Shownotes
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Ana Popovic
Can you Stand the Heat
Brand New Man
Tower of Power - Steven Doc Kupka - a Funky Christmas 12-13-16
Youtube videos
ROBERT RANDOLPH & THE FAMILY BAND - Full Set (Live at in Nashville, TN 2019) #JAMINTHEVAN
Robert Randolph Band-The March
Robert Randolph and the Family Band - NHL All Star Weekend 2007 - AMAZING PERFORMANCE
Robert Randolph and the Family Band "Ted's Jam" Live at Java Jazz Festival 2012
Played
Ted’s Jam - Live at the Wetlands
Going in the Right Direction - Unclassified
Squeeze - Unclassified
Ain’t Nothing Wrong with That - Colorblind
Jesus is Just Alright - Colorblind
I’ll Take You There - Robert Randolph and the Family Band Live in Concert
Don’t Fight it - Brighter Days
Smile - Unclassified
Run For Your Life - Unclassified
Recommended Albums
Live at the Wetlands
Unclassifed
Robert Randolph and the Family Band Live in Concert
Ana Popovic
If you're not a blues purist, you'll love the fiery, passionate playing and singing of Yugoslavian blues-rock guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter Ana Popovic. Thanks to her father, the Belgrade-raised Popovic was introduced to the blues at an early age, through his wide-ranging record collection and jam sessions hosted at the Popovic home. Born on May 13, 1976, Popovic took up guitar when she was a teenager and formed her first band, Hush, in 1995. Within a year, with the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe, she was playing blues festivals in Greece and Hungary and working as an opening act for American blues masters, including Junior Wells.
Popovic recorded her debut album with Hush in 1999, when she also moved to the Netherlands to study jazz guitar and world and pop music at the Conservatory of Music. She had the chance to see blues guitarist Bernard Allison at a club in Germany. He asked her to come on-stage and jam at the end of the show. While Allison invited Popovic to join him on a tour, she had to get back to the Jazz Academy in Holland. Allison asked for a copy of Popovic's record with Hush, and he sent it on to executives at Ruf Records in Germany, who were impressed with Popovic's powerful guitar playing and singing. Ruf contacted her to be part of their Jimi Hendrix tribute compilation, and then signed her to a recording deal of her own.
Several months after this, she was on her way to Memphis to record Hush! The album was well received by blues radio programmers and the non-blues purist segments of the American, European, and Canadian blues festival circuits. In the spring of 2001, she performed at the Memphis in May Festival alongside Bob Dylan, the Black Crowes, and Ike Turner. Within five years of leaving Yugoslavia, Popovic, now in her late twenties, had the chance to perform at many of the major European blues festivals, including Peer, Bishopstock, and Notodden. Along the way she's sat in with the likes of Allison, Michael Hill, and Kenny Neal.
Popovic has two albums out on the New Jersey-based Ruf Records America label, Hush!, released in 2000, and Comfort to the Soul, her 2003 release. Jim Gaines and David Z., who have worked with other blues-rockers, including Stevie Ray Vaughan, Santana, and Jonny Lang, had roles in recording and mixing both albums. Five of Popovic's sparkling originals shine on Comfort to the Soul, including her homage to the tragic life of jazz bassist Jaco Pastorius, inspired by a book she read, as well as the album's opening track, "Don't Bear Down on Me (I'm Here to Steal the Show)." She also provides inspired, inventive covers of Howlin' Wolf's "Sitting on Top of the World" and Steely Dan's "Night by Night."
Popovic guests on Hill's 2003 two-disc Electric Storyland live album. In 2003, Popovic was nominated for a W.C. Handy Blues Award for Best New Artist of the Year and was the first European artist to perform at the Handy Awards. Two years later, Popovic released her first live effort, their audio/video offering Ana! Live in Amsterdam. The project was so successful she was nominated for four Living Blues awards including Best Female Blues Artist and Most Outstanding Musician. Between 2007 and 2011, Popovic released three albums for Eclecto Groove Records, including Still Making History and Unconditional; both reached the top spot on the blues charts.
