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Dirty-South Blues Harp forum: wail on! >
BMA Awards
BMA Awards
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The7thDave
75 posts
May 07, 2010
5:42 AM
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Jason Ricci won the 2010 BMA Best Instrumentalist (Harmonica) award.
Congratulations, Jason!
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toddlgreene
1322 posts
May 07, 2010
5:46 AM
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Woohoo! Congrats, ViolinKitty!
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Todd L Greene. V.P.
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Greg Heumann
435 posts
May 07, 2010
7:40 AM
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Woops - I posted this too before seeing this thread - so I deleted it.
Congratulations, Jason!
Here's a listing of all of this year's Blues Music Award Winners :
1. Acoustic Album - You Got to Move David Maxwell & Louisiana Red
2. Acoustic Artist - Louisiana Red
3. Album of the Year - Between a Rock and the Blues
Joe Louis Walker
4. B.B. King Entertainer - TOMMY CASTRO
5. Band of the Year - TOMMY CASTRO BAND
6. Best New Artist Debut - Tiger in Your Tank
Monkey Junk
7. Contemporary Blues Album - Hard Believer
TOMMY CASTRO
8. Contemporary Blues Female Artist - Ruthie Foster
9. Contemporary Blues Male Artist - TOMMY CASTRO
10. DVD - Delmark Records -
It Ain't Over! Delmark Celebrates 55 Years of Blues, Live at Buddy Guy's Legends
11. Historical Album - Chess - Authorized Bootleg -Muddy Waters Live
12. Bass - Bob Stroger
13. Drums - Cedric Burnside
14. Guitar - Derek Trucks
15. Harmonica - Jason Ricci
16. Horn - Deanna Bogart
17. Instrumentalist-Other - Buckwheat Zydeco (accordion)
18. Pinetop Perkins Piano Player - Eden Brent
19. Rock Blues Album - Already Free Derek Trucks Band
20. Song of the Year - "Pearl River" Cyril Neville & Mike Zito
21. Soul Blues Album - Ace of Spades - Johnny Rawls
22. Soul Blues Female Artist - Irma Thomas
23. Soul Blues Male Artist of the Year - Curtis Salgado
24. Traditional Blues Album - Chikadelic Super Chikan
25. Traditional Blues Female Artist - Debbie Davies
26. Traditional Blues Male Artist - Duke Robillard
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/Greg
BlowsMeAway Productions
BlueState - my band
Bluestate on iTunes
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Joch230
118 posts
May 07, 2010
7:43 AM
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Been a while since we've heard from the Violin Cat. Last time was he was tourning and his health wasn't that good. Wonder if he still check the site out from time to time.
-John
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nacoran
1822 posts
May 07, 2010
10:46 AM
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Congrats Jason!
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Nate
Facebook
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Harpaholic
70 posts
May 07, 2010
11:56 AM
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I'm surprised to not see John Nemeth in the awards.
He's well deserving as much as anyone.
I don't see Tommy Castro getting four awards. Jason, Curtis, Duke, Louisanna Red, and Deanna's awards are well deserved. I'm not familiar with most of the other winners.
Since I play guitar, IMO his guitar playing is nothing spectactular, and his vocals are average, but he makes it work. He puts on a good show, but there's no WOW factor! I've seen him live twice, and I wasn't blown away. If I had a choice to go see Tommy, or Shane Dwight, it would be Shane everytime.
Don't take this the wrong way, he has done a lot for the blues, he's a great song writer/entertainer. He's definitely deserving of recognition, and I'm still a fan.
Last Edited by on May 07, 2010 4:04 PM
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waltertore
515 posts
May 07, 2010
11:59 AM
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am so happy for Red I just got to write it out _ Way to go RED!!!!!!!! He sure has come a long way from when I lived with him in Long Island. There were no gigs to be had for him and we would jam around the clock. Life sure can suprise you if you keep living! Walter
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walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year.
