We love The Blues, but we also have a thing for Soul.  And if you’ve seen any of the performances here you already know this.  So tonight begins Soul Nite.  Shirley Lewis and Angela Warner will be providing the vocals with Big Mike on the drums.  For guitar we have special guest Chris Furrie.  And if that wasn’t enough we have another special guest, Ed Shoenly, who has promised us some harp.  We can’t wait to hear what it’s all going to sound like when it comes together.

We apologize for the short notice.  If you miss it don’t worry it won’t be the last.

We’ve added a new page to keep track of all the musicians that we were lucky enough to have perform here and to give them a permanent home here on the website.  There, you can read all about the different backgrounds of each performer to give you an idea of where they get their influences from. Consider it our trophy room.

The Featured Artists button replaced the Jobs button on the sidebar but if you’re interested you can still find a link to available jobs on the right, down at the bottom, underneath the hours listings and bulk menu link.

P.S.  We’re still working on the Featured Artists page.  So expect a few more bios to come.

We thought it was about time we put up some videos seeing as it’s been a while. Here’s a few clips of Shirley Lewis’ performance from last Sunday. If you’d like you can check out all the other clips from that show here. We hope you like it.

Big happenings this weekend at Smoken’ Joe’s Barbeque.  Shirley will rock the house with her band on Friday and Saturday featuring Big Jack Ward on guitar and Karl Bryan on Sax.  Saturday we will be roasting a whole pig. We are still working on how we will serve this —We will begin serving around 6PM.

Then we will have a special Blues event on Sunday event from 12:30 to 3PM with special guests; It will feature a band and we are going to call it Blues on Sunday.  Alizon Lissance will be playing Wednesday nights all summer featuring her special brand of smokey soulful solo piano.  Also, look for Angela Warner to join our regulars with a Soul Review on Thursday nights starting this week.

You might guess that a singer with the stage name “J. B. Jr.” would be borrowing heavily from the James Brown songbook. You might be right. A native of Richfield, NC, JB grew up idolizing and emulating his musical hero. Making his home in Boston since the mid-60’s, he has spent a lifetime on and off the road, at various times bringing his act to the stage as an opener for such legends as The Blue Notes, Wilson Pickett, Millie Jackson, Maurice Starr, Sam & Dave, and yes, the “real” James Brown. His energy is infectious, whether doing the Camel Walk across the stage, or splits in the middle of the dance floor; the whole audience will just have to “git up, git on up”!