Mark Pucci Media

08/18/2025

Roots and Blues King of the Keys Dave Keyes Is Back With a New Album, Two Trains, Coming October 24 on MoMojo Records, With Special Guests Including Drummer Legend Bernard Purdie

NEW YORK, NY – Four-time Blues Music Award nominee Dave Keyes announces an October 24 release date for his latest album, Two Trains, on the MoMojo Records label, with digital and physical distribution on Bandcamp.

Dave Keyes will be performing at the upcoming Big Blues Bender extravaganza in Las Vegas as part of the Piano Players Celebration on Saturday, September 6th. His official Two Trains album release show and party with his band will take place on Saturday, November 1st, at The Turning Point in Piermont, New York. Showtime is 8 PM. Tickets are $30. (https://piermont.club/shop/)

Two Trains features Keyes co-writing eight of its ten songs with songwriting partner Mark Sameth, who has penned hits as a Nashville writer for Loretta Lynn, and Bettye LaVette among many others. “I’m especially proud of the collaboration with Mark on this disc,” says Keyes. “The songs are topical, both on a personal level and on a world level. There is something here that everyone can relate to: love, loss, joy and pain and how we deal with it all.”

The album features special guest and legendary drummer Bernard Purdie, plus appearances by harmonica ace Rob Paparozzi, (Blues Bros.) Mike Merritt (Jimmy Vivino, Conan O’Brien) Chris Bergson and vocalist Alexis P. Suter in addition to long- time Dave Keyes band stalwarts, drummer Frank Pagano and guitarist John Putnam. A special recording with the late acoustic guitar legend Woody Mann is an added treat. Two Trains was mixed by multi-Grammy Award-winning engineer, Dae Bennett.

“For me this album is about coming home to my roots and paying tribute to all the styles that have influenced me since I was a kid,” adds Keyes. “Blues, boogie, country blues, urban blues, gospel and some funky stuff. From Ray Charles to Leon Russell and everyone in between. I’m not a purist, but I respect my roots and I stand on the shoulders of those that have gotten me here.”

A native New Yorker, keyboardist, singer and songwriter, Dave Keyes is a 40-year veteran of the Blues and American Roots music scenes. His last album, the 2022 release Rhythm, Blues and Boogie, featured legendary drummer Bernard Purdie, who also appears on Two Trains. Having toured the world both as a solo artist and with his own band, Dave Keyes brings his music solidly back to his soulful blues roots on the new disc, along with some electrifying keyboard work. In addition to his Blues Music Award nominations, his band has won the Blues Foundation’s International Blues Challenge and released seven prior acclaimed albums.

For much of the last 10 years, in addition to his own band and solo gigs, Dave worked with bluesman Popa Chubby, and R&R queen Ronnie Spector. Previously Dave had lengthy stints with such iconic and varied artists as Odetta, David Johansen, Bo Diddley, rockabilly legend Sleepy LaBeef and gospel great Marie Knight.

Dave’s music finds its roots in deep blues, soul and rock and roll. These roots are the foundation of his recent albums and vibrant live shows. His well-received previous albums are rambunctious sets of mostly original material that range from New Orleans second-line funk to slow sensual blues, swaggering shuffles and boisterous rocking boogie-woogie.

He has made numerous festival appearances both in the US and abroad including 3 appearances at France’s prestigious Cognac Blues Festival and annual appearances at Lugano, Switzerland’s Blues to Bop festival among many others. He also worked as a sideman for a who’s who of roots, soul and Rock and Roll music masters such as Eddy Clearwater, Big Jay McNeely, Tracy Nelson, Gladys Knight, Pam Tillis, Darlene Love, and the late great Ruth Brown, Lou Rawls and Levon Helm.

Dave’s extensive Broadway and TV music credits include being the conductor for the six-year Broadway run of the Grammy-winning show, “Smokey Joe’s Café.” Other credits include most-recently music directing “Rock and Roll Man,” a show based on the life of trailblazing DJ Alan Freed.