" No one can control anyone, but anyone can let someone control them"
2,000 of my songs
continuous streaming - 200 most current songs
my videos
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harpdude61
135 posts
May 07, 2010
2:39 PM
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Way to go Jason! You earned it!
"Done with the Devil" is a must for any harmonica player or fan. The songs are diverse, yet the blues undertone is there.
Jason's harmonica playing is beyond anything I ever heard. His influence is becoming more noticable every day. No doubt in my mind that Jason will move up on Adam's list, if he stays close enough to the blues.
Good luck on your upcoming European tour Jason and New Blood!!
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waltertore
518 posts
May 07, 2010
2:43 PM
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here is a congragulations song for Louisiana Red I recorded today. Walter
congragulations louisiana red
I missed Jasons name. Congragulations to Jason too!
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walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year.
" No one can control anyone, but anyone can let someone control them"
2,000 of my songs
continuous streaming - 200 most current songs
my videos
Last Edited by on May 07, 2010 7:14 PM
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kudzurunner
1411 posts
May 07, 2010
7:59 PM
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I just got the news from Brandon Bailey.
Way to go, Jason!
Billy Branch, Kim Wilson, Rick Estrin, Mark Hummel.........That's quite a bunch of harp players to beat out.
Here's a question for BMA watchers: Is this the first time in the history of the BMA awards that an overblower has received the harmonica award? (I mean a SERIOUS overblower, not somebody who COULD overblow if they wanted to. I mean somebody for whom overblowing is an intrinsic element of his style.)
I'm willing to bet that it is.
Modern Blues Harmonica is happy about that.
Last Edited by on May 07, 2010 8:02 PM
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kudzurunner
1412 posts
May 07, 2010
8:11 PM
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Here's a list of past winners, compiled from the links on the Blues Music Awards page. I went year by year.
2009: Billy Gibson
2008: Kim Wilson
2007: Charlie Musselwhite
2006: Charlie Musselwhite
2005: Charlie Musselwhite
2004: Charlie Musselwhite
2003: Charlie Musselwhite
2002: Charlie Musselwhite
2001: Charlie Musselwhite
2000: Charlie Musselwhite
1999: Charlie Musselwhite
1998: Rod Piazza
1997: William Clarke
1996: Charlie Musselwhite
1995: Charlie Musselwhite
Last Edited by on May 07, 2010 8:12 PM
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Joe_L
225 posts
May 07, 2010
9:29 PM
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Ever notice how few African American harp players are nominated for the Blues Music (formerly WC Handy) Awards? The same situation exists in the guitar category.
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Harpaholic
71 posts
May 07, 2010
10:13 PM
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That's a good point, I don't get it?
Billy Gibson? I don't get that either. What I've seen of Billy is all flash, a lot of noodling, and no tone. Audience's are impressed with flash.
Where's James Cotton, Sugar Blue, Carey Bell, Jr. Wells, Billy Boy Arnold, Billy Branch in the last 15 years?
I'm sure I forgot someone?
Last Edited by on May 07, 2010 10:39 PM
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Chinaski
83 posts
May 08, 2010
2:50 AM
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Congratulations Jason!
Billy Gibson 'all flash, no tone'?
Listen again.
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Myspace
Last Edited by on May 08, 2010 2:52 AM
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kudzurunner
1413 posts
May 08, 2010
4:41 AM
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@JoeL & Harpaholic: Yes, as an academically-trained African Americanist, that's the first thing I notice. Don't start me talking! I may happen to feel, as I do, that Jason and Billy G. produced exceptional records and amply deserved their awards this year and last year, but I have an impossible time justifying why Charlie Musselwhite should have received the award 11 times in the past 15 years when guys like Billy Branch, Sugar Blue, and James Cotton are out there, doing the things they're doing. (To Charlie's credit, I'm 100% sure he'd agree.) And heck: 11 awards for CM and ONCE for Kim Wilson during that entire period? Musselwhite may be, and is, richly deserving of acknowledgment, but that's not what's going on here.
