Tag Archives: Stevie Ray Vaughn

August 14, 2012

The 411 in 15 Minutes: Dawn Tyler Watson & Paul Des Lauriers

Just a quick bit of background here I had just seen Dawn Tyler & Paul at the Pennsylvania Blues Festival set the tent stage alight with their soulful and heartfelt renditions of original songs and covers of traditional blues and rock tunes.

What I didn’t realize was their story on how they got there and also anything about them. I was so impressed with their energy and stage presence that I corralled them for some quick chat to share with y’all, enjoy it I know I did.
————————–

B411: Wow, what a set ! The emotional drain that you guys must have went thru during the set was incredible and highly visible. I mean you looked like you were wrung out and hung out to dry after it.

Dawn Taylor Watson: On goodness it was quite humid and the tent just kept it all underneath – but the towels and spritzers helped.

Paul Des Lauriers: Well, we managed to get here at three in the morning, and still don’t have our luggage or clothing. Hopefully we will have them all by the second set.

B411: That was the rumor going thru, that you had nothing arrive from your plane. What happened.

PD: There was a terrible weather over Detroit, and we got stuck on the tarmac in Omaha for four hours. That was before we could actually take off, but once we got to Detroit all the planes were landing and departing but everything was delayed or canceled which meant that we couldn’t get our flight to Allentown since it was canceled also.

So within twenty minutes I got us on a flight to Newark, but our luggage and gear didn’t make it.
DTW: Yeah, we got here from Newark, NJ at like three in the morning.

B411: How, who drove or limo?

PD: Well thanks to my beautiful girlfriend here who accompanied us on this trip, she drove 100 mph on the turnpike to get us here.
B411: OK I won’t use her photo here we wouldn’t want her arrested (we laugh).

PD: I had to run out and buy a guitar and some gear at five this morning from the local shop so we could actually play today. All they carried was these student guitars so that’s what I played.

B411: Wow, that would be a good guitar for me, but it just shows us all that it ain’t the guitar it’s the player.

So Dawn, you look great today, these are not your clothes?

DTW: Oh thank you, no I just bought this little thing. Thank God there are concessions here, we got in at three – got some sleep and got up at nine, and pretty much bee running around since.

B411: Smashing my dear, quite fetching.

DTW: Well Laura (Carbone) loaned me some things also, otherwise it would be a stinking mess.
B411: The Blues Framily takes care of one another yet again.

B411: So Paul you play that acoustic guitar like it owes you something. What I mean is that you really play it like it’s an electric. Incredible stuff.

PD: Well I do play the electric. I’d even venture to say that the electric is my main instrument.

B411: Really, I’ve never had the chance to hear ya play electric, but seeing you play the acoustic the way you do it’s not a far reach.

PD: As it should be, what happens is that a lot of people are going to see us – an acoustic show and are thinking folk, delicate finger picking and soft stuff – which we do a lot of, and I dig it – but much like an electric guitar you can pull out a lot of notes from it and squeeze out many different sounds from it. I approach it with the same energy that I approach my electric with. I don’t see a difference I am playing it the same way I would play my Les Paul thru a Marshall amp cranked to 10.

B411: To me it’s as close to an electric show but played with an acoustic.

PD: Yeah, people love it, and I like that approach. It sort of developed out of necessity to, part that’s the style I want to play but also out of sheer desperation. I’m the only guy on the stage so I have to be the drummer, the bass player so that’s where the necessity comes in.

B411: You do work a lot of that finger picking styled guitar work in to the show but on the other end you crush that baby when you need to.

PD: We do it all – that’s the neat thing about our show it is that varied. One might think an acoustic duo show would be soft and such, we have those moments but we really rock it out and get loud. I think what we do is very original.

B411: Yes quite so. Now dawn is no slouch vocally either. She can belt it out with the best, but she also can weave a tapestry of sounds that range from Jazz inspired phrasing to taking on Stevie Ray Vaughn’s “Cold Shot” – which is what first turned me on to ya’s.

PD: We just played in Omaha and our friend introduced us to the audience as one of those rare occasions where 1+1=3 !
DTW: Well put, it was the Playing with Fire Festival. It’s pretty cool, we are the sum of the parts but we also front our own bands also.

PD: Yeh we came together as both front persons and are used to working like that. So when you bring us together its like we are a one/two punch.

