Seven old-school Sugar Pie DeSanto songs, three Filipino folk songs and a lot of traditional blues. Out of Delano, Calif., youth mariachi band Mariachi Mestizo, led by Juan Morales, will release \u201cTe Doy La Libertad.\u201d Sixteen boys and girls between the ages of 9 and 18 sing and play their hearts out for a vintage sound.<\/p>\n
Closer to home, Pugh has worked with two artists who are keeping blues alive.<\/p>\n
\u2018Muddy meets Mumbai\u2019<\/p>\n
Aki Kumar grew up in Mumbai, formerly Bombay, listening to his father\u2019s eclectic music collection and his mother\u2019s sweet singing around the house.<\/p>\n
He enjoyed rock \u2018n\u2019 roll and popular Bollywood songs and studied traditional Hindustani music at a young age.<\/p>\n
Despite mastering the harp, Kumar didn\u2019t really listen to the blues until he emigrated to the Bay Area to attend San Jose State University at 18.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was harmonica involved (in Bollywood) but it wasn\u2019t dominant\u2026to me that was the role of harmonica,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
After listening to recordings of the greats, he began hanging around in local blues clubs and was soon working as a software engineer by day and playing venues at night.<\/p>\n
\u201cI started to realize how much influence Western pop had on Bollywood and when I got into blues those things started to pop out,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
And from that realization, a fun fusion emerged.<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t set out to be \u201cmusically deep\u201d but wanted to make two important genres in his life connect for his upcoming release \u201cAki Goes To Bollywood,\u201d where deep blues marries mid-century Bollywood.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was freaking out at first because I didn\u2019t want to force things together,\u201d the former tech guy said.<\/p>\n
The result is a blend of sitars with blues jams, Hindi vocals and Kumar on the harp.<\/p>\n
As for the lyrics?<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the same old songs\u2013I lost my woman, I lost my wallet,\u201d he said, jokingly adding that it\u2019s \u201calways about women.\u201d<\/p>\n
From the rooftop<\/p>\n
John \u201cBlues\u201d Boyd, who lives in San Mateo but records with musician Kid Anderson in San Jose\u2019s Cambrian neighborhood, grew up singing in the cotton fields of Mississippi in the town of Greenwood.<\/p>\n
People would tell him, even as a young child, that he should start a band. But he was busy working, \u201ctrying to just afford a pair of shoes.\u201d<\/p>\n
He and his late wife Dona Mae Moore packed up for the Bay Area in the 1980s, and Boyd became a hot tar roofer.<\/p>\n
\u201cI sung on the rooftop every day,\u201d he said. \u201cI was always someone special. I just didn\u2019t know it.\u201d<\/p>\n
His wife knew it, though, and persisted that he start up a band. He finally did so around the age of 60. Then her health began to take a turn for the worse.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I put the band together I would rush home from sessions to take care of her,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He naturally turned to blues when his wife of 49 years died in 2014 and began writing songs.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s written about 100 of them since.<\/p>\n
Now, at 71, he is releasing his first all-original album \u201cThe Real Deal.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNow that the older (blues greats) are dead, they call me the real deal,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ll always sing those original old songs, but now, one day, someone will sing one of my songs.\u201d – By Leeta Rose Ballester<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Seven old-school Sugar Pie DeSanto songs, three Filipino folk songs and a lot of traditional blues. Out of Delano, Calif., youth mariachi band Mariachi Mestizo, led by Juan Morales, will release \u201cTe Doy La Libertad.\u201d Sixteen boys and girls between the ages of 9 and 18 sing and play their hearts out for a vintage […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1095,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n