Click to hear: Live samples of Jumpin' Gene's music
Jumpin' Gene's song Tow Truck Man
appears on the recent Willie
Buck CD on Delmark Records released in November,
2012.
We had several favorites, too. The catchy riff of Tow Truck Man gives way to sly, double-entendre-filled lyrics that promise all the women a real good time!
Sheryl and Don Crow, Nashville Blues Society
The disc includes three more visits to the [Muddy] Waters songbook, but also serves up a couple of fun originals, most notably Tow Truck Man, written by Gene Halton,
in which Buck delivers amazingly like his master. Marty Gunther, Bluesblast Magazine
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OFF THE WALL BLUES BAND
Named after a Little
Walter tune, Off The Wall Blues Band is one of the hottest bands to storm out of
the Midwest blues scene. They are a tight five-piece band with a forceful
Off the Wall Blues Band's first CD, On the Money, was
released in June, 1996 to positive reviews. At the Fourth Annual Ribs and
Blues Festival featuring Son Seals, The
il Blues Magazine from Milan, Italy noted: "An unusual and right-on melting pot, in my opinion, are these five characters who give muscle, brain and blood to the Off the Wall Blues Band...This is a jolt of life and originality in the boring discographic panorama of the past few months."
As Living Blues Magazine said, "Off the Wall Blues Band plays in an
old fashioned '50s
Jumpin' Gene Halton
has toured
with Pinetop Perkins and Dave Myers, performed with Hubert Sumlin,
S.P.Leary, Sam Lay, Lurie Bell, Jimmy Johnson, and
Jim Schwall, and opened for Bobby Bland and Son
Seals. He performed in the 1993 Zurich Jazz Festival with the Oliver Morgan
Rhythm and Blues Band of New Orleans, returned to Europe in 1997 with fellow
band member Lorenzo Thompson, on a tour with The Next Generation Blues Band
starting in Prague...
"Halton's
harmonica creaks and vibrates all over [the cd] in smoky, warm tones."--
Here's
Gene performing with Pinetop Perkins in 1994
Former
Muddy Waters drummer S.P. Leary once noted Gene's "great sense of rhythm. "
A photo of Jumpin' Gene appears in the 1996
Chicago Blues Calender in the month of February.
Gene performing with
another former Muddy Waters drummer, Willie "Big Eye" Smith, with
Nick Moss, and Little Frank: Big Eye.
Here is Gene's live instrumental: Get Wet (c) E. Halton,
June 24, 2000.
With Bill Nicks' Jazz Trio, August 13, 2000, outdoors on the
river in downtown South Bend: Black Orpheus.
Performing in Dubrovnik,
Croatia.
in Montreal
And Caravan with Doug Rice,
2006.
where Jumpin'
Gene's name comes from.
If you can read the fine print, you
can click to way back when Gene once played drums in a Dixieland Band
******************************************************
Sat.
April 25, 2009 at The
Midway Tavern
ONE TIME ONLY PRODUCTIONS PRESENTED:
Chicago's
Legendary Sam Lay
with Rockin' Johnny
and Jumpin' Gene's Off the Wall Blues Band
Sam Lay
drummed on the classic early Howlin' Wolf recordings
on Chess records, and later with the Paul Butterfield
Blues Band. That band backed Bob Dylan at his controversial electric
performance at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival and on his album Highway 61
Revisited, also showing the range of Sam's career. He was widely featured in
the seven part series on the blues produced by academy award winner Martin
Scorsese. Sam not only sang and played drums, but also showed his abilities on
the guitar, including playing some Johnny Cash!
Sadly,
Sam passed away on January 29, 2022.
Sam Lay, left; Rockin' Johnny Burgin, center; Jumpin' Gene Halton, right
The show also featured the return of Rockin' Johnny to active gigging after six years. He peeled the paint off The Midway Tavern walls, and has flourished in the years since, taking his musical mastery around the globe.
Sat.
May 3, 2008 at The
Midway Tavern
ONE
TIME ONLY (until next time) PRODUCTIONS
PRESENTED
He listened to and learned
from, and gigged with, the great Howlin' Wolf, who also gave him the name of Tail Dragger.
