This new-fangled newsletter is a work in progress. Constant Contact has required me to rebuild it with little instruction so please bear with me as we get the bugs out. Hope everyone is lined up for their vaccination so we can get back to some semblance of normal and maybe...just maybe, hear some live music. I know Bob is dying to reopen the Rhythm Room but says he won't until given a safe green light. Today's feature is the late Sam Myers, who found a home in Anson's band for several years. This is the article I was going to post when the computer crashed. it's probably obvious by now we won't be staging our festival again this year for the same reason as last. We have a date for 2022 and hope we caan pull it off. Remember your mask, wash your hands and stay 6 feet away from everyone you come in contact with. I'll be working on this thing so thanks for being patient. Sincerely, Jim Crawford - PBS | |
Out & About Tuesday, January 26 Waiting out the virus: Cold Shott & The Hurricane Horns www.coldshott.com The Sugar Thieves www.sugarthieves.com Gary Zak & The Outbacks www.outbackbluesband.com Hans Olson www.hansolson.net Rocket 88s www.rocket88s.net JC& The Rockers www.thejukerockers.com Carvin Jones www.carvinjones.com Hoodoo Casters www.hoodoocasters.com Rhythm Room www.rhythmroom.com Nina Curri www.ninacurri.com Paris James www.parisjames.com Mother Road Trio www.motherroadtrio.com Blues Review Band Reverbnationbluesmanmike Mike Eldred www.mikeeldredtrio.com Big Daddy D & The Dynamites Facebook Cadillac Assembly Line Facebook Innocent Joe and the Hostile Witnesses Facebook Chuck Hall Facebook Pop Top Facebook Acme Blues Band Facebook Sweet Baby Ray http://raydesylvester.com Wednesday, February 10 Thursday, March 11 Hans Olson, 6 p.m., CANCELED Handlebar, Apache Junction Mike Eldred Trio, 8 p.m., Kazimerz, Scottsdale Carvin Jones, 7 p.m., The Living Room, Phoenix Friday, March 12 Carvin Jones, 6 p.m., Dillon’s KC BBQ, Glendale Leon J, 11;30 a.m., DA Ranch, Cornville Blues Review Band, 8 p.m., All-American, Fountain Hills Saturday, March 13 Carvin Jones, 7 p.m., Divided Wine, Gilbert Leon J, 11;30 a.m., DA Ranch, Cornville BluZone Duo, 6 p.m., Voodoo Daddy’s Tempe Sunday, March 14 Carvin Jones, 2 p.m., Rosati’s Pizza, New River Leon J, 11;30 a.m., DA Ranch, Cornville Monday, March 15 | | Mr. Myers By Denise Estes Sam Myers has been in the entertainment business for a long time. He has worked hard and invested a lot of time to make something of his talents. At 44, he may not have reached the biggest of the big times, but, to him, "everyday brings a change when you're climbing up the ladder." "I had a great struggle when I started out," he said. "Opportunities didn't come on a silver platter. You had to really put some hard work and time into it. I've been stranded in a lot of places trying to make a buck to get back home. But you've got to get that experience to really know how it is," said Myers, a local blues singer and musician. Myers, who has suffered a cataract condition since age 14 that makes him almost blind, started in music at 10. As early as 14, he was spending his summers away from school on stage with established Chicago musicians and looking for work. Although born in Mobile, Ala., he considers himself a Jacksonian be-cause he attended Piney Woods as a youngster. Piney Woods where he first became interested in music, was once located in Mobile, but later moved to Jackson. "One day while at school I heard a band playing," he said. "I asked Jonas Brown, who, even though I didn't know at the time, had been placed with me to find out my interests, where the music was coming from. He told me that it was the band playing and asked me if I wanted to go and watch. I said yes, and from there I went off into music. It was some-thing that really inspired me to stay in school," he said. In the meantime, Brown, now a minister in Jackson, went back to tell the principal of Piney Woods that he had finally found out what Myers was interested in, said Myers. "At first," said Myers, "I kept saying to myself 'I'm going to run away from this place.' but after becoming interested in music. I never wanted to leave the school when my mother would come to get me." During school he learned to play the drums, trumpet and trombone. He played with the marching band, swing band and sang with the choir. "The swinging band was really something then." he said. Myers, who recently returned