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Evan Thomas

Evan Thomas has that thang. It’s in his inner soul, and that feeling which captures a down home essence, the foot stompin’, and head – nodding style, of the old Mississippi delta blues tone. It’s the grit, in his soulful voice and his cryin’ guitar which sets him apart. Evan Thomas’s classic, electric blues guitar style, is influenced by some of the great guitar players of our time, BB King, Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughn, and Jimi Hendrix. Evan Thomas Blues features some of the best Blues musicians from in and around the greater Bay Area. The Band is experienced and packs a potent performance, full of style and tone. Something fans of the Blues will not soon forget.

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Each week Aki brings with him a special guest performer!

www.akikumar.com/tuesday-night-blues-jam

About Aki Kumar:

Dynamic frontman & harp player Aki Kumar is a bonafide star among the next generation of West Coast blues artists and the world’s first professional blues harmonica player to hail from India. A master of the hugely influential Chicago blues sound, Kumar inherits his style from the harp legends of the 1950s and 60s. Aki has a unique voice in the blues, blending elements of blues harmonica pioneers of yesteryear with a signature sound of his own.

“..old school blues at its finest by way of India. And the lad has soul to spare.”
Dan Aykroyd aka Elwood Blues

Born and raised in Bombay (now Mumbai) – India, Kumar has long established his mark on the West Coast blues scene as a top-notch frontman, vocalist , entertainer and blues harp player. The Aki Kumar Blues Band has been the culmination of his journey through American roots music and constantly showcases his ever-evolving sound. This band performs vintage blues with tremendous skill and energy and is guaranteed to entertain audiences across all venues, from intimate listening rooms to large festivals.

“(Kumar) has a natural propensity for the music, with a rich, deep tone and a sensitive, economic style that emphasizes feel over flash.”
Jonny Whiteside, LA TIMES

In recent years, Aki Kumar has performed all across the United States and internationally (Norway, Finland, Sweden, Germany, UK, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Brazil, Chile, India), collaborating with some of the top blues artists on the scene. He has also contributed his blues harmonica licks to numerous recordings produced on the West Coast in the last decade, including several albums produced at the world renowned Greaseland Studios. This year marks another exciting year for Aki Kumar, with upcoming recording projects, internationals appearances and other musical collaborations across the world.

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Thompson was born in Oakland, California, United States, and had mastered basic guitar and slide guitar techniques by his mid-teens.[1] He was educated at Newark Memorial High School, in Newark, California.[2] In the early 1970s, Thompson played backing to Little Joe Blue, and worked solo and as a sideman in San Francisco Bay Area clubs. He joined John Lee Hooker’s backing band in 1975, staying with him for three years. In 1980, Thompson formed his own group, the Resisters, and secured a recording contract with Takoma Records.[1] He played at the San Francisco Blues Festival in 1978, 1979 and 1983.

In 1983, he released his debut album, Treat Her Like Gold. Thompson also found employment separately working with Lowell Fulson, Etta James and Big Mama Thornton. Thompson’s second album Resister Twister was released in 1987 and nominated for a Grammy Award,[3] plus 1990’s Just Like a Devil, was taken from his work on Mark Naftalin’s Blue Monday Party radio show.[1]

Thompson’s 2007 album, Resonator was a purely acoustic production.[3]

Pianist Sid Morris as a teenager in the 60’s he began playing piano in a blues band with South Bay blues pioneer Gary Smith. Gary later introduced him to pianist Alberto Gianquinto, a San Francisco native who was a member of the original James Cotton Blues Band. For a short time in the early 70’s, Alberto was his mentor. Currently residing in San Jose, Sid has been performing since 1970 and continues to be an active member of the San Francisco Bay Area music community. Raised in Houston, Texas before his family moved to the South Bay, Sid performed at the very first San Francisco Blues Festival in 1973 and subsequently appeared at four other SF Blues Festivals. During his early years on the scene, Sid was mentored by Alberto Gianquinto. In 1976, Sid participated in the now legendary recording of the album, Blue Bay, an anthology featuring the elite of Bay Area musicians.

