Music Man Blog Celebrates It's Second Birthday

It's hard to believe that I have been publishing the "Music Man Blog" for two years. Time has a way of traveling at the speed of light when you are doing something you really love.  My first posting was on 9/27/09 and during the first year I posted 46 articles.  During the second year, I posted 63 articles.  The number of visitors that viewed the blog in its second year has exploded from total pageviews of 1,166 in its first year to 18,143 pageviews in its second full year.  In addition, we continued to pick up visitors from many different countries.  I listed the top 10 pageviews by country below:
Pageviews By The Top 10 Countries
                                                            2011
1. United States                                 12,802          
2. Russia                                                 534
3. Germany                                             482
4. United Kingdom                                  436
5. South Korea                                        408
6. Canada                                                249
7. China                                                   206
8. Ukraine                                                202
9. Netherlands                                         176
10. Iran                                                    164                            
     
Total All Time Pageviews         18,354

It was very satisfying to experience the explosive growth of viewers during my second full year of writing the Music Man Blog. While it is fun writing about music and performers that I love, it is nice to know that there are others out there that also enjoy music as much as I do.  I think 18,354 pageviews shows that there are a lot of people who love great singers, jazz and songs from the Great American Songbook.  Last year we reviewed a lot of "live" shows that helped to support some of these great performers gain some new listeners for their music. I am so happy to be able to contribute to the continued recognition and the growth of their audience. I hope to continue putting a spotlight on these wonderful performers in the next year. Last year also marked the first time that Music Man Blog was selected to do a pre-release review of a major CD, "The Three Kings" by the Outstanding Jeff Golub Band featuring Henry Butler. What a thrill that my first  pre-release review would be for a mega-star performance by Jeff Golub, his band and Henry Butler.

Highest Month For Pageviews


Last year the highest month for pageviews was September 2010 with 575 pageviews.  This past year, I am delighted to announce that our highest month was May 2011 with 2,172 pageviews.

National Ranking From Technorati


Technorati is the leading organization that tracks the level of activity for Blogs across the world.  Music Man Blog is now ranked number 99,062 out of 1,280,597 blogs that they track.  This puts Music Man Blog in the top 8% of all active blogs after two years of publishing.

Many thanks to all viewers of the Music Man Blog and also to all those readers who have shared their comments with me over the past year. I had the opportunity to hear and get to know some outstanding performers last year and hope to meet many more this year.  My blog is dedicated to supporting musicians and live-music performances. I am looking forward to starting my third year of publishing and will be trying to make the blog even more interesting for music lovers all over the world.

MUSIC REVIEW: The Jeff Golub Band Honors "The Three Kings" Of The Blues, B.B. King, Albert King and Freddie King On New CD Being Released on June 28,2011

Jeff Golub

Jeff Golub

Jeff Golub

I just had the opportunity to review an advanced copy of the Jeff Golub Band CD, "The Three Kings". The CD is a tribute to B.B. King, Albert King and Freddie King and it will not disappoint.  Jeff Golub continues to surprise his followers with his skill and appreciation of many different genre of music and sounds.  According to Jeff, his career really started to soar during his early years in New York City. "I heard that Billy Squire was holding auditions and looking for a guitarist", Golub said. "So I went to the audition and he was really impressed. I learned something during my time with him, namely that I really enjoyed doing rock as well as jazz and that I could do some imaginative things within that classic rock structure".

Jeff's public and professional recognition really started to rocket when he joined Rod Stewart from 1988-1995.  The best trait I admire in Jeff Golub is that he doesn't think about categories, labels or popularity when it comes to music.  Instead, his major concern is something far more basic: honesty.  "I love all kinds of music and I really only look at one thing when it comes to any style or type: if it truly comes from the heart". If you need any proof that Jeff lives within these words, just take a look at the outstanding musicians he has put together in his band!  You won't find this kind of thinking too often today when the major concern of performers is not creative quality but just pure market sales numbers and expenses.

Jeff has put together a great group of musicians on "The Three Kings" CD:

Jeff Golub- guitar

Henry Butler- piano & vocals

Andy Hess- bass

Josh Dion- drums/percussion/vocals

SPECIAL GUESTS

Robben Ford- guitar

Sonny Landreth- slide guitar

Chris Palmaro- B3

Nick Lane- trombone/horn arrangements

Rick Braun- trumpet

Euge Groove- tenor sax

Dave Woodford- bari sax

Mitchel Forman- synth strings and string arrangements on "The Thrill Is Gone"

Jeff's new CD has 13 cuts on it and I can tell you with all honesty, they are all just great.  And if you are a classic blues fan, I am positive the CD will quickly become your "go to" CD.  As I have expressed before in "The Music Man Blog", I always believed that when a performance is recorded live, the additional emotion generated from the musicians can rarely be captured in a closed studio recording session. This CD is an exception!  According to Jeff "Other than some minimal overdubbing we played it live and tried to keep it sounding fresh and spontaneous". Well Jeff, mission accomplished! The only

element separating this CD from a live recording is applause.

It's really difficult to pick my favorite songs on this CD because I like them all. So I will just mention four tracks that I think are terrific, otherwise, I would be listing all 13 tracks.

Henry Butler excels on this CD with both his vocals and his piano excellence. His brilliant piano work at times just puts the listener in awe.  I love his solos on the B.B. King classic, "The Thrill Is Gone"  The string arrangement by Mitchel Forman fits with the band and Butler's voice better than you might expect. Butler also does a great vocal on "Born Under A Bad Sign" and the band is really in a groove on this one.  I think "Side Tracked" could make it as a single again today thanks to the great guitar work by Robben Ford.  "Freddie's Midnight Dream" is also wonderful.

This CD is just not another cover of some great old songs.  It's a fresh, new approach by a group of fine musicians paying tribute to the best classic blues guitarists in American music history while at the same time bringing something of their own to these great songs.  

Jeff Golub deserves a great deal of credit for producing this CD not only for his fine guitar playing but because of how difficult it is to bring all this high-level talent together and have them perform as one unit.  This is clearly Jeff Golub's band. Under his control, vision and his unifying strength these great talented musicians joined together perfectly to produce the great sounds on this CD. Every time I get to hear Jeff he seems to get better and better.  His guitar phrasing and dexterity is always creative and clear as a bell.

Congratulations Jeff for you performance and production efforts on this fine CD.  I look forward to many more CD's from "The Jeff Golub Band".