from a tour of Europe has been performing around Jackson for the past 20 years. His fans are always' yelling. "Sing it Sam." And those that hear him for the first time after an ear of Sam's smooth blues, become loyal fans. In Northeast Jackson, he has per-formed at the Lamar Emporium, George Street Upstairs, C.W. Goodnight and recently performed at the Sheraton's Pyramid Lounge. Myers has written three albums and two singles. His three albums are on the T.J. Records label out of San Francisco. One of the singles was done on an ACE label and the other on the FIRE label of New York. In 1957, he recorded a single. "Sleeping in the Ground" and "My Love is Here to Stay" under the ACE label. In 1959, he recorded, "You Don't Have To Go" and "Sad, Sad Lonesome Day," a single under the FIRE label. While playing at Richard's Playhouse on Farish Street one night in 1978, an agent from T.J. Associates offered him a five-year contract with the company. "It sounded good to me so I signed," said Myers. Under his present contract he has recorded three albums, "Down Home Mississippi," his biggest seller, "Sam Myers Sings the Blues." and his latest release "The Worlds Wonder." Myers has been in and out of recording studios and has traveled with popular musicians since he got into the music business. He has played and recorded with Muddy Water and other Chicago_ musicians. "At that time it was hard for me to get off into nightclubs as a solo performer,” he said. A lot of musicians have influenced Myers music. He has worked with Jimmy Smith an organist. and Charles Brown. a blues and jazz musician, both great artists of the 40s. "They influenced me to hang in there.' He also has also worked with Elmore James, a famous jazz guitarist and was also inspired by the music of trumpet player Broff Davis of Jackson State University, he said. After retiring from the road for a while, Myers started working full-time in a factory at the Mississippi Industry for the Blind and has worked there for the past 14 years. “But,” he said, “up until then I had always been able to make a living in the music business." Outside of entertaining, the work at the Industries for the Blind was the only other job he has ever had. "In fact, it was the first time ever having a Social Security card," he said. For 10 of his years at his new job, Myers was out of the music business, but he never got it out of his blood. He said, “It wasn't fun living out of a suitcase, doing one-nighters, but when the guys (musicians) would come to town and I'd chat with them and ask them how it had been going and they'd tell me it was 'OK man' or when they'd get on the bus and leave. I’d get homesick.” Sam Myers got a second chance at the brass ring, and he happily made the most of it. As frontman for Anson Funderburgh & the Rockets, the legally blind Myers's booming voice and succinct harp work have enjoyed a higher profile recently than ever before. Although he was born and mostly raised in Mississippi, Myers got into the habit of coming up to visit Chicago as early as 1949 (where he learned from hearing Little Walter and James Cotton). Myers joined a band, King Mose & the Royal Rockers, after settling in Jackson, MS, in 1956. Myers's 1957 debut 45 for Johnny Vincent's Ace logo, "Sleeping in the Ground"/"My Love Is Here to Stay," featured backing by the Royal Rockers. Myers played both drums and harp behind slide guitar great Elmore James at a 1961 session for Bobby Robinson's Fire label in New Orleans. Myers cut a standout single of his own for Robinson's other logo, Fury Records, the year before that coupled his appealing remake of Jimmy Reed's "You Don't Have to Go" with "Sad, Sad Lonesome Day." Myers made some albums with a loosely knit group called the Mississippi Delta Blues Band for TJ during the early '80s before teaming up with young Texas guitar slinger Funderburgh, whose insistence on swinging grooves presents the perfect backdrop for Myers. Their first collaboration for New Orleans-based Black Top Records, 1985's My Love Is Here to Stay, was followed by several more albums -- Sins, Rack 'Em Up, Tell Me What I Want to Hear, 1995's Live at the Grand Emporium -- each one confirming that this was one of the most enduring blues partnerships of the 1990s. In 2004, Myers released his first solo album, Coming from the Old School, just two years before he died, on July 17, 2006. | | |
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