WELCOMe TO MY BLOG... my first entry (revised) with A Cd Review of 'Right About Love'~ from Reneé Austin

Allow me to introduce myself, I am Mark Fredell (aka. Mark 'Slim' Stevens) and believe it or not that man I'm sitting with to the right; John Lee Hooker was the first one to call me 'Slim' anyhow, welcome to my blog, as a long time blues music fan, photographer, radio broadcaster and journalist, I thought it might be fun to share some of my images, writings and ramblings here. I hope you enjoy, I will be posting old and new material, with images from my extensive photo archive, and maybe even some random thoughts on politics, love, world affairs who knows what else, I look forward to hearing from you. Have a look around and have fun.

Here is a review of a wonderful Cd by a remarkable singer... Miss Reneé Austin.

Reneé Austin
‘Right About Love’

Blind pig records

Cd Review by Mark Fredell

Its been about two years since Reneé Austin’s Blind Pig Records debut ’Sweet Talk’ and finally the follow up is here, hitting the streets August 16th, ‘Right About Love’ is yet another tour
deforce showcase for what will undoubtedly be considered in the music history books as one of the finest most versatile voices of her era. After 2 years of steady, hard road work Reneé has seasoned her vocals with a touch of tough grit and rock steady confidence and her songwriting, always strong shows signs of even more maturity and diverse influence, while keeping true to her style and heart.
There are many stylistic variations on this record just like on the last one touching down in the deep south on tracks like ‘Mouth Of the Delta’ with it’s haunting slide guitar and Renee’s deep moaning vocals and the hilarious cover of Bobby Gentry’s song ‘Bugs’ which unless you’ve spent some time outside of the city might give you a strong case of the he-bee-gee-bee’s; Of course there is the cry for love on ‘Harder Than It Has To Be’ with an impassioned plea to basically stop messing things up and just let things happen naturally.
Fans of her previous work already know that as a song writer Reneé can be quite funny too; that humor pops up on three tracks this time around each with different intents. On ‘U-Haul‘, her wry observational sense is directed keenly on the more materialistic of mankind reminding us all that you can’t take it with you, with the line ’you can’t pull a u-haul behind you’re Hurst’ , then there’s the track ’Thank You Card’ which in the tradition of some of her earlier song writing is a turn around of sorts with a great beat, a happy gospel infused piano driving out an upbeat sound as she sends her ex- a thank you card for leaving her behind, essentially letting him know that although he may think he left her down and out it was actually the best thing he ever did for her. Then on ‘Chicken Coop’ with it’s Nashville Twang, Reneé unleashes one of her patented you did me wrong now watch your back vamps reminiscent of ‘Bury the Hatchet’ from Sweet talk or ‘Pillow’ from Dancin’ with Mr. Blue. It’s always a serious subject when dealing with love gone wrong or someone stepping out side the relationship, yet Reneé loves to hit the subject right between the eyes with a wink and a grin. You’ll find some rocking funk on ’Meant To Be’ which is this releases true rocker and some soulful heartfelt R&B passion in ‘Strangers On A Train’ a terrific lament concerning “finally” taking the leap and not worrying about the consequences.
In addition to the twang of .Coop there is a countrified revamp of Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup’s ‘That’s All Right’ as well as a true hillbilly tune in ‘Mister Cowboy’ a sweet little tune that has Reneé singing to her cowboy who’s off riding the post’s (one would assume) as she’s at home waiting patiently for his return. And of course you can’t over look the title track ‘Right About Love” co-written by Reneé and Malford Milligan (also featured in this issue.) It’s a slow griping song about being cold and alone in your heart and simply wanting to have some one to share your life with and wanting to be “right about love”. this one is a beautiful tearjerker and Renee’s vocals sell it with heartfelt pain and passion that can only come from a life of striving for that kind of happiness that is only found in the eyes of another as they gaze at you.
Throughout, Reneé sings with confidence and a bit of swagger often absent from female vocalists. As was the case with the last release this Cd probably won’t please the blues purists who don’t believe you can mix anything with that 8 bar 4/4 beat and still call it blues, But Reneé is fine with that, she’s confident in her art and is realizing there is a whole multi-layered world outside of the blues that is filled with great musical textures and different shades of Blue with Texas singer/songwriter Troubadours Like Delbert McClinton, Joe Ely and others; as well as those bluesy country Kats like Dwight and Lyle who mix the Blues heavy into their own hillbilly bag, how ever you slice it Reneé loves the blues as much as she loves country, gospel, or rock & roll and she is more than capable of doing her own thing while keeping it real in the sense of the Blues, thank god Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Little Walter and all the rest plugged in otherwise the Beatles the Yardbirds and the Stones might not have happened and thank god there are artists today like Reneé Austin that want to take all of their influences and try and create something fresh and new while paying homage to the traditions of the past, “Right About Love’ is a fine release, and deserves your attention.

A SHOW REVIEW / CHRIS CAIN

This is a show review of Chris Cain, Far and away my VERY FAVORITE Guitar player today. After a nearly 7 year absence from the Twin Cities, he was booked into Famous Dave's BBQ & Blues the only venue in town that hosts national blues on a regular basis. Unfortuantly it was on a Monday night, but you'll read that part.

Return of a master is long overdue.
Story and photo’s by Mark Fredell

Originally printed in June 2005 issue of BLUE MONDAY

Monday May 2nd marked the return to the Twin Cities of guitar wizard and uptown blues shouter Chris Cain after a more than seven year absence. This is far to long for one of the most critically acclaimed and well respected guitar players in the field to be relegated to touring within a one day drive of his home, the past 7 years have seen Chris and his band restricted to playing up and down the west coast from (roughly) Portland to Los Angeles and not much else, and in that time he has produced some truly fine records and astonished just about any of the unsuspecting that happened into one of those west coast shows… Now finally with a new booking agent he has hit the open road once more for his first real tour of the upper mid-west since 1997 or so; criss-crossing the area for some 20 days of one niters from Salt Lake City to Saint Louis, Chicago to Louisville, Des Moines to right here in Minneapolis.
The most unfortunate thing about his appearance in the Twins is the simple fact that it was a Monday night, in these days, of smoking bans, terror alerts, money troubles and armed robberies on the streets of uptown, it’s hard enough to get a good crowd into a club on a Friday or Saturday, but to book one of the most highly regarded guitar players in the land, in a club he’s never played before in a town he hasn’t played in 7 or so years, where only the most ardent and diehard fans even know his name let alone have actually seen him play was a genuine injustice…. I don’t place blame here, I know it was one of the last dates of the brief tour and sometimes things just work out that way, but when you have a room that is known for keeping locals on stage early in the week and booking national acts (almost) exclusively on the weekends, it’s really a travesty to put this kind of talent on a Monday night and then do nothing more than the basic blip on the weekly advertisement to let people know he was coming. Now I kid you not, in the weeks leading up to this show, I mentioned Chris to no less than half a dozen renowned guitarists, and each one of them upon hearing his name couldn’t help but smile and voice their admiration for him and I’m talking some real decent players, like Bernard Allison, Carl Weathersby, Lurrie Bell, Michael Burks, Deborah Coleman and BB King to name a few, and with ‘fans’ like that, you’d think that this cat would be a huge star on the blues scene, instead the most common response when I mentioned the show to the “usual suspects” those (serious) blues fans that hit most all of the national touring acts shows in town was to the effect of “I think I’ve heard of him what does he sound like?”… So with all this in mind I took it upon myself to print up some little flyers and some posters and spread them around town as best I could. Now could some one please explain to me the logic of the venue— FAMOUS DAVE’S having a policy AGAINST!!! Yes you read that right AGAINST bands putting up posters or laying flyers on the front (host) counter to help promote an up coming show in the club... WHAT???? How stupid is that and of course with the help of some of my friends that work there I put up a few posters and put some flyers on the counter on a Wednesday evening no problem; only to return the next night and find all the posters gone and the hostesses using my flyers for scratch paper; The manager said the company has a rule against this kind of thing they told me, so he was just gonna throw these in the trash, (Oh like my posters?) so I took what flyers were left, notes and scribbles and all and simply handed them to people as the night went on.
Anyhow, back to the show…

