Well…. we’ve been on the air a few weeks now, and so far looks like it’s going pretty well, so thought we’d share the fact that my radio alter-ego, Sleepy Boy Hawkins, is hosting a radio show devoted to exploring every facet of the blues on Community Radio Station KXCI FM 91.3 from 2-4am MST, every Wednesday. What’s that you say? Not an insomniac who lives in Southern Arizona? No problem, just visit us on the web at www.kxci.org — there’ll, you also find our playlists from previous shows. Unfortunately, the webmaster at KXCI hasn’t caught up with the fact that Wednesday 2-4am slot now has another name and another DJ…. sigh…. well, that’s OK…. they just finished their successful Spring Pledge Drive too, so maybe they’ve got a few other things on their ‘to do’ list these days.
I was going to see about posting old show archives to this blog, but don’t think wordpress accepts audio files. And anyway, just found out the nifty software I purchased to record my show isn’t, uh, apparently so ‘user friendly’ as I thought (LOL). Well, as we work on getting all the glitches out of the system, stay tuned for our upcoming shows…. one will be a tribute to Joe Bihari’s Flair Records, and another will be on under-heralded West Coast Blues Guitarists. Previous shows have focused on Bobby’s Robinson’s labels (Fire, Fury, Enjoy, etc), Unreleased-on-Sun (great blues recordings that Sam Phillips never released as singles), Detroit Down Home Post War Blues, The Roots of Rock in 1940s Blues, Bentonia, Mississippi Blues and a look at the post-war R&B and Blues scene in Shreveport, Louisiana.
We’ve been having an utter blast doing the show so far, and hopefully the good folks at KXCI will see to it to find us a permanent slot in the schedule (as this is just, for the time being, a ‘test drive’).
And, in case your wondering, yes, the name of the show pays homage to the world’s first English-language publication devoted solely to covering all aspects of the Blues. Founded in the spring of 1963 by British Blues fanatics Simon Napier and Mike Leadbitter, Blues Unlimited was at the epicenter of the Blues Revival of the 1960s, and enjoyed a print run of almost 25 years. In the process, it became a cornerstone of Blues literature and research, as their pages were filled with many one-of-a-kind items, articles, rare interviews, and on-the-spot concert reports– not to mention a killer photographic archive– and on one particularly memorable occasion, Arthur ‘Big Boy’ Crudup’s recipe for home-made sour mash whiskey (Uh, kids, don’t try that at home, OK?). Champions of the famous as well as not-so-famous, the ‘knowns’ as well as the ‘unknowns’, one was just as likely to read about Dr. Isaiah Ross, Calvin Frazier, or Baby Boy Warren in the pages of BU as you were Sonny Boy Williamson, Muddy Waters or T-Bone Walker. Napier and Leadbitter were not only possessed of a natural curiosity and impeccable taste, but they also each had an immense knowledge that meshed quite well together (Simon tended to cover pre-war Blues, Mike, the post-war stuff, although a notable exception was that Simon was apparently a huge fan of Elmore James– as was Mike, of course; quite often, the task of reviewing Elmore’s latest LP would fall on Simon’s shoulders…. something I tend to think he rather relished doing).
Sadly, Mike and Simon both passed on long before their time was due. And while it’s true that they left behind some mighty big shoes to fill, Blues Unlimited on the airwaves hopes to pay tribute to two pioneering spirits of Blues literature by capturing just a fraction of the passion and enthusiasm that filled each and every page of BU. If we can manage to do that, then hopefully we’ll have a pretty good little radio show on our hands, and perhaps our listeners will agree with us as well.
Oh yeah, and there’s more great blues on KXCI too…. Marty Kool does a fantastic retrospective called the ‘Blues Review’ which airs every Saturday evening from 5-9pm MST, which he’s been doing for almost 25 years. Keep up the good work Marty!
