ROD PIAZZA "FOR THE CHOSEN WHO" Source: Positively Entertainment & Dining Date: 08/2005 Writer: Kurt Johnson

At downtown Vancouver's Esther Short Park on June 18, the festival featured a beautiful sunny afternoon and evening showcasing top blues acts from Portland, Seattle and Los Angeles. With outstanding performances by Pacific Northwest blues greats such as Duffy Bishop, The Randy Oxford Band and Portland harpmaster Bill Rhoades, it was a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon. Sponsored by the Cascade Blues Association, the show was one of the many showcase events around Portland and Vancouver spotlighting top blues talent.

With Bill Rhoades' gritty blues harp playing, Duffy Bishop's wild and entertaining singing and theatrical blues show, along with Randy Oxford's funky trombone solos, topped off with The Mighty Flyers smooth, polished west coast blues set, it was a treat not to be missed! In it's seventh year, the Microblues Festival treats Portland and Vancouver with yet another great festival location to provide big-time blues performances for the area public; it's a great warm-up for The Waterfront Blues Festival on Fourth of July weekend.

Headlining the festival was the legendary Rod Piazza and the Mighty Flyers. One of the pioneers of the West Coast blues sound, Piazza began his career in the ‘60s and has not stopped since. A master blues harp player, singer and showman, Piazza has assembled an all-star lineup, featuring his wife Honey on keyboards. A virtuoso pianist, Honey puts on an amazing display of keyboard wizardry with boogie-woogie solos, bringing a phat, flying sound to the show. To top it all off is her million-dollar smile and gorgeous blonde hair. Judging by the good time she has on stage, blondes really do have more fun!

The Mighty Flyers and both Rod and Honey Piazza have won just about every blues award there is. Longtime Blind Pig recording artists, the Mighty Flyers have a long string of CDs, including their latest, The Chosen Who , on the DeltaGroove label. They’ve won multiple W.C. Handy awards, Including Best Band and just this year received nominations for B est Pianist and Best Blues Harp .

In an interview conducted after the show, Rod Piazza had this to say about the Handys and their new CD; “We’ve been nominated 15 times and we won best band for three years and harp player for one year and we got ‘Blues Record of the Year’ on Blind Pig Records.”

Piazza continues about the new CD with Delta Groove; “I’ve known this cat Randy Chorkoff (CEO of Delta Groove) and I turned him on to real blues.

And so, Randy started the label and the new CD is in record stores. It’s The Original Mighty Flyers with Kid Ramos sitting in, Honey and myself and Finis Tasby and James Gadsen on drums with Buddy Guy’s brother Phil on guitar and Woody Woodson on horns, and four women backing vocals. It was all filmed and is included on a DVD where that’s the first time it’s ever been done. It has a Jimmy Reed number and one of Randy’s tunes and a Gene Allison number-a gospel number You Can Make It If You Try . There’s a Jimmy Reed and Jimmy Rodgers, and Ike Turner number, She Made My Blood Run Cold.”

Piazza mentions this about his creative process; “I just mess around with the harp and find a groove and find some words to fit it. I then explain it to the cats and they follow along to it.”

With that smooth and polished West Coast groove, mixed with a Chicago blues beat, Rod Piazza and the Mighty Flyers took the Vancouver Microblues Festival by storm. Add in Honey Piazza’s keyboard fireworks and all the stellar performances by each of the bands that appeared and you had the makings of a quite a show! You can see more of Rod Piazza and the Mighty Flyers at their website, www.themightyflyers.com. You can see photos of the recording session at www.deltagrooveproductions.com.

http://www.positivelyentertainment.com/features/july2005/microblues.html