Dave Keyes Two Trains Album Track Listing and Credits

Tracks 2,4,5,6,7,9 and 10 and additional overdubs recorded at Teaneck Sound, Teaneck New Jersey, Dave Kowalski engineer, Andrew Milea, assistant; Rhythm tracks for tracks 1,3 and 8 recorded at Kaleidoscope Sound, Union City, NJ, Kyle Cassel engineer; Additional overdubs recorded at Jaimoe Jams, Tenafly, NJ James Pagano engineer, and Keyesland Studios, Sloatsburg, NY.

Blues Ain’t Lookin’ For You 3:26 Dave Keyes, Mark Sameth/Keyesland Music ASCAP
Boogie Till The Cows Come Home-3:48 Dave Keyes, Mark Sameth/Keyesland Music ASCAP
Two Trains 2:36 Dave Keyes, Mark Sameth/Keyesland Music ASCAP
I’m Alright 5:49 Dave Keyes, Mark Sameth/Keyesland Music/ Benny Turner- Nola Blue Music(BMI)
Long Way From Right Right Now 5:16 Dave Keyes, Mark Sameth/Keyesland Music ASCAP
What Just Happened 3:00 Dave Keyes, Mark Sameth/Keyesland Music ASCAP
Boogie For Patty 5:00 Dave Keyes/Keyesland Music ASCAP
Trust in Love and Fate 5:09 Dave Keyes, Mark Sameth/Keyesland Music ASCAP
Worrying You Off My Mind 3:17 w/special guest Woody Mann -William Lee Conley Broonzy/ Boot House of Tunes BMI
Rest In Peace 2:31 Dave Keyes, Mark Sameth/Keyesland Music ASCAP

Dave Keyes: Piano, B-3. Lead vocals
Bernard “Pretty “Purdie: Drums tracks 1,3, 8
Frank Pagano: Drums tracks 2,4,6, plus Background Vocals tracks 1,2,3,4,6,8
John Putnam: Guitar tracks 1,2,3,4,6,8 and Pedal Steel on track 4
Jeff Anderson: Bass tracks 1,3,8
Mike Merritt: Bass tracks 2,4,6
Rob Paparozzi: Harmonica tracks 1,3,4,5,6
Hasan Bakr: All Percussion
Chris Bergson: Slide guitar track 8
Alexis P. Suter and Vicki Bell: Background Vocals tracks 1,3,4,6
Woody Mann: Guitar and vocal Track 9

Upcoming Dave Keyes Shows
August 22 – Dave Keyes w/ Peter Karp - Sparta Concert Series, Sparta, NJ
August 23 - Dave w/ Peter Karp - Jersey Shore Blues & Jazz Fest, Long Branch, NJ
August 28 - 6-10:00PM - Dave Keyes solo - The Twisted Tail, Philadelphia, PA
September 6 – Dave Keyes - Big Blues Bender, Las Vegas, NV
September 21 - 12:00 Noon - Dave Keyes solo - John Brown's Farm, Lake Placid, NY
Week of October 13 - Dave Keyes solo – tour of France
October 27 – Boogie & Blues Blowout solo - Bitter End, New York, NY
November 1 – Dave Keyes Band Album Release Show – The Turning Point, Piermont, NY

Dave Keyes Hi-Res Cover: http://www.markpuccimedia.com/Dave-Keyes-Two-Trains-Hi-Res-Cover-scaled.jpg

Dave Keyes Hi-Res Photo: http://www.markpuccimedia.com//Dave-Keyes-CD-Back-Cover-Photo-Hi-Res-by-Joseph-Rosen.png

www.davekeyes.com

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08/11/2025

Multi-Blues Music Award Nominee Al Basile Has "Blues In Hand" on New Album Coming October 9th from Sweetspot Records

RUMFORD, RI – Eight-time Blues Music Award-nominated singer/songwriter/cornetist Al Basile announces an October 9th release date for Blues In Hand, his latest album on Sweetspot Records, with distribution by City Hall.

Blues In Hand is Al’s 21st release on Sweetspot since 1998. After 2023’s career retrospective B’s Time, Al is back with all new songs and a new production team. Using his Duke Robillard and Roomful of Blues veteran players and recorded by Jack Gauthier in the familiar surroundings of Westlake Recording studio in West Greenwich, Rhode Island, Al had combined Jack’s great tracking with the most up-to-date technology by mixer and mastering engineer Glenn Halverson at his Sonic Hill Studio outside of Chattanooga, Tennessee. The results are a new sound for Al’s classic blues-roots songs.