Sometime in 1968, Willie Walker, sometimes known as Wee Willie Walker, recorded his final tracks for Goldwax Records. Goldwax was once the home of one of the premier Soul singers of all, James Carr, as well as Spencer Wiggins, Louis Williams and the Ovations and a host of others. To the best of my knowledge, Mr. Walker had laid down nine sides for the Memphis based company. That’s an odd number, which makes me want to believe there’s at least one more side out there.

Throughout the time he recorded in Memphis, he lived in Minnesota, and still does. The circumstances surrounding it all are rather unique but not sensational; as many others‚ life stories would be. The most spectacular part of it all was his voice. That was Willie’s vehicle that took him everywhere, from churches to Jewish Community Centers, from Sam Phillips‚ Studio to Rick Hall’s Fame Studio, and from Memphis to Minneapolis and back to Memphis.

Willie spoke of travelling in a Cadillac in the mid-to-late 1950’s with a Gospel group called the Redemption Harmonizers. (One incarnation of the Harmonizers included, Roosevelt Jamison, the author of the Soul standard “That’s How Strong My Love Is” and also a song Willie recorded, “There Goes My Used To Be,” which is now available on The Goldwax Story Volume 1. Kent 203) An early photo of Willie with the group shows him then as a 15 year-old in the matching suit flair of Gospel performers with a pencil-drawn moustache. The fake moustache was the only dishonesty I could find about the man and it’s that honesty that distinguishes Willie’s brand of Soul.

Even when I asked him his age, he clarified the slightest discrepancy. He said he was born in Hernando, Mississippi in 1941, even though he wasn’t really from there. He arrived while his mother was visiting her mother on December 21st. What he later found out when relocating to Minnesota and gathering his birth records, the state had his birth date listed as December 23rd, which was probably the date it was filed. Willie said, “It’s the 21st though. I always believe my mother.”

Willie relocated from Memphis to Minneapolis in 1960. The Redemption Harmonizers‚ tour had brought him this far North a couple of times and he told his band mates that upon their next visit to Minneapolis, he was going to stay there. A fellow Harmonizer who had family in Minneapolis defected with Willie at that time and since then Willie Walker has lived in Minnesota. His Minnesota connection was a member of another Gospel group, the Royal Jubileers and Willie found a home amongst them.

He first ventured into secular music when he met a man named Timothy Eason in a laundry mat. Tim said Willie looked like a guy who could sing and introduced him to his business partner, Jimmy Crittenden. Tim was also a friend of Dick Shapiro who was starting Central Booking. The band, the Val-Dons formed in a merger of Willie and some of his vocalist friends along with a group of musicians headed by local legend Willie Murphy. They were once described as “Little Richard meets the El Dorado’s.” Dick Shapiro had them booked into Jewish Community Centers all around the Twin Cities.

Willie did have some bouts with being homesick. He stated that his decision to live here was based on a summertime impression. He said it was pride that kept him here. He didn’t want to hear the “I told you so’s” from his old runnin’ buddies back in Memphis. Pride did not stop him from visiting though. It was on a trip back to Memphis in 1965 that Willie recorded his first track for Goldwax.

Willie said, “recording in Memphis was like getting a job. It was all about who you knew on the inside.” And the Goldwax roster was laden with musicians rooted in Gospel, just like Willie. He signed a contract with the label owners; Quinton Claunch and Doc Russell where the fruits of his labor were rewarded with some free airline accommodations between Minneapolis and Memphis. There were no hotel accommodations included in the package. Willie used to stay with his old friends, usually Roosevelt Jamison or George Jackson.

George Jackson was a prolific songwriter, lending his talents to such hits as Johnnie Taylor’s “Who’s Makin’ Love,” Clarence Carter’s “Too Weak To Fight” and even Bob Seger’s “Old Time Rock & Roll.” But Willie said George wasn’t getting his proper respect at Goldwax, claiming Claunch was squeezing Jackson. Walker claimed that Jackson sometimes would put up the money for studio time. Willie said, “You see, the people needed money. That’s what it was about. People would sell songs to people like Quinton Claunch for $35.00.”

