A visit from the Salty Dog

When I was in college I took a three-course sequence in music appreciation. The classes covered the genres of classical, folk and jazz music.

I thought the classical music class would make me more sophisticated. I thought the jazz class would make me cooler. And I took the folk class because it was part of the sequence and needed to take it to fulfill the sequence for credit toward my liberal arts degree.

The classical music class did not make me more sophisticated. To be honest, I never really acquired a taste for classical music. But I know I got more out of the class because the instructor, Rachelle McCabe, a concert pianist, conveyed her love for the music through the expressions on her face as she would play part of a piece on the piano. It's the kind of look that you only see on a woman's face when she's passionate about something, like enjoying a rich chocolate dessert. Her passion for the music was contagious and it kept me paying attention. But the interest in classical music faded when I wasn't seeing her face several times a week.

I don't remember my instructors for the folk and jazz classes, but those genres of music became more engrained in my day-to-day musical tastes. I found I liked music, regardless of label, that is rooted in the blues. You can find it in various genres -- rock, folk, country, jazz.

The reason I got thinking about all this stuff now is because I got a comment on a recent post from one of my favorite radio/podcast personalities. Salty, aka Dennis Trevarthen, from the Salty Dog Blues N Roots show found the post somehow, through the magic of the Internet, and was kind enough to say a few words (as was Pat McDougall from PDXBluescast).

If you like blues, folk, blues-rock and related styles, I urge you to check out Salty's show. He plays great music and also features interviews with artists from Down Under or artists touring Australia. It's great music for road trips and air travel, as each show is 2-hours long and there's a new one every Saturday.

Thanks for stopping by Salty. And more importantly, thanks for sharing so much great music with us "all across the globe."

And the blues play on

I don't visit bars as much as I did back in my 20s, or even my 30s, but there is something unbeatable about just the right bar.

Sometime I have a craving for a neighborhood hangout, a little hole in the wall spot where the bartenders and waitresses know your order and have your drink waiting for you by the time you reach your bar stool.

Other times, I have a craving for a sports bar, a place to hang out and grab a burger and a beer while watching a game.

But on some occasions, I really want a place with some high energy, a place that buzzes with electricity from the patrons and a band playing life music. In the months after I moved to Salem, whenever I would ask people I met where was the best place to go for nightlife in town, one of the names that inevitably cropped up was Lefty's Pizzeria and Blues Club.

It was my kind of joint, fitting many of my favorite tastes for food (pizza), beer (microbrews) and music -- in this case, blues.

Blues as been a favorite musical genre since college. Anyone with a taste for blues will tell you, there is nothing like hearing blues live, because like the music it inspired, jazz, musicians improvise during a performance, giving even classic blues songs their own fingerprint.

Unfortunately, I have not had listened to a lot of live blues. But now, living back in the Pacific Northwest, it seemed like I would get more opportunities to do so. Portland has a vibrant and respected blues scene and plays hose every year to the Waterfront Blues Festival. As I came to learn, Lefty's was considered by many one of the best blues venues for live music in the Northwest.

In my early explorations as an iPod owner, I discovered a podcast based out of Portland that talked about the Portland and Northwest blues scene and featured music from artists based here, or who have some connection to Portland and the Pacific Northwest. The podcast, PDX Bluescast, became an immediate favorite.

Sadly, the PDX Bluescast has not had a new episode in over a year now. And now this month came word that Lefty's had closed.

But the blues itself does not die. Just as the legends of the genre eventually pass on, the music itself is passed down to new generations of musicians. And fortunately, I have found a new place to satisfy my thirst for blues, but this one's based a little farther south -- south of the equator and across the Pacific to be precise. My new home for the blues, and the new podcast I turn to for a mix of classic blues and emerging voices is the Salty Dog Blues N Roots Podcast from Melbourne, Australia.

So thanks, Salty, for satisfying that craving, both salty and sweet, tangy and twangy, like a slice of pizza with pepperoni and pineapple and a liberal dose of Tabasco.

RIP Lefty's and the PDX Bluescast. You are missed, but we can all take comfort in the fact that the blues plays on.

Absence make the heart...

I haven't seen or heard from Brat for the last couple of nights. Fortunately I talked to her in the aftermath of the storms in her area, or I would probably be pretty worried. I hope she is just taking it easy and getting some rest, or maybe dealing with some of the after effects of the storm.

Regardless, this long distance stuff really sucks sometimes.

Anyway, enough of the sappy stuff. It's almost St. Patrick's Day. I don't really have any plans for the Irish holiday. I have to say I'm sort of craving some live blues music. What could be better that some blues music on St. Patrick's Day? Would work well for this whole long-distance thing too
Anyone have any recommendations?

Long-distance relationships
Live music
Blues
St. Patrick's Day

Exploring the neighborhood

I needed to get out of the house. The walls felt like they were closing in. So Saturday I hit the road.

I decided to explore a little of the countryside of the Willamette Valley off the Interstate 5 corridor. So I headed for McMinnville and plugged the iPod into the car stereo. While on my Saturday drive I found myself also exploring a touch of the blues music scene of Portland and the Northwest by listening to a podcast I'd downloaded called PDX Bluescast.

I've long enjoyed blues music, but am far from an expert on the genre. I know enough about it to hear its influences in other musical genres like rock, country, jazz and, of course, R&B. But I don't have an extensive blues collection. And to be honest, other than the Waterfront Blues Festival, which I got a chance to attend a few years ago on a visit back to Oregon from California, I didn't realized that Portland had a major blues scene. I'm just dipping my toe into that water.

One of the things I like about the PDX Bluescast is that on the accompanying Web site, you don't have to write notes about the songs and musician you are hearing, because you can go back to the Web site and get those details. I've already discovered a couple of artists and albums I may want to check out. And I've learned that there is a blues song about the small Eastern Oregon town of Baker City. Who would have guessed?

I don't know if the PDX Bluescast site qualifies as a blog, but I've added it to my Blogroll anyway.
As for what I saw on my little road trip? Well, maybe that's a topic for another post.

iPod
Podcast
Blues music
PDX Bluescast