News

February 18, 2014 -- If you live in America and you love Roots Music, you celebrate Black History Month year-round. This month we'd like to take the time to mention four great musicians who also happened to be blind: Blind Willie Johnson, Blind Blake, Blind Boy Fuller and Blind Lemon Jefferson. Many rural blues artists found their way into musical careers because of disabilities that prevented them from getting regular work.

We're sad to share the news that Shirley Lewis, Boston's regal "Queen of the Blues," passed away on Sunday after a battle with cancer. Shirley was a musical mother and mentor to many of us in the Boston Blues community. She had seemingly limitless positive energy and a take-no-prisoners approach onstage that made her a popular draw for decades. She fostered many young musicians' careers, and when it was time to take wing she ungrudgingly let them fly the nest and continued to offer encouragement and support.

Calling all harmonica fans, blues history buffs, curious bystanders...we're promoting an exclusive, one-night-only screening of a new harmonica documentary, Pocket Full of Soul on Thursday, February 28 at the Landmark Embassy Cinema in Waltham, MA. The movie is narrated by Huey Lewis and features some big and small names in harmonica - I think I get my 3 seconds of fame here too. However, if we don't meet the threshold of 81 tickets reserved by February 21st, they will cancel the screening.

A few musings on the change of seasons as time yanks us forward like a puppy on a leash: Musicians are in the business of keeping time.  With or without formal training, we need to recognize the difference between quarter notes and triplets, "swing time" and "straight eighths," and revere the existence of a "pocket."  Ironically, many of us are chronically tardy for real-world appointments, and frequently have empty pockets.