Not much to report after referring to the Billboard magazine blues chart for the week ending March 3, 2012...Etta James' budget-priced Icon collection rests comfortably at number one again this week, the Tedeschi Trucks Band's Revelator album rides its well-deserved Grammy win into the number two spot, and Hugh Laurie and the Marsalis/Clapton pairing both slip back up into the top five.

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The Houston Press website is reporting on the death of Texas blues legend, Big Walter Price, better known to many fans as "The Thunderbird," on March 6, 2012. Price was 97 years and living in a Houston nursing home at the time of his death.

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Some interesting things happening on the Billboard magazine blues chart for the week ending March 10, 2012...Etta James anchors the Top Ten this week, with albums in both the first and last spot, and it looks like the R&B legend's death has continued to stir up well-deserved interest in James' music. While her Icon hits collection continues to stave off all challengers at number one, James' final studio album, The Dreamer, holds steady at the bottom of the chart with respectable sales and, one hopes, a legion of new fans that will go back and dig a little deeper into the great artist's rich back catalog.

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Cleopatra Records isn't especially well-known among blues and blues-rock fans, and for good reasons. Since its founding in L.A. in 1992, Cleopatra has specialized in Gothic and hard rock, with a little heavy metal thrown onto the release schedule for good measure. Cleopatra also has a host of subsidiary labels like Deadline Music and Purple Pyramid that have focused on prog-rock, classic rock, and heavy metal reissues as well as odd compilation and covers albums that have dipped their toes into punk, industrial, and techno music.

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In Memphis, Tennessee - the hallowed hometown of Elvis Presley, Furry Lewis, Sun Studio, Stax Records, and much, much more - the month of May kicks off a 30-day party, and this year is no different! "Memphis In May" kicks off with the annual Beale Street Music Festival, which provides music fans with a seemingly-endless buffet of rock, blues, soul, rap, and R&B music to feast upon. This year's 36th annual Beale Street Music Festival will be held from Friday, May 4th through Sunday, May 6th in the city's Tom Lee Park (in downtown Memphis).

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There's no denying that the lovely and talented Janiva Magness is one of the best female blues vocalists in the world today. She's received numerous Blues Music Award nominations, walked off with the "Contemporary Blues Female Artist of the Year" award three times now, and was named The Blues Foundation's "B.B. King Entertainer of the Year" in 2009, only the second woman chosen for the prestigious award (the late, great Koko Taylor was the first). Considering the uniformly high quality of Magness's recent work, which includes her BMA nominated albums The Devil Is An Angel Too (2010) and What Love Will Do (2008), it's a damn crime that the singer hasn't earned a bit of Grammy® love by now.

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We're sad to have to report on the passing of Texas blues guitarist Bugs Henderson. Henderson died on Thursday, March 8, 2012 after a short fight with cancer; he was 68 years old.

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There's a whole lotta shakin' going on with the Billboard magazine blues chart for the week ending March 17, 2012, with chart positions jumping around like Elvis's pelvis back in '55! A couple of months after her death, both of Etta James' recently-charting albums have dropped from the Top Ten altogether, including the Icon collection, which has been haunting the upper reaches of the chart for over a year.

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Through two distinct periods of the bands history, and for better than 30 years now, drummer and percussionist Jai Johanny "Jaimoe" Johanson has been the backbone of the Allman Brothers Band...

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The Scissormen - slide-guitar maestro and noted music journalist Ted Drozdowski, and drummer R.L. Hulsman - knocked a few listeners on their backsides with the duo's houserockin' 2008 collection Luck In A Hurry. The album opened up new doors for the Nashville-based band, and they've kept a pretty busy touring schedule over the past couple of years, so much so that Hulsman left the band in late 2010, to be replaced by Berklee College of Music grad Matt Snow.

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Earlier this week, singer Ruthie Foster released her first studio album in almost three years, Let It Burn. Released by her own independent Blue Corn Music label, the album was recorded in New Orleans with some of the city's best and brightest blues, soul, and R&B talents.