Hence that’s how Quinton got his songwriting credits. Willie added, “Sometime, I’d go into the studio and Quinton would hand me a poem on a piece of paper. I’d start singin’ it, making it up (the melody) in my head and the band would put in the changes. On the record it said the song was written by him.”

If you haven’t guessed by now, Willie never saw a royalty check from Goldwax. Goldwax did supply him with boxes of 45’s when he returned to Minneapolis. Willie would then distribute them to the local record shop selling Soul music. But instead of sending Willie more singles to sell, when the music stores ran out of them, they ordered them from Goldwax, cutting out the middle-man, in this case, the artist himself.

It was quite the grass roots approach in music distribution considering Goldwax had a deal with Amy / Mala / Bell Records for distribution too. Also, Goldwax leased two singles to Checker Records. Checker, a subsidiary of Chess, a label synonymous with Chicago Blues was making a foray into southern soul, working with the musicians around Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Checker had released albums recorded by Etta James, Irma Thomas and other Soul singers backed by the Rick Hall’s funky conglomerate at Fame Studios.

Willie’s single “A Lucky Loser” b/w “Warm To Cool To Cold” (Checker 1211, 1968) did get some attention from noted Nashville Disc Jockey and hit maker, John Richbourg, a.k.a. John R. As the story goes, Willie got a call at his home from John R. and he asked Willie to introduce his new single on WLAC in Nashville. Willie thought it was a prank so when it came time to introduce the number, Willie said in reference to the moment, “I just started cussin’ and click went the phone.”

Another brush with the big time came when Willie was performing with a group called the Exciters (not the Exciters of “Tell Him” notoriety.) Through a connection Willie and his music were introduced to Curtis Mayfield. Mayfield wanted Walker to join the “Mayfield Family” but Willie was still under contract with Goldwax. When hearing that Mayfield was interested in Walker, Claunch set the buyout price of Walker’s contract at a mighty steep price, a price too high for Mayfield.

But Willie still persevered. Back in Minnesota, Willie found an old contact in Willie Murphy and became the original singer of Willie & The Bees. Walker and Murphy shared a past in the Val-Dons. After Willie and the Bees, there was Salt, Pepper and Spice, a Blood Sweat & Tears / Chicago-type horn band in the seventies.

Most recently, Willie has collaborated with the legendary Twin Cities-based soul/blues/R & B powerhouse The Butanes.  Together, they recorded three highly acclaimed modern soul records and toured the Netherlands, Switzerland and Japan.  He also fronts his own R & B unit, Willie Walker and We “R” with whom he has a monthly residency at the Minnesota Music Café in St. Paul.  Willie has also partnered up with Minnesota’s own Paul Metsa, renowned singer, songwriter, author and teller of tales.  It’s just Paul’s guitar work and Willie’s voice interpreting everything from “Blowin’ In The Wind” and “My Girl” to “What A Wonderful World” and “Good Time Charlie’s Got The Blues.”

Walker’s music comes from a different time, a different place and a different point of view. He’s one of the few vocalists from the era that is still standing and that can still sing. And the fact that we’re north of Chicago, there aren’t many people in this town that has a past like Walker. Willie, it’s good to have you in town.

Portions excerpted from Mike Elias’ article in The Chord……

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Each week Aki brings with him a special guest performer!

www.akikumar.com/tuesday-night-blues-jam

About Aki Kumar:

Dynamic frontman & harp player Aki Kumar is a bonafide star among the next generation of West Coast blues artists and the world’s first professional blues harmonica player to hail from India. A master of the hugely influential Chicago blues sound, Kumar inherits his style from the harp legends of the 1950s and 60s. Aki has a unique voice in the blues, blending elements of blues harmonica pioneers of yesteryear with a signature sound of his own.