“As my own producer, I’ve worked closely with engineers Jack Gauthier and Glenn Halverson to make Blues in Hand a leap forward in the sound of an Al Basile record. My albums have always boasted superior songwriting and performances, and now we’ve combined classic traditional recording techniques with a modern approach to the sound of the band. I had a long run between Through With Cool in 2022 and this one, so these are the best songs of the many I’ve written since that album. I also took much of the time afforded me during COVID to work on my vocals and especially my horn playing, so on this record I’ve featured myself much more prominently on cornet. My sound and solos are unlike any other horn player, and they fully honor the link back to Louis Armstrong, showing us a hundred years ago how a cornet can be a powerful voice in playing blues. So, this record captures the best of me as a performer as well. With guitar hero Kid Andersen again aboard along with current and former Duke’s men Mark Teixeira, Brad Hallen, Bruce Bears, Doug James, and Doc Chanonhouse, the band behind me is tighter than ever and predictably brilliant and idiomatic. They really know how to showcase me at my best. With no weaknesses from inception to realization, this record jumps out at you as a celebration of modern blues, and classic Al Basile.”

Al’s last release, 2023’s B’s Time, was his critically acclaimed career retrospective that featured 17 songs from Basile’s solo albums, remastered using the most up-to-date technology. Those tracks never sounded better, and many were from releases early in Al’s career, before he became much better known following his Blues Awards nominations starting in 2010. And though they originated from a 25-year span, the songs sounded completely contemporary, showing that Al Basile’s work is timeless, and that his output has been remarkably consistent from the beginning.

“The two biggest differences from my previous work and Blues In Hand are: 1) the songs are more personal, and mostly in my own voice, instead of my playing a lot of characters like I’ve often done in the past,” Al Basile says about the new disc. “They reflect some things that I’ve gone through in the past few years that allowed me to write and sing with authority about some blues themes I haven’t done before; and 2) I play more cornet on this album, with longer solos – it features me a stretching out a lot more, with the horn as my other voice. It’s more of an overall statement of who I am.”

“Al Basile is one of the great musical storytellers,” wrote UK-based music journalist Colin Clarke in the B’s Time album liner notes. “That holds whether he is working over the span of a whole album (his astonishing Last Hand and its full, ‘radio/verse play’ version, Last Hand 2.0), or within the confines of a single song – each of the 17 songs on this retrospective is a microcosmic magical entity in its own right. This celebration of 25 years of Basile’s Sweetspot record label, and the positively protean nature of his output, is timely, even if a mere 17 songs can only provide the tip of the Basile iceberg.

“No two songs of Basile’s are alike, yet all contain the stamp of his endless invention. No other writer, surely, traverses musical genres, or even whole fields of art, like Al Basile, and this retrospective is the perfect place to appreciate this unique diversity.”

Blues In Hand Track Listing and Credits

All Your Lies
Blues is My Roommate
Blues After Blues
How Is It?
Good Friends
Leave It All Behind You
Ain’t What You Say (It’s What You Do)
Older by the Minute
Thank You, Fool
Good Rhythm
My Dearest Dream
You Ain’t That Fine
When You Lose Your Money
Al Basile – Vocals, Cornet
Mark Teixeira – drums
Brad Hallen – Electric Bass
Bruce Bears – Keyboards
Jeff “Doc” Chanonhouse – Trumpet
Doug James – Tenor
Kid Andersen – Guitar except for “Ain’t What You Say”
Jhett Black – Guitar on “Ain’t What You Say”

Jack Gauthier – Recording Engineer
Glenn Halverson – Mixing and Mastering Engineer
Recorded Jan/Feb 2025 at Lake West Recording Studio, West Greenwich, RI
Additional recording at Greaseland, San Jose, CA
Mixed and mastered July 2025 at Sonic Hill Studios, Ooltewah, TN

