After Hours Jam immediately following at River City Grille!
Saturday:
Harmonica Workshop with Adam Gussow
Open to the Public 10:30 - 12:00
Gypsy Davy 12:00-1:30
KWT Blues Band 1:30-3:00
Daryl Davis 3:00-4:30
Paul Geremia 4:30-6:00
Roddy Barnes 6:00-7:30
Satan and Adam 7:30-8:30
DelGrosso Del Toro Richardson Band 8:30-10:00
Added attraction Marvin Ashby and High Octane
Special Tribute 10:00 - 11:00
After Hours Jam immediately following at River City Grille!
Sunday Afternoon:
Roddy Barnes 11:00-12:00
Daryl Davis 12:00-1:00
Paul Geremia 1:00-2:00
Satan and Adam 2:00-3:00
KWT 3:00-4:00
Paul Pfau 4:00-5:30
Gypsy Davy 5:30-6:00
Bill Stalnaker and Nightmoves 6:00-7:00
Weekend Pass: $30
Daily Prices: Friday--$10, Saturday--$15,
Sunday--$10
Children under 12 Free when Accompanied by Adult.
Info Line: 304-363-5377
ATTENTION
FESTIVAL GOERS! SPECIAL
DISCOUNT ROOM RATES
AT PARTICIPATING FAIRMONT HOTELS! *Mention
the festival to get the discount rate! Visit
the Lodging Page for Details!
JOHNNIE
JOHNSON: 1924-2005
The Annual Johnnie Johnson Blues
& Jazz Festival has become
a summer tradition!
Join
us in Johnnie's hometown of
Fairmont, West Virginia, as
we pay tribute to the Legendary
Johnnie Johnson! It was one
of Johnnie's dreams that the
festival named in his honor
would become yet another part
of his amazing musical legacy.
National recording artists,
as well as local and regional
musicians have graced the
festival's stage. This year
is set to be another winner,
with some truly talented musicians
already booked, and more to
be announced!
"[This reunion is] a joyful and intimate affair...[T]he almost supernatural power that Satan and Adam conjure on ["Lotto 54" and "Listen to the Music"] makes clear that when they were really flying, they could summon as much force as most full-scale ensembles...[T]his is a deeply satisfying set. Magee's voice may be a bit thinner these days, but he still exudes the raw-edged joyfulness that's always been his trademark, and if anything the ravages of age have added even more textures to his sound....[Magee and Gussow] consistently achieve a telepathy-like melodic and rhythmic closeness....The music they make here is blues, pure and simple, and at its best, it's as powerful and emotionally satisfying as any they've made in the past."
David Whiteis, Living Blues magazine [August 2011]
Back In The Game is old-school blues rippling with funky uptown energies--one more ride on the Harlem/Mississippi express! Like John Lee Hooker in The Healer and B. B. King in Riding With The King, Sterling Magee has become a deep blues source, an elder statesman with some unforgettable stories to tell.
As Satan and Adam, Magee and Gussow were an integral part of the New York blues renaissance of the 1990s, along with Shemekia Copeland, The Holmes Brothers, Michael Hill and the Blues Mob, and Popa Chubby. They burst on the scene in 1991 with their critically acclaimed debut release, Harlem Blues, featuring Magee on guitar, percussion, and vocals and Gussow on amplified harmonica. “[This is blues] so unbelievably raw and real,” wrote CMJ, “it’s hard even to describe it. Satan sounds like the heaviest and scariest parts of Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters reincarnated as a whole band and then somehow crammed back into the body of one man, and Adam fills in some piercing harmonica wails that seem to come from the same dark, primeval place as Shakey Horton’s or Little Walter’s.” Harlem Blues was nominated for a Handy Award as “Traditional Blues Album” in 1991.
Magee and Gussow first met on 125th Street in Harlem in 1986, where Magee, an R&B singer and guitarist from Mount Olive, Mississippi, had reinvented himself as a one-man band. Known in the early 1960s as a “Five Fingers Magee,” a dazzling guitar prodigy, Magee later worked as a sideman with King Curtis, Marvin Gaye, Etta James, and Little Anthony and the Imperials. Gussow, a writer and harmonicist with the touring company of Big River, worked Harlem’s streets with Magee for three years before the duo was discovered.
Magee and Gussow followed up Harlem Blues with Mother Mojo (1993) and Living on the River (1996). They toured internationally and played blues, jazz, and folk festivals in Chicago, Philadelphia, Kansas City, Winnipeg, Dublin, and many other venues. They were celebrated, among other things, for their 38-second cameo in U2’s 1988 documentary, Rattle & Hum, in which they performed Magee’s original composition, “Freedom For My People.”