The Tail Dragger's sense of phrasing, of
call and response, of freely leaving space, and of the ritual hypnotic that is
the source of music's entrancement, all deliver
one to that zone wherein real music happens. As he once put it: "I just sing the low down blues and sometimes it's like I'm in a trance...Something
hits me and I'm overpowered. " See newspaper article: Good Timin' Grooves
The Tail
Dragger,
drummer Rob Lorenz at left, --photo by Vicky Darnell
Tail Dragger au festival d'Utrecht 1997 (photo Jocelyn Richez)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
JUNE 4, 2005, kind
of cabaret, CLICK:
SOUL FOOD NIGHT at The
Midway w/ The Where Art Thou Boys
Feb. 4 Midway w/ Bobby
Stone and Robert Stroger!
And recorded 9/7/04, New Buffalo, MI
Cherry Pink and Apple
Blossom White
--Here is the band live in front of 5000 people,
from the 1998
Ain't
Superstitious
Click
here to see more on Billy Sticks Nicks
<>
and from
Harbor Country Blues
Festival
in Three Oaks
party for
click it! Chicago
Art Expo Party
Click it! Chicago Blues Extravaganza at the Midway Tavern
twas Friday the 13th of July and
the blues were at the Morris Center for the Performing
Arts in South Bend
...and it was...
The band featured some of the area's top players,
including Bobby Stone, vocals and guitar,
Bill "Sticks" Nicks on drums, Little Frank Krakowski on guitar, and
Jesse Lee on bass
Dig this snippet from the concert: click
on Lovelight
Bobby
Stone, photo by Jumpin' Gene
and Don't miss this shot!
And more
photos, July
13, 2001 at the Morris Civic
Bobby Stone and Jumpin' Gene
(compliments of Julie LaFollette)
from a gig at The Big Easy,
click Jambalaya
featuring zydeco accordian player Guy Lawrence!
--A photo
from outdoor gig at LaSalle Park, June 16, 2001:
L to R: Jumpin'
Gene, "Bay-Bay" Samuel, Larry Brown, Bobby Stone (in front), Bill
"Sticks" Nicks, J.D.
Click it! Chicago Blues Extravaganza at the Midway
Tavern
*******************************
Some of the guitarists the band has worked with
include:
Rockin' Johnny Burgin
Kevin Shannahan, who's been
touring with Jimmy Burns
and doing a number of gigs with Tail Draggerr
Mike Dotson, a seasoned Chicagoan, (when not performing with
Magic Slim and the Teardrops.)
Eddie Taylor Jr., son of blues legend Eddie Taylor.
Bass player John Baker is also an experienced...
...
photo by Vicky Darnell
...extensively and
recorded with Eddie Burks. He has also toured with another Chicago legend,
former Howlin' Wolf guitarist Hubert Sumlin, performed in Chicago with Homesick James, Big
Smokey Smothers, and Merle Perkins, and jammed with Buddy Guy and Jr. Wells,
Taj Mahal, and John Hammond. Earlier Baker played gospel with Sonny Thompson,
who is also known as a producer at both King and Chess records. John claims
that he's never been to prison, except as a visitor.
Drummer Rob Lawrence, pictured here at Off the Wall "Chicago
Extravaganza" gig at the Midway Tavern with
Eddie Taylor Jr. and Liz Mandville-Greeson, has
performed with a wide array of Chicago musicians. He can be heard on
Taildragger's most recent recording on Delmark, American
People.
photo by Vicky Darnell
Off the Wall Blues Band is booking and performing throughout
the Midwest and touring beyond
Look out for
them!
Booking: (574) 631-7140
click
here to see the annual
Off the Wall Blues Band Fan club rally !
Click here to hear the band in a live performance--
--with former
singer Lorenzo Thompson: I Got to Leave You
Or another: 24 Hours
Click
here to see a photo of Little Walter's grave.
And click to see Sonny
Boy Williamson's (Rice Miller) grave
And click again to see Little Walter and Muddy Waters
There's nothing like an old EV mike, made in Buchanan, MI!
*************************************************************************************
(Ex-)
Coach Bobby Knight says always reserve your seat in advance!