Bobby Radcliff
Waterfront Blues Festival
Portland. OR.
July 1, 2011

Again the WBF went off with some big names in the music world. The non-profit radio station, KBOO, here in Portland did the broadcasting again and there were lots of problems this year, as in other years. Many drops in reception which I attemted to "fix". Not all were broadcast, which was a bummer, and some were just to rife with problems to save. So there are some bumps in the road, if you will, but over all some nice tunes are here. Of note, the Preston Shannon set, James Harmon, Bobby Radcliff, Chris Cain Band, Ty Curtis Band and of course Lucinda Williams. So enjoy & spread the shows around, twofthrs.

FM>H2 Zoom> HDD>FLAC>Dime All files were sector aligned.
Since I'm not familiar with a lot of these bands there will be some "unknowns" in the set list's.
http://www.waterfrontbluesfest.com/

"Radcliff is usually pigeonholed as a blues artist, but he owes just as much to the ‘60s soul and funk of James Brown and P-Funk as he does to the Chicago blues of Magic Sam and Buddy Guy. Because he plays with a trio, Radcliff has to handle both the lead and the rhythm duties himself, and he marries the slashing lead lines of Guy with the choppy syncopation of Brown's Jimmy Nolan."
- The Washington Post

When Bobby Radcliff’s first album on the revered Black Top label hit record stores all over the world, critics declared him the next in a long line of guitar heroes. Jazz-lovers awarded him a coveted five-star review in downbeat, New York rockers took him to heart for his edgy energy, and blues fans everywhere knew their favorite music was alive and well.

Long before all that, it was the time he spent in the sixties with “Magic Sam” Maghett that bound him forever to the raucous mixture of deep blues and flashy funk that defined the sound of Chicago’s West Side. After running away from a suburban childhood in Chevy Chase, Maryland, at the tender age of 17, Bobby sought out the guitar master who had changed his life on record. With the help of Bob Koester, Bruce Iglauer, and Jim O’Neal (the blues trinity at Chicago’s legendary Jazz Record Mart), he found his idol in Cook County Hospital recovering from a minor stroke. Although he was a little shocked that anyone would come so far simply to meet him, Sam took Bobby under his wing and introduced him to the Chicago blues scene at the peak of the blues renaissance.

“Seeing Sam perform was like watching Elvis. He had that total kind of style and magnetism… beyond musical genre and beyond race,” Radcliff remembers. “He showed me the way to sing in a clear concise way, with a crisp and clean sound on the guitar. And then there’s the freedom of working in a trio, but also the risks. Don’t forget, these were the days of Cream and Hendrix, with tons of distortion alternating with lavish studio production. I wanted something different!”

By the release of Dresses Too Short in 1989, Bobby was already a twenty-year veteran of the club circuits in Washington, DC and New York City. He had shared the stage with the likes of Otis Rush, Roy Buchanan, James Cotton, Danny Gatton, Lowell Fulsom, and Dr.John.

In the nineties, three more brilliant albums followed on Black Top Records: Universal Blues (1991), There’s A Cold Grave In Your Way (1994), and Live At The Rynborn (1997). With the label based in New Orleans, Bobby got to tour with more of his idols, label-mates like Snooks Eaglin, Earl King, and George Porter, Jr.

Unhappily, Black Top founder Nauman Scott passed on in 2002, and the label never really recovered. As the rest of the record industry was racked with corporate consolidations, format-wars, and the hi-tech upheaval of the Internet, many artists have found themselves out in the cold. Bobby Radcliff made a choice: make your own records your own way on your own label, with no one to please but the fans. Radcliff’s latest release, Natural Ball, on Rollo Records, has thrilled the blues cognoscenti:

"...the return of of guitarist Bobby Radcliff as a recording artist is a cause for celebration. Radcliff, one of the most underrecognized players on the scene, is a phenomenally gifted musician whose soulful delivery, funky picking, and sparse, stinging West Side sound (as personified by his hero Magic Sam) is distinctive and eleltrifying."
- Blues Revue

Set List
01 Insturmental
02 Pickin' On Me
03 Hard Road to Travel
04 Icy Blue
05 Unknown
06 Unknown
07 Unknown
08 The Horse
09 Natural Ball
10 Chicken Heads
11 Dress is too Short