Picture a small
and friendly Italian town, where you can find everything within a walking
distance. Located in a valley and bordered by the Apennines, about 60 km south-west of Bologna and almost 50 km north-west of Florence, for centuries this quiet city
was famous for its thermal springs. Turn the page for the next picture: after
a refreshing afternoon rain, at eight o’clock in the evening the town is
overswept by American southern soul music. It may sound contradictory, but it has
worked since the late 80s and it never fails. You can read about the history
of the festival at http://www.soulexpress.net/deep4_2013.htm#uliani.
After the
Porretta section there’s still a review of a newly released, posthumous CD from
Mighty Sam. For starters, however, let me still add that the evergreen Jerry
Fuller contacted and informed that his website is finally up and running – www.jerryfuller.com. Just have a look at
that vast discography and read the bio! I talked to Jerry for my O.C. Smith
article (www.soulexpress.net/ocsmith_story.htm)
and did a small profile on him in my two-part Al Wilson feature (in our
printed papers of # 1-2/2005).
On Saturday
night David Hudson was a little hoarse, so during his 40-minute set he did a
lot of talking, but also sang the mid-tempo and catchy title tune from his CD, Feels
So Good, alongside Take Me to the River and Try a Little
Tenderness. On Sunday evening he still revived Love and Happiness and
You Got the Love.
David was in
Porretta for the fifth time. Actually, with one regular visitor to this
festival, Jean-Claude Morlot (www.soulcorner.com),
while chatting we went down the memory lane back to 1993, when David and Millie
Jackson toured Europe and put up great shows at the Pori Jazz Festival in
Finland, in Porretta and in France at the Jazz A Vienne Festival. The last one
was even broadcasted on Paris Premiere cable TV.
My preceding
interview with David in Porretta two years ago resulted in a profound feature
on him and his musical career (www.soulexpress.net/davidhudson.htm),
so now I was mainly interested in updates. David: “A lot of positive
things has happened. One main thing: I proposed to my lovely wife Juanita and
did get married September the 20th, 2014. This is also like a
honeymoon for me and my wife. Everybody knows and loves her here; she’s a
star. Also I had back surgery December the 6th, 2013, and I was out
of work for a year, so this will really be the first large engagement that I’ve
done since I had the surgery. Then Graziano Uliani is going to bring us
back during the winter.”
“I’m also in the
process of doing some recording. This project is pretty much complete. The
title of the album is You Give Good Love, and for the release date I’m
looking at February, right after Valentine. The song is written by a friend of
mine, Michael Cliett, who wrote When I’m Loving You on the Honey
Honey album. Our baby daughter is also a writer, so possibly one or two of
her songs will be on the album.”
“My oldest son
is also singing, and he and I will be collaborating on some gospel songs
together. As a matter of fact, I’m doing two projects – an r&b and a
gospel CD. My oldest brother Amos, who lives in Baltimore, will be
collaborating with me. John Gary Williams is going to be a part of the
project, and a friend of mine out of California, Howard Johnson, will be
a part of the project.”
“This is also my
first time meeting with Prince Phillip Mitchell. He’s a wonderful guy. I had
no knowledge of the songs he had written before for other artists. We just
discussed about doing a project together last night. We haven’t set the date,
when we’re going to get together. After hearing me at the rehearsal last
night, Prince Phillip Mitchell said ‘hey, I got one for you’. ‘Okay, let’s do
it’.” (Interview conducted on July 24, 2015).
FRANK BEY & ANTHONY PAULE BAND
For Frank Bey
and Anthony Paule Band (http://beypaule.com) this
was the second year in a row in Porretta, and Anthony’s West Coast band acted
as the house band from Friday through to Sunday. They played for hours nonstop,
backed numerous artists and everybody in Porretta agreed that they did a
terrific job. With the four-piece rhythm section of Anthony Paule (guitars),
Tony Lufrano (keyboards), Paul Olguin (bass) and Paul Revelli (drums)
combined with the four-piece horn section of Nancy Wright (saxophone), Mike
Rinta (trombone), Mike Rose (trumpet) and the reinforcing Sax
Gordon, the band had to go through and rehearse the repertoire of ten
different artists and, nevertheless, ultimately sounded like they had been
playing with these acts together for many years. Normally Tom Poole plays
the trumpet in the band, but due to family reasons he couldn’t make it to
Porretta this year. Still on background vocals they had Loralee Christensen
and Sweet Nectar, comprising of Sue McCracklin and Maureen
Smith.
