Coming up on The Blues & Beyond on WXPN:

Sunday, November 22, 2009 (12 Midnight)
and Monday, November 23, 2009 (10PM)

Blues & Beyond #177: "Iron Curtain Blues" - - our own take on the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, with recordings of East German blues bands made during the time of Communist rule. In the 1970s and 80s, J. B. Lenoir's great album Alabama Blues was in print only in East Germany. We'll hear some songs from it on this show, and some jazz flute from Nicole Mitchell and Her Black Earth Ensemble, as well as Mark Weinstein from his album with Omar Sosa, and music from Cuban percussionist Miguel Diaz, known as Angá. 

Now Streaming:

Blues & Beyond #176: Sneak preview of Sugar Blue's new album Threshold. This album won't be out until January. Sugar Blue is one of the most innovative blues harp players out there and is known for playing with The Rolling Stones on songs such as "Miss You." Also, great harmonica music from Charlie Sayles, from a great -- but long out-of-print -- album, and jazz harmonica player Toots Thielemans with Mongo Santamaria and Dizzy Gillespie. Latin jazz from trombonist Wayne Wallace and singer Kristina, whom he produced-- and a blues cut from the patron saint of this program-- you know, the sax player born September 23, 1926, in Hamlet NC... [Listen]

Blues & Beyond #175: New blues from the frequent-flyer bluesman Eugene "Hideaway" Bridges, who once in a while flies back to his home state Texas, and recently recorded a live album there called Live In San Antonio. The album, like all of his work, is issued overseas, but you'll hear several songs from it on this show. We'll also hear a few songs from singer-songwriter Lynn Biddick, who plays piano and dulcimer, drawing from both jazz and folk roots. Bridges and Biddick will give us a matching-opposite pair of songs about someone who only wants to dance and someone who totally doesn't want to dance. Also: Tuvan throat singing, a distinctive style of producing overtones and multiple melodies vocally from Huun Huur Tu, a group from the Tuvan region of southern Siberia, from their new album with producer Carmen Rizzo, and from one of their older discs -- plus some Tuvan-influenced overtone singing from Linda Waterfall, from her album Welcome To The Dark. Also new music from jazz pianist Vijay Iyer and bluesman Joe Louis Walker. [Listen]

Miss a show, or want to listen again? You can always tune in to streams of the two most recent programs for The Blues Show and The Blues & Beyond.

About The Blues & Beyond and Jonny Meister:

The Blues & Beyond is a weekly hour of blues music and some of its musical relatives. The family tree includes jazz, old and new, and folk music from around the world, and contemporary musical explorations - music with energy, texture, spirit, soul, and meaning.

Host Jonny Meister has been playing the blues on WXPN since March 1977. Meister grew up with old blues records in the house. His father played boogie woogie on the piano, which Jonny learned at about the age of 12. Later he played in rock bands and did a few solo gigs as a singer-songwriter. His interest in blues grew and he became especially interested in the history of the music, a history not always revealed by the rock musicians who drew heavily on the blues and their promoters.

Jonny spent a week with the family of the late, great blues musician J. B. Lenoir in 1979, and he was one of the consultants for the Wim Wenders film The Soul Of A Man which featured Lenoir, in the recent PBS film series The Blues. He won the "Keeping The Blues Alive" award for work in Public Radio for The Blues Show in 2000 and a "Best of Philly" award from Philadelphia Magazine in 1996 for "Best Local Radio Show".