On 16 June there is a musical anniversary to celebrate as the Jugend Jazz Orchester Bonn (Bonn’s Youth Jazz Orchestra) will be playing a concert in the Pantheon Theatre to celebrate its 5th Anniversary. 3Songs. Here the JJOB’s co-founders Thomas Heck and Thomas Kimmerle give their thoughts on the anniversary, the concert, and on the Orchestra itself.
At Bonn Harmonie on Thursday, remembering his late father Luther as a front runner of the electric Blues, Bernard Allison called her “The newcomer, coming along to pull up the rear end”. She’s the newcomer on this year’s Blues Caravan Tour. Talking to Vanja Sky after the show I asked for her favourite Rory Gallagher track and got a long list back – it would have been longer but Mike Zito reminded her there were a queue of people patiently waiting with CD’s in hand for autographs. With such an obvious enthusiasm for Rory 3songsbonn took an immediate liking to the young Croatian and asked to send a few questions her way. She was kind enough to do so next day. On the evidence of Thursday’s performance this girl is going to be around for quite a while on the Blues scene, so here is where your knowledge of Vanja Sky and her music starts. Where it ends is up to the lady herself. The sky, as they say, is the limit…
“Really, there are no boundaries with this.
It’s Art and you just make the music that feels good and feels right”
In my previous interview with Samantha Fish she indicated an interest in trying out different musical styles. In 2017 she delivered on this in style with two excellent releases: ‘Chills and Fever’ and ‘Belle of the West’. Each of them very different from her characteristic Blues Rock style and even, to some extent, different from each other. At the time of writing the latter is sitting proudly on top of the Billboard Blues Chart in America so it’s a good time to find out what went into the making of these releases and how they will be presented onstage. Samantha kindly gave 3songsbonn.com time for a short interview before her recent show at the Harmonie in Bonn
3songsbonn finds out about life in the 70’s pop charts with Ian Hunter
Ian Hunter is rock royalty. The youngsters out there won’t be so familiar with the name, but in the early 1970’s he was hanging out with David Bowie, pictured with Freddie Mercury and even had Queen as a support group. He and band Mott the Hoople were regulars on British TV’s iconic Top Of The Pops. It was a time when shirt collars, trouser bottoms and even mens hair were all worn Big. It was the golden age of Rock n Roll.
Before his one man show at Bonn Harmonie on Sunday, multi Canadian Award winner Steve Hill kindly took the time to talk about life as an electric one man band and the challenges of making those sticks stick.
– Henrik Freischlader on why Gary Moore was, and remains, his Guitar Hero
We’re outside in the Harmonie beer garden, sitting in the sunshine, and sipping cool drinks, but talking business. Not the atmosphere to talk about The Blues maybe, but for the man sitting opposite me Blues is very much his ‘business’. The recent trio release and tour seemed like a change of direction for Henrik Freischlader, and now there is another change of direction with the release of ‘Blues for Gary’ a Homage to Henrik’s hero Gary Moore – so I kick off my interview by asking Henrik if this is indeed a change similar to the one Gary Moore himself made, back to his Blues roots?
Many thanks to Ryan McGarvey for taking time after his sensational concert at Bonn Harmonie to answer a few questions at very short notice (he agreed, I had five minutes to assemble my thoughts on the back of a 3songs visiting card, and here we are…) Fender or Gibson? Big venues or small? who was behind the foot-pedal wizardry of Purple Haze? and the secrets of that Toggle Switch solo…
“When I want sax, I call Candy” was how Prince once famously described his admiration for the musical abilities of Candy Dulfer. At Bonn Folk Club John Harrison might well say the same for Paolo Pacifico and his Harmonica. The familiar sight of Paolo ambling calmly from his pint at the bar to pull a C harp out of his top pocket and nonchalantly ‘just join in’ is deceptive. I suspected that you can only ‘just join in’ if you really know what you’re doing, so I figured there was a story behind Paolo’s seemingly effortless appearances – and I was right. Here it is. Enjoy!