On Friday night
after backing Theo Huff and Prince Phillip Mitchell first, the band invited on
stage their own vocalist, Frank Bey, who during his 35-minute set sang
seven songs: the mid-tempo and soulful It’s Good to Have Your Company, the
painfully slow You Don’t Know Nothing about Love, the bluesy Right in
front of you, the soulbluesy Next to My Heart, the beaty Not
Goin’ Away and the torch song, Imagine. As an encore we heard the
uplifting If I Could Reach Out.
On Saturday -
after backing up Sax Gordon on his solo spot, Derek Martin, Joe Arnold, Chick
Rodgers, Bernard “Pretty” Purdie and Sugar Pie DeSanto – Frank was called on
stage again for three uptempo numbers (Don’t Mess with the Monkey, Black
Bottom, Kiss Me like You Mean It) and one “raycharlesian” slow moan, Hard
Times. Still on Sunday evening Frank’s stint consisted of a great,
poignant country-soul ballad called I Just Can’t Go On and the funky Get
Your Money Where You Spend Your Time and two numbers from previous nights, Kiss
Me like You Mean It and Imagine.
Frank Bey with Anthony Paule at Blues Music Awards in Memphis. Photo courtesy of Christine Vitale
FRANK & ANTHONY
“The Southern
Gentleman of the Blues” was born as Frank Bass on January 17 in 1946 in Millen, Georgia, and – by his mother being a gospel singer – started out singing in
church at the age of four, but was allured by secular music ten years later.
In the early 60s he moved to Philadelphia, toured with the Otis Redding Revue
and sometimes even warmed the audience up for Otis on stage. Later Frank
worked with Archie Jenkins & the Incredible Saxons. In the early
70s he chose the surname of Bey under the influence of Moorish Science
Temple of America those days.
After two single
releases in the 60s and a three-year stint in Montreal, Frank hooked up with a
band called Moorish Vanguard in Philadelphia in the 70s, and they cut a
funk single titled Sitting in the Sunset of Your Love in 1976 in James Brown’s studio in Augusta, Georgia. James re-released it a year later on
Polydor, now under the title of Sitting in the Sunshine of Your Love
and this time it was produced – you guessed it! - by James Brown. You’ll find
the original Moorish Vanguard Concert single featuring Sister Barbara Bey and
produced by Frank Bey on YouTube.
Moorish Vanguard
broke up and frustrated Frank quit singing and went first into construction and
later restaurant business, and only in the mid-90s began singing again in Frank
Austin’s band at Warmdaddy’s in Philadelphia. The first full-length solo
CD, Steppin’ Out - heavy on blues covers - was released in 1998 on
Frank’s Mag label, and the second one, Blues in the Pocket, came out on
Jeffhouse Records in 2007. Again the music leaned heavily on blues, but on the
more soulful side we were treated to A Change Is Gonna Come, Dock of the Bay
and a beautiful country-soul tune, Best That I Can. In-between those
two CDs, Frank suffered from kidney failure and he was on dialysis.
Anthony Paule
hails from Durban, South Africa, where he was born in 1956, but soon
relocated to Los Angeles. In the capacity of a guitarist, songwriter, vocalist
bandleader and a record label owner, since the late 80s he has worked with Johnny
Adams, Earl King, Maria Muldaur, Charlie Musselwhite and Bo Diddley, to
name just a few. In 1991 he first recorded with the Johnny Nocturne
Band (Wailin’ Daddy... later also Shake ‘Em Up and Wild
& Cool), and two years later with Doug Jay (Until We Meet
Again).
Anthony’s first
solo CD, Big Guitar, was released on Blue Dot Records in 1995, and the
follow-up, Hiding in Plain Sight, in 2001. For almost thirty years
Anthony has toured extensively Europe, Canada and the USA.
With the help of
a mutual friend, Noel Hayes, Frank Bey came to perform in San Francisco
in 2004, and already two years later he was backed by a band that Anthony Paule
had put together especially for him, and those two have never looked back
since. Today Frank’s home is Philadelphia, but the last couple of years he’s
divided his time between the Bay Area and Philly.
