Tonight we start off with a concert from 2020. Oh, how hopeful for the shiny new year with all of its promise of fun and prosperity. Now while we know now how the year would go, let’s swing back to that time of ignorant bliss with a concert at The Linda by Dean Shot and the legendary Junior Watson. Watson is a founding member of The Mighty Flyers, Canned Heat and recorded with Big Mama Thorton, George Smith, Jimmy Rogers, Shakey Jake, Luther Tucker, Charlie Musselwhite, Kim Wilson, William Clark, and many more. Here he shares a bill with vocal and guitar stylist Dean Shot. Shot was born and raised in West Orange, New Jersey, and is one of the most promising and prolific artists on today’s blues scene. This concert was recorded on January 18, 2020. Here is Junior Watson and Dean Shot live at The Linda.
Rory block lives and breathes music. Rory may not see herself the way her fans, the music world, and the press view her career. But seminal blues guitarist Robert Johnson’s grandson Greg Johnson says, “When I hear Rory Block’s music, it’s as if my grandfather is here all over again.” Rolling Stone magazine credited her with recording “some of the most singular and affecting country blues anyone, man or woman, black or white, old or young, has cut in recent years."
In a career that has thus far produced 36 albums, six blues music awards, and numerous world tours, Rory Block's fabled odyssey finds her at the absolute height of her talents, and at the top of the touring world, while at the same time living life as a music producer, author, ordained minister (she refers to it as "preaching the blues"), a music producer, festival promoter, mother, wife, and friend to thousands at her church live venue in rural Chatham, New York. Now, this concert is just over 10 years old but the blues, like Block, is timeless. From July of 2011, here is Rory Block live at The Linda.
Thanks again for tuning in tonight for “Live At The Linda,” recorded live at The Linda: WAMC’s Performing Arts Studio. Join us here next week for our broadcast of J.D. Simo and GA-20 from October 2021 and Tinsley Ellis from January 2018.
Before we go we’re going to play just one more. Our last song today comes from an artist coming up live and in person at The Linda in Albany on Sunday afternoon November 21st. Joe Fiedler is and has for the past 12 years held one of the coolest jobs in music, he’s the musical director of Sesame Street. He’s also an accomplished award-winning jazz artist. His current project welds these two works together in his quintet called Open Sesame. Open Sesame plays tunes off of their recent album called fuzzy and blue. All jazz renditions of the music we all love from the children’s television workshop. Here is Joe Fiedler and Open Sesame with “Sesame Street Theme.”
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