JANUARY 2021 interview with DUStin ArBUCKLe interview with CLAUDe BOUrBOn interview with BiG BiLL MOrGAnFieLD ArtiCLe: hiLL COUntrY BLUeS LAwrenCe LeBO’S COLUMn reviewS viDeOS Dustin Arbuckle by Gavin Peters CONTACT:email: [email protected] Web: www.bluesinthesouth.com Twitter: @bluesinthesouth 1 BLUES GIGS: FROM EXMOUTH TO EASTBOURNE AND A BIT MORE BESIDES ONCE MORE, WE HAVE NO GIGS TO PUBLISH. ALL HAVE BEEN CANCELLED OR OCCASIONALLY POSTPONED. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO SAY WHEN THINGS WILL RETURN TO NORMAL, BUT BiTS WILL CAREFULLY MONITOR THE SITUATION AND WHEN THINGS START TO RETURN TO NORMAL WE SHALL LET YOU KNOW. IN THE MEAN TIME, DON’T GO TO GIGS, MAINTAIN SOCIAL DISTANCE AND REMEMBER: THE CORONA VIRUS DOES NOT CIRCULATE IT IS PEOPLE THAT CIRCULATE IT Listings are provided as a guide only. Don’t forget to check the venue before you leave home to ensure that the gig is still on. The listing here is far from complete, so check out www.bluesinthesouth.com as that is updated all the time: Last date for inclusion here is the 10th of the preceding month — ie 10 Jan for Feb Do you enjoy Blues in the South? Why not sign up for regular Monthly delivery? IT’S SIMPLE & CLICK HERE or SCAN THE QR CODE TOP 25 BLUES ALBUMS - 2020 by BLUES IN THE SOUTH IN CONJUNCTION WITH WEDNESDAY’S EVEN WORSE 25 Cathy Grier I'm All Burn 24 David Rotundo Band So Much Trouble 23 Ben Levin Carryout or Delivery 22 Half Deaf Clatch Electric Desert 21 400 Bears 400 Bears 20 The Nick Moss Band Feat. Dennis Gruenling The High Cost Of Low Living 19 Elles Bailey Ain't Nothing But 18 Sugar Blue Colors 17 Andres Roots Tartu Lockdown 16 Catfish Keith Blues At Midnight 15 Kirk Fletcher My Blues Pathway 14 Chris Corcoran Band Coolerator 13 Shemekia Copeland Uncivil War 12 Larkin Poe Self Made Man 11 Albert Castiglia Wild And Free 10 Roomful Of Blues In A Roomful Of Blues 09 Johnny Iguana Chicago Spectacular! 08 Tinsley Ellis Ice Cream In Hell 07 Frank Bey All My Dues Are Paid 06 JT Lauritsen Blue Eyed Soul Vol 2 05 Shaun Murphy Flame Still Burns 04 Victor Wainright and the Train Memphis Loud 03 Kim Wilson The Bigtone Sessions 02 Martin McNeill Cat Squirrel 01 Elvin Bishop & Charlie Musselwhite 100 Years Of Blues BiTS and Pieces: Stuff and occasional nonsense SOME THOUGHTS FOR 2021 No Pollyanna Viewpoint - Good Things Are Happening Right Now Houston TX (December 8 2020) by John in HOUSTON If you have been in the music business for any length of time you’ve certainly witnessed changes in various technologies. If that were not so we would all be buying wax cylinders and placing our ears close to a huge ear horn. My, but we are not in Kansas anymore Dorothy...... I remember when someone told me to buy a four track tape player for my car which I did. Soon afterward the same guy told me to buy a new eight track deck. Of course that led to a cassette player in my car which of course evolved into a CD player. So things change and this pandemic situation is definitely horrible but through its effects on society it is breeding a new normal for artists. Some of you may already be learning about this new live streaming "stuff". This is a new income opportunity that is picking up speed due to COVID and millions of people having ample free time on their hands. In the near future most major artists will perform at large live events and anyone that could not attend in person will be able to purchase a ticket online and log on from anywhere in the world. Imagine this: if an arena can hold 60,000 people what if the internet could double that attendance? Pretty cool if you are receiving major bookings but what about live streaming on a smaller scale? Actually that’s pretty cool too. Recording studios see the future and live streaming from an acoustically cool environment is becoming the new wave of change for aspiring artists. One studio owner told me that his first client held a live stream from his studio and brought in $1,500 in tips. A listening room owner told me that some of the artists performing there without an audience but with playing into a three camera shoot have reported generating up to $2,400. The internet is powerful and live streaming is a component of the new normal. Some of you may only want to do one show to see what it's like while others may already be looking to generate weekly or monthly shows. If so then a