VAN DIEMAN’S LAND
Australian music legend Russell Morris’s VAN DIEMAN’S LAND has been named album of the year at the annual Leading Edge Music conference in Melbourne. VAN DIEMAN’S LAND is the second Russell Morris album in a trilogy telling the story of Australia’s historic characters in Blues. The previous Russell Morris album SHARKMOUTH was the biggest selling Australian album of 2014 and won the ARIA award last year for best Blues and Roots record.
SUPPORT LIVE BLUES MUSIC VENUES
Beach 162 has joined the list of venues deserving a mention for hosting live Blues music every Sunday afternoon. Over recent weeks we have seen Swamp Box Acoustic, Geoff Achison and Crazy Beats Biig all appear in the undercover outdoor garden. It is always good to see more venues supporting the live music scene and supporting our local peninsula artists and bands. For more information please go to http://www.beach162.com.au/whats-on.html
RADIO WAVES – SUNDAY SESSIONS
With over 25 years of experience, Mark Mayle is one of the founding fathers of 3RPP FM Community radio. Mark is the host the very successful SUNDAY SESSIONS show on 3RPP FM and he also participates in many other shows at the station. Recently Mark was instrumental in having all the artists appearing at BLUES AT THE BRIARS festival appearing on THE BLUES SHACK live-to-air, and then getting all the recordings mastered – no small feat indeed. Mark is great supporter of local blues music and would name local artists Andy Phillips, Robb Papp, Safari Motel as well as Greg Dodd, Sammy Owen, Jules Boult and Dreamboogie amongst his top ten. It is the contribution of people such as Mark that enables Blues music to grow and reach a broader audience via the medium of Community radio.
MBAS VIC/TAS BLUES MUSIC AWARDS
In a gala event, the Melbourne Blues Appreciation Society hosted its annual awards evening. Ian Collard (pictured) and the THREE KINGS came away with the major share of the awards this year across a variety of categories including Male artist of the Year, Debut Album of the year, Producer of the year, Song of the year, Band of the year and Album of the year. Congratulations to Rebecca Davey for winning Female artist of the year and to Nick Charles and Doc Span for winning the Duo of the year award. The Allan Stafford award was presented to Mark Missen (Southern FM) for his support, encouragement and promotion of the local blues community. Congratulations and well done to all the nominees and winners.
PENINSULA BLUES CLUB
Now in their 2nd year, the Peninsula Blues Club kicked off the September meeting in style hosting a tribute to Little Walter. Aaron Gillett joined the house band showing all in the room what an extremely talented harmonica player he is and it was great to see Lisa Forster stepping into the house band line-up for the first time. Ian Collard (pictured) followed as the feature act giving the audience a rich mix of acoustic blues and some new Mississippi inspired originals. The JAM sets that follow are now a well established feature of the night with many members of the Blue Note School of Blues getting up along with great local talent such as Maria Cassar, Ross Gregory and Electric Larry Dennis to name just a few. The PBC is keeping the standards high with an impressive array of feature artists already booked to appear over the next few months, including Geoff Achison and Chris Wilson. The PBC is now definitely the place to be on the 2nd Sunday of each month. For more details please check http://peninsulabluesclub.com/.
DON’T MISS
JJ Rome at the SUNDAY SOULTRAIN at Davey’s Hotel on October 12.
Until next month, let’s keep the blues alive and support our local artists.
Greg writes monthly for PEARL and if you’d like Greg to review your release or you know of something happening in the Blues world please drop him a line at: bluesillustrated@gmail.com or https://www.facebook.com/GregFisherBluesIllustrated. Greg can also be heard on Thursdays evenings between 10 pm-1 am on 88.3 Southern FM as the host of the all Australian BLUES ILLUSTRATED show.