B411: You two seem to be somewhat opposite in musical background or direction. Dawn, I know has a penchant for Jazz typed vocals, while you have a rocker styled image.

PD: Yes that’ quite the case, and we meet in the Blues.

B411: Yes the illegitimate child of a forbidden tryst. There is something quite attractive about mixed genres or races they usually turn out really stunning.

PD: (laughing) well if we’re making analogies about records or music as children then that s correct.
People ask what style do you do, I think that Dawn and my backgrounds are so eclectic that we don’t like to limit ourselves to do one thing. We touch Jazz, Rock, Folk, all sorts of Roots music, and, of course Blues and mix it all together – it’s the sum of all of our influences.

B411: You did a version of “Tracks Of My Tears” that was really great. Then Dawn went off on a jazz-scat vocal voyage, just exactly what you said – an amalgam of influences.

DTW: Oh goodness Paul is the ultimate interviewee. I can barely get a word in, perfect!

B411: So do you guys get down across the border often? Last time I saw ya’ was at the IBC’s, and just briefly too.

DTW: Not as much as we’d like. There are always issues with work visas, the amount of time needed to get them in plus the whole legal workings that are always sticklers for details.

PD: I think that both sides make it really difficult for musicians to come across the border and work. These are the only two countries that I don’t like coming home to. You go to Europe they stamp your passport and big you are done. Have a nice day – play some music and than you. Here it’s where have you been, what have you got, a big hassle.

B411: Who can help with that – who on your end would handle it?

PD: A lot of it is handled by our manager also the ACFM (American Canadian Federation of Musicians) helps us some with some of that.

Note: At this point Ms.Anne Harris came over and we broke down the interview so the artists could spend time together and enjoy each other-that’s how Blues411 rolls.

Please visit their site to learn more about this dynamic duo of Blues/Roots music: http://dawnandpaul.com/ 

and individually:
Dawn: http://www.dawntylerwatson.com/
Paul: http://www.pauldeslauriers.ca/ 

Until next time,
Love, Peace & Chicken Grease
chefjimi
©Blues411.com 2012
Where Blues Thrive
photos: Leslie K. Joseph, Blues411

Leave a Comment

Filed under Blues, Blues411, Entertainment, Festivals, Interviews, Opinion, Performance Review, The 411 in 15 minutes

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

February 23, 2012

Shun Kikuta – Shogun of the Blues

Shun Kikuta, accomplished musical artist, classically trained but drawn to the Blues. His story is an interesting one, many roads but they all lead back to the Blues. He was kind enough to speak with me at length from Taiwan about his body of work, his trials and joys and how he came to work with Koko Taylor. Enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it.
——

B411: Shun how are you ? How is living, and most especially working in Asia going?

SK: I’m doing fine, real fine. Actually besides playing the Blues I am working in a lay ‘Anything Goes’ it’s a musical. It’s very different from what I am used to with charts covering each note, no improvising allowed it is very challenging for me even though I went to school for music theory and all. But I think I have forgotten more than I remember !

B411: Well how different is it to go from Berklee School of Music and all that it encompasses to the world of the Blues – which is more free form – is it harder ?

SK: When I went to Berklee it is a great school for music, but to me, there are limits to analyzing music – scales, notes, chords but music is so much more than that stuff or theory. When I first heard BB King it was like ‘man that’s what I’m saying’, it’s something that you can’t analyze but you feel good hearing it. It was his ‘Live at the Regal’ record and I was maybe nineteen or twenty I realized that this was it. I was happy, sad, all of the emotional things involved with the music. It moved me the way he sang his ass off and played great guitar – it was the whole package to me.

Before that I was playing heavy rock music, so I had some chops, heavy rock always uses Blues licks and the like. It was easy for me to get deeper into the Blues because I had some chops but just didn’t know they were the blues. Then I started listening to guys like Otis Rush, Albert King, Buddy Guy Stevie Ray Vaughn all those good Blues players.
In Boston I saw Johnny Winter and John Lee Hooker, and also saw Ronnie Earl, Duke Robilliard and that big band sound from Roomful of Blues all local Boston area bands. The more I heard of the Blues the more I liked it and wanted to play it.
I started to go to jam sessions at the clubs in Boston, and started writing song sand learning how to play. I was still at the Berklee and playing Jazz but wanted to move in a new direction.

