Iowa and Kate Moss Publicity director for Blue Bella Records.

The sponsors of the Blues Blast Music Awards were WGL Blues 24/7 a FREE online Blues Music stream and Podcast from WGLT radio, a public radio station in Normal, Illinois (www.WGLT.org) and The Chicago Blues Guide (www.ChicagoBluesGuide.com)

Blues Blast magazine is a FREE weekly Blues “web-zine” available from IllinoisBlues.com. The Blues Blast Music Awards recognize the best of today’s Blues music.

A group of Blues industry professionals including artists, music writers, radio D.J.’s, artist managers and festival promoters selected five nominees in each of the eight categories. Voting for the awards took place during July and August online at the IllinoisBlues.com website. More than 2000 votes were cast and the awards ceremonies were a celebration of the artists and the music that represent the best in Blues music today.

For further information contact Bob Kieser at info@illinoisblues.com

Roots, Rock ‘n Blues

In October, 2007, the original Song Surgeon hit the market causing a sensation among musicians. This revolutionary product was a quantum leap for players who wanted to learn their favorite tunes note for note. Now it’s back and better than ever. Song Surgeon 2 takes the original to a whole new level!

If you’re a musician old enough to remember vinyl records, you probably remember, too, what a pain it was to learn songs from records. You know the drill:

• put the needle down on the part you were working on
• try to pick out all the notes as it played at full speed
• figure out a few notes on your instrument
• pick up the needle and put it back at the beginning of the part
• figure out a few more notes
• repeat until exhausted

Even though the players in those days weren’t shredding a zillion notes a second like they do today, it was still the state of the art at the time and seemed like a lot of notes to us!

Imagine trying to do the same thing today! Even CDs and computers don’t make it much easier. Go ahead, grab your Joe Satriani CD and try to figure out what he’s doing while it plays at full speed! Or slow it down and try to learn it at a different pitch.

The ideal solution is to have a way to play the tune at a slower speed at the original pitch, right? For years, the only way to do that was to rip the track from the CD, run it through Audacity or some other sound editor to slow it down, but keep the pitch the same. It worked..sort of..but wasn’t real convenient.

Song Surgeon 2 solves the problem by giving us a way to slow down the tune and keep the pitch…IN REAL TIME! Not only that, you can mark a section and loop it as many times as you need to to get the licks down.

You can also change the pitch if you want. Here’s where I use that feature a lot…learning Stevie Ray Vaughan tunes. Stevie tuned his guitar down a step so that anything he played in the normal E position was actually pitched in Eb. I prefer my guitars tuned normally, so in order to learn anything by SRV, I just raise the pitch on the tune by half a step.

Here’s another cool thing you can do: mark a section of a song as a loop, then save the loop to your hard drive as a new file. Now, you can load the loop into your audio software of choice, put it on repeat and have at it as long as you want. The possibilities are endless!

Check out the Song Surgeon web site for complete details. I think you’ll love it as much as I do!

Roots, Rock ‘n Blues

Here’s a very cool site that provides an interactive scale and chord finder for guitarists. Pick your axe’s number of strings, tuning, the key and type of scale or chord and see the notes displayed on a virtual fingerboard. Really nicely done and very handy.

Check it out at GuitarScales.nl

Roots, Rock ‘n Blues

I received the following email from Blues Blast today:

Hello Blues Fans,

It has come to our attention that the company that hosts our website made some configuration changes on Tuesday of this week. When this happened our webpage for voting in the 2008 Blues Blast Music Awards temporarily stopped working.

If you attempted to vote for your favorite Blues artists in the last few days we apologize for the difficulty.

The voting page is now working and we ask that you please try voting again. This problem only effects those who attempted to vote in the last few days. If you voted before that, your vote has been successfully recorded.

We are giving away a prize every other day to someone randomly selected from those who have voted until the end of voting on August 31st, 2008. If you have voted, you may win a FREE Blues Blast T-shirt, a CD by one of the nominees or other prizes. The sooner you vote, the higher your chances of winning! Winners will be notified by email.

