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Current News
Page updated on June 24, 2009
Last week was a very full one for the KBB. It started on Tuesday with the bittersweet task of helping to celebrate the life of 1st Sgt Tobin Triebel who was struck down while jogging (as he always did to maintain the level of fitness requireed by his position) and the three other MSP Medevac responders who were killed separately in last Septembers's helicopter accident. Tobin was a close friend of Kelly's and the band was more than happy to headline this special event celebrating a great life and benefiting his wife and daughters.
Friday saw us back in Ohio at Cain Park in Cleveland Hghts. This is a beautiful old outdoor venue built with "stimulus Money "(?) ... from the Great Depression! Did those folks ever do a great job of leaving something substantial and timeless behind! The folks in Cleveland were great to us and enjoyed their first taste of phatblues, taking lots of music home with them.
After getting home as the sun came up, we headed over to Catonsville and Iampsfest X for the coolest little festival in town. The band has played here each year since its inception. Steve Iampieri and crew put this on every year to benefit mental health awareness and to raise scholarship money including one in memory of Steve's younger siste, Micki, who was lost in a tragic car accident.
We'll be back for Steve every year he holds this event. After our early evening set it was off to Leesburg, VA for a late show at Bunker.
This week we're back for our regular turn at Whitlow's on Wilson in Arlington. WOW is right. Great food and good times. That's all that happens here. Wanna come? Saturday we're playing in the great outdoors at the Urbana Music Festival near Frederick. This is the first year for this event and we're looking ton get kicked off right. Later that day we head back towards B-more for a private party. Then Sunday it's off to Ohio for the third consecutive weekend to Ohio, this time to the Columbus area for Blues, Brews and Barbecue Festival at Lincoln Park in Kettering, near Columbus. Dr. John and Robert Randolph will also be appearing on this one. This will give us a little extra motivation as we trek out I-70.
So it's a Clarendon to Columbus weekend and hopefully we'll see you somewhere along the way. Until then ... Peace!!
Hello all. This is coming to you from the road on the way to the Troy-Haner Cultural Center in Troy, OH just outside of Dayton. Does I-70 ever end? Anyway thanks to everyone who came out to see us at celebrate Fairfax and at June Jam II last weekend as well as Wednesday for the Capitol Riverfront concert Series in DC. It was pretty much a DC trifecta. This week we're a lot farther as well as a little closer to home... "How's that," you say.
Well, as previously mentioned we're on the road headed to Dayton and boy we've been on the road for ages it seems, but we're in Buckeye now and in the home stretch. After tonight's show we had right back to Charm City for a private show and the weekend finishes Sunday with the Greta Grapes wine festival at Oregon Ridge. This is always a good time, having played it and several other Great Grapes events in several other locations up and down the coast. This is one not to miss. So come on out and hang with us and maybe sample the offerings of a few vintners in the beautiful confines of O.R. We'll be there and we'd love ti see you too. Peace y'all.
Hey peeps. Fresh off last Saturday's double-header at the Western Maryland Bluesfest. This is the third time we've had the privilege of kicking off this first rate and superbly produced festival, truly world class and right in the heart of MD,. Later that day we made the short trip to Frederick and Harry Grove Stadium, home of the O's high-A farm team, the Keys. We closed out the Maryland Brewer's Spring Festival with a bang.
This weekend catch us at Celebrate Fairfax playing right after the Blues Traveler show. That's right after Blues Traveler on the adjoining stage. On Saturday we'll be at Hurricane Harbor at Six Flags America for the second annual June Jam with our friends from Colours. See Colours.org for more details. It's DC weekend for the KBB. Come see us. PEACE!!
Our on going mission to educate the newer generation about where "real" music comes from. To teach the new dogs and remind the old ones of the greats. This was the voice of "The Queen of the Blues" Koko Taylor We have a long time requested song that was inspired by Ms. Taylor, "Down in the bottom." A term used by her for many years. She helped me understand what it meant to sing with passion! Ms. Koko, I am forever in your debt. Safe journey home Queen!
- Kelly Bell
"QUEEN OF THE BLUES" KOKO TAYLOR 1928 - 2009
from Alligator Records, posted: 06/03/2009
Grammy Award-winning blues legend Koko Taylor, 80, died on June 3, 2009 in her hometown of Chicago, IL, as a result of complications following her May 19 surgery to correct a gastrointestinal bleed. On May 7, 2009, the critically acclaimed Taylor, known worldwide as the "Queen of the Blues," won her 29th Blues Music Award (for Traditional Female Blues Artist of the Year), making her the recipient of more Blues Music Awards than any other artist. In 2004 she received the NEA National Heritage Fellowship Award, which is among the highest honors given to an American artist. Her most recent CD, 2007’s Old School, was nominated for a Grammy (eight of her nine Alligator albums were Grammy-nominated). She won a Grammy in 1984 for her guest appearance on the compilation album Blues Explosion on Atlantic.
Born Cora Walton on a sharecropper’s farm just outside Memphis, TN, on September 28, 1928, Koko, nicknamed for her love of chocolate, fell in love with music at an early age. Inspired by gospel music and WDIA blues disc jockeys B.B. King and Rufus Thomas, Taylor began belting the blues with her five brothers and sisters, accompanying themselves on their homemade instruments. In 1952, Taylor and her soon-to-be-husband, the late Robert "Pops" Taylor, traveled to Chicago with nothing but, in Koko’s words, "thirty-five cents and a box of Ritz Crackers."
In Chicago, "Pops" worked for a packing company, and Koko cleaned houses. Together they frequented the city’s blues clubs nightly. Encouraged by her husband, Koko began to sit in with the city’s top blues bands, and soon she was in demand as a guest artist. One evening in 1962 Koko was approached by arranger/composer Willie Dixon. Overwhelmed by Koko’s performance, Dixon landed Koko a Chess Records recording contract, where he produced her several singles, two albums and penned her million-selling 1965 hit "Wang Dang Doodle," which would become Taylor’s signature song.
After Chess Records was sold, Taylor found a home with the Chicago’s Alligator Records in 1975 and released the Grammy-nominated I Got What It Takes. She recorded eight more albums for Alligator between 1978 and 2007, received seven more Grammy nominations and made numerous guest appearances on various albums and tribute recordings. Koko appeared in the films Wild at Heart, Mercury Rising and Blues Brothers 2000. She performed on Late Night With David Letterman, Late Night With Conan O’Brien, CBS-TV’s This Morning, National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, CBS-TV’s Early Edition, and numerous regional television programs.
Over the course of her 40-plus-year career, Taylor received every award the blues world has to offer. On March 3, 1993, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley honored Taylor with a "Legend of the Year" Award and declared "Koko Taylor Day" throughout Chicago. In 1997, she was inducted into the Blues Foundation’s Hall of Fame. A year later, Chicago Magazine named her "Chicagoan of the Year" and, in 1999, Taylor received the Blues Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2009 Taylor performed in Washington, D.C. at The Kennedy Center Honors honoring Morgan Freeman.
Koko Taylor was one of very few women who found success in the male-dominated blues world. She took her music from the tiny clubs of Chicago’s South Side to concert halls and major festivals all over the world. She shared stages with every major blues star, including Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, B.B. King, Junior Wells and Buddy Guy as well as rock icons Robert Plant and Jimmy Page.
Taylor’s final performance was on May 7, 2009 in Memphis at the Blues Music Awards, where she sang "Wang Dang Doodle" after receiving her award for Traditional Blues Female Artist Of The Year.
Taken from KokoTaylor.com
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