Anthony & Frank at Blues Music Awards in Memphis. Photo courtesy of Christine Vitale
YOU DON’T KNOW NOTHING
Frank’s and
Anthony’s first joint CD, You Don’t Know Nothing (BDR CD 105), was
recorded live at Biscuits & Blues nightclub in San Francisco on July 20 in 2012, and fortunately reactions and noise from the audience are almost inaudible. Frank is
backed basically by the same musicians that played behind him in Porretta (with
the only exception of Steffen Kuehn, who’s on trumpet here). Noel Hayes
wrote the liner notes.
Anthony and his wife Christine Vitale
The title tune
is a cover of Carl Hall’s intense deep soul ballad, You Don’t Know
Nothing about Love, and here we can also find Frank’s rendition of John
Lennon’s Imagine on record. Three songs – Ain’t That
Loving You, Get Your Money Where You Spend Your Time and You’ve Got To
Hurt Before You Heal - come from Bobby Bland’s repertoire and one (Still
Called the Blues) we know by Johnnie Taylor. Ray Charles’ agonized Hard
Times is also included, as well as an instrumental cut on Gene Pitney’s
pop hit, Town without Pity. The label, Blue Dot Records, is owned by
Anthony and his wife, Christine Vitale (www.ChristineVitale.com), a media
specialist, who also attended the Porretta festival this July. Christine:
“Anthony and I have been married thirty years, and we lived together five years
before that. We met playing in a band. He was in a band with a mutual friend,
and they needed a singer, so they hired me.”
The first studio
album by Frank Bey & Anthony Paule Band, Soul for Your Blues (BDR CD
106; in 2013), was produced by Anthony, Christine, Christoffer “Kid”
Andersen and Paul Revelli and it was cut at Kid’s studio. Compared to the
preceding CD, the biggest difference is the amount of new songs. Christine
wrote or co-wrote five of them, Anthony wrote & co-wrote four and Karen
Falkner, who at one time was Christine’s singing partner, co-wrote three of
the songs. Smokehouse is Anthony’s own instrumental. The highlights
include Christine’s touching 60s-style soul ballad called I Just Can’t Go On,
a melodic and easy mid-tempo number titled It’s Good to Have Your Company and
John Prine’s story-telling, country-tinged ballad named Hello in
There.
Anthony & Frank at Blues Music Awards in Memphis. Photo courtesy of Christine Vitale
There are as
many as four blues tracks this time, I Left My Heart in San Francisco is
the second instrumental on the set and the rest three songs ring a bell among
soul and rhythm & blues connoisseurs – I Don’t Know Why (O.V.
Wright), Buzzard Luck (Wynonie Harris) and Nothing Stays
the Same Forever (Percy Mayfield).
Frank Bey at Porretta Festival, 2015. Photo by Dave Thomas
NOT GOIN’ AWAY *
Practically the
same concept is utilized on Bey Paule Band’s latest CD, Not Goin’
Away (BDR CD 108; in 2015) – same producers, same studio, same
musicians (except Tom Poole on trumpet this time) and as many as ten new
songs out of the twelve on the set. The two familiar ones are a mid-tempo
swayer named Someone You Use (Candi Staton) and George Jackson’s
irresistible If I Could Reach Out (Otis Clay).
Blues fans are
catered to on five tracks, which vary from a Tony Joe White type of
swamp rock (Black Bottom) to a jazzy romp (Not Goin’ Away). Black
Bottom actually is Frank’s biography song. Christine: “We also wrote Right
in front of you. Frank came up with the idea, and he and Anthony and I sat
in our backyard last summer, and had a song in about an hour. That’s a very
popular song.”
There are five
uptempo dancers - including the sharp Kiss Me like You Mean It and the
mid-tempo instrumental Noel’s Haze – but my preference goes to two
lovely ballads, a Joe Simon type of a deepie called Next to My Heart
and the heart-breaking and melodic Nobody’s Angel. Christine wrote the
latter one and Anthony helped her on the former one, and Frank’s gruff baritone
voice gives an extra depth to both of these songs.
Not Goin’
Away is one of the best traditional black music CDs this year. The
number of new songs on this CD and on some earlier albums proves how prolific
writers Christine and Anthony are. Christine: “I love to write more than
anything. My ideas for the music are inspired by American soul music pre 1975,
New Orleans rock & roll pre 1965 and pre 1975 country. I love Deep
American Folk Music pre 1965. Hmm, I’m seeing a trend here. My inspiration
for lyric comes from life. I love to write about emotions that everybody has
experienced. I love writing deep, dark, sad, heartfelt ballads. I love to
write up-tempo songs filled with clever metaphor. I just plain love to write.
