Photographer unknown So now the New England music scene has lost another one. As most of you will know by now, Bob Angell passed away on December 6th - he had been suffering from cancer.  Bob was not just a musician leading his long-established group Blues Outlet, he wrote for the Providence weekly The New Paper, he taught English - in short, he was a regular Renaissance man. He was also a tireless evangelist for the blues.  As a journalist, he knew the importance of publiciz

Photo by Ken Kay Like everyone who knew him, I was horrified to learn over the weekend that Rory MacLeod,  while out walking his dog, had been killed by an out-of-control automobile driven by an out-of-control woman early on Saturday morning, December 6th. in Hopkinton, RI. Doug James, the baritone saxophonist for Roomful of Blues, introduced me to Rory shortly after I started working with Roomful in 1981, and our mutual interest in music drew us together immediately. Rory wa

Jimmy's groundbreaking album on Trojan Records The news of Jimmy Cliff’s death on Monday, November 24th, 2025 buried me in a veritable blizzard of emotions, memories, and long-forgotten scenarios, in all of which his music had been the soundtrack.   My first job at Island Records in 1965, looking through the racks of 45s down in the basement at 108 Cambridge Road, and noting the titles by him, ‘Hurricane Hatty’, ‘Miss Jamaica’, ‘Since Lately’, ‘One Eyed Jacks’, ‘King of Kings

by Opal Louis Nations and Bob Bell A short note here: As Opal writes below, the first installment of this piece ran in Blues and Rhythm...