mick laBriola

Boogie Bill Webb (March 24, 1924 – August 22, 1990 NOLA) was an American Louisiana blues and rhythm-and-blues guitarist, singer and songwriter. His music combined Mississippi country blues with New Orleans R&B.^[1] His best-known recordings are “Bad Dog” and “Drinkin’ and Stinkin'”. Despite a lengthy (albeit intermittent) career, Webb released only one album.

Georg Philipp Telemann (24 March [O.S.14 March] 1681 – 25 June 1767) was a German Baroque composer and multi-instrumentalist. He is one of the most prolific composers in history, at least in terms of surviving oeuvre. Telemann was considered by his contemporaries to be one of the leading German composers of the time, and he was compared favourably both to his friend Johann Sebastian Bach, who made Telemann the godfather and namesake of his son Carl Philipp Emanuel, and to George Frideric Handel, whom Telemann also knew personally.

Almost completely self-taught in music, he became a composer against his family’s wishes. After studying in Magdeburg, Zellerfeld, and Hildesheim, Telemann entered the University of Leipzig to study law, but eventually settled on a career in music. He held important positions in Leipzig, Sorau, Eisenach, and Frankfurt before settling in Hamburg in 1721, where he became musical director of that city’s five main churches. While Telemann’s career prospered, his personal life was always troubled: his first wife died less than two years after their marriage, and his second wife had extramarital affairs and accumulated a large gambling debt before leaving him. As part of his duties, he wrote a considerable amount of music for educating organists under his direction. This includes 48 chorale preludes and 20 small fugues (modal fugues) to accompany his chorale harmonisations for 500 hymns. His music incorporates French, Italian, and German national styles, and he was at times even influenced by Polish popular music. He remained at the forefront of all new musical tendencies, and his music stands as an important link between the late Baroque and early Classical styles. The Telemann Museum in Hamburg is dedicated to him.

Steve Kuhn (born March 24, 1938 NY) is an American jazz pianist, composer, arranger, bandleader, and educator.

After graduating from Harvard, he attended the Lenox School of Music where he was associated with Ornette Coleman, Don Cherry, and Gary McFarland. The school’s faculty included Bill Evans, George Russell, Gunther Schuller, and the members of the Modern Jazz Quartet. This allowed Kuhn to play, study, and create with some of the most forward-thinking innovators of jazz improvisation and composition; it culminated with his joining trumpeter Kenny Dorham‘s group for an extended time and (briefly) John Coltrane‘s quartet at New York’s Jazz Gallery club.

Kuhn also has appeared with Stan Getz, Art Farmer, Oliver Nelson, Gary McFarland, Ron Carter, Scott LaFaro, Harvie Swartz, vocalist Sheila Jordan, Billy Drummond, David Finck, and Miroslav Vitous. From 1967 to 1971 Kuhn lived in Stockholm, Sweden where he worked with his own trio throughout Europe. In 1971 Kuhn moved back to New York City and formed a quartet but continued doing European gigs and appearing at the Newport Jazz Festival.

Yvette Marie Stevens (born March 23, 1953), better known by her stage nameChaka Khan , is an American singer. Known as the “Queen of Funk“, her career has spanned more than five decades beginning in the early 1970s as the lead vocalist of the funk band Rufus. With the band she recorded the notable hits “Tell Me Something Good,” “Sweet Thing,” “Do You Love What You Feel,” and the platinum-certified “Ain’t Nobody.” Her debut solo album featured the number-one R&B hit “I’m Every Woman” (which became a pop hit for Whitney Houston). Khan scored another R&B charts hit with “What Cha’ Gonna Do for Me” before becoming the first R&B artist to have a crossover hit featuring a rapper, with her 1984 cover of Prince‘s “I Feel for You.” More of Khan’s hits include “Through the Fire” and a 1986 collaboration with Steve Winwood that produced a number-one hit on the Billboard Hot 100, “Higher Love.”

