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Treasures Untold, Pt 2.
A MODERN 78RPM READER THE LUST FOR SHELLAC: Confessions of an addict, Part 2. My good friend Josh Rosenthal who heads Tompkins Square...
Bob Bell
May 3123 min read
TREASURES UNTOLD, Part 1.
A MODERN 78 RPM READER THE LUST FOR SHELLAC: Confessions of an addict, Part 1. My good friend Josh Rosenthal who heads Tompkins Square...
Bob Bell
May 1316 min read
TWO GUITARS - ONE SOUND DUKE ROBILLARD meets SOULSHOT featuring Andy Bassford and Mark Berney
Rhode Island guitarist and singer Duke Robillard, a musician steeped in the blues, has teamed up with Rhode Island’s Soulshot, a band steeped in Jamaican music, to make one of the year’s most interesting, listenable and danceable records, ‘Two Guitars - One Sound’, a mainly instrumental album featuring Andy Bassford and Mark Berney.
Bob Bell
May 310 min read
RUSTY ZINN'S LATEST - 'OH DARLING'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuIscCrlrCo Rusty Zinn is one of those musicians, whether singing or playing the guitar, who has perfect...
Bob Bell
Apr 32 min read
Mark Hummel’s Harmonica Party
A living archive of post-war music of America, from blues to San Francisco psychedelia, and a whole bunch of entertaining tales along the...
Bob Bell
Feb 275 min read
HUX BROWN -12/4/1944 - 6/18/2020
Photo: Britt Hallquist Sometimes you hear a sound that changes things for you forever. You had no idea it was coming, and when you heard...
Bob Bell
Jan 75 min read
Rocking’ with Roy Brown - March and April 1981
After the show at The Bottom Line, NYC, April 5, 1981 L-R Jimmy Wimpfheimer, Doug James, Al Copley, Ronnie Earl, Danny Motta, John Rossi,...
Bob Bell
Jan 77 min read
The Island Book of Records, 1969-1970 Edited by Neil Storey. Manchester University Press.
The first volume of ‘The Island Book of Records - 1959-1968’ filled 390 pages and covered the first ten years of Island Records. Volume 2...
Bob Bell
Jan 62 min read
50th Anniversary ‘Walking To New Orleans’ Jasmine CD3300 - John Broven
I find it hard to believe that it was 50 years ago that John Broven, the indefatigable English blues scholar, first published his...
Bob Bell
Dec 13, 20243 min read
THE UNSEEN R & B SCENE: RARE PHOTOS OF THE 60s BLUES BOOM IN THE UK
BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM American Rhythm & Blues In England 1962 – 1966 The Unseen Photographs of Brian Smith ISBN: 978-0-9561439-4-5 . Arts,...
Bob Bell
Nov 24, 20246 min read
EPIC JOURNEYS, EXPENSIVE BREAKDOWNS, - THE UNTOLD SAGA OF THE BOOKMOBILE, AKA 'DAS BOOK'.
Ron Levy at the window - Porky in the passenger seat. Roomful had owned an interesting assortment of vehicles before I met them,...
Bob Bell
Oct 28, 202427 min read
THE BOOKMOBILE BLUES
For many years Roomful of Blues traveled the country in a converted bookmobile, made by Gerstenslager of Worcester, Ohio. The vehicle...
Bob Bell
Oct 28, 20249 min read
WES DOVER - THEE REGGAEOLOGIST
Wes Dover - Thee Reggaeologist My wife Britt spent the weekend cleaning out the desk in her office. The last year of her working life was...
Bob Bell
Oct 28, 20244 min read
ISLAND BOOK OF RECORDS, VOL. 1 1959-1968
Chris Blackwell started Island Records in Jamaica in 1959, recording local talent. His first three releases all made the Jamaican charts....
Bob Bell
Oct 26, 20244 min read
LITTLE RICHARD - AN OBITUARY
So Richard is gone. Although his breakthrough hits were in 1955 in the USA, strangely his record label Specialty didn’t have a UK outlet...
Bob Bell
Oct 26, 20248 min read
THE VISIONARY AND PASSIONATE GUY STEVENS
Guy with Mott the Hoople Guy Stevens. I have so many memories of Guy. As a musically aware teenager in the UK as the first Rock ’n Roll...
Bob Bell
Oct 26, 20248 min read
THE TROJAN STORY
My dad was a clockmaker, and the motto that was always engraved on the faces of his clocks was the latin phrase ‘Tempus fugit'. Time...
Bob Bell
Oct 26, 20245 min read
SKIFFLE MADNESS - THE TRUE BEGINNINGS OF BRITISH ROCK?
My musical awakenings in the UK were rather varied. Like many who spent much of their later life in the blues field,...
Bob Bell
Oct 25, 20242 min read
HONKY TONK - ONE OF THE ROCK AND ROLL ERA'S BIGGEST INSTRUMENTAL HITS.
(Published in USA Today in July, 2016) Sixty years ago this month Syd Nathan's King Records released a two-sided instrumental record by B...
Bob Bell
Oct 24, 20242 min read
The First Rock'n'Roll Movie -Sixty Years Ago This March
(First published in USA Today in March 2016) The movie 'Rock Around The Clock ‘ was released sixty years ago this March....
Bob Bell
Oct 24, 20241 min read
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