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Blues-rock guitarist Joe Bonamassa is one mighty busy dude! During 2011 alone, Bonamassa released his acclaimed Dust Bowl album; later in the year he released Don't Explain, an equally-acclaimed collaboration with talented rock-n-soul singer Beth Hart. The guitarist's classic rock outfit Black Country Communion recorded and released its second album, as well as a concert DVD pulled from the band's successful 2011 European tour. Whew!

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The Blues Foundation held its 28th annual International Blues Challenge this past weekend, February 1st through 4th, 2012. This was the biggest and best IBC to date, with a record 226 acts, a total of 748 musicians from 40 states and 16 countries from around the globe participating in the competition. This year's IBC was expanded from three nights to four, with quarter-final rounds held on Wednesday and Thursday nights, semi-finals on Friday night, and the final round on Saturday.

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A legend long before her tragic death, R&B great Etta James continues to rule the top of the charts. The Billboard magazine blues chart for the week ending February 11, 2012 shows James' budget-priced Icon collection reprising its turn in the top spot while the singer's final album, The Dreamer, holds down number two. It's only fitting that Miss Etta should be honored thus, and interest in her music remains as high as it's been at any time since her 1960s heyday.

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Well, it wasn't quite enough to knock Queen Etta from her lofty perch, but Ruthie Foster debuted strong this week at number two with her new studio album, Let It Burn. The Billboard magazine blues chart for the week ending February 18, 2012 shows that Etta James' hits collection Icon retains its grip on number one, while James' The Dreamer album swapped a spot with Gary Clark, Jr. Still, considering Foster's widespread appeal, I expect her to take number one sometime in the next couple of weeks.

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It's no surprise, really, that in the wake of the death of R&B great Etta James, that her most recent album and most popular compilation should both shoot to the top of the charts. The Billboard magazine blues chart for the week ending February 4, 2012 has James' budget-priced Icon collection grabbing the number one spot, and the singer's final album, The Dreamer, holding down number two. I expect Icon to hold onto the top position for at least another week, but since my predictions have been horrible, what do I know?

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The good folks at The Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise have announced the details of their October 2012 Caribbean cruise, and this is going to be one you won't want to miss. The exotic Caribbean cruise will take place from October 27th to November 3rd, 2012; departing from San Juan, Puerto Rico and stopping in the Barbados, St. Lucia, Martinique, and Dominica before returning.

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With Severn Records reaching for the stars and signing blues powerhouses the Fabulous Thunderbirds and the Nighthawks, you'd think that the Maryland-based blues-and-roots label would be content with its good fortune...and you'd be wrong! Proof that good things come in threes, Severn has announced the signing of Larry "Mud" Morganfield, the oldest son of Chicago blues legend Muddy Waters.

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The 54th annual Grammy® Awards show was held last night in Los Angeles, broadcast by CBS television here in the United States, and awards were given out to a slew of artists but, due to the elimination of over 30 categories last year, only one blues recording was honored with an award. I've moaned and griped about this before, so I won't go into too much detail, but the awards for blues music were cut in half, from two to one. Latin music was reduced from seven categories to four, with Latin jazz eliminated altogether, and Cajun, Hawaiian, and Native American music were combined into one "regional roots" award, among other injustices.

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The good folks at the Doheny Blues Festival have announced the line-up of their 2012 event, the festival's 15th anniversary. Scheduled for Saturday, May 19th and Sunday, May 20th, 2012 at Doheny State Beach, a 62-acre state park in Dana Point, California, the festival features music on three stages, as well as an international food court and microbrew sampling; campsites are also available.

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I've said it before, and I'll say it again - bluesman Otis Taylor is one of the most interesting and complex artists on the contemporary blues scene. A natural story-teller who has never been afraid to tackle complex issues of race or romance, Taylor's intelligent lyrics are overshadowed only by the distinctive style that he's developed that's known as "trance blues." Taylor is also an amazingly prolific artist, releasing nine albums over the past ten years, garnering 19 W.C. Handy/Blues Music Award nominations, including a win for his 2001 debut album White African and another as "Best Instrumentalist" in 2009.

