Jim Pugh, the veteran keyboard player who toured the world with Etta James and Robert Cray and now roams the Central Valley and Bay Area byways looking for unknown musicians to savor and record, first heard the Filipino American singer Aireene Espiritu a few years ago at the Folk Alliance conclave in Oakland. She was strumming a ukulele and singing her own songs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was blown away. I thought, \u2018This sounds like Etta James,\u2019\u201d Pugh recalls. \u201cShe has that throaty, powerful quality. There\u2019s a certain truth going on there. It\u2019s more than just the voice.\u201d
\nThat essential, real-deal feeling is something Pugh gets from all the musicians he has recorded over the last two years for his nonprofit Little Village Foundation label, which helps and brings attention to musicians who probably wouldn\u2019t be heard otherwise.<\/p>\n
He got that emotional hit from Los Tres Amigos de Snukivo, a Mixtec Indian instrumental trio from Santa Maria (Santa Barbara County), not far from the town of Santa Ynez, where Pugh moved from the Bay Area a decade ago. He recorded the musicians, who don\u2019t speak Spanish or English, and released the album last year along with three others, including the first record in decades by Minneapolis blues and soul singer Wee Willie Walker.
\nThe second batch, out next month and the basis for a tour coming to Berkeley\u2019s Freight & Salvage on June 19 and the San Jose Jazz Festival in August, serves up a pleasing array of sounds.<\/p>\n
Produced by Pugh and South Bay blues whiz Kid Andersen \u2014 both of whom play on many of these tracks along with other top West Coast roots musicians \u2014 the series features Espiritu singing songs associated with the venerable R&B vocalist Sugar Pie DeSanto; Mariachi Mestizo, a children\u2019s mariachi band from the region around Delano (Kern County); former Adobe software designer Aki Kumar, a crack harmonica player and singer whose \u201cAki Goes to Bollywood\u201d gamely mashes up Indian movie music and Chicago blues; and singer John \u201cBlues\u201d Boyd, a retired roofer and migrant farmworker from Mississippi, now living in Redwood City, who shouts the blues like Big Joe Turner.
\n\u201cI just wander around, talk to people, run into musical situations that mean something to me,\u201d Pugh says.
\nHe did some soul searching after leaving Cray\u2019s band five years ago and realized he was happiest and most productive combining his love of playing diverse music and his commitment to \u201ccommunity service, helping people. I try to find and give support to musicians who wouldn\u2019t otherwise have the opportunity to record and be recognized.\u201d<\/p>\n
He found Mariachi Mestizo indirectly through Jonathan Clark, the San Jose mariachi musician, historian and educator who spent a decade in Mexico City and \u201cnow speaks English with a Mexican accent,\u201d Pugh says affectionately.
\nThe pianist, who says his experience with the Mixtec community heightened his awareness of sexism and machismo, was intrigued by the idea of an all-female mariachi band and asked Clark where he might find one. Clark suggested the mariachi festival in Woodlake (Tulare County). Pugh went and was lit up by Mariachi Mestizo, a 16-piece band made up equally of boys and girls ages 9-18. One is 14-year-old Annai Morales, whose voice is pure and passionate.
\n\u201cI lost my mind. I thought it was beautiful,\u201d says Pugh, who was inspired to record the group in the Sinatra studio at Capitol Records in Hollywood after hearing one of these great Frank Sinatra orchestral recordings on the car radio. He knew the mariachi strings would sound good there.<\/p>\n
Pugh has arranged for powerhouse singer Tracy Nelson to perform the classic ranchera \u201cPaloma Negra\u201d with the kids when they perform at Portland\u2019s Waterfront Blues Festival on the Fourth of July.
\n\u201cI relate to music emotionally, and I encourage people to hear the emotional commonality in all this music,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019m trying to get people to not only listen to these artists, but to go out and find this kind of music for themselves. It\u2019s across the street.\u201d –\u00a0By Jesse Hamlin<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jim Pugh, the veteran keyboard player who toured the world with Etta James and Robert Cray and now roams the Central Valley and Bay Area byways looking for unknown musicians to savor and record, first heard the Filipino American singer Aireene Espiritu a few years ago at the Folk Alliance conclave in Oakland. She was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":998,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n