Jim Simpson of Big Bear Records has been involved in the music business for nearly 60 years, as musician, bandleader, promoter, record producer, festival director, manager, journalist and photographer. In his candid, constantly surprising, frequently amusing and occasionally shocking account you will encounter the joys and difficulties of managing Black Sabbath or of running a jazz festival in sun-kissed, crime-ridden Marbella. At home in Birmingham meet some of the characters who have enlivened 35 years of the Jazz Festival and read Jim's take on the scandals that closed the city's premier jazz club. Revisit the exciting Brum Beat scene, take to the road with some 40 of the best (in some cases, most eccentric) American bluesmen of the 1970s, encounter the Blues Brothers Band in surprising places and enjoy Jim's tributes to some of the great names in British jazz, such as Humphrey Lyttelton and Kenny Baker, with whom he worked closely.
"In the early 1990s in a small disadvantaged community in rural Mississippi, Levon Brooks and Kennedy Brewer were wrongfully convicted in separate trials of capital murder. Brooks, despite an alibi, was sentenced to life and was imprisoned for 18 years. A few years later Brewer was convicted and sentenced to death. He was incarcerated for 15. In 2008 the Innocence Project in New York exonerated both men. Vanessa Potkin, longtime attorney at the Innocence Project, along with co-founder of the Innocence Project, Peter Neufeld, spent years investigating the two cases, and discovered a link between them that subsequent DNA testing substantiated. The results of that testing led authorities to the real perpetrator who was responsible for both murders and then to the exonerations of Brooks and Brewer. Without the work of the Innocence Project, Potkin, Neufeld, and a host of others, these photographs–of lives lost, forgotten, and then regained–would not have been possible. The photographs’ poignance is made all the more powerful as one contemplates their stark, deeply felt beauty against the haunting realization that they were almost never able to be made or seen at all.
The evidence against Brooks and Brewer consisted primarily of bite mark matching evidence. A prosecution expert testified that in both cases multiple bite marks covered the victims’ bodies and matched the defendants’ teeth impressions. A group of experts retained by the Innocence Project later determined that the marks were not bite marks at all. As a forensic discipline, bite mark matching has come under serious criticism in recent years and led to the exoneration of multiple other prisoners. This same prosecution expert testified not only in Brooks’s and Brewer’s cases, but a host of others in Mississippi and the region. The extent of the damage is still unknown.
In 2012, photographer Isabelle Armand came across an article about these two cases. Such a scenario seemed unbelievable. How, why, and where could this happen? How does one cope with wrongful conviction? For the next five years, she spent several weeks each year documenting Brooks, Brewer, their families and their environment. This intimate photographic essay, akin to looking in a mirror, puts faces on the victims of wrongful convictions. It seeks to raise consciousness, challenge popular perceptions about poverty and inequality in our criminal justice system, and demands that we confront these critical issues.
Isabelle Armand worked with fashion photographers in her native Paris and in New York City, where she has lived and worked since the 1980s. Eventually Armand’s predilection for art drew her away from the fashion industry. She assumed the position of U.S. editor for the French magazine Connaissance des Arts, in whose pages her photographic portraits of contemporary artists appeared. After a productive stint as editor, Armand devoted herself to a full-time career in freelance photography. Concentrating on black-and-white film portraiture and documentaries, primarily in a 6 x 7 medium format, Armand’s highly original works can be found not only in private collections, but also in museum collections. In addition, they have been featured both in national and international publications.
Professor Tucker Carrington is the founding director of the George C. Cochran Innocence Project (formerly the Mississippi Innocence Project) and Clinic at the University of Mississippi School of Law. The clinic’s mission is to identify, investigate, and litigate actual claims of innocence by Mississippi prisoners, as well as advocate for systemic criminal justice reform. Prior to coming to Ole Miss, Professor Carrington was an E. Barrett Prettyman Fellow at Georgetown Law Center, a trial and supervising attorney at the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia, and a visiting clinical professor at Georgetown.
Professor Carrington writes frequently about criminal justice issues, including wrongful convictions and legal ethics. His work has appeared in The Pennsylvania Journal of Law and Social Change, The Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law, and the Mississippi Law Journal."
"From October 1959 until the mid-1970s, Paul Oliver and Mack McCormick collaborated on what they hoped to be a definitive history and analysis of the blues in Texas. Both were prominent scholars and researchers—Oliver had already established an impressive record of publications, and McCormick was building a sprawling collection of primary materials that included field recordings and interviews with blues musicians from all over Texas and the greater South.
Despite being eagerly awaited by blues fans, folklorists, historians, and ethnomusicologists who knew about the Oliver-McCormick collaboration, the intended manuscript was never completed.
In 1996, Alan Govenar, a respected writer, folklorist, photographer, and filmmaker, began a conversation with Oliver about the unfinished book on Texas blues. Subsequently, Oliver invited Govenar to assist him, and when Oliver became ill, Govenar enlisted folklorist and ethnomusicologist Kip Lornell to help him contextualize and document the existing manuscript for publication.
The Blues Come to Texas: Paul Oliver and Mack McCormick’s Unfinished Book presents an unparalleled view into the minds and methods of two pioneering blues scholars."
