Rod Piazza's For The Chosen Who

Rod Piazza is one of the major players of the West Coast Blues Scene. I have been listening to his records since the days of the Dirty Dozen Blues Band on ABC Bluesway in the 1960s. With the Mighty Flyers, he has had one of the tightest, swinging bands of the past several decades. A solid singer and a terrific harmonica player, I have reviewed a number of his recordings over the years, but have noticed that I have not posted any reviews on this blog, so to make up for this omission, I am pleased to post this review of a 2005 Delta Groove release.


Rod Piazza & the Mighty Flyers have a terrific new disc, For the Chosen Who (Delta Groove), a combined cd-dvd package that may be amongst the best recordings of Piazza’s lengthy recording career. One reason to the Mighty Flyers success as among the blues top touring bands is the band’s stability reflected by the long tenure of pianist Honey Piazza and bassist Bill Stuve. Guitarist Henry Carvajal and drummer Paul Fasulo are relative newcomers to the Flyers and fit in like they have been their for a decade.


This new disc includes a number of choice covers, none of which have been over-recorded from Jimmy Reed’s I’m a Love You, Ted Garrett’s You Can Make It If You Try, John Lee Williamson’s Ground Hog Blues, Ike Turner’s She Made My Blood Run Cold, and a pair from Jimmy Rogers Broken Hearted Blues and Trace of You. On several tracks Phil Guy plays lead guitar, Finis Tasby plays bass and James Gadson plays drums.


Piazza sings as good as I ever heard him and the group as a whole sounds terrific. There are too many highlights to mention as everything is first-rate but Kid Ramos adds some nice lead guitar for Broken Hearted Blues while guitarist Carvajal evokes Turner’s tremelo-laced guitar style on She Made My Blood Run Cold. Ground Hog Blues is a wonderful duet between Honey’s piano and Rod Piazza’s vocal and harp while Shoestring, a Red Prystock number I believe, serves as a showpiece for Rod Piazza’s superb harpwork as is the slow Honey’s Blues, with Piazza playing some brooding chromatic harp while Honey Piazza comes across like Otis Spann with Phil Guy adding some strong fills. Johnny Dyer joins for a vocal duet on Little Walter’s Gotta Find My Baby, while label head Randy Chortkoff wrote and plays harp on Call Me Dangerous.


This disc has a dvd bonus that includes a 23 minute documentary overview of the recording of the cd along with the performers views on this recording and the blues. Two of the performances are also captured on video along with a gallery of photos complete this absolutely terrific blues recording.

This review appeared in the February 2006 Jazz & Blues Report (Issue 279). I received my review copy either from Delta Groove or a publicist for the label. It is still readily available.

Wells Live At Theresa's 1975 Caught Him in Prime Form.

I had the pleasure to see Junior Wells a number of times over the years. The first several times it was when he had his partnership with Buddy Guy while I was living in Buffalo. First time was with a fellow University of Buffalo grad student in Toronto at El Macombo. Somehow we got seats on the side of the stage (apparently my friend had a close resemblance to one of the members of Downchild) and it was a treat to see and hear the two with the band when it included A.C. Reed on saxophone. Later, there would be shows at the Belle Star in Colden, NY, in the hills west of Buffalo including one where Jeff Beck was in the audience. Junior sang his ass off for about two hours, and Buddy played his butt off too (Buddy was one of Jeff’s favorite guitarists). At the time, both were prominent figures in the blues world, but there were times when they would clown a bit. The night with Beck  in the audience (and he jammed with them the late second set), there there was just magic and no clowning.  At the time when they were back home in Chicago, they each had their own gigs. Junior held forth at Theresa’s, a neighborhood bar.

Back in 2006, Delmark issued some previously unissued live Junior Wells recordings from Theresa’s that was a wonderful surprise to the many fans of Wells as well as blues fans in general. Live At Theresa’s 1975, was taken from recordings made for broadcast on Chicago station WXRT-FM. Wells on this recording was supported by a band that included Phil Guy on guitar and Earnest Johnson bass. Both were regular members of Wells’ touring band when he joined with Buddy Guy around this time.

On the two dates from January 1975, Byther Smith or Sammy Lawhorn are also on guitar and Vince Chapelle or Levi Warren are on drums. There are some fine performances of songs that were staples of Wells’ repertoire until his death, such as Little By Little, Come On in This House, It Hurts Me Too, What My Mama Told Me and Messing With the Kid. Smith takes a vocal on Help the Poor from B.B. King’s repertoire. The music is solid, and there is plenty of banter from Junior including singing Happy Birthday to photographer Mark Pokemper and acting as Pokemper’s pitchman.  Junior and the band were in terrific form here.

With all the welcome publicity of the recent Junior Wells Live in Boston 1966 on Delmark, this disc should not be overlooked. It is as good and provides a sense of what Wells’ sounded like playing for a different audience then the college kids who saw him in 1966. It should also be relatively easy to find. When this came out, I selected this as among the outstanding blues CDs of 2006 and reviewed it in the December 2006 Jazz & Blues Report (issue 289) which I have modified for the current post.


For purposes of FTC regulations, I likely received the review copy from Delmark Records.