All songs by Al Basile, Kenoza Music

Design by Mary Ann Rossoni, Second Story Graphics, Providence, RI
Photography by Meghan Sepe

Barcode number: 669469099521

About Al Basile:
Al Basile’s previous album releases have consistently made the top 20 on the Living Blues charts. He’s been nominated eight times for a Blues Music Award as “Best Horn Player,” and his 2016 release, Mid-Century Modern, was nominated as “Best Contemporary Blues Album.” His songs have been covered by Ruth Brown, Johnny Rawls, and the Knickerbocker All Stars. Guests on his own releases have included the Blind Boys of Alabama, Sista Monica Parker, Sugar Ray Norcia, Jerry Portnoy, and jazz great Scott Hamilton.

Celebrated for his mastery of lyric writing as well as music, Al’s skill with words extends to his other career as a poet: he is published regularly in leading journals, has won prizes, and has four books in print collecting his work from the Seventies until the present day. For the last six years he has taught lyric writing, led panels, and performed at poetry conferences. In recent years Al has begun writing and producing audio plays in verse; two recent plays have won Gold Awards at the HEARnow national audio theater festival.

Born in Haverhill, Mass., on the north shore of Boston, Al was the first to receive a Master’s degree from Brown University’s writing program. He was the first trumpet player for Roomful of Blues in the mid-Seventies, and he’s enjoyed a long relationship as a co-writer and sideman during Duke Robillard’s solo career since the Eighties, garnering credits as songwriter and trumpet player on a dozen of Duke’s CDs and DVDs. He also taught English, music, and physics in a private Rhode Island high school for 25 years before devoting himself to music and poetry full time in 2005.

Hi-res cover: http://www.markpuccimedia.com/Blues-in-Hand-Hi-Res-Cover.jpg

Hi-res photo: http://www.markpuccimedia.com/Al-Basile-Hi-Res-Photo-by-Meghan-
Sepe.jpg

www.albasile.com

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08/07/2025

Rock and Blues Muse has premiered the new Candice Ivory: video for "Catfish Blues," a track off her upcoming Nola Blue album, "New Southern Vintage," due September 12. Watch it here:

Video Premiere: Grammy Nominated Candice Ivory ‘Catfish Blues’ (Feat. Jimmy Duck Holmes) from her forthcoming album ‘New Southern Vintage,’ out September 12th. Blues Soul Singer, Songwriter. Check it out here!
Candice QueenDeze Ivory

07/21/2025

Grammy-Nominated Blues/Soul Singer Candice Ivory:
Brings Her New Southern Vintage Sounds to Forthcoming Album Set for September 12 Release on Nola Blue

Lancaster, PA – Grammy-nominated rising star blues/soul singer Candice Ivory, who’s been wowing audiences around the world with her dynamic approach to the blues music genre, brings that force to bear on her latest album, New Southern Vintage. Dubbed “The Queen of Avant Soul,” Ivory’s latest is set for release by Nola Blue Records on September 12th, with distribution by MVD Entertainment Group.

Preorders will begin on August 8 with the release of “Catfish Blues,” the album’s first single. The full album will be released on all digital platforms on August 29.

“Today, blues is a global music, known and cherished by people all over the world,” writes Candice Ivory in the album’s liner notes. “But its roots are in the American South - in places like Memphis and Mississippi, where I first met the blues, and in nearby outposts like St. Louis, where I now live. New Southern Vintage pays homage to this iconic Southern folk form as well as the heroines and heroes who created it, including my greatest inspirations: blueswoman Memphis Minnie ("World of Trouble," "Shout the Boogie") and my own great-uncle Will Roy Sanders ("I'm in Trouble"), who fronted the Fieldstones, the best Memphis blues band of the 1970s and 1980s. The album also features several living legends, from Jimmy "Duck" Holmes (caretaker of the Bentonia, Mississippi school of blues guitar) to folk-blues éminences grises David Evans and Andrew Cohen. And because blues is an ancient-to-the-future music - vintage and new - I invited a number of brilliant younger artists to join me on New Southern Vintage. My longtime collaborator Robert Allen Parker, Public Enemy's Khari Wynn, and the other members of my Memphis-based band the Blue Bloods appear on several tracks, as do Ben Levin, Damian "Yella P" Pearson, and Chris Stephenson. There are also some special international guests - Jan Hartmann, Antonio Vergara, Takuto Asano, and Yubu Kazungu - who hail from around the globe and nonetheless fit right into the Southern sounds of New Southern Vintage, showing that no matter how far we travel down the blues highway, we can always go back home to the land where the blues began.”

