Barrelhouse News

I recently read a wonderful new book called Barrelhouse Words: A Blues Dialect Dictionary whose author, Stephen Calt, seeks to provide accurate definitions of all the unusual words and phrases that can be heard in the great blues 78s of the Twenties, Thirties, and Forties.

Holiday festivities really get going this weekend, with festivities including the Madison Holiday Open House, a production of The Santaland Diaries by the new Laboratory Theatre, and concerts by the Oakwood Chamber Players and WCO.

Blues pianist and singer Barrelhouse Bonni provides the music for a Seneca 2 fundraiser Friday at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation, 520 Kanawha Blvd.

A concert to benefit Seneca 2 and featuring blues musician Barrelhouse Bonni will begin at 7:30 p.m. Nov.

For more: Check out Tulsa World music reporter Jennifer Chancellor's Barrelhouse Beat Blog for music news, videos and more.

If President Obama were to appoint a Boogie Woogie Czar - someone to travel the world promoting the rolling and rollicking Blues style popularized in the late '30s by pioneers like Albert Ammons and Big Joe Turner - Cincinnati-based pianist Ricky Nye would definitely be on the short list for the appointment.

Barrelhouse Words: A Blues Dialect Dictionary Stephen Calt Paperback; 320 pages ISBN: 978-0-252-007660-2 Hardback: 320 pages ISBN: 978-0-252-03347-6 University of Illinois Press 2009 Unlike most dictionaries of jazz and blues language, of which bandleader Cab Calloway 's Hepsters Dictionary and the glossary included in clarinetist Mezz Mezzrow 's ...

The sad news arrived last night that Patrick Swayze has died. The actor passed away at 57-years-old, following a battle with cancer.

Blues music, in its early days, was often regarded as vulgar and primitive, not worthy of serious attention.

One night in 1979 at Chicago's B.L.U.E.S. on Halsted club, blues harmonica player Jerry Portnoy took Barrelhouse Chuck aside and told the young pianist to follow him and not say a word.