Facing the music

Look for Slowpoke's CD EP Am I Shade to be released February 3...Street Beat mourns the passing of guitarist Henry Vestine, who died October 19 in Paris, France. Vestine--who founded Canned Heat with Alan Wilson and played (along with John Fahey and Bill Barth) a major role in the rediscovery of country blues legend Skip James--was a little-acknowledged influence on Jimi Hendrix and was by far the main influence on Observer writer Tim Schuller, who played in various rock and blues bands in the Midwest long before his writing career commenced...

All apologies
A good groove is essential to funk, but that's no reason to refer to the Herbie Mann song "Groovy Samba" as "Funky Samba," as we did in the January 15 Street Beat article on jazz pianist Gregory Slavins...Also, the group Minglewood--whose picture appeared in that issue's music listings section with a cutline identifying them as a Grateful Dead cover band--began to coalesce when members were playing in the popular Saturday-evening Club Dada time-waster The Dead Thing, but the group itself no longer plays Dead songs. "It's difficult," confesses a good-natured Carl Hamm, whom you might recall from Cosmic Chimp. "If we play like a three-hour set--sure, we'll have to do some Dead tunes, but for the most part we're doing all original material now and trying to get past that label. But you've always got someone out in the audience yelling 'St. Stephen!'" Don't worry, Carl--that guy's just been there so long, he's got to calling it home...

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