“..old school blues at its finest by way of India. And the lad has soul to spare.”
Dan Aykroyd aka Elwood Blues

Born and raised in Bombay (now Mumbai) – India, Kumar has long established his mark on the West Coast blues scene as a top-notch frontman, vocalist , entertainer and blues harp player. The Aki Kumar Blues Band has been the culmination of his journey through American roots music and constantly showcases his ever-evolving sound. This band performs vintage blues with tremendous skill and energy and is guaranteed to entertain audiences across all venues, from intimate listening rooms to large festivals.

“(Kumar) has a natural propensity for the music, with a rich, deep tone and a sensitive, economic style that emphasizes feel over flash.”
Jonny Whiteside, LA TIMES

In recent years, Aki Kumar has performed all across the United States and internationally (Norway, Finland, Sweden, Germany, UK, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Brazil, Chile, India), collaborating with some of the top blues artists on the scene. He has also contributed his blues harmonica licks to numerous recordings produced on the West Coast in the last decade, including several albums produced at the world renowned Greaseland Studios. This year marks another exciting year for Aki Kumar, with upcoming recording projects, internationals appearances and other musical collaborations across the world.

A pioneer in the Craft Beer movement, North Coast Brewing Company opened in 1988 as a local brewpub in the historic town of Fort Bragg, located on California’s Mendocino Coast.

Under the leadership of former President & Co-Founder Mark Ruedrich, the brewery has developed a strong reputation for quality, having won more than 110 awards in national and international competitions.

Featuring Red Seal Ale, Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout, Scrimshaw Pilsner, Brother Thelonious Abbey Ale, North Coast Steller IPA and other fine North Coast brands, we continue our mission to “Make the World a Better Place, One Pint at a Time”.

These exceptional beers are available in 48 states now and also are exported to Europe and the Pacific Rim.

North Coast Brewing Company is also a leader in philanthropy and sustainability. In addition to being a Certified B Corp and Benefit Corporation, the brewery is proud to be TRUE Platinum Zero Waste Certified, offer 14 Non-GMO Project Verified beers, and spearhead an innovative carbon farming project to reverse its carbon footprint and advance the science of carbon sequestration in agriculture.

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The Bay Area’s own Chrome Deluxe is a unique and talented band of musicians who share a passion for music and performance. The band provides high quality entertainment for private and public functions; including top Bay Area nightclubs, corporate events and festivals.

Chrome Deluxe has gained a reputation as one of the most diverse R&B, Swing and Blues based bands in the Bay Area with their own special take on both classics and current favorites. Particularly popular with fans who like to dance. The group draws from the innovators of American music while translating the music into their own sound and bringing the audience quality entertainment and a truly fun musical experience.

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Mitch Woods and His Rocket 88s have been the torchbearers of a great American blues musical heritage, not for three years but three decades. Taking their inspiration from the great jump n’ boogie outfits of the late 40s and early 50s, they breathe fresh life into the music that gave birth to rock n’roll. Woods styled his group after the jumpin’ n’ jivin’, shoutin’ n’ honkin’, pumpin’ n’ poundin’ bands of Louis Jordan, Wynonie Harris, Joe and Jimmy Liggins, Amos Milburn, and Roy Milton. Adding a healthy dose of New Orleans rhythm and blues, piledrivin’ piano, and some of his own contemporary playful lyrics, Woods and His Rocket 88s forge their own brand of music they call “rock-a-boogie.”

Born in Brooklyn in 1951, Mitch Woods began playing classical piano at eleven, but his real initiation into blues and boogie piano had already been assured at age eight. “My mom would hire this superintendent of the building, a black man, Mr. Brown, to take me to school, and we stopped off at his cousin’s house, where somebody was playing boogie-woogie piano. It really hit me.”

Woods was putting together bands in Greenwich Village by his mid-teens. By the time he entered the University of Buffalo, Woods was sitting in at local clubs and discovering records by boogie-woogie pioneers Meade Lux Lewis, Albert Ammons, and Pete Johnson. Woods came to San Francisco in 1970, and for the next five years performed as Mitch Woods and His Red Hot Mama (with singer Gracie Glassman). One night Oakland guitarist Hi Tide Harris heard Woods opening for Charlie Musselwhite and was reminded of the sound and theatrics of early R&B pioneer Louis Jordan. Indeed, Jordan has always been a primary influence on Woods. “I actually did see Louie Jordan in Oakland. He was the bridge between swing and rock and roll. He would do a five or six piece band, get a lot of power out of that.”