"Musically, visually and intellectually, Candice Ivory wields a trifecta of creativity that is powerfully unique and broad. From the 'blue blood in her veins' to the primal, hypnotic 'Catfish Blues' and all points in between, she has woven a magnificently textured musical expression of the rich roots of the South," says Sallie Bengtson, Nola Blue Records president. "After many discussions over the past year about the 'new southern vintage' concept and its fresh perspective on Black Culture in the American South, it echoed in familiarity for me as I experienced the new box office hit, Sinners. Performed by a world class, multi-generational group of musicians, the music of New Southern Vintage stands solidly unique and powerfully poised to become a comparable major hit in the music world."

Ivory’s last album, When the Levee Breaks: The Music of Memphis Minnie, drew universal acclaim in its reviews, such as from Bill Bentley, who wrote in Americana Highways, “Because Candice Ivory takes these songs so deep into her vast spirit that in many ways they become her own... [Her] voice comes from another place, one where time doesn't exist and the overwhelming depth of her singing feels like it has been here forever. This is a woman who has arrived to tell her truth, and there will be no debating that it belongs here now.”

Candice Ivory’s bold style is also being honored by the Jus' Blues Foundation in July with the Millie Jackson Classy & Sassy Award.

Sums up Candice Ivory, "To those who go on this blues journey with me, I thank you. I also thank everyone who participated in the making of the album. For me, New Southern Vintage is not just music - it's a way of life, and I gratefully acknowledge all my fans who allow me to share this music-life with them."

Candice Ivory New Southern Vintage Album Tracks and Credits

Ain’t So Blind (Robert Allen Parker and Candice Ivory)
Candice Ivory: vocals; Jan Hartmann: harmonica; The Blue Bloods*

Blue Blood (Candice Ivory, © Players Step Outside Publishing)
Candice Ivory: vocals; Jan Hartmann: harmonica; The Blue Bloods

I’m in Trouble (Joe Henry Hicks, © Music River Publishing Company)
Candice Ivory: vocals; Jan Hartmann: harmonica; Ben Levin: piano; The Blue Bloods

Foolish Pleasure (Robert Allen Parker)
Candice Ivory: vocals; Yubu Kazungu: vocals; Ben Levin: whistle; Jan Hartmann: harmonica; Chris Stephenson: Wurlitzer organ; The Blue Bloods

Looking for My Baby (Robert Allen Parker) |
Candice Ivory: vocals; Ben Levin: piano; The Blue Bloods

Strong Black Mattie (Candice Ivory)
Candice Ivory: vocals; Chris Stephenson: Hammond B-3 organ; The Blue Bloods

Let Your Love Shine On (Robert Allen Parker)
Candice Ivory: vocals; featuring Antonio Vergara: lap steel guitar, wah, electric guitar, and background vocals; Chris Stephenson: Wurlitzer organ; The Blue Bloods

Look Away (Robert Allen Parker)
Candice Ivory: vocals; Chris Stephenson: Hammond B-3 organ; The Blue Bloods

Folk Tradition
Andrew Cohen: narration

Catfish Blues (Robert Petway, © Songs of Universal Inc, Wabash Music Co)
Featuring Jimmy “Duck” Holmes: vocals and guitar; Candice Ivory: vocals; Damian “Yella P” Pearson: harmonica; Ben Levin: piano

Corrina (Clyde Maxwell)
Candice Ivory: vocals; David Evans: guitar; Ben Levin: piano

Crown Royal Bag Blues (Candice Ivory)
Candice Ivory: vocals; Damian “Yella P” Pearson: guitar; Takuto Asano: guitar; Ben Levin: piano

World of Trouble (Ernest Lawlars)
Candice Ivory: vocals; David Evans: guitar; Ben Levin: piano

