​Etta James, almost universally praised as one of the finest voices of our era, has passed away at 73. Ironically, Ms. James had been discovered and recorded by rhythm and blues pioneer Johnny Otis, who passed away only two days ago. Ms. James, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993, and has been honored numerous times by the Grammys and other halls of fame.

James grew up singing in church, where she formed her first all-girl doo-wop group. Otis signed her to record the "answer song" to a hit he had produced for Hank Ballard, "Work With Me, Annie." Otis changed the group's name to The Peaches and recorded James singing "Dance With Me, Henry." The song quickly raced to No. 1 on the Rhythm and Blues chart and was instrumental in securing the group an opening slot on a tour with Little Richard.

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​Johnny Otis, one of the creators of rock and roll but primarily remembered as the godfather of rhythm and blues, has passed away at 90. Otis died at his home in the Los Angeles suburb of Altadena.

A consummate band leader and showman who was of Greek descent and changed his actual last name, Veliotes, to Otis because it sounded "more black," Otis was instrumental in spreading black music to white audiences via his performances, records, and radio show. Not only was he one of the top performers of his era, he had a huge influence on the shape of RnB and rock and roll as a producer.

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Yeah, it's like that.

​Once again our mailbox has filled to overflowing with CDs (and zip files). The desk looks like a Three Mile Island nuclear meltdown of jewel cases, and the entire room is littered with (largely unread) piles of hype-and-tout. And while much of what comes over the transom is less than exciting, we'd be remiss if we didn't let our kind readers know about some of the good stuff that will most likely go unnoticed and unreported. Here are five new items you may want to dig up at your local record dealer or online (shame).

Rufus Thomas - Do The Funky Chicken - Concord Music/Stax -- This wonderful remastered reissue features some mighty, mighty sides from one of the true early godfathers of soul. These songs will be familiar to aficianados, but for someone discovering Thomas -- he passed away in 2000 -- via this back door, it will be a perfect introduction. The first four tracks alone -- "Do The Funky Chicken," "Let The Good Times Roll," "Sixty Minute Man," "Lookin' For A Love" -- would make this a collector's item.

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Photos courtesy of thundersoulmovie.com

How many high-school bands can you name that had their own publicity shots?

​It's hard enough to believe that a single high-school stage band could win 42 out of 46 competitions entered throughout the '70s. It's even harder to believe that the same band that won those competitions did so by playing nothing but the rawest renditions of "Super Bad" and other classic funk songs of the era.

Band Director Conrad "Prof" Johnson came to the impoverished Kashmere Gardens school in and built a contest-decimating army of musicians from neighborhood kids called the Kashmere Stage Band. Many would go on to college with music scholarships, some became professional musicians, but all remember Prof and the life lessons he taught them.

Director Mark Landsman caught wind of the Kashmere Stage Band and Conrad "Prof" Johnson and set out to make a documentary to tell their story. The result is Thunder Soul, produced by Jaime Foxx. The film opens in Houston today.

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Photos by Brett Koshkin

New Orleans' Ponderosa Festival thrives on 45s.

​Maybe it's age or my ever-increasing tailspin of stagnating taste, but I just don't find music festivals palatable in the slightest these days. Multi-day romps to summertime smorgasboards is for the birds. No matter if it takes place in Chicago or Austin, it's always hotter than Hades, the sound tends to be questionable and the mixture of mammoth crowds and massive stages leaves the user with a less than personal experience.

Then there's New Orleans' Ponderosa Stomp. Instead of concentrating on booking tomorrow's It bands, the petite, two-day nonprofit festival concentrates on highlighting artists whose contributions to music generally can't be heard on your FM dial. That's because for most of the performers' musical contributions and heydays happened some 40-odd years ago.

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Photos by Marco Torres

​Check out all of our coverage from ACL 2011, including our hottest crowd shots and our slideshow from Saturday with Stevie Wonder and Alison Krauss.

Stevie Wonder
Austin City Limits Music Festival
Bud Light Stage, Zilker Park, Austin
September 17, 2011

Stevie Wonder says we're all part of the same family. Saturday night at Austin City Limits, he had about 45,000 (we're guessing) Jesus children of America in the palms of his well-exercised hands. However many people it was, Wonder's audience took up the radia of the Google+ stage hundreds of yards away, as well as the hordes closer into his own Bud Light Stage.