In 2012, after relocating her residence and base of operations to Memphis, Tennessee, she signed to the ArtisteXclusive label. She issued Can You Stand the Heat in 2013; it peaked at number three on the blues albums charts. At that year's New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, she introduced a newly formed nonet under the Ana Popovic & Mo' Better Love moniker. After touring the globe, Popovic and her father Milton co-released Blue Room in 2015, a collection of blues and rock covers. While on tour, the band's van and gear were stolen, and the group only finished the tour with assistance from fans. She wanted to record a thank you and set out on her most ambitious project to date. Popovic had long been intrigued by her fans telling her about the way they listened to her recordings, often separating the various genres she took on into mixes highlighting each one. To that end, she wrote 15 of 23 songs in different styles and issued the thematically linked Trilogy in 2016 -- perhaps the only triple album recorded by a blues artist. The first disc, entitled "Morning," is her funk and R&B album. It was co-produced by Warren Riker and Popovic, and recorded in New Orleans, Memphis, Nashville in Tennessee, and Orlando, Florida and included a large band with a horn section and guest spots by Joe Bonamassa on the song "Train," and Robert Randolph on "Hook Me Up." The second disc, "Mid-Day," is comprised of Popovic's own brand of blues-rock. The songs were produced by several people including Riker in New Orleans, Tom Hambridge in Nashville, and Cody Dickinson in Mississippi. Disc three, "Midnight," explored the guitarist's jazz tendencies. It contains more covers than the other two discs, including tunes by Tom Waits, Duke Ellington, and Billie Holiday. "Midnight" was recorded at Esplanade Studios in New Orleans and produced by Delfeayo Marsalis. The set peaked at number ten on the blues charts, a notable accomplishment given its sheer magnitude. Popovic assembled her large band and toured the globe for the next year-and-a-half. In 2018 she entered a Nashville studio with producer Keb Mo' to record the concept outing Like It on Top, a set that included ten tracks exploring different types of female empowerment. It featured guest spots by her producer and guitarists Robben Ford and Kenny Wayne Shepherd. Released during the late summer, it entered the Top 20 of the Heatseeker chart.
© Richard Skelly /TiVo
Robert Randolph & The Family Band
A virtuoso on the pedal steel guitar, Robert Randolph jumped from spiritual to secular music and found an audience among blues fans, roots rock aficionados, and jam band followers with his fiery, passionate instrumental work and heartfelt music. While Randolph cut his teeth playing in services at the House of God Church in his native New Jersey (a domination where the pedal steel is a key part of the musical program), his talents were discovered by fans outside the church, and he made his recording debut with a live album recorded with his backing group the Family Band, 2001's Live at the Wetlands, that mixed gospel and full-bodied rock and blues. Randolph's first studio set, 2003's Unclassified, broadened the scope of his repertoire with flashes of funk and Caribbean sounds. His subsequent albums with the Family Band, such as 2010's When We Walk This Road (produced by T-Bone Burnett) and 2013's Lickety Split, were steeped in passion and energy that came from Randolph and his band's instrumental skills and heartfelt fusion of multiple genres.
Robert Randolph started playing the instrument as a church-going teenager in Orange, New Jersey, a small city just outside of Newark. He regularly attended the House of God Church, an African-American Pentecostal denomination that had been using steel guitars (or "Sacred Steel") in services since the '30s, with the pedal steel in particular being introduced during the '70s. Randolph learned to play by watching other steel players during church services; years later, he updated that sacred foundation with a secular mix of funk and soul, giving a new multicultural facelift to an instrument that had often been associated with country music.
In early 2000, Jim Markel heard Randolph play at the Sacred Steel Convention in Florida and subsequently introduced him to his friend Gary Waldman. Together, Waldman and Markel began to manage Randolph's career, which took flight after Matt Hickey, a talent buyer at Manhattan's Bowery Ballroom, signed Randolph on as the opening act for the North Mississippi Allstars. Within a month, Randolph had graduated to The Beacon Theater, where he played alongside Medeski, Martin & Wood. Keyboardist John Medeski enjoyed Randolph's playing so much that he asked him to record an instrumental gospel/blues album with the band. The resulting record, The Word, was released in August 2001 to great critical and popular acclaim.
Randolph next launched his own group, the Family Band, which included cousins Danyell Morgan and Marcus Randolph (bass and drums, respectively) and John Ginty (Hammond B-3 organ). The band's career began with opening gigs for a variety of blues, jazz-funk, and jam bands such as the Derek Trucks Band, Karl Denson's Tiny Universe, and Soulive; headlining gigs became the norm within a few months' time. Robert Randolph & the Family Band released Live at the Wetlands in fall 2001, capturing their live performance at the legendary Wetlands venue shortly before it closed. The group's studio debut, Unclassified, followed in 2003 and introduced Randolph to an even wider audience. One new fan was veteran guitarist Eric Clapton, who brought the band out on tour and appeared on Randolph's third release, Colorblind, in 2006.
In 2010, Randolph teamed up with producer T-Bone Burnett and released the album We Walk This Road, which featured guest appearances from Ben Harper, Leon Russell, and Doyle Bramhall II. Randolph spent the better part of three years touring with the Family Band; they signed to Blue Note Records in the interim. Lickety Split appeared in 2013 with guests Trombone Shorty and Carlos Santana. After several more rounds of touring, including reuniting with John Medeski for more performances as the Word, the Family Band returned to the studio to cut their fifth studio album. Randolph's first album for Sony Masterworks, 2017's Got Soul, included guest appearances from vocalist Darius Rucker, jazz and gospel keyboardist Cory Henry, and R&B singer Anthony Hamilton. Celebrated country and roots music producer Dave Cobb joined Randolph and his bandmates in the studio to cut 2019's Brighter Days, which was issued by Provogue, a blues-oriented label based in the Netherlands.
© Ann Wickstrom /TiVo
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