Category: Blog

Community Partnership

Thanks once again to the New Orleans Jazz Festival & Foundation, Inc for a community partnership grant that will help build the archives of oral histories. These archives are part of the budding exclusive content collection serviced by Save the Blues and the Blues Center, a future interactive museum in downtown New Orleans.
Catch glimpses of the Blues Center in the interview series with founder Ric Stewart at bluescenters.com.

The Blues Continues – Octogenarians Mayall, Rush and Guy Steal the Show

The 2018 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival is now in the books. This time around the blues tent was the place to be! Grammy winner Bobby Rush also stood out in the interview stage jamming with his producer Scott Billington on blues harp). John Mayall, the dean of British blues, regained his dueling lead guitar format with Carolyn Wonderland. And not to be left out Buddy Guy sizzled on guitar, as he took his case directly to the audience (see photo).

  • at the 2018 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival
  • Buddy takes it to the fans
  • Bobby Rush at the 2018 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival
  • Jazz Fest 2018
  • The 2018 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival
  • John Mayall at the 2018 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival

New Orleans Cigar Box Guitar Fest 2018

The latest Blues Center video offers a cigar box guitar primer. It covers the 2018 New Orleans Cigar Box Festival with an interview of founder Collins Kirby and live clips from Samantha Fish, Little Freddie King, Steve Arvey, April Mae & The June Bugs and Ivor Simpson Kennedy. Find out more about Bo Diddley, the premiere cigar box player of all time. Little Freddie and Bo Diddley both hail from McComb, MS.

Walter “Wolfman” Washington: Blues from New Orleans

Ahead of his India debut, the American bluesman looks back on his eventful career

Walter “Wolfman” Washington is a musician of unparalleled versatility. The American blues vocalist-guitarist’s roots might be in the blues—he’s been performing it for over half a century—but in the past three decades, he has also whipped up some wholesome funk and R&B. It can be heard best on his 1997 record, Blue Moon Risin’.
It is but only natural for Washington to glide between different styles of music effortlessly—he grew up in New Orleans within a family that breathed music. “It was all around me. My whole family was involved in music, including two of my uncles, [the veteran guitarists] Guitar Slim [Eddie Jones] and Lightnin’ Slim [Otis Verries Hicks].”

Next month, Washington will perform for the first time in India, at the Mahindra Blues Festival. “We want to share some of our special brand of New Orleans music with the people,” says the 74-year-old, who started his career as a teenager, playing with pop and R&B singer Lee Dorsey’s group.
Read the full story at: http://rollingstoneindia.com/walter-wolfman-washington-blues-from-new-orleans/

Wayne Perkins – Alabama's Forgotten Guitar Master

Great rundown on Wayne Perrkins work with the Rolling Stones. Perkins’ “Hand of Fate” lines are among the most thrilling in a Stones catalog rich with guitar heroics. Skying, and full of heart…Perkins also played on two other cuts from “Black and Blue,” the Stones album “Hand of Fate” appeared on: melancholic ballads “Memory Motel” and “Fool To Cry.” Not only that, R&B number “Worried About You” originally tracked during “Black and Blue” sessions and eventually released on excellent 1981 Stones LP “Tattoo You,” boasts another, cascading Perkins solo.
Perkins’ also worked at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio with  David Porter and the Soul Children,  Dee Dee Warwick, Ronnie Milsap, Joe Cocker, Leon Russell, Jimmy Cliff, Jim Capaldi and  Steve Winwood. Perkins also provided lead guitar overdubs on Catch a Fire, the 1973 album by Bob Marley and the Wailers: “Concrete Jungle,” “Stir It Up,” and “Baby We’ve Got a Date.”
http://www.al.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2017/10/rolling_stones_bob_marley.html

our mission

Bluescentric.org is a nonprofit organization capturing the essential stories of New Orleans blues and roots music via oral history and digital production. Sharing the musical, cultural, and historical significance of New Orleans and its region’s music, Bluescentric.org traces paths in the blues as well as its central influence on many related genres. With an engaging and interactive multimedia and curriculum featuring new and exclusive content with legendary artists, BluesCentric passes down culture to the next generation of music fans, students, and musicians across the globe.