VizzTone Label Group artist: Bob Corritore & Friends - Do The Hip-Shake Baby! - New Release Review

I just had the opportunity to review the most recent release, Do The Hip-Shake Baby!, from Bob Corritore & Friends and I really like it. Corritore usually sticks pretty close to traditional Chicago style blues but not on this one. He's mixing it up but the mix is great. Opening with Shake Your Hips, Mighty Joe Milsap is upfront on vocals and they are rich and powerful. With Alan West on drums and percussion this track has a swampy rhythmic feel and Corritore's harp work is used like a sharp knife carving in essential riffs. Very nice. Alabama Mike leads on Gonna Tell Your Mother, a classic R&B track with Johnny Rapp and LA Jones on guitar, Adrianna Marie on bass, Fred Kaplan on keys and Brian Fahey on drums. With sassy backing vocals and a slick guitar solo, this track is swinging. Bill "Howl-N-Madd" Perry gets down, slow and gritty on You Better Slow Down. Corritore has his harp singing on this one over the classic guitar riffs of Perry and Rapp. Very nice. Up tempo shuffle, Trying To Make A Living features Sugaray Rayford upfront with Junior Watson on flat laid out guitar and Kedar Roy on bass. Corritore tees up another super solo giving this track that extra spark. Jimi "Primetime" Smith  sings I Got The World In A Jug in simple Chicago styling. Corritore stretches a bit on this one but as always, contains not dominating the show. Wrapping the release is Rayford again upfront on Keep The Lord On With You! This song is rich in vocal and meaning with excellent vocal, harp and with the excellent addition of Kid Ramos on guitar joined by Marty Dodson on drums and Blake Watson on bass. This is an excellent closer for a very strong release. 

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VizzTone Label Group artist: Bob Corritore & Friends - Don't Let The Devil Ride! - New Release Review

I just had the opportunity to review the most recent release (releasing today), Don't Let The Devil Ride!, from Bob Corritore & Friends and it's super. Opening with Willie Buck's shuffle track, Went Home This Morning, Bob Corritore on harp joins up with Willie Buck on lead vocal, Mojo Mark on guitar, Troy Sandow on bass and Brian Fahey on drums for a solid opener. On Little Walter's Tell Me Mama, Oscar Wilson is on lead vocal and Corritore lays out a real nice harp solo with Priimetime Smith on guitar, Henry Grey on piano and Johnny Rapp on guitar. Alabama Mike has the lead on Laundromat Blues and with really expressive lower octave work from Corritore, particularly nice soloing from Atkinson on guitar and strong piano work from Welch making this one of my favorites on the release. Corritore original, Fork In The Road, features Oscar Wilson on vocal, with Henry Grey on piano and Johnny Rapp on guitar with Corritore in in mostly a strong supportive role choosing cool riffs over long solos...his general trademark. Bob Welch's rockabilly guitar riffs on Lovey Dovey Lovey One set the stage and Corritore sails on harp. Another terrific track. Particularly strong vocals by Alabama Mike set title track, Don't let the Devil Ride! with complimentary guitar work by Danny Michel. Willie Mae features the vocal and guitar work of Bill "Howl-N-Madd" Perry and with it's Latin rhythm, it simmers. George Bowman has the lead on I Was A Fool with Chris James adding tasty texture on guitar. Wrapping the release is Thundering and Raining featuring Tail Dragger on lead vocal, Grey on piano and Bob Stroger on bass. Rockin' Johnny Burgin and Corritore balance guitar and harp nicely for a solid ending to a real cool release.

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You want more Bill Howl - N - Madd Perry!! - The Sky is Crying