For all my efforts with the flyers and posters and my own personal word of mouth, plus having the luck to do a live radio interview on KFAI with Chris about a week and a half before the date, I can confirm that I brought 22 people into the room that night, out of the roughly 80 or so that were there at the start of the show, probably a few more assuming the flyers/posters did any good at the music stores, record shops etc., Respectable though nowhere near the turn out Chris deserves.
So; hanging out before the band arrived, I spy Scotty Miller sitting at the bar, after a bit he gets up and comes over to me, “so, you a Chris Cain fan?” he asks, “what’s he sound like?” it turned out that Paul Metsa (music director at Dave’s) hired Scotty to play keys with the band, since he was touring with just bass and drums this time through, so I told Scotty to just think of Ron Levy playing with BB and Albert king in the early 70’s and he should fit right in. As nine o’clock arrived, I offered to do the band intro and announcing “our very own Scotty Miller” was sitting in on keyboards I announced from the bay area on the left coast the Chris Cain band and off they went, tearing into some of the greasiest fat toned uptown blues in the world today, Chris’s guitar beefy and swinging filling the room with blue notes and his vocals deep and gravely full of the emotions of years of feeling and living the blues life and within seconds those that had journeyed out on this Monday night where mesmerized, awe struck at the level of intensity in his voice and captivated by the sheer volume of notes he plays on the fret board, that’s one thing about Chris Cain, he plays a remarkable amount of notes yet he never seems to over play; similar I suppose to Eric Clapton who’s moniker ‘slowhand’ was dubbed him due to the unbelievable speed at which he plays. Chris can take a solo into the outer reaches of the solar system like a NASA rocket hurling through space filling virtually every inch of empty space with notes yet every one matters and fits perfectly with every other. The addition of Scotty playing (mostly) B3 Organ helped to deliver a crisp, sharp big city blues sound the whole night through, from the first solo break when Chris cut lose and then signaled Scotty to do the same, almost immediately you could see this trio of out of Towner’s breath a sigh of relief and instantly Scotty Miller was the newest member of the band if only for the night playing great fills and solo’s and even trading licks with Chris within the first few songs, people in the crowd were amazed when they heard that Scotty had not only never played with these guys before but had not ever heard a note that Chris had ever played until the first song of the night. The band had fun, those in attendance were impressed and somewhat overwhelmed and Paul Metsa even stopped in for a bit (very unusual on a Monday) and he assures me he’ll be booking Chris back (most likely in August) on a weekend and then maybe he’ll have the kind of ‘built-in’ crowd that will help to move him into the light of the Minnesota blues scene. I guess time will tell.

A VISIT WITH B.B.KING.

Visiting with
THE KING; B.B.KING.
Interview and Photo’s by Mark Fredell
originally printed in the paper BLUE MONDAY and Boradcast on KFAI Radio, Minneapolis Saint Paul.

