Emanuel Young with Howard Glazer and the EL 34s
Live in Detroit
recorded live at The Halligan Bar, Detroit, Michigan
Random Chance RCD-35

Howard Glazer and the EL 34s
Liquor Store Legend
Random Chance RCD33

Detroit blues vocalist/guitarist Emanuel Young is described in the short biography included on the sleeve notes to Live in Detroit as a "living Detroit legend." He's been playing the blues in the Motor City since the end of the 1950s and held one of the longest runs in Detroit musical history as host of blues night at Cooley's Lounge from 1978 until the place closed in 2005.

He's played with many of the greats of Detroit blues, including a year-and-a-half stint with John Lee Hooker, and has also played with Albert King, Jimmy Reed and Martha Reeves, lead singer with the Motown soul group Martha and the Vandellas.

The Blues Experience with Cash McCall
The Vintage Room
Dixon Landing Music

The Michael Packer Blues Band
Bleecker-Bowery
Random Chance RCD-34

Davis Coen
Blues Lights for Yours and Mine
Soundview SP1003

Three solid electric bands here give us the blues as expressed in the characteristic sound of their respective cities. The Blues Experience with Cash McCall lays down the classic Chicago blues, while New York City's Michael Packer Blues Band delivers the blues as influenced by the polyglot musical influences of the Big Apple, and Davis Coen serves up the spicy blues gumbo of New Orleans.

Webb Wilder and the Beatnecks
Born to be Wilder
recorded live at WorkPlay,
Birmingham, Alabama
Blind Pig Records BPCD 5120

Popa Chubby
Deliveries After Dark
Blind Pig Records BPCD 5121

The concert

The Yank Rachell Tribute Concert and CD Release Party happened June 8 in the courtyard of the Indiana Historical Society in downtown Indianapolis, along the banks of the newly renovated White River Canal. It drew only a moderate crowd, perhaps because of the $10 admission charge ($12 at the door), but nonetheless, was a delightful way to spend a sultry Sunday afternoon that featured a full five hours of music.

The mandolin was very much the dominating instrument among the music played, fittingly enough given that that was not only the instrument of choice of Rachell himself, but also given that he was one of the undoubted masters of the blues mandolin.

National artists Rich DelGrosso and Andra Faye sang and played mandolin, with mandolin also featured by several notable local and regional artists as well -- Jim Richter, Mike Butler (who played not only his electric mandolin, but also Yank's own acoustic-electric Harmony mandolin, which Butler plans on donating to the Smithsonian upon his death), and Steve Robbins.

It's good to be back in the saddle again! Recurring viral infections have kept me away from my computer keyboard, so that this is my first "Blues and More" column since Feb. 24. I'm happy to be able to devote it to another top regional blues-based group, Indianapolis's Stone Martin Band, same as I had the honorable pleasure of devoting my Feb. 9 column to Mike Milligan and Steam Shovel.

The Stone Martin Band describes itself as an "eclectic, blues-oriented show band" whose repertoire not only includes modern blues, but also ample soul and funk, and blues classics from the 1940s and early 1950s revamped in contemporary blues and blues-rock arrangements, a la Buddy Guy, Albert King and Stevie Ray Vaughan. Covered material ranges from Muddy Waters to James Brown, and also includes band originals.

Unrequited love, artistic failure, death, and--comedy?

It might seem odd, given the first three themes, but comedy is undeniably present from the start of The Seagull, the IU Department of Theatre and Drama's latest production of Anton Chekhov's 1895 classic, when Masha comments, "I'm in mourning for my life" to Medvedenko, the schoolmaster who is desperately in love with her.

Chekhov's play, though centered on the depressing aspects of the human experience, also points out the humorous -- and often ridiculous -- elements to even the most painful moments in life. And the IU production, which opened this past Tuesday at the Ruth N. Halls Theatre at the Lee Norvelle Theatre and Drama Center, highlights this well, thanks to the cast and set design.

The Seagull is the final MFA thesis project for several of the students involved in its production -- including director Erik Friedman, actress Allison Moody (Arkadina), scenic designer Chris Wych and lighting designer JoJo Percy -- and all should be pleased with the result.

Cardinal Stage Company is doing it again. And this time, the star is -- a goat.

On Feb. 22, O Lovely Glowworm, or Scenes of Great Beauty, will open at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater. It is sponsored by Cardinal's 2007-08 season sponsor, Irwin Union Bank, and is a part of Arts Week, an IU community winter arts festival.

According to the news release for the production, O Lovely Glowworm is "the outrageously funny and profoundly moving story of a goat desperately trying to figure out who he is, where he is and why he is."

In 1962, the view that anything could be art was at its peak in the art world. Artists would use unconventional materials -- metal scraps, buttons, cardboard -- whatever they thought would express their ideas best.

In that same year, the Indiana University Art Museum (IUAM) received four works of art that fell into this category. These works, including one other piece received in a different year, are on display as part of the IUAM's "New in the Galleries" exhibition titled The Art of Assemblage.

Ned Puchner, a graduate student in art history and the curatorial assistant for Western Art after 1800, prepared the exhibition. It was partially inspired by the New York Museum of Modern Art's 1961 Art of Assemblage exhibition. He said the works are "an excellent group, indicative of the range of works categorized under the terms 'neo-Dada' or 'assemblage'."

Uncle Fester's House of Blooze got a taste of the real thing last Thursday.

But just a taste -- because when you take a band like the Chicago Afrobeat Project (CabP), whose last show was at the House of Blues in Chicago, and place them on a small stage like at Uncle Fester's, not only do all of the musicians barely fit, they've got a hell of a lot less to work with.

Luckily for the Bloomington crowd, CabP didn't seem too concerned with the venue. They were just having a great time showing us what the Chicago spin on afro-beat music sounds like.

In case you missed the preliminary rounds of this year's Hoosier Guitar Idol, hosted by the IU Business Careers in Entertainment Club (BCEC), don't stress. There is still rock redemption to be had.

The five remaining contenders will battle it out for the "Idol' title at 8 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 28, at Max's Place, located at 109 W. Seventh St.

While competition details are still being worked out, the finalists -- Casimir Lewandowski, Shane Provost, Kyle Gilpin, Austin Johnson and Tyler Baker -- will expose their creative visions, hopefully with their own composed riffs, to the audience for about five to 10 minutes apiece. From these exhibitions, the panel of judges will make their decision on who will be Bloomington's next Hoosier Guitar Idol.