Author Archives: Living Blues

BETTYE LAVETTE
Blackbirds

Verve – B0031706-02

Bettye LaVette considers the creative success and widespread recognition she has achieved in recent years her “fifth career.” After so many stops and starts,

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DOM FLEMONS
Prospect Hill: The American Songster Omnibus

Omnivore Records – OVCD-354

Dom Flemons’ Prospect Hill: The American Songster Omnibus is an ambitious undertaking to redefine the “songster,” a term used to describe musical artists who “sang and played a variety of material in the years before the First World War.” Flemons cites artists such as Papa Charlie Jackson,

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JIMMY JOHNSON 
Every Day of Your Life 

Delmark – DE-861

Several others like to claim the title, but 91-year-old Jimmy Johnson is almost certainly our oldest active bluesman,

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