The Living Blues Awards, as you may know, flip the script, ignoring significant white artists, by and large, and striving under all circumstances to give priority to black artists.
It's a weird, discomfiting situation. I'm glad I'm not the only one who sees that.
Since Billy Branch is headlining Hill Country Harmonica, I would have been delighted to see him win, obviously. But I think that Jason is the most exciting player to come down the pike in quite a while, and I think this was the year that the blues industry found that fact impossible to deny. I trust that they'll find a way of honoring Billy Branch in the near future.
Last Edited by on May 08, 2010 4:43 AM
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kudzurunner
1414 posts
May 08, 2010
4:54 AM
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For what it's worth, here's the rest of the BMA awards for harp playing, stretching back from 1994 to the beginning:
1994: Charlie Musselwhite
1993: Charlie Musselwhite
1992: Charlie Musselwhite
1991: James Cotton (he beat out Musselwhite, Billy Branch, Carey Bell, and William Clarke)
1990: Charlie Musselwhite ("Instrumentalist of the Year - Other")
1989: James Cotton and (pianist) Katie Webster tied in the "Instrumentalist of the Year - Other" category
From 1990 back to the first Handy awards in 1980, there was no separate harmonica category.
Interestingly, if you look at the nominees (and the winners, obviously) in 1980, there isn't a single white artist. This year the winners were overwhelmingly white. Hmmm.
Here are the 1980 Handy nominees:
Blues Single
Came Up The Hard Way -- Eddie Clearwater
I Need Some Easy Money--Jimmy Johnson
In The Midnight Hour -- Luther Allison
My Baby's Coming Home -- Hound Dog Taylor
Prison Bound Blues -- Little Johnnie Jones
Contemporary Blues Album
Crawfish Fiesta--Professor Longhair
Frostbite -- Albert Collins
Johnson's Whacks -- Jimmy Johnson
Live 'N Blue -- Magic Slim
The Chief -- Eddie Clearwater
Contemporary Blues Female Artist
Alberta Hunter
Ann Peeples
Big Mama Thornton
Etta James
Koko Taylor
Contemporary Blues Male Artist
Albert Collins
Jimmy Johnson
Muddy Waters
Professor Longhair
Son Seals
Traditional Blues Album
Amtrak Blues -- Alberta Hunter
Hangin' On--Robert Jr. Lockwood and Johnny Shines
Hey Ba-Ba-Re-Bop -- Johnny Shines
Mule -- Henry Townsend
Rockin' The Juke Joint Down -- Jelly Roll Kings
Step It Up And Go -- John Jackson
Traditional Blues Male Artist
Big Walter Horton
Jay McShann
Johnny Shines
Lightnin' Hopkins
Robert Jr. Lockwood
Traditonal Blues Female Artist
Alberta Hunter
Big Mama Thornton
Elizabeth Cotten
Mama Yancey
Sippie Wallace
Vintage or Reissue Album
Alabama Blues --J.B. Lenoir
Atlanta Blues
Groaning The Blues -- Otis Rush
Live on Maxwell Street-1964--Robert Nighthawk
Live Wire Blues Power -- Albert King
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kudzurunner
1415 posts
May 08, 2010
5:05 AM
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The gist of the BMA harmonica winner list is that Charlie Musselwhite has won 15 of the past 20 years, and an African American artist, James Cotton, has won precisely once, 19 years ago.
Jason earned the heck out of his particular award. But I submit, given this twenty-year history, that guys like Billy Branch and Sugar Blue have a right to view with BMAs with some cynicism. I think guys like Kim Wilson and Rick Estrin might also be tempted to say, "Hey man, I LOVE Charlie Musselwhite, but we were out there, too, during the past 20 years, making some hellacious records and playing some hellacious shows. What gives?"
