Diunna Greenleaf - Direct-To-Disc Sessions [Vinyl] (APO 008)

Source: Vinyl (clean)
Size: 49.6 MB
Time: 21:23
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2010
Styles: Electric Blues, Texas Blues
Art: Full

01. Crazy (4:00)
02. Love Treasure (2:08)
03. Double Dealing (4:27)
04. The Backdoor Man (You Want To Be) (5:00)
05. Resolutions (5:48)

Personnel:
Vocals – Diunna Greenleaf
Guitar – John Richardson
Bass – Josh Preslar
Drums – Vernon Daniels

All tracks were recorded live, direct to disc at Blue Heaven Studios, Salina, Kansas.

This direct-to-disc release, recorded in the church sanctuary of Blue Heaven Studios, is so fresh and pure... Talk about up to audiophile standards! The immediacy, the dynamics - slam and delicacy alike - are just so startlingly real. There's nothing lost. It's positively lifelike.

Cutting engineer Kevin Gray, using Blue Heaven's Neumann VMS 70 lathe with an Ortofon cutter head and amplifiers, and recording engineer Katsu Naito have made available for your playback the closest thing possible to a live, in-person performance. With direct-to-disc recording, the signal from the microphone is transmitted directly to the cutter head, which then cuts the grooves into a raw lacquer. There's no middleman. No tape. No tape hiss. No distortion or other artifacts inherent in any other type of recording.

And the music? It's killer! The session was recorded the weekend of the 12th annual Blues Masters at the Crossroads in October 2009.

Diunna Greenleaf and her band Blue Mercy returned to Blue Heaven Studios in 2009 for the 12th annual Blues Masters at the Crossroads and to make this D2D recording. She'd closed the 2006 Blues Masters and absolutely floored the Blue Heaven Studios congregation. So powerful and dynamic and soul-stirring was her performance that many concert regulars have commented that Greenleaf remains their favorite act through all the years. To say she was back in 2009 by popular demand is a wild understatement.

Greenleaf, of Houston, Texas, has a background steeped in both blues and gospel. She's been influenced by the likes of Koko Taylor, Aretha Franklin, Rosetta Thorpe, Sam Cooke and Charles Brown, and she includes intricate patches of jazz and soul in her performances.

Direct-To-Disc Sessions (APO 008) MP3
Direct-To-Disc Sessions (APO 008) FLAC

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Diunna Greenleaf - I Ain't Playin'

Size: 128.5 MB
Time: 55:01
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2022
Styles: Electric Blues, Blues Soul
Art: Front

01. Never Trust A Man (4:17)
02. Running Like The Red Cross (Feat. Walter Morgan, James Morgan, Dwayne Morgan) (3:43)
03. If It Wasn't For The Blues (5:52)
04. Answer To The Hard Working Woman (3:39)
05. I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free (3:41)
06. Sunny Day Friends (4:37)
07. When I Call Your Name (Feat. Alabama Mike) (3:58)
08. I Don't Care (2:58)
09. Damned If I Do (3:55)
10. I Know I've Been Changed (Feat. Alabama Mike) (3:21)
11. Back Door Man (5:58)
12. Let Me Cry (4:57)
13. My Turn, My Time (4:01)

Diunna has one of those distinctive, powerfully emotive voices that just stops you in your tracks the first time you hear her. This dynamic and gifted singer from Houston has an absolutely amazing voice, full of soul, emotion, feeling, finesse, and strength! Even though Diunna is always winning or nominated for best traditional blues female singer of the year, this is remarkably her first album in over 10 years (since 2011’s highly acclaimed ‘Trying to Hold On’) and her first that was not self-released on her own Blue Mercy label.

Executive producer Noel Hayes excels in thoughtfully picking out killer songs from the past to fit the style of his favorite current singers, like Diunna.

This winning team of Noel with co-producer Jim Pugh and his Little Village record label and co-producer Kid Andersen and his Greaseland studio have helped to create magic again in the studio and unearthed a batch of buried treasure blues, soul, R&B, and gospel songs that perfectly match Diunna’s distinctive and expressive vocals.

In addition to the four outstanding originals from Diunna, many of these fascinating songs are from singers from her own home state of Texas, which she has transformed to make them all her own. Lone star state standouts are the funky “I Don’t Care” from Long John Hunter, the deep blues of “Let Me Cry” from Johnny Copeland, and “Damned If I Do” from the vastly underrated singer/songwriter Joe Medwick.

