The Roadhouse

The hour ahead is a "thank you," seventeen years in the making. It's an hour chock full of artists who have helped define the sound of the show. Sean Costello, Boo Boo Davis, Duke Robillard, Janiva Magness, Mavis Staples - it feels like there's an awful lot of primary colors in this edition, but mostly primary blue. It's not an hour of the finest blues you've never heard, but an hour of the finest blues you have heard right here in The Roadhouse.

This hour contains a record-setting number of Roadhouse debuts, with many artists closer to the beginning of the careers than the end. That fact alone makes this a pretty optimistic and hopeful edition. Rome Yamilov & Henry Kaiser, Brad Absher & The Superials, John Paul Keith, Sven Zetterberg, and Strongman Blues Remedy step out front and center to welcome the future. It's a bright one, and it definitely makes for another hour of the finest blues you've never heard.

The next edition of The Roadhouse is pretty upbeat, full of shuffles, and probably another chair-dancing edition. Dave Weld & The Imperial Flames, Ian Siegal, G. Love & Special Sauce, Deitrick Haddon, and Janiva Magness provide details in one of the most compelling pictures of the blues today. It's an hour I'm pretty proud to be a part of. And, it's made all the better by being yet another hour of the finest blues you've never heard.

In the next hour of The Roadhouse, the full range of blues is on display. I have some tracks that are clearly unadulterated blues, some with roots rock leanings, some that are blues-rock, and one or two that just mark their own path. Bonham-Bullick, Eliza Neals, Duke Robillard, The Nighthawks, and Rory Block. Aside from that broad range, it's all about sending you down the path of another hour of the finest blues you've never heard.

Like the bear claws at the donut shop, the hour ahead is from a variety of sources and includes tracks that were not included in previous shows. Dave Weld & The Imperial Flames, Ian Siegal, Tedeschi Trucks Band, Danielle Ponder, and Kenny Neal provide the waypoints through the hour. And, they help ten other great artists make up The Bear Claw Edition. It's all in the spirit of another hour of the finest blues you've never heard.

In the next hour of The Roadhouse, we do what we know best. Son of Dave, Junior Wells, Dr. John, Walter Trout, and Trudy Lynn are all just waiting for a chance to make you move, or to move you. All in all, it just feels like a cloak of familiarity - the familiarity of another hour of the finest blues you've never heard.

A cloudy afternoon brings a savory hour this week, to offset the occasional technicolor explosion from The Roadhouse Studios. Mavis Staples & Levon Helm, The Meltdown, Paul Thorn, Marcus King, and Albert Cummings are all ahead. And, a track that will have you singing along before it's over. It's the savory to the usual sweet, the spice of life, and another hour of the finest blues you've never heard.

It's a quieter week in The Roadhouse, after a week with a smoking hot blues guitar set. Larry McCray, Charlie Musselwhite, Edgar Winter, Staples Jr. Singers, and Bonnie Raitt are all ahead. If it's been about nothing else, this hour has always been about variety. That and being another hour of the finest blues you've never heard.

A good roll continues in the next hour of The Roadhouse. I've got four more Roadhouse debuts and a 4-track set of dense blues and blues-rock guitar. Diunna Greenleaf, Greg Koch, Ledisi, Marcus King, and Trombone Shorty step out front to lead the way through another hour of the finest blues you've never heard.

It's an hour of firsts in the next hour of The Roadhouse. I have a full set of Roadhouse debuts, five debuts in total. And, almost half of the music in the show is self-released. Duke Robillard, Julian Sas, Arthur Gunn & Dibesh Pokharel, Justin Golden, and The Wildroots provide all the variety you'd ever need in the hour. And, of course, they help provide another hour of the finest blues you've never heard.

In the next hour of The Roadhouse, I'll just try to stay out of the way of an hour of great blues tracks, providing just a little arrangement to help it along. John Hammond, Josh Smith, Hurricane Ruth, Mighty Mike Schermer, and The Nighthawks are all ahead. If we just let the music do the talking, this might be a pretty great conversation - and a pretty great hour of the finest blues you've never heard.

In the next hour of The Roadhouse, a pool of 30 tracks fell together into 12 that fit together perfectly. Bob Stroger & The Headcutters, Altered Five Blues Band, Edgar Winter, Dana Fuchs, and Larry McCray are ahead. Putting the hour together is an easy task when it all falls together like this. And you know what? It really does make for another hour of the finest blues you've never heard.

The next hour of The Roadhouse fulfills the need for the familiar, the comfortable, the predictably reliable. Larry McCray, David Lumsden, Leyla McCalla, Luke Winslow-King, and Keb' Mo. Even with a Next Generation set in the back half of the hour, I think this edition of The Roadhouse is a great example of the ease of the blues. And, of course, I think it's also a great example of another hour of the finest blues you've never heard.

In the next hour of The Roadhouse, I've got a full set of Roadhouse debuts, a track from a deluxe edition follow-up to a first-of-its-kind release, and a surprising Roadhouse debut from a guitarist who's been around since the early 1960s. Balta Bordoy & the Bad Boys, Gov't Mule, Delbert McClinton, Bonham-Bullick, and Mindi Abair lead the hour. We're pretty much right on par with 14 tracks in the hour and that those tracks definitely comprise another hour of the finest blues you've never...

It's all about the professionals in the next hour of The Roadhouse. There's not an artist in the hour who doesn't labor full-time in the blues. Trudy Lynn, Seth Walker, Oliver Wood, The Nighthawks, and Larry McCray - they're just five of the thirteen blues professionals in this edition. Let's tip our hats to the musicians who dedicate their lives to the blues, and who make for another hour of the finest blues you've never heard.

In the next hour of The Roadhouse, I've corraled a good mixture of new artists and old. Ferris & Sylvester, Rory Gallagher, Kilborn Alley Blues Band, Delaney & Bonnie, and Abby Girl and The Real Deal get the headline in the hour, but they really just indicate the great mix ahead - a mix of new and old, and a mix of the finest blues you've never heard.

I've got 17 tracks in the next hour of The Roadhouse, the most of any edition of the show, including music from Love & Light Orchestra, Albert Castiglia, Sugaray Rayford, Delbert McClinton, and Beth Hart. It's a dense and fast-moving hour of blues and, as always, another hour of the finest blues you've never heard.

In the next hour of The Roadhouse, I follow up a week with a lot of Roadhouse debuts with a week with a lot of Roadhouse debuts. Just short of a third of the hour is folks who have never been featured and they get the support of some great artists who are, more or less, regulars in the show. John Mayall, Ferris & Sylvester, Larkin Poe, Robben Ford & the Blue Line, and Kirby make up the hour. That all just helps prove the point that we're headed directly for another hour of the finest blues...

After an hour of show-openers, we go the other direction with five Roadhouse debuts in the next hour - a record for The Roadhouse. Bonham-Bullick, The Sully Band, Night Bluemers, Harley Kimbro Lewis, and Walk That Walk all make their first appearances in our dark little dive in the hour ahead. It's an hour of new friends, and certainly another hour of the finest blues you've never heard.

There's an anniversary celebration in the next edition of The Roadhouse, commemorating 17 years of the show. As is our tradition, the hour is filled with opening tracks from the shows of the previous year. Johnny Tucker & The Allstars, Tia Carroll, Dave Specter, Curtis Salgado, and Sass Jordan help us celebrate another year of The Roadhouse and another hour of the finest blues you've never heard.