Again: Jason deserved it this year. But that doesn't mean that others in the pantheon didn't deserve some of it in past years. Every impression I've gotten of Charlie Musselwhite is that he would agree with these comments. But he has no control over the BMAs. I'm sure his management puts his name out there, as they should. But 15 out of 20 tells me that there's a failure of imagination in the voting membership, or simply a lack of familiarity with what other touring pros were actually doing. Popularity contests can be frustrating for those who have broader and more stringent criteria.
If you think I'm wrong, y'all, please weigh in. And know that I like Charlie Musselwhite a LOT and mean him no disrespect. I'm trying to spread the respect, in fact, and increase the justice-quotient.
Meanwhile: go Jason! Huge and well-deserved win, baby.
Last Edited by on May 08, 2010 5:06 AM
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harpdude61
137 posts
May 08, 2010
5:14 AM
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It would be hard for anyone to argue against your statements.....Cotton is someone I listen to as much as anyone. As much as I like Little Walter's stuff, Cotton is who I preferred with Muddy's style.
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Delta Dirt
149 posts
May 08, 2010
6:29 AM
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Its just plain and simple disrespect of the instrument as a whole. Not a cry wolf again racism that so many jump to every time it suits their suspicians. Now who votes on this any way? I would bet no Harp Player nor someone that has the slightest idea of what good harp playing constitutes. We as harp players on this site or at least the old heads already know this.
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Harpaholic
73 posts
May 08, 2010
8:33 AM
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@ China, I listened to every one of Billy's songs on his Myspace page. He's a good player,
but my opinion of his playing hasn't changed. I'm sure of it now.
He's a good player, and he's put in more practice than I have, but he's not even close to the caliber of any harp players we've mentioned in this post.
I'm going to get off topic here a little because the racism issue was mentioned.
Why are whites considered racist and no other race is?
We can't have a WET (white entertainment television), or white history month, or white miss america, or 60 white colleges, or white college funds, etc; otherwise we would be considered racists.
Why can't a white woman enter the black miss america pageant? Isn't the racist towards whites?
I'm not predujice against any race. I'm only predujice against bad people that don't deserve to breathe.
I believe in equality, but we will never have it.
Last Edited by on May 08, 2010 8:47 AM
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kudzurunner
1416 posts
May 08, 2010
9:23 AM
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@harpaholic:
You wrote "We can't have a WET (white entertainment television), or white history month, or white miss america, or 60 white colleges, or white college funds, etc; otherwise we would be considered racists."
I'm sure you understand that until the early 1960s, America had WET (white entertainment television, which is to say, every available channel), white history year, white Miss America, hundreds if not thousands of white colleges. That's only fifty years ago: my lifetime. Black actors on TV and in television commercials were so rare that when one DID show up, black people who had TVs would call each other into the living room because it was a special occasion. Black actors were rare because....well, because every element of the TV industry, including national-brand advertisers who called the shots and didn't want to alienate southern audiences, kept them out. "I Spy," in which Bill Cosby co-starred, was a sensation in the early 60s for this reason, as was "Room 222" and "Julia" (both of which had black stars) a few years later. Black history was not taught in the great majority of schools, although Carter G. Woodson, the great black scholar, had created Negro History Month several decades earlier, if I'm not wrong. Of course a black woman could not even think of entering Miss America. And the overwhelming majority of American colleges and universities had no or few black students. (Many of them had no women, either. Except for the Seven Sisters.) The group photos on the walls of the eating clubs at Princeton and Butler Library at Columbia taught me all I need to know about what racial exclusion looks like. It looks like a bunch of happy people who all happen to be white guys--year after year after year. No Jews, either, at Princeton, but you had to look closely at the names to see that. I'm talking about 1900 through the late 1950s.
Black people, confronted with this immoral, ultimately illegal (because conflicting with citizenship and equal opportunity clauses in the Constitution), idiotic, and demoralizing situation, did the most constructive thing they could do under the circumsances: they created shadow-institutions of their own. They created black theater companies, black newspapers, black entertainment networks (the chitlin circuit, and, much later, BET), they created beauty pageants that crowned "sepia beauties," as they were called.