streaming studio may well be in your future. Right now if you have down time this could be your time to learn. If so then also be sure to check out Stage It online. There you can see who’s streaming shows each week. My hunch is that you may know a number of the artists already using Stage It to get the word out. Beyond live streaming many of you have thought about licensing your music but have not had the time to look into this 5 income opportunity. Licensing is a good thing. It's another resource of income. Check out the online Stage it service that makes it easy to understand and get started, take a look at Barry Coffing’s Music Supervisors. They present a straight forward easy to understand set of instructions and explain how to get started at no cost. Moving on. Another good thing that is happening right now - established artists are getting their merchandise line in place for 2021. Obviously they are placing their orders for 2021 Tee’s and some finally have the time to take a closer look at companies like National Pen. These people imprint on more items than just pens and yes, you can afford these smaller items. Merchandise tables need a price range to match the wallets of everyone that stops by and to not just offer Tee's and CDs. As an example they may want a Tee perhaps and an imprinted bottle opener that sells for less. The bottom line is that you are in this business the same as I am. We’ve got both feet in and we're not turning back now. Damn the pandemic! Full speed ahead..... Houston Texas The BiTS CHRISTMAS COMPETITION Austin Chicago Clarkesdale Houston Jackson KansasCity Madison Memphis NewOrleans NewYork There was a significant number of correct answers to the BiTS Christmas Competition received, so a draw was held. The winner was Tracey Knight of Basingstoke. The runners up were, Brian Cope of Bexhill-on-Sea and Nigel Buckfield of Southampton. The prizewinners have been notified and will receive their bundles of CDs as soon as possible after Christmas. Sincere Congratulations to the winners and thanks to all for participating! 7 THE BiTS INTERVIEW: Dustin Arbuckle BiTS: Tell me something about your upbringing. Were you raised in a home with a lot of music? DA: Well, I grew up in the Wichita, Kansas area; honestly. It was not in a terribly musical household. My dad had been a musician when he was younger. He was a drummer, but I never actually saw my father touch a drum kit. He loved music and loved blues and classic rock and jazz and things like that, so I have vague memories of hearing some of that music when I was young. I talk about it a lot that my first musical memory was riding in the truck with my dad when I was probably about three years old, and he was singing the old Leadbelly tune, ‘Gallis Pole’. Which of course is the much older traditional tune, but I mean Leadbelly really pretty heavily popularised it in the twentieth century, and that was the version that Led Zeppelin covered and all that stuff. I think my parents listened to music and I remember hearing a lot of country music, old country music in the truck with my grandfather on my mum's side and things like that, and I loved to sing as far back as I can remember, but it wasn't as though I had a bunch of other musicians in the household. I think I probably was fairly average from the perspective of just hearing the music around me. It happened that I stumbled on to the music that made me want to play music when I was in my teenage years. BiTS: When did you first start to play an instrument? Would that be at school? DA: Yeah, my first instrument was trumpet in the school band. I guess I would have been about ten or eleven years old and I didn't stick with that for very long, honestly. I was in the band for about three years and it never really lit me up. It was never something that I had an easy time committing myself to. But I did love to sing and after I quit band, I joined the school choir and that was always something that I liked more, but after I started hearing blues and becoming conscious of what that music really was when I was about 15, that's when I started really wanting to play music and maybe start a band. When I was 16, I picked up the harmonica, and that's been obviously my main instrument ever since. BiTS: Have you ever played any other instrument? Do you play guitar at all? DA: I play a little bit of bass.