Pic(k) of the Week: PBR at Northside Tavern

A mural depicting a bald eagle and the logo for Pabst Blue Ribbon beer is painted on the outside wall of Northside Tavern blues club —and 'dive' bar— in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

Despite its name, Northside sits in Atlanta's Westside, an area that has experienced rampant redevelopment since February 2016, when I took this photo. One hopes for the club's continued long life.

And for that of the blues.

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Pic(k) of the Week: Blues through the balustrade

As seen through the balcony balustrade, concert-goers (and beer drinkers) gather round Cincinnati, Ohio-born blues guitarist/vocalist Stacy Mitchhart during his performance at Bourbon Street Blues and Boogie Bar, in the Printer's Alley district of Nashville, Tennessee, on 2 February 2018.

In 2003, Mitchhart received the 'Albert King Most Promising Guitarist Award' at the Blues Foundation's International Challenge, in Memphis, Tennessee and has won a Grammy and been nominated for two more, according to Wikipedia.

Don't forget the blues!

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Pic(k) of the Week: Bullsh*t!

Language alert!

The neon sign behind the bar was shining, "Bullshit," but I couldn't hear what the two customers were animatedly discussing, under its glow.

As seen, on 19 February 2016, at the Northside Tavern, a long-standing blues bar, located in Atlanta, Georgia's westside.

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Pic(k) of the Week: Blues for all ages

Thumb's up! It was the Tinner Hill Blues Festival, in Falls Church, Virginia, on Saturday, 8 June 2013, and even this young one was getting down with the groove.

The Tinner Hill Blues Festival was launched in 1994 [in Falls Church, Virginia] as a music-centered street festival. From those modest beginnings, the event has developed into the weekend-long fête of all things blues: art, film, lectures, and – of course – blues performances, some by acts celebrated on the national level.
—Falls Church News-Press.

The Blues and Whisky: Koko Taylor

I wrote this about beer and jazz:

Good beer is like good music: with an introduction, an exposition, and a coda, it tells a story.

Beer raconteur Bob Tupper has his own jazz allusion for beer:

Ale is like "a jazz quartet. Each member goes his own way, but all finish together. A lager, in contrast, is like a string quartet. It is a seamless composition."

But the Blues ... the Blues is a shot of whisky.

In the early 1980s, I became familiar with blues singer Koko Taylor through her recordings: a big, cutting, chainsaw of a voice.

But those recordings did not prepare me for the one time I saw —and heard— Ms. Tayor live at her club in Chicago in 1992, after her successful comeback from health complications. Her take that night on Mannish Boy —I'm a W-O-M-A-N— was so gutsy, so real, so scary, that it was —at the least— the equal of Muddy Waters' male manifesto.

At the time, I was in Chicago studying brewing at the Siebel Institute. But that evening, amazed and thrilled, I had whiskey.

Koko Taylor died Wednesday 3 June 2009 at age 80.