If you understand and appreciate this history--a history of malign disrespect and exclusion on the white side, by and large, and stubborn resourcefulness on the black side--then you'll understand the paradox represented by institutions with the word "black" in them that have survived until the present day. The present day looks quite different than things looked 50 years ago. But there are many black people still alive who remember segregation and the white violence that upheld it; who remember not being allowed to eat and shop in certain stores in Manhattan. And only a fool would say that the playing field, even now, is entirely level--although it's much more level than it used to be. There is NOTHING in the long history of black people in America which would justify them throwing up their hands right now, in the year 2010, and saying, "Hey, we won! We've got a black president! Everything is going to be groovy on the race-relations front from now on. Let's just eliminate ALL of our ethnically-oriented institutions! Let's just shut 'em all down: the HBCU's, BET, all the Greek organizations. Gone with the wind!" That would be foolish, frankly. Black history suggests that even if things look great right now--and that "great" is a huge, huge stipulation that many people might not agree with--they may not look great tomorrow, or the day after that. Resurgent white racism is always possible. And when white folks get involved in something, as we know, they have a bad habit of taking it over. (That's sorta the point that the BMA awards, including the harmonica award, demonstrate: it's possible to reconfigure blues, over time, so that it becomes primarily identified with the triumphant accomplishments of white folks. The fact that Living Blues manages to come up with a different set of awards featuring black blues artists suggests that the issue of racial bias within the "official" blues world is, at bare minimum, worth further investigation.) History and commonsense suggest that it would be a good idea to keep around at least a few black organizations and the collective self-determination that they make possible. This doesn't mean that desegregation (the dismantling of 70 years' worth of Jim Crow laws) and integration haven't happened. It just means that black people aren't fools.
However, the valedictorian of Howard University (the black Harvard), this year or last, was a white guy. Not everybody was happy about this. But it suggests that your complaint--Why is there all this Blacks-Only Stuff going on?--is overstated. Still, I'm not sure why a white woman would WANT to enter a Miss Black America pageant, or a Miss Japanese America pageant, or a Miss Hispanic America pageant. But I can understand why a black woman would want to enter the Miss America pageant--even though black women were kept out of the competition for the early decades' of its existence--and I applaud the fact that a black woman was recently crowned Miss America. By the same token, I can understand why, even though black women are now allowed to enter Miss America, some black women might prefer to enter a beauty pageant focused specifically on interethnic competition and celebration. That's the fruit of the powerful focus on black pride, black beauty, that flowered in the 1960s.
There's a paradox here. So? That's what the blues are about. "I hate to see you go, baby, but I love to watch you walk away." Etc.
We're more likely to have equality if people like you show a willingness to explore the paradoxes rather than crying reverse racism. It just ain't that simple.
Last Edited by on May 08, 2010 9:55 AM
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Harpaholic
75 posts
May 08, 2010
10:05 AM
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Thanks for the great history lesson! Really!
I understand what happened 50 years, and I don't condone it. It was horrible!
That was then, this is now!
I could spend hours on this debate, because I have a strong opinion about it, but instead I'll let it go.
Besides, I don't want to get my head cut on a racism debate with a college professor. :~)
Whites are the only racists. It is what it is!
Last Edited by on May 08, 2010 10:38 AM
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Joe_L
226 posts
May 08, 2010
10:13 AM
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Since 1991, the Blues Foundation has broken out the best instrumentalist category by various different instruments. I reviewed the awards for the guitar and
harmonica category. Here is what I found:
Harmonica Nominations
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16 - Charlie Musselwhite - won 15 times
10 - Kim Wilson - 1 win
9 - Carey Bell
7 - James Cotton - 1 win
6 - Snooky Pryor
4 - Mark Hummel
3 - Rod Piazza - 1 win
3 - James Harman
3 - Billy Branch
2 - Jason Ricci - 1 win
2 - Sugar Blue
2 - Rick Estrin
1 - Billy Gibson - 1 win
1 - William Clarke, Billy Boy Arnold, Sam Myers, Paul deLay, Frank Frost, Steve Guyger, Paul Oscher, George Brock, Mitch Kashmar, Willie "Big Eyes" Smith
Here are the guitar nominations.
