How To Carve A Thanksgiving Donkey

A piece of Thanksgiving advice from the Donkey: this donkaphonic clip, demonstrates time-tested, perfect carving technique. Stay Donkey!

Spa City Blues Society 2011 Christmas Party – December 3, 2011

Mark your calendar for December 3, 2011, for the Spa City Blues Society 2011 Christmas Party.  The festivities will be held at the Arlington Hotel in Hot Springs, Arkansas.  The party will feature performances by the SCBS’s representatives to the 2012 International Blues Challenge – which, in case you’ve been sleeping under a rock – are this very Donkey and the band Clover Blue. 

The party serves a number of purposes.  It will be a fundraiser for the IBC sponsorships.  The SCBS will also be collecting toys for Toys for Tots, so be sure to bring an unwrapped toy to donate.  But most important, the party is an opportunity to support the SCBS, which is vital the Central Arkansas blues scene.  Not only does the SCBS annually sponsor two entrants to the IBC, it organizes the Hot Springs Blues Festival, puts on weekly jams in Hot Springs, and works diligently to keep serious blues played and heard in Hot Springs. 

And lets not forget that you’ll get a chance to hear some music that comes straight from the Low Side of the Road.  I’ll let you make up your own mind about the Donkey, but I can guarantee that Clover Blue is worth the price of admission alone. Red dress, bare back, dancing shoes, shake it!

Doors open at 7:00 p.m., and the music starts at 8:00 p.m.  Tickets are $5.00 for SCBS members and $10.00 for non-members (remember, this is a fundraiser), and you can purchase them in advance at the SCBS website (see the link to the left).  And don’t forget a toy!  (I’ll take a telecaster, please.)

I Want To Sing Like Freddy King!

And really, who doesn't?!

A few weeks ago a member of the donkasphere, Blind Boy White, and I were discussing great blues albums -- not great players, great songs, great performances, but great albums.  The first two to make the list were Magic Sam's "Black Magic" and Freddy King's "Freddy King Sings!"

The majority of the Freddy King collections available cull material from the several albums King recorded for Shelter Records in the late 1960s/early 1970s, and from live recordings of the same period. Those recordings are great, but "Freddy King Sings" is King's very best -- indeed, it is one of the great electric blues albums ever. King's playing and singing are in top form, the band is tight and swingin', the production unobtrusive. King's guitar playing is vibrant and lyrical, and he knows just when to turn it on and get frantic (check out the second half of the Tore Down solo). 


It has been said that Eric Clapton eventually came to play like King.  Perhaps.  But he could never sing like King.  And what really makes this album cook is King's singing. King was a perfect combination of the electric blues singers who came before him -- somewhere between B.B. King, Bobby Bland, and T-Bone Walker -- and the pure timbre of his voice always shakes me down.  Consider: Is there a better blues vocal performance than "Have You Ever Loved A Woman"?


Stay Donkey!