Your Complete Guide to the Chicago Blues Scene
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Your Complete Guide to the Chicago Blues Scene |
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The First Ever
European Blues Cruise
Sunday 31st August -
Thursday 4th September 2014
Starring Chicago
blues greats: John Primer, Toronzo Cannon, Ronnie Hicks, Mike Wheeler,
Peaches Staten, Demetria Taylor, Omar Coleman and more!
By Glenn Noble
Photos: Jennifer
Noble
While the Legendary
Rhythm & Blues Cruise is a well-established and popular feature of the
U.S. blues scene, not so in Europe - at least until the Blues Society of
Marseille, France stepped in this Fall.
Under the directorship of Lisa Panoyan, the Society engaged nine
of the top artists on the Chicago blues scene and negotiated with French
cruise company Croisieres de France to host the first ever European
Blues Cruise. This would leave from the beautiful and ancient port city
of Marseille and take a leisurely course through the Mediterranean Sea,
touching the Spanish Balearic Islands of Menorca, Ibiza and Majorca
before returning home.
No sooner had the
good ship Horizon cleared the
breakwater of the port of Marseille, than the Chicago blues hit the
stage. Shaded by a white
awning from the fiery Mediterranean sun, on a stage overlooking the
sunbathers and swimmers, Mike
Wheeler kicked the party off. With a set mixing his own material -
notably from his latest Delmark CD
Self Made Man - with some of
the classics, good-natured Mike’s warm grin and infectious humour drew a
crowd of dancers up right off the bat. This gave us an early look at the
backing band too -- Ronnie Hicks
on keys and occasional vocals too,
David Forte on bass and
drummer Chris Alexander --
all of whom were going to be working pretty hard for the next few days!
Moving in from the
sunshine, an invited audience of blues fans arrived to hear the artists
get set up for their later shows, in the nightclub ambiance of the
“Sapphire Club”. The
soundcheck gave us the first taste of what was to come from featured
artists John Primer, Toronzo
Cannon, Omar Coleman and
Demetria Taylor, before all scattered to grab some dinner ahead of
the main performance of the night by Demetria.
So on to the “Salon
Rendezvous”, a lounge with a low stage surrounded by mirrors and
centered around the dance floor, which filled as soon as
Demetria Taylor, daughter of
Chicago legend Eddie Taylor, roared into “Voodoo Woman” and “Bad Girl”,
from her album of the same name.
Getting the already excited crowd to sing along to “Hey
Bartender” was no problem as Demetria hopped down onto the dance floor
to shake it a little and when she growled into “Hoochie Coochie Woman”
everybody knew she was there!
After providing great support on guitar from the start of the set
Toronzo Cannon and
Mike Wheeler switched out to
let John Primer and
Omar Coleman take the set
down a more bluesy road, before Demetria took over again, winding up on
Koko Taylor’s signature “Wang Dang Doodle” and for an encore, turning
the whole audience into Chicagoans, singing along to a rousing “Sweet
Home Chicago”. Quite the
opening night!
Day Two of the cruise
brought a visit to the port of Mahon on the Spanish island of
Menorca, where apparently
mayonnaise was invented! On departure,
Mike Wheeler once more took
the open-air stage for the afternoon show, providing a sunny, up-tempo
start to the day’s musical entertainment.
Later, within the “Grand Theatre” -
a plush affair complete with red velvet banquettes and a balcony
- Toronzo Cannon emerged
dramatically from a cloud of dry ice for the first of his two sets of
the night. Opening salvos
from Toronzo’s own material (“She Loved Me”) contrasted with a soulful
and delicate rendering of Albert King’s “As the Years Go Passing By” and
an absolutely classic Chicago sound in Elmore James’ “Talk to Me Baby”.
Some excellent showmanship from Toronzo, as he dropped to all fours and
started playing his guitar with his teeth and then a bunch of Pete
Townsend-style jumps, which earned a standing ovation from the
mesmerized crowd!
After a brief
interval, the second set opened with a
Ronnie Hicks segment,
first dedicating “Ain’t No Sunshine” to the lady who organised the
whole event, Lisa Panoyan of the Marseille Blues Society. A brace of Ray
Charles numbers included, “What I’d Say”—which allowed Ronnie take some
exercise by strolling through the theatre during the call and response
section -- and “You Don’t Know Me.”
