BLUES NOMADS

Blues Acoustic Blues & Roots Glade Valley, NC United States

About BLUES NOMADS

Minnesota Blues Hall of Fame 2021, Best Performer, acoustic guitar, slide, rack harmonica, vocals, originals, Percussion w/cajons, foot bass and highhat playing blues, swing, funk & zydeco ...

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Members

  • Don Scott - Guitar, slide, rack harmonica, vocals
  • Rosanne Licciardi - Cajon, Octosnares, foot bass, highhat

Press

Don Scott’s Induction Into The Minnesota Blues Hall Of Fame, 2021 Keynote Speech by Dave Hunter When I first heard I was going to do this, Scotty was going to be third. I’m not a public speaker so when I got here I popped a pill that would keep me calm but it wore off [laughter] so... Here's the introduction. Scotty grew up in Fillmore County in southeastern Minnesota. There were no blues in Fillmore County and they were probably illegal in that Redneck County. Fortunately, a sister came home from college with some Brubeck and Count Basie and an album called Three Of A Kind with Leadbelly, Josh White and Big Bill Broonzy, and this was the album that infected his brain. Mankato is where I lived in 68. There were no blues in the bars. There were no blues anywhere. Mark Halverson’s wonderful radio program didn't exist yet. In talking to Mark earlier tonight, he told me that he used to have to sneak in to hear Scotty play because he wasn't 21. I didn't know that he was that young or that Scotty and I were that old. In the bars back then what you had were covers, the Bee Gees all the time and the Beatles and a lot of shit- kickin country music. And the closest thing to the blues that you'd ever hear was the Rolling Stones’, “Satisfaction.” But nobody was doing blue sets until Scotty met Mike Nelson at college and they started a band, the Dust Bowl Blues Band. In 1969 and 70 there were these mini Woodstocks out in the country, out in the hayfields where there'd be multiple bands and the Dust Bowl always played last. That was at Scotty's request. Most players wanted to get done to get stoned, you know, but he asked to play last because he was introducing new music. Like he said, nobody knew the blues and so he wanted to play long. The Dust Bowl did play long and sometimes the sun was coming up when he finished and the dew coming down to the people that were passed out on the ground. One time the farmer got, I think he was a farmer, got up and said that's it, that's it, my cows have been awake all night! This has to stop! And Scotty said just one more number and the farmer said yeah just one more number and then you're done. Scotty said, Okay boys, John Lee Hooker's “ Endless Boogie.” And that's what he was doing, he was trying to spread the blues and he has. He's spread them all over the United States. He's played all over the United States and he's taken the blues to Ireland and France and Mexico. He's been a true troubadour of the blues. Don’s played a lot of solo gigs in the past half century but he's had some fine company too. I can't name all the musicians who passed through the Dust Bowl Blues, but certainly there was Mike Helson and Kit Kildahl who played with Scotty for years. Later it was the blues harp virtuoso Curtis Blake. These days he travels and performs accompanied by Rosanne Liccardi on a variety of exotic percussion instruments. He's not only carried on the blues, he's added to it. He's made 8 cds which contain 28 originals, eight of which are instrumentals and kind of demonstrate the range of the blues. He has a jump blues, a blues rag and a samba, a bluesy samba too. But most people like lyrics and he has a lot of lyrics. There are social commentaries like Eight Days Of Hell which is about the time he did in a burn unit after being seriously injured in our Vietnam war, Some Other Day about the treatment of vets at the VA because Bush had to give a tax break to the rich and he couldn't really support them. Then there's JP Morgan, Citibank, Wells Fargo It's a song about the ripoff of the public in 2008. Some of you probably remember that. And my favorite, Say You Don’t Like It which is such an understated attack on imperialism that I think Randy Newman would be proud of. And there's the White Man Still Runs The BIA the BIA is the Bureau of Indian Affairs, if you don't know, and that's about a personal visit to a friend on a reservation and seeing the poverty that still existed there. Of course being blues there has to be those songs about gambling and rambling like Sure Thing, Highway 52 and Playing It Cool. And songs about women because we should start with a different kind of song about women. There's a song for his mother which is The Best In Every Way It’s the one you play every Mother's Day. More songs about women are Fine New Woman, Dream Baby, and oh there you are Sweet Rosanne. But in a genre that's got a reputation for chauvinism and misogyny, we don't find that in Don. All his women songs are love songs. And as I listened to him, kind of preparing for this, it hit me that all his songs are love songs. He loves music and even the really nasty, seemingly angry social protest songs come from a love of justice and peace. Thank you. I’m about at the end. He's playing next Saturday at the VFW in beautiful, downtown Austin. I hope you all come on down there. See if you can drink the bar dry. We used to be able to do it. _______________ Don Scott Thank you, Hunter, I appreciate it. My brother has got all the music I’ve ever recorded over the past 50 years, so that's why I asked him to do this. I’m humbled beyond belief to be included in this illustrious group. i stayed true to the form of this beautiful music in the 50 years i've been doing it and there's something about it, there's nothing like the blues because it is the truth. Brownie McGee, Sonny Terry, Big Bill Broonzy, man all those guys and I just feel fortunate to be the messenger to pass this music on. I want to thank all my friends from Mankato. So without further ado I want to play some music. I’d like to get my wife up here, Rosanne Licciardi. She’s been playing with me the last seven years. Alright, let’s play some down-home blues! [Applause]

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Influences

Sonny Terry, Brownie McGee, T'Bone Walker, Count Basie, Big Bill Broonzy, Etta Baker, Richard " Hacksaw" Harney