Back To The Roots – magazine

Chicago Blues Festival – Banana Peel, Ruiselede – 11 November 2024

Last year, in our report on the Chicago Blues Festival in Banana Peel, we told you in detail how this annual traveling revue came about in 1969 under the impetus of Frenchman Jean-Marie Monestier. We don’t have to do that anymore. Click here if you want more background information about the event. The Chicago Blues Festival always takes place in the Ruiselede blues temple for two days. We were there on day two of this 54th edition. In contrast to last year – when all the artists came from Mississippi – this time the revue again brought musicians from Chicago. Or at least people who are active in the Chicago blues scene. The Stephen Hull Experience is on the inventory of Rosa’s Lounge and are welcome guests at the big festival in the Windy City. Dave Herrero also leads a weekly jam session on Wednesday evenings in Rosa’s Lounge. Keyboardist Johnny Iguana has his own band in Chicago, The Claudettes, acts as an accompanist for many Chicago blues acts, and is affiliated with the Delmark Records label. Singer Sheryl Youngblood also recently found a home at Delmark. She performs under her own name in the clubs and at the big festival in Chicago. She also sings with Mississippi Heat these days. There you have it. What can’t fit in a nutshell, right?

Singer-guitarist Dave Herrero was the first to kick off, accompanied by Stephen Hull and his band (for the sake of completeness, that’s Victor Reid on drums and bassist Chano Cruz) with Johnny Iguana as special guest. Like a consummate bandleader, Herrero introduced everyone while playing a funky instrumental number that sounded somewhat like a necessity to warm up. Each musician got a solo in turn. Dave then threw himself into a number in Mississippi North Hill County style where we had to make an effort to hear Stephen and Johnny. A funky blues rocker followed and it must be said that Dave does conjure up the right sound from his amplifier when it comes to the slightly more rock-tinged variant of the blues. It seemed like there was a lot of improvisation going on here. We looked around us and the audience actually seemed to react positively, but we wondered to ourselves whether we hadn’t accidentally ended up at a funk jazz jam session. The fourth number fortunately pushed things to a crescendo. It was a slow blues with deep solos by both Stephen Hull and Dave Herrero. In the meantime, we were forty minutes into the performance (so you understand that the songs were drawn out for a very long time) and then singer Sheryl Youngblood came to put things in order. In a pure Chicago shuffle she showed herself to be an inspired and inspiring entertainer, she lit the fuse and that fuse in our ass and she showed herself to be a more than decent singer. In ‘I’m Okay’, also a shuffle, she told with great empathy about the many big changes in a person’s life and how they have an impact on how we function.After these two songs Stephen Hull took the lead in ‘Big Legged Woman’ and ‘Caledonia’. It was a strange first set and we were actually mainly inspired by drummer Victor Reid. He is simply the best! He is a shrapnel bomb that constantly explodes, right in your face, but only spreads deep cutting shards of rhythmic bliss.

The second set was fortunately a lot more coherent. Johnny Iguana started with a nice Chicago shuffle. Then Sheryl came on straight away. She performed her version of Jimmy Johnson’s ‘Everyday Of Your Life’, her first single on Delmark and the precursor to a forthcoming album. After that the audience was allowed to sing along with ‘Stand By Me’ which Sheryl seamlessly merged with ‘Dock Of The Bay’. So we had arrived at the sensitive soul and Dave Herrero presented his most interesting guitar solos of the entire evening. Then he sang ‘Walk That Walk’ and actually did a good job. Stephen Hull took over for a few numbers of uptempo soul blues. The audience was completely on board. Fifteen minutes before the end Sheryl Youngblood made it clear that she would lead this performance to the exit in a steaming manner. She stuck to the soul blues with BB King’s ‘To Know You Is To Love You’, let Stephen Hull perform a very profound slow blues of her own and finally whipped up the audience one last time with a powerful version of ‘Take Me To The River’.

However, the audience enjoyed it to the fullest and that is the most important thing for the organizers. That is what they do it for. And we are especially grateful to Sheryl Youngblood and Victor Reid for their input and the energy that they gave us tonight.

https://www.backtotheroots.be/confessite/2024/CBF2024_BP/CBF2024_BP.html

Please check out these fantastic pics from our friend Franky Bruneel from Belgium’s BACK TO THE ROOTS MAGAZINE!

STEPHEN HULL & SHERYL YOUNGBLOOD

JOHNNY IGUANA

Stephen Hull, Sheryl Youngblood, Victor Reid

Johnny Iguana, Stephen Hull, Shery Youngblood, Victor Reid, Dave Herrero, Chano Cruz

Stephen Hull, Sheryl Youngblood, Victor Reid

https://www.backtotheroots.be/confessite/2024/CBF2024_BP/CBF2024_BP.html

https://eu.zonerama.com/blahous/Album/12458471

https://eu.zonerama.com/blahous/Album/12458444

Chicago Blues Festival 2024 L’Abescat Hall Tournon-d’Agenais

Chicago Blues Festival 2024 Salle de L’Abescat Tournon-d’Agenais, Sunday November 24, 2024.

Chicago Blues Festival 2024 Salle de L’Abescat Tournon-d’Agenais Sunday November 24, 5:00 p.m. In advance: €12/23/27
On site: €14/25/29

Six-artist Chicago set

The principle of the Chicago Blues Festival is to invite for a European tour a musician representative of the current Chicago scene and to invite alongside him outstanding instrumentalists singers and always a singer. This year for this 54th tour of the Chicago Blues Festival a line-up mixing different generations! In the leading position on this tour, one of the most beautiful talents of the new blues scene, Stephen Hull, just 25 years old, accompanied by his group Trio Experience, Cresenciano Cruz on bass, Victor Reed on drums, Johnny Iguana on keyboards. To accompany Stephen and his group, two other big names of the Chicago scene, who have never yet participated in this legendary tour: Sheryl Youngblood and Dave Herrero! In the first part we will find a group that has just been inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame 2024: Gladys Amoros & Michel Foizon Quintet.

Start and end dates and times (year – month – day and time):
Start: 2024-11-24T17:00:00.000+01:00
End: 2024-11-24T22:30:00.000+01:00

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blues.station@wanadoo.fr http://www.bluesstation.fr 0553407214