BluesTrotter.com

These days, technology is always available for any inspiring musician to record, create, and even
duplicate CDs. The duplication of CDs will involve CD-R media. CD-R media prices have dropped a lot over the last several years, making them affordable for anyone who wants to use them.

If your band is ready to start selling CDs, your best option may be to have your CDs replicated. Replicated CDs are the same CDs that you’ll find in music stores by major label artists. They all have excellent artwork printed on the CD inserts, nice tray card inserts, screened art on the CD, and they are even shrink wrapped.

The retail CDs that you buy aren’t duplicated, they are replicated. This means that an exact replica of your master CD has been stamped out on all of the other CDs. If you are serious about selling your music for profit, replication is the way to go. The fact is, most stores simply won’t sell duplicated CDs. Duplicated CDs can be against the law, which is the main reason retail stores simply won’t carry them. Replicated CDs let the stores know that the CD is legit, and they will almost always carry those CDs.

For musicians and inspiring bands, CD duplication can tend to be a bit more expensive than that of replication. To duplicate CDs, you need a computer with a CD burner, your CD-R media, cases, and a lot of man hours. With CD replication, you can get many more copies, professional artwork, a barcode for inventory, and cases included. Replication is obviously to expensive for those looking to simply back up pictures and data on a personal computer, although the prices are just right for musicians looking to make profit off of their CDs.

I’ve been buying watercolor paintings for decorating jobs. I’ve found some really nice pieces on eBay. I recently bought a watercolor painting by an artist named Y. Gianni. The painting was produced in 1890 and depicted an Italian village. It was very vivid and pleasing to look at. I was trying to find just the right watercolor painting for a client when I came across one by an artist named William B. Gillette. The colors were pastel, ranging from soft greens, browns, blues, purples and peach. The scene was that of a pebble beach and crashing waves. The hills on one side gave the beach a feeling of privacy. It really spoke to me and my client loved it.

There was a cabin that I was decorating for a discerning client that needed one more piece of art to complete the look I was going for. I found a wonderful watercolor painting that fit just right. It had a lot of mossy green colors and there was a lake with a lake house. The artist turned out to be Charles Dickens Wader. He is a well known artist from New York.

I have a client that collects art from Romeo Tabuena. I was fortunate to find two watercolors that the owners had purchased directly from Tabuena in the fifties when they lived in San Miguel. The owner settled with me for an even thousand dollars. My client was thrilled.

A lawyer friend of mine hired me to redecorate his office. I had a lot of fun putting in things that reflected his interests and tastes. He loves polo and I found a wonderful watercolor painting of two polo players on horses. My friend liked the paintings and they have become a conversation piece in the new office.

My friend’s dad liked the office I decorated so much that he commissioned me to redecorate his office. He is a hunter and I found a really nice watercolor painting of several mallard ducks flying above a marsh. The painting was done by Jim Killen and he has painted for Ducks Unlimited. His work is well known and respected. My friend’s father really liked the find and proudly hung it in his reception area.

I was really unsure where I was going to find suitable art for the program director’s office at a local radio station. When I went to visit with him for a consultation, his office was absolutely stark. I like watercolor paintings and that is my first choice for buying art. I found a fantastic watercolor painting of Bob Marley surrounded by sunflowers. It was awesome and perfect for this job.

There is a musician that I was working for a couple of years ago that wanted their studio decorated with paintings from the artist Raoul Dufy. Raoul Dufy made a whole series of paintings called Hommage to Mozart. I was able to purchase three watercolor paintings in this series. I have always been on the lookout for more paintings to purchase for this client.

A friend of mine asked me to find a watercolor painting to give to her mother. I found one by Henry H. Parker that was of cattle in landscape. The frame was what caught my eye at first because it is heavy gilt. It would never hang in my house, but it looked great at my friend’s mother’s house.

Birmingham Sam, Texas Slim, Johnny Lee, Boogie Man, and John Lee Booker all had one thing in common, they were the same man. His real name is John Lee Hooker and he started recording in 1948 under numerous names, outwitting contractual obligations in the unbridled recording operations of the era. Making his biggest mark in Detroit, John Lee is probably the most recorded man alive.

Hooker recorded for more than two dozen labels.

Handy traveled the country at the turn of the last century in black minstral shows. He came off the road and became a music professor at Alabama A&M and then quit to go back on the road. He made more money as a minstral!

John Lee and Canned Heat recorded together in 1970.

John Lee learned guitar down home in Mississippi. He saw country Blues legends Charley Patton, Leadbelly, and Blind Lemon Jefferson pass though his hometown.

The Doors recorded “Crawlin’ King Snake”.

Hooker style is easy to recognize. Usually one chord with a pulsing rhythmic groove chugging along, random vocal phrasing that the less-than-hip would call mistakes, and open-tuned guitar with a choppy percussive sound. His lyrics sound spontaneous and unrelated, but they are all Blues statements that tie the music together.

John Lee Hooker is in the Blues Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

John Lee Hooker died in his sleep in San Fransisco in June of 2001.

B.B. King by Encyclopedia Britannica
(Born September 16, 1925, Itta Bena, near Indianola, Mississippi, U.S.)

American guitarist and singer who was a principal figure in the development of blues and from whose style leading popular musicians drew inspiration.

King was reared in the Mississippi delta, and gospel music in church was the earliest influence on his singing. To his own impassioned vocal calls, King played lyrical single-string guitar responses with a distinctive vibrato; his guitar style was influenced by T-Bone Walker, by delta blues players (including his cousin Bukka White), and by such jazz guitarists as Django Reinhardt and Charlie Christian. He worked for a time as a disk jockey in Memphis, Tennessee, where he acquired the name B.B. (for Blues Boy) King. In 1951 he made a hit record of “Three O’Clock Blues,” which led to virtually continuous tours of clubs and theatres throughout the country. He often played 300 or more one-night stands a year with his 13-piece band. A long succession of hits, including “Every Day I Have the Blues,” “Sweet Sixteen,” and “The Thrill Is Gone,” enhanced his popularity. By the late 1960s rock guitarists acknowledged his influence and priority; they introduced King and his guitar, Lucille, to a broader white public, who until then had heard blues chiefly in derivative versions. King’s autobiography, Blues All Around Me, written with David Ritz, was published in 1996.