Memphis Music Scene

 Bishop, Rush, among Blues Music Award winners

Bluff City singer/harmonica player John Nemeth, up for six awards, won for best soul blues album, 'Memphis Grease'.

John Nemeth - Photo: Aubrey Edwards

Elvin Bishop - Photo: Barry Brecheisen

COMMERCIAL APPEAL
Bob Mehr - May 8, 2015

Bluff City singer/harmonica player John Nemeth, who was up for six awards, managed to nab just one for best soul blues album for Memphis Grease. Memphis-bred Charlie Musselwhite also scored the 28th award of his career, with a win as best harmonica player.

Veteran guitarist/singer Elvin Bishop was the big winner at the 36th annual Blues Music Awards, held in Memphis on Thursday night.

The sold-out ceremonies, which took place at downtown’s Cook Convention Center, saw Bishop — on the heels of being elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Butterfield Blues Band earlier this year — take home the best band, song and album awards for his work on Can’t Even Do Wrong Right.

Fellow veteran, folk-blues artist John Hammond earned a pair of awards in the best acoustic album and artist categories for his record, Timeless.

Local and regional names also had a strong night as Mississippi’s Bobby Rush won the coveted B.B. King Entertainer award — his first, after multiple nominations — as well as honors for best soul blues artist. Bluff City singer/harmonica player John Nemeth, who was up for six awards, managed to nab just one for best soul blues album for Memphis Grease. Memphis-bred Charlie Musselwhite also scored the 28th award of his career, with a win as best harmonica player.

The late Johnny Winter — who died in July 2014 — was honored for best rock blues album, for his posthumously released Step Back. Meanwhile, For Pops, a tribute to Muddy Waters — by his son Mud Morganfield and Kim Wilson of the Fabulous Thunderbirds — earned the nod for best traditional blues album.

Other notable names who walked away with wins included Keb’ Mo’ for contemporary blues album, Gary Clark Jr. for contemporary blues artist, and Ruthie Foster, who earned the Koko Taylor award for best traditional blues female artist.

The awards also saw a small class of artists inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame. The group included 83 year-old Atlanta bluesman Tommy Brown, British guitar great Eric Clapton and rock and R&B pioneer Little Richard.

This year’s awards have been the subject of intense interest. The ceremonies come as part of a big launch weekend with the Blues Foundation opening its long-planned physical location for the Blues Hall of Fame to the general public today on South Main (see today’s Go Memphis section for a full story).

The multi-hour awards ceremony was recorded by Sirius/XM Radio. It will air on the satellite network’s B.B. King’s Bluesville station on Saturday at noon (and will be rebroadcast Sunday at midnight and Tuesday at 6 p.m.). The event will also be edited down for a public television broadcast in the fall and a later DVD release.  Read at source

************************

John Nemeth - In early 2013, John Németh traded his life on the west coast to settle down in Memphis, Tennessee. He and Jaki, that girlfriend he followed to California, had married and started a family, and Memphis made sense for multiple reasons: It’s centrally located for touring, the cost of living is inexpensive, and the river town is the historical ground zero for American roots music.

“I moved to Memphis because it is the epicenter for soul and blues,” Németh confirms. “The wealth of knowledge runs deep in the instincts of its musicians and its studios.”

For more on John Nemeth, go here

Reminiscent of 1950s and 1960s R&B blues sounds coming out of Memphis and Muscle Shoals, John Nemeth, along with the Bo-Keys*  bring back a lot of memories for me.  ~Deltalady



*Not to be confused with The Bar-Kays, a mid-1960s instrumental soul/funk band, or The Mar-Keys, a 1950s/1960s studio session band. Nevertheless, this "new" "old" band gained plenty of cred with their adherence to those old session bands in the era of the Memphis Sound and Muscle Shoals groups. The Bo-Keys have had a remarkable series of Blues Music Award-nominated recordings.  The multi-generational [and in the tradition of early session groups in Muscle Shoals and Memphis, multi-racial] cast of players – some in their eighth decade – bring a high level of virtuosity developed cutting literally hundreds of hits during the ‘60s and ’70s to those recordings. Bo-Keys web site

******************