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REVIEWS
 
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Review from Oct-Nov
2005
Big City Rhythm & Blues 
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Publication Date: Wednesday, December 4, 2002 BLUES WITH A FEELING by Bob Weinberg On-stage at this year's Sound Advice Blues Festival, Joey Gilmore was in his element. The genial bluesman worked his
Publication Date: Wednesday, December 6, 2002 Blues Festival wrap up by Bob Weinberg There were some truly exciting moments during this weekend's Sound Advice Blues Festival, the event's 16th THE MUSIC ISSUE - THE BLUES SCENE
"Good Rockin" Johnny Wenzel, "Midnite" Johnny Marana, Fleet Starbuck, Joey Gilmore, Dave Morgan, Michael Locke, Shawn Starsky, Ken "Snowman" Minahan, Bob Miles and Josh Rowan. It was our attempt at a guitar summit, a Great Day in Himmarshee, so to speak. Gather together a cross-section of area blues-slingers on a late Sunday afternoon - grizzled vets, old-school soul men, young hotshots - pose them with their axes and use the resulting photo to say something profound about the variety of blues available in South Florida. Of course, we also knew it would be a stone-cold hoot when these characters got together, and they didn't disappoint, wisecracks flying ("Hey, do they make those shoes in men's sizes?" Ken "Snowman" Minahan asked " Good Rockin' " Johnny Wenzel) and a general air of fellowship dominating the proceedings. In South Florida especially, the blues takes on as many hues as a November evening sky, a vast palette of shades all bleeding into one another. Chicago blues, Delta blues, funk, R&B and rock are all in the mix, most area blues bands dipping their brushes into more than one color. Born in Ocala, Joey Gilmore came to South Florida in the '60s and has been here ever since. Gilmore found his niche playing behind all the great soul, blues and R&B stars that passed through town, as well as leading his own successful bands and recording along the way. His love affair with the guitar began in his teens. "In the town that I lived in, there was a barbershop," Gilmore reminisces. "And the barber that owned the shop was a sanctified preacher. He was a minister, and he had this little flat-bodied guitar. It was electric, no amplifier to it. And he would bring it to the shop with him, and he was trying to learn how to play. So, I would get to the barbershop early whenever I would go to get my hair cut, or even after school, I would hang around at the barbershop, because I wanted to get my hands on that guitar. I would take the guitar and they had these old wooden benches. I would lay the guitar on top of the wooden bench and when you would strum the strings, the wood, the bench, would vibrate, and the floor would, the sound would resonate, and you could hear it without the amplifier. I learned just from watching him." Young Gilmore tried to keep his obsession with the instrument from his churchgoing aunt, who was raising him, but word of the talented boy who played at the barbershop eventually got back to her. She finally heard him play with his group at church and was moved to tears. "She went straight to Sears and Roebuck and bought me a brand-new guitar," Gilmore says. "It was a Kay, I think. And from that, we started learning other songs, other music besides church music. And that didn't sit too well with her. But when she finally accepted that we could make money, that we could make a lot on a weekend, though we weren't old enough to be in the bars without parental supervision, she would go with us. And she would sit at the door and take up the money for us." Now established as a South Florida favorite, Gilmore provided a highlight of this year's Fort Lauderdale Blues Fest, proving again he's one of South Florida's best soul-blues singers and wringing blue notes out of his guitar alongside the Jeff Prine Group and singer Juanita Dixon. Chicago native Ken "Snowman" Minahan knows the value of keeping it real, though he's not chained to tradition. In fact, as a young musician in the Windy City, he was asked to deliver an amplifier to a Muddy Waters session presided over by Marshall Chess. The son of label founder Leonard Chess, Marshall wanted to bring Muddy Waters screaming into the future with a psychedelic sound. Muddy wasn't having any of it. "He was a big man and he was mad," Minahan remembers. "Marshall was trying to calm him down. There was very little playing and a lot of arguing." In the late '80s, Snowman hooked up with Piano Bob Wilder in Miami, the duo performing traditional acoustic barrelhouse blues and even winning the B.B. King Lucille Award for Best Unsigned Blues Band. Nowadays, you can find Snowman plugged in once again, playing leads on his clear plastic guitar (he calls it "Lucite," in honor of B.B.'s ax) in the R&B-blues outfit Sheba and the Rhythm Kings. Blues scene vets like Fleet Starbuck, Good Rockin' Johnny Wenzel, Dave Morgan, Midnite Johnny Morana and Michael Locke all have helped to build the South Florida blues scene over the past couple of decades with their respective bands, playing from the Keys to all points north. More recently, southpaw six-stringer Bob Miles has proved the consummate sideman with Mississippi-gone-SoFla blues shouter Jr. Drinkwater, providing stellar backing on Drinkwater's new CD, Like a Mirror, and alternately laying down trad blues riffs, blues-rocking contemporary leads and sweet Memphis-y rhythms. Young guns like Shawn Starsky (The Regulators) and Josh Rowand (Outta D'Blues) have brought tremendous fire and swing to their respective groups, as well, ensuring that their predecessors' love of the music will be left in capable hands.
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