B411: It’s amazing how many artists cite B.B.’s ‘Live at the Regal’ as the pivotal recording that turned them on to the Blues.

SK: Yeah man, those cats were amazing and it really made me want to learn more. So within a week of graduating Berklee I moved to Chicago. I packed all my little bags into a mini-van and drove to Chicago. I found me a job at a Japanese restaurant washing dishes, but I got laid off because they were not doing well, so I was the first to go.

So I went to City Hall and got a Performer’s License for like $25 and started playing on the street. Set up in subway stations and stuff like that, it was around Christmas time and I was making like $70 in three hours and I was so excited about that – it was good money ! That was cool, playing on the streets and making good money but then after New Year’s the money dried up. I made like $1.25 in three hours so that wasn’t going to cut it.

At the same time, at night I would carry my guitar with me and go to the clubs where they had jams, places like Rosa’s Lounge, Buddy Guy’s Legends and Wise Fools Pub and do jam sessions and started meeting people and would pass around my cards. But after awhile I stopped that because not everyone was a professional at these jams and it was sometimes hard to really play out. I then started going to the clubs where bands were playing and then during the break I would introduce myself and tell them I am from Japan and play the Blues and could I sit in with them. So many times they would say yeah, and I would wait till they called me up, usually the last song late at night, and we’d play together. So I got to know so many people. It’s an amazing thing about Chicago they are so open about letting you play with them – they all give you a chance. That’s how I met Otis Rush. It was like a month after I got to Chicago he had a gig at the Wise Fools Pub, on a Tuesday and I was sitting right in front with my guitar. So at break he walked by me and asked if I play guitar, I said yes and he asked if I would want to sit in with him ! Imagine that, Otis Rush asked me to jam with him. Chicago is like that very open for musicians it’s a part of the great tradition to keep the Blues alive, and help others learn these great songs and how to play the real Blues.
A few months after that I got my first gig at Rosa’s with Louis Meyers. Tony, the owner of Rosa’s took a liking to me and kept me in the loop and helped me network with these great artists. That was the first gig that I got that was paying me money!

B411: So chronologically what year is this going on. I am trying to see how you went from the subways to playing with Koko Taylor.

SK: That was in 1990, I started playing with Koko in 2000. I didn’t know about Chicago Blues all that well back then. The sound was different then from what it was in the sixties, when I get there they were funkier and more hard-edged overdrive guitar sound. James Brown, Tyrone Davis, Funk, R&B, Al Green even Prince influences so I had to learn to adjust my style. It took me a little while but I can play a lot of different styles of music from classical, to Jazz and Rock that it helped me to adjust and learn from my past experiences. I observed the style and learned it well and I think that helped me get jobs.

A lot of cats came to Chicago expecting to play old style music like Muddy Waters, Little Walter and that but it wasn’t being played at that time unfortunately.
So around 1995 I was hired by Junior Wells for the US and Canadian tour which lasted about six months. That was my very first experience to travel outside the Chicago area to other parts of the country and the world while playing the Blues for people. We were played clubs like House of Blues and all the big festivals and by doing so I met Dan Aykroyd, Lee Oskar and guys like that through touring with Junior.

I learned a lot from Junior Wells, before I played with him I didn’t sing at all I only played guitar. So one day he comes to me while we are in the dressing room, and says to me “you don’t sing, you have to sing to be a Bluesman” – I was shocked and I said that I am a young Japanese guitar player and I don’t even speak English, never-the-less sing the Blues. He shakes his head and smiles and says I don’t speak English well either so you have no excuse. So he’s singing ‘Little By Little’ and tells me to follow him and sing along. So after that I started singing more and I appreciate what he did for me. I still work on my singing, and do more and more.

B411: Great story, especially singing Little By Little, he was right of course on all accounts. I saw a video of you on YouTube singing Little By Little in a club in Asia, very cool.

SK: Yeh, yeh I love it, I sing so much more now. So I first met Koko Taylor in 1996 when I cut my second album ‘Chicago Midnight’ for King Records in Japan. I had been working with them since 1994 so I have had Chicago artists play on my records. So they asked me who I wanted to be a guest on this record (big named people), so I said I’d like to have Koko. Koko was with Alligator and they had a relationship with King Records, so Bruce Iglauer introduced me to Koko and she said OK. We did two songs together in the studio for the release tracks 5 and 6 actually.

I didn’t see her again till 1999, I was playing together with JW Williams at the Kingston Mines every Friday and Saturday. JW and I have been together for a long time, until last year we were together sixteen years. JW is another great musician and guy. One night Koko came into Kingston Mines and she was just hanging out – she’s sitting right in the front row watching us play. So after the set I just went to say hello to her but she didn’t remember me from the recording sessions, so she said she was pleased to meet me etc., and I give her my card and say that I don’t have a day job this is what I do and I can go on the road if she ever needs me to. I never expected her to call me…..

So she calls me a few months later and says ‘do you remember me, it’s Koko Taylor’ ! Well she asked me for two shows and she really liked my playing and said she would call me again. After a few months she called me again and asked me join the ‘Blues Machine’.

B411: See if you don’t ask how will you ever know.

SK: Exactly, very true, you never know I’m glad I asked. So that was in October 2000 and had been with her up until she passed.

B411: So you are currently living in Asia, how are the Blues doing there?

SK: Yeh, I have been in Taiwan since February 2011. I tour frequently in Japan, but mainly stay in Taipei, Taiwan. The Blues is getting very hot in Asia right now. There is a big festival there that I am supposed to play in called the INA Blues along with John Mayall – we also have a Japan Blues Festival as does Beijing and India – Asia is starting to grow up more here. For me, being an Asian I feel it is important for me to be here to play the Blues that I learned in Chicago. I can also work on bringing more artists here to open the doors so everybody does well.

Indonesia is very hot now and I am looking forward to playing there at INA Blues. This is like their fifth or sixth festival, they have a lot of money to put into it. Last year they had Ana Popovic and they seem to have a large enough budget to bring big acts over here to play.
Chicago is still my home and I miss it, but being here right now is very important and I can do so much good for the Blues. Yet I think I am ready for the change, it is challenging and I am ready for it. Taiwan is not a big city like Chicago where there is a gig almost every night, but that’s OK. It is a very centrally located city it is near many cities and countries so it is a good place to be.

B411: Any plans on new recordings?

SK: I have about ten songs right now that are roughed out, not finished. Since I am in Taiwan I am talking to management company and seeing what interest there is and as soon as we get that done we will get it out there. I hope to get stuff out in 2012 in one form or another. I can even do it myself but it is always good to have someone backing you up and promoting you.

B411: Shun thank you sir, for your time today and your music.
2/23/12 PS: Shun just got married today also, how great is that  - let’s all give joyous wishes to him and his bride !

For more info on Shun visit his web site: http://www.shunkikuta.com/english/index.php

Until next time,
Love, Peace & Chicken Grease
chefjimi
©Blues411.com 2012
photos: Blues411

Parts of this interview were originally published in Blues Blast Magazine, we thank them for allowing our shared format with them. You can visit them at http://www.thebluesblast.com/bbnow.htm 

1 Comment

Filed under Blues, Blues411, Entertainment, Interviews, Music, Rock & Roll

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

November 30, 2011

The 411 in 15: Laurie Morvan Skinny Chick with Big Game !

B411: Was it/is it difficult for a lady who plays guitar to be taken seriously or to get work?
LM: At this point it is hard for everyone, it’s not just hard for woman. I don’t want it to sound like its women complaining – it isn’t – the music is so hard. Now woman do have a different flavor of trouble. When I started playing, this was in the late 80′s, there were people who treated you as a novelty, instead of as an artist, and nobody wants that. Yeah there have been times that I was frustrated – things that I couldn’t get, shows that I couldn’t get on.
There was this one club that I could just never get in, and I knew I belonged there. So I had one of my male friends try to book me in – ya know man to man. He came back and said to me that he never realized how hard it was for a female guitar player to get booked. He said it was so eye-opening for him, the guy told him women shouldn’t be playing – so I never got booked there till he sold it and BOOM I got booked.
Inappropriate things have been said to me, or you are not being taken seriously, but ya know what, as I said everyone has a different flavor of hardship that they go thru – it’s all blah, blah, blah – but once you do get on stage and you play your ass off, then who’s gonna argue with you after that?
Sometimes the doors don’t get opened for you and sometimes it still happens. There have been festivals where I have been told ‘we already booked our woman’ singular. I have been told that within the last couple of years. My lord there are like twelve male acts but there can only be one woman. I kinda shake my head, it’s like the woman are a genre ! That can be a little weird but all that being said there may also be a guy who can’t get on because they might have a guy who already plays a purple guitar – see what I’m saying, it’s all different flavors of hardship we all get them thrown at us in some form, but yes it is different in some cases for women.