Diunna, with the help of Alabama Mike (one of our other favorite real deal blues singers of today) created a new version of a classic gospel song done by The Staples Singers, “I Know I’ve Been Changed,” and they also killed it on a soulful country gospel duet, “When I Call Your Name” from Vince Gill. The head turning opening Koko Taylor track, “Never Trust A Man” is also available on YouTube where you can see how it was masterfully done at Greaseland with this all-star band of Kid, keyboardist Jim Pugh, drummer D’Mar and the legendary bassist, Jerry Jemmott, who “lays down the groove that could anchor the solar system!” “If It Wasn’t For the Blues” was one of Mighty Sam McClain’s favorite songs and it really says how Diunna feels, too, and “Answer To The Hard Working Woman” is a twist on Otis Clay’s hard funk soul song, where she flips the script. Be sure to check out one of the most meaningful, powerful songs that still resonates today, “Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free” where she eerily channels Nina Simone; I don’t know anyone else but Diunna who can pull this off so well.

I Ain't Playin' MP3
I Ain't Playin' FLAC

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Big Creek Slim & The Cockroaches - Ramblin' Big Creek (Feat. Diunna Greenleaf)

Size: 112,3 MB
Time: 47:43
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2019
Styles: Electric Blues
Art: Full

01. Ramblin' Big Creek (5:44)
02. How Unlucky (3:13)
03. Sorrow And Consolation (4:04)
04. Sick And Tired (2:18)
05. Put You On Ice (4:04)
06. If You Should Quit Me (4:27)
07. I Just Don't Understand (5:22)
08. Mean Ol' Sunrise (4:52)
09. One More Mile (3:28)
10. Rock 'n' Roll Mama (2:22)
11. Tear Me Down Again (Feat. Diunna Greenleaf) (4:03)
12. Big Fine Mama (Feat. Diunna Greenleaf) (3:42)

Danish Music Award - Best Blues Album 2016 - Keep My Belly Full
Danish Blues Name Of The Year 2015 - Big Creek Slim
Danish Music Award Nominee - Best Blues Album 2015 - Hope For My Soul
Danish Blues Challenge Winner 2013 - Big Creek Slim

Big Creek Slim, a.k.a. Marc Rune, was born and raised in Ikast, a small town in Central Denmark. He traveled in the United States for a spell around 2008, playing music and writing songs. He now lives with his family in Florianopolis Brazil, in a cabin by the ocean.

And Big Creek Slim is a bluesman, as sure as the day is long. Don’t believe it? Listen to Keep My Belly Full. Hear that voice. Feel the passion and intensity that he brings to Tommy Johnson’s thumping “Bye Bye Blues.” Dig that slippery groove on “Do Somebody Wrong”and the sheer power of the Elmore James-styled “Tell Me Baby,” both originals. Bear witness to the gospel vibe threading through the disc, culminating with the traditional “Sink ‘Em Low.” Hear the effortless, natural command of his guitar work throughout the album. This man has lived with the blues.

So, why would a Danish musician find such a definitive personal connection in a music created by black Americans in the rural Southern reaches of the United States, thousands of miles from his home? And, specifically, what connects him to the earliest days of that music, primarily the years before World War II?

Part of it has to do with the nature of the man, and part of it has to do with nature of the music.

“It ain’t that much about American or black music as it’s about the blues,” Big Creek says. “The blues should be a universal feeling, and a world patrimony. Why I play them in this style – old, black, American – has something to do with the way I am. I always liked to find the roots of things. I also search for the roots of Scandinavian culture. I played a lot of Irish traditional music, and the roots of Brazilian samba fascinate me.”

At the roots of the blues, Big Creek found a blend of power and simplicity and, ultimately, a spiritual essence.

“The thing that inspired me so about old blues and folk music is the strong sound. Less is more if you play it with attitude. The sound of the Delta blues carries me to a more primitive state of mind, and I get to cut the cheese out of my life, if you know what I mean,” he says.

As blues music is part of Big Creek Slim, so is his recognition of the conditions that created that music. This awareness fundamentally changed his outlook on life.

“In the old American blues, you hear a purity that you don´t find in music nowadays, not in contemporary blues and not in popular music at all,” Big Creek explains. “The first blues records are the first recorded sounds of an oppressed people. It´s a very important moment in the history of humankind. It surely opened my eyes and made me a more tolerant person toward the indifferences of human beings, and it taught me how to love myself. I guess that´s why I got to play them so bad.”

Ramblin' Big Creek (Feat. Diunna Greenleaf) MP3
Ramblin' Big Creek (Feat. Diunna Greenleaf) FLAC

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Diunna Greenleaf & Blue Mercy - Cotton Field To Coffee House (2 CD)

Year: 2006
Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 66:54 + 17:53
Size: 154,6 + 41,0 MB
Styles: Blues
Scans: Full

CD 1:
1. Back Door Man (5:04)
2. Possesion Over Judgement Day (4:05)
3. The Very Thought Of You (2:51)
4. Little Red Rooster (7:41)
5. Love Treasure (4:12)
6. Tribute To John Lee Hooker (7:27)
7. Change Is Gonna Come (7:35)
8. Lonely Man Blues (2:36)
9. Beams Of Heaven (3:30)
10. Resolutions (7:35)
11. Members Only (5:16)
12. Shake A Hand (5:08)
13. Just Before Dawn (3:49)

CD 2 (Bonus):
1. Rehearsal Jam: Tribute To The Kings (17:53)

Diunna Greenleaf, the leader of Blue Mercy, is a native Texan (Houston) who has a background steeped in gospel music. Influenced by Koko Taylor, Aretha Franklin, Rosetta Thorpe, Sam Cooke, Charles Brown and her own parents Ben & Mary Ella Greenleaf (Gospel). She has developed "Diunna's style of Blues" in the same tradition as so many other great Texas blues men and women. She combines intricate patches of jazz, gospel and heartfelt soul to create a kind of blues that takes one on an emotional roller coaster ride.

Performing with Bob Margolin, Keb Mo, Willie "Pinetop" Perkins, Hubert Sumlin, Willie "Big Eyes" Smith, James Cotton, Carrie Bell, Big Bill Morganfield, Smokin' Joe Kubek and B'Nois King, Anson Funderburgh & The Rockets (with Sam Myers), Bernard Allison, Odetta, Rod Piazza and the Mighty Flyers, I.J. Gosey, Sherman Robertson, Kenny Neal, the late great Teddy "Cry Cry" Reynolds, Mud Morganfield and numerous others has truly been an honor in her career.

Cotton Field To Coffee House (2 CD) mc
Cotton Field To Coffee House (2 CD) zippy

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Diunna Greenleaf - Trying To Hold On

Bitrate: 320K/s
Time: 58:11
Size: 133.2 MB
Styles: Female blues vocals, Chicago blues
Year: 2011
Art: Full

[4:09] 1. Be For Me
[3:41] 2. Sunny Day Friends
[6:23] 3. Growing Up And Growing Old
[2:49] 4. Beautiful Hat
[3:45] 5. I Can't Wait
[4:11] 6. Taking Chances
[5:43] 7. Tryin' To Hold On
[4:28] 8. You Don't Feel That Way About Me
[4:06] 9. I'm A Little Mixed Up (A Tribute To Koko Taylor)
[4:28] 10. Double Dealing
[1:48] 11. He Is Everything To Me (Diunna's Grandmother, Sylvie Travis)
[2:32] 12. He Is Everything To Me (Diunna)
[3:29] 13. I Got A Notion To Leave
[6:33] 14. 'Cause I'm A Soldier

For the most part, this new disc stands up nicely alongside its predecessor. Greenleaf is first and foremost a singer, belting out blues in the fiery, hollering style of Koko Taylor. But Trying To Hold On shows that she's also a very capable songwriter, able to hew to the genre's traditions while revealing her own writing voice. Some of the songs here hold up favorably against any recorded this year.One of the best is "Sunny Day Friends," an electric blues with swinging sax from Ron Jones and biting guitar by Anson Funderburgh, who produced three tracks on the album. The lyrical theme echoes that of the blues standard "Grinnin' In Your Face" (popularized by Son House) in its put-down of people who stand by you in good times but run during the bad. Also at the top of Greenleaf's songwriting heap is "Taking Chances," a slow shuffle featuring Smokin' Joe Kubek on guitar. Greenleaf reportedly wrote the song – about the importance of jumping confidently into a love affair – for Kubek when he was dating the woman who eventually became his wife. It showcases Greenleaf's ability to take a simple lyrical idea and weave an entire song around it.

thank you mrwalker.
Trying To Hold On

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