BACKSTAGE PASS:

Delta & Eclecto Groove Records is proud to introduce our newest member of the family – staff writer Brad Kava. With over two decades experience as a music critic, Kava has interviewed and covered events with some of the biggest names in the music industry including Eddie Vedder, Keith Richards, Paul McCartney, Wyclef Jean and U2’s The Edge. Now your chance to go behind the scenes with Brad Kava as he takes an intimate look at the artists that comprise the essence and embodiment of Delta & Eclecto Groove Records.

It don’t take a weather man to know which way the wind blows for live blues music, and as the poet said, it seems these days like a hard rain’s gonna fall.

Like farmers or ski resort owners, blues promoters live a cyclical life. They worry during years of drought and then they worry when they get blizzards and rain.

But suddenly along comes a Stevie Ray Vaughan or Buddy Guy, and  singing the blues is joyful again -- on stage and in the cash registers. A new generation gets ignited to discover the music that we’ve loved for years. 

Right now though, live promoters are in a drought, a depression almost as bad as the one we’ll be facing when the bills come in for our credit card spending spree in Iraq.

Touring blues acts can’t find weeknight gigs to get them through the paying weekends. People don’t smoke and drink as much, cutting the margins for bar owners. Some fans don’t have the money to go out; others work too hard.

In an effort to beef up sales, big blues festivals are booking Steve Miller, Los Lobos and that master of Top 40 jump blues, Huey Lewis. I have to admit, I walked out of the San Francisco Blues Festival shaking my head when Miller started playing “Fly Like An Eagle.” 

It just didn’t seem right, not on the same hallowed ground where I watched Otis Rush and Steve Freund sear my brain with a Chicago-flavored guitar duel.

I understand that promoters have to make sacrifices to pay the bills, but I would argue, they’ve brought a lot of the problem on themselves by not paying attention to the up-and-coming talents who are playing real blues from the heart, not as a nod to the roots of their bubblegum hits.

There are plenty of great undiscovered artists out there, if only those in the know would bother to find them.

Instead, like some failed baseball team owners, or syndicated radio conglomerates, promoters have forgotten the minor leagues. They have been counting on the big names, the old masters, whose numbers are now, sadly, dwindling.

And it’s not just the promoters’ fault. A lot of fans remind me of the  landlubbers left on shore when Columbus set out for the new world. These are the same people who figure that if they had been around in the old Chicago days, they would have signed the likes of Muddy Waters, Little Walter or B.B. King, when they got off the train from down South.

Yet, they won’t bother to check out new bands now.

It reminds me of a story harmonica player Mark Hummel tells of a trip to Europe with his band. They were unpacking at a club, and the owner came out and asked: “Where’s the black guy who fronts the band?”

When Hummel told him there wasn’t one, the manager told him not to bother setting up. They didn’t want to hear the blues unless it was from someone they viewed as traditional.

It’s just wrong. Especially from people who are supposed to be here for the love of music.

As a syndicated music critic for the past two decades, I’ve been lucky enough to be exposed to the best new stuff out there, and I can say with confidence, that a lof of it is as inspired, adventurous, grooveful and amazing as the  music that we now considered classic.

And that’s what brought me here to Delta Groove. Founder Randy Chortkoff is in the process of compiling the country’s best stable of new blues artists. He’s got an ear for what’s new and different and the good taste to know where it fits in with what’s come before.

He won me over by signing Jason Ricci, who I would argue may be the most exciting harmonica player living today, the Little Walter of his day, with more than a dash of Sun Ra thrown in. Then, there’s Ana Popovic a ripping, take no prisoners guitarist who has the kind of blues authenticity that made Janis a household name.

He’s the Leonard Chess of his time, only he pays his performers fairly, and frankly, it’s a labor of love for him. He’s not getting rich.

I’d like to think that if only the word got out about the music here, it would take off and we’d have another blues Rennaisance.

Hey, as Barack Obama’s victory in Iowa caucus just showed, maybe the winds of change are blowing for the better.

My goal in this space will be to introduce you to some of the artists I like here and to get behind the scenes with them. If you have questions, drop me an email and we can get them into interviews.

Chortkoff won me over by signing Jason Ricci, whom I would argue is the most exciting harmonica player today, the Little Walter of his day, with more than a dash of Sun Ra thrown in and a bit of Mick Jagger. 

Then, there’s Ana Popovic, a ripping, take-no-prisoners guitarist who has the kind of blues voice that made Janis a household name.

And a Texas kid named Zito who gives me that chill. You know, the Johnny B. Goode, down by the railroad tracks rocking authenticity that sounds like the first time you heard Creedence, ZZ Top or Boz Scaggs. An original.

All of them are taking the blues somewhere fresh. So much so that Chortkoff created a new label called EclectoGroove to package them to people outside the blues niche.

In Silicon Valley, we call people who try new things first, early adaptors. In Columbus’s time, they called them discovers. 

This is your chance to be one of them -- a pioneer-- to discover a brave new world of music that will convince you, as it did me, that the great stuff is still being recorded, right here, right now if only you can open your ears.

Let’s explore together and make sure we don’t miss the boat.

Written by Brad Kava