So I’m getting pretty excited right now about playing tonight. It’ll be nice to play a whole night with just the band…no jammers. Mike Porter always brings something special when we play. I think it’s been a long time since the five of us have played together…so I’m really looking forward.

The sad news today was that Etta James passed away. I feel like a lot of the blues idols have been passing lately. Pinetop Perkins and Willie “Big Eyes” Smith passed last year. I’m very glad that we got the chance to see those guys and actually play with Willie Smith before we lost them.

We’re very lucky in that regard – in the almost 9 years that the band has been around, we’ve been able to meet and play with a lot of pretty big names in the blues. Big and up-and-coming. Tab Benoit. Larry McCray. Studebaker John. Watermelon Slim. Eric Lindell. Willie “Big Eyes” Smith. Bob Stroger. Eddie King.

Anyway. We’ve been lucky. And maybe we’ll get lucky again tonight. Harper and Motor City Josh are great blues artists and it would really be a lot of fun to jam with them. We’ll see…