Beijing's premier blues and jam band

Subject: Beijing's premier blues and jam band
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 14 Nov 09 - 12:34 AM

Bobert, this one's for you...

Toward the end of my drive from Tucson to Long Beach, after the radio-less desert, and the drift from one public radio station to another from Palm Springs toward Riverside, I finally came into the zone where there are more stations than you can take a swat at (yes, I just got out of the truck after 8 hours...), and I could surf and find more than one that wasn't playing something I'd already heard...

Don't remember which number it was on the dial, but they were playing the show "The Story", from American Public Media.

Tonight's feature was Beijing Blues, about a band called "Woodie Alan", "Beijing's premier blues and jam band". The interview was with band cofounder Paul Alan, who is also senior editor and writer for Guitar World magazine.

It's a great story, about the band that was named for its two founders: Paul Alan and Woodie Wu, and I don't want to spoil by giving many more details. Except to let you know that after a jam band start, by the end they were touring outside Beijing, even hitting the Pan-Asian Harmonica Festival. (As one album reviewer said, "who knew?")

There are links at the APM site to the band's website and whatnot.

I highly recommend giving it a listen.

~ Becky in Long Beach (finally)

Subject: RE: Beijing's premier blues and jam band
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 14 Nov 09 - 12:43 AM

As an aside, in the "radio-less desert", which lasts between about Tonopah, AZ, and Coachella, CA, on I-10, I listened to the cd we bought from 'Catter Jed Marum and friends ("Lonestar Stout") at the Tucson Celtic Festival last weekend: "Sands of Aberdeen", and to Ferintosh.

(Not blues, but I'm working on expanding my horizons...)

:-)

~ B in LB

Subject: RE: Beijing's premier blues and jam band
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 14 Nov 09 - 01:33 AM

Wow - blues in Beijing. I was in Beijing in 1989, just on eve of Tienenman Square massacre in which my late wife who stayed on after I had left was much involved & had to flee under gunfire. I was lecturing for the British Council on English Folksong in Chinese Universities in Beijing & Guilin, based at the Beijing Languages Univ. It was a scruffy, dusty heap of a city then: I am told I wouldn't recognise it these days. & now it has its own blues & jam band — wonder if anyone involved or any of its audience recall any of my 20-years-ago lectures [my English Folksong brief I took to mean 'in the English language' - I was lecturing to students of English - so American songs were included].

Subject: RE: Beijing's premier blues and jam band
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 14 Nov 09 - 01:50 PM

MthGM, sounds like that was an interesting assignment!

Subject: RE: Beijing's premier blues and jam band
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 14 Nov 09 - 02:08 PM

Indeed. And I am told by a Chinese colleague of my late wife with whom she edited a comprehension textbook for Chinese degree-level English students, and with whom I am still in touch, that a couple of broadcasts I did on the English Language service of Radio Beijing still go out about every 3 months, and Sweet Lovely Nancy and In Praise Of John Magee still fill the Chinese airwaves — so in a sense I suppose the assignment is still ongoing... The song most appreciated by the Chinese students was, unsurprisingly, The Tailor In The Teachest {"Shall we take him out to China, Shall we trade him in for tea?"}; tho probably my most able postgrad student had a great fondness, for some reason, for Robin Hood & The 15 Foresters...

Subject: RE: Beijing's premier blues and jam band
From: Bobert
Date: 15 Nov 09 - 08:59 PM

Well, I tried to get my slowass computer and my slowerass braineerator to figure out how to hear a sample of their music but alas... We are both idiots...

But does give me an idea... Maybe I need to move to like, ahhhhhh, Bangladesh and start me a blues band and be a rock star in Bangladesh... They got weed there???

No... Seriously, I'll give it another try tomorrow... I have a 30 minute time limit for trying to get a blue clicky to deliver and I done used up the full 30 on this one...

Woke up this mornin'
Red Book by my head
Yeah, woke up this mornin'
Chairman Mao's book by my head
Walked down to Temimen Square
Lucky to not be dead

(needs work...)

B;~)

Subject: RE: Beijing's premier blues and jam band
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 02:01 PM

Sorry it's not working for you, Bobert.

Here's Alan's Wall Street Journal story about it all, which includes some other links to try for the music. Also, here are a link to the title tune and a bluesed-up Will the Circle Be Unbroken on YouTube.

~ Becky in Long Beach