On March 23rd, BB King and his band rolled into town for an appearance at Orchestra hall in Downtown Minneapolis and I was fortunate enough to be able to arrange a brief interview with him. As it happened, the show took place the day before my daughters 5th birthday and she jumped at the chance to accompany me excited about meeting Mr. King. Its funny when you arrange such a meeting, you are dealing with someone in this case Miss. Tina France from BB’s management company and she was very helpful stating that I would be allowed 15 (or maybe 20) minutes with Mr. King on his bus before the show, and providing me with the cell phone number of the tour manager to call 2 days before to finalize arrangements. Sherman Darby the tour manager is a very nice but serious man that doesn’t waste time and cut’s right to the point, we played phone tag for the better part of a day until finally we connected and he told me to meet the bus at 7:00pm outside the venue and they would be happy to have me onboard for the interview. So the night arrives, I get my girl cleaned up after a hard day of day-care get myself cleaned up and off we go DAT recorder in hand looking forward to my 15 minutes with the King of the Blues. I didn’t have a completely prepared interview, though I had some questions in mind as well as a few talking points outlined, we arrived at the theater at about 6:20 so we had plenty of time to hit the box office for our tickets at will call (thank you to Orchestra Hall for the seats- though they almost didn’t want to let my daughter in; I guess there was some question about her age, hmmmm.. that’s a story for another time though.) So now tickets in hand we set out for the stage door area, where we are to meet the bus in a half hour; well to make a long story much longer, an hour and fifteen minutes later the bus with Mr. King finally arrives, yes it was about 15 minutes before eight and there were “family” members of Mr. King hanging out and eyeing my daughter and I whom of course went on the bus ahead of us. Any one that has followed BB’s story for the past 30+ years has most likely heard that he no longer questions the validity of people claiming to be his kids, grandkids, nieces or nephews, he simply takes them at their word, greets them graciously, and at times gives them a few dollars if in need, he decided some time ago it was just simpler to do this than to fight every story of someone claiming to be his son (or daughter) by Ms. So and so he had a night with way back when. Anyhow, after another fifteen or so minutes of waiting, Sherman comes off the bus, and I introduce myself and my daughter, he greets her with a wide smile then looks to me and says “so you wanted 5 minutes with Mr. King right”?.... Um 5 minutes? Ms. France said I would get around 15 minutes, his reply, “I’ll give you 10 minutes but don’t make me come back and remind you.” Yes sir thank you I say, then as the “family” members leave the bus, my daughter and I board and walk to the back where BB Greets us with a smile, he recognizes me slightly; We’ve met twice before and I have photographed him some five times in the past 4 years being one of only 2 or 3 photographers at the front of the stage for his past 3 Blues Fest tours at grand Casino. I introduce Annette and tell him it’s her birthday the next day. He shakes her hand. We sit and as I unload the tape player we make small talk, I mention how Mr. Darby has cut my 15 minutes down to 10 and B says “well they’re just looking out for the old man” now with the tape player unloaded, and running I listen in the head phones for the volume level then pull them off when satisfied and my girl puts them on to listen to the interview through them smiling and nodding when B asks her “do we sound good?” And with that, the interview begins… I feel a bit rushed now and scramble to get my thoughts in order of priority and what follows are the results of my visit with the KING OF THE BLUES MR. BB KING…..
Mark Fredell: I want to of course begin by saying thank you for the opportunity Mr. King…
BB King: Oh it’s my pleasure…
MF: So you’re pushing 80 this year, 80 years young, congratulations.
BB: Thank you, I prefer 80 years old though, I’ve earned ‘um.
MF: Okay then 80 years old, and you don’t really seem to be slowing down much.
BB: Well I’ve cut down quite a bit now, I had been doing 240 to 270 concerts a year and now since I’ve been in my 70’s we usually do just over 200 shows every year and this year I’ll do hopefully close to 200 and I’ll start to cut down after 80(In September of this year.)
MF: Alright. Now you have a new record coming up can you tell me about it, I know there are some special guest, and is there any new music on it what are some of the details?
BB: Well anything that we do together will be new ‘cause they haven’t done it before… (Laughs) I have done one track with Sir Elton John I can’t tell you the name of it yet but we did cut one and I’ve been raving about it ever since we did it he’s such a great musician and a wonderful person to work with I had a wonderful time working with him. And there will be others (on the new record).
We haven’t had anyone turn us down that we’ve asked we’ve had some that couldn’t make it at the time we needed to do it but we’ve been lucky, everybody we’ve asked and I imagine it’s been over a hundred people; and some of them have said they would love to do it if we could do it another time but we just didn’t have the time…
MF: What are some of the years other highlights? I know the BB King museum in your home town (Indianola Mississippi) is going to be breaking ground soon.
BB: Yes they are, and they had hoped to have it ready in time for my birthday (September 16th.) but they won’t be able to do that but it should be ready in early 2006.
MF: And what do they have in-store, do you know any of the details, are you involved in any of the planning for it?
BB: I’m not involved in any of the planning for it, I have seen the architecture and I’m very pleased with what they are doing. They are, it will be where young people can come and have games and things of that sort, we will have workshops there from time to time and sometimes I will personally go there my self and give workshops.
MF: Speaking of which, I happened to catch on cable just this past weekend a broadcast of your workshop from the Montrose Jazz festival… I believe this particular one was from ’95 or ’96 I was wondering is that an ongoing thing for you, have you been back every year?