Shout the Boogie (Minnie Lawlars, © Memphis Minnie Music Co)
Candice Ivory: vocals; David Evans: guitar; Andy Cohen: guitar; Ben Levin: piano

The Blue Bloods: Robert Allen Parker: guitar; *Adam Hill: guitar (except Ain’t So Blind); Khari Wynn: bass; Donnon R. Johnson: drums

Produced by Candice Ivory

Tracks 1-8 recorded by Adam Hill at Electraphonic Recording, Memphis

Additional recording for track 7 by Claudia Correa at AVA Recording Studios, Guayaquil, Ecuador

Tracks 9-14 recorded by Till Palmer at Ecko Records, Memphis

All tracks mixed by Foster Lewis at Kalinga Production Studios, St. Louis

All tracks mastered by Antonio Vergara at AVA Recording Studios, Guayaquil, Ecuador

Hi-res cover: http://www.markpuccimedia.com/Candice-Ivory-New-Southern-Vintage-Hi-res-cover-1-scaled.jpg

Hi-res photo http://www.markpuccimedia.com/Candice-Ivory-Hi-res-Photo1-by-Angie-Lipscomb-Photography..jpg

Social Media Links:

Candice Ivory -
https://www.facebook.com/queenofavantsoul

https://www.instagram.com/avantsoulqueen/

Nola Blue Records - on Facebook and www.nola-blue.com

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07/07/2025

Nola Blue Records Signs Mud Morganfield, Acclaimed Son of Blues Legend Muddy Waters, and Will Release His Label Debut Album, Deep Mud, on September 26th

Lancaster, PA – Sallie Bengtson, president of Nola Blue Records, announces the signing of Mud Morganfield, acclaimed son of Blues legend Muddy Waters, and will release his label debut album, Deep Mud, on September 26th. Deep Mud will be available in digital format, as well as on CD and limited-edition red vinyl, with distribution by MVD Distribution.

Mud will celebrate the new album’s release with a show on September 27th (his birthday) at Chicago-area club Hey Nonny, in Arlington Heights, Illinois (https://www.heynonny.com/).

“It is such a privilege to release the aptly titled, Deep Mud,” says Sallie Bengtson about the Mud Morganfield signing. “Drawing from a great reservoir of paternal musical heritage combined with a lifetime of maternal nurturing, Mud and his music are grounded in respect and love. He honors his roots while also advancing his legacy of the Chicago electric blues sound.”

“I’m always writing and thinking about music. The songs on this album are from the past year, which was a really hard time for me,” reflects Mud Morganfield. “My life changed forever when the doctor told us they couldn’t do anything else for my mother. We lost her in March. She was my biggest supporter from day one. Her love is the music in my heart.”

“For the last couple of decades, Mud has followed in his beloved dad’s mammoth footsteps, staunchly keeping the traditional Chicago blues flame alight by faithfully singing Muddy’s songs as well as plenty of his own originals in front of an all-star band of local heavy-hitters,” writes Bill Dahl in the album’s liner notes. “Recently, he hit the main stage at the 2025 Chicago Blues Festival to belt his father’s “I’m Your Hoochie Coochie Man” as one of the main cogs in a gala celebration of Chess Records’ 75th anniversary, looking and sounding every bit the heir to Muddy’s gilded throne.”

Recorded at JoyRide Studio in Chicago, Deep Mud is real, honest, unvarnished blues from front to back, the way Muddy himself proudly did it during the genre’s hallowed heyday as he laid the bedrock foundation for the electric Chicago blues ensemble approach. “Listen, man, it is Chicago blues. No rock-blues here for Mud,” he states. I talk and I sing about real things, real live people, real situations, things that people go through, from falling in love to beautiful women. So, it’s Chicago blues at its best. They ain’t trying to do that no more, but that’s what it is.”