In 1998, after Magee experienced health challenges, Satan and Adam disbanded. Gussow’s tale of the duo’s exploits, Mister Satan’s Apprentice: A Blues Memoir (Pantheon) was published later that year and received the Keeping the Blues Alive Award in Literature from the Blues Foundation in Memphis. It eventually went out of print but was republished by the University of Minnesota Press in 2009. Gussow is currently an Associate Professor of English and Southern Studies at the University of Mississippi. Magee lives in Gulfport, Florida and has become a celebrated elder member of the Tampa-area blues scene. Between 2007 and 2011, Magee and Gussow worked periodically, always as a trio with drummer David "Dave on Drums" Laycock laying down the beat. Sadly, Dave passed away after a long illness late in 2011. But Gussow and Magee reunited in December 2011 as a duo, with Gussow on percussion in his one-man-band mode. Miraculously, Satan and Adam have reinvented themselves once again.
"You have one of those few CDs that'll have you pressing the
replay button more than once!
Gary Von Tersch Big City Rhythm and Blues Detroit, MI
These two Houston-based, veteran blues musicians and their quartet have jump-started new work together this year with their widely acclaimed Mandolin Blues release Time Slips on By, a collection of 14 original songs from the fertile blues territory of Southeast Texas…. rocking, solid mandolin with fiery guitar into a new spicy mix of Texas blues and roots.
DelGrosso, a five time Blues Music Award nominee, has been performing for the blues, folk and mandolin communities for over thirty years. As the leading exponent of the mandolin in the blues, DelGrosso has toured the US, UK and Italy performing and conducting numerous workshops. As Tom Clarke added “his box o’ rocks voice, locomotive riffs, and sparks-a-flyin’ licks doing nothing but right.” Hittin' The Note
Del Toro Richardson is an Albert King winner for his acclaimed guitar with Diunna Greenleaf’s Blue Mercy and his backing Pinetop Perkins in the Grammy and BMA: “Best Traditional Blues Album of the Year”-Last of the Great Mississippi Delta Bluesmen. “ [he] possesses plenty of amazing technical skill on guitar but what really stands out… is the exquisite tone he achieves no matter what guitar he is playing.” Mark Thompson Crossroads Blues Society
2011 is the year of the DelGrosso/ Del Toro Richardson Band....“a breath of fresh air for the blues”....as they perform an eclectic collection of songs and sounds, born and nurtured in one of the richest, cultural centers of American Roots music.
"Time Slips On By" can only be described as "blues manna from heaven" for all lovers of "traditional" blues – .... you have what I can only describe as a superb set." Rating 10!
"He's like the Bruce Springsteen of boogie woogie . . . He's a man in the grips of a sensual hankering that hardly allows him a breath between the long, languid lines of his blues . . . He keeps stirring up desire until it builds to the emergency condition of "Call 911," as deadly humorous a boogie as any Long-Tall You-Know-Who ever put down." - J.D. Buhl, "Holy Soul Piano Roll," Kansas City's The New Times
“With his powerful piano style, and his world-weary, yet playful, vocals, I feel as if I’m time-traveling back to a juke joint in the 20’s on the old-timey feel of his music… He’s truly a blue-plate special in the world’s musical diner…eat him up!” Andra Faye, Alligator Records
Roddy Barnes was born in 1963 in Blanchard, Iowa, a small rural farm town of around 100 people. His parents, Kenneth and Carol Barnes, were pig and grain farmers and some of Roddy's first memories were of many hours in the bean fields, pulling weeds. To amuse himself, Roddy would make up songs as he worked - the start to his musical creativity.
His first musical influence was church. Roddy's parents had an old upright and at age four, he began picking out hymns. Singing was also a strong passion and his first solo, "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam," he performed at age five. His first music gig came at age 15 where he played and sang in a local hotel, "The Walnut Inn" in Tarkio, Missouri.
In high school, he was awarded Musician of the Year three consecutive years, the Chopin Award and the John Philip Sousa Award both two years straight, was a member of district and state band and district chorus. He received #1 ratings at the state level on solo piano, trumpet, and voice. In 1979 as a high school sophomore, he was accepted into the the United States Collegiate Wind Band which performed in New York, England, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and France.
In 1981 Roddy was awarded full scholarships to both Missouri Western State College and Kansas University. He chose MWSC. While in college, he studied classical piano, trumpet, voice, composition and theory. As a composer, he wrote an original score for "Death of a Salesman" performed at the Missouri Repertory Theatre. He also composed music for a commercial about safe sex and scored a short film. He was awarded a grant to the Aspen Music Festival where he studied under world-renowned pianist Rita Sloan-Gottlieb.
After receiving his B.A. in Classical Performance in 1988, he was awarded a scholarship to study in France under Francois Rene Duchable. While in France, he performed in blues clubs in several French cities. He was featured in a French paper called "Le Dauphine" where, it read "(he) has conquered by his talent all the music lovers of the city of the Ducs."
In 1990, Roddy applied for, and received, a scholarship to the Berklee School of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. Along with his studies, he performed blues throughout the city. Roddy returned to the midwest in 1992 and recorded his first album, "Roll with the Punches," in Kansas City, MO.
