Lurrie Bell Contents Band Managers
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With Special Guest Lurrie Bell Contents Band Managers ............................................... 3 Press Release/Quotes ...................................... 4 Pierre Lacocque: Bandleader ........................ 6 Inetta Visor: Lead Singer ............................... 8 Lurrie Bell: Guitar.......................................... 9 Maximiliano Valldeneu: Guitar ................... 11 Spurling Banks: Bass.................................... 12 Kenny Smith: Drums.................................... 15 History Of The Band .................................... 16 Mississippi Heat: Greatest Events ............... 17 Discography................................................... 18 An energetic and cohesive ensemble. One of Chicago’s top bands.” Press Release/Quotes CHICAGO TRIBUNE Quite simply the hottest band “Pierre is a virtuoso.” in Chicago. “ BILLY BOY ARNOLD CHICAGO SUN-TIMES “One of the most exciting blues “MISSISSIPPI HEAT not only ensemble performing today. breathes new life into the classic “The highlight of the entire MISSISSIPPI HEAT is one of sounds of Chicago Blues but weekend occurred those bands that defies cliches they also uplift with joy and Saturday night when because each CD is better than dedication everything they play. MISSISSIPPI HEAT set the the last. Pierre Lacocque’s Pierre Lacocque is that rare street on fire.” harmonica technique and younger generation harpists MIKE SUTTLES musical imagination is who’s absorbed the lessons of (FESTIVAL DIRECTOR, superlative. He plays with the subtlety, silence, and solo LOUISVILLE, KY) finesse and golden tone. Horn construction from the masters - Big and Little Walter, the Sonny players could take lessons “Once in a blue moon a band Boy Williamsons - as from him from the lines he like this comes along. well as their raucous, hawklike uses.” MISSISSIPPI HEAT’s tonal power.” PHIL LLOYD recordings got the quality that DAVID WHITEIS (AMERICAN HARMONICA gives you the gut bucket, (CHICAGO READER) NEWSLETTER) gizzard rip feel with each and every song. You just want to “All of MISSISSIPPI HEAT’s stop whatever the hell CD’s are pearls. This is one of important thing you’re doing my favorite blues band. I and get down and boogie have rarely heard more when these blues jump off passionate and soulful blues. “ those speakers.” CLAUDE COTE RICK SHIDELL (LE DEVOIR, MONTREAL, (AMERICAN CANADA) HARMONICA NEWSLETTER) “It’s been a long time since I heard a good blues band like “Pierre has emerged as a this. You guys really play great sensitive and creative music together.” songwriter, a band leader with BUDDY GUY vision, and a budding harmonica legend.” NILES FRANTZ (HOST OF “COMING HOME” WBEZ 91.5 FM, CHICAGO) “MISSISSIPPI HEAT has developed its own unmistakable sound. They have a signature, an immediately recognizable feel. Their CDs are a musical achievement.” RENE MOISAN (PRESIDENT, PRODUCTION BROS., MONTREAL, CANADA) “This hard-driving Chicago blues band plays classic Chicago blues with flair, intelligence and respect for the traditions established by “Pierre is wonderful... really musical predecessors Muddy nice harmonica. ....Clean Waters and Howlin’ Wolf. arragements and playing. Nice MISSISSIPPI HEAT Stuff!” provides living proof that CORKY SIEGEL harp dominated Chicago style bands is not an anachronism.” “Mississippi Heat has finally THOMAS CULLEN III found a record company that (BALTIMORE BLUES believes in it, and particularily SOCIETY NEWSLETTER) in Pierre Lacocque’s undeniable talent... Not only as “You have to hear their CDs. a bandleader and creative I can’t praise MISSISSIPPI songwriter, but also as an HEAT too highly. They are exceptional and original absolutely megastonking.” harmonica player. ... What is BLUES & RHYTHM indeed most important (about (ENGLAND) this great chicago bluesband) is Pierre Lacocque’s creative input that pervades throughout Mississippi Heat’s original tunes, and which is heard in his awesome subtelty and power as a harmonica player.” ROBERT SACRE SOULBAG MAGA- ZINE (FRANCE) Pierre Lacocque: Bandleader On the back of Mississippi Heat’s CD Footprints On The Ceiling, there is a photograph of a man with his eyes closed, playing the harmonica with such passion, that one is almost stunned by the actual silence of that frozen moment. Yet when he is heard live or on record on his harmonica, the listener is caught up by its fervent, inspiring presence. The man behind the harmonica is Pierre Lacocque, Mississippi Heat’s band leader and song writer. Pierre was born on October 13, 1952 in Israel of Christian-Belgian parenthood. However, shortly after his birth, Pierre’s family moved to Germany and France before going back to Belgium in 1957. By the age of 6, Pierre had already lived in three countries. A preview to his future musical career on the road. Pierre’s childhood in Brussels resonated with the intense and impassioned Scrip- tural upbringing of his father, a Protestant minister, now living in