Guitar Nominations
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12 - Ronnie Earl - 1 win
11 - Duke Robillard - 6 wins
6 - Joe Louis Walker
5 - Buddy Guy - 5 wins
4 - Bob Margolin - 2 wins
4 - Lurrie Bell
3 - Luther Allison - 2 wins
3 - Carl Weathersby, Anson Funderburgh, Kid Ramos
2 - Hubert Sumlin - 2 wins
2 - Otis Rush, Kirk Fletcher, Michael Burks, Roy Rogers, Kid Ramos, Sonny Landreth
1 - Derek Trucks - 1 win
1 - Gatemouth Brown, Robert Ward, Albert Collins, Jimmy Dawkins, Coco Montoya, Johnnie Bassett, Debra Coleman, Roy Gaines, Jimmy Vaughan, Guitar Shorty, Charlie Baty, Junior Watson and Magic Slim
Last Edited by on May 08, 2010 10:14 AM
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Elwood
437 posts
May 08, 2010
10:32 AM
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/Every/ month is white history month...
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Harpaholic
76 posts
May 08, 2010
10:33 AM
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Something's fishy with the BMA's!
Last Edited by on May 08, 2010 10:34 AM
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nacoran
1829 posts
May 08, 2010
11:03 AM
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I wonder if maybe the award has become a closed loop. Lots of awards involve politicking, whether it's asking your fans to vote for you or calling judges. If you think an award always goes to one person or one type of person and you don't think you'll win it, do you do all that politicking?
And Harpaholic, I had a friend who used to tutor inner city kids. Some of them where black and racist and he always called them on it. There is usually a lot of tension between groups that are competing for the same types of jobs. Once Irish and Blacks didn't get along. Now there is a lot of tension between Blacks and Hispanics. During the L.A. riots a lot of the poorer communities anger got directed at Asian business owners. People do talk about it, but there are some media outlets that echo over and over that it doesn't happen. If you get your news there, that's what you'll hear. Slate magazine actually had a good article the other day about how with all the choices in media people, left and right, tend to only seek out outlets that say what they want to hear. Although it's not racism per se, there was a huge backlash against the African-American community over some of the recent anti-gay rights amendments in states. African-Americans demographically are more opposed to gay rights than the rest of America. The gay community even suggested that Obama's managing to turn out such a large vote in the Black community may have been the tipping point for some of these amendments, even although the rest of the Democratic Party is generally pro-gay rights.
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Nate
Facebook
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MP
245 posts
May 10, 2010
12:51 AM
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maybe call it the CMA(charlie musselwhite awards)?
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walterharp
320 posts
May 10, 2010
6:05 AM
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way to go Jason,
this can only improve his pay and gigs, though it is strange that what sets him apart from most of the other players and nominees is not blues playing, it is putting all the other genres in combined with the aforementioned overblows/ overdraws.
it may not be so great to win these awards on the other hand. essentially non of the younger winners in guitar or harp have crossed over and really made it in popular music
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Ryan
276 posts
May 11, 2010
1:31 AM
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Wow. I have nothing against Charlie Musslewhite, but that's kind of crazy. He won 9 years in a row, and before that he'd won 5 years in a row. It's like whoever was involved in making the decisions knew nothing about blues harmonica and just said to themselves "Best harmonica player? What the hell? Well, let's just see who won last year.....Charlie Musslewhite.......meh, good enough".
Last Edited by on May 11, 2010 1:33 AM
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