Another opportunity to experience music awesomeness is coming to Rentiesville!  Of course this means the 20th annual DC Minner’s Dusk ‘til Dawn Blues Festival.  Though there are always many great performers to choose from, I would draw your attention to this year’s featured performer, the multi- talented, multi- instrumentalist and multi-award winning soul-blues living legend Johnny Rawls.   Even a quick online search of Rawls leads to a long list of accolades for this Mississippi born artist.   A quick listen to his songs will convince you of his worthiness for those accolades.
Rawls started out on saxophone and clarinet, then shifted to guitar after listening to his grandfather play some blues one Christmas.  He began playing professionally while still in high school.  He became the band director for soul legend O.V. Wright in the mid ‘70s and served in that position until Wright’s death in 1980, opening up for greats like B.B King and Bobbie “Blue” Bland.  He then led Little Johnny Taylor’s band until 1985, when he decided to go solo.  Along the way, Rawls has worked in several different aspects of the music business.   He is a busy solo artist, playing over 200 shows a year all across the U.S. and internationally as well.  He has worked as a background singer, an instrumentalist (playing several different instruments), a producer, arranger, and as an A & R (Artist and Repertoire) man, discovering the Texas band Kay Kay and the Rays in 1999.  Though short lived as a band, Kay Kay and the Rays became wildly popular in a short period of time and topped the blues charts with their album Texas Justice.   Rawls would later re-connect with members of the Rays for his award-winning album Johnny Rawls and the Rays: No Boundaries, which was picked as one of the top 10 blues albums of 2005.  He has worked (in one role or another) on several albums.   Of these, six are on his own record label, Deep South Soul, which he started in 2002. His 2009 release, Ace of Spades, won Soul Blues Album of the Year at the 2010 Blues Foundation Blues Music Awards.  
Of the several adjectives used to describe Rawls, his music and his style of playing “smooth” would be the one I would most agree with.  Though an amazing guitarist, he plays to serve the song and doesn’t go off on extended ego-trip leads that too many guitarists indulge in.  He doesn’t overplay just because he can; an all too easy trap for less sophisticated musicians.  Vocally he’s smooth as well, with enough gravel and soulfulness to back up his lyrics about love, loss and loneliness.   He plays everything from straight blues to soul to rhythm and blues to funk that would make James Brown proud.  His live performances can include everything from his own originals to rocking covers of songs like Clarence Carter’s “Strokin’.”  To my ear, his sound evokes the best of all of these genres from the past to the present.  Apparently, others have also thought so, as many of his sounds have been sampled by various hip-hop artists as well.  He has been nominated for the W.C. Handy Award four times, and won the R&B Best Male Vocalist of the Year Award from the West Coast Blues Hall of Fame.    XM Radio subscribers can check him out on the Bluesville channel.  Rawls will perform each night of the Dusk ‘til Dawn Blues Festival, which runs from Friday, Sep. 4 – Sunday, Sep. 6.
For more information, go to www.johnnyrawlsblues.com or to www.dcminnerblues.com