This is an interesting blues week. Most of the bands that are scheduled are not fully blues, but more soul, R&B, zydeco, country and pop. The jams will have the most straight up blues, with the exception of Christian Hastings (Mon), Lafayette (Tues) and Bill Magee’s band (Thurs) – they are all blues!
Wednesday is becoming jam night, with open mic at House of Blues, Humphrey’s and out at Proud Mary’s (in Kearney Mesa). And of course there is Walter’s jam on Tuesday and Fuzzy’s jam on Monday.
The JammingOut/BLUSD jam at House of Blues will be held downstairs this week in the Delta Room to celebrate their 1st year anniversary. I’ll be there for sure!
Last night brought in a great crowd and another awesome mix of musicians at the JammingOut at HOB. We just kept the video going as the night got better and better, and we only caught the last 2 hours of the 4 hour jam! Most of these musicians have never played together, and often they don’t even know each other before going up on stage, so it isn’t always clean and smooth. But everyone has a good time!
Local bass player, Shaaron Schuemaker, was singing Sam Cooke’s cover song Bring It On Home to Me in this clip. She was joined by Jaz Jaszewski and Judd Austin on guitars, Steve Douglas on drums and Tom Safreed on harmonica, who was the recent winner of the BLUSD Spring Harpfest two weeks ago. Congrats to Tom!
A member of the audience, Greg Loving from Indianapolis, then got up to join the folks on stage to sing cover song Falsom Prison Blues, to the delight of his other colleagues from out of town and the rest of us. He was great!
New to the jam was Terry Padgett, who came in and sang cover songs Wish I Had a Nickle and Turn On Your Love Light, while playing guitar. He was joined by Shaaron on bass, Nicholas Butterfield on guitar, Dennis Bucko on harmonica, and Bert Hammer (visiting from Canada) on drums.
Then Nicholas took over and sang Bill Wither’s cover song Use Me.
This was followed by Doyle Thomas playing guitar and singing his favorite Stevie Ray Vaughn cover song Pride and Joy. He was joined by Junya Isogawa and Jacinto Castaneda on guitars, Fuzzy Rankins on bass (which is rare to see), and Jay Morris on drums.
And the night ended with Silky Sol (aka: Red Afro Queen) coming to the stage, along with Kevin Cooper on bass, Fuzzy Rankins and Mark Augustin (host of the 88.3 Jazz/blues jam now at Proud Mary’s earlier in the evening) on guitars, and Michael Minor on drums. They performed Jimmy Reed’s cover song Big Boss Man and then Aretha Franklin’s cover song Rock Steady. Unfortunately both videos got cut off at the end, particularly the last video – ran out of memory taking so many videos 😉
The JammingOut blues jam at HOB on Wednesday nights (7-11p) now features a local band about once a month, and last night it was the Charles Burton Blues Band. This is a fun band with a loyal following of local swing dancers (next Tuesday night he’ll be playing at Henry’s Pub which has Swing Tuesdays, and he’s often at Tio Leo’s on Thursday nights).
I’m pleased to finally have video of Charles and some of his band members. Last night they performed a number of songs, including this cover song Stranger Blues, which is on one of Charles’ many CDs.
And here is Charles singing his rendition of Sweet Potato Pie, which is also the name of his latest CD. You can hear more sample tunes on the CD by going to TUNES on this site.
We got a lot of video from last night’s jam, starting with Donna Larsen singing T-Bone Walker’s cover song Stormy Monday. She’s joined by Doyle Thomas and Judd Austin on guitars, Tony Garrick on drums, and Avel (I think that was his first name…) on bass.
Later Victoria Wasserman sang Aretha Franklin’s cover song Chain of Fools, along with Jacinto Castaneda and Nicholas Butterfield on guitar, Dale Davis on bass and Michael Minor on drums.
And the evening ended as it always does with the house jam band back up on stage. Here we’ve got Lafayette Falkquay and Doyle Thomas having some fun singing the great BB King cover song Every Day I Have The Blues together. With them are Judd Austin and Junya Isogawa on guitars, Kevin Cooper on bass and Michael Minor on drums.
Once again some incredible talented young people (up to 21 years old) showed up and played together last Saturday afternoon at the monthly BLUSD Youth Blues Jam at the Gaslamp Speakeasy.
The host musicians are Leilani Kilgore (guitar – playing over her head in this video), Tyler Ray Davidson (guitar) and Malachi Johnson (on drums). Joining them in this video is Victor franklin, who is playing the bass guitar.
In this video, Aidan Mooney, who is only 9 years old, plays the guitar with the older teens hosting the jam – and holds his own!!
Each week a new mix of musicians shows up at the JammingOut & BLUSD jam (at House of Blues Voodoo Stage) and gets randomly assigned to get up on stage together. Last night Bobby Hayse, from Indiana, came in and sang cover song Mustang Sally, along with Brandon Cerquedo on guitar (who did the solo in this clip), Doyle Thomas on guitar, Jim Holtz on bass and Tony Garrick on drums.
If you love blues, the Wednesday night jam at HOB downtown, hosted by JammingOut.net, the local blues society (BLUSD) and House of Blues, is one of the great jams around town.
Here we have Justin Fools on harmonica and singing cover song No Particular Place to Go, supported by Dave Keefer and Judd Austin on guitar, Dale Davis on bass and Lisa Viegas.
The evening ended with a little fun on stage as Lafayette Falkquay sings cover song Mustang Sally, along with Junya Isogawa and Rich Giglio on guitar, Kevin Cooper on bass and Billy Wear on drums.
There was a good mix of musicians at the weekly blues jam at House of Blues again this week. I got there a bit late, and missed a lot of it. But I did catch Tony Garrick singing Freddie King’s cover song I’m Tore Down (and playing the drums) along with Dale Davis on bass, Nicholas Butterfield on guitar and Junya Isogawa on guitar (who you see first in this video). Enjoy as I did!
It was one of those quiet nights all across the Gaslamp with the threat of rain. But while few people were out last night, the music still rocked. At the House of Blues, the weekly jam brought in an interesting mix of musicians and sounds, and I got lots of room to dance!
The night started off with members of the JammingOut’s “house band” (Lafayette Falkquay on vocals – without his infamous guitar this time, and Kevin Cooper on bass guitar) along with Steve Douglas on drums, Junya Isogawa on guitar, Nicholas Butterfield on guitar, and Donna Larsen joining Lafayette on vocals.
Next Nicolas Butterfield sang John Mayer’s cover song Gravity, which always moves me. Its a beautiful song. Barry Farrar replaced Steve on drums for this part of the evening.
And then we had some jazz when Paula Mandell got up to sing Billie Holiday’s cover song Fine & Mellow, which was such a treat. She has the voice for this song.
And last, Rebekah Ensley, gave us a beautiful acapella singing Kimbra’s cover Withdrawal.
Victoria Wasserman belts out cover song Me & Bobby McGee at the HOB Blues Jam this past Wednesday night. She’s accompanied by Jacinto Castaneda and Dave Keefer on guitar and Pat Kelley on keyboard. Not sure who was on drums or playing the bass.
