Deep Blues video roundup: July 15

More than 70 blues acts will converge on Minnesota this week for the five-day Deep Blues Festival, representing a wide array of styles within the underground side of the genre. Gutbucket howlers will play alongside genteel folk- and country-leaning strummers, and old-school veterans who exude authenticity onstage will be met by fresh faces more likely to namecheck The White Stripes than Bukka White. One thing they'll all share: A passion for the unpolished, uncommercialized, and primal side of the blues, which has deep roots in American music going back more than 100 years, and which seems to come back every generation to help the rebellious and raucous find their proper voice, from Elvis to The Rolling Stones to The White Stripes. Another thing they'll share: Though talent won't be in short supply, some of these guys are going to be obscure even to casual fans of the genre. So let's correct that, eh? To start us off, Decider presents this short video roundup of some of the performers at tonight's kickoff show at 331 Club. Check back later for previews of the Thursday and weekend shows.

Based in the town of Bari in southern Italy, Dirty Trainload was formed from the core duo of guitarist Bob Cillo and drummer-singer Livia Monteleone (who originally hails from California and sings in English). They augment what Cillo calls their "skinny two-piece lineup" with modern touches like loop boxes, but stay true to an old-school sound informed by John Lee Hooker and Lightnin' Hopkins, among others. Of the musicians playing on Wednesday, they're maybe the most polished and mainstream-friendly, but that's only relative: Most times, they'd be one of the wilder groups in the lineup. Here, they play "I Will Lose My Freedom":


Bloody Ol' Mule is the alias of Oklahoma-based, country-blues solo guitarist Shilo Brown, who also runs an art gallery and performance space called Electric Chair in Oklahoma City. Brown echoes the furious electric guitar and guttural yawps of outsider-wildman Hasil Adkins, but there's also plenty of honky-tonking Hank Williams Sr. and heavy-riffer John Lee Hooker in Brown's DNA. Here's a longish clip of him performing a couple of songs, including the murder ballad "Tom Dooley," at a house party earlier this year. The audio's not so great, but his performance is solid.


North Little Rock, Ark.'s Bill Jagitsch, a.k.a. Bluesboy Jag, not only plays old-school gutbucket blues, but also sells his own handmade instruments via his website; he has fashioned more than 1,000 electric cigar-box guitars during the last 30 years. Here he is playing at the 2008 Deep Blues Festival:


It's a long haul from the Mississippi backwoods to Finland, but Black River Bluesman keeps the raw spirit of R.L. Burnside alive in the bogs and mountains of northern Europe. Here's the band on a cover of Howlin' Wolf's "Spoonful" in 2007: