Blue Monday with Derek O'Brien -WC Clark -Denny Freeman -Sarah Brown -Kathy Valentine -Eve Monsees, Mike Buck, Riley Osbourn, Scott Nelson
Event on 2012-07-30 20:00:00
Blue Monday with Derek O'Brien
Derek “Big House” O’Brien is a Texas-style blues guitarist, sometime bassist and record producer based in Austin, TX.
A stalwart of the house band at the famous Austin blues club Antone’s Nightclub, O’Brien is most often found backing up other Austin frontmen, including Delbert McClinton, Lou Ann Barton, The Texas Tornados and almost anyone recording on the Antone’s Records label.
O’Brien has also backed up major blues names such as Buddy Guy and Muddy Waters. Ted Drozdowski, writing on Gibson Guitars’ website, says, “O’Brien has a terse, arrow-sharp and spare style comparable to Jimmie Vaughan’s – light on flash, but soooo right. Check it out.”
WC Clark
“Modern Texas blues at its best…impeccable, soothing soul and flashy, jumped-up roadhouse blues…heartfelt emotion and sweet as molasses soul delivery…as a vocalist, he's untouchable.”
--Blues Revue
“W.C. Clark has it all…everything from good old rock 'n 'roll and gritty roadhouse R&B to strutting Memphis soul, second-line funk and contemporary blues.”
--Living Blues
“If the blues is played right,” says Austin, Texas native W.C. Clark, “it makes your soul feel clean.” Indeed, master guitarist/vocalist Clark – known as “The Godfather of Austin Blues” – has been playing the blues right and cleansing souls from the east side of Austin to stages around the world for over 40 years. He's been mentoring countless young blues and soul players in the finer points of the music for almost as long. Blues stars from Stevie Ray and Jimmie Vaughan to Angela Strehli to Lou Ann Barton to Marcia Ball have all perfected their craft under Clark's tutelage. Clark's mix of modern Texas blues, searing guitar and heartfelt, Memphis-style soul vocals have made him a favorite of blues and R&B fans alike.
The HOUSTON CHRONICLE said Clark is “one of Austin's most pervasive live performers…he is a powerful and poignant soul man with hard-earned blues wisdom.” The NEW YORK POST calls Clark “a legend of the blues world.”
Before he began releasing albums in 1986, Clark was often referred to in the local press as Austin's Best-Kept Secret. Between the overwhelmingly positive media attention, the popular notoriety, the bigger and better tours, the secret was out. The AUSTIN AMERICAN STATESMAN says its hometown hero is “one of the greatest modern blues performers in the world…blending rock with R&B, soul and a touch of funk.” The AUSTIN CHRONICLE describes his music as “Good rockin’, soul-drenched Austin blues. A potent combination of gritty Texas guitar wedded to devastating, gospel-rich Memphis vocals.” Clark has won several Austin Music Awards for the “Best Blues Band”. Thanks to a series of stellar albums (each accompanied by piles of passionate press) and a reputation as a powerful live performer, the man know as “The Godfather of Austin Blues,” is now among the best loved guitarists and vocalists in the blues world.
Wesley Curley Clark was born into a musical Austin family in 1939. His father played guitar and his grandmother, mother, and sisters all sang gospel in the church choir. “I had so much music in my soul,” Clark recalls, “all I had to do was pick up an instrument and play it.” He learned the guitar as a youngster and at age 16 played his first gig at the Victory Grill, where he was introduced to Texas blues legend T.D. Bell. Soon after, Clark switched to playing bass and joined Bell's band, The Cadillacs. In the early 1960s he began a six-year stint with Blues Boy Hubbard and The Jets at the popular Austin nightclub, Charlie's Playhouse. There he met R&B hitmaker Joe Tex, who recruited W.C. to fill the vacant guitar slot in his group. Clark toured the Southern “chitlin' circuit,” learning music first-hand from Tex and countless soul and blues stars along the way, including Tyrone Davis and James Brown. Along the way, Clark perfected his ability to lift an audience into a soul frenzy. When he returned to Austin, Clark found the musical landscape changing with a whole new crop of young white kids beginning to venture out to the blues clubs to learn how to play. The scene was completely transformed as future stars like the Vaughan brothers, Bill Campbell, Paul Ray, and Angela Strehli came to Austin and discovered the rich musical legacy of bluesmen like W.C. Clark.
