Chicago Blues Reunion Thrills at Live Oak Music Festival

The beautiful Santa Yenz valley is nestled in the hills just north of Santa Barbara. It is the home of the annual Live Oak Music Festival. This was the festival’s 22nd year and it promised to be a great one. Held on Father’s Day weekend each year, the Live Oak Music Festival is three days of camping with arts, crafts, a workshop on how to jam and, best of all, a large variety of live music. All of the proceeds from the festival go to benefit KCBX Public Radio, which even has a solar-powered remote broadcast facility on site so that the festival’s events can go out, live, over the air.

The Live Oak features bands from around the world with an eclectic blend of musical genres including traditional, folk, bluegrass, gospel, jazz, blues, classical and world music. There is a wonderful main stage area for the groups to perform in. It has a large stage and full, tour-professional lighting and sound reinforcement equipment. It is all operated by “A” grade personnel, so the sound that you hear at Live Oak is as good as you will hear at any outdoor venue in the world — and how many places can you go sit under a huge oak tree and listen to first-class music?

They really had a respectable line up of musicians for this year’s Live Oak Music Festival. A partial list includes:

Sallie Ford and the Sound Outside; Vasen; Jade Jackson; Sparrow’s Gate; The Sweetback Sisters; Frank Vignola’s Hotclub; Los Fabulocos featuring Kid Ramos; The Dynamites featuring Charles Walker; John Batdorf; Rickie Lee Jones; and longtime masters of their craft, The Chicago Blues Reunion.

We were only able to attend on Friday evening and we arrived just around sunset. After grabbing some garlic fries and a lemonade our BareFoot MusicNews team headed into the main stage area. Vasen was into the last part of their set and quite a few people were down by the stage swinging and dancing to their Swedish Folk music. Vasen, which roughly translates to “Spirit,” is a trio composed of Olov Johansson, Mikael Marin, and Roger Tallroth. They have played to crowds as large as 25,000 and have released seven CDs, plus they’ve won a Swedish Grammy. Olov Johansson has won the World Championship playing the Nyckelharpa, which is a traditional Swedish instrument.

As the sun finished setting Vasen left the stage and the crowd started to buzz anticipating The Chicago Blues Reunion. This group is comprised of seven legendary musicians who helped mold and define the rock sounds from sixties San Francisco to today. These players all came of age in Chicago and learned their chops on the south side, playing and learning from legends like Howlin Wolf, Willie Dixon, Little Walter and Muddy Waters. Then they went out and electrified the rock world with their capabilities.

Nick Gravenites, vocalist and guitar, was one of the founding members of The Electric Flag. He produced the first three Quicksilver albums and played with the group. He also played with Big Brother and the Holding Company as well as writing songs for Janis Joplin, “Buried Alive in the Blues” for the Paul Butterfield Blues Band and about forty others. He played with everyone in the early San Francisco rock scene.

Harvey Mandel, lead guitar, played with Canned Heat, he also performed with the likes of Elvin Bishop, Jerry Garcia, The Rolling Stones, John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, Love, The Ventures and Jeff Beck. Harvey is known as “The Snake.”

Corky Siegel, blues harp, he is a founding member of the Siegal-Schwall Band and has played on over 18 records and 35 re-issues. It has been said that there is a fine line between a genius and a madman and Corky walks it.

Barry Goldberg plays the Hammond B-3 organ. Goldberg’s first professional recording session was “Devil With The Blue Dress On"/"Good Golly Miss Molly” with Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels. He has played with Bob Dylan at the Newport Pop Festival as well as The Electric Flag. He as played on albums with Leonard Cohen, The Ramones, Gram Parson and Super Session among many others. He has written songs for, Rod Stewart, Percy Sledge, Gladys Knight, Joe Cocker, Steve Miller, Bobby Blue Bland and B. J. Thomas.

Gary Mallaber handles the percussion and he is hot. These are some of the folks that call on Gary: Steve Miller, Eddie Money, Bruce Springsteen, Van Morrison, Peter Frampton, Poco, Paul Williams, Joan Armatrading, The Beach Boys, David Cassidy, Bonnie Raitt, Tom Rush, Bob Seger, Barbara Streisand, Warren Zevon, Dave Mason and Kermit the Frog.

Rick Reed plays the bass guitar, has played with Paul Butterfield, Floyd Dixon, William Clarke, Lynwood Slim, J. T Ross and a abundance of other artists. He was personally trained by Paul Butterfield and has won three Handy awards.

Marcy Levy, aka Marcella Detroit, is a vocalist with a five-octave range. She has performed with Bob Seger, Eric Clapton, Aretha Franklin, Stanley Clarke, George Duke, Al Jarreau, Bette Middler, Leon Russell, Elton John, Siobhan Fahey and Phil Collins. She has co-written many songs with Eric Clapton including, “Lay Down Sally.”

I ask you, is the Chicago Blues Reunion a musical line up or what? They went on stage and just killed. What an ensemble, they effortlessly slipped from one blues song into another featuring one artist and then another. This definitely was not Delta Blues, this was Chicago Blues with all of the strut and power of the Windy City’s South Side. Every member was a master and their playing complimented each other as each took the lead. Harvey Mandel was “The Snake” reinforcing his claim to be the inventor of feedback guitar and Nick Gravinites was the storyteller of the group relating tales of the Chicago blues scene. All too soon it was over and we were headed south on Highway 101, but we will never forget blues in the crisp summer night’s air, played by the masters. Check out the video for a sample and, next year, don’t miss attending the Live Oak Music Festival.