Billy Bacon and The Forbidden Pigs ~ 1999

Billy Bacon likes to call the kind of music he makes "Texmex-blues-abilly." With his band, the Forbidden Pigs — or the "swingin' swine" from San Diego — he has put out albums that shake it up with a combination of rock and Latin music. Among his recordings are Una Mas Cerveza, the group's debut put out by Triple X in 1991; the follow-up album The Other White Meat, issued by Triple X in 1992; a CD of live material titled Thirteen Years of Bad Road, in 1999; and Pork Que?, from Swine Song Records in 2000. Bacon has taken the pig — er, bull — by the horns and taken charge of several important aspects that have contributed to his trio's rise.

In addition to acting as the Forbidden Pigs' leader and frontman, Bacon writes the songs, handles publicity, manages the group's tours, and takes care of its website. At one time, he even had to be the bouncer during a couple of shows. In later years, he took on the job of record company executive, establishing and running Swine Song Records. Hepcat acts as distributor for U.S. and international sales. His cohorts in the Forbidden Pigs are drummer Randy "The Hammer" Willert and guitarist Jerry "Hot Rod" DeMink, who previously worked with blues saxophonist A.C. Reed.

Bacon and his band have attracted some diverse fans. A few who appeared on The Other White Meat are guitarist and former Eagle Joe Walsh, blues vocalist Candye Kane, and accordion player Chris Gaffney. Dave Alvin, a noted producer of roots rock music, also put his talents to use on the album. Gaffney also contributed to Thirteen Years of Bad Road, as did Tim "Steelbone" Cook. And now Billy and His Band of Baco's have relocated to the Austin area where Texans of all ages can become totally fried.





If you really want to get "fried" check out the whole Slab o'Bacon

Randy Garibay ~ 1999

Getting called the "godfather" of this or that in music is almost as bad of a cliché as being dubbed a "new Bob Dylan." In the case of Randy Garibay, he has certainly paid the dues and bent the strings enough to be something of a Texas blues godfather, but more interesting is the man's extreme versatility. Blues musicians are most often known for their strict adherence to this deep yet narrow musical form; Garibay, on the other hand, splatters salsa on the mode by proving to be adept in everything from jazz to country to doo wop to a Mexican bolero. Put it all together and you have a unique style he calls his own "puro pinche blues."

His family were immigrants and he was brought up in the barrios of San Antonio and the migrant fields of the Midwest. He learned to play guitar at the age of 18 when his brother gave him a Sears and Roebuck model for his birthday, putting him in a group of many great guitarists that started out on these cheap but hardy axes. But he was a professional singer even before he was playing guitar, beginning as a teenage lead singer for two teen dream doo wop groups, the Velvets and the Pharaohs in the '50s. The latter band performed in Texas and Mexico and sang back up for Sonny Ace and Doug Sahm on some of his earliest recordings. Garibay was also a regular attraction at one of the hot San Antonio blues venues of the '50s, the Eastwood Country Club. This was one of the renowned blues clubs for touring performers. In the '60s he joined the Dell-Kings, which took him on the road, first to Los Angeles and then for an extended stay in the gambling Mecca of Las Vegas. The band became the house group at the Sahara Hotel, allowing Garibay the opportunity to work behind a variety of headline touring artists such as Jackie Wilson, Judy Garland, and Sammy Davis Jr. As the times changed the band became weary of its own name and the doo wop connotations it might have. The group was renamed los Blues as it embarked on a road trip that lasted off and on until the '70s. Garibay backed up rhythm and blues greats Curtis Mayfield and the O'Jays hitting the stage in top drawer venues as Madison Square Garden and the Waldorf Astoria hotels in New York City, Vancouver, and Honolulu.

