San Luis Obispo Blues Society does it again... bringing the best of the Blues to SLO

The San Luis Obispo Blues Society welcomes Ronnie Baker Brooks on Saturday, October 31 to the SLO Vets Hall, 801 Grand Avenue. The dance concert will open at 8:00pm with Pryor Baird & the Deacons. Pre-show, dance lessons are at 7:30 p.m.  Tickets are $17 for Blues Society members; $20 general public. All tickets are sold at the door; 21 and over, please.

About Ronnie Baker Brooks
By the time he was 18, Ronnie Baker Brooks was touring with his father, Lonnie Brooks, playing second guitar and vocals.  For many of these years, shows started off with Ronnie on lead guitar and vocals, while his younger brother, Wayne, supported him on rhythm guitar. When Lonnie was ready to come on stage, Wayne stepped down and Ronnie switched to back up. Brooks served as his father’s bandleader for over ten years before starting his solo career in 1999.

In the past ten years, Ronnie has released three CDs. His most recent release, The Torch (Watchdog Records, 2006) was nominated for three prestigious blues awards – a testament to the depth of his talent, given that he wrote all 17 of the songs and recorded it with his touring band. The song Ronnie is most proud of is “The Torch of the Blues” which features Brooks with his father and heroes Eddy Clearwater, Jimmy Johnson and the late Willie Kent.
The CD showcases the breadth of Ronnie’s talent as well, ranging stylistically from traditional Chicago blues to hip hop, funk, and rock. As Ronnie

says, “I wanted to do something that would bring young people to the blues, and then give them the real hardcore thing at the same time. When I grew up, all my friends listened to rap and funk, and I listened to the blues. So I heard their music and they heard mine. I think we both saw some connection between them. It's a hip-hop world right now, but I want to bring a little blues to the party.”

“In Ronnie Baker Books’ powerhouse hands blues-rock never sounded so outrageous. Soul never sounded so delicious. And blues never sounded so profound … one of today's top live performers.” Art Tipaldi, Blues Revue.

For more information or to volunteer, call 805/541-7930 or visit our website (www.slowblues.org).

Feed the hungry

Anam-Cre’ Pottery Studio is joining with local artists, businesses and potters from all over the Central Coast to help feed the hungry. The group is preparing for the Empty Bowls event in October.  Shevon Sullivan and her student potters have been making bowls and now they are asking families to come and glaze the bowls so they may be donated to the Empty Bowls event. 
Come to this important Throw Fest on Friday, Sept. 11, from 6 to 9 pm.  Anam-Cre’ Studio is located in the creamery at 570 Higuera Street, space 140 in San Luis Obispo. For details call 544-1850.

What is Empty Bowls?
For a donation of $20 participants choose a beautiful handmade bowl, enjoy a simple meal of gourmet soup and bread, and take home the bowl as a reminder of the meal’s purpose to help feed the hungry in our community. For the past 8 years ceramic artist throughout the Central Coast have contributed bowls to this wonderful luncheon. Soups for the event are donated by some of the best restarurants in Santa Maria.  To purchase tickets by phone and for more information call (805) 937-3422 ext. 106 or visit www.foodbanksbc.org.

Les Paul, guitar wizard and innovator, died last month on August 13th. Though gone, he leaves behind a legacy of ability and invention that will affect music forever.

Paul may be best known for the self-named Les Paul guitar he designed for Gibson in the early 1950s, selling steadily since then and made popular by famed guitarists such as the Beatles and Slash of Guns N' Roses. Another and greater achievement of his was the creation of multi-track recording, which was a monumental movement in musical history. Now one guitar could sound like eight, and that's exactly what Paul did, creating songs with his wife and singer Mary Ford that were so layered with guitar tracks that it sounded like a guitar orchestra. And that's another thing too; Paul could really play guitar well. His arrangements and riffs can be dizzying to listen to at times. He also went on to create reverberation and echo effects for the guitar...not a bad resume overall.

Yet that is still not the entire story. Born Lester William Polsfuss on June 9, 1915, Paul's musical life, although peppered with inventions, began when he was a very young boy trying to learn piano. Ironically enough, his frustrated piano teacher once wrote his mother a letter stating that he would never learn music. And although Paul never did learn to formally read music, he went on to play the harmonica, banjo and guitar (and later in life, the piano) all by the time he was a young teenager, proving that forging one's own path can still be as rewarding if not more so than the beaten one.

Being partial to country and jazz at a young age, the 1930s were a blur of performance and growth for Paul, playing harmonica and guitar simultaneously. After sneaking into a club through a window at age 17 and discovering amazing guitar work from a traveling band, he chatted with them after the set and ended up playing with them. He quit school and joined Rube Tronson's Texas Cowboys, and later with Sunny Joe Wolverton's band, under the stage name Rhubarb Red. From those beginnings he was able to play with blues singer Georgia White and eventually formed his own trio in 1937. After moving to New York in 1938, Paul's trio played on Fred Waring's radio show, receiving national exposure. Paul moved to Hollywood in 1943, which led to his being able to play with Bing Crosby, and the number one hit "It's Been a Long, Long Time", released in 1945. A bad car accident while on tour shattered his right elbow in 1948; it had to be set at a permanent angle for the rest of his life, so it was set at 90 degrees in order to continue playing music. It was after this that he teamed up with Mary Ford and released many well-received pop music discs on Capitol Records. Up until his death, Paul played Monday nights at small jazz clubs in New York.

Darien Lohof lives in the Five Cities area and plays music with Depths of Chaos, a local metal group. Correspondence of any kind can be sent to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .