The Blue Note

Join Ellen Rocco for the best in blues, every Tuesday from 3 to 4:45 pm.

I grew up in Manhattan (and, for a while, in Queens). Went to City College, in Harlem. Highlights of my college years: poetry seminar with Paul Blackburn, the City College cafeteria--a political gulag with tables invisibly marked for the Young Conservatives, SDS, the Maoists, Communist Party, Socialist Party, Young Republicans, druggies, etc--and Wednesdays at The Apollo Theater for amateur hour or the Moulin Rouge Cafe for the world's best juke box, where I was introduced to the blues, thanks to Big George, my guide through the alleys and backdoors of uptown New York. Here I am, years later in northern New York, still totally hooked on blues, jazz, R&B and, more recently, world beat.

If you're listening for someone or something in particular on The Blue Note--and don't hear it--let me know. I prefer blues and blues-related music that's direct and gutsy. You won't hear the overproduced stuff--those tracks with excessive horns and guitars, or the songs where the individual voice is muddied. Muddy Waters you will hear. Along with all the greats from the '30s to the '60s--Sonny Boy Williamson, Robert Johnson, Bessie Smith, Howlin' Wolf, BB King, Albert King, Jimmy King, Koko Taylor--plus the best of the voices and groups of the past two or three decades, like Johnny Winter, Taj Mahal, Alvin Youngblood Hart, Keb Mo', Dave Hole, Coco Montoya, Corey Harris, Rory Block, Maria Muldaur...and so on.

Stay in touch. Tell me what I'm missing or hitting right...or just let me know you're tuning in. Thanks for listening.