ROOSTERBOY DOES IT DELTA STYLE

Hi folks.  It’s the Big Daddy here coming at you.  I gotta tell you about this latest little thing we’ve been up to.  Recently, my co-producer on the record, Mr. Steve Tolson, from Whitehouse, Tennessee, took a trip down Hwy. 61 out of Memphis to the South.  We drove the short 1 hour trip down to Clarksdale, Mississippi, home of the amazing Delta Blues Museum.   There we met the lovely gals that are full of information about the great bluesmen from back in the day.  It is so unreal to think that within about a 50 mile radius of this little town, jumped out at us nearly every bluesman from the cotton era that changed our lives.  From the Kings such as B.B., Albert, all the way to Elvis.  And in between, we have Robert Johnson, and my hero, Muddy Waters.  The gals were extremely nice to us, and we presented them with their very own copy of the Michael Shipp Xcursion CD:  The Adventures of Roosterboy, as well as a signed poster to hang up on their wall of fame.  Naturally, I didn’t feel I was worthy of such, but the gals said “honey, you are going on that wall with this fine photo”.  Having been raised in the Delta in my early years, it brought back so much to me and its worth a trip for any music lover to spend a day absorbing this area, the Delta Blues Museum and all the spirits that must watch over the place.  Most certainly a humbling experience.

Well, this inspired me to think about the opportunity to revamp some of the tunes from the Roosterboy CD into a little acoustic solo thing of my own.  So in that old John Lee Hooker vein, I worked up some tunes delta style on my daddy’s old Epiphone that the Internet Chiks talk about in my bio somewhere on the website. 

So Mr. Tolson and I took a trip down to Austin Texas recently to debut this new little blues adventure.  We performed the first acoustic gig at the fine Hard Rock Café on famous 6^th street in Austin town.  The Hard Rock rolled out the red carpet for us and they set me up on stage.  With local artist Ms. Carolyn Wonderland accompanying me on guitar and vocals, we stormed through a few tunes from the CD, done with those Godfathers from the Delta in mind, a very inspiring event for me.  The folks in attendance at the Hard Rock seemed to enjoy the first ever performance of  the Big Daddy Delta Style.

Next day, we met up with a very well known Austin fellow by the name of Louis Meyers.  Louis is like an encyclopedia of Texas music, having been on the Austin music seen since the Outlaw days, knowing every funky dive, crook and cranny, and special history making music events in Austin history.  Louis was one of the creators of SXSW, the annual festival that showcases thousands of musicians every year during a 3-4 day period.  Currently, Louis is heading up the famous Austin Music Network.  The local TV station airs independent artist 24/7 and Louis brings a big time class organization on board with him.  Unfortunately, the state of Texas has been forced to pull the majority of the state funded budget from the network, leaving Louis with a huge task of raising donations to keep the music flowing.  We met up with Louis on a beautiful Tuesday afternoon at the TV Studios, out by the airport in Austin.  I did a sit-down interview with the gang, talked about our CD, the music biz, and what we had been up to.  Later that night, we met up with Louis again down at another venue on famous 6^th street, called Bigby’s.  The Austin Music Network was holding a live show in an attempt to raise some donations for the channel.  Once asked to join the cause, we were on a mission to bring the Big Daddy Delta Style set to the rescue.  Now this Louis Meyers, one other thing about him, he’s a fantastic musician.  I wasn’t going to let the opportunity slip to have Louis join me on stage for this event.  With his guitar in hand, Louis and I hit the stage at Bigby’s to lay a short set of MSX tunes on the happy crowd.  A very emotional moment for me came when I told the audience that we were going to perform a song by a hero of mine.  I explained that I had once had the opportunity to work with fellow Arkansan, Johnny Cash, and that I was about to perform my arrangement of Mr. Cash’s song that he sit in with me and Billy Bob on a year or so back in a studio in LA.  I had arranged my own version of Johnny’s 1958 classic, I Still Miss Someone, when I was about 16 years old.  I never forgot it.  I didn’t mean to, but I think I made a few folks, including me and Louis sort of tear up, but we brought the house down with a beautiful song.  Now, I felt I had not only the spirit of Muddy Waters backing me, but somewhere, John and June were looking down with a warm smile also.  Not wanting to let my John Wayne image down, we then broke into a boogie and segued into Voodoo In Tallulah.  Louis hung with me on this one and we left these Texicans with a taste of the Louisiana Delta.  Howlin’ Wolf was in the house and you could hear our feet tapping on the stage, not unlike the masters of the blues used to do it.

Well folks, that was our trip down to Texas.  I hope we can bring this new acoustic shuffle your way at some point in the future.  As many of you know, Lovely Wife Kim and I are expecting a little Roosterboy, or girl, come January.  I’ll be staying close by taking care of things.  However, we are going to pop out as much as possible to lay this acoustic trip on you.  We will schedule some in-store appearances in record outlets, as well as whatever radio shows will have us.  I am sure the Internet Chicks, Amélie and Sagemo, will keep you posted.  Please drop by and see us whenever you can.  Till then, have a safe and happy few months, and the "Rooster Daddy" will be lurking in your midst somewhere with that elusive barre chord in the background.