That deeply-held commitment to Chicago blues tradition defines Deep Mud. Except for two lovingly rendered Chess-era Muddy revivals (“Country Boy” and “Strange Woman”), Mud’s originals dominate the hard-hitting set. As usual, his studio cohorts were the cream of the crop (many of whom have played on Mud’s previous albums): guitarists Rick Kreher (an integral member of Waters’ last touring band) and Mike Wheeler, keyboardists Roosevelt “Mad Hatter” Purifoy and Sumito “Ariyo” Ariyoshi, bassist E.G. McDaniel, and drummer Melvin “Pookie Styx” Carlisle lay down tough, uncompromising grooves loaded with timeless Windy City tradition. Harpist Studebaker John filled multiple roles as Mud’s producer and arranger, with trumpeter Phil Perkins arranging the horns.

“The album wouldn’t sound like it sounds without Studebaker John’s ears,” notes Mud. “The man has a fantastic ear.”

About Mud Morganfield
Everything in Mud’s musical life traces directly back to his father. “Dad played the most important role with my being. He shared an affair with my mother, and they had me!” he says. “I was born in the blues, man. I used to have to tap music on the side of my head before I went to sleep, man. I’ve had music running through my being all my life, since I’ve been here.”

Mud’s mother, Mildred McGhee, was Muddy’s girlfriend during the blues legend’s glory years at Chess Records. Early in Mud’s life, he and his mother lived on Chicago’s South Side in a building located around 46th and Greenwood owned by Joseph Chess, father of Chess bosses Leonard and Phil Chess. “We stayed in there for a while, and I used to see Bo Diddley, Wolf, and all these guys. But I was still a kid. I didn’t know who they were. We’d pass ‘em in the hallway,” he says. “Huge building, a lot of apartments. I really think it was Muddy’s rendezvous spot. I think it was Muddy’s little getaway spot. But I used to see all those guys in there, man. I didn’t know nothing about who they were.” Muddy and his wife Geneva lived nearby at 43rd Street and South Lake Park Avenue.

Mud’s recording career began in 2008 with the self-produced Fall Waters Fall, and he commenced a lengthy stint on Severn Records in 2012 with his acclaimed CD, Son of the Seventh Son. He was back in 2014 with For Pops—A Tribute to Muddy Waters, a collaboration with celebrated harmonica ace Kim Wilson that found the singer digging deeply into his father’s Chess-era catalog. “That’s the killer, man, that album,” notes Mud. “Listen, you won’t find nobody to get that close to my dad, other than me!” Morganfield concluded his Severn hookup with 2018’s They Call Me Mud, releasing his most recent disc, the 2022 CD Portrait, on Delmark.

There was also a 2016 album on the Big imprint, Way Down Inside: Songs of Willie Dixon, that saw Morganfield sharing a studio with Big Head Todd and the Monsters (Ronnie Baker Brooks and Erica Brown were also on board). The set spawned a cross-country tour that Mud remembers with great fondness.

Mud Morganfield has toured all over the world during his more than two decades of performing, including repeated visits to England as well as Italy, Russia and China. No matter where he travels, Mud’s regal bloodlines inevitably factor heavily into his onstage set list.

Chicago’s rough anyway, I don’t care how you cut it. But I tell folks all the time, I wouldn’t want to change that,” he says. Morganfield attended Harrison High School. “I didn’t graduate. But I went and got my GED and I went over to Malcolm X College and picked up a degree, and I went to DeVry Institute,” says Mud. “I started driving trucks for J.B. Hunt. As a matter of fact, I retired from them. I drove for J.B. about eight years, but I drove for other outfits.”

As Mud grew up, Waters was there to help his offspring in any-and-all of his musical endeavors. “I started out as a drummer,” says Mud. “I’d get a set of drums from Dad—first the little paper ones. I would tear them up, and then a couple of weeks later he’d get me another pair. And he finally got me a real set with some tougher skins. And one day, I don’t know, I was about 16 years old, I went to an Earth, Wind & Fire concert. I saw Verdine White playing bass, and that did it. That did it, man. I put the drums down, and I’ve been playing the bass secretly at least 30-something years now.

“I played with a couple little bands in my neighborhood, garage bands, so to speak. No big deal. I remember as a young man—I was a little older then, about 23 years old—I used to try to sing Tyrone Davis songs, Johnnie Taylor songs. But it kept sounding like Muddy Waters. I don’t care what I sing, man, it’s gonna come out like Father’s. And I just said, ‘Hey, I can’t run.’ I couldn’t run no more. I couldn’t keep running, man. I have to get in where I fit in. I have to do what God put me here to do.”