The first authorized biography of award-winning blues musician Doug MacLeod
COLOGNE, GERMANY — WHO IS BLUESTM is proud to announce the release of Who Is Blues Vol. 1: Doug MacLeod, the first in a new series of compact, authorized biographies by author/journalist Vincent Abbate. The book launches in October 2018 and will be available worldwide through online retail outlets and at select live events.
In Who Is Blues Volume 1, multiple Blues Music Award-winner Doug MacLeod reveals how he overcame an abusive childhood to become a celebrated singer, songwriter and master of the blues guitar. The book traces the highs and lows of MacLeod’s six decades in music. From St. Louis to the coffeehouses of hippie-era Norfolk. From the backwoods of Toano, Virginia to the rough-and-tumble blues clubs of 1970s Los Angeles. From his electric LPs of the 1980s right on up to the recording of 2018’s Acoustic Album of the Year Break The Chain. Along the way, he shares recollections of contemporaries like Albert King, B.B. King and his mentor George “Harmonica” Smith. His inspirational story is one of friendship, family, forgiveness and the great and mystical healing power of the blues. “One of the great blues artists . . . period!” – From the foreword by Jorma Kaukonen, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee / Jefferson Airplane
WHO IS BLUES VOL. 1: Doug MacLeod Release date: September 3rd 2018 Format: Paperback (158 pages) Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform Language: English ISBN-10: 1721731679 ISBN-13: 978-1721731671
About the author New York-born author and journalist Vincent Abbate has been a respected voice on the international blues and roots music scene for over 20 years. His interviews, columns and reviews have appeared in leading print magazines including Blues Revue and Blues Music Magazine (US), The Blues (UK), bluesnews and ROCKS (DE). Along the way, Abbate has profiled artists including B.B. King, Bobby Rush, Solomon Burke, Gary Clark Jr. and countless others. His popular blog Who Is Blues launched in 2017.
Mississippi, Terre de Blues … Un livre de Sylvie Bosc & Fred Delforge en collaboration avec France Blues et Zicazic
Témoignage de trois expéditions à travers le Tennessee et le Mississippi avec quelques écarts de route vers l’Arkansas et la Louisiane, ce livre n’est pas une galerie de paysages en forme de carte postale, c’est l’instantané de la vie et de l’environnement de ce petit coin de Sud profond.
On y retrouvera les souvenirs sous-jacents de l’esclavage, la rudesse des champs de coton, les vapeurs de l’alcool de contrebande et les effluves de la soul food, cette cuisine imaginée par les Noirs à partir des ingrédients que les Blancs jugeaient impropre à leur consommation et devenue aujourd’hui populaire dans toute l’Amérique du Nord …
Outre les clichés de la talentueuse Sylvie Bosc, vous pourrez y lire les commentaires de 52 personnalités du Blues qui livrent leur ressenti sur une photo qui leur a été soumise … Des anecdotes touchantes, émouvantes, drôles parfois, offertes par des personnes qui ont la particularité d’être musiciens, auteurs, cinéastes, journalistes, producteurs, photographes, plasticiens, directeurs de musées, etc.
Avec les textes de : Paul E. Benjamin – Hervé Joachim – Bruce Iglauer – Yann Malek – Stef Sanseverino – Cyril Maguy – Robert Terrell – Paul Deslauriers – Dawn Tyler Watson – Art Tipaldi – Jay Sieleman – Sharon McConnell-Dickerson – Joe Farmer – Barbara Newman – Jean Guillermo – Bernard Sellam – Fred Chapellier – Greg Zlap – Denis Agenet – Patrick « Sib » Sibilli – Tim Sampson – Mireille Martin-Auger – Shakura S’Aida – Pertti Nurmi – Nico Wayne Toussaint – Andrzej & Danuta Matysik – Jean-Marie Périer – Dave Raven – Mike Vernon – Behgam Kazemzadegan – Trond Johnsen – Jacques Périn – Mick Kolassa – Etienne Mortini – Manu Lanvin – Jérôme « Jerry T. » – Michael « Hawkeye » Herman – Vincent Granata – David Baerst – Tia Gouttebel – David Evans – Roser Infiesta – Tony Coleman – Davide Grandi – Boris Hrepić – Alan Govenar – Watermelon Slim – Jacques Morgantini – Frédéric Pellerin – Shirley Waring – Mr Sipp – Marko Balland …
"HIS LIFE’S MISSION IS TO CAPTURE THOSE MAGIC MOMENTS OF EXPRESSION by the world’s most respected blues and soul performers.
Swedish blues lover Hans Ekestang spent some fifty years of his life as a professional photographer hunting for those magic Blues Shots... During the years, he met most of the famous blues and R&B artists from the last century. By always treating them with respect, Ekestang made the blues & soul legends feel relaxed, meanwhile he achieved just the right atmosphere he was looking for…
Ekestang had his first photo published in 1971 in Swedish blues magazine Jefferson, today the longest running blues magazine in the world. Soon after, in 1973, he was published in Melody Maker and thereafter in many magazines around the world. Still, today Ekestang contributes regularly to Jefferson and other magazines and music books. He is still active and holds regular exhibitions with his blues photos. Many of them today considered art in their own right."
