Written by Dan Levi | 01 February 2012

The San Luis Obispo Blues Society will feature Arthur Adams at the Saturday, March 17 show at the SLO Vets Hall (801 Grand Avenue). Doors open at 7:30pm with free dance lessons by SLO Dance. The show opens at 8:00pm with The Cinders Blues Band. Tickets are $17 for Blues Society members; $20 for the general public. All tickets are sold at the door. 21 and over, please. For more information, call 805/541-7930 or visit www.sloblues.org.

Arthur Adams is an instrumentalist, vocalist, and composer who is equally adept at interpreting blues, jazz and soul. Anyone who has listened to the radio in the past 30 years has heard Arthur Adams play guitar. Adams played with Bonnie Raitt on Nick of Time (the record that won three Grammy Awards); he recorded five albums with the Crusaders including Street Life (which topped the Billboard jazz, R&B, and rock charts); and he has backed up B. B. King, Lowell Fulson, Al Jarreau, Nina Simone, Jerry Garcia, Lou Rawls, James Brown, and more. In short, he’s been in great demand as a studio musician for several decades.

Adams recorded the first of his seven solo albums It’s Private Tonight in 1972. His most recent is Stomp the Floor (Delta Groove, 2009), a recording that combines the complex rhythms of jazz with blues leads reminiscent of his friend B. B. King, while showcasing his sweet and soulful tenor voice (comparable to Aaron Neville), with lyrics and melodies that are solidly blues. Adams says of Stomp the Floor, “I’ve done it exactly the way I feel it. It’s all me; not all traditional blues, not all R & B, not all jazz, but a little of all of it.” Adams has made a career out of making other people sound good, and when given the chance to craft his own CD, he creates wonderfully complex and soulful blues.

The Cinders Blues Band plays a straight-forward, slightly raw version of the blues. The band includes Dorian Michael (precise and funky guitar) Brett Hoover (natural, soulful vocals and engaging stage presence), Dean Giles (foundation drums), and Paul Olguin (roots inspired bass). The music has Chicago 1960 as its starting place, but doesn’t make any attempt to sound like it. The music gets played in an organic contemporary fashion that is influenced by a lot of phases of 20th century blues and rock ‘n’ roll. And it all gets blended together and played with a great amount of spontaneity and intensity.

01 December 2011

The SLO Blues Society welcomes John Lee Hooker, Jr. on Saturday, January 28 to the SLO Vets Hall.
The show starts at 8:00 p.m. Tickets are $17 for members and $20 for the general public. Buy a membership for $10 at the door and get $3 off admission for a year of shows.

Vocalist John Lee Hooker, Jr. was born in Detroit, the city of Motown. His musical talents are drawn from a heritage stretching back to his grandfather in the 1800s. His musical career started at age eight when he sang for a radio station in Detroit. By age eighteen, he had recorded with his father and later toured the world with his father’s Coast to Coast blues band as the featured attraction. John Lee Hooker, Jr. and his band have played blues festivals around the country, including the Mississippi and Monterey Bay Blues Festivals. Hooker’s musical influences include Johnny “Guitar” Watson, Big Mama Thorton, Jimmy Reed, the Kings (B.B. and Albert), and his father. As he says about his father, “If I tried to fill my father’s shoes, I’d get cramps in my feet just trying to take one step.”

John describes his sound as two parts R&B, one part jazz and "down home blues". He captivates audiences with his ad-lib creations, working the crowd, encouraging them to sing along and often descending from the stage to dance with them.

Your Blues Society is run entirely by volunteers. Besides a sense of accomplishment, volunteers get into the shows for free and receive a free drink ticket. We could use your help, call our voice mail number: 541-7930 and volunteer to work a shift at the show.

Written by Shevon Sullivan | 01 December 2011

"The Spirit of the Clay"

     I happened to be reading Everyday Sacred by Sue Bender when Sandra asked me to write something for Information Press about my business. Bender’s book helps me remember the magic of clay. For 13 years I have owned Anam Cre Pottery studio, a special place where I teach people about clay. Here they learn how to throw on the wheel and how to hand build with clay they shape and connect into forms. I encounter all types of people; engineers, doctors, printers and painters, teachers, families, coworkers. Often people walk into the studio and say “I’m not artistic” and I say “who told you that? Come in and let’s see what happens?”

     My goal is to help you suspend judgment and discover something new about yourself. Clay causes one to pause in our daily activity. M.C. Richards wrote, “It’s not the pots we are forming, it’s ourselves.” When I named my studio Anam Cre, the Gaelic words that mean the spirit of the clay, little did I know how powerful the clay spirit would be. Wonderful children and adults with disabilities come weekly. This is not only therapeutic for them but also for our family of potters who offer to help them. I invite you to come to the Creamery in San Luis Obispo and visit our pottery studio. Consider making your holiday gifts this year. A simple bowl can be thought of as a gratitude bowl thus honoring those you care about. Don’t wait too long. Clay takes patience; time to form, time to fire and time to glaze. Allow two weeks; each student makes about 4 to 6 pieces in a two hour class.

    For a schedule visit our website is www.anamcre.com. Phone 896-6197