(If a moderator can please fix the title that would be highly appreciated!!!)
It was a great show and he played some cool stuff and had great tone. I admit he played some songs I thought were kind of dull but otherwise he was great. The band, though, is what REALLY deserves the props. Matt Stubbs, June Core, and a bassist I do not know the name of were incredible! June Core was one of the GREATEST drummers I have ever seen, and his CD Leave it all Behind is awesome. There tracks with great harp players (including R.J. Mischo, Mark Hummel, and Charlie Musselwhite). He's just an incredible drummer. All in all, a great show and June I do believe is a full time member. Here are two pictures:
Me with Charlie.
Me with Matt Stubbs (Guitarist) and June Core (Drums).
Last Edited by on Sep 20, 2010 6:09 PM
I`ve gigged a few different times with Matt and he`s a good guitar player. June is a great drummer and when I saw him a few years back when he was with Little Charlie & The Nightcats, he swung his butt off and like many great black drummers, the cymbols are very prominent in the way he maintains the groove, something you seldom see rock drummers do. BTW, was he using that awesome Slingerland Radio King drum kit that night? ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
The bass player's name is Mike Phillips. Mike is bad ass. He's a lot of fun to hang with. Like June, Mike has played with a ton of the West Coast guys. He's been a member of Musselwhite's band for a couple of years now.
June Core is from Cleveland, Ohio. He's a fabulous drummer. He's been with Musselwhite for as long as I've known him. I met him around 2003 or 2004.
He used to play drums with Robert Jr Lockwood and Johnny Shines. After he moved to California, he became a member of Little Charlie and the Nightcats. If you're playing drums with those guys, you know your stuff. June is a student of the old school sound. He is one of my favorite drummers and I've had the chance to see guys like Fred Below, Odie Payne, SP Leary, Willie Smith, etc... June knows his shit!
Stubbs is a fantastic guitar player. He's a funny dude. I've had the chance to play with all of those guys.
I get to jam with June and Mike quite often. When you play with June and Mike, it's a great experience. They listen to what you're doing and play off it. If you play with them frequently, they know where you are going to go and that's where they go. The pocket will float accordingly. They are a blast to play with.
Additionally, they are great guys and good friends. You should have seen that band when Kid Andersen was with them or when they've played with Steve Freund.
When I stop and think about it, I'm a pretty blessed guy.
Nice pics, and I'm so jealous! Charlie was in Philly early last week and I missed his show due to having to solo the graveyard shift at work. Glad you liked it. Re: "...some songs I thought were kind of dull..." I'll bet those were from his new album, I kinda felt that way after listening to it.
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~Ryan
"I play the harmonica. The only way I can play is if I get my car going really fast, and stick it out the window." - Stephen Wright
Pennsylvania - H.A.R.P. (Harmonica Association 'Round Philly)
Ryan, they WERE from the new album. I didn't feel it or like the lyrics.
Bob, I believe the set was the venues. It was a silver sparkle? And, although that is prominent of black drummers I wouldn't put it just for them! Luckily, there are many white drummers, too, who do this. But, in the end, you do with the drums what you wanna do!
Joe, thank you for the information, it's all very great stuff.
Cool, but sorry, short of deleting the thread and you reposting it there is nothing mods can do for you. We don't have access to the thread name. For the rest of time you will have be Chalie's fan. (If you repost it we can delete this one for you, but since there are already comments it might be best to just live with it. :))
Zack, Your thread has highlighted the importance of bass and drums in any band. Now Charlie would, I guess, be the first to admit he is no singer on the level of say Kim, and never really has been, though he was a stronger singer in his earlier years. What has carried him through a great career, and a turbulent and sometime tragic personal life, has been the quality of his harp playing in expressing himself through the blues and his excellent choice of band members. A band plays up or down according to the sum of its parts. One weak player will hold the whole unit back and this is what is sooo fascinating about playing in bands. Not a problem for Charlie because his band are right on the money! Nice pics
Hey Zack, great opportunity to see a living legend. I promised myself a couple years back that I would see guys like this when I had the chance. Saw Buddy Guy recently and he completely ripped it up. Charlie is on my short list, too. No worries about the title, gwood is right. That's how my grandmother always said my grandfather's name: "Hey Chalie, fix me a sammich!"
Well, being a drummer, myself, and also some guitar, I REALLY appreciate those guys. They were phenomenal and I am very glad to have seen them all play.
Zack, you're not the only one who really appreciates having great drummers and bass players in the band and fro pro experience, those guys will always make a band sound much better a lot sooner than a better lead player ever will.
