Thanks Marty, today we’re going to hear a musician I played with 30 years ago who sent me some songs recently recorded.

Back in the nineties a guitarist called Duke was jamming with Hairy Larry and The Flying Hungarians. He even played at Blues Fest. A great guy and a great musician.

Now, 30 years later, I get an email from John Good. Duke is his stagename. John Good is his name. I probably knew that back at the time but I only remembered Duke.

And he sent me two CDs recorded by John Good and Friends. Excellent work played by excellent musicians from Little Rock, Arkansas.

It all started one year at Blues Fest. John Shepherd played the first part of his set without a band and Vivian loved it. Well, I did too, so I got in touch with John about recording a solo album and although it was a little bit outside of his comfort zone he was game.

Now I’m going to have to try to find that Blues Fest performance. It was probably in 2008 because …

I recorded John Shepherd at HairyLarryLand on February 21, 2009 and March 21, 2009. All tracks are John Shepherd, guitar and vocals, with no overdubs.

So it’s essentially a live album.

And he wrote all the songs.

We called the album “So Low” and it’s just killing all the way through. I picked the song “I Want To Be The One” to play today because of it’s deep lyric and exceptional blues guitar.

He showed up to play with just a guitar case. He said, “Don’t worry, there’s an amp in there too”. And sure enough when he opened his case there was a Pignose amp. I had John set up to sing in one room and I put the amp in another room with a close mic for sound isolation. So I was able to get John’s vocals right on top something that can be difficult to do when he’s singing with a loud band.

This is Hairy Larry inviting you to enjoy Something Blue every Saturday night at ten. This week we’re featuring Manuzik, Javiar Martin Boix, DRDJEKILL, DIGDug, and Gavin Gamboa. For more about the show visit the Something Blue website at sbblues.com.

Don’t miss Something Blue, Saturday night at 10:00 PM Central, at kasu.org.

Thanks Marty, today we’re going to hear a great Arkansas jazz pianist play everybody’s favorite song.

I can remember, back in the day, when I used to watch the Art Porter Trio play jazz on AETN. Older listeners will remember a time when all the world’s music wasn’t at your fingertips and it wasn’t that often that you got to hear a piano trio on television.

Art Porter led a full life with church, family, music education, and performance, often intertwined. That is he started playing at church and later he played at church with his own family, who he taught to play. He also taught in Little Rock, Arkansas, at Horace Mann High School, Parkview High School, and Philander Smith College while performing nights with a jazz trio that sometimes included his son, Art Porter Jr., and sometimes a guest, Pharoah Sanders.

My friend, Suzanne Michell, loved his music and she sang with him as a guest. He even played with his long time friend, Bill Clinton, and Art Porter and his son performed “Amazing Grace” at Bill Clinton’s first inauguration in 1993.

When I’m about to play this song I say, “Ok now, here’s everybody’s favorite song, “Summertime”.

So now, here’s Art Porter, a great man and a genius on jazz piano playing everybody’s favorite song, “Summertime”.

DJ Hairy Larry Presents Common Time Playing Autumn Leaves
From the Archives Of Something Blue 2025-03-09

Thanks Marty, today we’re going to hear ASU students play my favorite song.

Common Time was a working jazz combo, playing every week. I was in school with them and they all helped me, playing at my composition recitals. Of course I invited them to play at the bandshell.

Playing in Common Time On June 3, 2017 were

Josh Carter – sax
Alex Ditto – guitar
Spencer Rawlins – bass
and
Chris Isom – drums

Although they were still in college in 2017, these are all top rank musicians, still playing today.

I can’t tell you what a joy it is to hear young musicians deliver the goods playing jazz standards. But I’ll try. Their set was tight with exciting solos and ensemble work. And they were playing some of my favorite songs. There’s something about live jazz that gets the message across. The audience loved them.

So now, recorded on June 3, 2017, at the Craighead Forest Bandshell here’s Common Time playing “Autumn Leaves”.

This is Hairy Larry inviting you to enjoy Something Blue every Saturday night at ten. This week we’re featuring Tom La Meche, Steve Lawson, and NJHB. For more about the show visit the Something Blue website at sbblues.com.

Don’t miss Something Blue, Saturday night at 10:00 PM CST, at kasu.org.

This is Hairy Larry inviting you to enjoy Something Blue every Saturday night at ten. This week we’re featuring Jazz Alliance, Chet Baker, and Orrin Evans. For more about the show visit the Something Blue website at sbblues.com.

Don’t miss Something Blue, Saturday night at 10:00 PM CST, at kasu.org.

Orrin Evans – Liberation Blues
orrinevanssmoke.bandcamp.com/album/liberation-blues

Chet Baker – The Italian Sessions
www.discogs.com/release/3078028-Chet-Baker-The-Italian-Sessions

Jazz Alliance – Live at Jonesboro Public Library on 2011-09-27
archive.org/details/ja2011-09-27/

DJ Hairy Larry Presents Hairy Larry Playing Noumenology
From The Archives Of Something Blue 2025-01-12

Thanks Marty, today I’m going to improvise jazz piano on a song inspired by Immanuel Kant.

Now Immanuel Kant was an influential philosopher back in the 18th century and he remains influential today. Kant created a dichotomy between phenomenon and noumena where phenomenon applies to things we can perceive with the senses and noumena are things that cannot be perceived. So I wrote this song called “Noumenolgy” about the study of things that cannot be perceived.

Thanks Marty, today we’re going to hear an Arkansas musician play all the instruments over a drum track on his arrangement of “Something”.

And not just anything either. I’m talking about the George Harrison song “Something”, one of the most famous and most popular of the Beatles’ songs.

To say Jerry Bone is a fixture in Arkansas music is an understatement. He played bass with Mark Sallings and The Famous Unknowns when they were the house band at B.B. King’s Club on Beale Street. He also played with Tony Spinner.

He has a bit of history with KASU too playing with David Lynn Jones, Gerry Moss, and The Lockhouse Orchestra.

Besides playing bass for other musicians Jerry Bone also plays exceptional guitar and has released his own albums. His album, “Yankin’ The Covers” is very well produced, which shouldn’t be surprising since he runs his own recording studio in Hardy, Arkansas.

I even played songs he recorded for Corte’ on Something Blue recorded by Jerry Bone at Bare Bones Recording.

On the song we’re going to hear today Jerry is playing everything except the drum track. The song is part of his “Scattered And Smothered” collection.

So here’s Jerry Bone now playing the Beatles song, “Something”.

Thanks Marty, today we’re going to celebrate the days of Auld Lang Syne.

Ok, I strive for variety in my From The Archives Of Something Blue podcasts. Fortunately I have a huge backlog of recordings in many styles of music.

This is the first time I’ve ever played the exact same band playing at the exact same concert one week apart.

But when I found “What Child Is This” on a KASU Jazz For The Holidays concert I noticed that they ended the show with “Auld Lang Syne”. And you know, New Years follows Christmas every year so.

The song is based on Scottish folk songs. I quote.

Robert Burns sent a copy of the original song to the Scots Musical Museum in 1788 with the remark, “The following song, an old song, of the olden times, and which has never been in print, nor even in manuscript until I took it down from an old man.”*

Much of the lyric was actually written by Robert Burns.

The first recording of the song was made on wax cylinder in 1898.*

Playing that night were.

Lisa Ahia – vocals
Gary Gazaway – trumpet
Joy Sanford – piano
Tim Crouch – violin
Robert Bowlin – guitar
David Eckert – bass
and
John Long – drums