Wonder came onstage gradually, stealthily emerging with a keytar as his band - which was a small orchestra, really - warmed up and then worked over a cheerful vamp that was part funk lick, part nursery rhyme, and eventually resolved into Wonder's old Motown pal Marvin Gaye's "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)."

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Marc Brubaker

Archie Bell at the Continental Club, September 3

​In certainly one of the more interesting local items to come in over courthouse.com, a Web site that reports on notable, unusual or legally significant filings in the federal courts, Houston songwriter and performer Archie Bell has filed suit against monumental soul-disco powerhouse Philadelphia International Records (PIR) and the hit songwriting and producing sister company Gamble-Huff Productions in the Houston division of the U.S. District Court.

PIR and Gamble-Huff are the corporate vehicles for the songwriting team of Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, the duo that single-handedly invented what became known as "Philly Soul," and together wrote or produced over 170 gold records. Gamble & Huff were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008.

Along with his band The Drells, Bell had a Billboard No. 1 and a gold record with the 1968 Houston-centric single "Tighten Up." After picking up the single for distribution, and following several other charting singles collected onto the Tighten Up album, Atlantic rushed out follow-up album I Can't Stop Dancing that same year. Among other songs and production work, Gamble and Huff wrote Dancing's title track, which reached No. 5 R&B and No. 9 pop.

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Photos by Marc Brubaker

Three Mustangs & A Stallion (clockwise from top left): Andre Williams, Roy Head, Archie Bell, Little Joe Washington

​Wild Men of Rock feat. Andre Williams, Archie Bell, Roy Head, Little Joe Washington, the Allen Oldies Band & special guest Sundance Head
Continental Club
September 3, 2011

Question: How much "Mustang Sally" is too much "Mustang Sally"?

It's never been deconstructed David Allan Coe-style, but Aftermath is of the opinion that "Mustang Sally" might be the perfect R&B song. It's about one of the best hunks of rubber, steel and chrome to ever roll off a Detroit assembly line, and the mayhem that ensues when the naïve narrator hands over the keys to a "signifyin' woman." It's dusted with B-3 organ, has one of the all-time great call-and-response choruses in "ride, Sally, ride," and that classic bass line is pitched at the exact speed of a '65 'Stang on the prowl.

Hell, give Aftermath a bass guitar and about 15 minutes, and we can probably call up that bass line from our days as a member of the Long Walking Band's rhythm section, when we used to play "Mustang Sally" a few times a month at Austin dive bars like Charlie's Attic and the 311 Club. But nobody wants to hear that, and even in the hands of seasoned pros, "Mustang Sally" three times in one night is probably pushing it.

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Lightnin' Hopkins marker photo by Matthew Keever

​It was a real pleasure for Rocks Off and Lonesome Onry and Mean to bring you this week's Houston Press cover story, "Old School," but it was also bittersweet. Not to put too fine a point on it, but none of these people are getting any younger - although the men and women of "Old School" have exhibited a remarkable amount of stamina and longevity, illness, infirmity and old age in general have already claimed many of their peers.

That's why it was also nice to report that Houston may finally be overcoming its notorious allergy to saluting its rich musical past. Within the past year, enterprising individuals and nonprofits were able to secure (read: raise the private funds necessary to pay for) Texas state historical markers for country-blues immortal Lightnin' Hopkins, historic Third Ward venue Eldorado Ballroom and seminal Fifth Ward R&B label Duke/Peacock Records.

One of the more intriguing ideas on the table is creating a blues-themed "Walk of Fame," a series of plaques or markers patterned after the Mississippi Blues Trail and, of course, all those stars on Hollywood Boulevard. Two possible locations that have been mentioned are downtown around Discovery Green and the streets of Midtown around the Continental Club compound.

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Rocks Off sent reporter Matthew Keever to last week's "Old School" cover shoot at The Big Easy. His assignment was to talk to as many musicians as he could, and have them finish the sentence "Blues is..."

Video by Francisco Montes

Little Joe Washington: "The blues is music. Music is blues. Your experiences, whatever. Blues, just like classical or ballroom dancing, is music. Like jazz, you don't know what you're going to play when you play the blues. The blues is music."

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