B411: Yeh I understand, but I am not a women and I (and possibly other men) don’t know what it’s like. The very first time I saw Bonnie Raitt (in like 1978) since there was no other female that I could relate her playing to I said she played it like a man. I think that the lack of women guitar players created that thought in my mind – I had no where else to go with it, no prior experience.
LM: Yeah people say that to me ‘you play guitar like a guy’ and I say no I play like a girl – this is exactly how a woman plays a guitar. I am a woman and I play guitar so this is it !

B411: Candye Kane told me her response to someone saying that Laura Chavez played like a man, it was something to the effect that she’s playing it with her hands not her female parts, hands are non-gender specific !
LM: Great answer. You try to stay low key about that. I have been playing along time now. The Blues world might be just discovering me in the last four or five years but I’ve been pounding in the clubs. I used to play Rock & Roll and found my way to the Blues. I wish I could have been exposed to the Blues when I was eighteen, but I didn’t know anyone who was listening to it. I just wasn’t exposed to it, and that’s what it takes, you need to have access to it to know you love it.
That’s what the Blues was like to me, when I first heard it I was like ‘ahh what is this beautiful music that I have just never been exposed to’, and then I went after it.

B411: So you come from a Rock background ?
LM: I was in a power trio, it was the late 80′s early 90′s. Stuff like Heart, Pat Benatar, Jimi Hendrix, we did Eric Clapton, and it starts to point in that direction, then Stevie Ray Vaughn – who is this Stevie guy ? It’s such a wonderful musical palette all the forms of it. But what gets my heart pumping is the Rock & Roll influenced Blues, I just love it. My desert island music is Stevie Ray Vaughn. He was my gateway to the Blues so I will always love him and his style of Blues. It’s kinda like your first love which you never will forget.

B411: Any other influences that you found when you went back to the Blues?
LM: Bonnie Raitt, of course. But again, I came through Pop Music to discover it. So you listen to her pop tunes and then to some of her older stuff and realize how cool they were and want to learn more about all of it. I think one of the greatest songwriters in the whole wide world ever was Freddie King. To me the breadth of his songwriting and the influence it still has is just incredible.
I consider myself a songwriter first, and you know how much I like to play guitar, but to me music is all about the song. Without a real song the guitar playing would have no meaning. The guitar is there to serve the song and help energize the people. But I think the song will transcend and that’s whats gonna last. Sure Freddie King was a great guitar player, but what we remember are his songs. That’s what stirs peoples hearts, I’ve always admired that about him.

B411: He was the complete package for sure. It pays to be able to play and sing – to get that spirit level to a good balance, as I said the whole package.
LM: Yes, I sort of liken it to track and field where you can have the worlds greatest 100 yard sprinter, the worlds best shot putter, the world’s best high jumper and no one else can do these things better. But then you have the decathlete, people who can do many things and do it all well. They never will be the best at any one thing and that’s the way I look at musicians like me. You always find a better singer than me, or guitar player or business manager but I have to do ten things in my band and have to do them all well. So when you are going for that total package your brain has to multitask therefore you can’t specialize. It all kind of comes around to where in track and field you have the decathlete in the Blues you have the entertainer. You become the complete entertainer, can you talk to the audience? Can you relate to them, do you have stories behind your songs…..but there are only 24 hours a day, I am interested in a lot of things so being an entertainer is what I see myself as globally. I want people to have a good time, I want people to walk away from my show saying it was a good way to spend some time, they felt the fellowship with the band and their music. So all the other parts feed the main goal as being a great entertainer.

Visit Laurie on her web site:  http://www.lauriemorvan.com/

Until next time,
Love, Peace & Chicken Grease
chefjimi
©Blues411.com 2011
photos: Leslie K. Joseph

2 Comments

Filed under Blues, Blues411, Bluescruise, Entertainment, Interviews, Music, Rock & Roll, The 411 in 15 minutes

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,