HONEY PIAZZA Pulled us into the Blues
I have to admit that we wasn’t always into the blues. But I’ve always been a fan of Click & Clack - The Car Talk Guys. Every Sunday I’d listen to them on WVPE - Public Radio. They would go off the air at 1 pm and then the next program was Ol’ Harv with the Blues Revue.
While working in the shop on Sundays I’d usually just leave the radio on….but sort of “tune it out”. One day sometime in the late 90’s all of sudden there was a dynamic piano boogie-woogie. IT GRABBED ME! After about 6 minutes this gal said “that was the ‘Stinger’....Jimi Bott on the drums”. A guy (who I later found out was her husband}...said “If that ain’t the boogie...you ain’t gonna hear it here today!”. I WAS BLOWN AWAY! I called my wife who was working at our Nostalgia Store in the mall and told her what I’d just heard.
I started listening more intently to the blues show. The following week....There was that song again. It was by Miss Honey of the Mighty Flyers a west coast award winning blues band, led by her harp playing husband Rod Piazza.
This time I called Sheila and she listened to the entire boogie and said: “ we must have that CD”. A few weeks later that great band was to play at the Midway Tavern in Mishawaka, unfortunately we both had to be out of town and had to miss it. We stopped by the bar and asked the nice lady if she’d buy us one and we could pick it up later….we paid her and she said “sure”. A few days later she dropped it off at our store in the mall. That’s how we met the owner, Albertina Wassenhove
That CD was Rod Piazza and the Mighty Flyers live at B B Kings in Memphis. That CD turned us into blues fans. It’s still available at Amazon. Here's the Link
The following year that same band was the headliner at a Blues & Rib show at St Patricks Park. We caught their show…it was FANTASTIC! We’re Mighty Flyers fans for life!
The Mighty Flyers are 5 time winners of the “W C Handy Best Blues Band Award” and Rod has won for best Harmonica player and Honey has won for the “Pinetop Perkins Piano Player of the Year Award”…it’s a great band!
Later on we got to meet Rod and Honey…..I made them some personlized folk art and they became folk art collectors. Anytime they were within 100 miles, we’d travel to their shows. Everytime we’d see them we’d trade folk art for CD’s. Because they no longer travel as much by van, we don’t get to see them as much here in the midwest. They still work the west coast shows, but only travel to major festivals, Blues Cruises and they still work festivals in Europe. We still consider them good friends and stay in touch via emails back and forth.
We’ll be forever grateful to Honey and the “Stinger” for opening up a whole new musical world to us. We never miss Ol Harv’s radio show and still attend lots of shows at the Midway Tavern. We’ve learned that the blues people and folk art people are so much alike….good “down to earth” folks. It isn’t about money, fame or ego…it’s about the music and the art. We’ve found that musicians like folk art and folk artists love the blues.
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