He was the original black panther. Nobody else looked like him or sounded like him. Wilson Picket is dead. A heart attack took him last Thursday at age 64. The quintessential soul man, the Wicked Pickett lived large, with an appetite for cars, guns, women and wine. His brushes with the law included carrying a […]
Grant Britt
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Soulful hopes and desires
She says she was misquoted. She didn’t set out to do a soul record–just a soulful one. “I wanted to make a record with a lot of soul in it,” says Susan Tedeschi of her latest Verve release, Hope and Desire. In a publicity release, Verve had her saying that what she was going for […]
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Collective bargaining
The concept was so freaky that even William Burroughs couldn’t handle it by himself. Although he’s credited with the idea, Burroughs needed the help of visual artist Brion Gysin to create a greater force than his own mind was capable of. “They recognized that when they were collaborating, it seemed that whatever they were coming […]
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Diamonds in the Gap
Diamonds in the Gap In addition to work with Michael Holland, Big Fat Gap fills the Ramblers’ role in a new version of Diamond Studs By Grant Britt It’s the only bluegrass band that comes with a guarantee. “Pretty much gimmick free,” says Big Fat Gap founding member Chris Heaney of the band’s music. “All […]
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Will’s Gospel
Bonnie Raitt walks into a bar. … The punchline, as local guitarist Will McFarlane tells it, is that she saw him playing and hired him on the spot. It doesn’t get many laughs, but it got him a career. McFarlane spent six years with Raitt, from 1974 to 1980. Born on a Navy base in […]
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Eric Bibb’s smooth blues cruise
Traditionally, bluesmen are sufferers–hard-living chroniclers of hard times with nothing to show for it but wasted lives and livers, hounded by demons both real and imagined. Yet Eric Bibb has built a career on blues that are demon free, un-dogged and happy. How does he keep such a positive spin on the mean ole genre? […]
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Soundbite
Crystal meth freaks aren’t usually celebrated in bluegrass. But Michael Holland has never worried much about holding with tradition. Nobody could ever figure out what his and brother Mark’s band Jennyanykind was about. “Blues psychedelia” was about as close as anybody ever came to classifying it, and that might have been good for only about […]
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Kenny Neal
Though he’s from Louisiana, Kenny Neal’s blues sound like they were rooted in Chicago. His take on the raucous, hard-edged, big city blues fools some into thinking he grew up on the windy streets instead of the swampier environs of his native Baton Rouge. Even though his dad Raful was ranked as a top Louisiana […]
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Soundbite
Louisiana Dance Hall Music is what’s advertised on the outside of Mel Melton’s latest, Papa Mojo’s Roadhouse, and there’s truth in this advertising. This is the real thing–a rocking, low-down, gritty, back alley grind that captures the best of two worlds, blues and Zydeco. Melton, a Gastonia native, adopted Louisiana culture in ’69, moving to […]
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in country fairs
If you’re going to the N.C. State Fair this year and want to see all the attractions, you’d best bring along some extra cash. For decades, shows presented in Dorton Arena during the fair were free with a paid fair admission. But four years ago things changed. According to fair officials, people didn’t like waiting […]
