Retrospect 2006 - Preview 2007
At the end of a year one usually looks back and basically 2006 was a good year for us. But of course life has it’s downsides too and it’s always sad when good old friends leave us for good. My old musical friend from Scotland Iain Mackintosh died in 2006. We’d known each other since the late sixties. I introduced Iain to lots of places on the continent and he got me my first invitations to perform in Scotland. Iain played concertina on my Titanic album. He was a wonderful performer in a quiet sort of way who was good at finding great songs - funny, sad, political, thought provoking. He always had the audience in the palm of his hands. I will miss him and our annual meetings in Glasgow.
Another musical friend, Oscar Klein died at the end of 2006. We’d played together on several occasions and it was always special to share the stage with him. One of the songs we always played was “Saint James Infirmary”. Oscar was a mainstay in the trad jazz scene in Europe; he even played with the Dutch Swing College Jazz Band for a while and he always enjoyed to freshen up his dutch with me. Oscar had great anecdotes and was fun to be around. The trad jazz world lost a great character and Oscar will be sorely missed. They don’t make them like this anymore!
Through my career I’ve been blessed to meet up and play with many first generation bluesmen; people that were around during the early blues years. I always felt it a great honour to share the stage with people like Henry Townsend, Robert Junior Lockwood and Snooky Pryor who also moved on to another shore in 2006. I’m sure they’ll be up there jamming in the heavenly band.
In October/November I was part of “The Night Of The Blues” in Holland. We played lots of theatres and clubs all over the country. It was fun touring around with this fairly big production that also included Trudy Lynn, Johnny Mastro, Ellis Hooks and a good rocking dutch house band. I usually would play some songs solo, then get the band up for some tunes and join the whole cast for the finale. We stayed in a hotel in Amsterdam for 3 weeks so I got to know the city quite well – enjoyed it all. Lots of people made photos and sent them to me, thank you.
I like staying at home during December and January and just do some gigs around Vienna. There are a few photos of “Train Station Blues” a program with Wolfgang Kos at the Wien Museum. Also I tend to take the opportunity to visit some musical friends at their concerts.
Usually I agree to take part in some benefit concerts in December. This year I played a.o. for „Menschen für Menschen” for the Ethiopia projects of Karl-Heinz Böhm. Also I took part in the “Let’s spend the night together” benefit show in Graz. I’ve included some photographs.
Ewald Pfleger, guitar player of the band Opus (who had a worldwide hit with “Live is life” quite some years ago) invited me to play on his solo project. I played guitar and sang on a song for his upcoming album.
In 2006 I was the winner of Austrian music magazine Concerto's readers’ and writers’ poll in the category “Best Blues and Roots artist, national”. Thank you all for your votes and support!
I started the new year off with 3 completely sold out nights at Jazzland in Vienna. Up until his death some years ago jazz-master and flumpet-player Art Farmer, who resided in Vienna, used to start off the new year at Jazzland. After Art’s death I was asked to follow up this tradition and during my concerts this year, Jazzland-boss Axel Mehlhardt, offered me the gig for the next 15 years!! I accepted - let’s see what happens! Quite an honour to follow such a legendary jazzman in such a legendary club. Visit www.vogler.at for more Jazzland pics
For the last 10 years I’ve regularly performed for the police art club “CopArt” here in Vienna. They present an annual award “Artcop” . I got the Artcop for 2006. Thank you!
