BackAlleyBlues

Central New York blues band, playing a mix of Chicago blues, West Coast swing, old school jump,and killer originals. Instruments are guitar, bass, drums and harp (with keyboards on the CD). CD, entitled "Love Recession", was released in 2001. The band has played all over Central New York and out of state (including the Cape Fear Bluesfest in North Carolina). They have also toured India three times.

The Skyla Burrell Blues Band is a hard working full time traveling blues band playing local, regional, national and international venues. The band averages 200 shows a year. With co-founder Mark Tomlinson on lead guitar and Skyla Burrell on vocals and lead guitar, the band's live show consists of all original high energy electric blues.

In July of 2004 the band released their debut studio CD, "Working Girl Blues", containing 12 original songs - several of the cuts topping the charts on independent music websites and internet radio stations. "Working Girl Blues" has received local, national and international airplay on blues and mainstream radio.

http://www.skylaburrell.com/

in 1925, banjoist Papa Charlie Jackson’s “I’m Alabama Bound” showed the links between all three titles. “Elder Greene” would be featured on later recordings by Blind Lemon Jefferson Charlie Patton(1920s) and in 1958 by Mississippi singer/guitarist “Cat-Iron”. “Alabama Bound” was recorded by Leadbelly in 1935 and 1940 and cropped up c.1956 by Lonnie Donegan during the British skiffle craze! Whilst “Don’t Leave Me Here” was first recorded in 1927 by a Mississippi group who were sometimes billed as “Sunny Boy And His Pals” or “Long Cleve Reed” and “Little Harvey Hull”. Tampa Red and Georgia Tom backed each other’s vocals on “Mama Don’t Leave Me Here” (1931) and “Don’t Leave Me Here”(1932), respectively; but are 2 versions of an unrelated blues.

Like many destitute people with physical disabilities at the time, Blind Willie Johnson earned his living from music. He quickly picked up the twelve-string guitar, and his father would often leave him on street corners to sing for money, where his newfound powerful voice left an indelible impression on passersby (legend has it that he was arrested for nearly starting a riot at a New Orleans courthouse with a powerful rendition of "If I Had My Way I'd Tear the Building Down", a song about Samson and Delilah). This song was performed hundreds of times by the Grateful Dead, and the live recordings of their version of the song have helped preserve it for decades.

At age 25, Willie married a young singer named Angelina, who was the sister of blues guitarist L.C. Robinson. His wife sung with him in some of his 30 recordings with Columbia Records from 1927-1930. Some examples of which Angelina Johnson sung with him were songs such as "Church I'm Fully Saved Today", "When the War Was On", "John the Revelator", and "Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning". John the Revelator would eventually be recorded by delta blues musician Son House, and his other song, Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning, was recorded by another delta blues musician, Fred McDowell.

Johnson remained poor until the end, preaching and singing in the streets of Beaumont, Texas to anyone who would listen. In 1945, his home inexplicably burned to the ground. With nowhere else to go, Johnson lived in the burned ruins of his home, sleeping on a wet bed his wife had prepared for him. He lived like this until, two weeks later, he contracted pneumonia and died. Although there is some dispute as to where his actual gravesite is, concerned members of the Beaumont community have committed to finding the site, and preserving it.

Robert Timothy Wilkins was a seminal blues guitarist and vocalist. Of African American and Cherokee descent, he was born January 16, 1896, in Hernando, Mississippi, 21 miles from Memphis, Tennessee. He died May 26, 1987.

Wilkins worked in Memphis during the 1920s at the same time as Furry Lewis, Memphis Minnie (whom he claimed to have tutored), and Son House. He also organized a jug band to capitalize on the "jug band craze" then in vogue. Though never attaining success comparable to the Memphis Jug Band, Wilkins reinforced his local popularity with a 1927 appearance on a Memphis radio station. Like Sleepy John Estes (and unlike Gus Cannon of Cannon's Jug Stompers) he recorded alone or with a single accompanist. He sometimes performed as Tim Wilkins or as Tim Oliver (his step-father's name).

His best known songs are "That's No Way To Get Along" (covered as "The Prodigal Son" by The Rolling Stones), "Rolling Stone" (covered by Muddy Waters and which inspired The Rolling Stones very name), and "Old Jim Canan's".

He became an elder of the Church of God in Christ in the 1930s and began playing gospel music with a blues feel.

The "Reverend" Robert Wilkins was rediscovered by blues enthusiasts during the 1960s blues revival, making appearances at folk festivals and recording his gospel blues for a new audience. His distinction was his versatility; he could play ragtime, blues, minstrel songs, and gospel with equal facility

Phillip Chapman Lesh (born March 15, 1940 in Berkeley, California) is a musician and a founding member of the band Grateful Dead; he played bass guitar in that group throughout their entire 30-year career.

Lesh started out as a trumpet player with a keen interest in avant-garde classical music and free jazz; he also studied under the Italian modernist Luciano Berio (a classmate was the minimalist composer Steve Reich). While still a college student he met then-bluegrass banjo player Jerry Garcia. They formed a friendship and eventually Lesh was talked into becoming the bass guitarist for Garcia's new rock group, then known as the Warlocks. He joined them for their third or fourth gig (memories vary) and stayed until the end.

Lesh had never played bass before joining the band, which meant he learned "on the job", but it also meant he had no preconceived attitudes about the instrument's traditional "rhythm section" role. Indeed, he has said that his playing style was influenced more by Bach counterpoint than by rock or soul bass players (although one can also hear the fluidity and power of a jazz bassist such as Charles Mingus or Jimmy Garrison in Lesh's work).

one night after a late night jam session, a group of fishin' musicians, led bu a guy nick-named "Chummy", put down there instruments, and picked up their gear for a fishing trip. A few hours later, and a few sharks later, an inspiration, a song, and Chumslick Nick and the Sharks were born."

Charley Patton (May 1, 1891–April 28, 1934) is best known as an American Delta blues musician. He is considered by many to be the "Father of Delta Blues" and therefore one of the oldest known figures of American popular music.

Charley Patton is one of the first mainstream stars of the Delta blues genre. Patton, who was born in Hinds County, Mississippi near Edwards or Bolton, lived most of his life in Sunflower County, in the Mississippi Delta. He was extremely popular across the U.S. South, and (in contrast to the itinerant wandering of most blues musicians of his time) was invited to perform at plantations and taverns.

He is credited with creating an enduring body of American music and personally inspiring just about every Delta blues man (Robert Palmer, 1995). Palmer considers him among the most important musicians that America produced in the twentieth century. Long before Jimi Hendrix he was the entertainer's entertainer with dazzling showmanship, often playing guitar on his knees and behind his head, as well as behind his back.

Robert Leroy Johnson (May 8, 1909/1912 to August 16, 1938) can arguably be considered as the most famous Delta blues singer and guitarist in history, even though he didn't live to see his thirtieth birthday and didn't start recording until three years before his death. Johnson died of pneumonia a week after being poisoned and shot for fooling around with a married woman.

Local studio musicans from several band decided to form a partnership to write and record original songs. We offer our time and talents free of charge to other musicians involved in this project. We plan to develop into a publishing company, and possibly a full time band.