The song Nobody’s Angel is my autobiography... of sorts. Well,
autobiography up to the time I wrote it” (smile).
Sugaray Rayford at Porretta Festival, 2015. Photo by Dave Thomas
SUGARAY RAYFORD
As an opening
act on Friday evening, Sugaray Rayford (www.sugarayblues.com) hit the stage and
came up with a big-voiced, bluesy set. Backed by the 7-piece Luca Giordano
Band with Sax Gordon, he kicked off with the funky Blind Alley, the
title tune of his first solo album, and followed with mid-tempo Live to Love
Again and All I think about from his latest CD. The groovy Stuck
for a Buck came next, and it was followed by I’ll Play the Blues for You
(Albert King) and If You Talk in Your Sleep (Elvis and
Little Milton). The finishing song was What a Wonderful World.
Caron Rayford
was born and raised in Texas, surrounded by church music. At the turn of
the millennium he was singing in the San Diego area with a funk band called Urban
Gypsys, and later with Aunt Kizzy’z Boyz. He was the vocalist on
their CDs, Trunk Full of Bluez (2004) and It’s Tight Like That
(2007), and later he lent his voice for the Mannish Boys, both on the
road, and on the Double Dynamite album in 2012.
Now a resident
of Los Angeles, Sugaray’s first solo CD, Blind Alley (Sugaray), was
released in 2010, and it contained two songs by Al Kooper (Nuthin’ I
Wouldn’t Do and I Let Love Slip Thru My Fingers), Blind Willie
Johnson’s Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground, Son House’s
Death Letter and Arthur Adams’ You Can’t Win for Losing,
alongside a couple of new songs.
The follow-up, Dangerous,
on Delta Groove in 2013 again offered some covers from such names as Son
House, Gatemouth Brown, Junior Parker, Charles Brown and Pee Wee
Crayton, as well as new songs, including the above-mentioned Stuck for a
Buck. Sugaray’s latest CD, Southside (NimoySue Records), was
released in May this year, and among blues tracks it contains some nice
soulblues songs, too, such as Southside of Town, Live to Love Again, Call
off the Mission and All I Think About.
JOE ARNOLD
On Saturday
evening Joe Arnold, a saxophonist extraordinaire, entertained us with an
exciting, funky and groovy 15-minute concert, with a lot of improvisation in his
playing. That moment evolved into a special tribute to him, because Graziano
Uliani presented him with the Sweet Soul Music Award 2015... and deservedly so.
Joe was born on
February 16 in 1945 in Snake Creek, Mississippi, and moved to Memphis at five.
After the LeSabres Combo, he became friends and started playing with Duck
Dunn (bass) and Wayne Jackson (trumpet) and eventually became a
permanent sax player at Stax Records in 1965. For the next two years he played
on many huge Stax hits, but in 1967 left the company and started releasing his
own singles as well as playing with Bill Black’s Combo, prior to
becoming a session musician at Rick Hall’s Fame in Muscle Shoals. He
was also invited to Capricorn Studios in Macon, Georgia, and Criterion Studios
in Miami, and he was included on Atlantic’s list of sax players. In later
years he still worked with Aretha Franklin, played at Ardent Studios,
formed the Joe Arnold Band and in the 90s was hired to play in Bobby
Bland’s band. You can read David Mac’s fine interview with Joe at http://bluesjunctionproductions.com/the_monthly_artist_spotlight_joe_arnold.
These days Joe is planning to return to the recording scene again.
Chick Rodgers at Porretta Festival, 2015. Photo by Dave Thomas
CHICK RODGERS
I believe this
was the 4th time Chick Rodgers performed in Porretta, but I
only saw her for the first time... and was very impressed. This petite lady
with a big and powerful voice came on stage on Saturday and captivated the
audience from the very first minute with the lively I’ve Got to Use My
Imagination (Gladys Knight). It was followed by Don’t Play That
Song (Ben E. King), and Bernard “Pretty” Purdie wanted to join her
on the very emotional Dr. Feelgood. Another Aretha song, Baby I Love
You, followed, and as an encore we were treated to Stevie’s song, To
Know You Is to Love You (B.B. King). Still on Sunday Chick returned
with an intense rendition of A Natural Woman (Aretha again) and To
Know You Is to Love You.