But as the Doug Sahm song goes, "Texas calls me..." Garibary wound up back in his home state holding forth with his new band, Cats Don't Sleep, a nerve-wracking band name for any cat owner who also needs their rest. The group's 1997 album "Barbacoa Blues," named after a particularly tasty style of Mexican shredded barbecued beef, was praised by critics as if they were smacking over their lips on a mouthful of it. He has been a touring artist with the Texas Commission on the Arts since l999 and a featured performer at the 1998 Chicano Music Awards. He is also winner of the l996 West Side Rhythm and Blues Award and the Pura Vida Hispanic Music Award in l994 and l995. In 2001, pioneering Chicano filmmaker Efrain Gutierrez released Lowrider Spring Break en San Quilmas, which features eight original songs by Garibay on the soundtrack.

Sherman Robertson ~ 1998

Sherman Robinson is part zydeco, part swamp blues, part electric blues and part classic rhythm & blues. His guitar playing style is extremely rhythm-based, but at the same time, he plays some extraordinary slide guitar and in the course of one of his typical three hour shows, he'll play a lot of great solos. Robertson's rhythmic playing is no doubt an outgrowth of his several years on the road in the 1980s with the king of zydeco, Clifton Chenier. He also served tenures with Rockin' Dopsie and Terrance Simien & the Mallet Playboys before deciding he wanted to venture out with his own high energy blues style several years ago.

Robertson drew his first inspiration from a TV performance by Hank Williams, the country singer known in bayou country for his composition, "Jambalaya.'' He was 13 when he first saw Williams perform and that experience changed his life. Robertson heard the blues coming out of the country legend, and his interest in playing guitar was piqued. Robertson's father bought him an old Stella guitar for $12 and the younger Robertson began playing the songs of Freddie King and Floyd London, often playing until his hands bled and often falling asleep with the instrument nestled beside him.

Growing up in Houston, just down the street from Don Robey's famed Duke/Peacock Records studios, Robertson had the chance to befriend many of the great musicians who stopped in there to make records. By 17, he was honing his craft with a local blues band and playing in the bars in his Fifth Ward neighborhood in Houston. In 1982, when Robertson's band was playing at the Crosstown Blues Festival, zydeco legend Chenier heard him play. Chenier told his bus driver to "get that guitar player," and a long alliance with Chenier's band was forged.

Robertson moved to Louisiana with Chenier's band and learned a lot from the accordionist about how to read an audience. Later, Robertson worked with singer-songwriter Paul Simon during recording sessions for his Graceland album, and also had the chance to sit in with all of his heroes, Albert Collins and B.B. King and Lightnin' Hopkins among them. In 1987 and 1988, after Chenier's passing, Robertson hooked up with accordionist Terrance Simien, and furthered his musical education, particularly with the overseas dates that band performed in Egypt and Africa. After all those years of playing zydeco, Robertson yearned to get back to more basic forms of blues, and in the early '90s, after two and a half years with the Mallet Playboys, he assembled his own band that would later take much of the blues festival circuit by storm. A few years and hundreds of shows later, critics were saying Robertson would inherit the seats left open by people like Albert King and Albert Collins. ~ Allmusic

Long John Hunter ~ 1998

The Louisiana native got a late start on his musical career. When he was 22 and toiling away in a Beaumont, TX box factory, he attended a B.B. King show and was instantly transfixed. The next day, he bought a guitar. A year later, he was starring at the same bar that B.B. had headlined.

Hunter's 1954 debut single for Don Robey's Houston-based Duke label, "She Used to Be My Woman"/"Crazy Baby," preceded his move to El Paso in 1957. Along the way, Phillip Walker and Lonnie Brooks both picked up on his licks. But Hunter's recording output was slim -- a few hot but obscure singles waxed from 1961 to 1963 for the tiny Yucca logo out of Alamogordo, NM (standouts include "El Paso Rock," "Midnight Stroll," and "Border Town Blues"). Perhaps he was just too busy, he held court at the Lobby Bar in Juarez, MX seven nights a week from sundown to sunup. Its riotous, often brawling clientele included locals, cowboys, soldiers from nearby Fort Bliss, frat boys, and every sort of troublemaking tourist in between. Hunter kept 'em all entertained with his outrageous showmanship and slashing guitar riffs.

