Right after the first of this year, Nola Blue Records released the album Going Back Home.  After careers spanning six decades, Billboard (Magazine) Music Awards (BMA) nominee Blues legend Benny Turner and Grammy Award winning co-producer Cash McCall combined their talents to release this collection of Chicago treasures.  The two began their friendship over sixty years ago in Chicago, Illinois.  They reunited, revisiting their roots and the songs they once played nightly in the Windy City clubs.  Benny Turner began his musical career playing guitar, bass and singing background vocals for various Gospel groups including The Soul Stirrers.  He played and toured with his brother's band.  His brother?  Freddie King!  Freddie King gave us such memorable hits such as Hide Away, I'm Tore Down and Taking Care Of Business.  Benny played with Freddie until his death in 1976, becoming deeply depressed afterwards.  After two years of seclusion, he re-emerged, joining Mighty Joe Young's band, playing with him for eight years.  He later moved to New Orleans, becoming band leader and playing for Marva Wright's band for twenty years.  Benny later went solo, paying homage to his brother with songs like See See Baby.  Benny Turner hit it big along the Carolina coastlines and beyond with Breakin' News and, on a lesser scale, I Can't Leave.  Then in 2019, right at the first of  the year, Cash McCall came rolla, rolla, rolla, rolla, rolla 'round teaming with Benny Turner to release Going Back Home.  I am sure that you are familiar with Cash McCall, who gave us the 1967 hit, That Lucky Old Sun, and the year before, When You Wake Up.  Christened Morris Dillison, Jr. at birth, he cut the demo of When You Wake Up, being shocked to learn later of its release billed to one “Cash McCall”.  The song became a national Rhythm & Blue hit, sending the newly christened Cash McCall on tour with the Dick Clark's Caravan of Stars.  Going Back Home offers us a number of songs from which to choose.  One that you might find interesting is Bring It On Home.  Guest vocalist and three-time Grammy nominee Billy Branch lends his vocals to this song that he had previously recorded.  Gospel singer Carla Davis takes the lead on Got To Find A Way.  Cash McCall takes the lead on The Dirty Dozens, a song written and recorded by Little Johnny Jones as Dirty By The Dozen aka Sweet Little Women.  These songs are all good.  However, it is Benny Turner's take Willie Mabon's Poison Ivy that will bring the dancers onto the floor.  Look for this one to move into the charts at some time in the future.  Benny Turner and Cash McCall's Going Back Home from Nola Blue is available everywhere that sells recorded music.  Here is a little trivia about the album.  Going Back Home was recorded and engineered at Ecko Studios in Memphis, Tennessee by Till Palmer, as well as at Music Shed Studios in New Orleans, Louisiana.

The Hardway Connection's It Must Be Love broke out during SOS in 1999, becoming one of the hottest songs during the close of the decade, capturing the National Shag Dance Song of the Year during the Carolina Beach Music Awards, known then as the Cammy Awards.  The Washington, DC group made their debut appearance in the South in front of the Carolina Beach Music fans during that year's Cammy Awards weekend.  It Must Be Love went on, leading the way for future mega-hits such as Party 'Til The Lights Go Out.  With co-lead singers Jerome Mackall and Toni Love, Hardway went on to give the Beach and Shag fans and dancers more, like Dirty O Man, with Toni taking the lead, and Eyes On You, with lead vocals by Jerome.  Songwriter, guitarist and vocalist Robert Owens takes lead of the band, keeping the group's members together going on nearly two and one-half decades, first gaining recognition in a Memphis blues competition in 1994.  As they did nearly fifteen years ago, The Hardway Connection brought their new summer-released album, I Don't Wanna Go, for the Carolina Beach Music Awards, which will be available during the Spring Safari of SOS featuring the hot song Strong Woman, which is already being played for Beach Music and Old School Rhythm and Blues lovers near and far.  Toni Love, once again, carries the strong lead vocals for the rising hit.  Jerome Mackall returns with his highly recognizable voice for True Love.  Don't think The Drifters' True Love.  Don't think Glen Frey's True Love.   Nor should you think of those recorded by Black Diamond, Carolina Soul Band, nor Pat Boone.  Think Hardway Connection with the band's unique sound, which True Love could very well be a future hit for the DC group.  There is also a nice ballad your dancers may enjoy, which is appropriately titled Hardway Body.  Other songs to check out are With Out U and O Not Again.  I Don't Wanna Go is filled with great music.  This album is available where ever Beach Music or Rhythm & Blues music is sold.  You can also visit The Hardway Connection page on Facebook.    

Kwik Kuts

  Here are some cuts from various artists' new or relatively new releases that should attract steppers out to the hardwoods.

  Left With A Broken Heart by William Dell & The Wee Jams.  Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania's William Dell & The Wee Jams has released their latest, (In The) Big City.  The first single released from the new CD was the title track, (I Lost My Love In The) Big City.  The song was doing well in the Carolinas.   Then the album was released.  After the album release, the deejays began playing Left With A Broken Heart, a song from Marv Johnson.   The Wee Jams started out as The In Crowd, changing over to The Wee Jams when William Dell joined the group in the band's hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  Other members of the group are Gordie Herbst, an accomplished guitarist, Dave Billingsley and Louis, aka "The Gent", Cioppa.  To The Weejams' loss and our loss, The Gent joined The Choir in Heaven on November 3.  The band is fulfilled with second tenor Dan Fera, vocalist and keyboardist Tom O'Hara, drummer and percussionist Phil "Phox" Seretti and the multi-talented trumpeter Hal Weiss.  William Dell retired from The Wee Jams several years ago but filled in for one of the members who was ill  for an extended period of time.  He has never looked back and is enjoying his second career in the same job.

Groupie Girls by Jay Hammer.  On the heels of his hit I Ain't Leaving Mississippi from his 2015 release, I'm The Right Man,  Ecko Records has released Jaye Hammer's newest.  Double Trouble, the title of the new CD, carries twelve selections from which to choose Jaye's next hit.  My choice would be Groupie Girls.  It is a little long, as most songs are these days, but can be faded faded out for a proper time of a shag song.  Double Trouble also carries a pretty good line dance song, Bootie Slide.   Check that out, also.  Jaye Hammer hails from Clarksdale, Mississippi where he absorbed the sounds of the area's Blues scenes including the region's Delta Blues.