Melvia
“Chick” Rodgers-Williams was born on October 23 in 1958 in Memphis, Tennessee. At ten she started singing in her father’s church in Memphis and at twenty she became the lead singer for an USO band, which led to touring,
also in Europe. She was the lead singer in a group called Clockwise, and
one big boost in her career took place in the late 80s, when she met Patti
LaBelle in Memphis and Patti praised Chick’s talent all over the media. Chick
moved to Chicago in 1989.
A big draw in
concerts and festivals - both at home, and in Europe (including Finland), Japan, Malaysia and Thailand - besides blues and soul, Chick is gaining reputation also in
jazz circles. On the recording front, there’s one CD, Essentially Yours, released
in 2008 on Koko Taylor’s Spellbound Records, which includes 11 tracks,
and last year they released an experimental EP titled This Kind of Love.
Produced by Frenchican Gilles Aniorte Tomassian, the music is a
fascinating mixture of pretty folk-soul, chamber-blues and melodic pop, with a
spoonful of jazz thrown in.
BERNARD “PRETTY” PURDIE
On Saturday
after playing with Chick Rodgers, Bernard Purdie returned on stage and
demonstrated his masterly drumming in a set, which, among others, included Memphis
Soul Stew (King Curtis) turned into Porretta Soul Stew, Funky
Donkey plus Rock Steady and Cold Sweat with Loralee
Christensen. It soon turned into a special occasion, as Graziano presented
Bernard with the Lifetime Achievement Award. Still on Sunday evening Bernard
drummed his way through three numbers.
Known as “the
world’s most recorded drummer” – he has allegedly played on over 3000 albums - Bernard
(www.bernardpurdie.com) was born in Elkton, Maryland, on June 11, 1939, or... 1941. Serious drumming started at the age of
fourteen, and it became a career after he moved to New York in 1960. Bernard
has at least twenty solo albums under his belt and – both on the road, and on
albums – he has played with Mickey and Sylvia, James Brown, King
Curtis, Gladys Knight, Aretha Franklin, Roberta Flack, Donny
Hathaway, Miles Davis, B.B. King and dozens and dozens more, including many
pop and rock luminaries.
In 2009 he
released with Jack Hoban and Gene McCormick an album entitled Jersey
Blue (Running Rogue), where styles and moods vary from pop, funk and jazz
all the way to hillbilly. And don’t forget Bernard’s autobiography, Let the
Drums Speak, published in October 2014.
Sugar Pie DeSanto at Porretta Festival, 2015. Photo by Dave Thomas
SUGAR PIE DESANTO
If I’m not
mistaken, also for Sugar Pie DeSanto this was the 4th time in
Porretta. Calling herself “an entertainer”, she certainly knows how to add
humour to the show. Be it communicating with the band, or giving strict orders
to the audience, she can be a comedienne with serious music background. Her
opening number on Saturday was her 1964 dancer on Checker, I Don’t Wanna
Fuss, and it was followed by two poignant and soulful ballads from her
latest CD, Life Goes on and I Don’t Care. Between those two she
squeezed in her first hit on Check/Veltone in 1960, the rolling I Want to
Know. The closing song was, as expected, her signature rocker, In the
Basement, which was also the last number in her set on Sunday.
Umpeylia
Marsema Balinton (http://sugarpiedesanto.com)
was born on October 16, 1935, in Brooklyn to an African-American mother and
Filipino father. She first recorded with Johnny Otis in 1955 and teamed
up with Pee Wee Kingsley two years later. After touring with James
Brown for two years, she signed with Chess Records in the early 60s for seven
years. Her main task was to write material for other artists, and most of her own
recordings there – over thirty songs – was canned. The two biggest hits were Slip-In
Mules (No High Heel Sneakers) on Checker in 1964 and In the Basement with
Etta James on Cadet in 1966. Sugar Pie left Chicago in the early 70s.
In the Bay Area,
since1984 Sugar Pie has released five albums on Jasman Records, and the latest
so far, Refined Sugar (in 2005), offers not only three uptempo and five
blues numbers, but also as many as five fine ballads (Life Goes On, How Many
Times, Darkness to the Light, I Don’t Care and I Need to Live Again)
and one soulful mid-pacer, Odds.
