iFest

Neville Brotheres

Tue, 05 Feb 2008 13:00:00 GMT

Listen to Neville Bros song The differences between the four Neville Brothers are as dramatic as the similarities that unite them. The source of the similarities is passionate funk, a feeling for blues-soaked deep pocket grooves that is the basis of their greatness and exalted place in our cultural history. Art is the oldest. They call him Poppa Funk for a reason. He formed the first band. As both inspired singer and blistering keyboardist, his role models were Fats Domino and Bill Doggett. Art is the Founding Father. He still lives in the same Thirteenth Ward block of Valence Street where he and his siblings were raised in New Orleans. Charles is a year younger than Art. His religions are bebop and Buddhism. His instrument is the saxophone. At fifteen, he was the first brother to leave home and hit the road, playing with everyone from the Rabbit Foot Minstrels to B.B.King. They called him The Boy Wonder of Sax. He went to Memphis and returned home with a new stew...

Bettye Lavette

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 19:51:12 GMT

Bettye LaVette Biography RETURN TO THE SCENE OF THE CRIME (Bettye LaVette in Muscle Shoals AL - 35 Years Later) The lounge in the Marriot Hotel is called Swampers after the nickname given The Muscle Shoals Sound Rhythm Section by Leon Russell and made famous by Lynyrd Skynyrds Sweet Home Alabama. Having a hotel as nice as the Marriot is a brand new development and is largely due to the areas reinvention as a retirement community and golf resort. New courses are being designed and built along the beautiful banks of the Tennessee River, which cuts through the middle of my home region, four towns in two counties in the northwest corner of Alabama known collectively as The Muscle Shoals Area. From the large windows of the Swampers you get a panoramic view of Wilson Dam, once the largest in the world and the first in what became the TVA Dam Project which created beautiful Wilson Lake and first brought electricity to my home region during Roosevelts days. Besides the TVA dams, the...

Buddy Guy

Fri, 21 Dec 2007 20:00:00 GMT

While Buddy Guy's music is often labeled Chicago blues, his style is unique and separate. His music can vary from the most traditional, deepest blues to a creative, unpredictable and radical gumbo of the blues, avant rock, soul and free jazz that morphs at each night’s performance.

Any discussion of Buddy Guy invariably involves a recitation of his colossal musical resume and hard-earned accolades. He's a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, a chief guitar influence to rock titans like Hendrix, Clapton, Beck and Vaughan, a pioneer of Chicago's fabled West Side sound, and a living link to that city's halcyon days of electric blues.