Despite his longstanding interest in the blues, Mud was a late bloomer as a professional musician, not emerging on the local scene with his burnished pipes until the 2000s. Veteran blues chanteuse Mary Lane gave him some of his earliest showcases on the West Side. “When you didn’t see me, I was getting my blues. I didn’t want to be an artist that could just play the blues or sing the blues. I had to have some blues of my own to sing about,” he says. “That’s why when folks ask me, ‘Where you been, man? Your dad passed in ‘83.’ Well, I had to get some blues, man. Look, you don’t just get up—and Dad told them this—you don’t just get up and go outside and say, ‘Look at me—I’m a bluesman!’ You’ve got to go through something, fight for survival.

“I don’t care if you can play blues. You’ve got to have some blues, man. So that’s what I was doing—getting my blues.”

It’s safe to say that Muddy would be proud of the way Mud Morganfield is carrying on the family tradition. “That was my main goal, just to do that,” Mud says. “I didn’t get a chance to really show him because he had passed, but I hope if there’s a place we go when we leave here and he can still visualize or see us back down here, I want him to say that: ‘I’m proud of him!’”

Mud Morganfield Hi-res cover: http://www.markpuccimedia.com/Deep-Mud-Hi-Res-Cover-scaled.jpg

His-res photo: http://www.markpuccimedia.com/Mud-Morganfield-Hi-Res-1-Photo-by-Alan-Frolichstein.png

Social Media Links: Mud Morganfield –
Nola Blue Records – on Facebook and www.nola-blue.com

Mud Morganfield Deep Mud Track Listing and Credits

Bring Me My Whiskey (Mud Morganfield ©Pops Daisy Entertainment)
Big Frame Woman (Mud Morganfield ©Pops Daisy Entertainment)
Strange Woman – (McKinley Morganfield, Ralph Bass © Watertoons Music, Padua Music Co)
Don’t Leave Me (Mud Morganfield ©Pops Daisy Entertainment)
She’s Getting Her Groove On (Mud Morganfield ©Pops Daisy Entertainment)
Ernestine (Mud Morganfield ©Pops Daisy Entertainment)
Strike Like Lightning (Mud Morganfield ©Pops Daisy Entertainment)
Cosigner Man (Mud Morganfield ©Pops Daisy Entertainment)
Lover Man (Mud Morganfield ©Pops Daisy Entertainment)
In and Out of My Life (Mud Morganfield ©Pops Daisy Entertainment)
The Man That You’re With (Mud Morganfield ©Pops Daisy Entertainment)
Carolina (Mud Morganfield ©Pops Daisy Entertainment)
Country Boy – (McKinley Morganfield © Watertoons Music)
A Dream Walking (Mud Morganfield ©Pops Daisy Entertainment)
All songs written by Mud Morganfield (©Pops Daisy Entertainment) except as noted above

Produced and arranged by Studebaker John.

Horn arrangements by Phil Perkins.

Engineered, mixed and mastered by Brian Leach and Studebaker John at Joy Ride Studio, Chicago, IL

Additional mastering at Studio Jack, Brookfield, IL

Mud Morganfield – vocals (all tracks), bass (3); Rick Kreher – guitar (all tracks); Melvin “Pooky Styx” Carlisle – drums (all tracks); Studebaker John – harmonica (1,2,3,4,6,7,9,11,12,13); Mike Wheeler – guitar (all tracks except 3,13,14); E.G. McDaniel – bass (all tracks except 3,13); Sumito Ariyo Ariyoshi – piano (1,2,3,4,7,9,10,11,12); Roosevelt Purifoy – piano (5,6,8), organ (5,6,8,14); Rodrigo Mantovani – upright bass (13); Phil Perkins – trumpet (5,8); Felicia Collins – background vocals (8, 10, 14); Kristen Lowe – background vocals (8, 10); Jacole Avent – background vocals (14); Demetrias M. Hall – background vocals (14).

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