David Jay Grisman (born March 23, 1945 Hackensack, NJ) is an American mandolinist. His music combines bluegrass, folk, and jazz in a genre he calls “Dawg music”. He founded the record label Acoustic Disc, which issues his recordings and those of other acoustic musicians. He was inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in 2023.

Woodville bluesman Robert Cage was born in New Orleans on March 23, 1937, but his family, which has roots in southwestern Mississippi, soon moved to Natchez, where he spent his first six years. They then moved to the Percy Creek community, about ten miles west of Woodville near Lake Mary, where he lived for several decades. He recalls that the first time he heard blues was via records on the “autophone” at his mother Carrie’s juke joint, which was located next to their home. [“Autophone” was the brand name of an early coin-operated machine, though it was used generically to refer to jukeboxes]. He recalls that there were other jukes in the area, including Nancy Green’s near Port Adams.

Cage particularly enjoyed the recordings of John Lee Hooker and was also influenced by local performers who played at the juke, including guitarist Lee Baker and fiddler Nolan Cage, a relative. His most important influence, though, was the guitarist/vocalist Scott Dunbar [1904-1994], who worked as a fishing guide on Lake Mary and often performed solo at the juke. In the mid-‘50s folklorist Frederic Ramsey recorded Dunbar as well as several of his family members, and Folkways Records later issued the recordings; a photograph of Dunbar appears on the first edition of Ramsey’s 1960 book Been Here and Gone. Folklorist Bill Ferris later recorded Dunbar, and a 1970 LP of Dunbar’s music on the Ahura Mazda label, From Lake Mary, was later reissued on CD on Fat Possum.

Cage’s mother gave him a guitar when he was eleven, and he first encountered Dunbar when he was around thirteen by surreptitiously listening to him at the juke. He “studied the devil out of” Dunbar’s songs, and today still performs many of these in a style similar to that of Dunbar, including “Easy Rider,” “Who Been Fooling You,” and “Little Liza Jane.” By eighteen Cage formed his own band with his cousins Ray Trass and Little Miller, with a drummer beating on a beer box. Because of local alcohol prohibitions, they performed mostly in clubs in nearby Louisiana including the State Line Club, where they were the house band, and the Black Cat.

He later led a band called the Blues Boys that featured saxophone and trumpet players and recalls that they played a wide variety of music and that he often played just like Chuck Berry. From the late ‘80s until 2001 he often played at the Hilltop Club just south of the border in Louisiana in a band that featured his son, Vincent “Buck” Cage, on bass, and C.L. Ward on drums.

In 1997 Fat Possum Records’ Bruce Watson and Matthew Johnson traveled to Woodville to try to locate Scott Dunbar, who had died several years earlier, and were referred to Cage. They recorded him and in 1998 issued the CD Can See What You’re Doing. Cage subsequently traveled to Japan and France to perform and traveled on multiple national tours as part of the Fat Possum Juke Joint Caravan. In 2008 he appeared at the Deep Blues Festival in Minnesota together with Natchez drummer/harmonica player Hezekiah Early and occasionally performed at events in the Miss-Lou area. For many decades Cage’s primary occupation was as a mechanic for large trucks, which he repaired at his home just west of downtown Woodville.

Cage passed away on July 23, 2012.

Iverson Minter (March 23, 1932 – February 25, 2012), known professionally as Louisiana Red, was an American blues guitarist, harmonica player, and singer, who recorded more than 50 albums. A master of slide guitar, he played both traditional acoustic and urban electric styles, with lyrics both honest and often remarkably personal. His career includes collaborations with artists as Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Eric Burdon, and others.

Coco Tea Memorial
Sad news: another reggae icon has flown to Zion. The reggae community mourns the loss of sweet sweet Cocoa Tea. The veteran singer passed away at a hospital in Broward, Ft Lauderdale, Florida, following a cardiac arrest. Cocoa Tea, known for his sweet, melodic voice, as well as his powerful chanting, was 65-years-old. Rest in power, legend. Your music will live on forever! Our sincere condolences to his family and friends.
https://www.reggae-vibes.com/articles/2025/03/sweet-sweet-cocoa-tea-has-died