That kind of power was to become rallying cry for Mitch’s next project, Mitch Woods and His Rocket 88s, which started in 1980 and quickly rose to the top of the Northern California club circuit. Their first album, Steady Date (Blind Pig Records) got hot reviews in 1984 and led to appearances at two San Francisco Blues Festivals, openings for the Fabulous Thunderbirds, Stevie Ray Vaughan, The Blasters, The Neville Brothers, and James Brown. By 1987, Woods was doing a six-country Europe tour highlighted by a rousing performance at the Belgium Rhythm and Blues Festival.

In 1988, the 88s released Mr. Boogie’s Back In Town (Blind Pig Records) and music pundits started to acknowledge Woods’ place in the ranks of American music: “Woods lays down an authentic 50s-vintage rock piano groove, comparable in power and rhythmic nuance to classic recordings by the young Jerry Lee Lewis,” said Keyboard Magazine.

On 1991 album Solid Gold Cadillac, Woods and his band were joined by Ronnie Earl, Charlie Musselwhite and the Roomful of Blues Horns. Woods himself was starting to become a guest star, appearing on that year’s new releases by John Lee Hooker and John Hammond, and the boogie pianist headlined both the Amsterdam Blues Festival and the Montreal Jazz Festival.

Woods was developing his passion for band leading and discovering the power of being a strong singer. “I’ll always consider myself a piano player, but my voice has developed over the last few years. It’s an incredible release, when you can sing, it’s like blowing an axe, and it’s great to entertain an audience,” he says. Another interest was taking hold, too – the funky piano-driven music of New Orleans. Woods had long been infatuated with the music of the Big Easy. “I’m a boogie woogie and blues piano player for the most part, but I also incorporate other styles within that, like the New Orleans influence. New Orleans R&B piano playing, like Dr. John, of course Professor Longhair. “New Orleans has been a really great source of inspiration, it’s a piano town. New Orleans reveres the piano player. People respect me and I appreciate that. I’ve always been able to feel a real sense of music there; if you’re a good player, you get in. For the past 25 years it has become my second home, ” Woods says. “I’ve gotten to play with all the great players who live there, and I just hire them, guys from Fats Domino’s band, like Red Tyler, sax player, Johnny Vidakovich, drummer with the Professor, and George Porter on bass.

Woods toured constantly in the mid-1990s, stopping long enough to put out Shakin’ the Shack (Blind Pig Records) in 1998. Woodswrote all but one song, demonstrating how well he’s absorbed the conventions of blues and boogie woogie music, further proving his ability to inject new life into these vintage forms. Woods also realized another dream in 1998 when he brought together some of the surviving kings of the American blues legacy, like John Lee Hooker, James Cotton, Johnnie Johnson, Earl King and Lee Allen, to make Keeper Of The Flame (Lightyear/WEA Records), all paired with Woods in a wonderful run of classic tunes.

Jump For Joy, Mitch’s fifth release for Blind Pig Records continues Woods’ spin down the boogie road. He had always followed the boogie greats like Louie Jordan and Louie Prima, but Jump For Joy keyed off a new influence. “I started to listen to Cab Calloway, and this new one has lots of Cab influence; six horns, eleven-piece band with doubled horn lines. He (Calloway) had a great entertainment style, very similar to Louie Jordan’s, and that’s what we’ve gone for here,” he says. Woods says Jump For Joy will unite all factions in the dress-up-and-boogie scene. “Aside from the blues audience, we’ve been developing the whole swing crowd, so this will appeal to the swing dancers as well as the blues lovers.” On Jump For Joy, Mitch Woods has gone the limit, writing sassy boogie tunes and crafting smooth arrangements that evoke the heyday of the dancehall Forties.