Among blues drummers around today, right up there with June Core are guys like Steve Mugalian, Jimi Bott (when he was with Piazza, it was like someone put together Fred Below, Gene Krupa and Chick Webb ina a single package), Ray Allison, Steve Ramsay, Per Hansen (who is from the Portland, ME area) and Richard Innes. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
I have never heard the name Per Hansen, I'll need to check him out! My band always tries to get the best we can get, really. Have you ever heard Bill Stewart? He's a jazz guy but man he's one of the best I have heard! Ari Hoenig is incredible, also.
Ahh, Zack - when you said you were a drummer then I knew you TRULY appreciated just how great June Core is. Guys like Joe and me who live in the S.F. Bay Area are fortunate to have the opportunity to meet and play with a lot of really talented musicians - and although we have several really good drummers, June is at the top of my list. He has more shuffles in his pocket than any other drummer I know. He listens well. He plays with great touch and can get a huge range of tone from even a very small kit. And most of all, he is one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet.
I most certainly have heard of Billy Stewart. Per Hansen used to be the drummer for Ronnie Earl & The Broadcasters when Jerry Portnoy and Darrell Nulisch were in the band. When I played on the soundtrack for the movie "Fried Green Tomatoes," he was the drummer on the tune that was used, which was a cover of Lightnin` Slim`s "Rooster Blues," and the other musicians on it were Peter Wolf on vocals, Ronnie Earl on guitar, Dave Maxwell on piano, and Michael "Mudcat" Ward on bass (who BTW, is originally from Lewiston, ME). ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
Greg, I have been playing since I was four and I was just blown away by some of his playing. His hi-hat work was incredible (and most people ignore this). Watch this solo:
It sounds like he's playing timbales! He was an incredibly nice guy, I have honestly never had a better experience with meeting a musician.
Bob, I never knew these guys were from around this area!!! That's just really cool to know of all of these great players from her. Glad you know Bill, he's one of the best swing drummers I have heard from the past two decades or so.
That IS an amazing solo - but i don't want people to get the wrong idea - June is the last guy to show off - he's happy to play an entire night without a solo - and his accompaniment drumming just swings like crazy. ---------- /Greg
Yes, I posted it so other can hear how diverse he is. I always love a great drum solo and he delivered. But, he was such an incredible drummer WITHOUT the solos. Everyone needs to check this guy out and possibly get his CD (it has LOADS of great harp playing).
You guys are right about the entire band being good. Best I can say about last night is "dayum"!!!! They all make such a cohesive group. Bass player is definatly a "thumb man". Cool show- I feel lucky to have had the opportunity to get to go see it. ---------- Bluesharp- If you don't blow you suck...
Zack, the average music fan/hobbyist/jammer tends to often judge how good a drummer or bass player is by their solos only and coming from a pro standpoint, that's a very low musical standard because pros judge on one main thing more than anything else: GROOVE and I've had people say to me in jams years ago the first thing they got first to put together a band was get their lead player first. That's a typical rank amateur attitude and pros start building a band by getting their rhythm sections first and if any part of the rhythm section suck and can't keep the groove happening, eveything else about a band, regardless of how good/great the lead players are, the band as a whole is gonna flat out suck big time and that's most polite way I'm gonna put it and who wants to have a band that sounds like a 20th rate jam, which is FAR from professional quality.
Zack, another guy from North Berwick, ME who is also a good blues drummer, but also a great guitar player an even better bass player on both electric and standup is Jon Ross, who has worked with a lot of different people, including myself, and also Kim Wilson and he's on a couple of things Kim has recorded. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
Bob I cam agree with you there, although there are some solos out there that just show incredible groove. A lot of times you can pick out a good drummer from the solo, too. If you listen to this you can tell he has some ability as he's doing lots of Latin style stuff and also he's really messing with the time in a way that works so perfectly. Of course, guys like Alan Evan, Bernard Purdie, etc, are REALLY easy to pick out because they never drop the groove and don't do stuff like this (which is cool, and I'm quite sure they could to anything they wanted, too!).
I've played with a bunch of drummers and now we're using a guy named Marc Perez. I've played with him before but I really respect his playing now more than ever because ever since hearing Bernard, Philly Joe, and the rest of the funk and jazz guys I just hear it in his style of play. He seems to have a little less of a blues influence than the other guys I have played with but he knows the shuffle, too, of course! I'll check out Jon, and I'll even ask Marc about him as he lives right in that area! Did he drum for you? What did he do for Kim?
Jon was my guitarist for awhile but he played bass with Kim. You gotta see that old Radio King drum kit he has!!! ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
