Captain Luke - One Of These Days / Live At The Hamilton

Album: One Of These Days
Size: 74,7 MB
Time: 31:45
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2008
Styles: Blues
Art: Front

01. Short Haired Woman (3:22)
02. One Of These Days (3:22)
03. (You Keep Me) Hangin' On (2:52)
04. Come Back To Me (3:47)
05. Old Black Buck (3:12)
06. River (2:27)
07. Sweeter Than Honey (2:52)
08. Angels Of Mercy (2:57)
09. Farther On Down The Road (3:30)
10. Serves Me Right (3:20)

A veteran of the local "drink house" circuit in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Luther "Captain Luke" Mayer sings in a gravelly bass/baritone. Surprisingly, his vocal phrasing-as well as his tendency to segue into spoken passages and then back again into a melody line-sometimes invokes Lightnin' Hopkins, an association accentuated by the inclusion of Short Haired Woman, a longtime Hopkins mainstay, on this set. Mayer also strips B.B.'s Angel of Mercy theme down to its bare-boned essence with a riveting solo acoustic performance, again invoking Lightnin' with his phrasing.

But he's far from "just" a bluesman; in fact, he sounds at least as influenced by country music as by blues. This versatility no doubt held him in good stead during his heyday, when he was required to provide entertainment for listeners with diverse tastes. (You Keep Me) Hangin' On is not the old Supremes/Vanilla Fudge pop standard but a countrified version of a ballad that's previously been recorded by Ann Peebles and Joe Simon, among others. Come Back To Me likewise sounds as if it was hatched in a honky-tonk rather than a juke. On these offerings, Mayer's sidemen provide him with low-key but richly textured country-folk backing.

Old Black Buck, credited to Mayer himself, harks back to early folk styles, both African American and white-it wouldn't sound out-of-place in a Carolina Chocolate Drops set. His take on Taj Mahal's Farther on Down the Road (unrelated to the Bobby "Blue" Bland standard), in contrast, is buttressed by a gently burbling funk patter, and it's rich with emotional immediacy and understated but elegant sophistication. ~David Whiteis, Living Blues

One Of These Days

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Album: Live At The Hamilton
Size: 92,9 MB
Time: 39:49
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2015
Styles: Blues
Art: Front

01. Old Black Buck (Live) (2:42)
02. Poke Salad Annie (Live) (6:14)
03. Rainy Night In Georgia (Live) (5:32)
04. King Bee (Live) (5:30)
05. Angels Of Mercy (Live) (3:16)
06. Chokin' Kind (Live) (3:12)
07. Still Water (Live) (4:59)
08. Put On Your Red Dress (Live) (4:14)
09. Waiter (Live) (4:07)

Captain Luke's voice like honey dripping on hot chocolate and the beautifully stunning guitar of Cool John Ferguson breathe new life and nuance into this set of old songs. In 2012, Tom Meyer and Bart Farrell invited their friend Captain Luke (84) to perform a special show at The Hamilton, a new venue they opened just three blocks from the White House.

Captain Luke, from Winston-Salem, NC, used to sing locally with the legendary 5 Royale’s in the 50s. And for the last 60 years, he has been king of Winston-Salem's drink-house milieu. Cool John Ferguson from Beaufort, SC is a youngster by Music Maker’s standards, a living bridge between his Gullah heritage and the psychedelic rock and roll and R&B of his childhood. When these two Carolina men join together onstage, jaws drop. ~Tim Duffy

Both albums, although encoded @320, in real they are @128 kbps. If you like it and want the real thing, please buy them. It's for a good cause.

Live At The Hamilton

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Cool John Ferguson - Cool John Ferguson / Guitar Heaven

Album: Cool John Ferguson
Size: 118,0 MB
Time: 50:36
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2001
Styles: Modern Electric Blues, Blues Rock
Art: Full

01. The Cat Ate The Rat, The Rat Ate The Wizard (4:45)
02. Here Comes Floyd (3:42)
03. I Love You (3:46)
04. Strollin' By The Waterfront (4:44)
05. Miss You Like The Devil (3:27)
06. Tater Done (3:58)
07. Let No Woman (3:25)
08. Pre-Alex Stomp (3:07)
09. Send Up My Timbers (3:53)
10. Log Cabin Woman (4:13)
11. I Got A Right To Cry Sometimes (7:29)
12. Cootie's Jam (4:02)

The legendary entertainer Taj Mahal says, "Cool John is among the five greatest guitarists I have heard in my career."

John was born on Saint Helena Island off the coast of South Carolina. His mother is of the Gullah people and John grew up with the old ways all around him

Born December 3, 1953, John has been playing the guitar since age three. At five he was playing church music professionally, often out-seating musicians ten times his age.

John has recently come to Pinnacle, North Carolina from his home in Beaufort, South Carolina to lend his talents to the efforts of Tim Duffy and the Music Maker Relief Foundation, performing on the national Winston Blues Revival Tour as a solo act and with artists Beverly "Guitar" Watkins, Carl Rutherford and Captain Luke both on the road and in the studio.

John's musical path is immersion. The man breathes music and plays from the inside out. He commands the rare ability to develop a theme on the fly, incorporating every element of the musical environment along the way and somehow summing them all up neatly when he feels the end coming. His improvised pieces carry the aesthetic sensibility of careful, painstakingly crafted works, which in fact they are; it is simply all done in real time. Coupled with the willingness to play with anybody, any time, in any style, familiar or not, John Ferguson possesses a formidable talent that is making him a force to be reckoned with in the music industry.

Thanks to Marc.
Cool John Ferguson

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Album: Guitar Heaven
Size: 89,2 MB
Time: 38:19
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2003
Styles: Modern Electric Blues
Art: Full

01. 16 Years (4:52)
02. Low Country Blues (4:23)
03. Song For Brenda (4:07)
04. Chunk Of Funk (4:47)
05. Which Way Is Up (4:09)
06. It's True (5:05)
07. Having Fun (5:27)
08. Keep It Confidential (5:26)

“It didn’t matter where the music came from. I just learned it all – TV themes, blues, R&B, jazz, gospel – it all came in my ears and through my hands.” – Cool John Ferguson Cool John Ferguson walks onto the stage, looks out from under a broad-brimmed leather hat, smiles, and sets his hands on the frets of an electric guitar. Before there is a sound, the audience can see that something exceptional is about to happen. Long thin fingers reach across the neck of the guitar, left-hand poises to stroke, right-hand frames the chord, and out comes an incredible bath of sound. But wait! He’s got that guitar on backwards and the low sounds are coming from the bottom string. That’s because Cool John is a studied but self-taught guitar player. Nobody told him he had the guitar the wrong way around and by the time they did, he was too good to go to the trouble to change. “I played as a three-year old,” Cool John explains. “To hold the guitar, I had to be put in someone’s lap while they sat in a chair. I played sing notes on Just a Closer Walk With Thee, my first song. Later on, fooling around with it, I learned to play the lead, bass, and rhythm parts at the same time.”

Thanks to Marc.
Guitar Heaven

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