In the early 1970s, Clark formed Southern Feeling along with singer Angela Strehli and guitarist/pianist Denny Freeman. He then met and befriended Jimmie Vaughan's firebrand guitarist brother Stevie Ray, who occasionally sat in with the band. After Southern Feeling dissolved, Clark took a day job as a mechanic, but was courted relentlessly by Stevie, who was determined to have W.C. as a member of his own band. Clark eventually quit his job to become the bass player in the Triple Threat Revue with Stevie, keyboardist Mike Kindred, drummer Freddie Pharoah and singer Lou Ann Barton. While playing in this band, Clark and keyboardist Kindred co-wrote Cold Shot, which became one of Vaughan's biggest hits and recently earned W.C. his first platinum record.
Clark left Vaughan in the late 1970s and formed his own band, The W.C. Clark Blues Revue, and self-released his first recording, Something For Everybody, in 1986. The band became stalwarts on the Austin scene throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, playing regular gigs at legendary venues like Antone's and opening for the likes of B.B. King, James Brown, Bobby “Blue” Bland and Albert King. Clark's star – at least locally – was rising.
As his celebrity increased, the critically acclaimed PBS television show Austin City Limits celebrated Clark’s 50th birthday in 1989 brought Clark together in front of a live audience, with his disciples Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jimmie Vaughan, Kim Wilson, Lou Ann Barton, Angela Strehli and Will Sexton all taking part. The broadcast, one of the series' most popular, brought Clark to the attention of a national audience for the first time. In 2000, AUSTIN CITY LIMITS aired an extended jam between W.C. Clark and Stevie Ray Vaughan as part of a Stevie Ray Vaughan special.
In 1994, Clark's friend Kaz Kazanoff introduced him to Hammond Scott of Black Top Records. Impressed by what he heard, Scott released Heart Of Gold that same year. Texas Soul followed in 1996, exciting fans and critics alike. “Honey dripping soul, the toughest of Lone Star Blues,” hailed THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE. With the accolades building and the reach of his music extending, Clark won a coveted W.C. Handy Blues Award for “Soul Blues Album Of The Year” for Texas Soul.
His next release, 1998's Lover's Plea, found Clark singing and playing stronger than ever. Lover's Plea earned him another W.C. Handy Blues Award, this time for Artist Most Deserving of Wider Recognition. Another televised performance, (as part of The Best Of Austin City Limits), hit the airwaves in 1998, setting the stage for a national tour in support of Lover's Plea. Once again, critics and fans went wild. The Chicago Reader called Clark “a veritable superstar.”
On his album, From Austin With Soul, Clark made his Alligator Records debut, he forcefully carried his soul-drenched blues to heights he's previously only hinted at. Clark wrote five of the album's 13 songs (Bitchy Men, Let It Rain, Got To Find A Lover, I'm Gonna Disappear, I Keep Hanging On), and included well-chosen covers from a variety of artists, including Clarence Carter (Snatching It Back), Gatemouth Brown (Midnight Hour Blues), Bobby Bland (Got Me Where You Want Me), Albert King (Get Out Of My Life, Woman), and Johnny Adams (Real Live Livin' Hurtin' Man). Clark's emotional duet with Marcia Ball, on Don't Mess Up A Good Thing, is only one of the album's many musical highlights. Recorded at Arlyn Studios in Austin and produced by Mark “Kaz” Kazanoff, the album features a stellar cast of the city's best musicians, including bassist Larry Fulcher, drummer Frosty Smith, guitarists Derek O'Brien and Pat Boyak, keyboardist Riley Osborne, and Kazanoff himself leading a punchy horn section. BLUES REVUE declared, “With From Austin With Soul, Clark has painted his masterpiece. Few artists rival Clark’s ability to sing as soulfully as Al Green and play guitar with such tasteful precision.” BILLBOARD celebrated the release, calling Clark “Superb. He’s a soulful vocalist and a tasty guitarist with an enormous amount of talent.”
Clark won the 2003 W. C. Handy Award for “Blues Song of the Year” for his composition “Let It Rain” and was nominated for the 2004 W. C. Handy Award for “Male Soul Artist Of The Year”.
Clark’s Alligator release, Deep In The Heart, is another slice of stunning soul mixed with contemporary electric blues. With wrenching, heartfelt ballads to celebratory, horn-fueled Texas stomps, Deep In The Heart is a blistering ride through sinewy Memphis soul and foot-stomping Texas roadhouse blues. With friends Marcia Ball and Ruthie Foster duetting on three songs, Deep In The Heart is the most fully realized and soulfully intense album of Clark’s long career. Deep In The Heart garnered more attention from the WC Handy Awards with nominations for “Blues Album of the Year” and “Soul/Blues Album of the Year”. Clark was nominated for “Soul/Blues Male Artist of the Year”.
