2 2012 MISSISSIPPI VALLEY BLUES FESITVAL Welcome Ticket Information Prices have been slashed for 2012! from the Advance Tickets (through June 28) One-day pass: $12.50. Three tickets good for any day(s): $37.50. MVBS Available at: • Hy-Vee stores in the Quad Cities, Clinton, and Muscatine; • Rascals (1414 15th Street, Moline); President • The Muddy Waters (1708 State Street, Bettendorf); • Mississippi Valley Blues Society office (102 South Harrison Street, Davenport). Call first: (563)322-5837. elcome, blues lovers, to the 28th-annu- At the Gate al Mississippi Valley Blues Festival in $15 each day. Davenport, Iowa’s beautiful LeClaire W Children 14 and under are free if accompanied by an adult. Park! We have one of the best blues-festival 2012 Blues Festival • June 29 - July 1 • LeClaire Park, Davenport, Iowa • MVBS.org | • MVBS.org Davenport, Iowa Park, • June 29 - July 1 LeClaire 2012 Blues Festival venues in the world, flanked by the Rock Island Lines railroad on one side and the scenic Mississippi River on the other – an absolutely perfect place to listen to some of the world’s finest blues musicians. We have a great lineup again this year, as always, with a variety of blues styles to satisfy everyone’s blues taste buds – including familiar names as well as some nice surprises that you may not have heard of! Be sure to check out the free photo exhibit (with a 25-year retrospective of our fest by pro- fessional blues photographer David Horwitz) and free workshops over in the Freight House, and BlueSKool for the youngsters in LeClaire Park. Blues fans from all over the world have discovered the magic that is the Mississippi Valley Blues Festival. Considering the music, the ambiance of LeClaire Park, the great food and beverages from the vendors, the low cost of festival admission, and the budget-conscious price of local lodging, a discerning blues lover would be hard-pressed to find a better entertainment value anywhere on Earth. The Mississippi Valley Blues Festival is one of the longest-running blues festivals in the country, and as far as I know the only one produced by an all-volunteer not-for-profit organization: the Mississippi Valley Blues Society. These volunteers have been working very hard for the past year to bring this year’s fest to fruition. Stop by the Blues Central tent to make a donation or buy a membership or just thank the fine folks of MVBS for all their hard work and sacrifice. Above all, enjoy the fest, have a great time, and patronize all of our wonderful sponsors that help make this a great experience every year! Thank you for coming! Lonnie Britt President, Mississippi Valley Blues Society 3 • MVBS.org Davenport, Iowa Park, • June 29 - July 1 LeClaire | 2012 Blues Festival 2012 MISSISSIPPI VALLEY BLUES FESITVAL 4 2012 MISSISSIPPI VALLEY BLUES FESITVAL Carrying the Torch by Jeff Ignatius Kenny Neal: Friday, June 29, 10:30 p.m., Bandshell lot of people count the har- Neal made his solo debut in 1987 monica player Slim Harpo as and has released more than a dozen A an influence – among them albums on the Alligator, Blind the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds, Pig, and Telarc labels – his most and Pink Floyd – but nobody can recent being 2010’s Hooked on Your claim a connection as direct (or Love, which the All Music Guide harrowing) as swamp-blues master said is loaded with “confident Kenny Neal. singing, tasteful and appropriate Slim Harpo was a regular in the horn charts, elegant guitar leads Louisiana home of the Neals, and (and now and then a chugging Kenny – one of the sons of harp harp solo), and a gently swinging player Raful Neal – recalled in a Louisiana groove.” 2012 Blues Festival • June 29 - July 1 • LeClaire Park, Davenport, Iowa • MVBS.org | • MVBS.org Davenport, Iowa Park, • June 29 - July 1 LeClaire 2012 Blues Festival recent phone interview the story of He said his next album will how he got his first harmonica when be called Strictly Blues, although he was three years old. recording hasn’t even begun. “I “He was just playin’ around,” Neal want to go back and touch bases said of Slim Harpo. “He tricked me with the deep roots of ... the into a trailer one day. ... He told me, electrified blues,” he said. “It’s kind ‘Look inside and see if there’s any of getting a bit diluted. So I want more equipment in there.’ I went to go back and do a real, low-down inside, and he closed the doors. It blues CD.” He cited Big Joe Turner got pitch black and I got phobia. ... and Guitar Slim as templates – “not Freaked me out. I started screamin’ much of the Muddy Waters style of and yellin’, and that freaked him out. the blues, but kind of back [to the] He was trying to quiet me down, so ’40s, ’50s. I want to capture that he decided to give me a harmonica era. ... – that was the closest thing he had “I don’t want to forget about that would probably soothe me a what my whole mission is, and little bit.” that’s to carry the torch – to keep Neal said that “every time he came the blues alive. And I don’t want to to the house, I didn’t want to see get too far away from it.” that guy. ... I remember it like it was With that in mind, the artist yesterday.” But despite the trauma earlier this year hosted a Kenny of the story, Neal said he connected Neal’s Family & Friends Heritage with the instrument. “I knew I loved Blues Festival in both the states he music then,” he said. “So when he of Buddy Guy – another friend of his father – calls home – one in Baton Rouge gave me that harmonica, that was like an extra but wanted to lead a band. He chose the guitar and one in Sacramento, California. instrument that I had.” While his dad played mostly out of necessity, “’cause a bass wasn’t The goal, he said, was to focus on local the harmonica, too, the kids weren’t allowed going to get it” – the “it” being accepted as a talent rather than outside artists: “We have a to play with his. So Slim Harpo’s pacifying frontman. lot of international folks right here in Baton gift was “like handing a kid a candy bar,” Neal He saw that most blues bands in Chicago Rouge, like Mr. Henry Gray, Chris Thomas said. were led by guitarist singers. “They wasn’t that King ... – guys who live right here under my It’s likely he would have become an good, but they were going over to Europe and nose just waiting to play.” entertainer without that present; the 54-year- playing all over the place,” Neal said. “And I And Neal, of course, is making sure his old Neal said he absorbed the blues from his go, ‘Man, I’d like to get a piece of this action, descendants get the exposure he had growing father: “Everything I know, he gave it to me. a s w e l l .’” up – but without being shut in a dark trailer. ... Every night I play now, man, I can hear my So he focused on teaching himself to play “I open-tuned a guitar yesterday for my D a d .” guitar better. He honed his chops in Canada two-year-old grandson,” he said. “He already At age six or seven, he said, he knew he – including with the Neal Brothers Blues knows about Muddy Waters. I was playing wanted to be a performer, although he had no Band – and turned a house-band gig into a something else, and he wanted to play Muddy sense of what form it would take. “Down here, series of apprenticeships. “Every week I would Waters.” man, you just pick up an instrument and play,” have a different guest” secured because of his The grandson is too young to play the he said. When his father needed a guitarist or Chicago connections, he said – Guy, Junior instrument well, Neal said: “He just sittin’ a bassist or a drummer for a gig, Kenny would Wells, Big Mama Thornton, John Lee Hooker. there strummin’, but I open-tune it so it’s fill in. “I didn’t know what I was,” he said. “I “That really helped – learn right on the spot already an open chord. I want him to hear was whatever my Dad needed.” how to be a frontman.” nice notes. ... I think it’s important for him to In the late 1970s, he played bass in the band hear that early.” 5 • MVBS.org Davenport, Iowa Park, • June 29 - July 1 LeClaire | 2012 Blues Festival 2012 MISSISSIPPI VALLEY BLUES FESITVAL 6 2012 MISSISSIPPI VALLEY BLUES FESITVAL A Wider Audience for the King of Beale Street Preston Shannon: Saturday, June 30, 6 p.m., Bandshell reston Shannon was working and Pperforming in Memphis during the 1960s and ’70s, when “Soulsville USA” ri- valed Detroit’s Motown. Stax Records ruled the airwaves with Booker T & the MGs laying down the backing “Memphis Soul Stew” for hits by 2012 Blues Festival • June 29 - July 1 • LeClaire Park, Davenport, Iowa • MVBS.org | • MVBS.org Davenport, Iowa Park, • June 29 - July 1 LeClaire 2012 Blues Festival Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, and Wilson Pickett, while over at Hi Records producer and songwriter Willie Mitchell was work- ing with Al Green and Otis Clay. It was a magic time. You can hear those soul influences in Preston Shannon’s music, but he doesn’t acknowledge the soul connection.