I received a comment on a post I wrote about my Paul Black and the Flip Kings cassette “Don’t Make Me Get Up” that I purchased when I saw him live in Wausau at The Big Bull Falls Blues Festival.

The comment was in my spam folder, but it was praise for Paul Black, not the usual dredge in spam. So I took a chance and checked the website associated with the comment. I’m glad I did.

http://www.blues.ru/

Turns out Fedor, who left the comment is a contact for the site. It’s a website devoted to the blues scene in Russia. There is a link on the left for an English page.

I first hit the list of bluesmen and looked for Paul Black. Of course he was listed. I was immediately struck by this paragraph:

“В штате Висконсин, в городке Барабу (население: 7000), белый подросток Пол Блэк был вознесен на вершину мечтаний американских мальчишек и низвергнут с нее. Его взяли кэтчером “настоящую” бейсбольную команду “Пираты”, а он продул “всухую” первый же ответственный матч. DAT’TZ DE BLUZ, BABY.”

Not sure what all that meant, but I liked it.

Then I discovered you could translate the entire site. Bottom right of the home page. Ah, much better for me.

There is a lot of great stuff on this site. There are links to bands and videos that I have been checking out. It is strange to hear familiar songs played by bands from Russia singing in English. You can just pick up on the accent slightly.

There are also one of my favorites… band posters. I’m used to posters from The Majestic. These are very interesting. Love ’em.

Man, I wish this club was near me.

There are also links to Russia blues radio shows.

http://translate.yandex.net/tr-url/ru-en.ru/www.echo.msk.ru/sounds/1213349.html

and check out the article written by Fedor about his trip to the

His love of the music is clear and I am so glad he contacted me.

Since they only list Paul Black’s “King Dollar” CD, I guessed that Paul’s “Live At The Harmony” CD was not available everywhere. That made me wonder if I was missing anything myself, or if there was something new I didn’t know about.

I was shocked to find that there were 2 CD’s listed on Amazon by Paul Black that I never knew about! I immediately ordered them. Last night, I crawled into bed, put on the headphones, and clicked play.

Ugh.

For those of you who dig Paul Black and The Flip Kings, don’t make my $16 mistake.

No offence to THIS Paul Black, but this is NOT the Paul Black of Paul Black and The Flip Kings that I thought I was getting. It’s not bad, but if you were hoping for some shredding slide guitar and growly vocals, you are not going to find it here.

However, in doing my searches to confirm that this Paul Black was different from the other Paul Black, I found that YouTube has a bunch of videos of Paul Black and The Flip Kings.

Start here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xR0Tsula85c

I love that Paul is still held in high regard among blues fans.

Even in Russia.

Thanks again for the comment Fedor.