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Regular readers know that Alligator Records celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2011, a milestone that we recognized with our "Alligator Records Album of the Month" reviews throughout the year. To cap off an incredible year that saw acclaimed CD releases by artists like JJ Grey and Mofro, Marcia Ball, Tommy Castro, and the label's 40th Anniversary Collection set, now comes the news that Alligator founder Bruce Iglauer...

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Christmas shopping continues, but the Billboard magazine blues chart for the week ending December 31, 2011 shows little change as the usual suspects continue to move copies of their latest CDs and a couple of others drop out of sight. Joe Bonamassa continues to hold on to his status as one of the best-selling artists in the blues, his Dust Bowl album sitting at number eight, while his excellent collaboration with singer Beth Hart, Don't Explain, remains at number six. Grammy® Award interest, as well as his annual Christmas benefit shows, has seemingly moved Warren Haynes' Man In Motion album back onto the chart at number fourteen.

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It's back to usual as the Billboard magazine blues chart for the week ending January 7, 2012 pretty much shakes off the Christmas sales season and settles back into the old normal. Marsalis and Clapton, Hugh Laurie, and the Tedeschi Trucks Band continue to dominate the top three spots, while mainstream awareness of R&B great Etta James' ongoing health problems (even USA Today is reporting on James now) helped push her latest collection, The Dreamer, back onto the chart.

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Every year for the past dozen or so turns around the sun, the good folks at The Oxford American - a Southern literary journal - have published their annual "Music Issue," focusing on the rich diversity and musical heritage of a single state. For the publication's 13th annual music issue, they're taking a look at the great state of Mississippi, much beloved of blues fans and the birthplace of all sorts of interesting and influential music.

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As the Billboard magazine blues chart for the week ending January 14, 2012 continues to spin in circles, it's becoming abundantly clear that current sales of blues albums is being fueled by the casual, or more mainstream music fan than by the hardcore blues faithful. How else does one explain the ascendance of Hugh Laurie's Let Them Talk album back into the number one spot this week after a couple of months simmering at number two? And how does the otherwise mediocre Play The Blues collaboration between jazzman Wynton Marsalis and part-time blues guitarist Eric Clapton continue to sell enough copies to just now sink to number two after holding the top spot in a stranglehold for several weeks?

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Shreveport, Louisiana television station KTBS is reporting on its website that Texas blues pianist Omar Shariff (a/k/a David Alexander) passed away on Sunday, January 8, 2012 at the age of 73 years old, evidently from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

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Bluesman Gary Davis is a true triple threat entertainer - a talented guitarist and songwriter as well as an accomplished stage actor - who has continued to raise awareness of classic blues music through his work. On February 21st, 2012 Davis will release his two-disc "audio play,"The Adventures of Fishy Waters: In Bed With The Blues, on his own independent Smokeydoke Records label. The culmination of almost 20 years of work, Davis originally performed the one-man play onstage in New York City in 1994, and has revisited it several times since in front of diverse audiences in several cities.

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The good folks at Blurt, our favorite music magazine, released their latest print issue a couple months back, and there's lots of great stuff in those pages for a music lover. Blurt consistently offers up a diverse range of music coverage, but you don't have to wait until another issue hits the newsstand in order to get your groove on 'cause Blurt online is updated daily with news, reviews, and a slew of music videos. As this list of recently published CD reviews shows, Blurt has a firm handle on the kind of music that we like to hear: blues, blues-rock, rhythm & blues, and soul. Stop by and see them sometime, and tell 'em the Reverend sent you!

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While we're always saddened by the passing of blues talents that leave behind a lifetime of great music and mourning fans, it seems like 2011 had more than its share of artist deaths. We lost a handful of elder statesmen of the blues this year in Hubert Sumlin, Pinetop Perkins, and David "Honeyboy" Edwards, while on the peripheral of the blues world, talents like Clarence Clemons, Gary Moore, and Gil Scott-Heron passed on to the other side.

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