BB: (chuckling) Oh yes, I’ve been back every year; I’ve been doing that for some time now. When we first started there wasn’t that many people, but each year it gets more and more, this past one in fact 2004 we couldn’t get all the people in.
MF: Well I bet it’s nice to know that at this stage of your career you’re still drawing strong. I know I got to the box office today to pick up my tickets and they told me the show had sold out a few days ago (the show was at Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis.). So what’s this tour been like so far? (A bad choice of words on my part and I knew it as the words were coming out of my mouth).
BB: Well it’s been good, but as you may not know, I’ve never really taken time off. We’ve had time off but we haven’t just taken time off the road like some people do, say maybe well take off 5 or 6 months, we never have I took off maybe 3 months for a vacation once a long time ago and never have done it again but I have been off sometimes for oh maybe a month or two or three weeks but we’re on tour all the time, we just sort of rest up a little while then get back up on the bus and go again; 57 years of it like that.
MF: Yeah, the road really is your home… The other question I have for you now, and you may not what to answer it, I don’t know, I hope you do… Looking at the state of blues today which has been on somewhat of a decline in popularity recently, it’s harder for the ‘club bands’ to maintain a living on the road, who do you see as possibly the next real torch bearer you know you’ve got people like Robert Cray, and Keb Mo and some others that have had some good success, but no one has seemed to reach your level and been able to maintain it, they haven’t broken through like you have and sustained it.
BB: Well, let me put it like this, maybe you just don’t hear ‘um, I do (laughs) there are so many, we’ve got as you mentioned Keb Mo, Corey Harris there’s Johnny Lang, Kenny Wayne Shepard and then there are a lot more, a lot more of them out there that are good, terrific, I think that when I’m gone you won’t miss me, you might miss the name but that’s it.
MF: Well sir I for one will miss you greatly…And I hear what you’re saying…
BB: But I kind of disagree about the decline. The Blues today is more popular to me than it’s ever been since I’ve been trying to play it and ( MF I’ll give you that in certain respects) and it has to do with those young people we’ve mentioned, some of them; you know the thing is we still don’t get the exposure that some other music does I don’t think of it so much for myself, but I remember the late great Stevie Ray Vaughan he and Robert Cray too they were actually superstars in the blues world and they didn’t get it, so I know if they didn’t get it I could forget it. But like I say, there are still some real good players real good ones.
MF: Of course there are, but what I was referring to really were all those bands that I see coming through town here in Minneapolis for instance playing the clubs and they are struggling to get from gig to gig to make a buck and there really aren’t to many larger venues that give them a chance.
BB: That I can’t help you with, we have 6 clubs (Referring to the chain of BB Kings Blues Clubs) and I don’t play them to much, though I do once or twice a year but usually we, we’re open six days a week and well some of them we can’t pay either what they ask for but they do have a place to play if they, well usually I don’t book them but we have managers that do and I suppose they have their favorites they bring in more often than others… I don’t know.
MF: Well I’ve gotta wrap this up, I know you’ve got to get ready for your show, I really appreciate the time and the opportunity to visit with you a bit and best wishes to you for a great year and many more to come.
BB: Well I thank you very much, it’s always a treat to come here to Minneapolis and play the Orchestra Hall it’s a beautiful venue and we have a lot of fun.
MF: It is beautiful and I’m sure you will sound great (BB: Well I hope so) Thank you very much Mr. King…
Well there you have it my visit with the King, I am grateful for the chance to spend even a few minutes with this truest of living legends, as I packed up the recorder, Mr. King chatted a bit with my daughter asked her what she was hoping for, for her birthday (a bike) before she pulled my arm and whispered “daddy can I give him a hug” I told her don’t ask me ask him, she did and of course the answer was yes. I took a picture of the 2 of them, something I will always treasure and we bid him a goodnight. The show was good though not his best, however on a side note, keep your eyes and ears open for his opening act on this night a kid (19) named Daniel “Slick” Ballinger he’s from Florida originally and now lives in Clarksdale MS. I only caught his last 2 songs this night, but the crowd response told me he was something special; that was proven two nights later when I witnessed him open for Tommy Castro at the Cabooze, he’s amazing!
As for the interview, as I pondered some of the questions and the answers he gave I realized what was really obvious in the first place, BB King is BB King, he leads a life somewhat detached from the rest of the blues world he is a genuinely humble and courteous person, he loves to talk, but in this setting he’s a bit calculated and doesn’t want to offend. He gives the same safe answers and doesn’t want to ‘rock the boat’ so to speak and as for the bands that we (as the typical blues fans) see coming through town year in and year out, well that’s a world that he (deservedly) hasn’t been involved in for quite some time. He lives the life of the ambassador of the blues to the world this polite and gracious man from Indianola MS. That has seen more in his lifetime than most any of us could comprehend, I could never begin to understand what his life has been like any more than he should understand what it’s like for the typical band clubbing it through life in a station wagon or van today, he’s been there and done that but it was decades ago and it simply isn’t’ his reality any longer. As for the BB King Blues clubs, after a bit of research on my part, all I can say is it appears he’s out of that loop as well; a quick scan at the schedule’s at most of them show that there is very little “BLUES” happening in most of them, and the one(s) that do have some tend to showcase the same handful of acts week in and week out. So be it.
BB King will celebrate his 80th birthday later this year and when the time comes that he does leave us it will regardless of his own opinion on the matter leave a huge gap which in all likelihood will never be filled by any one person, after all he is ‘THE KING OF THE BLUES.’