If you like the Blues as much as I do there’s no place to park your dial on Monday nights except 94.3 for Mark’s Mojo Monday show from 8 to 10 p.m. On the air since 2019, host Mark Lombardi celebrated his 249th show last week. His deep dive and appreciation of the genre began around 1992 when he simply tired of rock ‘n roll music. He began attending Blues festivals and listening to giants like Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, Etta James, B.B. King, Fats Domino and Buddy Guy, developing his knowledge until ultimately discovering Alligator Records.
Today this retired pharmacist is a learned, organized and enthusiastic purveyor of Blues, R & B and Roots music. His Facebook page lists his playlist every week and is watched by people in enough places in the world to make you sit up and take notice. Many of his Facebook fans are contemporary Blues artists like Kevin Burt and Shaun Murphy who applaud his show for playing new artists along with the established ones. His cutting edge show is so singular that publicity agents send him stacks of new releases to play.
“Blues is an underrated genre,” he told me in a recent interview. “Today the field is made up of fifty percent classic artists and fifty percent new artists.” The problem that Blues fans encounter, he told me, is that stations play the classic artists and tend to ignore the newer disciples of the form. It’s Lombardi’s mission to get them on the airwaves. Even Sirius FM’s 24-hour Blues station can’t compete and serious mavens of the genre appear to know it. His Facebook fanbase is currently around 450 and growing all the time.
During our meeting, he recommended so many artists that I filled a whole page with their names: Christone “Kingfish” Ingram from Mississippi, Katie Henry from New York City and Texan Ally Venable were three of the names I managed to get down. We could have gone on for hours, I think, trading tidbits and stories and reveling in our shared appreciation of the genre.
The timing of our meeting was perfect. The Austin Blues Fest is set to kick off April 27 and 28 at the Moody Amphitheatre with headliners Sue Foley, Jimmie Vaughan, Buddy Guy, the Blind Boys of Alabama, Robert Glasper, and a long list of other talented musicians.