For much too long, the legend of Long John Hunter was largely been a local one, limited to the bordertown region between El Paso, Texas and Juarez, Mexico. Fortunately, Hunter's reputation is finally outgrowing the Lone Star state. His 1992 set for the now-shuttered Spindletop imprint, Ride With Me, got the ball rolling. Now, his 1996 disc for Alligator, Border Town Legend, should expose this Texas blues great to a far wider (if not wilder) audience than ever before.





Long John Hunter's here!

Bryan Lee ~ 1998

Bryan Lee was born in Two Rivers, Wisconsin, and completely lost his eyesight by the age of eight. His avid interest in early rock and blues was fostered through the 1950s by late night listening sessions via the Nashville-based radio station WLAC AM, while listening to "Big John R" and "Hoss Allen". This is where he first encountered Elmore James, Albert King and Albert Collins.

He moved to New Orleans in 1982 and eventually found a steady gig at the Old Absinthe House in the French Quarter. For fourteen years, Lee and his Jump Street Five played five nights a week at the popular bar, developing a huge following and a solid reputation until the bar closed to become a "frozen drink emporium".

Today, Lee continues to perform in New Orleans. He also tours several times a year in the Midwest, Eastern Seaboard, Rocky Mountain States and recently Europe. Lee appeared with Kenny Wayne Shepherd as the musical guest on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno on February 14, 2007.

Bruce "Sunpie" Barnes & Zydeco Sunspots ~ 1998

Musical expression grew out of Bruce “Sunpie” Barnes’ early immersion in the blues tradition carried on by his father and the community around him. “Blues is central of all my music,” he declares. “The music I write, perform, and record comes to me in dreams. It was my grandmother who explained this direct way of receiving information to me.”

Sunpie also credits his grandmother, Louvina Norris, for putting him in direct touch with the spiritual and practical lore of his ancestry. He says she showed him plants in nature that heal and prepared him to understand direct ways of knowing that have served him well in his original music, his schooling, and in his encounters with elders in his travels throughout the African Diaspora.

Albums available of Sunpie and the Louisiana Sunspots include: “Loupe Garou”, “Lick a Hot Skillet,” “Sunpie,” “Legends of the Swamp,” and his new release “Zydeco’s Got Soul.” While they may on the surface seem diverse and unconnected, all evoke the music of the African motherland and African music traditions which are alive in the Caribbean as well as here in Louisiana.

Katie Webster ~ 1997

Katie Webster, the Swamp Boogie Queen, was born January 1936. She is acknowledged as one of the most important blues artists of her generation.
Katie had to deal with deeply religious parents who did everything in their power to stop their daughter from playing R&B. But the rocking sounds of Fats Domino and Little Richard were simply too persuasive. Local guitarist, Ashton Savoy, took her under his wing, sharing her 1958 debut 45 for the Kry logo.
In 1964, she guested with Otis Redding's band at the Bamboo Club in Lake Charles and so impressed the charismatic Redding that he absconded with her. For the next three years, Webster served as his opening act, but after his death went into semi-retirement. Until the 1980s this boisterous singer and pianist was known only to record collectors, but beginning in the 1980s she was booked for European tours and recorded albums for the German record label, Ornament Records.
To balance these solo efforts, she cut You Know That's Right with the band Hot Links, and the album that established her in the United States; The Swamp Boogie Queen with "Silent Partner" Russell Jackson, Tony Coleman, and Andrew "Jr. Boy" Jones and with guest spots by Bonnie Raitt and Robert Cray. The lovably extroverted boogie pianist encored with Two-Fisted Mama! and No Foolin' before suffering the stroke. She died on September 5, 1999 at the age of 63. ~ Wikipedia