Toronzo came back in
front to turn up the heat again, ripping through the old rock’n’roll
classics “Tutti Frutti” and “Great Balls of Fire” to close out on a
Muddy Waters/Jimi Hendrix mashup of “Got My Mojo Working”.
Not that the audience was going to let Toronzo go at that, and so
a storming version of “Let Me Love You Baby,” with
Mike Wheeler, Demetria Taylor and
Peaches Staten joining in,
took an energetic, entertaining show to its conclusion.
During the night, our
floating home gently brought us to the island of
Ibiza, best known for its
hectic nightlife and dance music clubs. Our host, Lisa, had arranged an
excursion for the artists to explore the island’s more natural
attractions, which was refreshing.
However, time and tide wait for no man, so as the afternoon came
around, it was “All aboard”.
Once more the afternoon show accompanied our departure, this time
with Peaches Staten fronting
the band. The sun was hot,
and so was Peaches’ pink outfit! The set covered traditional blues
territory (”I’ll Play the Blues for You,” “Big Boss Man”) but Peaches
sprinkled in some more contemporary material (“It Must Be Love”, “Bad
Case of Loving You”) and also took a trip back to her southern roots as
she strapped on the frottoir for some down home Zydeco action joined by
Omar Coleman on harp.
Peaches is a very versatile artist, and injects energy and verve into
whatever style of music she performs.
The big show of the
evening was John Primer in
the Grand Theatre. Harp
player Omar Coleman opened
by playing a walking blues number; John then took center stage, riffing
effortlessly with the crowd through Muddy Waters’ “You Don’t Have to Go”
and “Mule Kicking In My Stall” (a great storytelling song).
Warmed up and hitting his stride, John showed off what the
real Chicago blues should sound like.
Tracks like “Mannish
Boy” can get overplayed, but not so when executed by such authentic and
talented hands. A big
dancing party broke out stage right
as John and the band threw out some fast shuffles; Ronnie Hicks put
together a wild solo on keys
before winding up the show by
pulling everyone in the auditorium to their feet to sing together and
clap along, as the song said “You Got to Pull Together”.
Overall, the show left a sense of having seen a relaxed,
effortless performance by a real master of his craft, projecting a warm
and engaging personality.
It was a real highlight to take us into the last part of the cruise.
After touching shore
in Palma de Majorca, we
started the homeward leg of the cruise back to Marseille with the now
customary poolside show. Mike
Wheeler backed Peaches
Staten as they “Let It Roll” through some “Down Home Blues”. Once
more Peaches spread her net across many genres aside from standard blues
fare, hitting classic Louis Jordan and Nina Simone tunes as well as
getting the poolside crowd grooving to Louisiana bayou sounds - assisted
by the guest artistes on the frottoir, Lisa, Elise and Amal from the
Blues Society. A ‘70s
classic from the Marshall Tucker Band, “Can’t You See,” segued into “Hey
Jude” for a big singalong finish in the afternoon sunshine.
A second invitation-only event for the blues fans aboard, an all-star jam, filled the early evening slot. Lead off by Demetria and Toronzo, it was a tag-team affair as each artist made way for the next. Ronnie Hicks once again filled the floor with his beautiful Ray Charles tributes, while Peaches gave everyone a dance lesson with her “Buck, Bounce, Boogie”. Omar Coleman “did right, even though he wanted to do wrong”. John Primer let us know “My Name is John Primer” and set up a grand finale leading the ensemble on “Hey Hey, the Blues is All Right”. What a storming way to end a fantastic voyage!
As the passengers
disembarked on Thursday morning, the feedback from the cruisers, the
musicians and the Marseille Blues Society folks was that this was an
outstanding success. All credit to Lisa and her team for putting this
together - the more so in view of the fact the Society is barely three
years old and has only 25 members.
Their plan is to do it again as soon as funding allows, and the
vision is to grow it to the point where a whole ship can be full of
blues cruisers. Good luck
on your future mission!
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