Blues

Idris Phillips left this world in July 2022, and we remember him today with my interview with him from December 2017, although I also interviewed him again in person, 

Nick Foytik brings with him music deeply marinaded in blues, soul, and rock n' roll, something not-so-common in Wisconsin's north woods where Nick grew up. Nick has been building his chops for some 20 years, and yet it's really only the past few years when he's really launched his music career full-scale, still focused mostly in the upper Midwest. In addition to his solo gigs and those with his Nick Foytik Band, he continues to work as a guitar for hire.

Ruth Wyand, of Kill Devil Hills, NC, is a wonderful songwriter and performer, with magic in her tunes and lyrics, though it was really her guitar work that first riveted our attention, complete with soul-captivating finger-picking and bottleneck slide flourishes. Though of a genre all her own, she channels elements of blues, jazz, & Americana - and much more. In addition to her own musical creations, she breathes new life and identity into the tunes of other musicians, making them all her own.

Heather Pierson fell in love with music & the piano at a tender age, growing into singing in choirs & playing the guitar along the way. Music of all sorts of genres are her spirit & lifeblood. She was a part of Garajh Mahal, doing progressive rock, then with the country-leaning North Atlantic Band.

Tricia Alexander's songs are Music Medicine. She is also a poet, a minister, a mentor, a healing artist, and, on top of that, she is a wonderful, vivacious, captivating storyteller. With a spirituality spanning all peoples and all lands, she experienced particular transformation through an encounter with Meher Baba.

For about 10 years Richard Paul Thomas (or on FB) made music around Milwaukee, WI, as part of The Counts, The Polaras, Ron & The Continentals, The Gamblers, The Too Young to Know Anything about Pain & Suffering Singers

Joyann Parker was raised singing in church, became a rocker along the way, has done her share of country music, but came home to her consuming passion for the blues only 4 or 5 years ago, and the world is so much richer for it. She represented Minnesota at the 2015 International Blues Competition in Memphis and was nominated in the Costello Rising Star category of the 2018 Blues Blast Magazine awards. Also follow her on Facebook.

Tim Purcell had been around the musical block a number of times, all the way from his first band, American Apple, and including (but not limited to) Lou's Blues Revue, Perfect World, The Riley Hawkins Band, and The Mustangs. But his latest & greatest is a combination of young & old folks called Foxes and Fossils.

She's never just one (musical) thing. As the co-creator of the immensely popular group-singing songbook, Rise Up Singing, and its sequel, Rise Again, Annie Patterson has one foot securely rooted in the folk music world. Annie must have several feet, because she also has feet well-planted in diverse musical genres, like blues, swing, and jazz.

Sparky Rucker was introduced to the music of the civil rights movement when his mother took him to his first march at the age of 14, but he was already steeped in the music of the era in the black Pentecostal church of his youth and the distinctive Appalachian culture of Eastern Tennessee. Sparky Rucker has woven together music, activism, history and culture for more than 5 decades, raising and inspiring spirits everywhere.