Skip to main content

Paul Tillman Smith Big Belly Blues Band


Paul Tillman Smith
Big Belly Blues Band

THE ORIGINAL BIG BELLY BLUES BAND AND CD

Image may contain: 1 person
The Big Belly Blues Band originated from a blues song co-written by songwriter/drummer Paul Tillman Smith and Jazz Diva Faye Carol called the "Big Belly Blues" in Oakland, Ca., 2002. Guys from the local Sunday jam session at the Bluesville Jazz Club in Oakland California decided to form a Blues Band to honor bay area icon's ailing pianist Ed Kelly and vocalist George Hubbard. Jam session drummer Smith raised the idea that the band should do an album featuring the many talents of the band because they had all been friends for years and could now share in a special project. The band used the money from the jam sessions to pay for studio costs along with investments from friends. A retired bay area teacher, bassist and trombonist Harley White was brought in to pen horn arrangements along with band trumpeter director Kahlil Shaheed of the Oaktown Youth Jazz Workshops. The album features six original songs by Smith along with some well-known cover tunes. 
George Hubbard's rendition of the Horace Silver classic "Soul Mates" is a favorite along with the "Big Belly Blues" which features a superb piano solo by Mr. Kelly. 

Other bay area heavy weights who also performed on the CD include blues drummer Larry Vann who shared the drumming work with Tillman Smith, Charley Spikes on vocals and guitar, and Ron Belcher on electric bass. Also assisting on piano with Ed Kelly was the young and budding Kevin Stewart, younger brother of internationally renowned saxophonist Robert Stewart.

The recording also includes Harley White on trombone, tuba and bowed bass, Joe Thornton on Sax, Richard Meyer on conga and harmonica, plus Danny Armstrong on the trombone solos. After a couple of months of rehearsal and recording, a female vocal group called the "Belly Buttons" was formed to sing backgrounds featuring Kate Shaheed, Judith Harris-Coleman, Carla Green, Aletha Archie with a special guest performance by the legendary Freddie Hughes. ( A local rapper /newsman and current editor of the Oakland Tribune, Martin Reynolds. joined in on the New Orleans tinged song "Good Thang" adding a unique modern twist to a widely established party idiom.)

The Big Belly Blues Band went on to enjoy many, many dates around the Bay Area for about 3 years culminating at the re-opening of the historic "Sweets Ballroom" in downtown Oakland in 2004. The late Ed Kelly and George Hubbard live on in the Big Belly Blues Band!

A historic and original band that preserves East Bay music history, subsequent members since the recording include:
saxophonist Richard Howell and Charles Mc Neal, pianist Glenn Pearson and Michael "Spiderman" Robinson, bassist Tony Sanders, drummer / vocalist Minor Williams, vocalist Kenny Washington, plus many others. 

Writen by by Paul Tillman Smith

Order your copy now at Chump Change.com

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

JEROME JOHNSON - COMMUNITY SOLAR ENERGY DEMONSTRATION HOUSE

Update: Elder Jerome Johnson has passed away. We are taken aback with sadness. There was no support for his plight in continuing to do community work. He was very angry going thru the ageing process, and his dream of building community was deferred, and ignored. It is so sad how so many elders are treated. Especially, elders like Mr. Johnson who gave so much. His wish was to have the solar house made into a museum.  Jerome Johnson! J erome Johnson is 86 years of age. He exemplifies our society’s disregard towards our ageing population. How our ageing population is treated and ignored. As throwaway items in society. Where elder citizens are told you are old and youth is new). They are not appreciated, and their life long work is disrespected and in many cases seen as irrelevant.    Mr. Johnson is a People’s pioneer in how-to create and invent for the everyday citizen and community. He developed the solar cooker in the 70s, and created a demonstration community s
2 comments
Read more

Palestine - Culture, History.

Palestine Culture , History. What you will not learn on the evening news.  The Wikipedia Book Creator is not operative. Alkebulan Wiki Edit and Study Group have decided to use blogspot instead until Wikipedia Book Creator gets reinstalled. Palestine History Map Gaza Before & After Bombing Attacks.  During  Sheltering in Place we used the Wikipedia Book Creator to create curriculum for learning, research, and discussions.  We had wanted to compile information about Palestine from existing Wikipedia articles. Since most of us know very little about that part of the world; its history, culture, and struggles.   We did a Wikipedia book using the book creator for Ukraine for Dummies. So we decided to do the same for Palestine. The legendary news mainstream does not educate us in ways other than with their agenda as to how we should think.   I wanted to create an article to show what existed in Palestine before the bombing.  We have to take it upon ourselves to self and group educate
Post a Comment
Read more

Brother Zulu Zimmerman, also known as Rosvelt 'Zulu' Bynum

59 Years Later Brother Zulu Zimmerman-Organizer Revolutionary Ideology and Black Psychology Let me introduce myself as Brother Zulu who has traveled throughout America looking for ways and means to understand the position that we were in as Black people in the past, in the present, and probably today and tomorrow. Many of us have taken the position to march and pray and to go to jail for freedom that someone else decides to give to us because of his wish to remain in charge of his slaves. I can tell you now, 59 years later that we as a people are no more closer to solving our problems today than we were yesterday.  A lot of people who came here among us are gone today. These Black revolutionaries had good ideas on how to solve the Black man's problems, but the ideas  left without a blue print of how to win or how to solve the problems that we had then, and still have today. The Black man as a slave is suffering economically, politically
Post a Comment
Read more