Tonight, blues legend B.B. King performs at the Mahalia Jackson Theater. In 2003, he was the subject of a PBS documentary, The Road to Memphis. The extras added to the DVD release of the documentary include this guitar solo by King, played with the tone that so many of us hear in our heads when [...]
Tag Archives: guitar
YouTube du Jour: John Rankin
August 16, 2011 – 9:41 am
Tonight, guitar master John Rankin performs his weekly show at The Columns on St. Charles Avenue. Here he is at The Columns performing “Blue Thunderchild.”
A T-Model Citizen
July 29, 2011 – 5:44 am
When 90-year-old James Lewis Carter Ford visits bars, he makes a special request. “Play Taledragger,” he’ll say. When the bartender obliges, Ford (better known as blues man T-Model Ford) grins while he listens to his latest record. This summer, the nonagerian is on tour nationally in support of his recent record. 2010’s Taledragger is a dirty [...]
YouTube du Jour: Dick Dale
June 9, 2011 – 9:53 am
Surf guitar legend Dick Dale has battled some health issues in recent years, but he’s back on the boards and still a guitar maniac. He’s played some memorable shows at the Howlin’ Wolf, where he’ll be tonight, including one night when he left the stage and went outside to play in the middle of S. [...]
YouTube du Jour: Alvin Youngblood Hart
March 3, 2011 – 11:34 am
Tonight, blues guitarist Alvin Youngblood Hart opens for the Radiators at Tipitina’s as their victory lap enters its last months. Hart’s been a more frequent presence in New Orleans in the last year; here he is with his power trio, Alvin Youngblood Hart’s Muscle Theory, playing “Big Mama’s Door” live.
YouTube du Jour: Robin Trower
February 10, 2011 – 9:37 am
British guitar hero Robin Trower got his start in Procol Harum (“Whiter Shade of Pale”), but his Hendrix-esque style wasn’t part of the band’s sound. Trower’s at the House of Blues tonight; here he is playing the title cut from his best-known album, 1974′s Bridge of Sighs.
YouTube du Jour: John Mooney
August 3, 2010 – 10:03 am
John Mooney returns to Chickie Wah Wah tonight for an evening of solo blues. Here he is in 2007 at a Swedish blues festival playing “I’m a Country Boy.”
YouTube du Jour: David Doucet
May 24, 2010 – 10:35 am
On Monday nights, BeauSoleil guitarist David Doucet performs a casual show at the Columns. Here’s a video from 2002 during which he plays “Midland Two-Step” and explains its tuning.
Honey Island Swamp Band, Good to You (Threadhead Records)
May 1, 2010 – 12:55 am
Maybe it’s because they formed in San Francisco; or maybe it’s because they seem more like a family than a band; or maybe it’s because of Chris Mulé’s lyrical guitar leads and Aaron Wilkinson’s raspy Bob Weir-like yowl, but the Honey Island Swamp Band’s gritty, bustling grooves recall mid- Seventies-era Grateful Dead—except these Big Easy [...]
Dennis Paul Williams, Morning Light (Way Down in Louisiana)
March 1, 2010 – 12:01 am
Dennis Paul Williams has always had a unique voice as a zydeco guitarist, practically playing the role of jazz shaman in his brother Nathan’s Zydeco Cha Chas and nephew Lil’ Nathan and the Zydeco Big Timers. To say that his own solo recording is long overdue is like saying Mardi Gras is as a good [...]