Chicago, who became a world- famous Old Testament scholar. Pierre, his brother Michel (Mississippi Heat’s General Manager) and his sister Elisabeth (who did the artwork design on the Heat’s first three CD’s) went to a Jewish Orthodox School in Brussels. After the Holocaust, Pierre’s parents and paternal grandfather (also a minister) felt that their children and grandchildren should learn about the suffering and plight of the Jews, as well as about Judaism in general and its philosophical and theological depths. At the Athenee Maimonides (Brussels) they were the only non-Jews ever (and since) to attend. At the Athenee Maimonides they learned old and modern Hebrew, all the religious rites and prayers, as well as studied the rabbinical commentaries on the books of the Old Testament. With the devotion to his studies, there was little time or room for much else. The family culture and priority was on intellectual pursuits, not on play such as soccer or music (two old interests of his). Serious studying, the reading of existential philosophers and theologians, were the only worthwhile activities condoned and encouraged by Pierre’s parents, his father in particular. But thanks to the radio in young Pierre’s room, there was just enough opportunity to unravel the subtle auditory endowments of Destiny. From the radio he heard and was moved by such soulful singers as Ray Charles, Otis Redding, and Aretha Franklin. Pierre was careful to keep the volume down. This is where he began to appreciate African- American music. ... The sound of the harmonica was first introduced to him when he lived in Alsace, France. His father was then a minister in a small village called Neuviller (1955-1957), not far from Albert Schweitzer’s birthplace in Gunsbach. Pierre’s father had bought him a green plastic harmonica toy. He was about three years old at the time. He remembers blowing in and out of it and feeling a surge of sadness that felt so familiar. As he experimented with the toy he often cried listening to its plaintive sounds. It was not until he came to Chicago in 1969, however, that he finally detected his destiny: playing the blues on the harmonica. He had never heard the blues saxophone-like amplified harmonica sound until then. In 1969 Pierre’s father received a full-time Old Testament professorship at the Chicago Theo- logical Seminary, located on the University of Chicago’s campus. The family decided to move perma- nently to the Windy City and leave Belgium for good. Pierre was sixteen years old. The golden era of the 1950’s electric Chicago sound was still having a vibrant impact on local bands. Luminaries such as Muddy Waters, Otis Spann, Little Walter, Junior Wells, Elmore James, James Cotton, Howlin’ Wolf, Jimmy Rogers, Jimmy Reed, and so many others, were still dynamic forces to reckon with in the late 1960’s. Unfortunately some had died by the time Pierre arrived in Chicago. Little Walter, Pierre’s mentor and main influence, died in 1968 following a head wound he acquired during a fight. ... Otis Spann, Muddy Waters’ long-time band member and perhaps the best blues piano player ever, had also recently died of cancer. On a Saturday night in the early Fall of 1969, Pierre decided to go to a concert being held at the University of Chicago’s Ida Noyes. He had no exposure to Chicago Blues before then, and had no expectations as to what he was about to hear. As he listened to the band playing, he became overwhelmed with emotion and excitement at a sound he never heard before: A saxophone-sound- ing amplified harmonica! In his own words, “ I was absolutely stunned and in awe by the sounds I heard coming from that harmonica player and his amplifier ... It sounded like a horn, yet distinct and unique”. The harmonica player went by the name of Big Walter Horton, a name he had never heard before but who changed his life forever. What he heard that night, the music, the mood, the style and sounds, moved his soul. From that moment on, Blues music, and blues harmonica in particular, became an obsession. Two days later, on a Monday morning, Pierre bought himself his first harmonica (or “harp” as it is called in blues circles). Next he was buying records, instruction books, anything to do with the blues harp. He was talking to people, picking up new knowledge wherever he could. Obsession led to passion and intense dedication, and Pierre was practicing the harp six, seven hours a day, notpaying attention to the clock (although he is known to check the clock now to remind him when he needs to get off the stage, because if it was up to him he would keep on playing beyond the scheduled sets! His band members tease him about that). Pierre eventually finished High School (like Paul Butterfield, Pierre graduated from the University of Chicago’s High School, better known as “The Lab School”. The two never met, however, as Butterfield had left the school before 1969). Pierre then left Chicago to go to College in Montreal, Canada. He played harp through his College years, making a few dollars here and there.