BLUES REVUE says “Clark conjures the vocal power of Otis Redding and Wilson Pickett and the guitar of Steve Cropper and Albert King.” LIVING BLUES calls him “a first-rate and funky, passionate and powerful performer…a singularly skilled leader among modern blues artists.” “Armed with a powerful, gospel-approved voice, Clark delivers his songs with God-fearing intensity.” – GUITAR PLAYER
Clark has toured relentlessly for years including performances at the Chicago Blues Festival, European Blues Festivals, Ottawa and Toronto Blues Festivals, various festivals in Europe, Russia and Turkey. Along the way he has met up with old fans and friends and undoubtedly gained new ones everywhere he plays. The rest of the world is now in on what the city of Austin has known for decades: W.C. Clark is an innovative and creative artist whose soulful singing and tasty guitar playing reach out from Austin, with soul, to all corners of the music-loving world.
With his 2011 release, Were You There?, Clark has compiled songs from his live performances that have been requested again and again by his fans. With his non-stop touring, Clark's star continues to rise, as his soulful singing and blistering guitar playing guarantees that his constantly growing fan base will never stop shouting for more.
Denny Freeman
As an adolescent and young teen in Dallas, Texas in the late1950's, Denny Freeman heard on the radio the radical new sounds of people like Little Richard, Fats Domino, Ray Charles, and Chicago and Louisianna blues artists like Muddy waters and Slim Harpo. Freeman would go to concerts that featured folks like Jimmy Reed, Bo Diddley, Ruth Brown, and the Clovers. In the 60's there was Jimi Hendrix and Cream, and the wonderful jazz of the time. All of it contributed to the music that Freeman would come to play. Primarily a guitar player, he has played piano and organ on his own and other folks records and gigs over the years. Jennifer Warnes has him playing piano on one track (The Well [Reprise]) on her latest release. His piano playing also appears on James Cotton and Jimmie Vaughan albums. He toured on Jimmie Vaughan's first solo outing as the piano player.
Denny has been the main writer on the songs on his four, mostly instrumental albums, and teamed up with Kathy Valentine of the GoGos and Clem Burke of Blondie, to submit music to Deborah Harry for the Blondie "No Exit" album. Deborah wrote the lyrics, and "Boom Boom in the Zoom Zoom Room" was born. He also co-wrote "BaBoom (Mama Said)" with Jimmie and Stevie Vaughan for the Vaughan Brothers' "Family Style" album.
After touring for a year and a half with Jimmie Vaughan in the mid nineties, he toured w/ Taj Mahal and the Phantom Blues Band until late 2002, playing guitar. It was during this period that Taj' Grammy winning CD, "Shoutin' in Key" was released. "Playing with an American icon like Taj Mahal was a real honor for me. We went all over Europe and to Japan, and it seems that there are Taj fans in every nook and cranny, all over the planet."
After growing up in Dallas, going to college in north Texas, and a brief sojourn in L.A., Freeman moved to Austin, Texas in 1970. Jimmie Vaughan, Doyle Bramhall, and Stevie Vaughan soon followed. If you were a musician, a part of the sub culture, or just had long hair, Austin was the place to be in that part of the world, at that time. It wasn't so much of a music town, Freeman observes. " It was the kind of place that musicians in the early 70's found hospitable. Lots of pretty girls, cheap rent, a laid back atmosphere, those things were especially helpful, in those days." The word got around and musicians are still moving there, today, although things have changed, like everywhere else, and cheap rent is certainly a thing of the past. The main thing, though, that these folks had in common, was that they came ready to play blues. Unhappy with the direction rock was heading after the demise of Cream and Jimi Hendrix, blues was the only thing that appealed to these and a few other people. But still it was a struggle. Of course, Jimmie, w/ his Fabulous Thunderbirds, and Stevie finally found some commercial success. Freeman lived and played with Jimmie and Stevie off and on through the 70's and 80's. There just weren't many players interested in playing blues, so the pool was small. "I first heard Jimmie Vaughan play in Dallas, when he was 16, and Stevie a few years later, in Austin, when he was around 17. It was obvious, even then, that we would be hearing from these guys. It took a while, but eventually most fans of guitar, the world over, came to know about them, too. We became friends, roommates, bandmates. Stevie still owes me rent."
In 1975, the world famous Antones Night Club opened up. At first, the T Birds were the house band, providing backing for the famous Chicago, and other, blues artists that were booked. In the early 80's, another house band was formed, and Freeman had guitar and piano duties, backing up blues giants like Otis Rush, Albert Collins, Buddy Guy, Jr. Wells, Jimmy Rogers, Eddie Taylor, Lazy Lester, and many, many more. "It was beyond anything I could have imagined. I never thought I'd see most of these guys, much less get to play with them. Some of the shows were recorded, so I'm even on records with my heros."