New Orleans lured him south where he was able to perform 10 gigs a week. Some of the more notable venues were Tipitinas, Maxwells Toulouse Cabaret, and The Common Ground. While in New Orleans, he recorded three more CDs -- "Unseen," "Betrayed," and "Blues Boogie and Soul." From his "Betrayed" CD, his composition, "Because of You," was recorded by the international blues act, Saffire - The Uppity Blues Women, on Alligator Records.
To advance his career, Roddy moved to Austin, Texas in 1996. He was a monthly feature on John Aielli's "Ecclecticos" on KUT radio showcasing his original songs. He also recorded his 5th CD, "Broken Wing." From this CD, another of his compositions, "Let the Gin Do the Talking," was covered by Saffire.
2004 finds Roddy in Richmond, Virginia, to collaborate with other artists. Two songs from his 6th CD, "Ballads and Barrooms," are being covered by blues artist Ann Rabson on her solo recording. (Ann is a founding member of Saffire.) The Saffire connection continues as Roddy works with another founding member, Gaye Adegbalola, performing classic blues - blues mainly from the 20's and 30's by divas such as Bessie Smith, Alberta Hunter and Ma Rainey. Further, Roddy works with Filipe Rose (the Indian of the Village People) doing musical compositions, arrangements and accompaniment. He also continues to perform solo.
"Whether a searing Blues or a pounding Boogie Woogie, Daryl practices what he preaches; to make his audience happy. 'American roots' signals the arrival of a major blues voice".
–Barry Lee Pearson
Living Blues Magazine
Daryl Davis earned his Bachelor of Music degree from Howard University, where he was a member of their famed Howard University Choir and renowned Jazz Vocal Ensemble. In addition to being a vocalist, guitarist, composer and keyboard extraordinaire, Daryl is a professional actor and author.
In 1985, 72 year-old Pinetop Perkins, one of the founding fathers of Boogie Woogie and considered to be one of the greatest Blues and Boogie pianists, selected 27 year-old Daryl Davis to succeed him in the piano and vocal slot of the Muddy Waters Legendary Blues Band.
Johnnie Johnson, Chuck Berry's original pianist, has praised Daryl's ability to master with authenticity, a style that was popular 30 years before he was born!
As a performer, Daryl Davis has worked with countless greats such as Elvis Presley's Jordanaires, The Coasters and he is a long-standing, regular player, in Chuck Berry's current band. He was the featured pianist on Cephas & Wiggins' 1992 Grammy Award winning album, Flip Flop and Fly.
As a composer, in addition to his own hits Boogie Man and Broadminded and many other originals, Daryl scored the music to the popular children's story, Abigail.
After having been with so many others helping them to do their thing in nightclubs, concert halls, festivals, recording, films, radio and television, from the United States to Europe, don't miss seeing Daryl Davis with his group doing his own thing!
For almost forty years, Paul Geremia has survived solely by the fruit of his musical labours. Having abandoned all other means of support in 1966, he has been travelling far and wide ever since, performing in every capacity from street singing to club and concert bookings, throughout the U.S.A., Canada and Europe.
In the years since, Geremia has built a reputation as a first rate bluesman, songwriter, a "scholar" of early jazz and blues, and one of the best country blues fingerpickers ever with his tools - six and twelve-string guitars, harmonica, piano and a husky soulful voice - and with an innate sense of the humour as well as the drama of the music, he keeps traditional blues fresh and alive with his performances.
Combining his interpretation of the earlier music of people like Blind Lemon Jefferson, Robert Johnson, Blind Willie McTell, Scrapper Blackwell and Blind Blake, with his original compositions, he has created a style which is very much his own and which has received accolades in the U.S.A. and Europe, too numerous to mention.
Geremia's background isn't typical for a bluesman. He is a third generation Italian-American who, as he laughingly puts it, "was born in the Providence River Delta". Growing up in a family that moved across the country and back numerous times weaned his appetite for music, history and travel, which served him well later on.
During the sixties, Paul noticed that the music he had enjoyed playing on harmonica (his first instrument) was now referred to as "Folk Music" and was enjoying popularity. During his short time in agriculture college, he was mostly occupied with learning guitar and hitch-hiking to where the music was. He soon left college and hit the road permanently. He found paying gigs in coffee houses and "basket houses" in cities and at college campuses and made occasional forays South and West in search of the music he loved and what gigs he could find.
During these years, Geremia crossed paths with people whose influences were beneficial to his development and understanding of the tradition. He worked as opening act for some of the early blues "legends" thereby gaining an immeasurable depth of knowledge from people like Babe Stovall, Yank Rachel, Son House, Skip James, Howlin' Wolf, and many others, especially Pink Anderson whose career he helped revitalize.
Geremia has recorded ten solo albums, and has appeared on numerous anthologies and compilation discs. His superb recordings have made him a critical favorite and place him firmly among the legends who inspired and influenced him over the past four decades.
