Martin Pyrker (born August 27, 1954 in Vienna) is an Austrian boogie woogie and blues pianist.
Pyrker discovered his love for the piano and thus for the blues at the age of seventeen, when he had already been taking drum lessons for four years. A broadcast on the radio (Living Blues by Hans Maitner) and encounters with greats such as Vince Weber, Hans-Georg Möller and Axel Zwingenberger introduced him to boogie-woogie and piano blues.
In the 70s he gave numerous concerts. One of them was immortalized on LP (Boogie Woogie Session Live in Vienna ’76 with Axel Zwingenberger, Hans-Georg Möller and Vince Weber) and became the starting point for a renaissance of boogie and blues in Germany and Austria.
He also often played with legendary blues pianists, such as Blind John Davis, Roosevelt Sykes, Memphis Slim and Champion Jack Dupree. In addition to about 100 original compositions, his repertoire naturally includes the standards of piano blues and boogie woogie.
Besides about 1500 concerts he published many recordings. Since 1999 his daughter Sabine also accompanies him at concert performances on the drums. (wikipedia)
Jo Ann Kelly (5 January 1944 – 21 October 1990) was an English blues singer and guitarist. She is respected for her strong blues vocal style and for playing country blues guitar.
Kelly was born in Streatham, South London, England on 5 January 1944. She had two younger siblings, Susan and Dave. Her early interest in performing music grew out of hearing the Everly Brothers, Elvis Presley, Little Richard and Skiffle in the late 1950s. She learned 3 or 4 guitar chords from her younger brother, Dave Kelly.
She appeared on several compilation albums with her first in 1966 being New Sounds In Folk and then two years later on Blues Anytime Vol. 1: An Anthology Of British Blues (1968) Immediate Records before releasing her first solo album titled Jo-Ann Kelly (1969), this was issued on CBS in the UK and Epic Records in the US. She was also a core member of Tramp (band) along with her brother Dave Kelly.
Jo-Ann Kelly and her brother Dave helped raise donations for Memphis Minnie in the 1960s.
Canned Heat and Johnny Winter both tried to recruit Kelly, but she preferred to stay in the United Kingdom. She expanded to the European club circuit, where she worked with guitarist Pete Emery and other bands. In the early 1980s, she was a member of the Terry Smith Blues Band.
In 1988, Kelly began to suffer from headaches. In 1989 she had an operation to remove a malignant brain tumour. She died on 21 October 1990, aged 46.
Obituaries for Kelly appeared in major UK newspapers, including The Independent,[9] The Times, and The Guardian. Remembrances and obituaries also appeared in contemporary Blues magazines such as Blues & Rhythm and the British Blues Review.
The obituary in The Independent remarked, “To many American performers Jo Ann Kelly was the only British singer to earn their respect for her development of what they would be justified in thinking as ‘their’ genre”. (wikipedia)
Jo Ann Kelly was one of the key figures in the British blues scene of the mid-late 1960s and beyond. !
The Times (Oct. 25, 1990):
And here´s a very rare and pretty good live recording …
If you love Boogie Woogie … then you should not miss to listen to this LP.
Recorded live at the Jazzland, Vienna, Austria, November 1 & 2, 1978
Personnel:
Jo-Ann Kelly (vocals)
Martin Pyrker (piano)
Torsten Zwingenberger (drums)
Tracklist:
01. Low Down Dog Blues (Carr/Blackwell) 2.23
02. B. D. Woman (Jackson/Pyrker) 3.15
03. Nothing But Boogie (Pyrker) 2.46
04. Sometimes I’m Happy, Sometimes I Feel Blue (Kelly/Pyrker) 3.55
05. It’s Whoopie (Miller/Traditional) 3.21
06. Cow Cow Blues (Davenport) 2.35
07. Meade Lux Special (Pyrker) 4.10
08. If You Lose Your Money (Kelly/Avery) 3.13
09. Two Nineteen Blues (Pyrker/Traditional) 4.32
10. Boogie On The Rocks (Pyrker) 3.31
11. Chicago Session (Kelly/Pyrker) 2.47
More from Jo-Ann Kelly:
The official Martin Pyrker website:
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