On his CD/DVD project, Big Easy Boogie, Mitch brings together the inner circle of Rock’n’ Roll royalty. Featuring some of New Orleans’ legends including original members of the Fats Domino band, Herb Hardesty and the Blue Monday Horns, and Jimmy Moliere on guitar, the sound is true to the roots New Orleans R&B. It is vintage rock’n’roll and boogie inspired by New Orleans piano greats Fats Domino, Professor Longhair, and Little Richard, performed in Mitch’s joyous entertaining style that makes you feel like you are not only in the audience but on stage with him having a ball! Whether it is a pounding piano pumper, a Mardi Gras mambo, or a moody late night blues with cascading piano and sultry sax, Mitch Woods’ Big Easy Boogie will delight all lovers of New Orleans music.

After spending more than twenty five years soaking up the New Orleans sound and performing with many of the Crescent City’s musical elite, Mitch has finally realized his dream of recording his latest project with the founding fathers of New Orleans R&B including Earl Palmer, Dave Bartholomew, and Herb Hardesty. Woods reunited the surviving members of Fats Domino’s original band, played a live show in New Orleans during the Jazz & Heritage Festival, took them into the studio, and filmed the whole shebang. The results are plenty of good-time, rock’n’roll boogie, played by the originators of the style, fronted by one of their star pupils. The CD/DVD, Big Easy Boogie is available worldwide on Club 88 Records. It has been garnering airplay on all the major satellite and cable radio stations, including XM (#3 on picks to click-Bluesville), Sirius, Music Choice, as well as BBC 2 and blues programs worldwide.

Here are what the critics are saying about Big Easy Boogie:
“A two-fisted love letter to Fats Domino and Professor Longhair” — Blues Revue

“if it’s legitimate roots and Soul music from N’awlins that’s your passion, step right up for here it is,…by Woods and company.” — Blues Wax

“Mitch Woods’ Big Easy Boogie is a loving tribute to the vintage New Orleans sounds of Fats Domino, Little Richard and Professor Longhair” —Philadelphia Inquirer

In 2007 Mitch was nominated for Pinetop Perkins Piano Player of the Year Award at the Blues Awards in Memphis. Presented by the Blues Foundation this is one of the highest achievements a blues musician can earn. Mitch continues to tour worldwide with both his Rocket 88’s and Big Easy Boogie. He has performed at some of the world’s most prestigious music festivals and venues, including Jazz A Vienne – France, Umbria Jazz Festival-Italy, San Javier International Jazz Festival – Spain, International Boogie Woogie Festival – Lugano, Switzerland, Lionel Hampton Jazz Club at Le Meridien – Paris, Edmonton Blues Festival – Canada, The Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise -2000-2012 , Taiwan Blues Bash – Taiwan, Copenhagen Jazz Festival-Denmark, New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, and many, many more.

In 2010 Mitch released Gumbo Blues his tribute to the legendary New Orleans blues shouter Smiley Lewis. Once again he assembled his all-star New Orleans musicians, including members of Dr. John, Fats Domino, Alan Toussaint, and Jon Cleary’s bands. Leading to appearances at The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and many others worldwide as well as another Blues Award nomination and critical acclaim.
If NOLA isn’t part of your start-up DNA, that can be fixed with a healthy dose of Mitch Woods’ Gumbo Blues. After a listen, you’ll feel as if you’ve visited the Crescent City of the 1950s.

In October 2010, Mitch embarked with his band the Rocket 88’s on a tour of Turkey with the Efes Blues Festival, playing 26 shows in 20 cities over 5 weeks.

“I was deeply impressed with the warmth and hospitality of the people and their openness and enthusiasm for the American musical form we call “the Blues”. It made me realize that we are musical ambassadors-able to cross cultural, religious, and national borders that most people cannot. In this CD and DVD I document our tour of the Republic of Turkey, a secular nation with 99% Muslim population that straddles the border of east and west, geographically and culturally. On this journey I realized in my heart and soul that music truly crosses all boundaries and Blues is certainly beyond borders.”