Due to the overwhelming popularity of my earlier post of Bill Howl - N - Madd Perry, I am giving the people what they want! More More More!! "The Sky is Crying" by Scott Albert Johnson and Bill "Howl-N-Madd" Perry @ Hill Country Harmonica Foxfire Ranch, Waterford Mississippi (between Oxford and Holly Springs) Bill "Howl-N-Madd" Perry is one of the North Mississippi hill country's best-kept secrets--or at least he was, until he and saxophonist Alphonso Sanders took second place in the solo/duo category in this year's International Blues Challenge in Memphis. Hailing from Abbeville, Mississippi, only a few miles down the road from Foxfire Ranch, he knows how to rock the juke with nothing more than his guitar, his foot, and his voice. What is it with that voice? His vocal stylings are haunting, compelling--a broad, choked vibrato that owes something to Howlin' Wolf and something to the diddley-bow, with a gravelly, bourbon-soaked edge. Some of us think he's the best blues singer in Mississippi. Maybe that's because he's lived a remarkable, wide-ranging life that has taken him far beyond the Magnolia State. Perry was born in rural Lafayette County; his father was a cotton sharecropper and moonshiner--"a country hustler," according to his son--and young Bill Perry spent his share of time in the fields. He moved to Chicago as a young man and spent time in the clubs listening to Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, and Mighty Joe Young, but gospel is where he got his first break. By his late 'teens he'd recorded gospel for Chess Records, toured the country with various groups and, played bass and guitar behind the Five Blind Boys and Shirley Ceaser. In 1966, after a 12-day stint at Harlem's Apollo Theater, he found himself in Memphis, broke. He put on his good clothes, went out to a club, and ended up hooking up with Little Milton, his Chess label-mate. Touring with Milton, he began to sing, and he backed up T. Bone Walker, Freddie King, and other blues stars. His odyssey took him back to Chicago, where he worked at Chess as producer and session player until the label shut down in 1975. Later Perry ended up on the West Coast--backing up Little Richard and Johnnie Taylor, writing and producing two albums for Cash McCall. By the late 70s he was burnt out. He retired from music for eight years. Then, in 1987, he moved back to Mississippi and got back to work. During the 1990s his family band, The Perrys--with daughter Shy on bass and Billy, Jr. on keyboards--played weddings and frat parties and made occasional overseas trips. Over the last decade, Perry has begun to play and record more of his own music, including, for the first time, some solo work in the classic Mississippi-bluesman groove. He moonlights as a DJ on WROX in Clarksdale. He's also started to teach local kids at the Delta Blues Museum as part of the Arts and Education Program. "I'm not your typical bluesman," Perry told an interviewer. "I'm stable and in a stable marriage for many years, so I don't sing about love lost and things. I look around me and see what I see and write about it and sing about it. The sounds that Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Charlie Patton and all that stuff that they was playing, I have tried to take and borrow from that and add in my own special blend of experience over the years." Perry and his band will be backing up Billy Branch, entertaining us in their own right, and giving the rest of us a chance to jam with one of the living masters of Mississippi blues.

Mississippi hill country bluesman - Bill Howl-N-Madd Perry

Bill “Howl-N-Madd” Perry’s recognitions are many. Early in his career Bill
spent time in Chicago writing for musicians such as Little Johnny Taylor,
Ted Taylor, and Cash McCall. He worked for Phil chess as a studio
musician and for Stan Lewis writing for Jewel Paula Records. Bill did a
stint writing for J.J. Taylor on a Willie Dixon Label. Later Bill joined Little
Milton’s band and then started his own band.

Bill Has traveled extensively sharing his music, his stories, and his humor
with fans around the world.

Mississippi has honored Bill by noting him on two of the Mississippi Blues
Highway Markers for his contribution to the blues. Bill is honored with a
display about his life and professional career in the Delta Blues Museum
in Clarksdale, MS.

Bill performed with Cuba Gooding Jr. in the movie the Way of War and
played the devil at the Crossroads in the Gene Simmons Family Jewels
show. Bill is noted in the book “Mississippi State of Blues” by Ken Murphy
& Scott Barretta and is a featured musician in artist H.C. Porter’s project
“The Legends of the Blues @ Home.”

As a blues educator with the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale, MS, Bill
was featured in the Voice of America video “Passing Down The Blues.”

A “Howl-N-Madd” performance keeps blues lovers on their feet. Bill and
the “Howl-N-Madd” Band perform regularly at Ground Zero Blues Club in
Clarksdale, MS.

Partial List of Press: Includes articles & photos in Blues Magazines such as
Blues & Rhythm, IL Blues, Blues Revue, and Big City Rhythm and Blues

The Clarksdale Sessions released April 2012 was produced at the
Clarksdale Sound Stage in Clarksdale, MS by Gary Vincent. Gary Vincent is
a record producer, musician, engineer, and song writer. His songs have
been recorded by, Mickey Gilley, John Anderson, The Crickets, Gary
Morris, Tompal Glaser, Chris LeDoux, Leon Redbone, and many others. He
was recently nominated for a Grammy for his co-production of a song on
Elvin Bishop’s CD “The Blues Rolls On”. Gary Vincent is currently the
President of Ground Zero Blues Club Music, a
co-venture film company with Morgan Freeman and he is also the owner of
The Clarksdale Sound Stage, a unique recording studio and soundstage
located in Clarksdale MS


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