To vote now, please go to:

http://www.illinoisblues.com/bbmavote.php

Thanks for your interest in The Blues Blast from IllinoisBlues.com!

IllinoisBlues.com has just announced the establishment of the 2008 Blues Blast Music Awards. The Blues Blast Music Awards recognize excellence in Blues Music by artists worldwide. The list of nominees is available on their website at: http://www.IllinoisBlues.com/bbma08.htm

The BBMA award winners will be chosen by Blues Blast Magazine subscribers. Anyone who is a subscriber to the free Blues Blast Magazine is eligible to vote for their favorite Blues artists. Voting will begin on July 14, 2008.

A new website where you can listen to samples of these artist’s music is planned and should be on line when voting begins on July, 14th, 2008. Further details coming soon.

For more information, please go to: http://www.IllinoisBlues.com/bbma08.htm

New subscribers can sign up for FREE to vote for their favorite nominees at:

http://www.illinoisblues.com/emailsignup.htm

John Sawyer

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Okay, show of hands…how many of y’all know the volume knob on your amp goes in two directions? I know that’s a silly question, but there are times that I wonder.

I got an email today from a noted guitar player and teacher talking about the video he just made of himself and a band creating jam tracks for a new guitar course he’s working on. In it he happened to mention the earplugs he wore during the session and the fact that the viewer could probably see them in the video.

Okay, so I’m asking myself, “This dude is in a recording studio. Why wear earplugs instead of just turning the damn amps down?”

Does it make sense to you that musicians should be playing at volume levels that require ear protection in a setting where A) they have control of the volume, and B) they’d want to hear the music as well as possible?

I completely understand that there are circumstances where it’s necessary to crank the amps. I just don’t think the studio is one of those.

When I’ve played in bands, it seems that the universal answer to an imbalance in the sound is to keep turning up one amp after another until they’re all dimed or somehow the ideal balance has been achieved. It doesn’t seem to matter whether it’s a small club, the studio or a huge arena, the answer is always the same.

Here’s a concept: instead of turning up when you can’t hear yourself properly, how about asking everybody else to turn down?

It’s difficult for the band to have a good feel for how loud everything is out in the audience unless they have people stationed all over the venue doing sound samples. Unfortunately, club owners and/or the audience often won’t tell you you’re too loud until the gig is over and they’re commenting on that ringing in their ears. It’s better to start out too soft and have them ask you to turn up than realize you’re peeling the paint off the walls in front of you.

One band I was in once played a private party in somebody’s living room. We actually set up our PA for the vocals, which in hindsight was ridiculous. We barely needed the amps and then only because electric guitars typically sound pretty lame unplugged. To our credit, we played at the minimum possible volume and the folks at the party enjoyed it.

The point is: it’s very possible to play at low volume and get the job done. Keep the earplugs for your day job at the airport!

Roots, Rock ‘n Blues

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Photo by Jeff Christensen/Associated Press

That Great Rock Band in the Sky has another member. The New York Times reports that Bo Diddley passed away at his home in Florida today. Read the full story here:

NY Time Bo Diddley obituary

I’ve added a video tribute to Bo on the Video Page.

Here are more tributes from around the web:

Rock pioneer Bo Diddley dead at 79 - (CNN) — Rock and roll pioneer Bo Diddley, whose signature beat laid the foundation for tunes for decades to come, died Monday at age 79 at his home in Archer, Florida, his family said. Diddley was a contemporary of Chuck Berry, …

Bo Diddley dies at 79 - Legendary guitarist Bo Diddley has died. Born Ellas Otha Bates in McComb, Mississippi, Diddley grew up to create and define a unique style and became a “founding father of rock ‘n’ roll,” according to the Associated Press. …

Bo Diddley Dies At 79 - Bo Diddley, a founding father of rock ‘n’ roll, died Monday after months of ill health.

Blues/Rock Legend Bo Diddley Dies. Below is A Tribute To Bo - Bo Diddley Was a great musician, Its weird because Ive Met Bo on several occasions we both lived in Gainesville Florida, His music inspired so many in Rock and Roll, its just a shame that it takes his death to finally get the credit he …

John Sawyer