youTube Clip - John Lee Hooker

Here's a competition. I'll send a new pair of ears to the first person to watch this and not stamp his feet to the beat. It's a wonderful clip of primetime John Lee Hooker, from the American Folk Blues Festival in 1965. You get the feeling if the painted town behind him fell down you'd see Gene Wilder and the Blazing Saddles crew.

The Excellos

The Excellos – The Excellos
Excellos CD001
Tracklisting: 1 I Got Love If You Want It 2 Catfish 3 You Don't Care 4 Jekyll & Hyde 5 Bad Boy Blues 6 Draw The Line 7 Black Betty 8 Cold Coffee 9 Jump 10 Sonny Rising 11 Kasbah 12 Lucky Charm 13 Suzy Q 14 Scratch & Sniff 15 Shake Your Hips 16 Down In The Bottom
The Excellos are a hot quartet from the UK. They couldn't have chosen a better name for themselves as they play in the rockin' blues style so famously recorded by the likes of Lightnin' Slim and Slim Harpo on the Excello label from Louisiana. It's good to see a band with this sound doing so well on the scene as it's been surprisingly underutilised over recent years. A notable exception was the great French band Boll Weevil who slayed a packed crowd at the Rhythm Riot a few years ago. I remember after the show they carried on playing a few songs in the foyer - it was hot and sweaty just as you'd imagine a Crowley gin joint to be circa 1961.
The Excellos are Craig Shaw, Adam Wakefield, Trev TC Collins and Paul Sheahan and they've all been on the scene in some form for the past couple of decades. Wakefield, Shaw and Sheahan were founder members of the Bop Shack Stompers and Collins was the drummer for the Western Bops.
The album kicks off with a great cover of Slim Harpo’s Got Love If You Want It with a driving beat and Shaw’s harmonica stealing the show. Jackyll & Hide was released as a single on Rollin’ Records last year and is wicked stomper with heavily amplified vocals and was backed by the instro Scratch & Sniff.
The whole album will appeal to rockers and bluesmen alike but the stand out moments for me include, Draw The Line, a rockabilly number with the bass beautifully recorded in the mix. Ram Jam’s Black Betty is a surprise choice that works well. Jump is in the Detroit era John Lee Hooker with a vocal that sounds like late 70’s George Thorogood. Not surprisingly, Slim Harpo is revisited with Shake Your Hips, no doubt a killer at their live shows. A really good album that will hopefully be the first of many.

Rock 'n' Roll Art No. 2

J.D.Sipe was born in 1951 in the small farming community of New London, Wisconsin but has lived most of his life in New Mexico. He is an award winning self-taught artist who specialises in painting blues singers and general musicians that he's a fan of. He paints on pine boards, and embellishes his paintings with bits of recycled aluminium can. See Lightnin' Hopkins' tie and handkerchief as an example.

Among our heroes to look out for, Snipes has painted Bo Diddley, John Lee Hooker, Hank Williams, BB King and Stevie Ray Vaughan.


Away from art he is the bass player for the blues band the HooDoos, performing in saloons, dancehalls, honky-tonks, roadhouse and nightclubs throughout the Southwest. He has been a professional musician for more than thirty years, and has performed with such bluesmen as Homesick James, Joe Huston, Buddy Ace and Wild Child Butler. He loves to tell the story about the night that Steve Winwood sat in with his band at the Chicago Bar in Tucson.