Bob Margolin CD Release Party

Overview

Steady Rollin’ Bob Margolin is a Blues guitar player and singer, carrying on the deep Chicago Blues style and creating his original music today. His shows are known for deep Blues, a wide variety of Blues-based styles, and a friendly good time for his audiences. From 1973-1980, Bob played guitar in the band of Chicago Blues legend Muddy Waters, touring worldwide and recording, and learning to play Muddy’s powerful music directly from him. He appears beside Muddy with The Band in the 1978 legendary music film The Last Waltz. In 1980, Bob started his own band. He has won Blues Music Awards for Guitar in 2005 and 2008. In 2013, Bob is the recipient of the Blues Foundation’s Keeping the Blues Alive for Journalism. His latest CD is Blues Around the World with The Mike Sponza Band, released by the VizzTone Label Group. Bob is a 2013 Blues Music Award nominee for Best Traditional Male Artist. Bob played on Ann Rabson’s new CD, Not Alone, which is nominated for a 2013 Blues Music Award for Best Acoustic Album. In February and March 2013, Bob will be part of the Blues at the Crossroads Tour also featuring James Cotton, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Jody Williams, and J.J. Grey. Touring full-time today, Bob works with flexible groups of fine musicians, including The Bob Margolin Blues Band and The VizzTone Blues Revue — a flexible revue of artists from the VizzTone Label Group. In 2011, they headlined Blues festivals with Matt Hill (winner 2011 BMA for Best New Artist Debut), Gaye Adegbalola, and Mac Arnold. VizzTone Revues may be booked by BMA Tours to order, for size and choice of VizzTone artists: Bob also tours around the world with: Al Chesis & The Deltasonics in Colorado, the Jason King Band in Nevada, Enrico Polverari and Mississippi Mood in Italy, The Mike Sponza Band in Central Europe, Bonny B in Switzerland, the Tota Blues Band in Spain, as well as the surviving Chicago Blues legends like Hubert Sumlin who are his friends and musical family. As a band leader, Bob has recorded two albums for Powerhouse Records, three for Alligator, one for Blind Pig, and one for Telarc, The Bob Margolin All-Star Blues Jam, nominated for a 2004 W.C. Handy Award for "Traditional Blues Album of the Year” and another nomination for “Blues Album of the Year.” In 2007, Bob released In North Carolina for his own Steady Rollin’ Records. Bob is a partner in the VizzTone Label Group which has released 40 CDs as of 2011. Bob has also appeared as a guest or sideman on dozens of Blues albums since the 1970s. Bob’s latest CD, released in November 2011, is Blues All Over the World. It was inspired by an April 2011 tour with The Mike Sponza Band from Italy. Bob and the band had such rapport onstage and they excited audiences so they recorded a studio CD together. Bob chose his best original songs, added his guitar to some of Mike’s originals, and they did two songs that audiences in Central Europe loved on their live shows. As a bonus track, there’s a heartfelt home recording of Robert Johnson’s “Love In Vain” featuring VizzTone Label Group partner Richard “Rosy” Rosenblatt on harp. Bob has also produced re-issues of Muddy Waters’ late-‘70s Blue Sky albums for Sony/Legacy as well as 2008’s Breakin’ It Up, Breakin’ It Down, from previously-unreleased tapes of Muddy’s 1977 shows with Johnny Winter and James Cotton. Bob played guitar on the original shows and albums. The first, "Muddy Mississippi Waters Live Legacy Edition" was released in September 2003 and was nominated for a Handy Award for “Historical Recording of the Year." Breakin’ It Up, Breakin’ It Down won that award in 2008. In 2011, Bob published his first eBook, Steady Rollin’. It features updated columns he has written for Blues Revue, snapshots, and intentional Blues fiction. It is available through the largest online eBook distribution outlets.