In spite of Freeman's work with Austin blues bands and blues artists in L.A., where he lived from1992 until late 2004, he doesn't consider himself a "blues guy". "I'd rather think of myself as a guitar player." The compositions on his four albums display a love of three chord rock n' roll, soul jazz, blues and old school r&b and soul music. "I'll always love listening to my old blues records, and trying to play it (blues), but I don't want to be stuck in that bag. I like to go out on a limb, sometimes. I also love ballads." Clem Burke plays drums on his latest CD, "Twang Bang."
Some of Freeman's early recordings (late 80's) ended up in low budget, mostly horror films. One, "Mortuary Academy", featured Paul Bartel and Wolfman Jack. He recently was in the studio (eraly 2004), playing on the new Percy Sledge album, "Shining Through the Rain", which includes a Denny co-write (w/ Fontaine Brown), "Love Come and Rescue Me", as well as his own new project. In October (2004), he was in the studio, with C.C. Adcock, and Scott Nelson and Mike Keller, working on Doyle Bramhall's forthcoming album, "Is It News?". (Spring release)
Denny played in the Bob Dylan Band from 2005 until August 2009, and plays on the Bob Dylan album, "Modern Times". Since the autumn of 2009, Denny has been playing in Austin, Texas a lot, mostly at the Continental Club, Antones, and The Gallery, and in DFW area clubs, and is preparing to record.
Sarah Brown
Sarah Brown (Bass) has played and recorded with an impressive list of blues and roots greats such as Albert Collins, Buddy Guy, Dr. John, Dave Alvin, Wanda Jackson, Billy Bragg, and Earl King. Sarah was part of the Antone's House Band during the 80's and early 90's and appears on over 50 recordings, including her own CD, "Sayin What I'm Thinkin" on the Blind Pig label. She has been profiled in Bass Player magazine, was awarded "best bass player" four times in the Austin Music Awards, and was nominated for two W.C. Handy Awards. She's also an accomplished songwriter, with her original songs having been cut by Marcia Ball, Lou Ann Barton, Angela Strehli, Joe Louis Walker, Irma Thomas, Ruth Brown and Lavelle White.
Kathy Valentine
KATHY VALENTINE has had a lifelong love affair with music, gravitating to it while attending “a hippie commune school” in Austin and listening to AM pop radio–the Beatles, Stones, Motown and girl groups–with a Texas twang. “I grew up hearing the Vaughan brothers, Jimmie and Stevie Ray, and from there got into B.B. King, Otis Rush, Howlin’ Wolf, all the right stuff,” she says of her Lone Star state upbringing. “As a result, my guitar playing has always been blues influenced, not just in the notes I play but trying to convey something with feeling.”
On a trip to London with her English mother in the early `70s, fifteen-year-old KATHY turned on the telly and saw Suzi Quatro (the Detroit glitter rock star). “The only women musicians I had ever seen played acoustic guitars,” KATHY recalls, “and there she was in black leather, singing ‘Can the Can!’ I wanted an electric guitar immediately.”
Her first guitar was a Fender Telecaster Deluxe “like Keith Richard played.” The second was a `62 Strat: “I still play to this day. I’m psychotically attached to that guitar.” VALENTINE started a few high school bands, almost went on the road with the British female headbangers Girlschool, and played in Austin’s first punk band, The Violators, before moving to Los Angeles at 18 to form The Textones. Two years later in the ladies’ room of a rock club, she was approached by Charlotte Caffey of the Go-Go’s who was in search of a substitute for the punky girl group’s ailing bassist.
“I promptly borrowed a bass, and spent four days and nights learning how to play it,” KATHY recalls. “We played three sold-out nights at the Whiskey. I thought, ‘I like these songs. I like these girls. And that poor sick bass player is not getting her job back.’”
A classic case of too-much too-soon, the Go-Go’s topped the charts and defined post-punk American pop and the dizzying decade known as the `80s, disbanding after only three hit LPs and periodically reuniting over the past 20 years. “I was incredibly wrapped up in being a Go-Go,” KATHY admits. “So much so that I ceased to be me. It took me many years to find Kathy Valentine again!”
During that time, she picked up her axe and determinedly set about becoming a lead guitarist in the bluesy Bluebonnets and, from 1995 to 2002, a trio, The Delphines, which released two independent CDs. Also available is LIGHT YEARS, Kathy’s self-produced debut solo debut released on her own label, All For One, and distributed through the independent major Redeye. “I really made it as a calling card,” KATHY VALENTINE concludes. “Light Years is a document of several decades of being a musician that reveals more about who I am as an artist.”
at Antone's
213 West Fifth Street
Austin, United States
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