Author: Debra Devi

Find out what MOONSHINE really means in this new installment of our popular weekly series, The Language of the Blues, in which author/musician Debra Devi explores the meaning of a word or phrase found in the blues. Grab a signed copy of Devi’s award-winning blues glossary The Language of the Blues: From Alcorub to ZuZu (Foreword by Dr. John) at Bluescentric.com. Moonshine is illegally distilled whiskey made by leaving a mash of sugar combined with fruit, potatoes or grain to ferment. After fermentation, the mash is strained and the leftover liquid boiled. The vapor rising from the boiling mash liquid…

Here’s the latest installment of our weekly series, The Language of the Blues, in which Debra Devi explores the meaning of a word or phrase found in the blues. Grab a signed copy of Devi’s award-winning blues glossary The Language of the Blues: From Alcorub to ZuZu (Foreword by Dr. John) at Bluescentric.com. Hoodoo is not Voodoo, although the two are often confused. Voodoo (more properly spelled Vodou) is a religion derived from one of the world’s most ancient religions, Vodun, which originated in West Africa. Hoodoo, in contrast, is an African American system of folklore. Hoodoo consists of herbal…

This is the latest installment of our weekly series, The Language of the Blues, in which Debra Devi explores the meaning of a word or phrase found in the blues. Grab a signed copy of Devi’s award-winning blues glossary The Language of the Blues: From Alcorub to ZuZu (Foreword by Dr. John) at Bluescentric.com. A mojo is a hoodoo charm, a “prayer in a bag.” The mojo is an ineffectual bundle of twigs, nail clippings, and other junk, however, until a conjurer traps a spirit inside it. The mojo is the vital spark within the medicine–the spirit of an ancestor, or a…

when Les Paul famously remarked, “I want a sound that has never been heard before,” he was probably not thinking of the unique cacophony created by Steve Vai’s supersonic pinch harmonics and Joe Bonamassa’s pentatonic…

Who’s that man you’re fooling around with!? Check out this weeks edition of Language of the Blues and find out what that man is called!

This is the latest installment of our weekly series, The Language of the Blues, in which author/rocker Debra Devi explores the meaning of a word or phrase found in the blues. Grab a signed copy of Devi’s award-winning blues glossary The Language of the Blues: From Alcorub to ZuZu (Foreword by Dr. John) at Bluescentric.com. Also available as an eBook from Amazon Kindle. Like its namesake in ancient Egypt, Memphis, Tennessee, is the gateway to a great river’s delta – the triangle-shaped piece of land formed when a river splits into smaller rivers before it flows into an ocean. Memphis…

Maxwell Street was where Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Howlin’ Wolf, Elmore James, “Maxwell Street” Jimmy Davis and other legendary blues artists played their first performances! Check out the newest LOTB!

You’ve heard Lonnie Johnson’s “Broken Levee Blues”, but the history of Levee’s remain important to the blues. Debra Devi enlightens us in this weeks Language of the Blues!

LeniStern_BluesSoulAfricanHeart_DebraDevi The blues is a universal language, and electric guitarist Leni Stern’s fluency has lured her into African adventures beyond her wildest dreams — from jamming in Timbuktu to playing Carnegie Hall with Senegalese stars. She has learned another language―Wolof―and has become a griot, a member of the West African class of traveling musical storytellers considered to be the forerunners to American country-blues singers. As Alan Lomax explained in The Land Where the Blues Began, “through the work of performers like Blind Lemon Jefferson [and] Charlie Patton, the griot tradition survived full-blown in America with hardly an interruption.” Stern, who was…

I’m a CRAWILN KINGSNAKE…. John Lee Hooker used to say. But this word’s meaning digs DEEP — back to Africa. Uncover the mysterious and fascinating origins of “Kingsnake”